So basically... you're criticizing something you've never tried, and you haven't tried because of something that doesn't matter in the first place (stars are not totally irrelevant, but they're not very important and they're not hard to get back).
What I'm criticizing in particular is the participation threshold aspect, combined with people complaining about not getting loot. If this really isn't a problem anymore, I suppose I could try. However!
If I show up late, say to one that's about halfway dead, is there any chance of getting enough contribution by jumping in? Or should I just watch from a distance and hope they wipe?
I don't know who told you be geared or **** off, but they are wrong. It's really getting silly that people think the gear is the thing holding them back. Really seems to be the only people perpetuating this myth are those that are in said gear, because even those of us that are geared say straight up the gear doesn't influence much. I think people seem to be confusing the gear as some huge leap in power, when the actual scale is much, much smaller.
it's been proven, multiple times in fact, that gear has little bearing on this content and that it is solely the players cooperation and ability to pay attention.
It was my understanding that it matters for tanks. While sure, there's "certain users" who will brag...uh, I mean "state" that they got credit on their 1-armed AT wearing level 10 quest gear while blindfolded, I'm pretty sure a tank needs more than that to do their part.
Anyway, I suppose I can give them a shot, but I'm pretty sure I'm walking into disappointment.
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
It was my understanding that it matters for tanks. While sure, there's "certain users" who will brag...uh, I mean "state" that they got credit on their 1-armed AT wearing level 10 quest gear while blindfolded, I'm pretty sure a tank needs more than that to do their part.
Anyway, I suppose I can give them a shot, but I'm pretty sure I'm walking into disappointment.
I don't know who inflicted this understanding on you but the difference between heroic and legion is minor at best, and the difference between legion and justice isn't much bigger. Honestly, and to be brutally blunt about it, it sounds more like you are just making excuses to not participate. The only thing that matters to tanking is that you can hold threat and you can survive well.
There isn't any bragging involved on these matters, it's just being truthful against people who continuously spout the bold faced lie that gear is a mandatory requirement.
Furthermore, the participation threshold is 100k, plain and simple. You can get that easily healing, tanking or doing damage. It's there to prevent leaches.
Once again hitting the healers in competition problem.
A Cosmic fight can too many healers/damage preventers/bubblers. If heroes are protected very well, total healing drops fast, and healing credit is hard to get.
For the record: tanking cosmics has a very high bar on both required stats to survive and player skill. It can certainly be done using heroic gear, but you can't just slap a defensive passive on a character and assume that'll be enough.
The "easy" path is strength primary, stat lots of con (mod ranks are more important here than any difference between Merc/Heroic/Legion/Justice/whatever gear), and use juggernaut spec plus the wardicator loop. Slap a defensive passive on that, pick up a r3 block, and you should have the stats to survive tanking cosmics.
(There are other ways to achieve the required levels of durability - for example, Ego primary can feed into the same loop using Guardian/Vindicator specs, or a build with enough con can forego the loop entirely without exposing themselves to getting one-shot, or, etc. I don't advise trying a dodge build, though; it's doable, but there are an unusual number of gotchas involved, and the gearing requirements are a bit absurd.)
* * *
Then there's the "have to hold threat" requirement. For some cosmics, this actually isn't necessary; both Teleiosaurus and Qwyjibo have attacks that split damage between up to three targets, and an inexperienced tank can just click block, drag the mouse off the power to make it stick on, put the main tank on follow, and still be usefully contributing to the fight. (For that matter, relatively sturdy melee DPS can sometimes save a dino run by just putting block on and sidling up next to the main tank to help split damage when one of the other tanks are dead and running back.)
Actually fitting attacks in inbetween the cosmic's hits, while still blocking all of those hits, is where the high skill requirement comes in. This takes a lot of practice, and - especially if you're at the low end of the required defenses - missing a block is frequently lethal. I've been slowly getting better at this, but I know I'm still well behind people like Silverspar in terms of having the timing down on my attacks/blocks. Still, the better you get at this, the less likely you are to have DPS pulling threat off you and wiping the team.
* * *
As for contribution credit: As a DPS, you should be able to jump in on a half-dead cosmic and still meet the participation requirements. As a tank, you probably won't be able to though. Still, if you're there from the start, the only potential participation threshold issue is if you're dog-tanking on Kigatilik and your dog spends most of the fight CCed; you have to actually take damage in order to get tanking credit. (Ditto goes for healing dog tanks; you have to be healing actual damage taken to get credit.)
What I'm criticizing in particular is the participation threshold aspect, combined with people complaining about not getting loot.
Which you have never experienced. There's nothing wrong with not liking some bit of content, but you should know what it is before complaining about it.
If I show up late, say to one that's about halfway dead, is there any chance of getting enough contribution by jumping in? Or should I just watch from a distance and hope they wipe?
There's a chance. It's obviously harder than if you show at the beginning, but really, there's no reason not to jump in. Either they're going to win fast (in which case, you might not get credit but you also haven't lost much time), or something will go wrong, it will all slow down or reverse, and you are likely to get credit.
It was my understanding that it matters for tanks.
Gear makes a difference, sure, but it's really only a big deal if you're the primary tank, because without high end gear you'll have trouble holding threat away from high end dps. Unless you've got trolls involved in the fight, the threat requirements for secondary tanks aren't all that high.
Cosmics shouldn't be made lair bosses. Lair bosses should be their own thing. Open world bosses are open world bosses. They also should be hard. Period when they weren't was more an unintended side effect of the power creep than anything else.
If I show up late, say to one that's about halfway dead, is there any chance of getting enough contribution by jumping in? Or should I just watch from a distance and hope they wipe?
I've showed up late as dps and healer at about the halfway mark on dino and kiga and got enough to get rewards, so yeah. The participation thresholds have never been very demanding.
If this was before last Thursday, the way credit works changed so it's now possible to get credit for the daily by healing or dog tanking. Other than that, unfortunately, the correct way to tank the hounds to get credit is somewhat contradictory to normal tanking practice, because the credit for damage taken works is that it's post-mitigation damage, not pre-mitigation damage (this is dumb but apparently a limitation on their tech), so if a dog hits you for 10k damage and you block and reduce it down to 500, you only get credit for 500 damage. Thus, what you actually want to do is attack as much as you can while still not getting killed. This also helps the healer get credit.
I actually know they updated the Credit system but didnt attemp until now!
Earlier I got sick of our Frost Hound tanks losing agro of the hounds, so I switched to tank role and tank succesfully with the help of the healer/Crowd Controller the dog
Got Credit
POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergiesPlaying since 1 February 2011 98+ Characters (7 ATs, 91 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
The classic thing about Grond was always "You're a level 7 newbie in the Desert, having just finished the Desert Disaster. You hear a voice behind you and suddenly you get to respawn". He hasn't really been the same since they shifted the level 5-15 areas from Desert/Canada to West Side.
I was kinda wondering about that last week. I spent a while running around the desert grinding Science mastery, and realized there is very little level difference at all. Lowest is around 17 and highest is mid 20s. Which is odd compared to MC or Canada. MC is <10 to 25+. While Canada goes from 12-ish to 35 or so. Lemuria starts high at 35-ish and can't get much higher... although it goes all the way to 42!!! VB is a lot like Lemuria in that it starts in the mid 30s and goes up from there.
The Desert... half of it might as well have the same enemy level... so yeah it kinda makes sense that certain parts were once lower level.
Cosmics are the what I look forward to when I log back in now. The wipes don't happen nearly as much anymore. As suspected, most of the difficulty was around the unfamiliarity with the new mechanics and nothing else.
Now that people know what to do, finishing these fights is a matter of not screwing up. The whining about gear and "it's too hard" has got to stop because it's outright wrong. Learn the mechanics, try out the fights *a few times*, then come back and say something constructive.
We're fighting Cosmics after all. Not bulldozing through Westside while watching tv and eating dinner at the same time. Cosmic fights should take a little bit of organization and effort. Once you learn the mechanics a little effort is all it takes.
Yeah if you want to play a central role in the fight as a main tank you'll need to rank up your block, you might need more hp, you might even have to learn how to block - OMG WHAT AN EPIC DISASTER! /uninstall now!!!
If you really do care about someone other than yourself and want to make your feedback as useful as possible then base it on your first-hand experience.
Overall, it does feel like the revamp has re-invigorated a lot of people. I certainly have a lot of fun in every fight.
And it happens again in Kiga with the crediting of the frost hound tanking and healing. The DPS were doing a too good of a job damaging Kiga and he went down in less than a couple of minutes. Most of the frost hound team didn't get their credits due.
And it happens again in Kiga with the crediting of the frost hound tanking and healing. The DPS were doing a too good of a job damaging Kiga and he went down in less than a couple of minutes. Most of the frost hound team didn't get their credits due.
Yeah, hound tanking is peculiar because to reliably get your points you have to be semi-bad at it -- gotta take a lot of damage and get healed for a lot of damage.
Nah. Dead cat bounce; a few old-timers come back for the new content, leave after a month or two, whenever they've got the Gold Thong of Invincibility of whatever it is they need to be top of the pile. Meanwhile the rest of the game quietly goes to sleep, because the 70-odd players who were dragging everyone else through Onslaught, Rampages and the rest are now camped on Kigatilik. Any OV? Telios Ascendent Queues? Fire and Ice? Nope.
None going now, nor in the past 2 hours. Cosmics are back to a four hour timer and it's all gone back to sleep again. Shh. Don't wake them old-timers up, they'll dribble.
IMO it's a good start. I would like to see future cosmics have more mechanics that require all of the trinity to do their part.
IE: Right now Kigatilik's success is very Tank dependant (though DPS can cause wipes if they start attacking the dogs/don't break cages), Qwyjibo's success is very DPS dependant (DPS not breaking the hearts), and Dino's success is very Tank/Healer dependant (positioning, not dieing to Dino's huge damage).
Unlike some people who would prefer them being lair bosses and consider the soupping up of the old Cosmics as a lazy attempt at new content, I think it works great for a superhero MMO, Bosses that are so strong and require more than 20 people to kill them.
Some server performance tweaks could be made so that it's not impossible for certain regions to run this content at certain time frames (ie. EU/South America lagging like hell during peak times). But overall I like it and would like to see it expanded upon.
None going now, nor in the past 2 hours. Cosmics are back to a four hour timer and it's all gone back to sleep again. Shh. Don't wake them old-timers up, they'll dribble.
"Nothing is happening during this small time span so clearly nothing happens ever" ...why does that sound familiar.
Yeah, hound tanking is peculiar because to reliably get your points you have to be semi-bad at it -- gotta take a lot of damage and get healed for a lot of damage.
I dunno I just did that thing you said and I crushed the participation threshold and it didn't feel like bad tanking at all - didn't take a lot of damage, and the fight was really short. Should just tell people to do that. It helps if you feel out the rhythm of the hound attacks so you can throw out attacks in between blocks ( and that's a lot easier if you've played other types of games where you do that sort of thing )
It turned out better than I expected - while everyone is all excited about it. But in a couple months, I expect it will be impossible to actually kill cosmics unless you happen to belong to a big SG that organizes cosmic killing. (Which, with a 4h cd, is kind of hard to organize ahead of time, since that's a large window to plan on days ahead of time to make sure people know to be on).
Cosmics should have been tailored to 10-15 people, not 40ish people.
I'm not happy with a lot of the mechanics, including the ridiculous large AoE 'everyone gets hit' attacks that are block or die for most characters and increasingly make con a compulsory SS choice. Especially when many of these attacks have AoEs so large you *can't even see the bubble* while fighting.
But it's the accompanying changes that really make me dislike the cosmic revamp: -Lowered zone caps -Aura sharing cap that's trivially below what a good pet build can routinely whip out, even ignoring sigils. (And of course makes people hate you for using sigils).
This right here is why character-bound currency is stupid.
For want of a tank, 40 people stand around doing nothing, hoping someone will bring one. But none of them will switch, because the rewards everyone cares about are character bound, so they all just stand there. Yay.
This is the type of content that I like if we are going to be forced to team. It actually requires strategy and cooperation. And unlike the nightmare event and rampages, the rewards are at least consistent and somewhat valuable. I also dislike the poor server/zone limits but haven't had too much of a problem getting on zones, nor have I had trouble getting credit as a healer at any point. The only problem finding teams is the relentless and unfathomable grind (to me) of the nightmare event sucking away all the players, but that isn't a cosmic issue. Now just make the rampage rewards more consistent and not subject to RNG and I will like those better, too.
I really liked the idea, but I thought the balance was off in terms of execution and the rewards were also screwed up during the event to the point that despite defeating about a dozen of the bosses, I ended up with 2/3 on the daily mission until it was reset by the game to 0/3 in the following week. Would really like to see these be toned down a bit as the amount of respawning during some of the fights (especially the dino) is ridiculous - I thought the colossus was a much more reasonable cosmic monster.
Sure, but in my opinion the giant monsters are over the top power-wise and they are not as much fun as a result. I'd like to see them able to be defeated by a large but not _huge_ team, more like the colossus.
Sure, but in my opinion the giant monsters are over the top power-wise and they are not as much fun as a result. I'd like to see them able to be defeated by a large but not _huge_ team, more like the colossus.
They are not over the top power-wise seeing as ATs can do them just fine. In fact, some of the Tanks you most often see in Cosmics (Behemoth King, Zarafa) are ATs. It's a matter of knowing when to block, when to attack, where to position yourself. I've been tanking or healing in every cosmic fight in the past 4 days, and a lot of the deaths I saw were from people standing at the wrong place (getting Dino tailed, standing in front of Kiga or right next to the tank), not blocking (Qwyji lava patches, Kiga's Snowstorm because "Hey, we have a healer, he will keep me alive, it's not like he has to block this", or dropping block too soon in the case of Dino's spikes) or complete disregard of the mechanics despite multiple people telling what to do in zone (not leaping right away at Qwyji if you are melee after his knock, ranged DPS standing apart from the group in Kiga and killing everyone when they get tombed).
Colossus require no strategy at all. 1 single tank and 1 healer and a shiton of DPS are all that is needed. What should a 2nd healer or 2nd tank do to fill relevant? Turn off orbs?
With the latest tune up to Qwyji and Kiga, every member of the triad has an important role. In fact, and this will sound like I'm one of those guys that believe the game is about me, they addressed exactly the problems I previously posted here (Tanks have to rotate Qwyjibo, DPS have to stick together and watch out for tombs at Kiga, more and more healers are getting CCs for dogs and hearts)
Hell, I'm changing my vote for this. Not giving it a 10 cause here I'm hoping Dinomom gets a revise too.
edit: eeeh seems poll is closed? Can't change vote. I give it a 9 now.
Colossus needs strategy. If all you do is smash face your DPS will be zero. He has an ARMY of minions, and his minions have CC powers, but worse are the nightmare stabilizers which give him a damage resist buff. If that buff stacks high enough he becomes virtually immune to damage. You need a team of 5 or so people keeping the rays shut down... needless to say this also requires massacring his army every time it respawns. Oh and you need to watch out for the BOOMs coming from the Colossus when portal camping. getting hit with one while trying to fight the army is death.
Colossus needs strategy. If all you do is smash face your DPS will be zero. He has an ARMY of minions, and his minions have CC powers, but worse are the nightmare stabilizers which give him a damage resist buff. If that buff stacks high enough he becomes virtually immune to damage. You need a team of 5 or so people keeping the rays shut down... needless to say this also requires massacring his army every time it respawns. Oh and you need to watch out for the BOOMs coming from the Colossus when portal camping. getting hit with one while trying to fight the army is death.
You are comparing standing next to an orb mashing F to having to align Dinomom and baby, having to rotate Monkey so that DPS can get the hearts, having to separate and CC the dogs and destroy tombs on Kiga. Please don't try to sugar coat it.
You only need 3 people to take care of orbs: 2 to DPS the mobs and a healer with bubbles on to take down the orbs. As long as you are bubbled, mobs attack won't disrupt your orb deactivation, only holds.
The BOOM has a very long tell and it won't even one shot you.
You could continue arguing that this event requires team working, but it's been 2 weeks already and everyone has done it and we know it's not the case. Zerg =/= Teamwork
I'm not saying the difficulty is equivalent. Just that failure is guaranteed if you ACTUALLY do a zerg rush on the Colossus. Sure, it doesn't heal, and it's relatively easy to avoid getting KOed.. relatively. Yeah the Boom won't one-shot you... it does 40% damage with 4 ticks of 10% damage for a total of 80%.... However, it's timed. You have around 20 minute to pound it to death. If people ignore the stabilizers, the combined DPS of the entire zone doesn't mean squat.
Actually you seem to agree with that... Your 3-man proposal for handling the stabilizers and mobs does in fact require teamwork.... most groups I've been in didn't have that level of coordination.
Lezard21: your proposed three man team won't actually work; the orbs come back up too fast. You need a minimum of two people clicking orbs.
That said, there's really no doubt that the Colossi aren't in the same league as the real cosmics. But they're closer than anything else currently in-game. Mini-cosmics? Training-wheel cosmics? Something like that. They're a nice example of a fight you can't win by having everyone smash their face on the keyboard; CO needs more things like them. Stuff that's neither really easy nor really hard.
Training-wheel cosmics? Something like that. They're a nice example of a fight you can't win by having everyone smash their face on the keyboard; CO needs more things like them. Stuff that's neither really easy nor really hard.
The are cosmics-training exercises. The devs got it right with them.
I voted 3, it was fun at first, but now; hours, and hours go by, and the trolls just continue to make sure they stay healed all the way up, forcefully spinning the ape, and the dino around to make sure it kills the dps, waiting until they're ALMOST dead to do so, and just throwing themselves at kiga in groups to make sure he stays healed up. It's infuriating, and there's nothing you can do about it, but give up, and come back later; hoping they won't be around next time.
Your 3-man proposal for handling the stabilizers and mobs does in fact require teamwork.... most groups I've been in didn't have that level of coordination.
This is an interesting comment. I've been a part of multiple 3 person squads that held down the orbs. I agree that it requires teamwork and a certain level of coordination. The interesting part, that I didn't think about until I read your comment, is that as far as I can tell we've never actually spoken to each other. It tends to be the same small pool of people. These are also the people most likely to invite me to a team so I can Sidekick to level 40 if I'm on an alt. morigosa is right in that one player can only cover 2 orbs to keep them down constantly, but it's still manageable with multiple player/vehicle combos.
So, the thing I really like about the event cosmic is that 3 competent people can give the whole group a really good chance to succeed.
The thing I really dislike about the Cosmic Revamp is that 3 griefers/incompetent/ignorant people can torpedo the whole thing.
At Kiga last night: 1. The level 36 next to me kept dieing during every ice storm, even through block. They wouldn't sidekick to 40 even though they were just barely failing to survive the attack and the extra boost would have probably been enough to keep them alive. 2. People kept rezzing the level 36 next to me. See # 1. 3. Two people insisted on standing with the dps while in tank stance. Every time Kiga suddenly turned around and took a shot at them a lot of us would die in one or two hits. It would happen so fast that a lot of people thought an ice tomb had killed them. 4. An abusively drunk forum regular decided it was a really good time to go on a belligerent tirade against one of the dog tanks. He berated the dog tank and attacked his dog until the dog tank gave up and joined the dps while still in tank role. Kiga was at 15% health. His dog followed him onto the altar. A couple people died to ice storm. The dog killed a few healers. A dps standing far away from the group on Kiga's side got ice tombed and in 30 seconds we went from win to wipe.
I would have rather seen the reset timers increased, or the rewards nerfed, before any of these fights became even more susceptible to the failure of people whose presence probably wasn't even required to win. How many "good players" do you need to overcome every "bad player" in the Kiga fight? I don't think 5 people who are selfish or stupid should be able to ruin it for 25+ people who know what they are doing. With a player cap of 50 it seems really easy to reach a point where you simply can't overcome the bad players.
Bugs aside, the mechanics are fine and the fights are fun. The main difficulty essentially amounts to "some people are bad at this game and there's nothing you can do about it", I don't think that's the best direction to go.
What if the timer was carried over to the Cosmic Revamp? The clock starts when the last dog dies the first time. Kill Kiga in 10 minutes for full reward, 15 minutes for 75% reward, 20 minutes for 50%, etc. He gets weaker as the timer decreases. So the better the group works together, the better the reward, but even a determined hardcore griefer couldn't waste 50+ hours of 25+ people's playing time as it is now.
timed is a horrible idea... you think griefing is bad now, with that mechanic they would know just how long they have to grief with no chance at reset...
timed is a horrible idea... you think griefing is bad now, with that mechanic they would know just how long they have to grief with no chance at reset...
You're probably right. I didn't want to be critical without offering some sort of solution. I actually don't think intentional griefing is the biggest problem, for what it's worth.
My complaints about the cosmics prior to this update were never they're too easy or two hard, it was that they were never up, I'd have rather that they'd fixed that before retooling them. Might have been fun to fight them once or twice before they became a mandatory 15 person group fight.
My complaints about the cosmics prior to this update were never they're too easy or two hard, it was that they were never up, I'd have rather that they'd fixed that before retooling them.
timed is a horrible idea... you think griefing is bad now, with that mechanic they would know just how long they have to grief with no chance at reset...
The timer would be for bonus rewards, not mission fail/success.
2. People kept rezzing the level 36 next to me. See # 1. 3. Two people insisted on standing with the dps while in tank stance. Every time Kiga suddenly turned around and took a shot at them a lot of us would die in one or two hits. It would happen so fast that a lot of people thought an ice tomb had killed them. 4. An abusively drunk forum regular decided it was a really good time to go on a belligerent tirade against one of the dog tanks. He berated the dog tank and attacked his dog until the dog tank gave up and joined the dps while still in tank role. Kiga was at 15% health. His dog followed him onto the altar. A couple people died to ice storm. The dog killed a few healers. A dps standing far away from the group on Kiga's side got ice tombed and in 30 seconds we went from win to wipe.
2. I wasn't up close last night, but the most likely case, people were not intentionally resurrecting him, but since mostly every healer takes the AoE advantage on the rezzes, it was a collateral. 3. Yeah, this is something I notice a lot in Cosmics and it annoys me a bit. My alt tank I'm not too confident on his aggro management, so I either switch him to Hybrid and stay with the DPS, or act simply as a meatshield for the other tanks since most of the truly damaging attacks can be shared. Whenever I see people on the tank role standing in the wrong place I call them out. If by one unfortunate accident the main tanks die, the next target will most likely be them, standing in the middle of the DPS and healers. Some correct their mistake, some stick to it. 4. I've been kinda leading the last couple of Kigas, always on Dog tank duty and when possible standing farthest away to have a good view of what's going on. While it is true that a guy was attacking the dog, he was using Life Drain to help heal the dog tank, since his healer was dieing a bit too often to a mix of snowstorms and respawn mobs, so I didn't say anything about this. The tank addressed him in a rude manner, and the Life Drainer retorted in a similar fashion. The Life Drainer stopped attacking the dog, and the tank died when his healer died again. Then the Life Drainer made a snark remark about this, and the dog tank quit. In my book, both were at fault because that childlike behaviour should be kept to whisper or any other means other than screwing over 30 other people. That's why after the reset they ended up causing, I assigned a new dog tank
I agree however on your point that 3 people can ruin it for everybody, as it was demonstrated today, by the 3 same guys that kept ranging at 30' feet, away from the DPS cluster trying to get top score, getting targeted by tombs and causing wipes. Granted on 2nd attempt they corrected this because they wanted to get the rewards, but nothing is preventing people who are not interested in Cosmic hunting at all from griefing other players. Fortunately the Palliate troll has not yet showed up again.
My complaints about the cosmics prior to this update were never they're too easy or two hard, it was that they were never up, I'd have rather that they'd fixed that before retooling them.
They were never up because they were too easy.
They were on an eight hour reset. Switch them to a one hour reset and you might have given regular players a chance to see them. I've leveled 88 toons to 40 at this point, I've done most of my final leveling on monster island, and I've seen the cosmics exactly four times in five years, Qwyjibo twice, and Kigatilic and Teleiosaurus exactly once. All of those sightings are from the last two years when I suppose interest in camping them has waned, even then I only saw Teleiosaurus because someone called everyone in zone to come kill it.
My complaints about the cosmics prior to this update were never they're too easy or two hard, it was that they were never up, I'd have rather that they'd fixed that before retooling them.
They were never up because they were too easy.
They were on an eight hour reset. Switch them to a one hour reset and you might have given regular players a chance to see them. I've leveled 88 toons to 40 at this point, I've done most of my final leveling on monster island, and I've seen the cosmics exactly four times in five years, Qwyjibo twice, and Kigatilic and Teleiosaurus exactly once. All of those sightings are from the last two years when I suppose interest in camping them has waned, even then I only saw Teleiosaurus because someone called everyone in zone to come kill it.
Oh wait you are talking about the pre Cosmic revamp.
Rare hunts in every game have a long timer, hence the rare. Giving them 1 hour timer would only make them inconvenient, not rare. Hell, there are games were the Rare hunts have something from 24 to 72 hours respawn.
Your assessment is right though. On the first few years you barely saw the Cosmics because Kigatilik dropped Costume pieces and Teleiosaurus dropped the Pheromones which even to this day are very coveted. They were rare rewards, thus the long timer, otherwise the prices would have dropped and you would have seen everyone running around with Teleiosaurus Pheromones.
After Pheromones stopped dropping you could see Teleiosaurus more frequently, it was mostly killed by bored people who wanted to solo and test their uber builds. Kiga was still being farmed for the costumes I think, and the Ape was collateral, whoever killed Dino would generally move on to kill Ape just cause. The timers were kind of an artifact from the days the drops were worthwhile.
That said, there's really no doubt that the Colossi aren't in the same league as the real cosmics. But they're closer than anything else currently in-game. Mini-cosmics? Training-wheel cosmics? Something like that. They're a nice example of a fight you can't win by having everyone smash their face on the keyboard; CO needs more things like them. Stuff that's neither really easy nor really hard.
Thanks, that 's exactly what I was trying to get at. Personally I think they aimed the cosmics a bit too high. You either need a really huge team or a well coordinated still pretty darn big team, whereas the most likely realistic scenario in CO is a somewhat uncoordinated medium size team and with the other cosmics that just leads to frustration. For an event only challenge they are ok, but for a persistent encounter they are a bit too hard. They are also deadly enough that a lot of less practiced players will never really learn how to fight them because they hardly survive for more than 30 seconds between respawns. I'd rather see more cosmics that are about the same difficulty and coordination required as the colossus, which seem to work quite well.
That said, there's really no doubt that the Colossi aren't in the same league as the real cosmics. But they're closer than anything else currently in-game. Mini-cosmics? Training-wheel cosmics? Something like that. They're a nice example of a fight you can't win by having everyone smash their face on the keyboard; CO needs more things like them. Stuff that's neither really easy nor really hard.
Thanks, that 's exactly what I was trying to get at. Personally I think they aimed the cosmics a bit too high. You either need a really huge team or a well coordinated still pretty darn big team, whereas the most likely realistic scenario in CO is a somewhat uncoordinated medium size team and with the other cosmics that just leads to frustration. For an event only challenge they are ok, but for a persistent encounter they are a bit too hard. They are also deadly enough that a lot of less practiced players will never really learn how to fight them because they hardly survive for more than 30 seconds between respawns. I'd rather see more cosmics that are about the same difficulty and coordination required as the colossus, which seem to work quite well.
I am trying to be impartial, even though I personally love the challenge the cosmics bring, but I sincerely cannot understand all this talk about Collosi requiring teamwork or being a challenge. I get the feeling that the people who believe this either play during EU morning when very few people are online or started participating in the event this week after everyone else had farmed what they needed/wanted.
During the first week and a half in which I farmed the costumes, I never was on a fail gate. There was no organization at all either, once enough zerg amassed, everyone started DPSing the first wave, the 2nd wave and the Collosi until a group of people noticed "wait, my 120% Crit Severity Dragon's Wrath is doing 100 on crit. Boss has 19 stacks. No one is on orbs. oh well I'll give it 2 more mins and if nobody else goes, I'll go", until 2 or 3 other people went through the same thought process and they started doing the orbs.
As someone else already commented, people were doing orbs without even talking which each other. Teamwork and coordination do not exist without communication, what is happening is people reaching the same conclusion in order to not keep wasting their time. Some people take more time to reach that conclusion than others. Some never reach it.
Setting the bar of cosmics this high has a positive effect on the community too, a lot of people are respecing and working to improve their builds, or farming gear, because gear now has a purpose, a content that makes it worth having better gear for (even though it can be perfectly done in Heirloom gear).
you've never been in special forces, have you? at the level of training they go through, you don't need ANY communication to operate and coordinate as part of a team - each member of the team can almost predict each other's movements before they happen and react accordingly
after playing together for so long, quite a few gamers can do the same thing
Personally I think they aimed the cosmics a bit too high. You either need a really huge team or a well coordinated still pretty darn big team, whereas the most likely realistic scenario in CO is a somewhat uncoordinated medium size team and with the other cosmics that just leads to frustration.
They actually aim those cosmics on the low bar on the first release, and those cosmic were buff the following update. In terms of coordination, as long as all roles understand their role and know what they're suppose to do during the cosmic fight, then it will go smoothly. There is a review before each match since we keep getting new comers but they learn very quickly and they tend to not mess things up, to an extend.
Colossus fight are a walk in a park in comparison since it doesn't take much to disable the orbs and all. If there is such a middle group in difficulty, I would say that Rampages like Ice & Fire and Gravitar would help teach the players about awareness, blocking, and team work.
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Caliga's PRIMUS Database! --XXX--The Caliga Build: Threatening Haymakers! --XXX-- Caliga and Conquer fanart!
If I show up late, say to one that's about halfway dead, is there any chance of getting enough contribution by jumping in? Or should I just watch from a distance and hope they wipe? It was my understanding that it matters for tanks. While sure, there's "certain users" who will brag...uh, I mean "state" that they got credit on their 1-armed AT wearing level 10 quest gear while blindfolded, I'm pretty sure a tank needs more than that to do their part.
Anyway, I suppose I can give them a shot, but I'm pretty sure I'm walking into disappointment.
I don't know who inflicted this understanding on you but the difference between heroic and legion is minor at best, and the difference between legion and justice isn't much bigger. Honestly, and to be brutally blunt about it, it sounds more like you are just making excuses to not participate. The only thing that matters to tanking is that you can hold threat and you can survive well.
There isn't any bragging involved on these matters, it's just being truthful against people who continuously spout the bold faced lie that gear is a mandatory requirement.
Furthermore, the participation threshold is 100k, plain and simple. You can get that easily healing, tanking or doing damage. It's there to prevent leaches.
Silverspar on PRIMUS
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A Cosmic fight can too many healers/damage preventers/bubblers. If heroes are protected very well, total healing drops fast, and healing credit is hard to get.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
The "easy" path is strength primary, stat lots of con (mod ranks are more important here than any difference between Merc/Heroic/Legion/Justice/whatever gear), and use juggernaut spec plus the wardicator loop. Slap a defensive passive on that, pick up a r3 block, and you should have the stats to survive tanking cosmics.
(There are other ways to achieve the required levels of durability - for example, Ego primary can feed into the same loop using Guardian/Vindicator specs, or a build with enough con can forego the loop entirely without exposing themselves to getting one-shot, or, etc. I don't advise trying a dodge build, though; it's doable, but there are an unusual number of gotchas involved, and the gearing requirements are a bit absurd.)
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Then there's the "have to hold threat" requirement. For some cosmics, this actually isn't necessary; both Teleiosaurus and Qwyjibo have attacks that split damage between up to three targets, and an inexperienced tank can just click block, drag the mouse off the power to make it stick on, put the main tank on follow, and still be usefully contributing to the fight. (For that matter, relatively sturdy melee DPS can sometimes save a dino run by just putting block on and sidling up next to the main tank to help split damage when one of the other tanks are dead and running back.)
Actually fitting attacks in inbetween the cosmic's hits, while still blocking all of those hits, is where the high skill requirement comes in. This takes a lot of practice, and - especially if you're at the low end of the required defenses - missing a block is frequently lethal. I've been slowly getting better at this, but I know I'm still well behind people like Silverspar in terms of having the timing down on my attacks/blocks. Still, the better you get at this, the less likely you are to have DPS pulling threat off you and wiping the team.
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As for contribution credit: As a DPS, you should be able to jump in on a half-dead cosmic and still meet the participation requirements. As a tank, you probably won't be able to though. Still, if you're there from the start, the only potential participation threshold issue is if you're dog-tanking on Kigatilik and your dog spends most of the fight CCed; you have to actually take damage in order to get tanking credit. (Ditto goes for healing dog tanks; you have to be healing actual damage taken to get credit.)
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Hopefully lairs is what's being updated next.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I actually know they updated the Credit system but didnt attemp until now!
Earlier I got sick of our Frost Hound tanks losing agro of the hounds, so I switched to tank role and tank succesfully with the help of the healer/Crowd Controller the dog
Got Credit
The Desert... half of it might as well have the same enemy level... so yeah it kinda makes sense that certain parts were once lower level.
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Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Now that people know what to do, finishing these fights is a matter of not screwing up. The whining about gear and "it's too hard" has got to stop because it's outright wrong. Learn the mechanics, try out the fights *a few times*, then come back and say something constructive.
We're fighting Cosmics after all. Not bulldozing through Westside while watching tv and eating dinner at the same time. Cosmic fights should take a little bit of organization and effort. Once you learn the mechanics a little effort is all it takes.
Yeah if you want to play a central role in the fight as a main tank you'll need to rank up your block, you might need more hp, you might even have to learn how to block - OMG WHAT AN EPIC DISASTER! /uninstall now!!!
If you really do care about someone other than yourself and want to make your feedback as useful as possible then base it on your first-hand experience.
Overall, it does feel like the revamp has re-invigorated a lot of people. I certainly have a lot of fun in every fight.
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Spectre beats Eido in an SG run: VIDEO HERE
And it happens again in Kiga with the crediting of the frost hound tanking and healing. The DPS were doing a too good of a job damaging Kiga and he went down in less than a couple of minutes. Most of the frost hound team didn't get their credits due.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
IE: Right now Kigatilik's success is very Tank dependant (though DPS can cause wipes if they start attacking the dogs/don't break cages), Qwyjibo's success is very DPS dependant (DPS not breaking the hearts), and Dino's success is very Tank/Healer dependant (positioning, not dieing to Dino's huge damage).
Unlike some people who would prefer them being lair bosses and consider the soupping up of the old Cosmics as a lazy attempt at new content, I think it works great for a superhero MMO, Bosses that are so strong and require more than 20 people to kill them.
Some server performance tweaks could be made so that it's not impossible for certain regions to run this content at certain time frames (ie. EU/South America lagging like hell during peak times). But overall I like it and would like to see it expanded upon.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Nearly the weekend, so I can have another go.
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Cosmics should have been tailored to 10-15 people, not 40ish people.
I'm not happy with a lot of the mechanics, including the ridiculous large AoE 'everyone gets hit' attacks that are block or die for most characters and increasingly make con a compulsory SS choice. Especially when many of these attacks have AoEs so large you *can't even see the bubble* while fighting.
But it's the accompanying changes that really make me dislike the cosmic revamp:
-Lowered zone caps
-Aura sharing cap that's trivially below what a good pet build can routinely whip out, even ignoring sigils. (And of course makes people hate you for using sigils). This right here is why character-bound currency is stupid.
For want of a tank, 40 people stand around doing nothing, hoping someone will bring one. But none of them will switch, because the rewards everyone cares about are character bound, so they all just stand there. Yay.
Best. Gameplay. Evar.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
Colossus require no strategy at all. 1 single tank and 1 healer and a shiton of DPS are all that is needed. What should a 2nd healer or 2nd tank do to fill relevant? Turn off orbs?
With the latest tune up to Qwyji and Kiga, every member of the triad has an important role. In fact, and this will sound like I'm one of those guys that believe the game is about me, they addressed exactly the problems I previously posted here (Tanks have to rotate Qwyjibo, DPS have to stick together and watch out for tombs at Kiga, more and more healers are getting CCs for dogs and hearts)
Hell, I'm changing my vote for this. Not giving it a 10 cause here I'm hoping Dinomom gets a revise too.
edit: eeeh seems poll is closed? Can't change vote. I give it a 9 now.
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You only need 3 people to take care of orbs: 2 to DPS the mobs and a healer with bubbles on to take down the orbs. As long as you are bubbled, mobs attack won't disrupt your orb deactivation, only holds.
The BOOM has a very long tell and it won't even one shot you.
You could continue arguing that this event requires team working, but it's been 2 weeks already and everyone has done it and we know it's not the case. Zerg =/= Teamwork
Actually you seem to agree with that... Your 3-man proposal for handling the stabilizers and mobs does in fact require teamwork.... most groups I've been in didn't have that level of coordination.
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That said, there's really no doubt that the Colossi aren't in the same league as the real cosmics. But they're closer than anything else currently in-game. Mini-cosmics? Training-wheel cosmics? Something like that. They're a nice example of a fight you can't win by having everyone smash their face on the keyboard; CO needs more things like them. Stuff that's neither really easy nor really hard.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
So, the thing I really like about the event cosmic is that 3 competent people can give the whole group a really good chance to succeed.
The thing I really dislike about the Cosmic Revamp is that 3 griefers/incompetent/ignorant people can torpedo the whole thing.
At Kiga last night:
1. The level 36 next to me kept dieing during every ice storm, even through block. They wouldn't sidekick to 40 even though they were just barely failing to survive the attack and the extra boost would have probably been enough to keep them alive.
2. People kept rezzing the level 36 next to me. See # 1.
3. Two people insisted on standing with the dps while in tank stance. Every time Kiga suddenly turned around and took a shot at them a lot of us would die in one or two hits. It would happen so fast that a lot of people thought an ice tomb had killed them.
4. An abusively drunk forum regular decided it was a really good time to go on a belligerent tirade against one of the dog tanks. He berated the dog tank and attacked his dog until the dog tank gave up and joined the dps while still in tank role. Kiga was at 15% health. His dog followed him onto the altar. A couple people died to ice storm. The dog killed a few healers. A dps standing far away from the group on Kiga's side got ice tombed and in 30 seconds we went from win to wipe.
I would have rather seen the reset timers increased, or the rewards nerfed, before any of these fights became even more susceptible to the failure of people whose presence probably wasn't even required to win. How many "good players" do you need to overcome every "bad player" in the Kiga fight? I don't think 5 people who are selfish or stupid should be able to ruin it for 25+ people who know what they are doing. With a player cap of 50 it seems really easy to reach a point where you simply can't overcome the bad players.
Bugs aside, the mechanics are fine and the fights are fun. The main difficulty essentially amounts to "some people are bad at this game and there's nothing you can do about it", I don't think that's the best direction to go.
What if the timer was carried over to the Cosmic Revamp? The clock starts when the last dog dies the first time. Kill Kiga in 10 minutes for full reward, 15 minutes for 75% reward, 20 minutes for 50%, etc. He gets weaker as the timer decreases. So the better the group works together, the better the reward, but even a determined hardcore griefer couldn't waste 50+ hours of 25+ people's playing time as it is now.
Optional timed objectives seem fun though.
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Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
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Rare hunts in every game have a long timer, hence the rare. Giving them 1 hour timer would only make them inconvenient, not rare. Hell, there are games were the Rare hunts have something from 24 to 72 hours respawn.
Your assessment is right though. On the first few years you barely saw the Cosmics because Kigatilik dropped Costume pieces and Teleiosaurus dropped the Pheromones which even to this day are very coveted. They were rare rewards, thus the long timer, otherwise the prices would have dropped and you would have seen everyone running around with Teleiosaurus Pheromones.
After Pheromones stopped dropping you could see Teleiosaurus more frequently, it was mostly killed by bored people who wanted to solo and test their uber builds. Kiga was still being farmed for the costumes I think, and the Ape was collateral, whoever killed Dino would generally move on to kill Ape just cause. The timers were kind of an artifact from the days the drops were worthwhile.
So as you can see, Cosmic revamp was well due.
During the first week and a half in which I farmed the costumes, I never was on a fail gate. There was no organization at all either, once enough zerg amassed, everyone started DPSing the first wave, the 2nd wave and the Collosi until a group of people noticed "wait, my 120% Crit Severity Dragon's Wrath is doing 100 on crit. Boss has 19 stacks. No one is on orbs. oh well I'll give it 2 more mins and if nobody else goes, I'll go", until 2 or 3 other people went through the same thought process and they started doing the orbs.
As someone else already commented, people were doing orbs without even talking which each other. Teamwork and coordination do not exist without communication, what is happening is people reaching the same conclusion in order to not keep wasting their time. Some people take more time to reach that conclusion than others. Some never reach it.
Setting the bar of cosmics this high has a positive effect on the community too, a lot of people are respecing and working to improve their builds, or farming gear, because gear now has a purpose, a content that makes it worth having better gear for (even though it can be perfectly done in Heirloom gear).
after playing together for so long, quite a few gamers can do the same thing
Colossus fight are a walk in a park in comparison since it doesn't take much to disable the orbs and all. If there is such a middle group in difficulty, I would say that Rampages like Ice & Fire and Gravitar would help teach the players about awareness, blocking, and team work.