Apex TF needs a complete do-over

[Heraclea]

My God, this is horrible, terribly unfair to all the melee classes, and to Brutes in particular.   The Blue Flames mechanic is constantly forcing you to move away from the mob you had been engaging.  It makes the holding of aggro consistently, especially against more than one mob, impossible.  It renders taunt auras useless. It takes the class dependent on Fury generation completely out of the game.  It is typical of the devaluation of melee ATs and melee defense sets that characterizes a lot of the later added content.  This is one of the worst offenders there. 

 

It is generic MMO garbage that never should have been brought here.  One thing that made this game so much better than its competition is the absence of this kind of 'stop what you're doing and go stand somewhere else' mechanic.  It never should have been brought here.

 

Of course, it also shares the flaws typical of a lot of the later added content: useless, uninformative, or missing maps; unclear mission goals; moving goalposts.  This stuff is simply not very well written. 

 

 

 

 

[nihilii]

To me, Apex is the most fun piece of content this game has. You can perform just fine as a melee character - a TW/bio scrapper currently holds the speed record for soloing it, in about 18 minutes.

 

Personally, I've never had problem holding aggro either. You have a big warning flashing for seconds before the blue flames actually happen, giving you ample room to position yourself / pull mobs out of range. It's actually one of the few tasks ingame where Taunt is an objective plus, as the -range is useful to get Battle Maiden to step out of a blue patch.

 

It does require one to move much more, which is a departure from the rest of the game, so I understand where the naysaying comes from (and could even see it as justified).

[BrandX]

Wow.  As someone who mains melee, I have no problem with it and enjoy it.

[merrypessimist]

As someone who plays most ATs, I have no issues with Apex or Tin Mage on any melee or not-melee ATs. It's not even particularly challenging.

[DSorrow]

The only issue I have with the blue flames is that sometimes they're pretty much impossible to notice under all the player generated effects, other than that I quite like the mechanic as it stops the AV fight from following the generic pile up on AV and smash 1-2-3 formula. 

[Mr. Vee]

I soloed it (took almost an hour for me, though) so i can't really say it's hard. It's more just annoying with artificial challenge. It's just as annoying to me on ranged as on melee, though (i've never felt so useless on a kin as i did running this earlier - fulcrum shift hitting like 2 or 3 things ftl). It punishes anything with long animations. Melee it's annoying to have to chase the stupid swords. Ranged it's annoying that you're getting whacked to death by the swords while you're trying to dodge the patches and kill the av. But overall my problem with it really is just the enemies who refuse to bunch up at all in a game that's otherwise so aoe focused. 

 

As far as the big warning flashing for seconds before the blue flames - is that hyperbole or am i missing something? Possibly the latter b/c i have my graphics turned all the way down? My experience soloing was that there was some slight blue sparkling that came before the sword dropped so i could get out of the way before the death patch. Teamed I have no shot, too many other graphic effects happening. I find that the best way to tell the patch is coming while teamed is that my hp just dropped 75% or more. I was surprised as it's obviously imitating a widely used MMO mechanic, but in other games you have ample warning to get out of the way - so much so that "don't stand in stupid" is a common trope. Here it's almost as if the patch is just there to tell you where you shouldn't have been standing a couple seconds before the patch appeared. If it is a graphics issue then I suppose I should just skip this tf since I'm too lazy to adjust every time and like having multiple instances going, but I've run this quite a few times now and seen plenty of otherwise very good players having similar issues, some of whom I know to be playing with ultra mode cranked.

[Indystruck]

Apex is great. I have 0 issues with it even on characters with huge wind ups (Titan Weapons, Energy Melee). It's easily some of the most fun content. Don't touch it.

[Apparition]

One of my mains is a Radiation Melee/Radiation Armor Brute.  Radiation Melee has some of the slowest melee attacks in the game outside of Titan Weapons.  I have done the Apex TF at least four dozen times on my Brute alone in the past three months without dying.  Apex TF is fine.  Not everything should be a cakewalk.  Sure, you have to keep an eye on your positioning.  It just adds to the challenge.

 

The only issue I have with Apex is that if you have a Water Blast Blaster/Corruptor/Defender on your team, the water can make the blue patches very difficult to see.

 

 

[Corruption]

You can kill the mobs before the blue flames spawn. You can go in and out of them to get hits in. During the Battle Maiden fight, you can pull her out of the flames to you. 

 

This is a complete non-issue. Apex is an incarnate TF and auto-hit damage is sometimes the only way to make things even remotely challenging. 

[nihilii]

2 hours ago, Veelectric Boogaloo said:

Possibly the latter b/c i have my graphics turned all the way down?

I think I recall when I used to play at 100 particles, it was barely noticeable. Whereas when everything is maxed out, there's a pulsating blue light that throbs back and forth on the whole area the blue flames will hit.

There's also a loud noise when this blue light triggers (much louder than the actual hit), which lets you know how long you've got until the next blue flames. I play without sound myself, but I think devs have done as good a job as can be communicating what is about to happen, barring red messages telling you you're going to be hit by something (which, personally, I find immersion breaking and more annoying than anything; YMMV).

There's no doubt the twitch skill requirements are far higher than most non-incarnate tasks ingame, but that's also a result of the rest of the game being so accomodating. So it's possible for players to do great in most of the game but be ass at this specific task.

Slightly offtopic and perhaps you're aware of it already, but if you like running several instances, the /maxinactivefps command can work wonders. I run 3 high graphic settings instances on a 10 years old laptop using "/maxinactivefps 5". The load on the graphic card hardly differs from running just one instance, and whichever window I have focus on stays at 60 FPS.

Edited October 1, 2019 by nihilii

[Steampunkette]

Honestly... I dislike the "Everyone stand on top of the enemy and eat on it until it's green bar drops to 0"

 

I -desperately- wish there was more movement in the game, more mechanics which encouraged it, or created incentives for running battles instead of standstill punchouts.

[Hedgefund]

"Forcing you to move"?  Oh the horror.  Meleers should be able to plant themselves in a spot and hit the 1-2-3 buttons until there's nothing left to target, just like they do for the other 99.99% of the game.

 

Note - this was full sarcasm.  I rather enjoy employing different tactics and let's face it, the median time spent for this is, I'm guessing, around 20 minutes.  I don't see a compelling case for making it easier.

[Heraclea]

This is the sort of thing that sends people to immersion breaking VOIP chat in other games.  Its absence in most of the content is one of the glories of this game. 

 

If nothing else, it would help to have useful maps in stuff like this. 

[Tsuko]

Avoiding telenuke on the ground is basic gameplay on any pve game.

[Heraclea]

The profusion of these mechanics (and the resulting 'tank or go home' mentality and the devaluation of melee DPS) is one of the main causes of my abandoning other MMOs.  Seeing it pop up here is the camel's nose under the tent. 

[Mr. Vee]

1 hour ago, nihilii said:

I think I recall when I used to play at 100 particles, it was barely noticeable. Whereas when everything is maxed out, there's a pulsating blue light that throbs back and forth on the whole area the blue flames will hit.

There's also a loud noise when this blue light triggers (much louder than the actual hit), which lets you know how long you've got until the next blue flames. I play without sound myself, but I think devs have done as good a job as can be communicating what is about to happen, barring red messages telling you you're going to be hit by something (which, personally, I find immersion breaking and more annoying than anything; YMMV).

There's no doubt the twitch skill requirements are far higher than most non-incarnate tasks ingame, but that's also a result of the rest of the game being so accomodating. So it's possible for players to do great in most of the game but be ass at this specific task.

Slightly offtopic and perhaps you're aware of it already, but if you like running several instances, the /maxinactivefps command can work wonders. I run 3 high graphic settings instances on a 10 years old laptop using "/maxinactivefps 5". The load on the graphic card hardly differs from running just one instance, and whichever window I have focus on stays at 60 FPS.

i'm aware, thanks. used to use the command on live. my graphics being all the way down now is prophylactic really. i've not tried them higher, just was used to them being low from back in the day trying not to overheat a laptop. i really don't care about graphics in general and prior to reading here that there's a clear signal i'm missing i'd not had a problem other than the chantry being a big grey blob. next time i run apex i'll turn them up to see if it's better. but note i'm not in favor of making it easier, i just find it annoying. and really i'm more annoyed by the scattered mobs than the death patches.

[Infinitum]

I've had the Apex go well and I've had them go poorly.

 

I've gotten caught rooted in place more than I'd like to admit.  Sometimes there is a weird lag delay or something that you literally can't do anything about till you find your health plummeting and try to escape somehow.

 

It's a fun taskforce but honestly Tyrant in the magisterium is easier than this is for some reason.  It can definately be hard at times.

[Ry]

I get the frustration as a melee player with your Fury bar going down because you have to move but, c'mon. You can get it back up to where it was no problem once you restart the fight!

 

I agree City did a lot differently to its competition and that's what made it great, its still my favourite MMORPG hands down. But to say this Task Force needs a complete "do-over" just because you don't like the blue flames? That's silly. I -hate- those damn flames but I wouldn't dream of expecting a complete overhaul on a task force for such a minor thing, especially from a team that updates the game in their free time without pay.

 

Out of all the Task Forces in the game its pretty short and sweet, the only real trouble I've had in it is those pesky flames. Aside from that? You can rack up those merits with an Apex and Tin Mage back to back. And a little challenge isn't a bad thing, a lot of this game is rather simple. ESPECIALLY if you're playing a melee class like a Brute or Scrapper.

[MunkiLord]

My melee focused Dark/Stone Dom hates those blue flames, she dies a lot. But I'm ok with that, debt badges FTW.

[TheAdjustor]

It's funny I always found it to be most annoying on squishies. The near insta kill from the flying swords and I am not certain but do they have a large S/L resistance made them really annoying. The blue flames ? just jump back and hit something else.

Edited October 1, 2019 by TheAdjustor

[Rathulfr]

This is the one iTrial where I feel like my ranged, hovering, tank-mage builds (Blaster/Sentinel) really shine.  I'm raining down destruction on my targets while flitting about like a psychotic gadfly, laughing maniacally as the melees lament and die all around me.  Everywhere else in game, I feel like melees are the kings of the castle, but here, in this gorram-awful place, I reign supreme.  It's exhilarating.

[Apparition]

1 minute ago, Rathulfr said:

This is the one iTrial where I feel like my ranged, hovering, tank-mage builds (Blaster/Sentinel) really shine.  I'm raining down destruction on my targets while flitting about like a psychotic gadfly, laughing maniacally as the melees lament and die all around me.  Everywhere else in game, I feel like melees are the kings of the castle, but here, in this gorram-awful place, I reign supreme.  It's exhilarating.

 

FWIW, hovering or flying is a terrible idea in Apex TF because the blue patches can still damage everyone underneath.

[Rathulfr]

17 minutes ago, Apparition said:

 

FWIW, hovering or flying is a terrible idea in Apex TF because the blue patches can still damage everyone underneath.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

 

(edit:) I'm joking, of course.  Yes, I'm aware of that, and I do try to hover in such a way as to avoid collateral damage.

 

Edited October 1, 2019 by Rathulfr
reduced intensity

[KaizenSoze]

I play a hover blaster, so it makes the fight *interesting*.

 

Maybe tweaking it more like Admiral Sutter Task Force would make a bit easier on some folks.

[AerialAssault]

So, rather than post what I was going to post (which wasn't going to be very constructive), let me ask this to the OP instead:

 

How would you change the Battle Maiden encounter?

 

It's all fine and well making a suggestion of "completely change X because I don't like it", but it would stand to reason that an alternative has to be suggested. Obviously, anyone else can bring up a suggestion if they feel like it but most of them so far are "it's fine don't change it", which I personally agree with.