QoL tweaks for Citadel TF

[funwrecker]

So I just finished a Citadel TF and forgot how tedious it can get.  "Defeat all" after "defeat all", in various zones and all in the same Council Base map.  After a while, it just gets dull.

 

Now while I know serious rework would be probably more effort than can be spent now, I noticed one thing that might make this a little less painful.  Quite a few of the "Defeat all" missions have a secondary objective of disabling n computers.  Could that just be made the primary objective?  It'll allow things to go a wee bit faster, without requiring a ton of work (I hope)

 

A secondary tweak could be to just keep all the missions in Talos...

Edited November 25, 2019 by funwrecker

[Black Zot]

Task Forces in general should aim to stay in one zone as much as possible.  Send people to a transit door if the fluff calls for bouncing all over the city.

[Lines]

Burn it down and start again.

[Razor Cure]

The new Posi (s) and Penny do it right. Especially Penny, all one zone and the same doors (although I guess you could say that makes it a bit too samey..but most things get that way).

Manti is also pretty awful, and uses an 'outthere' zone (CF) that new players have no clue how to get to! Synapse is just an utter piece of shite..even though it is mostly in one zone, but then they throw that random BT mission (usually WAY way up the map). Numi is also boring, and the normal missions in that cover multiple zones (ff, cf, bricks, atlas, pp)..even before getting to those stupid hunts. And then of course Woody just happens to be a skip away from Numi anyhow!

With Cit, they could use some of the maps from Hess, to add variety, even 'just' a normal warehouse!

I found some link the other day, to the Dev notes from Sutter/Morty Kal, when they were added into teh game on Live. I think it was Protean, saying that one major thing they were aiming for was to have them doable in about 30-60 mins. Which IS possible for Cit/MantiNumi, (really pushing it, especially on a PUG)..but very unlikely on Syn.

[funwrecker]

1 hour ago, Lines said:

Burn it down and start again.

Agreed, but that takes time.  This is why I was suggesting some minor tweaks that might make it less of a slog, until someone has time to do a better overhaul.

 

... presuming it's that easy to edit the mission goals and locations, of course

[Lost Ninja]

I'd love to see a re-imagining of the council base maps, make everything more spacious but especially the tunnels between the rooms. That would go a long way toward making any content with them in more enjoyable.

 

I agree on the other points though.

[Heraclea]

Citadel is OK,  especially given its age. An experience best done with a couple of more mature characters that can afford team teleport.  I am a definite non-fan of Adm. Sutter, though: extremely unhelpful maps and vague goals.  You had better not get separated from your team.  If you do you likely will have no idea where you need to be or how to get there. 

[EmmySky]

5 hours ago, Lost Ninja said:

I'd love to see a re-imagining of the council base maps, make everything more spacious but especially the tunnels between the rooms. That would go a long way toward making any content with them in more enjoyable.

 

I agree on the other points though.

I love the council maps but that's because they arent blue caves with the 5 tier cake room.  Until you get the pool room, then all bets are off lol.

[Broken_Prey]

I never had a problem with Citadel but I'm ok with this . It doesn't change much and it can make it faster for people who want to speed it up, merits would need to be adjusted too.  I do think Synapse needs to be looked at first but that would take a lot more work. 

 

20 minutes ago, EmmySky said:

I love the council maps but that's because they arent blue caves with the 5 tier cake room.  Until you get the pool room, then all bets are off lol.

Hate the pool room, have spent many hours looking for one minion or a clickly. Other than the pool room I like the council maps. 

[Solarverse]

It grants more merits than the shorter TF's. So changing the kill alls to "stealth, click and not kill a thing" missions will also cause merit gains to diminish.

 

I would be more willing to make these missions in the same zone than I would be willing to change the dynamics of the missions.

 

Not to mention, a lot of players use TF's to level as well as getting their progress to the TFC Accolade. Changing the dynamics of the missions will only further hinder this progress. It's already a problem to people leveling when players skip everything they can, I wouldn't want to see it get any worse.

 

Part of the problem is people who PL to 50, then try to run all the TF's on easy mode while skipping everything they can that isn't a kill all, verses people who play the game to 50 and they run TF's as they level, creates friction between both types of players.

 

IMO there is already enough conflict there, I don't want to see it get any worse. 

 

However, putting these missions together in the same zone makes a lot more sense and doesn't contribute to further unsettling between the speed runners and the levelers.

Edited November 26, 2019 by Solarverse

[Lost Ninja]

38 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

It grants more merits than the shorter TF's. So changing the kill alls to "stealth, click and not kill a thing" missions will also cause merit gains to diminish.

 

I would be more willing to make these missions in the same zone than I would be willing to change the dynamics of the missions.

 

Not to mention, a lot of players use TF's to level as well as getting their progress to the TFC Accolade. Changing the dynamics of the missions will only further hinder this progress. It's already a problem to people leveling when players skip everything they can, I wouldn't want to see it get any worse.

 

Part of the problem is people who PL to 50, then try to run all the TF's on easy mode while skipping everything they can that isn't a kill all, verses people who play the game to 50 and they run TF's as they level, creates friction between both types of players.

 

IMO there is already enough conflict there, I don't want to see it get any worse. 

 

However, putting these missions together in the same zone makes a lot more sense and doesn't contribute to further unsettling between the speed runners and the levelers.

You'd still be able to clear all the maps... just like you can when you do an ITF. Plus I expect if/when they update the TF they'll add the old version to Orubous so you can still grind through it if that's your thing.

 

More choice is always a good thing IMO.

[Jeneki]

23 hours ago, Razor Cure said:

Manti is also pretty awful, and uses an 'outthere' zone (CF) that new players have no clue how to get to!

I've always been surprised that only of the missions in Manticore takes place in Crey's Folley, and that's just a hunt.  If there were a remake, perhaps a natural progression of tracking Crey activity from Bricks into Crey's Folley would make sense, similar to Posi2 progressing from Steel Canyon to Faultline.

Edited November 26, 2019 by Jeneki

[ninja surprise]

On 11/25/2019 at 1:42 PM, funwrecker said:

So I just finished a Citadel TF and forgot how tedious it can get.  "Defeat all" after "defeat all", in various zones and all in the same Council Base map.  After a while, it just gets dull.

 

Now while I know serious rework would be probably more effort than can be spent now, I noticed one thing that might make this a little less painful.  Quite a few of the "Defeat all" missions have a secondary objective of disabling n computers.  Could that just be made the primary objective?  It'll allow things to go a wee bit faster, without requiring a ton of work (I hope)

 

A secondary tweak could be to just keep all the missions in Talos...

Defeat alls are less of a pain than having to constantly run from the far end of IP to the far end of Talos, and back, and forth, and back. It's nice when you wind up getting the same door several times in a row but also somewhat ridiculous to leave a cave, have the next mission on the same door, and inside is a completely different cave map stocked with new badguys.

 

And the extreme crookedness of the tunnels... it would be incredibly difficult to dig tunnels that crooked.

[ShardWarrior]

On 11/26/2019 at 9:17 AM, Solarverse said:

Part of the problem is people who PL to 50, then try to run all the TF's on easy mode while skipping everything they can that isn't a kill all, verses people who play the game to 50 and they run TF's as they level, creates friction between both types of players.

I don't think these are accurate or fair generalizations.  People  (such as myself and many online friends) who don't PL to 50 and use TFs for levelling generally skip everything we can as well.  Not because we are in a race to 50, rather older TFs like Citadel and Synapse are a boring slog.  I also know of people who farm PL alts to 50, yet still enjoy playing these older TFs without skipping/stealthing anything. 

 

For me personally, if Synapse or Citadel were "updated" to make everything all in one zone, that would be a big help. 

[Jeneki]

3 hours ago, ninja surprise said:

And the extreme crookedness of the tunnels... it would be incredibly difficult to dig tunnels that crooked.

Robert Alderman: "The taxpayers are paying too much to dig those Council base tunnels!  If the heroes shut them down, we could rebuild better Council bases with one TENTH of the money!"

[Solarverse]

7 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

I don't think these are accurate or fair generalizations.  People  (such as myself and many online friends) who don't PL to 50 and use TFs for levelling generally skip everything we can as well.  Not because we are in a race to 50, rather older TFs like Citadel and Synapse are a boring slog.  I also know of people who farm PL alts to 50, yet still enjoy playing these older TFs without skipping/stealthing anything. 

 

For me personally, if Synapse or Citadel were "updated" to make everything all in one zone, that would be a big help. 

It was a generalization. Of course there will always be exceptions, or it could be a partial generalization. Got to keep in mind, this is from my personal experience, which can differ from person to person.

 

Me personally, I skip to the end on insanely long TF's, like Citadel or Synapse, but the shorter one, on missions that are "Kill X and his guards," I just clear a path. I would rather not skip everything on the short TF's, since the real XP is in the kills, not the end bonus which was nerfed way back when.

 

And for your last point, I could not agree more. It would be great to see at least a good majority (80% at least) of the missions be in the same zone as the contact for the TF. That would be a wonderful change.

[Lines]

I quite like exploring the city, but Citadel does take the banana a bit. Rather than ping-ponging back and forth between zones, it would work for me if one half the TF took place in one zone and then the second half in another. 

 

So Citadel would start in Talos, stay for half the TF and then move to IP (in a rewrite, maybe Striga or Boomtown?) for the second half.

 

Posi 2 does this with Steel to Faultline.

 

Synapse nearly does this with Steel to Skyway, but sends you on an annoying excursion to Boomtown too.

 

I could see Manti just doing Bricks to Crey’s Folly too. CF is a cool zone that needs more loving.

[srmalloy]

On 11/26/2019 at 5:24 AM, Broken_Prey said:

Hate the pool room, have spent many hours looking for one minion or a clickly. Other than the pool room I like the council maps. 

Minor bit of trivia -- the Council maps are mostly the blue caverns recolored and with Council greeblies added in place of the rock formations. If you pay attention, you can draw congruences between the Council map segments and the blue cavern segments. The pool room is the layer cake room with the rock floors removed and replaced with the pool sections.

[EmmySky]

But the blue color that melts everything together is part of the problem.

[srmalloy]

16 hours ago, EmmySky said:

But the blue color that melts everything together is part of the problem.

It's a reskin; the 3D models are the same for the blue caves, the Council caves, and the rarer brown caves.