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I think most of the Smash Alerts are FUBAR
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Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
My problem isn't with the time limit, though with some bosses with damage resistance like Viper X or evasion like Kevin Poe, it's an insurmountable obstacle, my real problem is with the goons. I tried a couple of the recruiting drives today and was defeated by the goons on the outskirts. I was playing a tank, blocking, and I'd just activated my Unbreakable, but they tore through me like I was made of tissue paper. On my own I'd have pounded them but because this was an Alert mission, and because things are scaled, they did more damage combined then the villain could ever have hoped to have dealt. So why are goons so incredibly tough on Smash missions laughably easy on Burst missions but seemingly normal on grab missions? Actually, why are they even included in Smash missions at all? Do the developers really think that Rakshasa needs nine or twelve goons to go with his six or so psychic snakes? I get that they want to make things challenging, and I'm sure a nice balanced experienced team would probably have an easier time with these missions but I'm at the point now where I'm not even going to try these Smash missions unless it's the dockside dust up one. :mad:
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I know how you feel, most of the time I forget that my lvl 40's get nerfed in Alerts. As a silver player I worked hard to bring my lvl 40's up to scratch and both my tanks get destroyed. My healer usually gets one shotted by goons.
I think Smash Alerts should follow the same rule as Burst Alerts and give a damage boost, maybe not as powerful as Burst Alerts but significant enough that heroes do HEROIC damage by themselves and dont have to use a full maintain Lightning Arc to take down a single bar henchmen... -_-....
Infact all alerts should have a boost of some kind during the alert, for grabs it could be extra resources or XP on kill or increased damage.
Timed Alerts like Smashes should have a damage boost once alert bubble lifts so heroes can do what they do best...take down the villain, instead of cautiously approaching a group of goons and falling back to make sure they dont die. I realise some groups are very lucky and have decent damage dealers who tear through henchmen and eat the villain but those in my experience are quite rare...so maybe the damage buff should be increased slighly for those who are in alert made teams OR only given to Alert made teams.
I was quite suprised about Viper X's damage resistance and his damage output...I mean he's not THAT strong in SL...and his Force Cascade...boy would my Impulse love that...it ripped through my 7.4 k PFF + IDF + Protection Field + Energy Refraction and block and killed me (6.6k hp).
I hate vsing Rakshasa in Alerts due to is Psychic Worms like you said. I hate the fact that they somehow make you focus on them rather than him and they are so difficult to kill some times...and then you spend pointless time trying to click or cycle through to find him to beat him up...
Maybe as time goes on we will get more powerful?! Pfft I doubt it..the only Alerts worth doing IMO are Burst Alerts or Grabs, or an Alert with a premade team. It shouldnt be this way but it is..right now I am off for some revision
That's your problem right there. Recruiting drive doesn't require you to beat all the henchmen. Clear the stairway, and then pull the boss down the stairway. Don't hit anything else if you can help it.
What he said. If you're trying to clear all baddies you're going to fail the mission most times.
The goons I was trying to clear WERE the ones on the stairway! Mind you my team mates flew right over them and then agroed the villain and the four or so goons behind her, but that's besides the point, my toon should have been able to take out the three goons alone. If I hadn't been in an alert mission I could have.
Also, I will remind you, most of these villains in recruiting drive like to move around or have serious knock back. The Goons on the sides and back do come into play fairly regularly even if it's not intended.
I strongly believe that a big detriment to victory in Alerts is that there is no time to discuss strategy or tactics - you grab a random group of 5 players then just throw them into an Alert. Sometimes, you get 5 people who just *know* what they need to do and things work out well. Other times - you're not so lucky.
This is also why the Dockside Dust-ups and 2-minute drills are a a bit better - there's less ambiguity in what the goal is. It's also why I tend to avoid trainstoppings - nothing like having everyone stop after killing the boss but forgetting that one group that's behind him...
Yes So true.. Absolutely Bonkers if you Find you are facing Viper X and his PA minions then as they fly up to confound you with Ariel Spawn Camping on your sorry little bridge spot.
See here the Numbers of these mobs make it very rare and somewhat unfun due to how close they are
and their relative tough levels for you to be sidekicked up or down to a set level for the encounter painful.
On Viper X and often Black Fang.. near impossable without a Power Armour on your side with more AOe and a healer almost exclusivly sending you a stream as a team. .we tend to spread out more and not focus on the Boss in the Train Yard as well as Dock and Mayors park which cant be managed. on a 2 min without it
I've been on teams beating Val Scarlet and Gemini in trainyard thats it for it . .makes you with it was a GRAB insteed.. seams more fitting on a timer so low..?
What you're forgetting is that those goons are for a 5 player group, not a solo player. No, you would not get your butt handed to you by 3 goons in the main game, but yes, that can easily happen in an Alert...
What you should have done is ran to the rest of the group, pulling the mobs and getting some help...
I didn't know that. Thought I was being smart to kill them off in advance. The one time I did that it failed because we hadn't actually killed Baron Cimitiere yet.
My success rate is over 75% for Smash Alerts, and I've only had a preformed team once. I think the difficulty is about right with how short they are.
Dockside Dustup is a easy. It fails due to player error.
Trainstopping and Recruiting drive are already winnable over 50% of the time, they just take a modicum of strategy and can't be won by closing your eyes and smashing on the keys. They don't need to be worked on. They're fine.
Then I guess I've been on bad teams more often then naught. I've completed the trainstopping mission just twice after fourteen tries, I not sure of my success on Recruiting Drive but it's less then 75%, and I've even failed the dockside dustup a few times now. Usually on nemisis missions. Now I'm not the most experienced player but my toons are always able to carry their own weight and I do know how these missions are supposed to be run in theory . . . but there are four other players on the team and I have no control over them.
I've only failed multiple alerts when I drag my level 6's into them and all they have is a T0 attack and maybe a passive. Once I hit...15 or so and have a passive, form, single target, aoe, active defense, all superstats, and a tray of potions, then I rarely, if ever, fail an alert. I pug 95% of the time. If I run on a premade we finish two minute drills with 1:30 left on the clock.
I understand silvers may not have such a luxury, but playing in these alerts makes me realize just how poorly some people craft their builds. Many alerts I see players just using their energy builder, nothing else. Other times I see them cast a circle and then just sit there, pressing no other buttons.
Smash alerts are easy, if anything they should be pushing people to refine their builds.
I couldn't agree more.
For the most part, It's not the alert, Its the people who don't learn how to do them, or how to build their toons.
The learning curve isn't THAT steep. Most of you probably just got paired with bad parties.
I've had a good random team on a recruiting drive exactly once. It was hilarious how fast the boss dropped when everyone maintained proper AoE discipline. With a less decent PUG... I've won a few, but most were lost causes early on. I pretty much only enter recruiting drives for an extra shot at Mindslayer's bracers and I'm bored.
Had all of 2 successful PUG Trainstoppings, same reason.
Those two seem to be pretty much impossible for a lone player to carry a bad team. Everything else I've found to be highly doable as long as everyone pitches in as much as they can, even if for a few that's not much.
I don't mind failing missions, I've failed the Dockside Dustup a few times now, a couple of times loosing to someone else's nemisis, once to my own, and most recently to Baron Cimiti
Most of the time I fail this mission I'm playing support as well.
The other day I failed black fang as well but we had a rather unique way of doing it. We took down fang with ten seconds or so but failed to beat the level because one of the Vargulf had someone gotten into one of the shipping crates and we needed to find her and destroy the shipping crate and kill her. We ran out of time.
I'll guess, with little to no uncertainty, that the Vargulf got knocked. Which is why some people rage.
Considering the experience I've had with a character who doesn't even have what I'd call a "real" tanking passive... I'm going to have to say that this is a clear-cut case of "you're doing it wrong".
I have yet to find a group capable of defeating my Might character's Nemesis in Dockside Dustup.
Gadgeteering Nemesises have very, very irritating passives to chew through AND start with 2 bars of HP. This is mildly annoying in solo nemesis content. It is practically impossible to break through in Nemesis Smashes before the timer runs out.
Most groups are simply bad. I've already beaten Might Nemeses, but mostly they fail.
Lately i had my own Fire Nemesis in a really great group that beat here with 1:30 left .. and then another
where we failed. And less than 30s left is happened also very often.
I think I may have worded that wrong. The character is Might, but his Nemesis is Gadgeteering.
Having to bust through an entire bar of shield and then a bar of HP is just a bit too much in Dustup.
Think it also depends on the team . I had also failed recently against a Nemesis with LR where she had
over 50% life left, and then killed another in nearly 1 minute. The same with Invuln also ..
And aso did Draconis some times, however not sure if he is easier than a Nemesis with PFF.
I just don't get it - is it that people *want* to lose? Is it that people mistakenly think that we have to defeat all the mobs? Is it that people are simply so impatient that they feel they must take their lower level character in first just to get plastered since they're not a tank and have no support, (since everyone else is still back clearing that first group or waiting for someone to pull the boss)?
People probably make the mistake of thinking that they're as powerful as they are in the regular game. Little do they know they're nerfed to the point where it can take effort to kill a double bar goon never mind a three bar sucker, and there's tons of three bar goons in recruiting drive and soul siphon. I imagine these missions would still be difficult with n00bs and idiots if the heroes were at normal strength as we are on a timer of sorts, but if anyone mistakenly thinks that they're a super hero in this alert mission they are going to fail every time.
You're not the Avengers or Justice League, you're actually slightly weaker then the mystery men.
"non-indicative difficulty" is part of it. Alerts use Toughs for everything below Super Villain. (And the bosses always have Legendary status)
The thing is the color based 'conning' system only says that they're the equivalent of maybe 2 levels over you. It doesn't say "trying to solo this will ruin your day unless you have a decently optimized freeform that has multiple active defense methods".
There's additional non-indicative difficulty in that certain factions are meaner than others. The Dogz are the absolute weakest with almost no special abilities of note. VIPER is one of the nastiest with multiple abilities that ignore or reduce damage reduction from defense and defensive passives. ("Brickbuster" toughs, despite being mere Villains, are some of the most brutal mobs in the game, at least as far as trash goes)
Also on the point of defeating all mobs: on most maps you have to defeat the Villain and the escort (smash, Radiation Rumble) or defeat everything in an area to open up the next phase of the mish. The few that don't require this are outliers which suffer for it.
Sorry, this just screams unskilled player.
Even my ATS with offensive passives can reach the villain (mind you 40s). I avoid trainstopping because its longer (4 min timer or so, full clear), not because of difficulty, and smashes in general as they do nothing for 40s without a daily.
Recruiting drives are no more difficult than 2 min drills - unskilled players or bad team matchups are why these fail.
Speaking of "terrible, terrible design", eliminating xp debt is what allows a player like yourself to hit 40 and still have plenty to learn about playing the game. Criticism over something you don't quite grasp yourself, not so much.
By the time you hit 40, you should have at least experienced "tough" level mobs in Telios Tower, Moreau's Lab (Rhinoplasty), Bronze King (Mangdragalore), Therakiel's Temple (or VB itself), or ALERTS themselves. A 40 with a def passive (even if its just regen) shouldn't have issues surviving so much as killing speed.
On a side note, it takes over 200 successful smashes to hit 40 from level 6 last time I did my FF grinds. How players still can struggle with basic concepts considering that number alone is beyond me.
So it's your experience and skill that makes these missions easy? Not your level 40 toon with it's level 40 gear that helps? I have 4 level 40s myself and I don't use them on alerts because it's a waste of time. My savage character might not even be killable because of her high armour, HP, and regeneration.
I had two level 40s long before Alert came out. I've done all the missions in Millennium city, Canada, the desert, all the adventure packs and all of the comic serries, but have avoided Lumeria and probably half of the missions in Vibora Bay and monster island. I grasp the game quite well thank you. The problem is that the Alert system is vastly different from the regular game and even from each other. The mobs in Radiation Rumble are pathetically weak whereas the mobs in Trainstopping or Recruiting Drive are very tough.
Okay here's what you seem to be missing: the Alert system isn't designed for SeCKSEgai. It's designed for everyone. What that means is that it's accessible to uber elite gamers like you and too lowly n00bs like myself and is meant to please most of those players. Now if you've never played the game before and only played the Alert system then you'd probably adjust between missions and know what to expect. You'd know for example that you could handle that mob of 8 by yourself while your teammates deal with the villain in Radiation Rumble for example, or you'd realize that you need help to take out those three goons at the top of the stairs in Soul Siphon, but it's certainly something that you wouldn't know intuitively. It's something that you'd pick up through trail and error. The problem with that is that it's extremely frustrating to new players. Now if your contention is that the majority of the players are uber elite badasses like yourself then Cryptic doesn't have a problem, clearly they've built something that will please most of their customers (though not many potential future customers), However if the Alert system is designed for new gamers like myself (with only a scant full year of experience) then I think they might have some problems on their hands..
Words do not express how right you are.
Especially about the Trainstopping part. If you're a tank or healer, forget about it. Hell, even if you're a DPS, if the rest of your group turns out to have crap damage expect to lose one way or the other. It's a cakewalk if you've got some well specced build just sneezing Defile and Epidemic all over everything, but if you can't guarantee such things being in your group you might as well look elsewhere.
God forbid you get some Behemoth smacking everything out of your AoEs. Which actually happens so often you might as well plan for it.
@Xao, you still haven't shown me links of me getting flamed.
If that quote is all you've got, then how is it that you made the claim before that quote was even made
@guy
If you had even seen posts since alert hit, you'd be well aware of my stances. I don't expect people to play at my level, I've been in several MMOs before this one, let alone months to learn and understand cryptic's system.
One of the issues discussed with alerts since they launched has been who they're geared for. I've taken 3 toons to 40 relying almost solely on alerts. I've experienced it first hand plenty. Yet you automatically assume I do these on 40s only.
You claim your regen can't get past the group - as a 40 - That's where that line came from. You say it in the quote above, a level 40 that can't always get past the first wave.
You had 2 40s, I had... 6 pre alert, up to 10 or 11 now.
Doing the content doesn't mean you grasp it - otherwise you wouldn't consider train stopping "hard'.
I have lvl 40 tanks, level 40 healers, and level 40 squishy dps builds. I've run them all extensively in alerts. I've had plenty of failures in smashes along the way. But I look at where things failed, not simply complain about their difficulty.
Pugs are casual in nature, the queue system doesn't account for player powers or roles, or levels even. Yet its not uncommon to be thrust into groups of pure squishy dps ATs or 3-4 healers, all of which are at varying levels.
It's not the alerts themselves creating the difficulty (short of warlord/grav), its the team makeup, and/or the players.
A Tank needs to generate threat to protect his softer teammates. Threat gen is a concept lost on many.
A healer should be focused on supporting the tanks and dps. I've seen plenty of alerts where the healer focuses on his/her piddly damage whereas the damage dealers are struggling to survive as they aren't getting healing. In most cases, the dps would more than make up for the dmg lost to the healer actually healing since the dps could actually function efficiently in its role.
Damage needs to know its limitations. I've watched level 40 squishies run into groups of tough level enemies by him/herself only to die seconds later. Yet, they repeat said process over and over. Instead of waiting a few seconds to see if there's someone who can at least tank the alpha strike, they simply get themselves killed.
When 40s make mistakes that lowbies make, concepts aren't being learned.
I am disagreeing with you in regards to "terrible, terrible design" because you said as a 40 you couldn''t make it past the first group in a trainstopping.
Alerts are only has difficult as a team makes it. Even grav/warlord is cake if the team is capable and on the same page. The real problem is that the system creates so many teams of various levels and skills. You can't expect a team of new players under 20 to perform as skilled and experienced players of the same level.
If you're going to call me arrogant, reflect on this. On your level 40 regen, you struggle so that leads you to claim that trainstopping is too hard. This is the assumption that if it's hard for you, clearly things must be hard for everyone else - which is not the case.
However, it could have just been your wording. I've been in plenty of groups that can't make it past the first wave without a death (or several), and I've had to carry a team through to victory more times than I care to remember (hence some bitterness). And there are some groups you simply can't carry.
Yup, too many people think a Tank just means "Defensive Passive with some decent HP and Mitigation" all-the-while not taking ANY aggro enhancements or the like.
It's rare that I see an actual Tank in a PuG, instead of just a guy that likes to solo stuff without dying. And I'm not talking about Gravitar where 1/2 the DPS's will switch to their Defense Passive backups just so they can survive.
Um, good for you? I was explaining my experience because you seemed to hinge your argument based on my "not understanding the game"
Case in point.
Three of 40s are tanks, the 4th being support.
And this is the crux of our argument. An Alert should be possible to complete regardless of the team's make up. 4 healers and a DPS should have a chance at beating trainstopping otherwise it's a fault of design because by the nature of PUG you can't choose your team.
Here's an idea: assume that I know as much about the game as you do. It might make it easier to understand my what I'm saying.
Course assuming that at level 40 you might be capable of dealing with goons on your own is a fault of regular gaming experience rather then Alert gaming experience. This is because the Alert system changes the nature of the game.
It's terrible design because without the right party build and experience you will fail. My level 40 couldn't defeat the mobs on her own and my team kept dying and jumping back into the meat grinder. My experience and understanding of the game was useless at that moment.
Oh look: my point!
Exactly. Glad you at least understand the point I'm making.
Nowhere did I make the assertion that this mission is too hard for everyone, I'm sure a balanced team of experienced players would own this mission. What I'm saying is that in the Alert system, with most teams being PUG, you're not going to have a balanced team of experienced gamers usually. This makes success highly unlikely. Dockside Beatdown is almost entirely beatable in a PUG Trainstopping is not. Also, you are making the assumption that my level 40 that I spoke about was my regeneration character, it was not. That frustrating failure was with my specialist character.
And again, this is my point. It's not your lack of experience that makes the mission fail, it's not your character design, it's not your strategy, people are failing this mission because of something completely out of their control: the other people. That's bad design. I've been in a group that beat trainstopping three or four times now, mind you I've run it less then a dozen times and avoid it like the plague, but beating it for me feels more like winning a lottery then great teamwork. Sure you need everyone doing their jobs to beat it but you need to be lucky enough to get a team with the components to win first.
Not dying means you should at least be able to clear through the first wave - if you leave before that because the team is so horrid - that's understandable - but as I said, you did say your line was a 40 regen that couldn't get past the first wave.
The alerts could use improvement - but the random grouping can have disastrous results.
I mentioned having different types of 40s to illustrate I've played each role extensively, I'm not just a random dps that's never touched a healer or tank. The various experiences allow me to have a broader perspective.
With capable players filling necessary roles, every alert is a breeze, including warlord and grav. If any random group can finish an alert, it can be solo'd by a large number of builds, eliminating any significant difficulty completely.
There are exceptions - Poe and Draconis on release were just shy of impossible and could only be done by extreme damage teams because of the shield recharging almost instantaneously. Valerian and Baron can utilize their powers to shred unsuspecting targets albeit at least with baron if he's constantly hit with CC you're safe.
I have to disagree with this. The idea that Alerts must be balanced for 5 healers without any damaging attacks other than their energy builder, because people have the option to create such characters, is way off IMO>
Pugging alerts is a choice. It is not mandated by the game. If you purposefully make a choce to reduce your chances of success, that isnt the content's fault. Or should Alerts have their difficulty reduced because five people are capable of entering with empty power trays ?
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
No, I never used my regeneration Tank for Trainstopping, the disaster happened with my specialist build, and I've since rebuilt that character into a tank as well.
Agreed. But I think the disaster should come from mistakes on the player's side rather then the random grouping side. Nothing is more frustrating then loosing a mission and realizing that we never had a chance. Dealing with other's bad play is one thing but never having a chance to beat Red Winter because you just didn't have the damage output is just sad.
Your experience hasn't been called into question, you're the one assuming that I don't know anything about the game though. I've only brought up my own experience to defend my position.
I LIKE jumping right into the thick of things from off the bridge. It's very active, it feels heroic.
I LIKE that we have to be careful not to over-aggro. It means we have to think things through. You may think that conflicts with my first like, but if the whole group jumps at once, you can handle those groups.
VIPER is a problem there, yeah. Between their knocks and such, they're going to make things real tough. But it's still doable.
What is the point of a fight you can't lose? Without the threat of loss no victory feels like I actually did anything worthwhile.
Smooth out all the challenge and you suck all the life out of these fights.
By definition someone who has just started will be challenged by things that do not challenge someone with years of experience. That is kind of inherent in any game where player skill can have any impact at all. The only way for your preference, as stated here, to come into being is for player skill to be eliminated from all aspects of gameplay. We would all have to play the same build, some form of artificial lag buffer would have to be introduced to prevent an experienced player who knows whats coming from reacting more quickly than a newcomer, all player character attacks would have to be redirected at a random target in order to prevent an experienced player's understanding of target prioritization from giving him an advantage, and so on.
For what its worth, healing builds with insignificant, at best, DPS capabilities exist. I know a number of players that use them.
Personally I don't know that the average player finds missions of this sort to be very difficult. Ive not participated in the studies that you have to come to this realization. I do know that 75% of all internet statistics are made up on the spot though :biggrin:
The point that I responded to was not a claim, on your part, that alerts should be balanced for the average player. It was, "An Alert should be possible to complete regardless of the team's make up."
"Regardless of team composition," and, "assuming an average player," are not even close to being the same.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
It's possible to loose any of the Alerts. I've failed dockside dustup far more often then Trainstopping now because I play that one all the time. What I would like is around a 50% chance of beating them.