Apex TF needs a complete do-over

[Purrfekshawn]

9 hours ago, nihilii said:

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.

Well, while soloing l think it will always drop just one Blue Circle, that you can outheal on your own (or it just doesn't hit hard), and thus stepping away outside of it is not required. And generally there are few blue spots on map, and BM always follows only you and no one else.

 

While in team though - it drops multiple Blue Circles those can lover your HP in less than a second (even Tanker's HP) if are stacked together in a tight place (it happens when team has a lot of Melee characters).

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

Yeah sorry but this comes off far more as QQ to me then anything resembling constructive feedback. There is nothing wrong with content that favors some more then others. The fact the Melee ATs all tend to be the most easy to level up and survive with through out most of the content means there should be content they have to really bring their A game to to feel even mildly effective.

 

I play mostly melee ATs and have no few brutes under my belt, and have never found this TF even mildly more difficult on my melee ATs. nor does a brute need to always be at high fury nor should content make that always an easy task.

 

TFs and Raids are not normal content, they should use creative mechanics that force a more dynamic approach rather then tank and spank, dog pile etc.

 

If your having trouble, its entirely optional as you dont NEED it for any reason beyond a badge. There are plenty of players that avoid all sorts of aspects or content because they find it less then fun, while others love that same content. changing it to cater to some will only make others find it less enjoyable more often then not.

 

Let me guess your not a big fan of some of the more infamous hard core skill games out there.

[QuiJon]

14 hours ago, Heraclea said:

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. 

 

 

 

 

So essentially as a melee character you feel that content that doesn't all you to be the star of the show is garbage is what I take from this.

I mean part of what you are complaining about I feel like is the point. Things like making holding aggro a challenge. Or taking taunt auras out of play. I mean both would for certain impact a brute since so few of you take taunt. However as most tankers take taunt it seems like it brings them into the forefront of being the agro class of the game doesn't it? I mean sure it might side line your fury, but how do you think a blaster or other squishie feels that's entire defense is sidelined by the blue flames? I mean it doesn't seem to matter how much defense or res I can run if I am caught in blue flames for more then a second I am dead. 

 

But what I find funny is that essentially all the content this game had up to the ITF can essentially be run with nothing but a melee toon tanking hundreds of enemies at a time. And yet ONE trial is added to the game that breaks that mechanic slightly, and suddenly the entire end game is devaluing your character. 

 

I personally think having different trials require different tactics then some brutish character having to run up to it and punch it into submission is a welcome addition to the game. Because so far that is exactly what 95 percent of this games content was. If only now we could get to the idea of giving characters centered around controls a purpose again.

[Megajoule]

My squishies (controller and dom) die in the sewers, to the Rikti pylons et al, a lot.  A lot.  And during the Battle Maiden fight, they can't use their full lock-down abilities, because that has a chance to freeze the Champions inside the blue flames where they're (temporarily) inaccessible to the meleers.

 

I don't complain, I don't ask for the TF to be changed to accommodate the specific weaknesses of those ATs, and I've hardly ever been complained at for, e.g., dying too much.  Mostly everyone else is too focused on doing the best they can, not dying themselves, etc. 

 

And through hard experience, I've learned some mitigation strategies too.  Most of them amount to "be more mobile", break LoS, don't stand in the fire, etc.  Dash in, lay down a few melee attacks, and run back out.  Thinking, and moving, rather than standing there punching or blasting away.  What a novel concept.

Edited October 1, 2019 by Megajoule

[Heraclea]

30 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

But what I find funny is that essentially all the content this game had up to the ITF can essentially be run with nothing but a melee toon tanking hundreds of enemies at a time. And yet ONE trial is added to the game that breaks that mechanic slightly, and suddenly the entire end game is devaluing your character. 

 

I personally think having different trials require different tactics then some brutish character having to run up to it and punch it into submission is a welcome addition to the game. Because so far that is exactly what 95 percent of this games content was. If only now we could get to the idea of giving characters centered around controls a purpose again.

From my perspective the later added content seems very different.  You get those untankable mobs in Night Ward, worse even than Carnies or Vanguard if your purpose is to take point and attract aggro.  The same is true of kinetic Tsoo in New Dark Astoria.  Or those missions filled with nothing but Seers in Praetoria: levelling through that stuff once, nine years ago, was quite enough. 

 

The biggest flaw of this sort of thing is that it makes having a team a liability; the material is inherently anti-social and solo only.  You do not want more mobs on this stuff.  You do not want bosses.  Soloing at +0/1 is the only way to go.  It defeats the social purpose of the game. 

 

To me, one of the points of this sort of thing seems to be 'shut up and play your controller'.  It just might be that control heavy teams able to fear, confuse, or hold the mobs before they can do the same to you are the only kinds of teams this material might be fun to play on. 

 

So yes, a whole lot of the later added material seems specifically designed to devalue melee ATs, make tanking impossible, bypass both defense and resistance, and spam unresisted mezz.  The Apex TF is one of the worst offenders because it introduces the sort of mechanic that has tended to kill my interest in other MMOs.  This game is better off without that sort of thing. 

 

 

Edited October 1, 2019 by Heraclea

[Steampunkette]

15 minutes ago, Heraclea said:

From my perspective the later added content seems very different.  You get those untankable mobs in Night Ward, worse even than Carnies or Vanguard if your purpose is to take point and attract aggro.  The same is true of kinetic Tsoo in New Dark Astoria.  Or those missions filled with nothing but Seers in Praetoria: levelling through that stuff once, nine years ago, was quite enough. 

 

The biggest flaw of this sort of thing is that it makes having a team a liability; the material is inherently anti-social and solo only.  You do not want more mobs on this stuff.  You do not want bosses.  Soloing at +0/1 is the only way to go.  It defeats the social purpose of the game. 

 

To me, one of the points of this sort of thing seems to be 'shut up and play your controller'.  It just might be that control heavy teams able to fear, confuse, or hold the mobs before they can do the same to you are the only kinds of teams this material might be fun to play on. 

 

So yes, a whole lot of the later added material seems specifically designed to devalue melee ATs, make tanking impossible, bypass both defense and resistance, and spam unresisted mezz.  The Apex TF is one of the worst offenders because it introduces the sort of mechanic that has tended to kill my interest in other MMOs.  This game is better off without that sort of thing. 

 

 

None of it "Devalues Melee"

 

Melee is strong as hell and has been forever. What it does is make the other powers beyond "Hit Hard" more valuable than they were, before. Things like control effects that are largely useless for most content 'cause locking down a group of enemies is pointless when the entire team has softcapped defenses and capped resistances.

 

It's not a zero-sum game, Heraclea. Making control powers more useful (in order to lock down specific dangerous targets) doesn't make melee characters any less useful. Someone still has to beat those people to a pulp and it's not going to be the Earth/Time Controller.

 

Well. Unless they wanna be there all damn day.

[Heraclea]

32 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

None of it "Devalues Melee"

 

Melee is strong as hell and has been forever. What it does is make the other powers beyond "Hit Hard" more valuable than they were, before. Things like control effects that are largely useless for most content 'cause locking down a group of enemies is pointless when the entire team has softcapped defenses and capped resistances.

 

It's not a zero-sum game, Heraclea. Making control powers more useful (in order to lock down specific dangerous targets) doesn't make melee characters any less useful. Someone still has to beat those people to a pulp and it's not going to be the Earth/Time Controller.

 

Well. Unless they wanna be there all damn day.

Part of the problem is that This Sort of Thing does not scale well.  Giving minions unresisted mezz (all of Night Ward) or strong debuffs (kinetic Tsoo) is almost tolerable when it's just a regular solo spawn.  Add players and larger spawns and such mobs quickly become unplayable.   You get hit with multiple kinetic debuffs, you get repeatedly blinded, confused, feared, or Hold stacked, and you may as well get up and make a sandwich.  Someone else will have to play through this.  You can't.  

 

Likewise, one of the problem with the blue patches is scale.  Someone above mentioned that when they attempted to solo the TF there were only one or two active at a time.  With a team of eight they may cover most of the territory where the mobs are. 

[Steampunkette]

5 minutes ago, Heraclea said:

Part of the problem is that This Sort of Thing does not scale well.  Giving minions unresisted mezz (all of Night Ward) or strong debuffs (kinetic Tsoo) is almost tolerable when it's just a regular solo spawn.  Add players and larger spawns and such mobs quickly become unplayable.   You get hit with multiple kinetic debuffs, you get repeatedly blinded, confused, feared, or Hold stacked, and you may as well get up and make a sandwich.  Someone else will have to play through this.  You can't.  

 

Likewise, one of the problem with the blue patches is scale.  Someone above mentioned that when they attempted to solo the TF there were only one or two active at a time.  With a team of eight they may cover most of the territory where the mobs are. 

You act like I don't play the game, too.

 

I play on my Incarnate Main (Cyclone, Kin/Bio Brute) with my husband (Autotune, Sonic/Sonic Defender) and mow through those same Tsoo in Dark Astoria. Yeah, my run speed turns to hot garbage. So I fly, instead. The siphon speed debuff doesn't apply to that. I don't think it applies to Jump Speed, either.

 

Night Ward... that I haven't -really- done since back on Live. I've run a few of the "Midnight Mansion" missions in an 8 man team and we did die, -hard- at the living spells in the mansion part. We died a -lot-. But it was never a "Why am I even bothering?" moment, for me. One person on the team quit but we kept going and we won. No sammiches required.

 

And yeah. The blue patches are big. But you have the ENTIRE MAP to fight Valkyrie on. The problem is that people always try to fight her right where she starts 'cause they're inured to the "Stand next to the boss and hit the keys" style of gameplay. Move. Drag her out of the patches as they fall. Spread blue fire over half of Praetoria. It's -much- more fun than standing in a loose ring playing the "Left Right Left Right" dance.

[MunkiLord]

14 minutes ago, Heraclea said:

Part of the problem is that This Sort of Thing does not scale well.  Giving minions unresisted mezz (all of Night Ward) or strong debuffs (kinetic Tsoo) is almost tolerable when it's just a regular solo spawn.  Add players and larger spawns and such mobs quickly become unplayable.   You get hit with multiple kinetic debuffs, you get repeatedly blinded, confused, feared, or Hold stacked, and you may as well get up and make a sandwich.  Someone else will have to play through this.  You can't.  

 

Likewise, one of the problem with the blue patches is scale.  Someone above mentioned that when they attempted to solo the TF there were only one or two active at a time.  With a team of eight they may cover most of the territory where the mobs are. 

To me these are all good things as it adds variety.

[Haijinx]

I would rather they didn't nerf the remaining harder content.

 

If its clunky, just don't use those mechanics in newer TFs that get developed.

[KaizenSoze]

So, I ended up running this TF three times today. Yes, I have no life, but in my defense it's a quick TF.

 

Once, I got use to listening and watching for the AOE it was fine.

 

Certainly makes it more exciting than the usual dog pile the AV TF.

 

So, I retract my comment. I do not think this TF should be changed at all.

 

In my experience the squishies, like myself, die more often than the melee.

 

Side note, confuse might be interesting because it might turn the non-AV mobs into AOE targets.

[Razor Cure]

Good to see you gave it another go, Kai! It may be hectic till you get how it all works, but it is fun too!

[Mr. Vee]

Ran it again with the graphics turned up. Definitely improves the ground patch stuff. It did nothing to improve the bits that I find more annoying, but helped on that. Only died twice - one the patch warning started just as i hit the button for blackstar (i blame the falling sky, but the satellite also seems to be in on it) and the second I rubberbanded into one just as BM died, which seemed just spiteful since I don't remember having rubberbanded at any point in the last month or so.

[Megajoule]

12 hours ago, Heraclea said:

To me, one of the points of this sort of thing seems to be 'shut up and play your controller'.  It just might be that control heavy teams able to fear, confuse, or hold the mobs before they can do the same to you are the only kinds of teams this material might be fun to play on.

Based on my own recent experience taking a Mind/Psi dom (so, not a controller but very very close) through Praetoria, solo by necessity and/or hard-coding for many missions, that is definitely not the point.  I was downed repeatedly by, among other things, stacked-up waves of ambushes that I couldn't keep locked down before the rest of them murdered me.  I wish I had been playing a melee character, like my old EM/Willpower brute (Resistance/Warden).  He might have been durable enough to survive.

 

If anything, I'd say "the point" of the new content is that it is hard for everyone.  I don't believe it's intended as an introduction to the game; it's for people who've already beaten it, probably a couple of times.  These are not your classic Hellions and Skulls; Ghouls, Seers, and D.U.S.T. Rangers will hand you your ass if you just charge in.

Edited October 2, 2019 by Megajoule

[Heraclea]

18 minutes ago, Megajoule said:

Based on my own recent experience taking a Mind/Psi dom (so, not a controller but very very close) through Praetoria, solo by necessity and/or hard-coding for many missions, that is definitely not the point.  I was downed repeatedly by, among other things, stacked-up waves of ambushes that I couldn't keep locked down before the rest of them murdered me.  I wish I had been playing a melee character, like my old EM/Willpower brute (Resistance/Warden).  He might have been durable enough to survive.

 

If anything, I'd say "the point" of the new content is that it is hard for everyone.  I don't believe it's intended as an introduction to the game; it's for people who've already beaten it, probably a couple of times.  These are not your classic Hellions and Skulls; Ghouls, Seers, and D.U.S.T. Rangers will hand you your ass if you just charge in.

Untankable, in other words.  You cannot take point, dive into the mobs, nor divert their aggro off your team and onto yourself.  That path leads only to frustration. 

 

Which means that you should have brought a different character.  Which means that you may as well get up and make yourself a sandwich. 

 

There are reasons why you can't find people to team with in Praetoria.  People don't like that content very much.  And part of the reason is that you're better off without a team, better off without the larger spawns of higher level enemies they bring.  The clever storylines and lore are wasted.  That makes me sad, but it still doesn't make me want to level a character through Praetoria.  Once nine years ago was enough.  And, as you know, it's a lonely place. 

 

The game is inviting people to do Night Ward stories when they hit 30.  You are automatically handed contacts that send you there.  And contacts with book storylines are a sort of trap.  If you take them, you are stuck in storylines you'll have to three days and out, or slog through them alone. 

 

[Murcielago]

I agree, the blue flames mechanic needs to be turned into a white flames mechanic and kill you instantly. 

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

6 hours ago, Heraclea said:

Untankable, in other words.  You cannot take point, dive into the mobs, nor divert their aggro off your team and onto yourself.  That path leads only to frustration. 

 

Which means that you should have brought a different character.  Which means that you may as well get up and make yourself a sandwich. 

 

There are reasons why you can't find people to team with in Praetoria.  People don't like that content very much.  And part of the reason is that you're better off without a team, better off without the larger spawns of higher level enemies they bring.  The clever storylines and lore are wasted.  That makes me sad, but it still doesn't make me want to level a character through Praetoria.  Once nine years ago was enough.  And, as you know, it's a lonely place. 

 

The game is inviting people to do Night Ward stories when they hit 30.  You are automatically handed contacts that send you there.  And contacts with book storylines are a sort of trap.  If you take them, you are stuck in storylines you'll have to three days and out, or slog through them alone. 

 

Oh dont try to make up some BS, the issue with praetoria just like rogue isle is that people tended to already be too invested into paragon city and most didnt want to leave their comfort zone. Because yeah the early levels tend to be abit rougher on  everyone and hence why most just PL through them anyways.

 

Mobs being more formidable due to better power choices for them is a good thing and if I had it my way the city of paragon would of eventually been over run with praetorian foes replacing the old gangs as well.

 

I not long ago duoed through the resistance arcs with a friend he was on a blaster I on a stalker. We mainly did content while lowbie leveling set to 6 man team size for more XP and challenge. The fact you are QQing so much about being unable to just face tank and steam roll all content tells me you likely are a path of least resistance type of gamer. The moment content dims your power fantasy from an 11 down to a 9 you start tossing around the this is bad content design hyperbole.

 

Did I mention that in that praetorian content we rarely struggled at all even set to 6 man as a duo? Yes we used smart tactics, he took stealth asap and with a stealth IO could ghost around with my stalker we didnt foolishly try to fight overwhelming forces head on which is a large part of the praetorian setting, especially as a rebel your supposed to always feel out gunned and on the run. If you dont like taht fine dont play it, but dont act like its a terrible thing to give us the option.

 

IMO those who avoid praetoria are really no different then those who PL and avoid all early content, they simply dont have the grit to play through the levels when even the best builds can be beaten if you push them too hard pre IO sets.

[ed_anger]

On 10/1/2019 at 9:24 AM, Heraclea said:

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. 

 

How dramatic 🙄

 

It's one task force/trial, there's literally dozens more with other mechanics that you can do. Deal with it.

[ShardWarrior]

On 10/1/2019 at 8:35 AM, Hedgefund said:

"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.

I imagine there would be a similar response if NPCs would scatter constantly and prevent the use of AoEs for ranged attacks, or reflect the holds/immobs back at the caster. 

 

It's only in the one mission here so it isn't bad once you know what you are up against.  I usually have taunt on my Tankers so it's not difficult to move and pull aggro off the flames.  However, I agree with @Heraclea on this in that these kinds of mechanics were all over the place in other games and I didn't care for them there.  I'd prefer they remained in those games and don't creep their way in here. 

[Hedgefund]

I wouldn't worry too much about "creep" of mechanics you don't like at this point.  

[Heraclea]

6 minutes ago, Hedgefund said:

I wouldn't worry too much about "creep" of mechanics you don't like at this point.  

You are probably right about that. 

 

But if we do get new content, I would hope that it would follow the best traditions of the game, and have helpful maps and clear goals.  I would prefer that it avoid using New Praetorians, Imperial Defense Forces, Warworks, or Praetorian Clockwork; that stuff is as monotonous as Longbow and Arachnos. 

Edited October 2, 2019 by Heraclea

[Ukase]

I have done Apex a number of times on my blasters. It's a hoot, and I rarely suffer defeat. Very rarely. I think Apex is one of those that you just need to run a number of times before you can appreciate the challenge/fun of it. 

I credit the scrapper that solo'd it...I dunno if my brute could. Might be fun to find out! 
That said, as a I play my blaster, super speeding about, ignoring the swords when BM runs away, and focusing only on the Champions/Mourning NPCs, I ask myself how miserable it must be to be melee in this part of the tf, and am thrilled to be on my blaster. 

 

 

[RubyRed]

The final fight in Apex is one of the most interesting and engaging fights currently in the game... I actually like that you have to move around and don't just sit still and hit the boss until she dies.

 

And I play mostly melee characters, it's still fun.

[Uun]

I've done Apex twice on my 50+3 Rad/Rad scrapper. I understand the don't stand in stupid issue. What I don't understand is how to deal with the swords. They kill me in a matter of seconds. Combat log says they do unresistible damage, so I'm basically dealing with them using absorb shield and regen (my build is resist and regen focused). With hybrid melee up I can regen 50 hp/sec, but it's not keeping up. Do I just need to bring a tray of purples?

[MunkiLord]

I bring extra purples on characters that don't have high defense.