Worst TF/SF in the game

[DR_Mechano]

Alright folks, whats your vote for the worst TF/SF in the game.

 

I know the top 3 runners for me are.

1) Synapse

Whilst it doesn't take as long as the number 2 worst TF it comes in a place where you've not got all your powers yet which can make it feel like an uberslog, not to mention it is very, VERY boring.

2) Dr Q.

Yup, we all know the horror stories of this one. On a well oiled team who all have mission teleporters, assemble the team and such it can be down to about 2-2 1/2 hours but it is also very, VERY boring.

3) Citadel.

All council, all the time, the same map basically 8 times in a row, whilst people love doing +4/x8 council missions they don't make for a very fun TF.

[Dreamboat]

Can't say I've done every TF in the game and I've never went near a SF, but I can't imagine I'd disagree with your #1 even if I had. Kicking robots should not be boring, but somehow, Synapse managed it.

Edited February 20, 2020 by Dreamboat

[Redlynne]

Numina TF wins the spot of being the worst for me.  The time waster middle missions of street hunting in EVERY zone of Paragon City is the very definition of being given the runaround.  It's worse now (of course) than when the TF was written because you can have multiple events preventing the street mobs you need to defeat from spawning in a particular zone, making the whole TF take longer than it needs to simply because some event (Rikti Invasion, Zombie Invasion, Pointless Invasion of Invasions, etc.) is happening there.

[Erydanus]

There's some really good candidates for worst TF right here. It's actually pretty hard to rank them for me but I'll try.

 

Numina's time waster missions are just dull and dumb even if you have no problems. It's just filler of the worst kind. I don't agree that event spawns are a problem but remember when we didn't have any base portals to travel to zones, or Oro, and the trams were on two different loops segregating the zone levels? The travel time was awful. And probably the idea was to keep the teams together so the ambushes could be heroically fought. Honestly, this whole TF is just not well written. It'd be better to just get the shard from Azuria and then do like 3 door missions in Eden and then finish it. Or somehow combine all the defeats into objectives of 1 mission so everyone could do the street sweeping simultaneously.

 

Synapse is quite a slog but at least you get the very cool and creepy final map, plus you get a giant monsters spawn. It is too long, and it is tedious, but at least the rewards are beefy. I ran a couple of these when it was the featured TF of the week a while back and honestly the new "keep powers to +5 levels when exemped" thing made it a lot more do-able. Plus for the last one I was on an at-level fire/kin and I was really appreciated. 

 

Citadel. Just boring!! I love punching Nazis but with Citadel, Moonfire, and Hess all mostly featuring Council and all in the same level range, one of them stands out as dullest and too long and that's Citadel. 

 

I'd have to say Numina's edges out Citadel's though because there's so much time right there in the middle where you literally just do nothing but wait for it to be your turn to kill like 20 guys. Even if Citadel is repetitive at least you're doing something.

[DR_Mechano]

See I always found that if the mission leader knew which order the 'beat up X things in X zones' missions were then you'd have the team prep for it, have all 8 stationed in different zones, once complete leap frog to the next not covered zone and then all coalesce towards the end for the 'at level' zones made it go a lot quicker....that isn't to say that series of missions isn't complete garbage however. I get why its there, it was the endgame TF in issue 0 and meant to be a 'look how far you've come' tour of the city...doesn't make it any fun though.

[Seigmoraig]

3 minutes ago, DR_Mechano said:

See I always found that if the mission leader knew which order the 'beat up X things in X zones' missions were then you'd have the team prep for it, have all 8 stationed in different zones,

That's nice on paper but in reality you always have people who just want to sit around and not do anything while the rest of the team does the kill tasks. Most of the time when this happens and it's their turn up to bad they are AFK and it needs to get done by the people who actually followed the quest progression and put in their elbow grease. Between Ouro portal and enterbasefrompasscode there is no real reason to station people in different zones, it's faster if everyone helps to finish each mission

[DR_Mechano]

6 minutes ago, Seigmoraig said:

That's nice on paper but in reality you always have people who just want to sit around and not do anything while the rest of the team does the kill tasks. Most of the time when this happens and it's their turn up to bad they are AFK and it needs to get done by the people who actually followed the quest progression and put in their elbow grease. Between Ouro portal and enterbasefrompasscode there is no real reason to station people in different zones, it's faster if everyone helps to finish each mission

Notice how I didn't say they're GOOD design just that you can work around it. They're useless filler at best and as such I would, like others, rather have that entire part scrapped and just have a few door missions in Eden (like 2 should cover the time sink).

 

All the non-revamped heroside taskforces are just crammed chock full of filler that really doesn't need to be there. One day I do hope the HC devs get around to finishing off the planned rework (that the live Devs had, Positron was merely meant to be the first in a line of reworks) of each of original Issue 0 and Shadow Shard taskforces (so everything but Posi 1+2 and Yin) to strip out a lot of the guff and stick the originals in Ouro if people want to run them.

Edited February 20, 2020 by DR_Mechano

[Broken_Prey]

It's a tie between Numina and Justin Augustine for me. Both for the same reasons to. The hunts missions are slow boring and worth no xp. You get no inf and no rewards it just a time sink. At least with other tf, that may be longer, you're still get rewards for it. 

[Coyote]

I'm leaning towards Justin Augustine, if I recall the contact rightly. I'm told to go and photograph something for research, and also do a hunt as part of the mission... okay, maybe. But why is he sending me out five different times or so, with a nice trek two frigging Shadow Shard zones away in between two of the National Geographic surveys? If he needs the data on the monuments, I'll frigging get it for him... in one trip around the zone. It's not like those zones are Atlas Park, I really don't need to be inefficient with tasks when they have 2 mile trips each way either with cute geysers or with a relatively slow rocket pack.

 

Heck, Numina's hunts are better. At least I'm wasting the same time killing things instead of more time watching the faraway rock slowly get bigger on the screen over three minutes.

[macskull]

My votes are firmly in there for Synapse and Citadel because even if you do them relatively quickly they’re not worth the merits for the time spent. Dr. Q at least is 122 merits for around an hour.

[Goody]

#1 Citadel 

#2 Augustine

#3 Terra Volta

 

I don't care about merits per hour, for me the rating is by how much fun i can have, a tf either has diverse enemies, maps or locations and makes it a good run, some tfs like numina certainly aren't marathon worthy, but i enjoy my occasional numis.   

 

Citadel hits 1# brown tunnels and council make for a very boring time, I only managed to do 1 with it being the weekly and i immediately logged off when finished and played something else.  

 

Augustine is a chore, but it isn't tied to an accolade that i consider necessary the way citadel is.  that's pretty much the tie-breaker between the two.

 

Terra Volta is on here because of the reactor, it isnt #2 or #1 because sometimes a good team makes this tf fun, but I don't love running in circles killing stuff for that long, not my idea of a good time.

 

Honorable mention Synapse - it is boring, but it is a beginner lvl tf, good for xp on alts, good for multiple badges, easy as it gets, i can solo it leasurely with any character, no power requirements there.

[The_Warpact]

Any TF related to the Task Force Commander badge...blech what a slog.

[skoryy]

I've been through a pair of pretty fast Citadels. It goes easier if the party's beefy enough to split up on their own.

[Lines]

Going to throw my vote behind Citadel. Everything about it is uninteresting.

 

Synapse at least has Babbage and the Clockwork king going on. It's a slog, but I like the Clockwork as a villain group. That puts it 2nd worse for me.

 

I'm never particularly excited to do a Manticore either. All four of the oldest TFs really need reworking.

 

The Shadow Shard ones are at least not so in the way, and I kinda like the existence of an endurance test. That said, I wouldn't miss them if they got culled down to something a bit snappier and more interesting.

[eknudson]

No red-side strike forces get a mention? They're all relatively short and none have the unnecessary hunts or zone travel, but what's the worst there? I'd probably vote for Silver Mantis. Just because unless the team is unusually coordinated getting a foothold on that ship of Duray's can be a huge PITA. I haven't done the SF's as often, though, fewer red-side characters and I think I've only gotten a team of enough high-level villains to do Barracuda once. 

[Uun]

Justin Augustine for me, followed by Synapse. 

[DR_Mechano]

26 minutes ago, eknudson said:

No red-side strike forces get a mention? They're all relatively short and none have the unnecessary hunts or zone travel, but what's the worst there? I'd probably vote for Silver Mantis. Just because unless the team is unusually coordinated getting a foothold on that ship of Duray's can be a huge PITA. I haven't done the SF's as often, though, fewer red-side characters and I think I've only gotten a team of enough high-level villains to do Barracuda once. 

Generally Strikeforces were designed with the lessons learned from player responses to the Taskforces. So yeah they cut a lot of the chaff from them and made them designed to be done in a single session rather than the way the original TFs were designed which was they were meant to be done over a period of several days and they were shocked players were doing them all in one sitting. As for bad SFs...hmm...there's none that I would say are truly terrible...some like Silver Mantis can be annoying if you're not prepared but otherwise...eh...most of them are ok.

[The Bobby Llama]

1 hour ago, eknudson said:

No red-side strike forces get a mention? They're all relatively short and none have the unnecessary hunts or zone travel, but what's the worst there? I'd probably vote for Silver Mantis. Just because unless the team is unusually coordinated getting a foothold on that ship of Duray's can be a huge PITA. I haven't done the SF's as often, though, fewer red-side characters and I think I've only gotten a team of enough high-level villains to do Barracuda once. 

As a counter point, the sky raider base is super fun as a brute, so much stuff to SMASH.  It's hard to pick a 'worst' SF when they're all pretty good.  They all have their weak points, but not nearly as badly as the TFs that preceded them.

[siolfir]

I'd nominate the Barracuda Strike Force as the worst of the Strike Forces, especially when compared to the Khan TF - one features forced player defeat and imprisonment after they run around with the idiot ball before passing it off to the Arachnos patrons, has a mission with multiple "lead mob to location" objectives and nearly requires certain ATs due to the huge-sack-of-hp at the end phasing to regen, and one is a romp against super-Nazis where you just quickly work through the huge-sack-of-hp and play with other AVs at the same time.

 

Because of the number of powers available I put Synapse worse than Citadel, they're both little more than selective radio missions with an AV at the end, and I personally just dislike Clockwork as an enemy group.

 

So for me personally...

1. Synapse

2. Synapse (it's so bad it deserves a double mention)

3. Barracuda

4. Citadel (sure it's boring, but at a level range that people tend to run Council or Freakshow if they're doing radios anyway)

5. LGTF, because of the binary nature of the Hamidon mission - it's either really easy or a huge slog

 

I'm not against "different" mechanics, though: Apex and MLTF/STF are some of my favorites. I liked the original LRSF better than the nerfed one players get now. I think my favorite is still the Ice Mistral SF just because of all the pretty (explosive) crystals.

[Shred Monkey]

Clearly the common theme here is that excessive length is bad, particularly when it contains repetitive missions.

 

(ironic in a game where farming is so common)

Edited February 20, 2020 by Shred Monkey

[tremor3258]

Is original Positron an option?  Shadow Shards were quicker...

 

Synapse isn't super travel heavy as slogs go and switches out the maps, so it doesn't bother me as much as Citadel, the Task Force of far too many Council maps.   The small narrow structures with  three level 'cooling ponds' with too many alcoves enemies can hide in.  And you have to find every. one.

 

It doesn't help the Council on Citadel is pretty tedious.  Lot of base soldiers in fire and force, maybe a little sonic, and no Warwolves, and few Vampyri or Galaxy to liven it up.  It's a lot of people shooting at you without many variations of buffers/debuffers, or super hard-hitters.  Yeah there are hover bots and Mech Men, but they don't do that much more different besides shooting.

 

Moonfire offers more variation in enemies and mission types, and Hess has a giant robot volcano base and is much more rare to see. 

[Cutter]

Piling on Synapse, and adding a slightly different piece to the "why". In addition to the issues of TF length and uninspired kill-alls, I'd add the absurd end drain that comes from 100% clockwork 100% of the time, at levels when few ATs have ways to combat it.

 

I'd love to see this TF get spiced up by adding some other villain groups to the mix: Lost (psychic interference) seems the most natural for me, but I expect better writers than I could make a case for other level-appropriate groups like the Outcasts and Tsoo to have a stake in the game. Heck make it a tour of the low level villain groups and make room for Hellions and Skulls too. Just *something* to break up the monotony and give some respite from mission after mission of "any blues?".

[Coyotedancer]

I actually don't mind Doc Q... Yeah, it takes awhile to do, but I never really felt it was a horror. 

 

Synapse, on the other hand? I hate that one. Total. Freaking. SLOGFEST.

Not a huge fan of Numina, either. The street hunts are just terrible.

[Apparition]

Does Death from Below count? 

 

"Does anyone need the badges?"  "I do."  "In that case, when we fight the Vahzilok boss, everyone should ignore the adds and not use any AoE nor cone attacks."  "Roger."

 

Later:  "Okie.  Remember, boss and single target attacks only."

 

Five seconds later:  "So and So has defeated Cadaver."

 

"Dang it.  It's okie.  We will get the badge on the second run."

 

Second run: "Remember, only attack the boss.  No AoEs, no cones." 

 

Five seconds later: "The exact same So and So has defeated Cadaver."

Edited February 21, 2020 by Apparition

[macskull]

5 hours ago, The_Warpact said:

Any TF related to the Task Force Commander badge...blech what a slog.

Posi 1/2, Yin, Manticore, and Numina aren't that bad and are all 10-40 minutes on a quick team, but I mostly agree with you. There are better ways to get merits and I don't think I've gotten TF commander on a single character since I found out about the mayhem mission contact redside. Why would I sit through 6 task forces when I could do Invader in less than ten minutes?

23 minutes ago, Shred Monkey said:

Clearly the common theme here is that excessive length is bad, particularly when it contains repetitive missions.

 

(ironic in a game where farming is so common)

If those repetitive missions gave good rewards versus time spent you bet people would be running them more often.