Cobalt Arachne

Intentional. If you're going to Cimerora it's not 'teleporting' at that point anymore, it's 'time traveling'. This is the same reason why the base beacons for the Echo zones were removed, as it doesn't make sense for teleporters to inexplicably have time travel capabilities, so these zones were restricted to their Ouroboros-related entry methods as canonically they're the only accessible method players have to time travel.

This is correct, the badge is specifically referring to the LTs and Bosses that transform into Warwolves at under 25% health.

The shortest explanation is that it is what happens to the map in Recluse's Victory when an area's control changes. We improved it and used it in the Dr. Aeon Strike Force to dynamically change the map in certain ways as you progress through it. Edit: Faultline beat me to the response. 😛

For those who want Void Hunters packed to go... Grab the Cloud of Odorous Smoke tip mission and get the new badge in one or two clears at x8: Otherwise, there are a few in the Dr. Aeon Strike Force and more will be found in some future arcs that feature them.

Thanks! I'll check on that... It's either because that version doesn't have a credit tracker or because he 'vanishes and escapes' instead of dying it's not rewarding properly; We'll dig into it.

I'm told there's an Alignment Tip mission that has nothing but Void Hunters in it as the mission's normal enemy group, which would be the instant-best way to get that badge, I need to go check which one that is though. This is correct, we're hoping to have her arc out in January's Page 3 small Panel update which will have the Incarnate Traitors to fight; That being said, it is odd that the Incarnate Elite Bosses aren't counting, I'll check on that, I would think they should be granting credit too.

If that happens and people use it to dodge the explosions, that's fine by me, you still moved to avoid it.

Not sure on that one... There are two powers at work, the one that counts down, and the explosion that fires at 0. The explosion power should be a one-time to-hit check, the individual elements within the power shouldn't be rolling separate checks if they are. My guess is any weirdness like that will be ironed out when it just auto-hits if you're within range when the explosion goes off vs. using a to-hit roll.

The Golden Brickernaut self-destruct explosion's range is 40 feet; But a warning indicator showing you exactly where that is was intentionally excluded, as the design intent was to break line of sight for surefire survival. If you've got the moxie to eyeball 40 feet in-game and stand outside of it to avoid the explosion, you certainly can! 😄

It'll be adjusted next build, but right now it has a x10 base accuracy modifier, which means it's almost guaranteed to hit you. It does a three-tick damage hit of 5-digit damage, that's basically guaranteed to kill anybody it hits. Golden Brickernauts are vulnerable to psionic damage, confuse, containment, phase, and teleport while counting down. The idea is you either break line of sight, kill them fast enough that they don't have a chance to explode, kill them during the countdown with psionic damage, or use one of the vulnerabilities to contain the blast. Next build it will just auto-hit you if you're in-range when they explode; This eliminates the 5% chance that you set-up everything perfectly for the 'Unfriendly Fire' badge against Zoe and then have it fail on a 5% chance. As I previously mentioned, we aren't using auto-hit anywhere as means to mitigate defense to create artificial difficulty, but telegraphed attacks that give you the chance to respond appropriately and completely nullify them will auto-hit if you don't move or react to them at all.

The required temp to kill the Hydra Head is not locked by the challenge, but the other one that kills the towers is.

I would give try Malicious difficulty (the second level, the minimum required to earn all the badges) a try, it is nowhere near the ballpark of difficulty of Really Hard Way, in any capacity. It is really very quite reasonable, despite the name. Malicious difficulty can be played at +0, at any team size, and the only difference is that the enemies are given the additional powers needed to complete the badge challenges. Enemies do not get the additional stats and you have no restrictions. This is the difficulty to choose if you want the badges.

The designed goal was that anybody who has the Rogue Alignment power can confuse the target and achieve the badge, as the content is red side. However, per feedback, we'll be adding a special +confuse component to the Golden Throwing Wrench temp power rewarded for completion of the ASF that can be used to confuse them specifically. Badges are always optional content; Anybody trying to collect all the badges already requires the player to touch all types of content, whether they enjoy it or not, such as PvP. Hard mode is no exception to that precedent that has existed almost as long as the game has. If you want every badge, expect to do every type of content that exists.

We've already had some internal discussions on a new 'Easy Mode' for TFs that allow them to be solo-able by any character for reduced rewards. Can't comment on any of the specifics, as it's not a Page 3 thing. At the very least we would have some details to nail down on the how's and what's before committing to it as a feature, but it's very possible to do and on our radar.

Assuming this is referring to the Golden Brickernaut's self-destruct. Telegraphed moves with a positioned warning indicator are not exactly auto-hit, they 'miss' by you moving out of the locations they are targeting. They also aren't doing special un-resistable damage, they just do unsurvivably large numbers. 😛 My statement still reads accurately. If any enemies have true auto-hit in any of their regular attack powers that are not telegraphed with a chance to avoid them by moving, that's likely a bug.

Those blue energy strikes should be targeting players randomly, including ranged, the fact they seem to only target melee is a bug and will be looked into.

Easier? Definitely. Faster? Not so sure... A single AV defeat in Relentless gives 3 Astral merits, which is the total of all three main objectives of the whole BAF, and the ASF has... nearly twenty possible if you do the optional ones. Also a couple of the big AVs give Empyreans instead. You'd have to run the BAF ~20 times within the duration of one ASF on Relentless difficulty for equal merit payout.

There's nothing we can design in this game that can compete with the ease and speed of soloing Dark Astoria story arcs on -1 difficulty in terms of ease/payout. Trying to compete with the bottom baseline isn't a feasible benchmark. The main draw of higher difficulty is the gameplay experience. That being said, right now the Aeon Strike Force on the highest difficulty pays out around 300 reward merits if you take all merit options at the end, and convert all the Astrals/Empyreans into reward merits. That number is likely going to go up as well once the placeholder 40 merits on completion is adjusted later. I don't think it's wholly an unworthwhile payout and is only set to go up.

The 40 completion is a placeholder, as with all content like it, until we have an acceptable data point on average completion times to assign a proper amount. Also, the bulk of the challenge mode reward comes from the Astral/Empyrean merits that come from fighting the AVs. Check your salvage, if you fought everything you should walk away with a mountain of merits. Ripple 3's final boss AVs are tethered to that room, and if you pull them too far from their spawn point they will reset. That being said, the aggro doesn't seem to be resetting with the tether, so we're looking for an alternative solution to ensure that those AVs are fought only within the confines of that room. Expect changes in the next Page 3 build.

I want to stress the comparative measure of length is a weird scale in a game where the latest new group content is weighed against far older content. Existing TF content has had many years for people to memorize every facet of their maps, objectives, enemies, and challenges. Which means they've been extremely optimized. The Aeon Strike Force is brand new, and many people playing it are opting to play through it at a slow pace to fully immerse themselves in the new maps, new enemies, etc. Because of that, and the lack of familiarity with the content, the completion time is inflated as a result. I'm feeling fairly confident that a few months from now, when the content is no longer the 'brand new shiny', the average completion time will not remain that high.

The Vanguard AVs cannot be pulled out of the room they are fought in, if you try to pull them too far away from their spawn location (about the length of the room), they will run back and reset to full health.

This is exactly the reason. The Dr. Aeon Strike Force was my primary development task for Page 3, and it was one of the first things started and one of the last things finished. It by far took the most time to make out of all of the Page 3 additions. Since I'm also the dev that does the Tour Guide tips, they simply had to be postponed to get the ASF done, as it was a higher priority for me to be working on. Expect the remaining zones to get their Tour Guide tips in Page 4 though!

Even at Relentless, the difficulty is not so extreme that you MUST have any role, only that it was balanced so that having each will make a noticeable and appreciable difference. -If you don't have a tank, expect to do more ranged pulls around corners to mitigate enemy alphas. -If you don't have damage, expect things to take longer to die, and thus being exposed to dangerous enemies longer. -If you don't have any control, expect aggro management to be much more critical and to avoid overpulling. -If you don't have any support, expect everything to require a higher degree of coordination and less leeway on mistakes. I've done many many runs of the Aeon Strike Force with many very different team compositions, none of which I vetted with any kind of 'you must bring X or Y' and they all completed Relentless, but every role felt valuable, and the runs where we were missing types of ATs had noticeable differences. The goal wasn't to require any role, but to ensure every role felt like they properly contributed to the success of the team.

Ah, yes I did! I didn't realize they had wrapped up the Master of Challenge changes into this feedback post, thought it was solely the new ASF difficulty options. That's fair then, we could swap out the reward for a non-incarnate reward, maybe we could give empyrean merits equal to the system buying price of that incarnate salvage. Good feedback, I'll bring it up for discussion.

We'll look into this then; Thanks!