Does CO properly train players for TA/Monster attack level difficulty?

sigmaseven0 · May 2016

I like the challenge level of the newer content, but sudden difficulty spikes in video games are generally considered a bad thing by critics and gamers. Years of open world missions and alerts and have trained players to expect a certain level of dificulty and a lot of leeway in how they approach the game. I personally don't think that Rampage/Custom Alerts are an adequate bridge between Grab alert level difficulty and TA level difficulty.

Does CO properly prepare players for the more challenging end game content? If not, then whats the solution?

kemmicals · May 2016

NO

It does, but you're likely to forget all that stuff leveling because the game very rarely calls for you to remember most of the fundamentals.

guyhumual · May 2016

Yes

But then the problem is that it changes the rules.

championshewolf · May 2016

Yes

The problem with TA and such is people want to be lone heroes and this content isn't designed that way. Plain and simple. Work as a team, you will do fine. Try to be the One, and you will get your **** kicked.

gentlegiantvexx · May 2016

NO

Whoops, I tabbed to NO by accident. D:l

But yeah, the game kinda tells you from the get go- you need to team up and do these things high-level, endgame content now.

notyuu · May 2016

NO

If it did we wouldn't have had the en-mass deaths and failure agsaint the updated cosmics yesterday.

chaosdrgnz43 · May 2016

NO

To be honest, it was more of a new thing placed in front of you and the creator expect you to know what it is.

There are info about the fights but doubt the devs expect everyone to get it right away.

riverocean · May 2016

Yes

championshewolf said:
The problem with TA and such is people want to be lone heroes and this content isn't designed that way. Plain and simple. Work as a team, you will do fine. Try to be the One, and you will get your **** kicked.

That's sort of the point. For 99% of the game you are rewarded for being a "lone hero" then you hit end game and it's suddenly "ooops you need to learn to team". The change is drastic and jarring. The game doesn't reward teaming in any sort of meaningful way... until end game.

* I also checked "yes" on the survey when I meant "no" ... and can't undo it...

notyuu said:
If it did we wouldn't have had the en-mass deaths and failure agsaint the updated cosmics yesterday.

Pretty much that right there. There's so many things that people don't expect to do in this mmo - that's standard in others. I partially blame the game's design. If they didn't want roles, then roles never should've been introduced via AT's. All powers should've been designed for "self-sufficient" playstyle. The marvel game (while not a full mmo) does that. No healing class at all. All players have some sort of team buff component to their abilities.

You can' t even get CO players to do simple things like team-up to share Auras and sidekick lowbies. Which is a standard tactic in most mmos. Most don't even know how team mechanics work --- because they've never had to team and teaming offers no real significant advantage to general gameplay.

roughbearmattach · May 2016

NO

The game doesn't train you at all for this sort of thing.
It barely trains you at all, period.

What the current version of CO mostly does is enable leveling through events and Alerts, PUG play, with a mix of easy solo missions.

To learn things like TA, Fire and Ice, and so on, you have to learn from other players.
Is that a bad thing?

spinnytop · May 2016

Yes

The game taught you how to block, how to move, and how to use your various powers. The game taught you everything you need to know to do TA or the Cosmics. Some folks just appear to be very stubborn in refusing to do those things, even when the game is flashing a giant flashy globe and a big red circle in their faces.

markhawkman · May 2016

roughbearmattach said:
The game doesn't train you at all for this sort of thing.
It barely trains you at all, period.

What the current version of CO mostly does is enable leveling through events and Alerts, PUG play, with a mix of easy solo missions.

To learn things like TA, Fire and Ice, and so on, you have to learn from other players.
Is that a bad thing?

What's there to learn in Fire and Ice? I did it twice this week and all I did was stand around and shoot the boss. I only took damage when the boss used an AoE.

roughbearmattach · May 2016

NO

In F&I, there are some things to know about destroying the living fire and ice pillars.
You also have to know about the fire circles and not crossing them.
Finally, you need to know about not defeating one boss too soon before the other.

Not a ton of learning, actually. It is possible to be in a F&I team and not know any of this, because other team mates know what to do.

deadman20 · May 2016

Yes

Before each boss room in Teleios Ascendant, there's an interactible that can play a voiceover detailing what each enemy can do. It's up to the team how to best decide how to handle it. The information is there and open to anyone getting into TA fights.

Now, as far as the Cosmic Revamp goes, the in-game options to learn about the cosmic fights don't detail much, so I would perhaps like to see some improvement on that front. The Release Notes provide better information on what each cosmic does since each power they have and what they do is listed there.

biffsmackwell · May 2016

roughbearmattach said:
The game doesn't train you at all for this sort of thing.
It barely trains you at all, period.

What the current version of CO mostly does is enable leveling through events and Alerts, PUG play, with a mix of easy solo missions.

To learn things like TA, Fire and Ice, and so on, you have to learn from other players.
Is that a bad thing?

I don't know about Teleios Ascendant, but the game sure doesn't set you up for things like the new Cosmics. It's been totally player-driven, but to answer the question, no, I don't think it's a bad thing. Sure I'd like the Cosmic fights to start a little quicker, if everyone already knew what to do, but that'll probably get better. A few forum guides to each monster would be cool and helpful so people can be prepared if they're feeling sketchy about showing up and doing "bad".

As well, it's kind of an MMO staple to throw something hard at the players and watch them figure it out, no? I'm not a huge teaming-up kinda guy, but I like to do auto-team stuff. I love how the cosmic fights can come together when everyone knows what's going on. When it goes good, it's great. When it goes bad, it's a disaster.

All in all I'm having fun with this content. I spent a few days gearing my main up (fusing mods, oh my god...) and it was fun getting ready for "the big day", then going out and fighting giant monsters.

Guess I went a little rambleish, but yeah. I don't think the game needs to really teach you how to do hard content.

roughbearmattach · May 2016

NO

biffsmackwell said:

As well, it's kind of an MMO staple to throw something hard at the players and watch them figure it out, no?

This ^^

It can be frustrating, but I think learning from other players is a good way to go.

sammiefighter · May 2016

Ye .. errr ..no?

It tries to teach you the basics, and does a decent job if you arn't mega-build or broke-build. Also yes there's not much of a bridge, yes the game teaches you to solo, and also are finding out some skills that have other uses (CC/CS) are now in conflict with the new toy.

And I'll probably start "that fight" but also still the issue of some brokenish things that still probably need fixing (but no one wants fixed, and look worse than they are, and require co-ordinated buffs-and-nerfs) means you can by-pass ever needing to learn the skills so they arn't learned when all combined. This rolled into "challenging content" aimed to kill/challenge said people, and well those not using tropy builds get pulverized and angry. For some of us the 'numbers' or specific damage types aren't just in our favor.

vitalityprime · May 2016

NO

No, of course not. However, that is not a bad thing. I think it would be a bit ridiculous for these difficult missions to flat out tell you how to win it before you even run it.

markhawkman · May 2016

roughbearmattach said:
In F&I, there are some things to know about destroying the living fire and ice pillars.
You also have to know about the fire circles and not crossing them.
Finally, you need to know about not defeating one boss too soon before the other.

Not a ton of learning, actually. It is possible to be in a F&I team and not know any of this, because other team mates know what to do.

Well, given that I was mostly stationary, I definitely didn't cross any circles.

I was playing Grimoire, so I made the circle and stayed in it while blasting the boss like I was trying to use up all my stamina(which I can't).

Pillars... Well I was using a cone attack so I might have accidentally blasted those. I vaguely recall seeing something like that.

The main thing in the pre-mission brief was to split focus between the targets. As you mentioned, the goal was simultaneous destruction.

kamokami · May 2016

Yes

sigmaseven0 said:
Does CO properly prepare players for the more challenging end game content?

In my interpretation of this question the operative word is "properly". I don't think CO does much to prepare players for a lot of the new content. I also don't think it that it should.

Players will try it out, make guides, learn the mechanics and then it will get easier. Could the game do a better job? Sure. Maybe have some tasteful thematic guides written by one of the NPCs as a warning or something....might be fun.

But overall, I find that it's more rewarding and interesting for players to learn from each other.

pantagruel01 · May 2016

Yes

TA and the cosmics are a lot harder than current content at current power levels, but that's pretty standard for new things. Therakiel's Temple was a beast when it first came out.

theravenforce · May 2016

Yes

Note: I clicked Yes for the sake of participation and because I am in two minds about this (and because there was no "Sort of" option)

I say it does because I view players as just as much a part of CO as anything else and learning from players who have learnt the mechanics counts as being prepared, provided you take the time to actually listen and process what they are trying to tell you.

As Spinny pointed out, the game itself does teach you the basics of combat, movement, power usage etc, but when those rules are broken or bypassed by new content...there is an issue. So far I have not tested content or run content where the boss mechanics are so unheard of that it appears nowhere else in the game in any way shape or form. The difficulty of the new fights in comparison (using the same mechanics) would be different sure, but at a core level, it is still the same.

Example: The only area denial boss mechanic I've seen in CO so far...is Vikorin The Blind with the steady rising of the lava and loss of stair space etc. However, you are able to utilize your travel powers relatively frequently in the fight. That specific boss fight only reaches stupidity on Elite and if it bugs itself out (in my experience).

Grond in TA, uses full/permanent travel power suppression and area denial mechanics.

Teleiosaur Cosmic Version uses area denial mechanics, in the sense that she has danger zones (tail for example).

The core elements are still present but applied in different settings.

The learning "how to" will always be a pain for everyone, however, that's how things work.

It is very rare for you to come across something new and instantly know how to beat or overcome it unless you have a serious knack for spotting patterns and mechanics or if you actually had a hand in designing it.

I think the only new thing is the Genetic Debuff that Teleios Ascendant applies and requires you to pass it onto a team mate. I've never seen that in CO until now. Not even in obscure boss battles like Clark Robinson, Olmancher or The Cyborg Pirate etc.

On the other hand, there is quite a point about the lack of preparation for the difficulty something possesses, but that is more to do with the fact that basic mobs have not been updated for On Alert levels of power. There are only one or two player mechanics which have not been updated to reflect On Alert either (but that's not going to change).

The only thing would be to update Level 35+ missions in CO, make them more challenging, so that as players head to level 40, they are more prepared for higher level and higher difficulty content.

Also, something should be done about alerts...whilst they are good to run...something needs to be in missions to make them more alluring. Alerts should be something that heroes only run a couple of times a day, not constantly.

Doing missions with the odd alert here or there would be good IMO, but that's likely an unpopular opinion.

chaelk · May 2016

Yes

as Spinnytop says,
you learn how to block(despite the evidence of a lot of people)
you know that when a word pops up above a boss, something bad is about to happen
a red circle popping up under you is never good, regardless of game.

a giant bubble pops up around the Boss, get out of there, it can't be good.
the boss suddenly starts healing after some new object/critters turn up - kill them. Valerian Scralet actually has a version fo that in alerts, which doesn't happen very often

still levelling by missions with the odd alert except when nemesis alerts come up.

Yes yo upgrade the 35+ missions, they are simple and easy. That's AT's and FF. Though Mega terak can be a problem if you AT Doesn't have a good enough block/heal.

riverocean · May 2016

Yes

theravenforce said:
The only thing would be to update Level 35+ missions in CO, make them more challenging, so that as players head to level 40, they are more prepared for higher level and higher difficulty content.

Also, something should be done about alerts...whilst they are good to run...something needs to be in missions to make them more alluring. Alerts should be something that heroes only run a couple of times a day, not constantly.

Doing missions with the odd alert here or there would be good IMO, but that's likely an unpopular opinion.

This will probably get the both of us mobbed..but I 100% agree. Alerts teach bad habits. But mission rewards are TERRIBLE. So people run the alerts..because they are easy and available. But again, they teach bad habits. So people get into a TA or face an open world Cosmic.. and are like WTF. Then you get lots of Leroy Jenkins..... chaaaaaarge!

markhawkman · May 2016

Heh, I still remember the wailing and gnashing of teeth when they introduced Liberated Mega-Destroyers... It's not often you see people complain that hard... until now.

raighn · May 2016

Yes

It certainly does train you for this stuff... Even in solo content there are numerous encounters that teach you to block Knocks & CCs... there are even a number of encounters that teach you the importance of CC (Though the current player mentality ignores this lesson)... Alerts actually do a good job at teaching team play (despite what many seem to believe, they are not simply a cakewalk, you put a group together that is missing a tank &/or healer and doesnt work together they will fail repeatedly until they learn to cooperate)... Many Open missions make heavy use of mechanics that players arn't used to in normal mission content and alerts (Percentage damage for example)...

The fault is not in the game's design, but in the mentality of most of the playerbase... The vast majority of the playerbase ignores the purpose of crowd control (all kinds, not just holds) and aims for nothing but high numbers... High damage, high resistance, high health, high healing... thats all people seem to care about... the few of us who actually do understand the purpose of crowd control get shafted in most team content because of nerfs to holds in years past and players spamming quick small knocks to stack knock resist... Knocks are not as detrimental to team play as people seem to think, a well placed knock can be a life saver for a squishy DPS or healer, sometimes even a tank needs an enemy or two knocked off of them. Holds and Knocks serve similar purposes, while Holds are a proactive form of mitigation meant to lock down an enemy before they become a threat, knocks are more reactive meant to separte a threat from their target to be dealt with easier. Each type of Knock has it's own purpose even, Knock Backs remove threats, Knock Ups give a moments respite with extra damage from the fall, Knock Tos are for tanks to group enemies up, and Knock Downs are just a moments respite (functionally the worst knock type contrary to popular belief). Even a few lesser control types that many forget even exist serve great functionality, roots and snares... Melee builds benefit greatly from snaring and rooting enimies to keep them in range to attack easier, and Ranged builds benefit from them by keeping enemies at a distance.

If the playerbase would rid themselves of this notion that Knocks are bad and Holds are worthless then the lessons the game teaches throughout your leveling experiance would properly train them for the current endgame content. So its not the fault of the game at all but the fault of the players. Forget those misguided notions and realize what the game has been trying to tell you for years...

Honestly I see the fact that the new content makes crowd control more valuable as a major plus... with people being forced to realize that crowd control is nessisary for some content, we may very well actually see some much needed fixes for the crowd control systems.

aesica · May 2016

Needs a "sort of" option. When you aren't decked out in muchkin gear, the early stuff can be pretty rough, especially for ATs. While leveling to 10, you quickly learn to be resourceful and use what few abilities you have to the fullest. The Kevin Poe fight can be especially rough unless you throw everything at him.

Then alerts happen. The first levels (10-15) can also be pretty rough, but the game gets easier as the player's level rises until htey finally hit 40. Yeah, this game actually has an inverse difficulty curve, which is hilariously bad.

raighn · May 2016

Yes

aesica said:
Then alerts happen. The first levels (10-15) can also be pretty rough, but the game gets easier as the player's level rises until htey finally hit 40. Yeah, this game actually has an inverse difficulty curve, which is hilariously bad.

That's due to the On-Alert gear changes and addition of specs... NPCs were NOT properly buffed to compensate for the higher power level of players... and due to the nature of specs and how they can do anything from barely benefit your build to catapolt you into an entirely differnt league, perhapss NPCs should have their own specs...

pantagruel01 · May 2016

Yes

raighn said:
perhapss NPCs should have their own specs...

Easier to just change the level-up tables, or introduce variance by level (VIPER mobs have that).

raighn · May 2016

Yes

pantagruel01 said:

raighn said:
perhapss NPCs should have their own specs...
Easier to just change the level-up tables, or introduce variance by level (VIPER mobs have that).

Easier yes, optimal or effective... not so much... As I mentioned Specs have their own variability to power levels that stats alone don't compare to... and with how many specs work that variance is a double edged sword as well, against some types of opponents your specs can be as good as worthless. NPCs using the same sort of power adjustment would make them both more formidable to high power builds and not go overboard against low power builds. Which is part of the core problem as to why buffing NPCs hasn't even happened... If they Buff them too much then many low power builds become unviable and even some high power builds can lose viability.... For example a Glass Cannon may be capable of putting out the damage needed to deal with buffed NPCs but may very easily spend so much time dead that their damage potential doesn't even matter, or a supertank might be able to shrug off damage enough to not care how buffed NPCs are in damage but not be able to output enough damage to them to even be considered a threat with all the bonus threat in the world. But if NPCs got things like resistance and damage debuffs like we have from our specs they can simultniously increase in power while not impacting build effectiveness to a destructive degree. Glass Cannons would have their damage debuffed to the highest degree but their ressistance wouldn't be impacted as much, while supertanks would experiance the opposite effect. And every build between would experiance vairied degrees of impact from this. But even this sort of power balance has risks... if done right it makes content harder without invalidating builds and even makes some builds more viable in most content. But if done wrong it invalidates builds or even worse possibly balances things to the point that everyone is equally effective at everything rendering every build pointless (Why build a tank if your going to take the same damage as everyone else? Why build a glass cannon if your going to deal the same damage as everyone else? That sort of overbalancing)...

theravenforce · May 2016

Yes

raighn said:
Holds are worthless then the lessons the game teaches throughout your leveling experiance would properly train them for the current endgame content. So its not the fault of the game at all but the fault of the players. Forget those misguided notions and realize what the game has been trying to tell you for years...

Honestly I see the fact that the new content makes crowd control more valuable as a major plus... with people being forced to realize that crowd control is nessisary for some content, we may very well actually see some much needed fixes for the crowd control systems.

Just wanted to address this, naturally.

Whilst I don't know for certain and in this instance I would loved to be proved wrong, but the direction in which CO's produced content is going confirms for me that there will be no improvements made to the Crowd Control system and that players will be forced to work alongside or in CC's case around the weak Crowd Control system in CO.

What makes me laugh is that content which is "designed with Crowd controllers in mind

" will always have some way to accomplish it without a crowd controller.

Why? Because it is well known the system is so fragile that outside interaction will f**k it up almost instantly.

Do I think anything will be done about despite my YEARS of crying on forums? Nope.

I hope for the sake of the player base, whatever size it is, no content is produced where Crowd Control is mandatory for progress without a much needed Crowd Control System buff.

For what its worth? I hope they DO buff the CC system so it is on par with the other play styles in CO and I hope to hell that they (whoever is in charge of the adjustments) LISTENS TO PLAYERS WHO KNOW ABOUT CROWD CONTROL and find a way to adjust Crowd Control interactions in PvP, since that is the main culprit for the series of nerfs the system has faced.

--

Anyway, back to matters people (other than myself) actually care about.

I think if players spent more time running through zones and missions and meeting interesting boss mechanics and mobs, they'd have a much easier time.

If there was ever a lair update to Destroyer Factory or an Epic Version...I would really hope players knew what to kill first to make things less stressful.

The amount of alerts I've been in and players just go for anything makes me cringe and then they wonder why they are facetiming the pavement.

raighn · May 2016

Yes

theravenforce said:
The amount of alerts I've been in and players just go for anything makes me cringe and then they wonder why they are facetiming the pavement.

I know the feeling all to well... and it seems that no amount of telling people "Attack this or that first" does anything to resolve the issue... I find myself having to deal with certain mobs alone because everyone else is blindly attacking whatever else... Like against viper mobs... I can't tell you how many times I've seen people attacking random henchmen when there are 2-3 Brickbusters and/or a Power Armor in the group... And no matter how many times I try to tell them to attack the brickbusters and power armor they won't... I've basically accepted at this point that if I'm in an alert against viper it's my job to take out the brickbusters and power armor first since no one else will... Destroyed's no one will attack the Leader Drones and everyone gets CC'd constantly...

And that last one really just exasperates the issue with the current state of CC... some mobs can actually do a better job at CC than players... sure the AI doesn't recognize CC and may break it quickly, but (at least in my personal experiance over the years) it's all to easy to pull aggro off of a CC'd ally resulting in them struggling against the CC... Not to mention the fact that blocking a CC doesnt completly block it since if you stop blocking too soon you'll be CC'd anyway, so effectively mob CCs always succeed and for longer amounts of time than player CC...

magpieuk2014 · May 2016

NO

No, it doesn't. Kevin Poe is the perfect example of this - a level 9 boss with attacks players won't have seen, whose effects aren't clear, and a game interface that doesn't do a good job of telling the player what's going on - it just wipes them out.

High end content suffers additional problems from the massive balance issues that exist at level 40, where villain attacks have to be so powerful to damage the super-optimised builds that they insta-wipe lower powered characters, from the lack of defence options (no quick dodge/move button, a block power that takes twice as long to activate as any attack power), from the need to rebuild at 40 from a levelling build to use things like ADs (which aren't required for most in-game content), and from confused dev approaches (today I will be mostly building content with the ludicrous difficulty curve of "Battlezone" circa 1980, because I can).

What that leads to is what we have: a small community of elite players going "Yay this is great" and a larger group either ignoring the content or not playing the game at all. It's not an insurmountable problem, but it would be good to see it being acknowleged.

aesica · May 2016

pantagruel01 said:

raighn said:
perhapss NPCs should have their own specs...
Easier to just change the level-up tables, or introduce variance by level (VIPER mobs have that).

Pretty much this. There's no reason they can't start mobs off weaker than they are currently for low levels, then gradually scale them up to be stronger than they are now for max levels.

markhawkman · May 2016

raighn said:

theravenforce said:
The amount of alerts I've been in and players just go for anything makes me cringe and then they wonder why they are facetiming the pavement.
I know the feeling all to well... and it seems that no amount of telling people "Attack this or that first" does anything to resolve the issue... I find myself having to deal with certain mobs alone because everyone else is blindly attacking whatever else... Like against viper mobs... I can't tell you how many times I've seen people attacking random henchmen when there are 2-3 Brickbusters and/or a Power Armor in the group... And no matter how many times I try to tell them to attack the brickbusters and power armor they won't... I've basically accepted at this point that if I'm in an alert against viper it's my job to take out the brickbusters and power armor first since no one else will... Destroyed's no one will attack the Leader Drones and everyone gets CC'd constantly...

And that last one really just exasperates the issue with the current state of CC... some mobs can actually do a better job at CC than players... sure the AI doesn't recognize CC and may break it quickly, but (at least in my personal experiance over the years) it's all to easy to pull aggro off of a CC'd ally resulting in them struggling against the CC... Not to mention the fact that blocking a CC doesnt completly block it since if you stop blocking too soon you'll be CC'd anyway, so effectively mob CCs always succeed and for longer amounts of time than player CC...

the worst example of this is the Anglerfish in Lemuria. They often travel in groups, so good luck actually seeing it coming when one is charging their hold. But more so.... either A: their hold is not broken by you taking damage or that "mash F to escape" thing doesn't actually do anything at all.

avianos · May 2016

NO

Not even in the slightest

theravenforce · May 2016

Yes

raighn said:
I know the feeling all to well... and it seems that no amount of telling people "Attack this or that first" does anything to resolve the issue... I've basically accepted at this point that if I'm in an alert against viper it's my job to take out the brickbusters and power armor first since no one else will... Destroyed's no one will attack the Leader Drones and everyone gets CC'd constantly...

This is so f-ing true. The biggest concern I have with Destroids are the Leader Drones, their CC is a relatively minor issue compared to the massive damage buff they grant their allies whilst they are still active. (That red flash they gain before engaging in combat around a Leader Drone is NOT them recognizing you, it's a damage buff, a good one as well.)

raighn said:
And that last one really just exasperates the issue with the current state of CC... some mobs can actually do a better job at CC than players... sure the AI doesn't recognize CC and may break it quickly, but (at least in my personal experiance over the years) it's all to easy to pull aggro off of a CC'd ally resulting in them struggling against the CC... Not to mention the fact that blocking a CC doesnt completly block it since if you stop blocking too soon you'll be CC'd anyway, so effectively mob CCs always succeed and for longer amounts of time than player CC...

With this...Early/Premature Blocking will completely negate NPC CC, it works on all ranks of foes. Excluding players since we are on the same level.

Bluhman made an excellent video showing this for people who don't know about it: (@ 0:15), I tend to use this block quite a bit in combat. Hasn't ever let me down! \o/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WViookszNg

NPC CC works on the old system and is incredibly strong for what it does as usually NPCs we face are largely several levels/ranks below us. (The only comparison would be players applying strong CC to Cosmics)

That's all I'm going to say on that before I get accused of ranting...or before I actually start ranting about CC.

darqaura2 · May 2016

NO

aesica said:

pantagruel01 said:

raighn said:
perhapss NPCs should have their own specs...
Easier to just change the level-up tables, or introduce variance by level (VIPER mobs have that).
Pretty much this. There's no reason they can't start mobs off weaker than they are currently for low levels, then gradually scale them up to be stronger than they are now for max levels.

There is. It's called lack of available dev resources. But I'd love to be proven wrong.

pantagruel01 · May 2016

Yes

darqaura2 said:
There is. It's called lack of available dev resources. But I'd love to be proven wrong.

It appears that there's a single set of master tables, so it's probably not very hard. The big problem is they'd have to rebalance a few things that have been balanced for the new power level.

darqaura2 · May 2016

NO

pantagruel01 said:

darqaura2 said:
There is. It's called lack of available dev resources. But I'd love to be proven wrong.
It appears that there's a single set of master tables, so it's probably not very hard. The big problem is they'd have to rebalance a few things that have been balanced for the new power level.

True. But I didn't say it was difficult. The lack of resources includes available dev time for the size of the team. That rarely has anything to do with difficulty in development.

jaazaniah1 · May 2016

Just as a test I stood next to the dino with my dps and blocked the entire time. Didn't matter; still died.

spinnytop said:
The game taught you how to block, how to move, and how to use your various powers. The game taught you everything you need to know to do TA or the Cosmics. Some folks just appear to be very stubborn in refusing to do those things, even when the game is flashing a giant flashy globe and a big red circle in their faces.

spinnytop · May 2016

Yes

jaazaniah1 said:
Just as a test I stood next to the dino with my dps and blocked the entire time. Didn't matter; still died

Don't know what to tell ya man, I actually dps and get top spots on my glass cannon and I only block when there's something to block, and on Dino the only time I die is when someone spins the thing and I get breathed on.

You think maybe you're getting the breath or the tail and that's what's killing you? Those things are pretty tough to block, especially if you're a squishy.

pantagruel01 · May 2016

Yes

jaazaniah1 said:
Just as a test I stood next to the dino with my dps and blocked the entire time. Didn't matter; still died.

I die regularly in dino, but what with sentinel mastery you often take less net damage attacking.

championshewolf · May 2016

Yes

jaazaniah1 wrote: »

Just as a test I stood next to the dino with my dps and blocked the entire time. Didn't matter; still died.

If you still died sounds like you were either standing in tail area or bite area.

roughbearmattach · May 2016

NO

Both Qwijy and and the dino have AoE attacks that knock or cancel travel powers. If you are flying, you fall, and lose blocking, and if you are knocked, you also lose blocking. If the cosmic follows this up with another attack, you just die. Happens to dozens of players at a time during each fight.

Generally, it seems better not to fly in these fights, because the danger of losing block is simply too great.

theravenforce · May 2016

Yes

I do have a question though...is the genetic debuff which removes a high amount of HP...is that meant to affect those who don't block? Because if that's the case something isn't right...

championshewolf · May 2016

Yes

roughbearmattach wrote: »

Both Qwijy and and the dino have AoE attacks that knock or cancel travel powers. If you are flying, you fall, and lose blocking, and if you are knocked, you also lose blocking. If the cosmic follows this up with another attack, you just die. Happens to dozens of players at a time during each fight.

Generally, it seems better not to fly in these fights, because the danger of losing block is simply too great.

If they follow it up with another attack you have plenty of time to re-engage block.

championshewolf · May 2016

Yes

theravenforce wrote: »

I do have a question though...is the genetic debuff which removes a high amount of HP...is that meant to affect those who don't block? Because if that's the case something isn't right...

If you mean teleiosaurus spine attack it will only affect you if you don't block. However, there is a known bug with AoRP and if it stacks up it can physically break block to make it not even work. There is a fix being worked on, but no idea if it will be implemented with the next patch or not.

biffsmackwell · May 2016

championshewolf said:

If you mean teleiosaurus spine attack it will only affect you if you don't block. However, there is a known bug with AoRP and if it stacks up it can physically break block to make it not even work. There is a fix being worked on, but no idea if it will be implemented with the next patch or not.

That's not supposed to affect you at all if you block? The way I've experienced it, if I don't block, initial hit takes out like 95% of my 14500 health, and the DoT effect kills me quickly after. If I do block, even if I block 100% of the time she's winding it up (usually because I'm already blocking from a baby attack), it takes away maybe 10% and the DoT will take me down to about 50% of my health.

This tells me that it's not an AoRP issue. But if blocking is meant to be effective for it, I certainly can't wait for that to get fixed.

biffsmackwell · May 2016

spinnytop said:
Don't know what to tell ya man, I actually dps and get top spots on my glass cannon and I only block when there's something to block, and on Dino the only time I die is when someone spins the thing and I get breathed on.

You think maybe you're getting the breath or the tail and that's what's killing you? Those things are pretty tough to block, especially if you're a squishy.

I don't think you can call it a glass cannon if you have that kind of durability. I saw you yesterday regularly standing up to Qwyjibo, taking attacks that one-shot me through a full-health block. I was also there when you spun Teleiosaurus around to the DPS side and she wiped us all with a bite... except you.

Im not laying blame on the spin, it happens, happens to me too. I'm just saying that your cannon is not glass at all. Or maybe they should strap you to the Pope's car or something.

The way you make it sound, it's like even an Inferno Archetype should be able to top the chart and not die once, and if they do, the problem is with the player. You're nowhere near the average player like you pretend to be.

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