Rescue Manticore - Terrible Design

[ozob]

Thankfully I've played the game a lot... as have most people who are here.  However, I just want to rant a little about how BAD the beginning mission design is.  The Twinshot arc, where you help the Shining Stars.  So a little narrative to put it in perspective.

1) Roll up a character.  Dominator.  Hmmm... that sounds fun.  I'll try one.  Control and Damage seems cool.
2) Run some missions using hold and attacks, nice.
3) Get into Twinshot's arc...
4) Wait... why doesn't my hold work anymore on the Arachnos Kidnappers... they're +2 I have no debuffs or heals on this character.  Ahhh!  Faceplant... a lot.

Who puts control immune or resistant mobs in a beginning arc that supposed to teach you the game?  Or is the lesson, "don't roll control characters?" because if I didn't know better, that would be one of the lessons I walked away with.

Okay... rant over.  I feel better now 🙂

[PaxArcana]

I think it's not so much that they are immune or resistant, it's that they are Lieutenant class mobs, and on top of that, are +2 to you.

[Doc_Scorpion]

One of the MANY sins of that arc...  basically, Twinshot is the new Hollows.  Horribly broken, but placed front and center by the game's design.

Edited September 27, 2019 by Doc_Scorpion

[ozob]

43 minutes ago, PaxArcana said:

I think it's not so much that they are immune or resistant, it's that they are Lieutenant class mobs, and on top of that, are +2 to you.

Even with Dom and stacking holds I wasn't ever able to hold them.  It was a lot of pain and I eventually just did autocomplete.  I could have bought insps and done it, but ehhh... 

Still... who thought that was a good idea?

[Derek Icelord]

36 minutes ago, ozob said:

Still... who thought that was a good idea?

The same designers who thought Praetoria having tons of hard hitting enemies with lots of mez (some factions have a mez on every critter) and endless ambushes was a good choice.

 

Most of it comes from a period when everyone and their mother played Scrappers (it was the most popular AT by a sizable margin) and new content was balanced around that. Twinshot and Dr. Grave's arcs, and the whole of Praetoria are just painful if you're not a Scrapper, Brute, or teamed.

[Ankhammon]

I think it was more of an attempt to add back challenge to a game that was loosing it's challenge.

 

 

[Oubliette_Red]

But... I thought people wanted a challenge?  XD

[Redlynne]

People who SAY they want "challenge" merely mean that they want their IWIN! buttons (plural) to work MOST of the time, rather than ALL of the time.

What they don't want is to lose ... ever ...

 

 

 

The problem with the Save (bat)Manticore mission is that it involves Arachnos.  Their Lieutenants have a measure of MAG protection against mez.  This makes it hard for a mez based character (Controllers, Dominators and some Fortunata builds) to successfully do what they are built to do ... mez to win ... because your mez powers "don't work" on the Arachnos Lieutenants like they would on almost anyone else.

[Oubliette_Red]

I primarily play support characters, controllers/debuffers and I've played the Twin Short arc since CoH was resurrected and I cannot say that I found it hair-pullingly difficult. It's a challenge, but I've solo'd it and played it with friends. Given a choice I'd much rather play the Hollows, mostly because I find the characters there much more enjoyable.

 

Edit: One thing I do do with Twin Shot is that I take breaks from the arc, go play other contact's arcs then come back, usually at the top end of the lever range for each section of the arc.

Edited September 28, 2019 by Oubliette_Red

[Lines]

I have issues with Twinshot/Graves, but difficulty isn't one of them.

 

I'm sure I remember dying a few times on the Manticore mission, but I don't equate that to bad design.

[blazingcoconut]

Dying is not bad design.  But making a beginner arc that a lot of people solo and you are STEERED towards stupid difficult for 3 of your many ATs is bad design.  Anyone playing this as a brute, scrapper, tank, stalker or a class that has enough damage to not care makes it easy.  Playing it as a Controller or Dominator, especially Dom since you don't really have debuff is just painful.  

 

If this arc were later, I'd have options.  I'd have a tray of insps and some slotting.  I might have made friends to team with on it.  As it stands the autocomplete button is the best option to tackle it for some ATs and that makes it really bad.  

 

I don't want an IWIN button or I'd just ask someone to PL me to 50.  I want to play missions.  Just commenting on the design of this particular arc.  It's emperically bad.  It would be like making an arc where foes have 90% damage resistance and def and res debuffs unless they are mezzed.  If you were new to the game and ran into that with you brute or scrapper what would you think of the game?  You might wonder why you are playing the AT you are playing.  That would be bad design in a starting arc.

Edited September 28, 2019 by blazingcoconut

[Doc_Scorpion]

39 minutes ago, blazingcoconut said:

Playing it as a Controller or Dominator, especially Dom since you don't really have debuff is just painful.

With spawns full of yellow mobs on base difficulty, it wasn't always fun for an MM either.  The there's the broken maps, the broken mishes...  Not to mention the sometimes questionable and patronizing writing.  And setting aside the whole tie-in to the Praetorian storyline your character hasn't encountered yet...

The whole arc is a train wreck.

[gameboy1234]

Challenge can be good but as an introductory arc this seems like an odd choice.

 

Maybe the assumption was that you'd get some help?  When I say "challenge" I often mean that you need to be smart and group up, and use your powers accordingly on a team.   Perhaps the "bad design" is the assumption that you should be able to solo any content in the game.

 

I don't think that's terrible design, but maybe it's questionable in what is essentially a tutorial mission.  (But I suppose you could say that the tutorial is "learn to group up.")  There's tons of people in AP typically.  I often group up with folks who are having trouble with missions, if they ask over LFG.  Honoree is typical, there was a giant mecha boss in a Malta arc recently, and last week a Peacebringiner needed help with Requiem.  (The last one was funny, he ended up with a full team somehow and Requiem went down in like 2 seconds flat.)  So I don't think it's a terrible idea that "group up" should be thing in an MMO, just a matter of expectations.

 

Pretoria is a little different because it's often very lightly populated.  Teaming is harder there, and I think dividing the player population further (after CoV) was the design mistake, not necessarily the difficulty of the mobs.

 

 

[RikOz]

The other big problem with those missions is the fact that those orange Arachnos lieutenants immediately hit you with Web Grenade every single time. The problem with this is that WG doesn't just immobilize you - it also slows your recharge. And slowed recharge is bad for a character that has, if starting these missions at the "expected" level (i.e. Twinshot is introduced at level 5), at most, three attacks.

 

So you can't run away because you're immobilized, your attacks are slowed to the point that you can barely fight back, and you're being shot at and pummeled by a mob that is +2 to you, who your own debuffs, if you have any, won't stick.

 

Also, and this has nothing to do with difficulty/challenge, but Twinshot keeps committing the RPG faux pas of making RP assumptions on behalf of your character. Some of my characters are middle-aged, and really don't like being called "Kiddo".

 

Outside of the Shining Stars arcs, I've actually started setting my lower-level blasters Notoriety to -1 enemies simply to deal with the weird way so many maps spawn front-loaded with +1 enemies. It's always bizarre to me that the first room or two of almost every map is full of mobs that are harder to beat than the named "boss" at the end of the mission - I've noted that the named mob at the end of the map virtually always matches your notoriety setting, so with the default +0 setting, if you're level 13, the named guy at the end will be level 13. But he's hiding behind a bunch of level 14 guys at the front door, for some reason, which means your character immediately walks into a crowd of yellow and orange mobs.

Edited September 28, 2019 by RikOz

[Twisted Toon]

So far, I've only done the first mission in the Twinshot arc with my Dark/Dark Dominator, Dark Darkity McDark. At level 5 I have a ST immob (that does damage), a ST hold (that does damage), a cone Immob (that does damage), a ranged blast, the wand, Sands of mu, the axe, and the charm (Magic origin, not that it matters). That's 8 attacks that I can use at level 5. I don't see what the problem is. And, I didn't have any issues with the Arachnos group that showed up in the first mission. I'll be finishing up the arc sometime today. I guess I'll see if it gets any worse. Although I doubt it will. next level, I'll have access to yet another attack, unless I go with a pool power like Maneuvers.

[Doc_Scorpion]

27 minutes ago, Twisted Toon said:

I don't see what the problem is

Let's run down the problems...  First, not all AT's have strong offensive powers that early. (Particularly holds and immobilizations.)  Second, not all players load themselves up from the P2W vendor.  Third, just because you don't have a problem that doesn't mean other people won't either.

[RikOz]

32 minutes ago, Twisted Toon said:

So far, I've only done the first mission in the Twinshot arc with my Dark/Dark Dominator, Dark Darkity McDark. At level 5 I have a ST immob (that does damage), a ST hold (that does damage), a cone Immob (that does damage), a ranged blast, the wand, Sands of mu, the axe, and the charm (Magic origin, not that it matters). That's 8 attacks that I can use at level 5. I don't see what the problem is. And, I didn't have any issues with the Arachnos group that showed up in the first mission. I'll be finishing up the arc sometime today. I guess I'll see if it gets any worse. Although I doubt it will. next level, I'll have access to yet another attack, unless I go with a pool power like Maneuvers.

The problem is that, when the missions were first implemented, they were meant to introduce new players to the game's mechanics and features, and a new player did not have access to all of those extra attacks. You can get them all now from the P2W vendor, but that was not the case on live.

[Twisted Toon]

1 hour ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Let's run down the problems...  First, not all AT's have strong offensive powers that early. (Particularly holds and immobilizations.)  Second, not all players load themselves up from the P2W vendor.  Third, just because you don't have a problem that doesn't mean other people won't either.

I understand that not all ATs are created equal in the offensive powers department.

 

However...

 

On 9/27/2019 at 1:00 PM, ozob said:

Thankfully I've played the game a lot... as have most people who are here.  However, I just want to rant a little about how BAD the beginning mission design is.  The Twinshot arc, where you help the Shining Stars.  So a little narrative to put it in perspective.

1) Roll up a character.  Dominator.  Hmmm... that sounds fun.  I'll try one.  Control and Damage seems cool.
2) Run some missions using hold and attacks, nice.
3) Get into Twinshot's arc...
4) Wait... why doesn't my hold work anymore on the Arachnos Kidnappers... they're +2 I have no debuffs or heals on this character.  Ahhh!  Faceplant... a lot.

Who puts control immune or resistant mobs in a beginning arc that supposed to teach you the game?  Or is the lesson, "don't roll control characters?" because if I didn't know better, that would be one of the lessons I walked away with.

Okay... rant over.  I feel better now 🙂

The OP knows how to play the game. He also chose to play a Dominator.

I went heavy on the control with mine, and actually didn't use the Prestige powers all that much. however, I have only done the one mission so far. Things might change later in the arc.

 

I would also like to say that this would be a good time to learn that not everything in the game is susceptible to mez controls.

1 hour ago, RikOz said:

The problem is that, when the missions were first implemented, they were meant to introduce new players to the game's mechanics and features, and a new player did not have access to all of those extra attacks. You can get them all now from the P2W vendor, but that was not the case on live.

As I understood it, the OP was talking about a recent play session, and not something done 8 years ago.

 

All that said, I don't really care for the arc all that much myself. It was ok, the first couple of times I ran it. It got old really fast for me.

[Six-Six]

I like dying. It's not fun when there's no risk of dying. If I'm dying too much, it means I need to take a look at how I'm playing... maybe a change of powers, slotting, strategy. 

That said, I might be one of the few people who enjoy Twinshot's entire arc. Hoorb. 😃

[PaxArcana]

1 hour ago, Twisted Toon said:

Things might change later in the arc.

... they absolutely will.

[MunkiLord]

I couldn't hit Twinshot and the rest of the other heroes and that bummed me out because they are lame.

[justicebeliever]

1 hour ago, MunkiLord said:

I couldn't hit Twinshot and the rest of the other heroes and that bummed me out because they are lame.

I find Dillo fascinating...And Twinshot must have good taste in character, if she picked me, out of all the heroes, to be in the Shining Stars.  Proton seems super trust-worthy, and Flambeaux is just a sweetheart, such a selfless hero.  It's that Grym you got to watch out for.  He just shows up all the sudden, uninvited, and we are just supposed to trust him?  Arachnos showed up uninvited and we don't trust those guys. 

 

But why Arachnos?  And why attack the Shining Stars?  Were they just afraid to take on any of the A, B, or even C list super groups and decided the Shining Stars, while not as glamorous as knocking over a bank or a garbage truck, would be at least better than grabbing purses from civilians in Atlas Park?

[RikOz]

I read somewhere, back during live, that the members of Shining Stars were supposed to represent different player types:

 

Grym: The player who basically just recreates his character from a different game. In the case of Grym, WoW's "Cataclysm" expansion had just introduced the worgen (basically werewolves) as a playable race not long before the Shining Stars arc was added to CoH. (I totally get this - my first CoH character, Flaminatrix, is a fire/fire blaster who physically resembles my WoW main - who is a paladin - while having the powerset of my then-#2 WoW character, a fire mage.)

 

Dillo: The hardcore roleplayer who never, ever breaks character, right down to constantly speaking in an incomprehensible dialect.

 

Flambeaux: The female player (or male player playing a female character) who always tries to be the center of attention, and uses being a female to score benefits from other, male, players:

 

I don't recall what player archetypes Proton and Twinshot were meant to represent.

[PaxArcana]

Proton is probably the number-crunching "nerd" stereotype.  and Twinshot's likely the "social butterfly"/"Popular Girl" who knows everyone, everywhere, and is just SO very amazingly cool.  😄

[Twisted Toon]

Ok. rescuing Manticore with my Dark/Dark Dominator at level 6. Yep, I ran into +1s. I used inspirations if I had the right ones at the time. I hit Domination when it was available. Especially when going up against Huntsmen (Bosses).  I cycled through 4 powers for the most part. I just took my time and wore them down. Rested, if I needed to, between fights and completed the mission without much issue. Of course, I was running on +0/x1 with no bosses. Default settings. I don't know if the OP had altered his mission settings.