It does not help, however, when someone prematurely declares the mission a failure.
I was bored, so I decided to give this one last fling - dug up the toon I had a Fire Ant on, and prepared to immolate spiders with Incendiary Rounds (Mk 2!). I was on my way back from my second respawn when someone started shouting in Zone that the mission had failed. A lot of people bailed at that point, for another zone that "still had a chance."
When the timer lapsed, one Liberated Mega-D was at a sliver of health. Mechanon was still up, but damaged. Had people not fled, we might have pulled one out there by the skin of our spandex. As they had, well...
Yeah, I've been in a few of the regular Mega-D fights where there was only a few seconds left after it went down.
so far there has only been one fight I actually gave up on. And in that case we had 5 minutes left and 5 upgraded Ds with 16M HP... and even then I took the opportunity to attempt to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the upgrades... which are scary... Yeah, couldn't find any vulnerabilities.
I could see this kind of organization being necessary and good for something that was going to be a regular part of the game, like the old Rikti Raids at CoX, but not for a "couple of weeks a year, every hour on the hour". All you need is some twink to kill one of them early and the whole show's over. I'm skeptical on having everything hinge on something that can easily be a single mistake or a troll move.
This IS just the upgraded Anniversary situation, right? It's not permanent like the other new mishes?
Is it just me, or is Mechanon less of a threat than the Mega-Ds? I can't think of a single time he's knocked me out yet, but if I'm not careful, and don't block in time, the Mega-Ds blue bubbles can take me out. Seems to happen to many other players the same way. It'd be nice if the big villain were more dangerous than his minions.
I could see this kind of organization being necessary and good for something that was going to be a regular part of the game, like the old Rikti Raids at CoX, but not for a "couple of weeks a year, every hour on the hour". All you need is some twink to kill one of them early and the whole show's over. I'm skeptical on having everything hinge on something that can easily be a single mistake or a troll move.
This IS just the upgraded Anniversary situation, right? It's not permanent like the other new mishes?
AFAIK killing the bugs is more important than the 10% thing...
from what i've seen it appears to be going something like this
Zone 1: most likely going to win
Zone 2: Small chance of winning
Zone 3, 4, 5 and 6: No chance of winning..like at all
the reasons it's like this, despite origination to make killing them correct is because most DPS dealing players cram into zone 1, with a few in zone 2, and the rest being under manned/under powered/un-orginised in the mega D killings method.
meaning while i'm glad of the challange, it's rather...aggravting for anyone outside zone 1/2
also have been hearing a LOT of people complaining about crashing near the end of the fight...might want to look into that
In all things, a calm heart must prevail.
Member of Paragon Dawn: Because some people like friendly helpful communities.
Yeah some things are broken... no I don't use/abuse them.. where would be the fun in that?
Keep the one-shots. Keep 'em keep 'em keep 'em. I love the need to find cover, it makes the battle feel less mindless. They have tells that let you know when to duck out of the way. I like having some challenging content. Let us difficulty-mongers have something.
The problem with the one shots is there is no warning. There is no charge up like the AoE's the mega D's use. Its just an instant 'you're gibbed', you can't see it coming, there's too much spam on the mega D's to pay much attention to the actual robots animations without killing your FPS, and even then they're too big to properly see without having your camera zoomed back crazy far.
I've only had it happen twice. Each time was no warning, there is little to no cover where you fight them: and even if there was, see the 'no warning' so you don't even know when to 'take cover'.
Unless people are talking about the AoE's that are charged up, which need no change. Pay attention to the charge warnings. Stay away from the second Mega D, and if some doofus has trained them into the same place prepare to die or leave for another group.
I don't think the crazy anti-vehicle beam has a charge up warning though and it one shots me with primary legion gear + super con + defence loop spec + dodge mods, and its not only targeting vehicles like it 'should'. (Well, honestly I don't know if this is whats one shotting me, I am assuming it is because sometimes I just suddenly drop down dead out of AoE range having paid attention to Mega D AoE's with full health, and the combat log is way too spammy to pay attention to for obvious reasons)
The tells are plenty obvious. Their Energy Wave-esque attacks are the only ones you really need to look out for if you're not their target, and if you ARE their target, it's really not that unreasonable to be in huge trouble. You're the sole focus of a massive death robot, you should PROBABLY get out of its way.
I've been having very little trouble with surviving this mission. Ducking behind the steps when one starts charging its explosion (which can be discerned through its animation, not just the red circle icon) has prevented the attack from hitting me most of the time. The only times it doesn't are when I get lagbombed or when my cover suddenly isn't sufficient anymore because someone's dragged the Mega Destroyer over to my hiding spot.
Gravitar's one-shots aren't terribly well-designed, no. It adds difficulty, but in a roundabout and cheap way. THESE one-shots are pretty easily avoidable if you pay attention. I feel they were well-designed. The only change I'd make is giving them a little longer charge time so that melee characters are able to escape it as well, as only the western battlefield has enough cover to quickly dart out of the way.
The one complaint I WILL agree with is that 200 Questionite Ore, 3 Globals, and 2 Mechanon Recognition is a pretty downright terrible reward for how long and difficult the mission is.
Also the crashes, but crashes are ALWAYS something to avoid, no matter the content.
Dasher@Tool-box, donning his armor to prance into battle and blitz the enemy! No joke!
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
I've been having very little trouble with surviving this mission. Ducking behind the steps when one starts charging its explosion (which can be discerned through its animation, not just the red circle icon) has prevented the attack from hitting me most of the time. The only times it doesn't are when I get lagbombed or when my cover suddenly isn't sufficient anymore because someone's dragged the Mega Destroyer over to my hiding spot.
I have successfully survived those AOE's on a ranged dmg squishy using Wind Barrier. I think your chances go up if you are level 40 though. Also, it's vital to pay attention to your health bar. If you health is below 1/2 then blocking might not help. Moving out range when I see my health is low, has helped a lot. Diving in when I don't have a lot health usually means getting smashed.
The one complaint I WILL agree with is that 200 Questionite Ore, 3 Globals, and 2 Mechanon Recognition is a pretty downright terrible reward for how long and difficult the mission is.
I agree. This is damned hard encounter. More unwieldy to organize then any rampage - yet the rewards are puny. This should reward items on par with a Rampage at least. For example, given the difficulty the reward pets should be perm. And the Q rewards should be much higher.
Is there a mission associated with this or do you just get the rewards upon victory and at a predetermined spot, like say, open world missions?
No mission as such, this is a temporary open-world event that happens once a year (except this year Mechanon got in the mix). The rewards pop in front of Homestead's main entrance, on the west side of the building. Big glowing circle, if you can see it through all the people swarming it (because the only way you won was if you had almost everyone in the instance fighting there).
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
AFAIK killing the bugs is more important than the 10% thing...
The 10% thing is important if you miss a bug, which you usually do (I think mechanon auto-converts the one he spawns near, and on average one other one will get converted). A liberated mega at 10% is not that worrisome, you'll kill it long before it collects a ridiculous number of stacks, a liberated at 100% is considerably more worrisome.
The 10% thing is important if you miss a bug, which you usually do (I think mechanon auto-converts the one he spawns near, and on average one other one will get converted). A liberated mega at 10% is not that worrisome, you'll kill it long before it collects a ridiculous number of stacks, a liberated at 100% is considerably more worrisome.
Ah I see.
Anyways, since someone asked earlier, the name of the bugs is "Type 41 Manumission Unit".
I may be in the minority of people posting here, but I'll risk it anyway.
This is a recommendation to the developers, from someone who used to be a subscriber to CoX from Issue 2 through to the close, and is a lifetime subscriber here. So I have some knowledge of what I"m talking about.
I've fought tons of Giant Monsters, and all sorts of yearly event missions and mobs. And from about a decade's worth of experience, allow me to point out something I really feel should have been more obvious. Instant Killer Death Spam is a BAD IDEA! Allow me to explain.
When people fight Giant Monsters, they don't expect an easy fight. Quite the opposite. They expect the monster to be one of the toughest monsters on the block, possibly the toughest encounter they've faced all year. It's no secret they'll have AoE attacks, possibly knockdown or knockback attacks, and that whoever's drawn aggro is going to be one misstep from defeat without competent backup the whole time. That's both understood and accepted. It's even looked forward to if it's handled properly.
But a lame "I Win!" attack which spams every other minute or so, kills everything within a two-block radius, and is clearly *designed* to kill large numbers of players over and over is a quick way to turn what could be a fun Giant Boss Monster fight into an exercise in "Rinse & Repeat." It sucks the fun out of the encounter, until you really don't care anymore. It just becomes a reason to put up with substandard boss monster behavior so you can score some free loot, and that cheapens the whole experience.
What I recommend for the developers (and I sincerely hope you're reading this, and taking what I'm saying to heart,) is that while the boss monster should by all rights have a mountain of health, tons of armor, and some really scary attacks, it should not be an effortless "You Lose, suckers!" encounter. It should be something everyone looks forward to, because it's a chance to have it out with the big bad guy in the kind of encounter the whole team, and in fact the entire group, can look forward to. Not simply a "hit, hit, SPAM! revive, and go back to repeat the procedure, until you get your reward." That's simply Not Fun.
Boss monster fights should be challenging, yes. But they should not reduce the fight to "Fight, die, rinse, repeat." That makes the challenge boring and cheapens the experience until it's just something the player puts up with for the loot. And the moment that happens, you're losing your best chance to create an experience the entire gaming community can look forward to participating in every time it comes around.
Oh, and on another note, lose the idiotic forcefields preventing revived heroes from participating in endgame content. You might believe it adds a level of challenge to the final fight, but all it does is add to the meaningless frustration. You want to make it more engaging? Do away with 2 minute timeouts on heals, and add rez wakies to the item list. I mean, CoX didn't have the iron lock on an idea. Put wakies in the game, and suddenly getting dropped in a final boss fight isn't the pointless extra trudge it is in Champions.
But lose that forcefield, both from the missions it's currently used in, and from now on. Please? The moment I hear the final fight uses them, it's almost enough to kill it right there for me. It's not designed to challenge the player, after all, it's meant to punish them for dropping. And when you're punishing the player base for not living up to your expectations, that leeches the enjoyment out of the entire experience.
Edit: If you want to do something unique with the final fights and still use forcefields, make them a destructible object. So that the revived player can hammer through the wall, and get back in the fight. This gives them an incentive to revive and head back as fast as they can. This keeps everyone engaged, and provides a level of challenge for reviving instead of getting a team rez.
You're HARDLY in the minority. I'd say the majority is against these oh-so-unfair one-hit-kill attacks... And really, I feel the majority is outright WRONG.
First off, the only attack you need to watch out for if you're not the Mega's target is the Energy Wave with the red circle icon as its tell. The icon isn't its only tell, however; you can also determine when it's coming based on the Mega's squatting "charge" animation. Running out of range doesn't seem to help with avoiding this attack once they start charging it up... But getting behind cover does.
I've done a ton of runs, now, and getting behind cover almost always works, the only exception being when I get hit by lag. Granted, there doesn't need to be much lag for it to cause problems; the window between the attack starting to charge and the attack actually hitting is pretty small, and so there's not much room for error. I'd agree with a bit of an increase in charge time, but outright removal and/or neutering the damage of the attack, no. Absolutely not.
I don't know about vehicles, but frankly, if they are getting hit harder, I'd say that's a good thing. As many others havesaid, this is supposed to be Champions Online, not Vehicles Online.
Admittedly, the attack DOES make melee combat a nightmare. There's nowhere enough time to duck for cover when they start the attack right next to you. An increase in charge time would greatly help that.
Now, secondly... When NOT using cover, decent tanks can survive the encounter by paying some attention, even withBOTH Megas on them at once! Or at least, that's been my experience. I've rather easily survived the onslaught of two Megas when I'm in tank mode on my main character, and that's not even a dedicated tank. I find the damage they deal to be perfect, enough to force most players to evade it intelligently, while still letting the real juggernauts take the hits and keep coming.
I've not tried tanking Liberated Megas, but you're supposed to work to prevent them from getting to that point in the first place. They've been prevented quite often since people started picking up on how to work together, so it's clearly not outside of our capability as a community.
So, all in all, in regards to the damage output of the Mega Destroyers, I think it's EXCELLENT where it is, with the only change I'd recommend being an increase in charge time on their Energy Wave so that squishies, particularly melee ones, have time to get behind cover.
From experience in Zone Chat, I'm sure I'll be told that cover "doesn't exist". It does. There's not much of it, particularly in the northern battlefield, but it's there. Use the slope of the hills and the outcrops of the ramp. If you've got really fine control, even the lampposts can provide cover.
As for the lockout mechanics, it gives purpose to revival powers. Perhaps if some kind of general debuff could be applied for recovering early, I'd agree with eliminating lockout outright, but without that, I don't know that I'd like it. The destructible lockout field sounds pretty fun, though.
Dasher@Tool-box, donning his armor to prance into battle and blitz the enemy! No joke!
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
I don't know about vehicles, but frankly, if they are getting hit harder, I'd say that's a good thing. As many others havesaid, this is supposed to be Champions Online, not Vehicles Online.
Translated to English:
"Play the game my way, I don't care if you want to play your way. Or any other way on that matter. My way is better. Don't you dare to prefer anything but my way."
"Play the game my way, I don't care if you want to play your way. Or any other way on that matter. My way is better. Don't you dare to prefer anything but my way."
*yawn*
I so love this mindset...
Care to say the same to the legions of people trying to obliterate one of the few challenging, non-braindead pieces of content in the game? Or are you going to be selectively outraged and hypocritical about the matter?
Dasher@Tool-box, donning his armor to prance into battle and blitz the enemy! No joke!
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
1. I' ve run it on ranged squishies. If I get my block up , before the boom hits, I survive. If not, splat. not a problem.
2. vehicles, you want to run them, run them. Don't complain when some attacks are targeted on them. Mechanon would have attacks that harm your vehicles more than 'heroes' after sll he knows them inside out.
I do consider it funny hearing someone yell "stop using Plasma beam or you'll make him immune to damage" He is known for adapting, so we have a group of people all using one attack and he's going to adapt.
mind you, he should also adapt to lightning, ice ,fire and bullets other common attacks used on him.
yes I know you're on a timer to get your little goodie box, however that's no reason to neuter a 'good' villain's abilities.
how many people have people farming every hour , on the hour.
Actually, I pretty much agree with you. The main challenge is coordinating the other players to not take down the Mega Ds too quickly. It's really only difficult if you don't know what you are doing and ignore all the repeated advice from the more experienced players.
You're HARDLY in the minority. I'd say the majority is against these oh-so-unfair one-hit-kill attacks... And really, I feel the majority is outright WRONG.
....
The attacks ARE telegraphed, that's what I KEEP SAYING. They could have a longer window for escaping the damage, as I've said multiple times, but the attacks THEMSELVES are perfect where they are. Any less damage, so that squishies don't get one-shot, will just turn it into yet ANOTHER tank'n'spank mission.
I'm not demanding they make the rest of the game as hard as this mission, I'm asking that there be this ONE piece of TEMPORARY content where you aren't mindlessly hitting the same button over and over without any movement or attention required. Who's really the one forcing their favored play style onto others, here?
The problem with this and ANY MMORPG versus games like Castlevania, in regards to content difficulty, is build variety. And this is exponentially worse give how much build potential Champions has in particular. Damage capable of one-hitting squishies is a NECESSITY in games like this, when that same damage can do a pathetic 5% of a good tank's HP. Gravitar does this poorly, with completely-unpredictable Cascades. The yellow bubbles, however, are well done. It is the same case with the Megas' Energy Waves. They let you know in advance when they're going to use the ability, giving you time to duck out of its way. The real problem is, everyone's so used to having such an easy time with every single piece of content in the game that taking cover is a COMPLETELY alien concept to them.
You tell me to stop defending a broken mechanic... I'm telling you, stop being lazy and put forth the effort to counter it. (That "effort" NOT being coming on the forums and whining to get it nerfed so you can practically afk at the fight without concern of death.)
Dasher@Tool-box, donning his armor to prance into battle and blitz the enemy! No joke!
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
The attacks ARE telegraphed, that's what I KEEP SAYING.
You seem to be selectively reading posts and outright ignoring others that don't fit in with your pre-made viewpoint. i'll say it again. In bold this time. Since you seem to adamantly want to ignore this every time it comes up.
NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT THE TELEGRAPHED ATTACKS
The telegraphed attacks are fine. They can be avoided / blocked.
People are talking about the one hit kill no telegraph no warning attack. I think its called Destroyer blast? I'm unsure. These are single target instant cast abilities that tend to hone in on enemies outside the AoE range. The Mega D's don't even switch its target to the player before using it. It seems to randomly select a certain number of people who are not currently targeted and hit them with it, insta-killing them with no warning or chance to block. No charge up. no tell. I have gone many fights without ever being targeted by this before now and I have gone other fights and been 'that guy' 2-3 times.
They don't hit everyone in each fight, are quite rare and mostly seem to target those outside the AoE blast radius or on its edge.
You seem to be selectively reading posts and outright ignoring others that don't fit in with your pre-made viewpoint. i'll say it again. In bold this time. Since you seem to adamantly want to ignore this every time it comes up.
NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT THE TELEGRAPHED ATTACKS
The telegraphed attacks are fine. They can be avoided / blocked.
People are talking about the one hit kill no telegraph no warning attack. I think its called Destroyer blast? I'm unsure. These are single target instant cast abilities that tend to hone in on enemies outside the AoE range. The Mega D's don't even switch its target to the player before using it. It seems to randomly select a certain number of people who are not currently targeted and hit them with it, insta-killing them with no warning or chance to block. No charge up. no tell. I have gone many fights without ever being targeted by this before now and I have gone other fights and been 'that guy' 2-3 times.
They don't hit everyone in each fight, are quite rare and mostly seem to target those outside the AoE blast radius or on its edge.
This magical you attack you speak of does not exist.
I've fought these things quite a bit and I know what has killed me every time it's happened.
The Mega-Ds attacks are as follows...
Eyebeam
Electrocute (Causes Paralyze, "chain lightning")
Sonic Blast (Causes Paralyze, frontal cone)
Destroyer Blast (This is the 360 AOE wave, can knock, can 1-shot, strongest attack)
Thunderclap (No warning, can 1-shot, only does it to targets in melee)
Fireball (Creates fire patch at feet and a AOE damage around itself, can 1-shot, possible bug since it doesn't actually fire at target?)
Missile Barrage (Fired from hand, cone AOE)
Shoulder Launcher (Like Missile Barrage but much stronger, can 1-shot, can knock)
They will also perform random melee attacks against targets in melee range, like punching the ground.
They gain 1 attack when converted to Liberated Mega-Ds, and that's the Anti-Vehicle Beam. It looks exactly like their Eyebeam, but is green tinted and only targets vehicles.
Thankfully, Baelog took care of that. But yes, I've never seen this supposed zero-warning one-shot-kill. I've seen plenty of people ignore the second Mega's giant blast telegraph, though.
I have, on occasion, been targeted by an attack where the Mega extends its hand and fires a stream of missiles. But those only do about 1000 damage each without blocking, and can be stopped by... Getting behind cover.
I haven't paid attention to the specific names of each attack in the combat logs, but according to your post and Baelog's, Destroyer Blast is the one you're concerned about, which is the one that I've been talking about which DOES have a tell on it, which can be seen without the Mega being your target. It's the red-circle-icon attack, where the Mega squats down to charge it, kinda like when you charge the Enrage toggle.
Dasher@Tool-box, donning his armor to prance into battle and blitz the enemy! No joke!
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
I have seen this non-telegraphed attack. I've fallen victim to it repeatedly, in fact.
I've also seen the big blue bubble that is telegraphed, but by the time the signal pops up, the system's already decided who's getting hit, so by that time blocking or fleeing are irrelevant - you're going down anyway.
In short, this event is not fun for me. I shan't be playing it. If more content becomes "difficult" by your definition, I shall be playing less and less.
If your goal is to drive players away, I suppose emulating a WoW raid should work fine - they've lost over half their playerbase over the last couple of years. (Of course, they started with a playerbase larger than some major cities, so they could afford the loss. Can we?)
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
If you can, try to grab the name of that non-telegraphed attack from the combat log so I can figure out what you're talking about. Because I have never once seen an attack of that nature.
As for the blue sphere, it apparently DOES let you avoid it, as I do so on a regular basis. I'm never able to escape it by simply running away, but ducking behind the ramp works almost every time.
My goal is to existing players a reason to stay. As it stands, most of the content comes down to "murder murder murder spam spam spam", no thinking involved. I really like the Cybermind Alert because of the unique boss battle, as well as the lowered-clock-cycle-prison part even though it's pretty minor. F&I can be interesting, too. Unique mission mechanics are enjoyable, and keep players interested. Dumbed-down "hit the attack key over and over while standing still" mechanics are a bore; if you do it once, you won't get anything new out of most of the other content.
Dasher@Tool-box, donning his armor to prance into battle and blitz the enemy! No joke!
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
Maybe we should rename the Mechanon final the Zone 1 and sometimes 2 event
What would be nice is if they turned this into an alert for 75 people or something like that, so it had it's own zone, and people could queue for it. As of right now there's no reason to ever leave zone 1 as completing mutable zones is impossible.
I have seen this non-telegraphed attack. I've fallen victim to it repeatedly, in fact.
I've also experience this. Not fun to die from something that you never see coming. Now it could be a graphic's error, something not showing, like maybe it's missiles or something, but whatever it is I don't see it.
Maybe we should rename the Mechanon final the Zone 1 and sometimes 2 event
What would be nice is if they turned this into an alert for 75 people or something like that, so it had it's own zone, and people could queue for it. As of right now there's no reason to ever leave zone 1 as completing mutable zones is impossible.
Could be good, though getting 10-person Rampages to trigger is tough enough as it is. I WOULD, however, like to see more of these missions appear in non-Millennium-City areas, so that you're more likely to fill the zone with people who are actually seeking to participate.
Dasher@Tool-box, donning his armor to prance into battle and blitz the enemy! No joke!
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
Could be good, though getting 10-person Rampages to trigger is tough enough as it is. I WOULD, however, like to see more of these missions appear in non-Millennium-City areas, so that you're more likely to fill the zone with people who are actually seeking to participate.
I think two or three of these events happening in a year would be great. I'd suggest an event similar to the anniversary event, but with monsters or alien ships instead of MegaDs around various spawn points in MC, where you had to clear, say, ten different cosmics from around the city, with one final battle at the end.
Or maybe revisit Kigatilik and Kwajimbo(sp?). Not on live I've done the former only once and have never found the ape when I've looked (have done him on PTS and it's a fun little combat). Suitably retooled these are rampages waiting to happen. I.e. Kigatilik needs to do more than just stand on his podium. Add similar rampages to Lemuria and VB as well.
I think two or three of these events happening in a year would be great. I'd suggest an event similar to the anniversary event, but with monsters or alien ships instead of MegaDs around various spawn points in MC, where you had to clear, say, ten different cosmics from around the city, with one final battle at the end.
A few points here, then I'd like to propose a solution to part of it.
1: Vehicles. I'm sick of seeing "This isn't vehicles online", because they sold em to me. For quite a bit of money, I might add. I don't wanna be more powerful than your champions, but I want to be able to use the things I've spent 4 digits worth of cash on. Like it or not, they're part of the game mechanic. And they were also very expensive. Let me use them, stop calling for unneeded nerfs on them. The only thing that needs to be nerfed is that plasma shear should stack per player, and not for everyone.
Regarding that bug, I have it on authority from a few players that I trust that the bug works because of a stack overflow. There are only so many effects that you can apply to a mob, and once you reach that thresh-hold you can't do anything else. It just won't register. Since shear stacks so high, and since so many people use it, it can quickly go over whatever that limit is. After that point? Damage is an effect, new damage won't be applied. The reason we say no shear in particular is because of how many stacks it can add. I've seen 860 on one mega-d. Why does it seem to be effecting Mechanon more quickly, and why do we keep asking you to get off your bikes so soon if you're plasma beaming? Because people are using real powers now, too. On the mega-ds we were mostly vehicle spamming. Less effects active = more shear could be applied before whatever cap was reached. Mechanon? Now we've got bleeds and poison stacks and all sorts of other random things stacking on him. Less room for shear to pile up. And you will see damage, because it acts sort of like a soft cap. Some attacks are going to get through (oddly, plasma's base damage seems to be always on this list), but some are flat out going to plink. From my experience, this *seems* to happen more often the more stacks of shear are on a target. That 860 stack mega-d? We never did kill it. Might as well be slapping it with plastic forks.
2: The insta-pop. I don't mind em, if it's just one mega-d doing it. It never is, they seem to love doing them both at once. Even while blocking, some squishies just can't survive that. Also, it *seems* like they trigger so that once the animation starts, the people in the aoe are getting pegged if they can't take cover. Flat out leaving the aoe doesn't seem to work at all, I regularly try to dodge it on my bikes and always end up eating pavement.
I will say, though, that insta-kill aoe attacks are cheap in just about any mmo. It's artificial difficulty. This thing spawns destroids, so slap some control effects on a few of em, and make one or 2 of em heal the destroid, and make us mob-control. Wind back the number of destroyer waves they throw back a bit, and make them mix up their tactics. The only thing I'm sketchy about with the insta-gib aoe attacks is the fact that they seem to throw em every 20 seconds or so. That's a tad too much. That and they're effected by my last point, which is more on the suggestion to make this a better event side of things.
3: God, the graphics. I've got a good computer, with a good graphics card, and I have to turn this event down to minimum graphics with half rez. Why? Everyone's got 6 auras going on, the mega-ds are huge and covered with damage effects (which also eats video memory) and forget about Mechanon. He's a strobe light, when he's even visible. Why this is a detriment to the event? Not only do a lot of us have to play on potatoe level graphics, but it also makes the destroids and mechanon go invisible from time to time. They all have tells, when they're going to do dangerous attacks (or, dangerous attack and mildly annoying repel. Wtf, Mechanon's a wuss) they're nice enough to let us know. In theory. In practice? Well, let me paint a scenario for you.
I'm fighting a mega-d, right? At least, I think so, it's either that or this lamppost has negative ions/chill/clinging flames/bleed/poison on it. That giant glowing ball over there, that might be a mega destroid, may be hunched over punching the tank. Or, he might be charging his blast wave. I can't tell, he's about 40 feet away from me, and I don't have him targeted. *pow* oh, it was a blast wave. *resurrect* Ok, fly back over. WTF? Lag, bad. Lemme turn down my graphics and get back in here to hit this guy. Oh, wtf? I died. Huh, pyre. Guess I was standing on a fire patch. Couldn't see it, I had my graphics off because he was lagging me down with all of the effects, and "XxDarkLegendVampirexX" over there has all 8 auras active. Well, there are 2 stars. I'm just gonna fly over *pow* crap, too close to the other fight. *rez* there are 3 stars. F this. This fight sucks.
Seem familiar? It's the most common complaint I'm seeing in a lot of the channels I'm in.
What can be done to fix it? TURN OFF POWER EFFECTS ON BIG BOSSES. God, I've been asking for this since LI went live. Big boss + power effects = slideshow. For quite a few people. This fight it's 2-4 big bosses on screen + power effects = rubber band back to west side. We don't need the effects on em to know we're hitting em, we do have the debuff icons. This has been a problem for every boss fight we've had that's open world. This is probably the worst it's ever been.
What else can be done? Seriously, players. Turn off your auras when you go to this fight. Don't be That Guy. Every aura you've got stacked on is a bit more that lags down other people.
Anyway, that's just my 2c.
In game, I am @EvilTaco. Happily killing purple gang members since May 2008. RIP Caine
also, don't you hate it when mr. Darkspeed-Dark Aura-Hearts Aura-Fire Aura-Legacy Electric Form Aura just HAS to stand RIGHT next to you ALL the time??!
Ah, the pyre. I'll readily admit, that doesn't come into play for me given that I do all of my fighting at range... Heck, I've never even SEEN it. Baelog's post is the first I've heard of it. For a melee character, yeah, this fight's gonna be Hell. I'm not sure whether or not it has a tell, so I can't give my thoughts on whether it's something that should be there or not.
Agreed with the graphical issues, Chalupa. I haven't had any Megas disappear on me, but Mechanon has vanished on occasion. Those disappearances do indeed throw the entire "watch for tells" balance factor out the window.
When you CAN watch for tells, though, don't try to escape the attack via getting out of range. It doesn't work. Instead, take cover, break line of sight with them. It's quite tough on the northern battlefield where all you have is the ramp, but the southern battlefield has pillars you can duck behind, and the western battlefield has plenty of cover to utilize.
I love the idea of supportive enemies (the spiders are an amazing addition, to me), though more along the lines of buffing their allies than shooting control effects at players.
I also must disagree on one-hit mechanics being "artificial difficulty". So long has it's fairly telegraphed and has ways to be avoided, I think it's more than fine. As I said in my first post in this topic, I really love the fight mechanics of having to duck for cover when you see a big attack coming, rather than just blocking it (if you even have to do THAT, sometimes you can just take a boss' hits straight in the jaw and not even flinch). The amount of damage their Destroyer Blasts do is in a very good spot, in my opinion, where it makes squishies have to fear it, but extra-beefy tanks can still keep up their assault with just a block. It serves to let tanks actually have something, rather than trading off their damage output for zero benefit as in a lot of other content.
Now, note, I said the DAMAGE is in a good spot. As I've said in previous posts, the charge time could stand to be increased so that players could have more time to find something to hind behind. As it stands, I typically attack from a position that allows me to hide via a quick sidestep, and I do still get hit (RARELY) if there's a bit of lag. The attack doesn't really allow for being away from cover, there's not enough time to duck down if you aren't already right next to your "shield". This could definitely stand to be changed a little bit. But the rest of the mechanics behind that attack, I feel, are very well done.
I'd need to see more of the pyre to give any thoughts on that.
Lastly, in regards to vehicles, I don't want to see them be made useless, either. But look around the game; in EVERY piece of content that allows vehicles to be used, they are superior to to actual characters. Open missions, Forum Malvanum, Lemurian Invasion, Sky Command... Granted, Sky Command was built for vehicles, but the point still stands: Any content ALLOWING vehicles will always go smoother with vehicles. There's no choice there, you have to use a vehicle when it's available or you'll fall behind. Few builds will allow you to perform better as a character than a vehicle. I don't want them neutered, not by a long shot, but having them completely overshadow on-foot characters in almost every situation is very disappointing.
Dasher@Tool-box, donning his armor to prance into battle and blitz the enemy! No joke!
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
With a ranked black you can easily survive the destroyer blast.
I'll posted this originally in another thread, but is quite relevant here too:
The attack does between 21000 and 24000 base damage (with some weird exceptions of well over 100k, I expect those people are using low level characters).
Blocking without purchasing a block power gives 200% block resistance.
Almost all purchased block power get the following resistance to particle damage.
power r1 = 250%
power r2 = 300%
power r3 = 360%
The exception is the arcana block, that starts at 300% for non physical damage.
(btw I hadn't noticed lightning block being generally weaker than other block powers, but it apparently is)
Lets put the health of a player at 5000, that is easily obtainable without any con.
That would mean to survive a 24000 damage hit with the base block, you'd need more than:
24000/((1+RequiredResistance)*(1+200%))=5000
24000/(5000*3)-1=RequiredResistance
RequiredResistance=60%
For r1 block
RequiredResistance=37.14%
For r2 block
RequiredResistance=20%
For r3 block
RequiredResistance=4.35%
60% is a bit high, you can get there with just defense if you have ego or str, and warden/guardian and vindicator specs, but its build dependant.
For r1 block, that is already much more attainable, but my healer build without defense specs or mods gets 24%, so not all builds can get that.
Then r2 or r3 block, which I'd always take when making a squishy build without con, those should all easily survive a blocked hit.
So if you get oneshot through a r3 block, you have quite an odd build.
Pyre has a tell, it's the green circle I think. It also looks like the Mega-D is charging up a giant version of the player Fireball, which is why I called it that originally.
It's just some special NPC version of Pyre, that's all.
Well if it's something he activates above the waist then it effective has no tell.
Baelog says it has the green circle icon. If they only ever attack their own feet with the power, I doubt you're going to be hit by it unless you're targeting the one throwing the attack, so you should be able to see the icon.
Dasher@Tool-box, donning his armor to prance into battle and blitz the enemy! No joke!
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
Finding this event to be rather disappointing. IF I get into a zone where enough people participate in the event, I'm pretty much stuck sitting there doing nothing for 40 minutes if I want to participate in the next hour. If I do something dumb, like join an alert or rampage, there's a good chance I won't be returned to that zone and may never get back in.
It also sucks watching the zero damage I seem to be doing in the combat log. What's the point in participating if my damage isn't even registering?
I was going to farm a bit in this event, but I'd rather be actually having fun playing a game.
Since there is so much failure going on, I have to wonder if the average player just has no where near the DPS and survival needed to finish it. Challenge is nice and all, but it should be challenging to the average CO player, not top end builds for a temporary, open world event like this.
Comments
so far there has only been one fight I actually gave up on. And in that case we had 5 minutes left and 5 upgraded Ds with 16M HP... and even then I took the opportunity to attempt to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the upgrades... which are scary... Yeah, couldn't find any vulnerabilities.
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My characters
This IS just the upgraded Anniversary situation, right? It's not permanent like the other new mishes?
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My characters
Zone 1: most likely going to win
Zone 2: Small chance of winning
Zone 3, 4, 5 and 6: No chance of winning..like at all
the reasons it's like this, despite origination to make killing them correct is because most DPS dealing players cram into zone 1, with a few in zone 2, and the rest being under manned/under powered/un-orginised in the mega D killings method.
meaning while i'm glad of the challange, it's rather...aggravting for anyone outside zone 1/2
also have been hearing a LOT of people complaining about crashing near the end of the fight...might want to look into that
Member of Paragon Dawn: Because some people like friendly helpful communities.
Yeah some things are broken... no I don't use/abuse them.. where would be the fun in that?
The problem with the one shots is there is no warning. There is no charge up like the AoE's the mega D's use. Its just an instant 'you're gibbed', you can't see it coming, there's too much spam on the mega D's to pay much attention to the actual robots animations without killing your FPS, and even then they're too big to properly see without having your camera zoomed back crazy far.
I've only had it happen twice. Each time was no warning, there is little to no cover where you fight them: and even if there was, see the 'no warning' so you don't even know when to 'take cover'.
Unless people are talking about the AoE's that are charged up, which need no change. Pay attention to the charge warnings. Stay away from the second Mega D, and if some doofus has trained them into the same place prepare to die or leave for another group.
I don't think the crazy anti-vehicle beam has a charge up warning though and it one shots me with primary legion gear + super con + defence loop spec + dodge mods, and its not only targeting vehicles like it 'should'. (Well, honestly I don't know if this is whats one shotting me, I am assuming it is because sometimes I just suddenly drop down dead out of AoE range having paid attention to Mega D AoE's with full health, and the combat log is way too spammy to pay attention to for obvious reasons)
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My characters
I've been having very little trouble with surviving this mission. Ducking behind the steps when one starts charging its explosion (which can be discerned through its animation, not just the red circle icon) has prevented the attack from hitting me most of the time. The only times it doesn't are when I get lagbombed or when my cover suddenly isn't sufficient anymore because someone's dragged the Mega Destroyer over to my hiding spot.
Gravitar's one-shots aren't terribly well-designed, no. It adds difficulty, but in a roundabout and cheap way. THESE one-shots are pretty easily avoidable if you pay attention. I feel they were well-designed. The only change I'd make is giving them a little longer charge time so that melee characters are able to escape it as well, as only the western battlefield has enough cover to quickly dart out of the way.
The one complaint I WILL agree with is that 200 Questionite Ore, 3 Globals, and 2 Mechanon Recognition is a pretty downright terrible reward for how long and difficult the mission is.
Also the crashes, but crashes are ALWAYS something to avoid, no matter the content.
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
I have successfully survived those AOE's on a ranged dmg squishy using Wind Barrier. I think your chances go up if you are level 40 though. Also, it's vital to pay attention to your health bar. If you health is below 1/2 then blocking might not help. Moving out range when I see my health is low, has helped a lot. Diving in when I don't have a lot health usually means getting smashed.
I agree. This is damned hard encounter. More unwieldy to organize then any rampage - yet the rewards are puny. This should reward items on par with a Rampage at least. For example, given the difficulty the reward pets should be perm. And the Q rewards should be much higher.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Anyways, since someone asked earlier, the name of the bugs is "Type 41 Manumission Unit".
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My characters
This is a recommendation to the developers, from someone who used to be a subscriber to CoX from Issue 2 through to the close, and is a lifetime subscriber here. So I have some knowledge of what I"m talking about.
I've fought tons of Giant Monsters, and all sorts of yearly event missions and mobs. And from about a decade's worth of experience, allow me to point out something I really feel should have been more obvious. Instant Killer Death Spam is a BAD IDEA! Allow me to explain.
When people fight Giant Monsters, they don't expect an easy fight. Quite the opposite. They expect the monster to be one of the toughest monsters on the block, possibly the toughest encounter they've faced all year. It's no secret they'll have AoE attacks, possibly knockdown or knockback attacks, and that whoever's drawn aggro is going to be one misstep from defeat without competent backup the whole time. That's both understood and accepted. It's even looked forward to if it's handled properly.
But a lame "I Win!" attack which spams every other minute or so, kills everything within a two-block radius, and is clearly *designed* to kill large numbers of players over and over is a quick way to turn what could be a fun Giant Boss Monster fight into an exercise in "Rinse & Repeat." It sucks the fun out of the encounter, until you really don't care anymore. It just becomes a reason to put up with substandard boss monster behavior so you can score some free loot, and that cheapens the whole experience.
What I recommend for the developers (and I sincerely hope you're reading this, and taking what I'm saying to heart,) is that while the boss monster should by all rights have a mountain of health, tons of armor, and some really scary attacks, it should not be an effortless "You Lose, suckers!" encounter. It should be something everyone looks forward to, because it's a chance to have it out with the big bad guy in the kind of encounter the whole team, and in fact the entire group, can look forward to. Not simply a "hit, hit, SPAM! revive, and go back to repeat the procedure, until you get your reward." That's simply Not Fun.
Boss monster fights should be challenging, yes. But they should not reduce the fight to "Fight, die, rinse, repeat." That makes the challenge boring and cheapens the experience until it's just something the player puts up with for the loot. And the moment that happens, you're losing your best chance to create an experience the entire gaming community can look forward to participating in every time it comes around.
Oh, and on another note, lose the idiotic forcefields preventing revived heroes from participating in endgame content. You might believe it adds a level of challenge to the final fight, but all it does is add to the meaningless frustration. You want to make it more engaging? Do away with 2 minute timeouts on heals, and add rez wakies to the item list. I mean, CoX didn't have the iron lock on an idea. Put wakies in the game, and suddenly getting dropped in a final boss fight isn't the pointless extra trudge it is in Champions.
But lose that forcefield, both from the missions it's currently used in, and from now on. Please? The moment I hear the final fight uses them, it's almost enough to kill it right there for me. It's not designed to challenge the player, after all, it's meant to punish them for dropping. And when you're punishing the player base for not living up to your expectations, that leeches the enjoyment out of the entire experience.
Edit: If you want to do something unique with the final fights and still use forcefields, make them a destructible object. So that the revived player can hammer through the wall, and get back in the fight. This gives them an incentive to revive and head back as fast as they can. This keeps everyone engaged, and provides a level of challenge for reviving instead of getting a team rez.
First off, the only attack you need to watch out for if you're not the Mega's target is the Energy Wave with the red circle icon as its tell. The icon isn't its only tell, however; you can also determine when it's coming based on the Mega's squatting "charge" animation. Running out of range doesn't seem to help with avoiding this attack once they start charging it up... But getting behind cover does.
I've done a ton of runs, now, and getting behind cover almost always works, the only exception being when I get hit by lag. Granted, there doesn't need to be much lag for it to cause problems; the window between the attack starting to charge and the attack actually hitting is pretty small, and so there's not much room for error. I'd agree with a bit of an increase in charge time, but outright removal and/or neutering the damage of the attack, no. Absolutely not.
I don't know about vehicles, but frankly, if they are getting hit harder, I'd say that's a good thing. As many others havesaid, this is supposed to be Champions Online, not Vehicles Online.
Admittedly, the attack DOES make melee combat a nightmare. There's nowhere enough time to duck for cover when they start the attack right next to you. An increase in charge time would greatly help that.
Now, secondly... When NOT using cover, decent tanks can survive the encounter by paying some attention, even withBOTH Megas on them at once! Or at least, that's been my experience. I've rather easily survived the onslaught of two Megas when I'm in tank mode on my main character, and that's not even a dedicated tank. I find the damage they deal to be perfect, enough to force most players to evade it intelligently, while still letting the real juggernauts take the hits and keep coming.
I've not tried tanking Liberated Megas, but you're supposed to work to prevent them from getting to that point in the first place. They've been prevented quite often since people started picking up on how to work together, so it's clearly not outside of our capability as a community.
So, all in all, in regards to the damage output of the Mega Destroyers, I think it's EXCELLENT where it is, with the only change I'd recommend being an increase in charge time on their Energy Wave so that squishies, particularly melee ones, have time to get behind cover.
From experience in Zone Chat, I'm sure I'll be told that cover "doesn't exist". It does. There's not much of it, particularly in the northern battlefield, but it's there. Use the slope of the hills and the outcrops of the ramp. If you've got really fine control, even the lampposts can provide cover.
As for the lockout mechanics, it gives purpose to revival powers. Perhaps if some kind of general debuff could be applied for recovering early, I'd agree with eliminating lockout outright, but without that, I don't know that I'd like it. The destructible lockout field sounds pretty fun, though.
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
"Play the game my way, I don't care if you want to play your way. Or any other way on that matter. My way is better. Don't you dare to prefer anything but my way."
*yawn*
I so love this mindset...
Care to say the same to the legions of people trying to obliterate one of the few challenging, non-braindead pieces of content in the game? Or are you going to be selectively outraged and hypocritical about the matter?
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
2. vehicles, you want to run them, run them. Don't complain when some attacks are targeted on them. Mechanon would have attacks that harm your vehicles more than 'heroes' after sll he knows them inside out.
I do consider it funny hearing someone yell "stop using Plasma beam or you'll make him immune to damage" He is known for adapting, so we have a group of people all using one attack and he's going to adapt.
mind you, he should also adapt to lightning, ice ,fire and bullets other common attacks used on him.
yes I know you're on a timer to get your little goodie box, however that's no reason to neuter a 'good' villain's abilities.
how many people have people farming every hour , on the hour.
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Never do this. @3@
I'm not demanding they make the rest of the game as hard as this mission, I'm asking that there be this ONE piece of TEMPORARY content where you aren't mindlessly hitting the same button over and over without any movement or attention required. Who's really the one forcing their favored play style onto others, here?
The problem with this and ANY MMORPG versus games like Castlevania, in regards to content difficulty, is build variety. And this is exponentially worse give how much build potential Champions has in particular. Damage capable of one-hitting squishies is a NECESSITY in games like this, when that same damage can do a pathetic 5% of a good tank's HP. Gravitar does this poorly, with completely-unpredictable Cascades. The yellow bubbles, however, are well done. It is the same case with the Megas' Energy Waves. They let you know in advance when they're going to use the ability, giving you time to duck out of its way. The real problem is, everyone's so used to having such an easy time with every single piece of content in the game that taking cover is a COMPLETELY alien concept to them.
You tell me to stop defending a broken mechanic... I'm telling you, stop being lazy and put forth the effort to counter it. (That "effort" NOT being coming on the forums and whining to get it nerfed so you can practically afk at the fight without concern of death.)
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
You seem to be selectively reading posts and outright ignoring others that don't fit in with your pre-made viewpoint. i'll say it again. In bold this time. Since you seem to adamantly want to ignore this every time it comes up.
NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT THE TELEGRAPHED ATTACKS
The telegraphed attacks are fine. They can be avoided / blocked.
People are talking about the one hit kill no telegraph no warning attack. I think its called Destroyer blast? I'm unsure. These are single target instant cast abilities that tend to hone in on enemies outside the AoE range. The Mega D's don't even switch its target to the player before using it. It seems to randomly select a certain number of people who are not currently targeted and hit them with it, insta-killing them with no warning or chance to block. No charge up. no tell. I have gone many fights without ever being targeted by this before now and I have gone other fights and been 'that guy' 2-3 times.
They don't hit everyone in each fight, are quite rare and mostly seem to target those outside the AoE blast radius or on its edge.
This magical you attack you speak of does not exist.
I've fought these things quite a bit and I know what has killed me every time it's happened.
The Mega-Ds attacks are as follows...
Eyebeam
Electrocute (Causes Paralyze, "chain lightning")
Sonic Blast (Causes Paralyze, frontal cone)
Destroyer Blast (This is the 360 AOE wave, can knock, can 1-shot, strongest attack)
Thunderclap (No warning, can 1-shot, only does it to targets in melee)
Fireball (Creates fire patch at feet and a AOE damage around itself, can 1-shot, possible bug since it doesn't actually fire at target?)
Missile Barrage (Fired from hand, cone AOE)
Shoulder Launcher (Like Missile Barrage but much stronger, can 1-shot, can knock)
They will also perform random melee attacks against targets in melee range, like punching the ground.
They gain 1 attack when converted to Liberated Mega-Ds, and that's the Anti-Vehicle Beam. It looks exactly like their Eyebeam, but is green tinted and only targets vehicles.
I have, on occasion, been targeted by an attack where the Mega extends its hand and fires a stream of missiles. But those only do about 1000 damage each without blocking, and can be stopped by... Getting behind cover.
I haven't paid attention to the specific names of each attack in the combat logs, but according to your post and Baelog's, Destroyer Blast is the one you're concerned about, which is the one that I've been talking about which DOES have a tell on it, which can be seen without the Mega being your target. It's the red-circle-icon attack, where the Mega squats down to charge it, kinda like when you charge the Enrage toggle.
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
I've also seen the big blue bubble that is telegraphed, but by the time the signal pops up, the system's already decided who's getting hit, so by that time blocking or fleeing are irrelevant - you're going down anyway.
In short, this event is not fun for me. I shan't be playing it. If more content becomes "difficult" by your definition, I shall be playing less and less.
If your goal is to drive players away, I suppose emulating a WoW raid should work fine - they've lost over half their playerbase over the last couple of years. (Of course, they started with a playerbase larger than some major cities, so they could afford the loss. Can we?)
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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As for the blue sphere, it apparently DOES let you avoid it, as I do so on a regular basis. I'm never able to escape it by simply running away, but ducking behind the ramp works almost every time.
My goal is to existing players a reason to stay. As it stands, most of the content comes down to "murder murder murder spam spam spam", no thinking involved. I really like the Cybermind Alert because of the unique boss battle, as well as the lowered-clock-cycle-prison part even though it's pretty minor. F&I can be interesting, too. Unique mission mechanics are enjoyable, and keep players interested. Dumbed-down "hit the attack key over and over while standing still" mechanics are a bore; if you do it once, you won't get anything new out of most of the other content.
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
What would be nice is if they turned this into an alert for 75 people or something like that, so it had it's own zone, and people could queue for it. As of right now there's no reason to ever leave zone 1 as completing mutable zones is impossible.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Could be good, though getting 10-person Rampages to trigger is tough enough as it is. I WOULD, however, like to see more of these missions appear in non-Millennium-City areas, so that you're more likely to fill the zone with people who are actually seeking to participate.
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
I think two or three of these events happening in a year would be great. I'd suggest an event similar to the anniversary event, but with monsters or alien ships instead of MegaDs around various spawn points in MC, where you had to clear, say, ten different cosmics from around the city, with one final battle at the end.
Mega-Destroid deals 14169 (23314) Fire Damage to you with Pyre.
it's literally impossible to see what happens to you in the combat log as it happens and after the fight is over good luck sifting through that mess.
The big boom attack is destroyer blast I believe.
That Pyre has to be the "fireball" that leaves a burning patch under them. So there is a tell for that.
1: Vehicles. I'm sick of seeing "This isn't vehicles online", because they sold em to me. For quite a bit of money, I might add. I don't wanna be more powerful than your champions, but I want to be able to use the things I've spent 4 digits worth of cash on. Like it or not, they're part of the game mechanic. And they were also very expensive. Let me use them, stop calling for unneeded nerfs on them. The only thing that needs to be nerfed is that plasma shear should stack per player, and not for everyone.
Regarding that bug, I have it on authority from a few players that I trust that the bug works because of a stack overflow. There are only so many effects that you can apply to a mob, and once you reach that thresh-hold you can't do anything else. It just won't register. Since shear stacks so high, and since so many people use it, it can quickly go over whatever that limit is. After that point? Damage is an effect, new damage won't be applied. The reason we say no shear in particular is because of how many stacks it can add. I've seen 860 on one mega-d. Why does it seem to be effecting Mechanon more quickly, and why do we keep asking you to get off your bikes so soon if you're plasma beaming? Because people are using real powers now, too. On the mega-ds we were mostly vehicle spamming. Less effects active = more shear could be applied before whatever cap was reached. Mechanon? Now we've got bleeds and poison stacks and all sorts of other random things stacking on him. Less room for shear to pile up. And you will see damage, because it acts sort of like a soft cap. Some attacks are going to get through (oddly, plasma's base damage seems to be always on this list), but some are flat out going to plink. From my experience, this *seems* to happen more often the more stacks of shear are on a target. That 860 stack mega-d? We never did kill it. Might as well be slapping it with plastic forks.
2: The insta-pop. I don't mind em, if it's just one mega-d doing it. It never is, they seem to love doing them both at once. Even while blocking, some squishies just can't survive that. Also, it *seems* like they trigger so that once the animation starts, the people in the aoe are getting pegged if they can't take cover. Flat out leaving the aoe doesn't seem to work at all, I regularly try to dodge it on my bikes and always end up eating pavement.
I will say, though, that insta-kill aoe attacks are cheap in just about any mmo. It's artificial difficulty. This thing spawns destroids, so slap some control effects on a few of em, and make one or 2 of em heal the destroid, and make us mob-control. Wind back the number of destroyer waves they throw back a bit, and make them mix up their tactics. The only thing I'm sketchy about with the insta-gib aoe attacks is the fact that they seem to throw em every 20 seconds or so. That's a tad too much. That and they're effected by my last point, which is more on the suggestion to make this a better event side of things.
3: God, the graphics. I've got a good computer, with a good graphics card, and I have to turn this event down to minimum graphics with half rez. Why? Everyone's got 6 auras going on, the mega-ds are huge and covered with damage effects (which also eats video memory) and forget about Mechanon. He's a strobe light, when he's even visible. Why this is a detriment to the event? Not only do a lot of us have to play on potatoe level graphics, but it also makes the destroids and mechanon go invisible from time to time. They all have tells, when they're going to do dangerous attacks (or, dangerous attack and mildly annoying repel. Wtf, Mechanon's a wuss) they're nice enough to let us know. In theory. In practice? Well, let me paint a scenario for you.
I'm fighting a mega-d, right? At least, I think so, it's either that or this lamppost has negative ions/chill/clinging flames/bleed/poison on it. That giant glowing ball over there, that might be a mega destroid, may be hunched over punching the tank. Or, he might be charging his blast wave. I can't tell, he's about 40 feet away from me, and I don't have him targeted. *pow* oh, it was a blast wave. *resurrect* Ok, fly back over. WTF? Lag, bad. Lemme turn down my graphics and get back in here to hit this guy. Oh, wtf? I died. Huh, pyre. Guess I was standing on a fire patch. Couldn't see it, I had my graphics off because he was lagging me down with all of the effects, and "XxDarkLegendVampirexX" over there has all 8 auras active. Well, there are 2 stars. I'm just gonna fly over *pow* crap, too close to the other fight. *rez* there are 3 stars. F this. This fight sucks.
Seem familiar? It's the most common complaint I'm seeing in a lot of the channels I'm in.
What can be done to fix it? TURN OFF POWER EFFECTS ON BIG BOSSES. God, I've been asking for this since LI went live. Big boss + power effects = slideshow. For quite a few people. This fight it's 2-4 big bosses on screen + power effects = rubber band back to west side. We don't need the effects on em to know we're hitting em, we do have the debuff icons. This has been a problem for every boss fight we've had that's open world. This is probably the worst it's ever been.
What else can be done? Seriously, players. Turn off your auras when you go to this fight. Don't be That Guy. Every aura you've got stacked on is a bit more that lags down other people.
Anyway, that's just my 2c.
RIP Caine
Doesn't bother me at all. However, My computer cries...
Agreed with the graphical issues, Chalupa. I haven't had any Megas disappear on me, but Mechanon has vanished on occasion. Those disappearances do indeed throw the entire "watch for tells" balance factor out the window.
When you CAN watch for tells, though, don't try to escape the attack via getting out of range. It doesn't work. Instead, take cover, break line of sight with them. It's quite tough on the northern battlefield where all you have is the ramp, but the southern battlefield has pillars you can duck behind, and the western battlefield has plenty of cover to utilize.
I love the idea of supportive enemies (the spiders are an amazing addition, to me), though more along the lines of buffing their allies than shooting control effects at players.
I also must disagree on one-hit mechanics being "artificial difficulty". So long has it's fairly telegraphed and has ways to be avoided, I think it's more than fine. As I said in my first post in this topic, I really love the fight mechanics of having to duck for cover when you see a big attack coming, rather than just blocking it (if you even have to do THAT, sometimes you can just take a boss' hits straight in the jaw and not even flinch). The amount of damage their Destroyer Blasts do is in a very good spot, in my opinion, where it makes squishies have to fear it, but extra-beefy tanks can still keep up their assault with just a block. It serves to let tanks actually have something, rather than trading off their damage output for zero benefit as in a lot of other content.
Now, note, I said the DAMAGE is in a good spot. As I've said in previous posts, the charge time could stand to be increased so that players could have more time to find something to hind behind. As it stands, I typically attack from a position that allows me to hide via a quick sidestep, and I do still get hit (RARELY) if there's a bit of lag. The attack doesn't really allow for being away from cover, there's not enough time to duck down if you aren't already right next to your "shield". This could definitely stand to be changed a little bit. But the rest of the mechanics behind that attack, I feel, are very well done.
I'd need to see more of the pyre to give any thoughts on that.
Lastly, in regards to vehicles, I don't want to see them be made useless, either. But look around the game; in EVERY piece of content that allows vehicles to be used, they are superior to to actual characters. Open missions, Forum Malvanum, Lemurian Invasion, Sky Command... Granted, Sky Command was built for vehicles, but the point still stands: Any content ALLOWING vehicles will always go smoother with vehicles. There's no choice there, you have to use a vehicle when it's available or you'll fall behind. Few builds will allow you to perform better as a character than a vehicle. I don't want them neutered, not by a long shot, but having them completely overshadow on-foot characters in almost every situation is very disappointing.
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
I'll posted this originally in another thread, but is quite relevant here too:
The attack does between 21000 and 24000 base damage (with some weird exceptions of well over 100k, I expect those people are using low level characters).
Blocking without purchasing a block power gives 200% block resistance.
Almost all purchased block power get the following resistance to particle damage.
power r1 = 250%
power r2 = 300%
power r3 = 360%
The exception is the arcana block, that starts at 300% for non physical damage.
(btw I hadn't noticed lightning block being generally weaker than other block powers, but it apparently is)
Lets put the health of a player at 5000, that is easily obtainable without any con.
That would mean to survive a 24000 damage hit with the base block, you'd need more than:
24000/((1+RequiredResistance)*(1+200%))=5000
24000/(5000*3)-1=RequiredResistance
RequiredResistance=60%
For r1 block
RequiredResistance=37.14%
For r2 block
RequiredResistance=20%
For r3 block
RequiredResistance=4.35%
60% is a bit high, you can get there with just defense if you have ego or str, and warden/guardian and vindicator specs, but its build dependant.
For r1 block, that is already much more attainable, but my healer build without defense specs or mods gets 24%, so not all builds can get that.
Then r2 or r3 block, which I'd always take when making a squishy build without con, those should all easily survive a blocked hit.
So if you get oneshot through a r3 block, you have quite an odd build.
It's just some special NPC version of Pyre, that's all.
Baelog says it has the green circle icon. If they only ever attack their own feet with the power, I doubt you're going to be hit by it unless you're targeting the one throwing the attack, so you should be able to see the icon.
Cupid@Tool-box, stunningly radiant stag ready to play matchmaker between villain and arrow!
Vixon@Tool-box, frighteningly eager to summon despair for his adversaries!
Jebin Zedalu@Tool-box, elementalist weaponmaster. ...One of these things is not like the others!
To screw over melee characters of course. Most things are designed to screw over melee characters.
Which has me worrying about next year's event...
MECHA-GROND!!!:eek::eek::eek:
The AOE is bigger then the fire patch on the ground, because it's still a 25ft AOE from a 20ft tall robot, not a 6' tall humanoid.
I have no idea why it LOOKS like Fireball when they charge it, but it does. So treat it as a PBAOE.
It also sucks watching the zero damage I seem to be doing in the combat log. What's the point in participating if my damage isn't even registering?
I was going to farm a bit in this event, but I'd rather be actually having fun playing a game.
Since there is so much failure going on, I have to wonder if the average player just has no where near the DPS and survival needed to finish it. Challenge is nice and all, but it should be challenging to the average CO player, not top end builds for a temporary, open world event like this.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009