Ruin Mage

A team of 4 Defenders / 2 Controllers / 1 Scrapper / 1 Tanker managed to do the Relentless ASF. We were slow, we goofed off. We still had fun. Relentless has many ways to approach it, and it can be done with any set up. Many set ups will be rocky. Others will breeze through it. Given this is but part 1 of larger plans, I imagine it'll remain as such for a while. Yes, people who want effective and efficient runs will be picky. This is not a bad thing - its meant to make you be careful on Relentless. Some powersets are super strong, but balance of that is a long term plan - we have to make do with what things are at right now. Defenses are a thing that are on the dartboard to tackle eventually, but for now the large buffs to mobs in Relentless is the answer to how the game's meta currently is. It's meant to put a little challenge back in it, and meant to make you consider some form of strategy in going against parts of the SF if not all of it. It's not the perfect answer, but its better than letting things remain stale and akin to Council Radios. The thing about this is unless you're goofing around, you shouldn't break the 2hr mark. My team had 3 hours because of goof-offs, taking our time, and deaths. It didn't feel slow considering the team make up - 4 defenders/2 controllers / 1 tanker & 1 scrapper. It wasn't as fast as a more rounded team, but it didn't feel supremely sloggish. If you want speed, there are lower settings too.

Well, proliferating it to other things would probably make it go to other TFs first. Which, using the current design, wouldn't really need to be changed that much if at all. Inspirations are not that needed if you want to run this - unless you REALLY want to try an all blaster run for some reason. These do have badges tied to them, but the badges can be done on the lower difficulties - shown by the ASF challenge badges. There's also a limited amount of rewards one can give out. They can't exactly, currently, apply these to - for example - random missions (radio/newspaper) because what would they boost? EXP/Influence? That's pretty eh, imo. The only things that really reward you are TFs - which the style of rewards that you get from the challenge ASF is pretty great. Plus the temp powers from the natural ASF + the D-Syncs. I don't see this being a new standard for teams, but more so an option for those looking to take on a challenge - which taking things on with a proper team and not blindly pull-murdering is a challenge these days.

Well, in stuff outside the ASF this will remain the same (for now, I believe) - but in the ASF with these difficulty modes in that starts to change. Some "core" features of the game have helped in the part of trivializing +4/x8. This is a turn to form where you have to, IF you engage with it, think before you do something. Turning off features is a core part of optional content; See the Master of Badges of old. Those turned off things too. Sure, you still had insps back then. However, this takes away what I would consider crutches at this time. EDIT; Personal opinion of mine is that "Well you should have done this instead/should do this instead." detracts from the beta testing of the ADOs.

There's a limit to what can be done in the now versus ideas to be explored later. Inspirations and temp powers - such as Warburg nukes or Shivans - might not create the feeling the intended for these new challenge modes. That's as the game is right now - that inspiration spam would just help trivialize the goal and intent. Most content is trivialized now by inspirations, IOs, temp powers (looking at you, stat booster shenanigans), and Incarnates - to the point where +4/x8 is a standard and is breezed through on a general basis. There's a lot more to be done to complete the puzzle. The limitations as they stand don't really hamper anyone's gameplay. They're meant to be taken with a team that's hopefully rounded out by more than 1 AT / type. Where you won't miss inspirations but also need to rely, as is the intent, on the team to not take a dirt nap. Especially on the highest one - where the extra stats and powers on boss mobs can really spell doom if you're treating it like Council radio farms. Hopefully I don't sound too defensive. I'm a big fan of this and I would prefer things of it to remain as is - until the picture is complete. A cooldown for inspirations doesn't sound heinous.

There will be new repeatable missions that should have Minos/Cyclopses as well, from a new contact. Or maybe its just Minos. Unless the Solaris ones read differently in the files, they should count - boss or EB. They're the same mob, I imagine. But yes, repeating an ITF is no issue. Easiest 35+ TF for the win.

I mean if you just got hit by a boulder, you probably won't be able to jump for a little bit. Imagine getting clobbered by a big ol rock. From what PVP vids I've seen on HC, there's a lot of leaping around.

ok boomer. (^:

Honestly, I didn't even notice my insps were disabled. It helped that I unknowingly Defender-stacked my team LMAO.

Good news, support-based powersets make things on these advanced difficulties much easier! Not ez breezy, but its noticeable! (Unless you're my team and don't realize those puddles hurt)

The final boss/objective boss.

I think they worked with what was possible in the game versus wild ideas that'd probably take a lot of coding / hacking at said code. This is but the first step to make Level 50+ content engaging. It's not going to be for everyone, but there's also many more stages to go. There's also a thing to be said that it's optional and will remain optional. I personally love the no insps part - it makes people rely on one another more.

It's probably a good idea to focus on the Page's content itself rather than go "man, this is what I was hoping for." - It's kinda detractive from the thread.

Aviel and I were trying to not give away too much, but I failed in the end a lot.

This is how a challenge mode 3 run looks IF you take your time...and die to opening shots/goofing off. Overall? Great stuff in Relentless.

For anyone interested, I'll be running this on highest difficulty tonight and tomorrow. Be on the look out for Shadeknight or Occult!

It should be said that some of the people - if not most/all - that the thread was made to tell 'stop it' will not read this thread or will think its not about them / will ignore the message.

I believe Sentinels are due a revamp, but revamping an entire AT takes time & that is something that can be rare to have.

CoH Code is a nightmare if the conversations with the HCdevs is anything to go off of.

You'll have to wait and see.

A thread will do no good. Just report it if its being over-aggressive, GMs will do the rest.

LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Oi, lets not devolve this thread. Forum cop out.

ADO. A-do. It'll be fun for the whole family.

I think that changing - enhancing, as it was used here, but still - exisisting content in such a way is something that HC will avoid doing if conversations with the devs is anything to go by. I don't disagree with it - changing anything at its base nature is perhaps not a pleasant idea. Now bugfixing or tweaking odd things is different and I'm all for that. However, with the occasionally mentioned Challenge Mode coming this could be a possible concept for a Challenge Mode ITF IF CM is proliferated to pre-HC content. Otherwise, no thanks.

If only, but Aeon isn't that advanced. I mean the character for the record.