TA rewards

notyuu · March 2016

To clarify before I dig into this: while the diffcuility of TA is being bought up here, it is not the main issue [outside of grond puke + knock = might as well be perma ded]

It's simple, the amount of effort that TA takes is comparable to running 10 fire and ice rampages back to back, but the rewards are comparable to regular mission items, with the exception of the uber rare determination gear and costume piece drops....combine that with the disgunighsed gear being slightly sub-par to justice gear, and there's...almost no reason to run it due to the lackluster rewards, I mean come on, a heal pot that's convicion+hot but with a CD greater than 1 min is just rubbish, as is getting random mods..which need i remind you, are overly abduant thanks to lockboxes...so I storngly suggest that the rewards get a MAJOR ramp up to match the effort needed to get them.

TL;DR, TA needs better rewards or heavily risks becoming abandoned content due to effort/reward being out of balance.

roughbearmattach · March 2016

notyuu said:

TL;DR, TA needs better rewards or heavily risks becoming abandoned content due to effort/reward being out of balance.

I initially disliked TA, then liked it, then successfully completed it on a few toons.

That being said, I am resigned to not getting any rewards (including GCR store items) from this content. Considering the effort/time involved, including the time it takes to form TA teams, I won't bank 250 GCR on even one toon. I'm not willing to focus all of my play time and effort on just one toon, trying to form teams for one mission, and then spending hours just doing one mission.

This is the first time in Champs (since 2010) where I have just given up on an entire set of items/rewards.

Yes, yes--it is possible to get them. Yes, giving up on them is my decision. It just feels weird because I've never done this in Champs before.

jaazaniah1 · March 2016

I know exactly how you feel (save for the part about completing one). It's also the first piece of content (other than trying to find those elusive cosmics when they are up) that I have given up on trying to do.

riverocean · March 2016

Good to know I'm not alone.

I said it from the very beginning. The difficulty of TA vs. Rewards is out of whack. You have to bring your A game to complete it. But the rewards aren't all that great.

Other than bragging rights and challenge - no compelling reason to bother.

And its' not that I think the difficulty should be brought down - It's the rewards that are the issue. Either it should grant more GCR. Or the rewards in general need to be better.

bluhman · March 2016

Most other players both seem very discouraged to even try this lair. And while tactics are a big part of it, the sheer amount of damage different enemies put out is also a factor that really can't be fixed by anything other than players suddenly improving their character's health or damage or threat or whatever. While I certainly enjoy TA for its challenge myself, part of me actually wants it so that the current setting becomes its "Very Hard" or "Elite" incarnation, with the number of adds and boss moves that are used.

Or in other words, team difficulty on this map should affect what moves the different bosses can use. So including a scaling level of reward depending on your team difficulty, as well as changing the strength of your enemies, the setting also changes what abilities enemies and bosses can use:

rough idea:
Medusa

Normal - Uses psionic bomb powers only at milestone parts of the fight (full health, 2/3rds, 1/3rd), spawns only 2 Perfection of Mind instances
Difficult/Hard - Uses bomb powers regularly. Spawns only 3 Perfection of Mind.
Very Hard/Elite - Current: Uses bombs regularly and spawns 4 adds.

Teleiosaurus

Normal - Bites and breath do reduced damage, does not use atomic reconstruction. Only spawns 4 Teleiosaurs.
Difficult/Hard - Full damage, but still does not regenerate. Spawns 5 teleiosaurs.
Very Hard/Elite - Current: Can use all attacks and regenerate, and spawns 6 adds.

Gravitar

Normal - Force Geyser does less damage, Orange Bubble can be blocked/dodged. Has no adds.
Difficult/Hard - Full damage, but orange bubble still mitigatable. Has 2 Perfection of Body.
Very Hard/Elite - Current: Orange bubble is irresistable, and she has 3 adds.

Grond

Normal - Can only have 5 patches out at once, Massive PBAoE has reduced knock. Spawns only 2 Grondlings.
Difficult/Hard - Can only spawn 10 patches at once, full knockback. Spawns 3 grondlings.
Very Hard/Elite - Current: Spawns a limitless supply of patches, and has 4 adds.

Teleios

Normal - Only has 4 adds, and does not use Telekinetic Maelstrom or Radioactive Shockwave. Still have to balance Genetic Siphon, but it stacks only once every 2 seconds.
Difficult/Hard - Has an extra Teleios Clone II, and can use Radioactive Shockwave. Siphon stacks at full speed.
Very Hard/Elite - Current: Uses both TK Maelstrom and Shockwave, has 6 adds.

Provided unique variants aren't made for each difficulty, Very Hard would be a bit easier than what we currently have due to slightly lower damage output. Elite is full difficulty. Let's just be honest - even at normal, the current lair gives even the toughest and best-geared tank/healer/dps/etc builds a run for their money.

roughbearmattach · March 2016

riverocean said:

And its' not that I think the difficulty should be brought down - It's the rewards that are the issue. Either it should grant more GCR. Or the rewards in general need to be better.

This, so very much this. Difficulty and TIME--the time investment, including team building, is massive.

If the lair always dropped at least one random Teleios item, besides potions, in the final reward, that would be enough. Instead, I've gotten all potions except for three R5-6 mods, plus a little bit of GCR distributed on three toons.

soulforger · March 2016

As much as I want to join in on this lair, its just to hard for me. None of my toons are uber toons, thus none of them could survive or be useful. Which sucks, as I want the back piece.

mijjestic · March 2016

Wouldn't mind seeing the Determined secondaries dropping a bit more, to fuel the market.

And have all mobs have a chance to drop GCR, ala the other 'lesser' recogs, if more rarely.

notyuu · March 2016

The rewards not only need to drop a little more often, they actually need to be better, the mods are..well, go poke the AH, they are everywhere, the cores are rank 3..woopty doo, the Determined seoncdires, outside of the offence peices are inferior to the onslaught stuff..so they would use a buff, and it's a sillimar story for justice gear vs distinguished primaries..justice trumps it.

which leaves... the costume pieces and AFs, the costume pieces are nice, not very,....flexible, but nice, the AFs are...well..AFs [eww]

mijjestic · March 2016

The Determined Utility with HP is also something there is no direct equivalent for in Onslaught.

In any case, inferior or not they sell. Obviously because not everyone wants to do Onslaught for every character. Buying is easier.

championshewolf · March 2016

notyuu wrote: »

The rewards not only need to drop a little more often, they actually need to be better, the mods are..well, go poke the AH, they are everywhere, the cores are rank 3..woopty doo, the Determined seoncdires, outside of the offence peices are inferior to the onslaught stuff..so they would use a buff, and it's a sillimar story for justice gear vs distinguished primaries..justice trumps it.

which leaves... the costume pieces and AFs, the costume pieces are nice, not very,....flexible, but nice, the AFs are...well..AFs [eww]

Probably because you can easily buy the mods. The dungeon is not really hard. It doesn't even require bringing an A game, which always makes me laugh when people claim this. Grond's difficulty really isn't that he is difficult, Grond's difficulty is that a tank actually has to properly utilize floor space, and most other tanks I watch tank this rarely do that.

And funnily enough AFs also sell, and sell quite well. You may not like them but judging by the prices, you are in a minority.

notyuu · March 2016

championshewolf said:

*snip*

to extrapliate:
-People like AFs
-The mods are available to buy
-Grond is easy
-TA isn't uber hard

Sure, some people like AFs, some people don't...dosn't change the fact that they are not the...best of prizes for TA

The very fact that the mods are available to buy is what makes them a poor boss-box prize

I never said grond is hard, I said grond puke + knock = might as well be perma dead, as in that one time you get knocked for whatever reason and end up in the puke is..simply put, BS death.

It's not uber hard, but it's hard enough to border on tedious when it comes to the amount of effort that gets put in vs the rewards you get, and lets be honest here, you don't play games for a tedious experience, now do you.

so in a nutshell, my point still holds, the effort needed to do TA vs the rewards you get are just not worth it atm.

pantagruel01 · March 2016

championshewolf said:
Grond's difficulty really isn't that he is difficult, Grond's difficulty is that a tank actually has to properly utilize floor space, and most other tanks I watch tank this rarely do that.

Most of the time when I see the tank failing to properly utilize floor space, it's because of either aggro loss (causing Grond to go wandering off chasing some dps) or failing to block knocks (causing you to get catapulted around and then Grond chases you).

roughbearmattach · March 2016

My point isn't about TA difficulty, AFs, or anything like that.

The time put into a single run of TA is quite long for most players, generating very small progress to one reward, with alting not helping progress.

This caused me to give up on the entire rewards list, which is something I've never done in Champs before. That feels kinda lousy.

spinnytop · March 2016

roughbearmattach said:

Yes, yes--it is possible to get them. Yes, giving up on them is my decision.

Glad we got that out of the way.

The groups I go in with generally complete the thing in under 40 minutes ( some runs have even clocked in at around 20 o_O ). If you want to friend me in game (@foxiandfriends) I will ask you to go along if I happen to see you on. Maybe I can even get you into the TA Groups channel, it has a fairly open admission policy

Our groups also form up pretty quickly most of the time. There's a bit of a lul in interest atm cause of what's on the PTS tho, so no promises o3o

roughbearmattach · March 2016

spinnytop said:

The groups I go in with generally complete the thing in under 40 minutes ( some runs have even clocked in at around 20 o_O ). If you want to friend me in game (@foxiandfriends) I will ask you to go along if I happen to see you on. Maybe I can even get you into the TA Groups channel, it has a fairly open admission policy

Our groups also form up pretty quickly most of the time. There's a bit of a lul in interest atm cause of what's on the PTS tho, so no promises o3o

I appreciate the offer, Spinny. I have seen you form teams a couple times, too, which is great and friendly.

Still, we're not often on at the same time, and though you are helping, you can only take a couple players at a time on the teams your form (usually starting with 2 or 3 players, then advertising for a couple more).

Even at 40 minutes, with something like a 15-20 minute team formation time, an hour is still quite long for the rewards, and it's unlikely such a group will be able to pull off two runs in two hours, as people have to log off, alt, take breaks, etc.

I guess I just got burned out on spending all my log in time for one goal (such as farming tokens for Justice Gear). Now, when I look at the rate for GCR, I figure that I could potentially average, say, four TA runs a week (with help from Spinny). That nets me 48 GCR, I think--not sure about the daily mission nature and GCR award.

At that rate, one good item takes about 5 weeks, maybe a bit more. During that time, events will happen, which means time away from farming TA--so maybe 6 weeks, or 7? At that point, getting one reward just seems so far away, let alone multiple ones.

I gave up.

spinnytop · March 2016

I can't really spend all my time logged in going after one reward either... heck even when I do TA it's not always on the same character, so I'm not really swimming in Distinguished gear ( got 1 piece so far ^_^ ). I mostly just go into TA cause it's fun. If I happen to get enough stuffs for a reward, neat. Heck if you asked me what I'm farming gold and silver recog for I wouldn't really have an answer... I'll worry about what I'm gonna get when I have enough, and in the meantime I'll just worry about doing what's fun o3o

TA just happens to be a lot of fun for me, no matter how long it takes, and no matter how soon I get a stuff for doing it ^_^

TA rewards

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