It is intended people die from those big attacks, you need to kill 2000 players for 1 of the new powers. And if they ever decide to add gear that is worth using another 1000 player kills per piece of gear. And then 600 more for the AF's.
It seems most people are trying very hard not to be defeated, using very survivable tank builds that hardly do any damage or block all the time, and running away with the villains when their health gets low. But that is not how these fights are intended, as a hero you are meant to be defeated a few times and then you are meant to defeat the villains. And as a villain you don't get any bonus for surviving for the entire duration of the transformation when your health gets to low you might as well just accept defeat so the heroes at least get their tokens.
The other attack is quicker and has a shorter charge bar.
It's that shorter attack that seems to be unblockable because it triggers faster than my shield power activates, even though there is a nice bubble warning and charge bar over Medusa's head. That charge bar seems to only get to 3/4 full when the power activates. I've noticed this both playing her and fighting her.
It's that shorter attack that seems to be unblockable because it triggers faster than my shield power activates, even though there is a nice bubble warning and charge bar over Medusa's head. That charge bar seems to only get to 3/4 full when the power activates. I've noticed this both playing her and fighting her.
Yeup, I've just edited my post to reflect what you are talking about, I noticed it just now. I think generally speaking TK Wave (the power which unlocks at 2 stuns) has a shorter charge time but the animation for it's charge bar is the same as TK Eruptions, which is why it looks like it is activating before it should.
Mind you, I've blocked that attack when going against her as Mentella, I barely survive due to my low HP and the fact that most of my passive is offline but hey.
Generally when I see the bubble flash into action I just turtle up.
I believe Juggernaught/aggressive stance/best defense (and maybe all spec tree bonuses) are still in effect while transformed. I have been using a low level hero to farm tokens... but I decided to take my lvl 38 tanky hero our for a spin as Grond. He almost took no damage from anything (did not try the turrets), I ended up timing out with only a little over 15 fury (enough to just unlock the first power). I just stood on a roof and had multiple fancy vehicles bombard me with no effect. I'm guessing that Juggernaught alone (paired with Grond's immense con) was giving me some sort of crazy defense buff.
You know what would be cool? If villains did bonus damage against each other. You could have Villain Fight Clubs without it feeling like a horrid slog. It would also solve problems of too many Villains stomping on heroes. The AoEs they throw around and indiscriminate attacks would ensure they wipe each other out.
I switched out Night Warrior for Invuln so I wouldn't get slaughter so much VS the villains. Riding the Vomit Comet with a few Medusa's throwing lance rain is still a death sentence. Just having more than one villain throwing out attacks still means I'm gonna die, just not instantly.
QoL concern: Onslaught gear is bind on pickup. Onslaught tokens are bind on 'pickup' Onslaught villain unlocks are 'bind' on 'pickup'
So we have to unlock the villain on a character and then farm on that character for gear we want to use on that character. (Assuming anyone wants to use Onslaught gear). I can't imagine a less alt friendly system. WTF.
I think there should be some changes to the mechanic to balance these fights. The count of nearby foes is a nice start, but I don't think it works very good. I would like that one to be changed to the number player divided by the number of villains. If there are more than 10 players per villain the villain gain damage resistance, and when there are less than 5 players per villain the villain gets a damage resistance penalty, and at less than 2 players per villain the villains get a damage penalty.
As for the vehicles, I don't mind vehicles but the should not be able to escape so easily, if the NTTG powers from the SV's also added a -100% flight that would be a lot better.
Yes, let's make it easier for villains to kite heroes.
The fact that vehicles are immune to NttG is the only thing that makes chasing a kiting villain possible.
So tell you what, you can stop vehicles from flying when the villains have no move options other than normal *walk* speed and minimum jumping. Then i might actually use my melee hero without the vehicle.
Changing SV's to not be able to kite melee builds so easily was already in the suggestions so I didn't bother to repeat that again. But I've been asking for that long before Onslaught went live.
There are more suggestions in the thread than I can fit in the original posts, so my apologies if I don't directly acknowledge someone's idea. I'm hoping that the developers will take the time to read through the complete thread.
Griefing seems to be one of the chief concerns with the Onslaught system. I'm curious to hear others' thoughts on the suggestion I added toSpawn and Gone.
Updates:
added a new category for the individual Onslaught Villains' powers
added some cyan-colored suggestions to the Balance/QoL section
The scoring system for villain dailies could stand adjusting. As is, you need to defeat 3 UNTIL Defenders and they tend to be spaced apart. A way to make this less tedious would be to adjust the scoring system to something like 3000 points required and make the UNTIL Defenders worth 1000 points. Then, allow destructable object to be worth something like 10 points. This allows the player to smash and destroy like a villain on a rampage between the main targets while the main targets are big point boosts. You could potentially put a point debuff on the Westside area but this might not be needed since the area with the largest amount of objects (the docks) aren't right in the starting area. Expanding the point spread for scoring also allows the devs to make weaker targets that don't don't give as many points as the UNTIL Defenders but aren't as hard to beat. The devs could also make defeating the dual spawn outside of the UNTIL building worth more.
The mission currently granted when you zone into Millennium the first time says to speak with the Onslaught Agent in Westside. This is unneeded wording since it can be turned in to any Onslaught Agent, the arrow will point at the closest one if you're in City Center/Downtown, and high level players probably shouldn't be pointed towards lower level area.
An alternate suggestion for villain mobility is to lower their speeds/jump height to normal but simply make their travel powers last longer and have shorter cooldown.
Guardian Tokens should be able to buy at least some of the gear. It's slightly misleading from current info (no current gear can be earned from being the hero, just the ability to be a villain) and swings things toward having too many villains per hero due to the rewards.
UNTIL Defenders look incredibly generic. Giving them a mix of Toxic Steel and Superconductor parts will both add more visual interest and make them look more distinctive since UNTIL doesn't have much of a "look" compared to some other factions.
With a new update that does have art associated with it, the current Mechanon splash screen should be replaced with the Supervillain Onslaught image with Grond, Gravitar, and Medusa.
I'm curious to hear others' thoughts on the suggestion I added toSpawn and Gone.
Sounds good. "Battling Supervillains" should probably be shortened to 1 minute. Enough so that you don't lose out on tokens but shorter in case they are near a spawn. Also forces you to stay active.
"Interesting builds are born from limitations not by letting players put everything into one build."
I would love Guardian Tokens to buy other stuff. I feel bad playing the villain. It makes me sad when I dump lance rain on someone's head and they face plant from full health. Or when I use one of Grond's toxic ground attacks to slaughter heroes. I end up not wanting to attack anyone because the fight is so heavy in my favor. Villains are super beefy and they can roll everyone. A tank may be unkillable against one villain, but throw in two or more focusing on him and he's still toast.
Why not just have one type of token? You could get the same tokens from being a hero as you do for being a villain. Prices would have to be adjusted and tokens you get as a villain as well, but people could get the stuff they want by playing whichever side they want.
Villain CC is crazy. I had two Medusas chain CC me and I sat there, not able to do jack while they took me from full HP to zero. Just another reason why melee isn't as good as range. Can't avoid Medusa's attacks. Can't kite. Can't keep up with villains that do kite. Get focused first. Get killed more often.
Onslaught is going to produce more melee tanks or more ranged toons. There is no advantage to play offense melee.
Gravitar's damage seems rather pitiful compared to Grond or Medusa. Killing a level 40 - any level 40 - is near impossible. You pretty much have to target low level toons if working alone.
Medusa's damage, in particular, is ridiculously high. If you're anything but a Frosty Tank or a vehicle, you pretty much die in seconds. Which is okay if its Medusa vs. the world, but not so okay when its 3 medusae, 2 gravitar, and 7 grond vs. maybe 30 heroes.
I've never seen a Grond alone so i could check out melee dps performance against him without getting thrashed by another OSV blindsiding me.
Gravitar needs more damage. Then they all need a serious damage debuff with more villains in the area. And after they start powering up those long cds on the huge AoE powers don't seem to be that long to the heroes who get repeatedly hit by one after another when there are multiple villains in a group. Maximum number of targets should scale down with more villains so heroes don't get chain stunned/pulled/stripped of energy.
CONTROL OSVs can't gear perception gear, and have 5 in all SS, so a single smoke grenade and you literally can't see a thing. That's kind of ridiculous. I don't want to abuse melee and kite or jump like crazy, so smoke grenade is basically a 'you don't get to play' (and a way for some hero players to troll other hero players by forcing the OSVs to behave in ways which make melee attacks impossible). That's no fun for anyone.
I've previously supported the notion that OSVs are far too mobile, and that control should work on them. I'd rather be stunned every 10s than be unable to play at all because of smoke grenade (unless i'm willing to jump around like a kangaroo).
Fixes: 1. OSVs should be immune to perception debuffs. 2. OSVs should be vulnerable to control abilities. All of them. 3. Hold/Knock resistance generally should be revised. My thought: (A) a short temporary immunity buff (like ~5-10s duration, possibly scaling by target type) that applies to all control powers (holds, knocks, interrupts, repels) and is triggered by any of these types of effects (repels trigger the buff when the power application ends, holds trigger the effect when the hold ends). (B) a stacking resistance buff (no cap, separate buffs for holds and knocks) that lasts 20-30s. These stacks decrease hold duration/strength for hold resistance, and decrease knock strength/chance for knock resistance, but never cause immunity (although holds will eventually become incredibly short duration, and knocks will eventually generate very tiny knock distances).
And then we can make every enemy type vulnerable to holds and knocks.
GEAR Needs to be made Bind to Account on Pickup, Bind to Character on Equip, or, if that's not possible, just make the tokens bind to account. And Onslaught Villain Unlocks need to be account-wide. No one wants to have to farm up a villain unlock on each toon so they can farm for gear on each toon. Being alt friendly means letting people farm on the toon of their choice and then use the resulting loot on the toon of their choice, even if those are different toons. At least one of the levels of unlock/currency needs to be passable between characters on an account.
Crowd Control working on Onslaught Villains has been discussed before in the PTS thread, so you're pretty much wasting your breath on that front.
Trust me, I've been there lol.
Unless the suggestion I made about Manipulated CC and stun changes was to come into effect, having Crowd Control work on SV's, especially the broken mess that are stuns right now? CC on OSVs would be ridiculous.
It would require more work than is probably possible right now. Onslaught Villains don't have access to Interact Buttons, and without access to that, they would have to rely on player damage to break them out of control effects. A coordinated effort could render an OSV helpless as players pile on damage which doesn't break holds, I've had it happen to me on PTS and I've also been on the other side of that.
Instead of trying to revamp the CC system just for Onslaught balancing, it was a lot easier and less messy to just make them flat out IMMUNE to Crowd Control as well as knock abilities.
You are likely aware of how easy it is to reverse repel/interrupt villains all over the place and that's probably the weakest form of knocks, you can imagine how messed up it would be IF players could actually knock or hold Onslaught Supervillains.
Remember that knocking during a power activation interrupts the power, putting it on a cooldown (with a few exceptions like Gravity Driver). Interrupts sort of do the same thing but make all powers have a cooldown of 1 and also flat out stop actions.
All it takes on LIVE are a few players using a combination of interrupt powers available to players to render an OSV a 5.5/3 Million HP punch bag.
Griefing seems to be one of the chief concerns with the Onslaught system. I'm curious to hear others' thoughts on the suggestion I added toSpawn and Gone.
20s isn't all that long, particularly given that it starts when you get defeated, not when you respawn. I'd fix by changing the Onslaught tokens for villain defeat to be granted to anyone with Battling Supervillains or Defeated, and then clear Battling Supervillains on defeat. This makes you immune to spawn camping (as you are an invalid target until you attack again), but still allows you to get credit if you get defeated at the wrong time.
Spawn and Gone suggestion, sounds a lot like what we spoke about.
I do think Battling Supervillains should be wiped immediately on death and defeated should stay as is. That way you are already immune to damage OSV's can put out because you aren't tagged.
Gravitar's damage seems rather pitiful compared to Grond or Medusa. Killing a level 40 - any level 40 - is near impossible. You pretty much have to target low level toons if working alone.
Oddly, Gravitar is the only one who's particularly decent at killing vehicles. She should probably get a bigger bonus on rupture, though -- currently it's +5% per stack.
Gravitar needs more damage. Then they all need a serious damage debuff with more villains in the area. And after they start powering up those long cds on the huge AoE powers don't seem to be that long to the heroes who get repeatedly hit by one after another when there are multiple villains in a group. Maximum number of targets should scale down with more villains so heroes don't get chain stunned/pulled/stripped of energy.
Or make it so those AoEs reset the cooldown on all other copies of the same AoE. That would significantly discourage the giant villain pileups.
Spawn and Gone suggestion, sounds a lot like what we spoke about.
I do think Battling Supervillains should be wiped immediately on death and defeated should stay as is. That way you are already immune to damage OSV's can put out because you aren't tagged.
I think the problem with immediately wiping Battling Supervillains on death is due to close calls. In other words, villain is almost down, you get tagged by a burst, then they get KOed--a player would lose Guardian Tokens if it were wiped. I suggest that if they go that route, Battling Supervillains should be wiped upon hitting the recover button, instead of defeat itself. This would be closer to Alert/Rampage lockout mechanics without outright locking them out. Players who want to keep going could rez and then run back to the battle.
"Interesting builds are born from limitations not by letting players put everything into one build."
Having a few seconds damage immunity after defeat sounds good.
And about knocks and such. The SV's were vulnerable to all the CC at first on the PTS, and that caused all sorts of problems. Like being pulled after a knock keeps you knocked down until the pull stops, and Gravitar's powers do a lot of pulls. And you could apply non damaging roots and holds without getting the Battling Supervillains status.
As for Gravitar, Cascade Event just needs to work reliably, that will improve her damage greatly. Bug Gravitic Ripple has the same problem as Cascade Event, to use it reliably you need to wait for any other power to completely finish. If you use the Gravitic Ripple a second to soon it fails to do anything but still goes on cooldown.
Or make it so those AoEs reset the cooldown on all other copies of the same AoE. That would significantly discourage the giant villain pileups.
That works fine when we just have 3 OSVs. But assuming there will be new OSVs, each with their own giant AoE attacks, it just means the villain players will be incentivized to diversify, not reduce the mass villain pile-ups. We need a system which encourages villains to spread out even when there are 20 different villains to choose from, or at least stops heroes from getting chain-thrashed by massive AoE spam when there are large groups of villains even in such a context.
I think the problem with immediately wiping Battling Supervillains on death is due to close calls. In other words, villain is almost down, you get tagged by a burst, then they get KOed--a player would lose Guardian Tokens if it were wiped.
Fix that by making it so someone with Defeated also gets tokens.
Nothign confusing about it. The become effect only has a duration of 900s (the device lasts 30m).
Ah yes. I didn't even realize this at first, thanks for pointing this out. I assume this is intended so, there should probably be a warning text on the rewards screen for "Playing the Villain" mission that Gold/LTS users get.
You know, i thought about what i enjoyed about playing a villain, and it isn't trying to kill players. I'm happy to throw attacks at anyone near me, but i mostly want to taunt zone with my dastardly plan (Gravitar had some cake earlier) and let heroes beat up on me. I have no interest in it as PvP, only interest in it as running an open-world rampage for other player's (and my) enjoyment.
Maybe we can kill multiple birds with one stone here...
Give villain tokens every minute for a villain who is actively fighting heroes. maybe 1 + (# heroes)/(5 x #villains) per minute. That'll incentivize combat but not griefing low level players, and give players like me a way to earn villain tokens in a way we enjoy. It'll also encourage villains to spread out, because their token count will go down if other villains are nearby.
Otherwise i'm probably just going to find a 10 onslaught targets route i can do in 15 minutes and ignore the pvp aspect entirely. I keep ending up short on tokens for the mission, and I'd rather not burn 1000 guardian tokens/day just to make sure i get my villain mission tokens and can actually unlock the powers sometime this year.
QoL concern: Onslaught gear is bind on pickup. Onslaught tokens are bind on 'pickup' Onslaught villain unlocks are 'bind' on 'pickup'
So we have to unlock the villain on a character and then farm on that character for gear we want to use on that character. (Assuming anyone wants to use Onslaught gear). I can't imagine a less alt friendly system. WTF.
Yeh this, too much bind. Bind to pickup on tokens is already putting a huge discrepancy between quest based alts option and the pay the Q-tax and kill people option. Plug G/V pocket change in out inventory .. ugg!
Guardian Tokens should be able to buy at least some of the gear. It's slightly misleading from current info (no current gear can be earned from being the hero, just the ability to be a villain) and swings things toward having too many villains per hero due to the rewards.
Not just gear/power .. even the 3 vanity figure items. This combined with the G tokens to fueling V-system has turned a simple sub-perk and pay fence into a paywall for the FTP side. Looking at an other thread 2 tokens even is causing confusion. Add to this while the system could reach equilibrium, it has the higher potential of breaking horribly when participation waynes on either G/V side in the long term (i.e. what happens when 1 side goes away/looses interest).
QoL/Bug: Are the 'little' soldier guys guarding the points supposed to give tokens?
Suggest: Given the walk, and potential for a 1/2 to 3/4 million hp hit from "big guy" the big guy could be raised, or little guys could be added (or both) so were up to 10 point to 15 points. At 10 you need to hit 2 extra points, 15 you'd be done as the quest goal.
Or as others have said, points for doing other stuff, break up to X objects, kill up to X npc-villans. Where X is some anti-farming limit (We do have a timer to help too!)
All it takes on LIVE are a few players using a combination of interrupt powers available to players to render an OSV a 5.5/3 Million HP punch bag
Onslaught should be unpredictable. Let everyone have a few toys and let them play with them. Lvl 40 heroes shouldn't be reduced to newbies out of the tutorial, every tactic and power nerfed, and villains should be allowed some extra fun too - if that means devices, or a sneaky benefit from being interrupted, then fine.
20s isn't all that long, particularly given that it starts when you get defeated, not when you respawn. I'd fix by changing the Onslaught tokens for villain defeat to be granted to anyone with Battling Supervillains or Defeated, and then clear Battling Supervillains on defeat. This makes you immune to spawn camping (as you are an invalid target until you attack again), but still allows you to get credit if you get defeated at the wrong time.
Spawn and Gone suggestion, sounds a lot like what we spoke about.
I do think Battling Supervillains should be wiped immediately on death and defeated should stay as is. That way you are already immune to damage OSV's can put out because you aren't tagged.
That does sounds like a better suggestion; thank you for bringing it up. I edited Spawn And Gone's suggestion text.
Onslaught should be unpredictable. Let everyone have a few toys and let them play with them. Lvl 40 heroes shouldn't be reduced to newbies out of the tutorial, every tactic and power nerfed, and villains should be allowed some extra fun too - if that means devices, or a sneaky benefit from being interrupted, then fine.
I'm not saying that players should be nerfed into the ground because of Onslaught. I'm saying that the situation needs to be balanced out.
I actually suggested multiple ways to incorporate crowd control into this, but it was too much work to carry out, so they were made immune.
I also suggested an Interrupt Lockout mechanic, which I think I posted here also.
I disagree about devices. Onslaught Villains should not have access to any devices, powers or specializations from their character normally.
Stealth is a tricky thing because whilst I do agree it should be a valid escape method, it has the potential to be spammed to high heaven.
A perception debuff lockout buff could be added to Onslaught Villains, but that would need testing and creating.
A trivial cosmetic thing I'd like to see: a kill tracker. Say, every time a villain defeats a hero, it adds a stack of some status (which has no effects other than the visual), so you can look at the number of heroes a villain (including you) has overcome.
I'm not saying that players should be nerfed into the ground because of Onslaught. I'm saying that the situation needs to be balanced out.
I think we agree. Any balancing changes to Onslaught need to be within that event only; buffing or weakening the OVs and changing the rewards.
Having been around it for a few days I've realised that I don't like playing the villain, certainly not enough to grind out enough tokens for the new powers or heirloom gear and because of that, the rewards for Guardian tokens aren't ones I really want. I also have the feeling that the event is going to be changed to make it in favour of the villains and those gear-grinding; and ultimately, who wants to control a cannon-fodder hero who's little more than a glorified NPC? Off to other content I go....
Thug Repellant Villains can be repelled. Repelling a villain into a turret happens very frequently. When repels are stacked, it can become almost impossible for a villain to resist. Villains should probably have repel immunity.
The repel should continue, Villains just should avoid fighting near the turrets as best they can, and Turrets should actually be visible as a real threat, as it is they are barely bigger than the average crate and do not look like a threat at all, its often difficult to even know they are shooting you while they are at least thousands times more powerful than any player in the game.
More Targets and Turrets doing less damage per second for more Guardian/Villain tokens for playing the game, spread them at a sensible distance all around the Super Jet, it will look really epic on those otherwise useless big walls and Academy you have there, while giving noobs a chance to find the City Center respawn points and just maybe the 15 or so Help A Citizen Missions on that one little strip of road between City Center and Ren Cen.
Ren Cen is such a vacant lot of a City of the Future. Make some action happen at it's desolate fringes.
1. Losing remaining time on Onslaught Becomes because of SNRs really needs to be fixed. That's terrible design.
2. Heroes should be forbidden from retreating to respawns too. I hate to say it, but we don't deserve open world pvp. We need an area (say, the park south of ravenwood), that has a respawn which is shielded (villains can't enter, villain effects can't penetrate) which also excludes players with the battling supervillain flag unless they died and are respawning there. (Once you step outside you can't go back in, your attacks also can't pass through the shield).
Shortly before i SNRed as a villain, i had someone run back to Kodiak's SUV to try to use it to block LoS, and creeping back toward the respawn behind it, just because he took *a hit*. Come on. As terrible of people the SVs using mass AoE next to the respawn are (i killed my runner with single-target attacks, thank you very much), the heroes who run towards the spawn at the first sign of trouble are just as bad of people and probably deserve to get spawn camped. Both forms of misbehavior are harming the enjoyment of others.
(And yes, i was only over there because *i couldn't get anyone to attack me anywhere else*. Anyone have a route which lets you hit 10 targets in 15 minutes? I'm never going to get enough farm in to unlock any of the powers with my tolerance for Onslaught diminishing as fast as it is).
BUG:
devices active when you change to villain, stay active the whole time.
BUG:
for some random reason, your villain gets to full health.
MY grond was down to 1/3 when the stupid heal happened and , then it timed out. The players should have got the 30 kill points for me.
you're planning on unlocking them with tokens. I'm planning on buying them from lockboxes or the AH. It's likely to be a lot more effective
The fact that vehicles are immune to NttG is the only thing that makes chasing a kiting villain possible.
Then change kiting villains; if villains are supposed to be chaseable, it should be possible without a vehicle.
acrobatics works, Superspeed doesn't because of low jump, teleport won't work since you cna't attack while teleported.
I actually love playing the Onslaught Villain, I expect to be killed and it's nice to see players work together and also to be an "unpredictable boss" by engaging with a tank most of the time then suddenly jumping to a squishy for one attack then back to the tank.
I expect to be defeated and I like seeing players actually utilize block, support builds and debuffs to hamper my effectiveness against them, sort of like my own controllable Open World Rampage.
I don't ever expect to escape although sometimes I do, but I expect to be defeated by players, eventually and legitimately, I think going down after fighting against so many players is a great thing, which is why I'll continue to accumulate Villain Tokens.
Well no kidding you only attack a squishy once. They died in that one hit.
I normally end up escaping. After doing that boring daily, I probably have less than 10 minutes for heroes to kill me. I'm seeing more villains escaping lately. Probably because everyone wants to play a villain as it's the only way to get the new stuff. Which is dumb. It shouldn't matter what side you play on to get the new stuff. Making it more unappealing than it already is to play a hero is all that's really going on.
Gravitar's Inversion Bolt has a theoretical speed of 0.2s, at which point spamming it on a single target would be marginally useful. However, because you have to deal with lag on power activation and on the server returning "a stack was consumed, reset the cooldown", the real speed of the power is more like 0.7s. That makes it totally useless.
Either give it an actually high damage (4-5k per hit) or make it a maintain that cuts off when the target has no stacks remaining.
Defeating Onslaught Targets (UNTIL DEFENDERS) now grants 15 villain tokens per UNTIL Defender killed, making the UNTIL Defender part of the mission actually worth completing/more desirable.
This would be an increase to the current reward which is 5 tokens.
Yeah, makes you realize how OP tanks are in this game. Any OV can one-hit a squishy, but I have seen two Medusas wailing on an uber-tank and getting nowhere.
Grond can kill tanks though, fairly easily...as long as they aren't dodging and weaving too effectively.
Too bad one of those Medusas didn't just stun the tank with their ridiculous CC and slaughter it. And I bet the uber-tank was blocking. Which means he/she/it isn't really doing anything useful other than letting other heroes do damage unharmed. Uber-tank wins by standing around looking pretty!
Yes, Medusa's CC is ridiculous. I had someone healing me while I was stunned for over 15 seconds. After being chain stunned for much longer. 15 seconds of being locked down is never OK in PvP. 2-3 seconds is more than sufficient to kill someone especially since villains travel in packs and blow aoes all over the place.
I never thought I'd be defending Medusa of all characters
Medusa's stuns and roots are unresistable, there is a way to free others from her roots, as I said in the guide I posted, but not her stuns.
Her stuns are just a little stronger than what players can achieve with investment in PvP.
10 stacks of Mind Spikes = 6 second hard stun. (This means it doesn't react to breakfree damage, although I'm sure I've broken out of a Medusa stun before...I'd have to test again)
This continues to stack with multiple Medusa's, thankfully you can avoid getting stunned by holding down block, which is the staple active counter to most forms of CC in Champions Online.
The stun is also predictable. You can see how many mindspike stacks are active, and if you start blocking at 7 there is no risk at all at getting stunned.
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It's that shorter attack that seems to be unblockable because it triggers faster than my shield power activates, even though there is a nice bubble warning and charge bar over Medusa's head. That charge bar seems to only get to 3/4 full when the power activates. I've noticed this both playing her and fighting her.
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Mind you, I've blocked that attack when going against her as Mentella, I barely survive due to my low HP and the fact that most of my passive is offline but hey.
Generally when I see the bubble flash into action I just turtle up.
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I switched out Night Warrior for Invuln so I wouldn't get slaughter so much VS the villains. Riding the Vomit Comet with a few Medusa's throwing lance rain is still a death sentence. Just having more than one villain throwing out attacks still means I'm gonna die, just not instantly.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
You know what the worst thing is? I think it was toned down a little bit and still makes me want to vomit. I actively avoid Gravitar.
Heaven forbid a group of people get the idea to run five or six Grav's in one go.
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Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Onslaught gear is bind on pickup.
Onslaught tokens are bind on 'pickup'
Onslaught villain unlocks are 'bind' on 'pickup'
So we have to unlock the villain on a character and then farm on that character for gear we want to use on that character. (Assuming anyone wants to use Onslaught gear). I can't imagine a less alt friendly system. WTF.
The fact that vehicles are immune to NttG is the only thing that makes chasing a kiting villain possible.
So tell you what, you can stop vehicles from flying when the villains have no move options other than normal *walk* speed and minimum jumping. Then i might actually use my melee hero without the vehicle.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
There are more suggestions in the thread than I can fit in the original posts, so my apologies if I don't directly acknowledge someone's idea. I'm hoping that the developers will take the time to read through the complete thread.
Griefing seems to be one of the chief concerns with the Onslaught system.
I'm curious to hear others' thoughts on the suggestion I added to Spawn and Gone.
Updates:
The mission currently granted when you zone into Millennium the first time says to speak with the Onslaught Agent in Westside. This is unneeded wording since it can be turned in to any Onslaught Agent, the arrow will point at the closest one if you're in City Center/Downtown, and high level players probably shouldn't be pointed towards lower level area.
An alternate suggestion for villain mobility is to lower their speeds/jump height to normal but simply make their travel powers last longer and have shorter cooldown.
Guardian Tokens should be able to buy at least some of the gear. It's slightly misleading from current info (no current gear can be earned from being the hero, just the ability to be a villain) and swings things toward having too many villains per hero due to the rewards.
UNTIL Defenders look incredibly generic. Giving them a mix of Toxic Steel and Superconductor parts will both add more visual interest and make them look more distinctive since UNTIL doesn't have much of a "look" compared to some other factions.
With a new update that does have art associated with it, the current Mechanon splash screen should be replaced with the Supervillain Onslaught image with Grond, Gravitar, and Medusa. Sounds good. "Battling Supervillains" should probably be shortened to 1 minute. Enough so that you don't lose out on tokens but shorter in case they are near a spawn. Also forces you to stay active.
-Sterga
Why not just have one type of token? You could get the same tokens from being a hero as you do for being a villain. Prices would have to be adjusted and tokens you get as a villain as well, but people could get the stuff they want by playing whichever side they want.
Villain CC is crazy. I had two Medusas chain CC me and I sat there, not able to do jack while they took me from full HP to zero. Just another reason why melee isn't as good as range. Can't avoid Medusa's attacks. Can't kite. Can't keep up with villains that do kite. Get focused first. Get killed more often.
Onslaught is going to produce more melee tanks or more ranged toons. There is no advantage to play offense melee.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
Gravitar's damage seems rather pitiful compared to Grond or Medusa. Killing a level 40 - any level 40 - is near impossible. You pretty much have to target low level toons if working alone.
Medusa's damage, in particular, is ridiculously high. If you're anything but a Frosty Tank or a vehicle, you pretty much die in seconds. Which is okay if its Medusa vs. the world, but not so okay when its 3 medusae, 2 gravitar, and 7 grond vs. maybe 30 heroes.
I've never seen a Grond alone so i could check out melee dps performance against him without getting thrashed by another OSV blindsiding me.
Gravitar needs more damage. Then they all need a serious damage debuff with more villains in the area. And after they start powering up those long cds on the huge AoE powers don't seem to be that long to the heroes who get repeatedly hit by one after another when there are multiple villains in a group. Maximum number of targets should scale down with more villains so heroes don't get chain stunned/pulled/stripped of energy.
CONTROL
OSVs can't gear perception gear, and have 5 in all SS, so a single smoke grenade and you literally can't see a thing. That's kind of ridiculous. I don't want to abuse melee and kite or jump like crazy, so smoke grenade is basically a 'you don't get to play' (and a way for some hero players to troll other hero players by forcing the OSVs to behave in ways which make melee attacks impossible). That's no fun for anyone.
I've previously supported the notion that OSVs are far too mobile, and that control should work on them. I'd rather be stunned every 10s than be unable to play at all because of smoke grenade (unless i'm willing to jump around like a kangaroo).
Fixes:
1. OSVs should be immune to perception debuffs.
2. OSVs should be vulnerable to control abilities. All of them.
3. Hold/Knock resistance generally should be revised. My thought: (A) a short temporary immunity buff (like ~5-10s duration, possibly scaling by target type) that applies to all control powers (holds, knocks, interrupts, repels) and is triggered by any of these types of effects (repels trigger the buff when the power application ends, holds trigger the effect when the hold ends). (B) a stacking resistance buff (no cap, separate buffs for holds and knocks) that lasts 20-30s. These stacks decrease hold duration/strength for hold resistance, and decrease knock strength/chance for knock resistance, but never cause immunity (although holds will eventually become incredibly short duration, and knocks will eventually generate very tiny knock distances).
And then we can make every enemy type vulnerable to holds and knocks.
GEAR
Needs to be made Bind to Account on Pickup, Bind to Character on Equip, or, if that's not possible, just make the tokens bind to account. And Onslaught Villain Unlocks need to be account-wide. No one wants to have to farm up a villain unlock on each toon so they can farm for gear on each toon. Being alt friendly means letting people farm on the toon of their choice and then use the resulting loot on the toon of their choice, even if those are different toons. At least one of the levels of unlock/currency needs to be passable between characters on an account.
Crowd Control working on Onslaught Villains has been discussed before in the PTS thread, so you're pretty much wasting your breath on that front.
Trust me, I've been there lol.
Unless the suggestion I made about Manipulated CC and stun changes was to come into effect, having Crowd Control work on SV's, especially the broken mess that are stuns right now? CC on OSVs would be ridiculous.
It would require more work than is probably possible right now. Onslaught Villains don't have access to Interact Buttons, and without access to that, they would have to rely on player damage to break them out of control effects. A coordinated effort could render an OSV helpless as players pile on damage which doesn't break holds, I've had it happen to me on PTS and I've also been on the other side of that.
Instead of trying to revamp the CC system just for Onslaught balancing, it was a lot easier and less messy to just make them flat out IMMUNE to Crowd Control as well as knock abilities.
You are likely aware of how easy it is to reverse repel/interrupt villains all over the place and that's probably the weakest form of knocks, you can imagine how messed up it would be IF players could actually knock or hold Onslaught Supervillains.
Remember that knocking during a power activation interrupts the power, putting it on a cooldown (with a few exceptions like Gravity Driver). Interrupts sort of do the same thing but make all powers have a cooldown of 1 and also flat out stop actions.
All it takes on LIVE are a few players using a combination of interrupt powers available to players to render an OSV a 5.5/3 Million HP punch bag.
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Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
I do think Battling Supervillains should be wiped immediately on death and defeated should stay as is. That way you are already immune to damage OSV's can put out because you aren't tagged.
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Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
-Sterga
And about knocks and such. The SV's were vulnerable to all the CC at first on the PTS, and that caused all sorts of problems. Like being pulled after a knock keeps you knocked down until the pull stops, and Gravitar's powers do a lot of pulls. And you could apply non damaging roots and holds without getting the Battling Supervillains status.
As for Gravitar, Cascade Event just needs to work reliably, that will improve her damage greatly.
Bug Gravitic Ripple has the same problem as Cascade Event, to use it reliably you need to wait for any other power to completely finish. If you use the Gravitic Ripple a second to soon it fails to do anything but still goes on cooldown.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
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Maybe we can kill multiple birds with one stone here...
Give villain tokens every minute for a villain who is actively fighting heroes. maybe 1 + (# heroes)/(5 x #villains) per minute. That'll incentivize combat but not griefing low level players, and give players like me a way to earn villain tokens in a way we enjoy. It'll also encourage villains to spread out, because their token count will go down if other villains are nearby.
Otherwise i'm probably just going to find a 10 onslaught targets route i can do in 15 minutes and ignore the pvp aspect entirely. I keep ending up short on tokens for the mission, and I'd rather not burn 1000 guardian tokens/day just to make sure i get my villain mission tokens and can actually unlock the powers sometime this year.
QoL/Bug: Are the 'little' soldier guys guarding the points supposed to give tokens?
Suggest: Given the walk, and potential for a 1/2 to 3/4 million hp hit from "big guy" the big guy could be raised, or little guys could be added (or both) so were up to 10 point to 15 points. At 10 you need to hit 2 extra points, 15 you'd be done as the quest goal.
Or as others have said, points for doing other stuff, break up to X objects, kill up to X npc-villans. Where X is some anti-farming limit (We do have a timer to help too!)
Onslaught should be unpredictable. Let everyone have a few toys and let them play with them. Lvl 40 heroes shouldn't be reduced to newbies out of the tutorial, every tactic and power nerfed, and villains should be allowed some extra fun too - if that means devices, or a sneaky benefit from being interrupted, then fine.
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I actually suggested multiple ways to incorporate crowd control into this, but it was too much work to carry out, so they were made immune.
I also suggested an Interrupt Lockout mechanic, which I think I posted here also.
I disagree about devices. Onslaught Villains should not have access to any devices, powers or specializations from their character normally.
Stealth is a tricky thing because whilst I do agree it should be a valid escape method, it has the potential to be spammed to high heaven.
A perception debuff lockout buff could be added to Onslaught Villains, but that would need testing and creating.
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Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
I think we agree. Any balancing changes to Onslaught need to be within that event only; buffing or weakening the OVs and changing the rewards.
Having been around it for a few days I've realised that I don't like playing the villain, certainly not enough to grind out enough tokens for the new powers or heirloom gear and because of that, the rewards for Guardian tokens aren't ones I really want. I also have the feeling that the event is going to be changed to make it in favour of the villains and those gear-grinding; and ultimately, who wants to control a cannon-fodder hero who's little more than a glorified NPC? Off to other content I go....
More Targets and Turrets doing less damage per second for more Guardian/Villain tokens for playing the game, spread them at a sensible distance all around the Super Jet, it will look really epic on those otherwise useless big walls and Academy you have there, while giving noobs a chance to find the City Center respawn points and just maybe the 15 or so Help A Citizen Missions on that one little strip of road between City Center and Ren Cen.
Ren Cen is such a vacant lot of a City of the Future. Make some action happen at it's desolate fringes.
1. Losing remaining time on Onslaught Becomes because of SNRs really needs to be fixed. That's terrible design.
2. Heroes should be forbidden from retreating to respawns too. I hate to say it, but we don't deserve open world pvp. We need an area (say, the park south of ravenwood), that has a respawn which is shielded (villains can't enter, villain effects can't penetrate) which also excludes players with the battling supervillain flag unless they died and are respawning there. (Once you step outside you can't go back in, your attacks also can't pass through the shield).
Shortly before i SNRed as a villain, i had someone run back to Kodiak's SUV to try to use it to block LoS, and creeping back toward the respawn behind it, just because he took *a hit*. Come on. As terrible of people the SVs using mass AoE next to the respawn are (i killed my runner with single-target attacks, thank you very much), the heroes who run towards the spawn at the first sign of trouble are just as bad of people and probably deserve to get spawn camped. Both forms of misbehavior are harming the enjoyment of others.
(And yes, i was only over there because *i couldn't get anyone to attack me anywhere else*. Anyone have a route which lets you hit 10 targets in 15 minutes? I'm never going to get enough farm in to unlock any of the powers with my tolerance for Onslaught diminishing as fast as it is).
devices active when you change to villain, stay active the whole time.
BUG:
for some random reason, your villain gets to full health.
MY grond was down to 1/3 when the stupid heal happened and , then it timed out. The players should have got the 30 kill points for me.
you're planning on unlocking them with tokens. I'm planning on buying them from lockboxes or the AH. It's likely to be a lot more effective
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I expect to be defeated and I like seeing players actually utilize block, support builds and debuffs to hamper my effectiveness against them, sort of like my own controllable Open World Rampage.
I don't ever expect to escape although sometimes I do, but I expect to be defeated by players, eventually and legitimately, I think going down after fighting against so many players is a great thing, which is why I'll continue to accumulate Villain Tokens.
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I normally end up escaping. After doing that boring daily, I probably have less than 10 minutes for heroes to kill me. I'm seeing more villains escaping lately. Probably because everyone wants to play a villain as it's the only way to get the new stuff. Which is dumb. It shouldn't matter what side you play on to get the new stuff. Making it more unappealing than it already is to play a hero is all that's really going on.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
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Either give it an actually high damage (4-5k per hit) or make it a maintain that cuts off when the target has no stacks remaining.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Defeating Onslaught Targets (UNTIL DEFENDERS) now grants 15 villain tokens per UNTIL Defender killed, making the UNTIL Defender part of the mission actually worth completing/more desirable.
This would be an increase to the current reward which is 5 tokens.
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Grond can kill tanks though, fairly easily...as long as they aren't dodging and weaving too effectively.
Yes, Medusa's CC is ridiculous. I had someone healing me while I was stunned for over 15 seconds. After being chain stunned for much longer. 15 seconds of being locked down is never OK in PvP. 2-3 seconds is more than sufficient to kill someone especially since villains travel in packs and blow aoes all over the place.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
I never thought I'd be defending Medusa of all characters
Medusa's stuns and roots are unresistable, there is a way to free others from her roots, as I said in the guide I posted, but not her stuns.
Her stuns are just a little stronger than what players can achieve with investment in PvP.
10 stacks of Mind Spikes = 6 second hard stun. (This means it doesn't react to breakfree damage, although I'm sure I've broken out of a Medusa stun before...I'd have to test again)
This continues to stack with multiple Medusa's, thankfully you can avoid getting stunned by holding down block, which is the staple active counter to most forms of CC in Champions Online.
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