Streetsweeping Missions: the good and the bad

[DougGraves]

I've been soloing a lot of low level contacts recently, which means a lot of defeat X missions.  They can be very cool, they usually are not.

 

What makes them cool is the detail of the city.  In KR I have found gangs fighting each other, robbing civilians, or fighting with the police.  So many different little scenes that add a lot of flavor and life to the city.

 

And the villains are usually placed intelligently.  Clockwork by electric parts, Lost in the alleys, Vahz by sewers.  Once I got used to it, I could find the Lost by knowing where to look for them.

 

Now some locations are a problem.  CoT in KR appear on rooftops.  Not some place you casually check.  So I imagine a new player might never find them.

 

The real problem with street sweeping is levels.  Most of the time I would either encounter foes several levels beneath me or several levels below me.  In Guild Wars 2 you are automatically changed to the level of the area you are in (not just zone), so the local spawns are always a decent fight.  In CoH it is almost always a mismatch so the local area is not a proper adventure.

[Wintercat]

CoH actually does something similar. Spawns are created when a hero/villain passes the spawn area, according to zone level, hero level and team size.
So, if a lower level hero entered the spawning zone before you, the spawn would be according to that level. However, in KR and other non-hazard zones, there are min/max levels of spawn within the zone itself, where the general rule is that lower level spawns are closer to the entrance to the zone, the rise as you move outwards.

That, of course, means that bad guys can be clustered mainly in low-level parts of the zone, such as CoT on rooftops around the train.

[Lines]

I'm always talking about how streetsweeping is one of the weakest parts of the game. But it could be one of the best bits. It definitely needs a looking at.

[Marine X]

19 hours ago, DougGraves said:

Now some locations are a problem.  CoT in KR appear on rooftops.

Then Linda Summers in Kings Row sends you, at level 5 to "Defeat 20 Skulls in Perez Park", all are at least 7 and in large groups with a Death Doll or equivalent hiding among them, ( I died , died, died, but did complete it ). Did a Door mission for her in Perez and then, at level 6, She tells me to "Defeat 20 Circle of Thorns in Perez Park". After searching for nearly an Hour, I wielded the Almighty "Auto-Complete Mission" on that Fantasy. There isn't ever any below 7, and I couldn't find a group smaller than 6 that wasn't level 8 or above, always with LT and mostly 9s.

This whole thing just made me wonder, why did I have to Self Level from 28 1/2 to 30 to get more missions from Kelly Nemmers, which I could have handled, to then be given that garbage at 5? The world may never know.

Edited January 20, 2020 by Marine X

[Parabola]

I've had a bit of fun with kill x missions when using them as an opportunity to work on that factions defeat badge. It takes longer as often you are hunting bosses but it's far more satisfying to assassinate 10 bosses than to mow down the first 10 minions you find. Of course this only works with certain factions and certain locations.

[DougGraves]

16 hours ago, Marine X said:

Then Linda Summers in Kings Row sends you, at level 5 to "Defeat 20 Skulls in Perez Park", all are at least 7 and in large groups with a Death Doll or equivalent hiding among them, ( I died , died, died, but did complete it ). Did a Door mission for her in Perez and then, at level 6, She tells me to "Defeat 20 Circle of Thorns in Perez Park". After searching for nearly an Hour, I wielded the Almighty "Auto-Complete Mission" on that Fantasy. There isn't ever any below 7, and I couldn't find a group smaller than 6 that wasn't level 8 or above, always with LT and mostly 9s.

This whole thing just made me wonder, why did I have to Self Level from 28 1/2 to 30 to get more missions from Kelly Nemmers, which I could have handled, to then be given that garbage at 5? The world may never know.

 

I solo with tankers.  So I could take on a group of CoT my level if they were all minions and I had some inspirations.  But spawns with bosses were lethal.

 

It is crazy to send solo players into hazard zones for street sweeping.

[iBot]

There was a time on Live when people would advertise "Street sweeping team lvl 14+ in SC".  I think it was always meant to be a way to run a simple team just sweeping up all the baddies they find.  And prior to radio/newspaper missions it was how you got XP when you ran out of contacts.  Perez on live was a zone most didn't try to solo.  Instead get a team put together and go take out those large groups.  Those missions from contacts were meant to force a team up.  There were even those missions that you had to bring a few teammates because they had simultaneous glowies.

 

Personally I think it would be nice if in the future the HC dev team could find some way to make sweeping a useful task again beyond just a little XP and Inf.  I still do it randomly as I move from mission to mission just as a way to pass the time.

Edited January 21, 2020 by iBot
Spez

[srmalloy]

On 1/19/2020 at 8:58 AM, DougGraves said:

Now some locations are a problem.  CoT in KR appear on rooftops.  Not some place you casually check.  So I imagine a new player might never find them.

In some ways, it was easier in the early game, because the CoT pretty much only showed up at night, and the glow from their rituals would tip you off to where they were. With the revamp, they appear during the day and are less visible, but it's easy to see them on the roof of the building across the street to the south of the police station when you go to pick up your police radio, which tips you off about their spawn locations.