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High Noon at Snake Gulch Discussion Thread
kaiserin
Posts: 3,089 Cryptic Developer
Please use this thread to discuss changes made to Snake Gulch for this PTS update.
Snake Gulch
New Event: High Noon at Snake Gulch
Strange happenings are going down in Snake Gulch. Belle Steele has some info, she can be found in the rencen event NPC area.
During this event Snake Gulch will become a giant open mission.
Phase 1: Strange Transmissions
Transmitters have popped up all over Snake Gulch, guarded by liberated Cowboy Robots. Shutting down these transmitters will trigger the next phase of the open mission.
Phase 2: Rise of the Machines
Defeat the liberated Mechanon Preacher, keep the transmission towers shut down.
During this phase three towers will become active, heavily guarded by Mecahnon robots. While active these towers will provide heavy bonuses to the liberated Mechanon Preacher boss. Players will have to split up and keep the towers shut down.
As the Mechanon Preacher's health drops, the towers will be reinforced by tougher and more iconic enemies.
Tower Bonuses:
Increased boss damage and resistance.
Heavy resistance, dodge, healing and damage debuff on players.
%Health damage aura.
When a tower is active a red godbeam will emit from it as well as a red pulsing tell from the drones that hover above the liberated preacher. While inactive the beam will be blue and the drones will not pulse.
We are still going over boss attacks, damage output and open mission crediting. Our main point of testing right now is ensuring all of the open mission stages work properly.
Currently the open mission is planned to give out UNTIL Recognition, SCR, some of the drops from the Asciing for Trouble open mission, and a couple unique drops to the event. This is subject to change.
High Noon Changes
Asciing for Trouble Open Mission Revision
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Bug
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Snake Gulch
New Event: High Noon at Snake Gulch
Strange happenings are going down in Snake Gulch. Belle Steele has some info, she can be found in the rencen event NPC area.
During this event Snake Gulch will become a giant open mission.
Phase 1: Strange Transmissions
Transmitters have popped up all over Snake Gulch, guarded by liberated Cowboy Robots. Shutting down these transmitters will trigger the next phase of the open mission.
Phase 2: Rise of the Machines
Defeat the liberated Mechanon Preacher, keep the transmission towers shut down.
During this phase three towers will become active, heavily guarded by Mecahnon robots. While active these towers will provide heavy bonuses to the liberated Mechanon Preacher boss. Players will have to split up and keep the towers shut down.
As the Mechanon Preacher's health drops, the towers will be reinforced by tougher and more iconic enemies.
Tower Bonuses:
Increased boss damage and resistance.
Heavy resistance, dodge, healing and damage debuff on players.
%Health damage aura.
When a tower is active a red godbeam will emit from it as well as a red pulsing tell from the drones that hover above the liberated preacher. While inactive the beam will be blue and the drones will not pulse.
We are still going over boss attacks, damage output and open mission crediting. Our main point of testing right now is ensuring all of the open mission stages work properly.
Currently the open mission is planned to give out UNTIL Recognition, SCR, some of the drops from the Asciing for Trouble open mission, and a couple unique drops to the event. This is subject to change.
High Noon Changes
- Increased the amount of damage deadly terrain does.
- Slightly lowered the amount of health the sub-bosses have.
- Slightly lowered the amount of health the Black Hats have.
- Updated the daily mission reward to give a choice between Snake Bucks, Quesitonite or SCR.
- Set spawns to have a static 60 second respawn instead of adjusting to defeat speed.
- Added a bigger graphical tell when the damage field on the towers is up.
- Fixed Liberator not despawning on mission failure.
- Defending Cowboy robots will be most hostile to players.
- The tower buffs will gradually build up over 20 seconds.
- Drones can no longer be targeted.
- Increased range on the tower buffs.
- Liberator's main attacks can now be split among 2 people
- Added Iron Horse vehicle to the debugger.
- Fixed a hole in the tower geometry.
- New Ascii Oakley desert loading screen.
- When hit by multiple lassos from Cowboy robots, it's no longer possible to get flung around like a pingpong ball by each one. There will be a small grace period where you cannot be affected.
- Fixed a bug where Cowboy Lasso ignored knock resistance.
- Blocking Cowboy Lasso will now prevent the knock.
- Added Wires costume to the event store.
- Added Implants costume to the event store.
- Added many action figures to the event store.
- Added Flintlock Pistol weapon skin to the event store.
- Added Pickaxe weapon skin to the event store.
- Added perks for defeating liberated cowboy robots, for completing the open mission, for obtaining the event auras and for obtaining the event devices.
Asciing for Trouble Open Mission Revision
- The open mission Asciing For Trouble is being reviewed and has been changed to use level scaling tech.
- Ascii Oakley has had a few new powers added to her to flesh out her attack sequences. Her damage, effects and health are still being adjusted.
- Ascii Oakley will no longer react to hit animations and will cancel out many debuff fx on her so she's visible when numerous players are attacking.
- Changed all of the mission drop items in the Snake Gulch area to automatically go into your bag to prevent the item ! fx from eating up too many fx draw calls when there are a bunch of people in that area.
- Added Nanomachine Pheromones, Yodel, Branding Iron and Lasso devices to the debugger High Noon store.
- Added Revolver weapon skin to the debugger High Noon store.
- Added Military Pose emote to the debugger High Noon store.
- Added Whistling and Quicksilver auras to the debugger High Noon store.
- Added Ascii's Precision mod to the debugger High Noon store.
- Updated the reward table for this mission to give out more Unity tokens and to give some SCR tokens at high level.
- Updated the reward table to give out Ascii mods and the newly added emotes and costumes.
- New Loading Screen art.
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Post edited by kaiserin#0958 on
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Comments
-Sterga
Any takers? I usually can play on weeknights from 4-7 server time.
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Asciing for Trouble either has to strict a score requirement for the rewards and/or the player with the highest score gets more mods.
BUG: Mechanon Liberator and his drones do not despawn when the OM is failed. Their aoe makes it difficult to approach one of the nearby transmitters.
BUG: Towers disappear briefly when the OM is failed and reappear when the mission restarts. It's just kinda weird... muh immersion!
BUG: NPCs guarding transmitters have some aggro issues. If I'm further away than ~50 feet from the Transmitter, they wont aggro to me ( literally spamming assault rifle on them right now from this range and they refuse to aggro ). Inside of that range they aggro like they should, but if I move out of that range after that they de-aggro and reset completely. Tested with lvl 40 and lvl 20. Note: Just want to highlight that the aggro range is tied to the Transmitter, rather than the NPCs themselves - I can be in an NPC's face, but if I'm too far from the transmitter they won't aggro.
BUG: Some transmitters do not appear to activate ( i.e. become interactable ) properly:
Locations:
329, -156, 704
-216, -220, 820
218, -128, 571
BUG: Some transmitters are shy and are not extending their little blinky antenna despite being interactable.
Locations:
129, -205, 864
296, -148, 917
365, -83, 629
672, -90, 371
Suggestion: Add a few more transmitter locations and raise the number of transmitters we need to shutdown for phase 1. 10 seems a bit low.
Suggestion: So many cool looking dual pistol animations in this area just begging to be made into dual pistol powers ;-;
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Suggestion: Please consider setting up a test time(s) and date(s) for this event as you have done with Megladon and Eidolon. This will ensure large group testing as intended.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Tone down Micro Missile damage, anyone who is not a tank cannot survive it even with healers spamming on them. We tested to see if it can be shared, didn't notice any different when we all piled into it. Had some limited success trying to run away, or use cover.Nvm, figured out that using LOS to avoid death by missile is the thing to do. I like itAdd a delay to the buff from the towers so they don't get applied the second the tower becomes active.
Add a wireframe tell to the second part of the Micro Missile attack ( when it's actually dealing damage ) so people know where not to stand. It's a bit frustrating when you rush over to heal someone and accidentally bumble into the invisible death zone.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
DRONES:
I found that it was confusing for the Mechanon Drones to be mobs, but immune to damage. I thought that after turning off a tower, they would be damageable, but still no. It isn't a big deal, but seems like players new to event will waste time trying to fight or CC them.
Could the Drones be made into objects? Could there be some way to message that they aren't simply mobs with 2200 health?
Could they give the "IMMUNE" feedback in yellow letters when hit?
MISSION FAILURE:
When you fail the mission, nothing happens at all. The Liberator just stands there until mission reset, and then fades out.
Add some animation, voiceover, something for when the mission fails.
Maybe a swarm of cowboy robots fly up into space, led by the liberator
TOWERS
Make the shutdown timer a bit faster, and definitely add some delay between when a tower goes back and when its drone gets powered back up. This time must be longer than the time it takes to shut down a tower.
Thanks.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
The circles marking the towers on the map do not line up with their actual locations.
BUG: Tower Mobs
Aside from their non-aggro, they stay put after a failed mission. Towers fade out, but mobs remain.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
GROND
He shows up during the fight, on his regular circuit.
Maybe . . . this is a bad thing?
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
I really love how this mission is shaping up.
*Travel powers work and actually matter! YAY YAY YAY
*Mechanics have some complexity, but nothing too crazy. It is more than tank-and-spank
*Teamwork is needed, but seems like there will be wiggle room for some mistakes
*Less powerful heroes can work on the towers, still contribute and earn rewards
*Lots of different things to do--the heroes have to split up to win; everyone can't dogpile on the boss
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
There are add mobs that spawn/wander near the liberator, so some players will have to concentrate keeping those at bay. There is only a 20 minute timer to defeat the liberator after you take out the transmitters and defeat the gunslingers. 20 minutes is too short, especially when it takes 12 seconds to shut down a tower and the shutdown time is only 30 seconds with no way to sync the tower shutdowns.
This means that at least one drone is always active. Each drone has a specific buff and color; I can only guess that the red one buffs his damage, the blue one buffs his defense (or energy) and the green one buffs his HP, much like the red orbs do for Eidolon. However, since the drones cannot be CC'd it makes it very hard (if not impossible) to defeat the Liberator in time. Even though we had a small test group, we should have been able to damage the Liberator when the towers were down; we barely tickled him.
The liberated robots that spawn near the towers are like the ones from the Dr. Silverback/Microman mission with the burning citizens; these robots are supposed to become upgraded when the Liberator loses significant health. These robots respawn when the towers start their cooldown and there are other robots that may wander/spawn in just for kicks. This means that defending the towers should count towards contribution during the event and is very important; a mass bumrush to attack the Liberator will result in a mass wipe.
Suggestion:
Please consider decreasing the tower shutdown timer to 5 seconds and increasing the time the towers are shut down from 45 secs to 2 minutes. That would give the Liberator attack team time to do some damage before the tower cooldowns begin. Also, since Grond has taken an interest in the event, perhaps he could help out. (Wishful thinking, I know..)
Bug:
High Noon Snake Gulch: Towers
The Liberated Robots that spawn at the towers continually say that they have been upgraded when their upgrades don't happen. Since we did not significally damage the Liberator, the robots should not be talking about upgrading. Their version remained at 2.0 the entire time.
The problem is that once it goes live, I figure that the players at the towers will be using AoEs themselves while fighting the robots and so risk getting Grond's attention themselves.
Suggestion:
Give players points for shutting down the towers.
Like how they could get points during the nightmare invasion for shutting down the orbs.
That might already be part of the plan, but can't hurt to mention it.
One buffs the Liberator, one debuffs heroes, other causes AoE damage in huge radius.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Using my failing memory to the best, there are two or three missions that utilize the top of that little hill. One from belle for the antenna (just far enough away) and I think the dueling cowboys, and they are on the other hill top. Possibly a third dealing with the special mobs up there, the mechanon preachers. (Found a few wandering). Gunslingers have a mission too, and are a bit of a pain to find to get the rare quest drop. The few that are not accessible now could be relocated..
Only other spot I saw was tower by the spawn point. Prime sheriff deputy and ranch hand territory. May need to populate more of these spawns up one level on the hill and adjust the circlet so there's no 20 minute death tap. Location is nice and bad at the same time so close to the spawn
Seems mildly safe but could use a look at if anyone is running through snake gulch soon.
Skull level, though, so not sure how much that really matters as long as the players know what they are doing.
I am concerned about the long-term attention that this mission will get though.
It seems that it's going to require cosmic-like numbers but I am not sure that the rewards will attract those numbers over a long period of time.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I was wondering if this meant that ASCIIng for trouble would be gone, and, as mentioned earlier making it an event should push interest up.
Makes sense. Went to MC on test and saw Belle Star standing around with her store containing all of the usual event-type offerings, I just never put two and two together for whatever reason.
Thanks.
Really good stuff, and it will be nice testing in a larger group.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
Now might be a good time to retire the Destroid Surge Protector device.
Sniper Rifle can outrange the Deadly Terrain effect from the Mechanon Drone, if you're sniping the Liberator from the opposite side of the drone.
Extend the drone range.
The Mechanon Liberator responds poorly to ranged combat. The AI leads with Micro Missiles II, then looks to use the cone hold attack. If it cannot use the cone hold (which has limited range), the Liberator does not cycle through its other attacks and instead idles until its next Micro Missiles II volley.
Adjust the attack cycle, or extend the cone hold to 120 feet.
The windup for Giant Punch is fast; noticeably faster than Qwyjibo's punch or Teleiosaurus's bite. For how much damage it can deal (especially with the buff/debuff drones active), it is difficult to block on reflex. There is also very little delay between consecutive punches.
Slow the activation of Giant Punch to give tanks an opportunity to block it, and decrease the frequency to allow more attack time between hits.
I hope I can be there for the next testing. Tomorrow, I think.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
BUG: NPCs guarding Transmitters still have their short aggro range which prevents them from responding to long range threats.
BUG: NPCs guarding towers have the same issue dealing with long range threats. Players at 100 range can dps the NPCs with impunity.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
TOWER MINIBOSSES
The tower minibosses are a cool and interesting addition to the event. Maybe have some tweaks:
Have the upgraded supervillians show up during phase 3 (after getting through one health bar of Liberator). I don't remember all their names, but it includes ones like the Black Hats.
The upgraded legendaries, like ASCII Oakley, should still appear in the final phase, but gosh do they do too much damage. Foxi suggested maybe adding more holds/knocks, and I would add things like energy drain perhaps, and then dramatically lower the damage they deal. I would say that their powerful attacks need to do 50% less damage. Otherwise, each tower might require a dedicated healer, which would make forming a workable teamup too hard.
Keep the high health, high defenses, but lower the damage.
Are there going to be rewards for defeating the legendary minibosses: Desert Snake, ACSII Oakley, ProspectorA? Would they be added to the whole teamup rewards? Will they instead have drops for the folks that defeat them?
LIBERATOR
Generally like the mechanics for the Liberator. Damage for the stomp/smash/punch attack seems too high for an event-level boss. Lots of folks are going to show up, largely not optimized level 40 heroes. Again, keep the high health and defenses, but maybe tone the damage on this one attack a bit (maybe 10% less).
Keep up the good work.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
A minor revision to the Destroid Surge Protector could help prevent it from causing balance issues during events or endgame content that feature its resisted damage types. Maybe disable its functionality in Open Missions, similar to how the QWZ +resist devices work.
TOWERS
The tower DoT mechanic needs work--players won't know where it is coming from ("invisible entity"), how to counter it--it will just seem like a random ding that keeps you from deactivating towers. In addition, it will make rezzing near towers impossible if there are mobs around. That will also be incredibly frustrating.
Please change this mechanic. The masses of mobs are already a significant barrier, and if a tower team distracts or CCs a bunch, let them deactivate the tower, instead of punishing them for not just defeating waves and waves of robots. There should be more than one way to do this. Maybe there would be a way to indicate to players how to deal with this?
As noted in the playtest, the mobs respawn too fast, such as to make it very unsatisfying to try to blast them as a strategy.
Our playtest tower teams included groups of 3-4 level 40 toons used to Q Warzone and such. A server event will attract a wide range of players and heroes, with a much lower median power level and play skill. The event will currently steamroll them.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
The mobs can be CC'ed, however, it wont be easy to do. They have to be CC'ed long enough for someone to disarm the tower and enough mobs must be left so the towers dont start dinging players with the DoT.
Suggestion: Please consider having the entire tower glow a certain color when the DoT is active; that way players can see more easily when it is actively using that DoT.
I agree that some players will be discouraged from participating in this event due to the challenge level; not being able to *pew pew* your way through an event will sidetrack and turn some people off. Even with the upcoming tweaks to the event some players will be upset of how challenging it is. However, events such as this one are supposed to be challenging and every player has the choice of whether or not to play it. I hope that the devs work in all of the zones long enough to add and/or revamp the missions and events each one offers; I'll take that over no new content anyday.
After 1 Bar, Liberated Preacher should ocasionally target 1 or multiple towers with an AoE (suggesting Orbital Cannon for muh immersion reasons). This AoE will have a range of 50feet centered around the tower, and after 5 seconds or so, will One Shot anyone inside it (like Gravitar Yellow). Thus, everyone close to the towers need to retreat for a bit.
This suggestion would be to counter the 60 second respawn that will be implemented on mobs, since 2 dedicated PBAoErs/Vehicles can clear them pretty fast.
ASCII Okaley rips them to shreds.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.