Rescue Manticore - Terrible Design

[Doc_Scorpion]

5 hours ago, justicebeliever said:

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?

 I LOL'ed.

[EmmySky]

On 9/28/2019 at 3:44 PM, RikOz said:

... 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.

I have noticed this trend everywhere.  I just ran 9 baby heroes through the lvl 20 Midnighter arc from...the lady that starts with an M inside the club in Steel.  Front of missions orange, end of mission equal level.  On my squishier toon (human PB anyone?) I had to tone it down because too much death (quants in every spawn anyone?).  

 

I dont care for the Twinshot arc after about 3 characters because its too assumptive about my thoughts and abilities (if you read the text) and its too difficult for low level squishies.  And I will never run the Midnighter arc again after running 9 toons through it one after the other lol.

Edited September 30, 2019 by EmmySky

[Ry]

Twinshot can honestly buzz off if you ask me. I dont like her arc at all. <_<

[boggo2300]

12 hours ago, justicebeliever said:

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?

Why them?  have you met them?  they make Fusionette seem ALMOST tolerable, the real question is, why haven't every other faction in the game attacked them as well?

[blazingcoconut]

On 9/28/2019 at 1:59 PM, gameboy1234 said:

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.

I have no issues with missions, like the Skulls arc that have you face an EB which warn you that you should bring a friend.  That's cool, all ATs have issues with that mission since the EB is tough.

 

This mission doesn't have that warning and isn't particularly hard for everyone that doesn't rely on holds as their source of mitigation.  As I've been going through the levels I do find it kind of amusing how many hold resistant mobs are end bosses as well.

 

Again it would be like if the beginning arc had mobs who had a powerful DEF debuff and a powerful RES debuff combined.  That would make the mission hard for melee characters and sentinels. 

 

Which, I'd love to see more of, it would help the place of support in the end game.  But that's where it belongs, the end game, not the intro arc.

 

(You had a really nice reply, just pulling out this point really for discussion)

[blazingcoconut]

9 hours ago, Twisted Toon said:

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.

I had not.  I also hit domination which didn't help.  Dark has -to hit which probably was enough mitigation to survive.  I was playing plant / storm which did not have much other tools in the way of mitigation.  I hadn't yet taken Snow Storm.

[PaxArcana]

IIRC, most of my characters I've put through that arc have had to go to -1/x0, or else, leave the mission alone for a level or two.

[ShardWarrior]

Just my 2 inf, but this mission arc stinks regardless of what character you play it on. 

[Twisted Toon]

2 hours ago, blazingcoconut said:

I had not.  I also hit domination which didn't help.  Dark has -to hit which probably was enough mitigation to survive.  I was playing plant / storm which did not have much other tools in the way of mitigation.  I hadn't yet taken Snow Storm.

Hmm, odd. I don't really know what to tell you. I suppose that the - tohit from Dark could have been the deciding factor. I don't know. Could have been just luck as well.

[RikOz]

9 minutes ago, PaxArcana said:

IIRC, most of my characters I've put through that arc have had to go to -1/x0, or else, leave the mission alone for a level or two.

As I discovered after some experimentation across multiple alts, the initial Shining Stars missions are actually much easier if you start them at level 5, when you're introduced to Twinshot, than if you wait a couple levels. Due to the XP buffs, I had been hitting at least level 8 before talking to Twinshot (I like to play the Matthew Habashy stuff to completion, all the way up through the end of Aaron Thiery's missions, before talking to Twinshot). Somebody in another thread where I mentioned this pointed out that there are different "tiers" of enemies, so perhaps the "tier" incremented somewhere between levels 5 and 8. There's also the point of the "beginner's luck" buff, which is going to be lower at 8 than at 5.

[tidge]

The P2W (free) extra attacks go a long way towards helping with low-level content that hits with -Recharge.

 

There is no analgesic for some of the dialogue, but you can get your revenge on Flambeaux in at least one Tip mission (as a Rogue, IIRC). I think she explicitly says she is trying to kill you in that mission!

 

My personal peeve in terms of difficult (for your level) missions are the first contacts in Talos Island that ask you to defeat X Circle of Thorns. It may be just the characters I build, but that particular outdoor 'hunt' is one I never appreciate trying to solo as a fresh level 20. The CoT seem to be particularly mean at that point of n a hero's career.

[The General]

Why were they at +2?

[PaxArcana]

9 minutes ago, The General said:

Why were they at +2?

The mission scales improperly, that's why.

 

A Lieutenant is +1 to you, even at even level.  So a Lieutenant who is one level higher than you, cons as Orange, a.k.a. "+2 to me".

[gameboy1234]

8 hours ago, blazingcoconut said:

This mission doesn't have that warning and isn't particularly hard for everyone that doesn't rely on holds as their source of mitigation.

That's a 100% fair point.  For missions, especially early missions, that are known to be hard or hard for some ATs, there should be a warning to get a team.  I could get behind that no problem.

 

[gameboy1234]

6 hours ago, PaxArcana said:

IIRC, most of my characters I've put through that arc have had to go to -1/x0, or else, leave the mission alone for a level or two.

This is also true for me as well.  As much as I talk about challenge and grouping, sometimes I just want to solo with my Corr.  -1 is the only way I've found to do that and have it not be a chore.

 

If the devs ever do implement a "hard" server, I think it would be good to remove any MOB buffs from missions which are set to -1 level.  That should be a flag to say "no I want this to be easier."  No harm in letting people take it easy for a while.

 

[ZeeHero]

On 9/28/2019 at 11:00 AM, Oubliette_Red said:

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

People want a fair and well constructed challenge. not to be beaten down by the game at every turn with no say about it. COH will -NEVER- be a game which facilitates a GOOD challenge. enjoy it for what it is.

[EyeLuvBooks]

14 hours ago, ZeeHero said:

People want a fair and well constructed challenge. not to be beaten down by the game at every turn with no say about it. COH will -NEVER- be a game which facilitates a GOOD challenge. enjoy it for what it is.

Part of the problem is that good challenge is subjective. I'm older than most players, arthritic and have pretty poor hand-to-eye coordination. I literally cannot play a twitch-shooter for these reasons. Some builds that other players with faster reflexes can rock the game on suck for me. What is a good challenge for some would crush me. This is on me, not the game.

 

Also, and this is a point that only SOME game designers seem to understand: There is a fine line between 'challenge' and 'tedium'. Challenge is 'I see three enemies and the last time I fought the same odds I had a full Insp tray and barely won. My Insp tray is empty. Okay...here we go...!' Tedium is  lamenting on Help because your (fill in the blank build) can't defeat the (fill in the blank enemies) no matter what you do and everyone telling you 'You need to team with a (fill in the blank AT) or get the (fill in the blank Proc) from the AH' because your build simply can't do what you're asking no matter what and the only way to figure that out was to die ten or twenty times.

 

CoH is a COMPLEX game. There are over a dozen ATs and hundreds of Powers to balance against many different types of enemies. It makes sense that the Devs would drop the ball once in a while and make something too easy, too hard, too fast, too slow or whatever. The Diff and Team Size sliders can only do so much.

 

I recently posted regarding not needing Tanks in the high-end radio missions because spawns are melted before the Taunt animation is done. Then I was reminded that the Incarnate content is different (I didn't spend much time there before shutdown and only have a few Incarnates now). So when my 50+6 Tank teams for PI radio missions I expect to run in, hit something and then move on because that's how fast a high-level team is. This isn't a flaw in the game because there is simply no easy way to scale enemies with so many variables in play. Could some improvements be made? Sure there could but now we have the SCORE team (and others) working for charity and I'm not going to expect them to make changes to the game that the original Devs didn't even do.

 

The more complex a thing is, the more we have to be open-minded as to how many players will have that 'perfect experience.'

[ZeeHero]

Not needing a tank and wanting a tank are entirely different things. while leveling up my tank is always useful in radios, and why would I want to be NEEDED when that means I have to wait for a tank every time I want to do something  when I DONT play one?

[blazingcoconut]

15 hours ago, EyeLuvBooks said:

 

15 hours ago, EyeLuvBooks said:

I recently posted regarding not needing Tanks in the high-end radio missions because spawns are melted before the Taunt animation is done. Then I was reminded that the Incarnate content is different (I didn't spend much time there before shutdown and only have a few Incarnates now). So when my 50+6 Tank teams for PI radio missions I expect to run in, hit something and then move on because that's how fast a high-level team is. This isn't a flaw in the game because there is simply no easy way to scale enemies with so many variables in play. Could some improvements be made? Sure there could but now we have the SCORE team (and others) working for charity and I'm not going to expect them to make changes to the game that the original Devs didn't even do.

There is some truth in this... However, this was also a design decision where the devs decided that beating up frozen enemies was not fun.  So purple triangles came into play and so did Mez resistant mobs.

 

Why that's not fun and having softcapped defense is still baffles me.  But that's part of why this bugs me.  It's not a balance issue it's a conscious choice to say we don't like the way this AT mitigates damage 

[ZeeHero]

Softcapped defenses are fine? going over the cap is helpful in any high end situation which contains any defense debuffs (common in endgame)