Remove the perma ambush aggro from Defend the Midnight Mansion

[Monos King]

5 hours ago, nihilii said:

You can die and hosp the next second and die again and hosp the next second and so on, and in doing that enemy attacks eventually end up on recharge, which leaves you time to throw one attack or two, maybe even move away. Dying/rezzing fast enough also breaks the animation root sometimes and lets you move. Sometimes I'd even get a break getting knockbacked off the roof. Then you've got Return to Battle and other self rezzes with immunity timers. It's weird and broken but it's by no mean "literally" impossible, provided you're willing to use the tools available to you, even before exploits.

I've never even done this mission before but what you just described is so absurdly ridiculous that Vanden's exaggeration now sounds like a well-warranted approximation. That is rough. Unless the reward is like 150 merits or such at the end of the mission, no one should really need to do all that. Haven't suffered it myself, but I think I'm in favor of this proposal.

[golstat2003]

11 hours ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

Its not like its some unique super hard fight. when ward goes untouchable, you head over to clarity and grab her and lead her to the pond, its just like leading the seer to her pedestal on the ITF. and its pretty easy because ward and his minions are leashed to the mansion area, so once you step off the cliff and drop down and head for clarity you lose a good chunk of mobs, especially if you did a good job keeping the midnighters alive so they can hold the aggro while you go get clarity.

 

For me the part that seems to be being called the hard part of the mish, is one of the easiest parts of it. Im trying to express why I find it so and what simple methods I am employing to do so. And as Ive said I soloed it set to the mob size the Op struggled with as a team. I honestly atm am feeling if a persons toon is struggling badly on this mish, it needs a respec.

Or just autocomplete the mission and move on. Life's too short to deal with bugs that probably won't be fixed anytime soon. And to be clear that sounds EXACTLY like a mission bug. Not a WAI experience. Let's call a spade a spade.

Edited August 4, 2020 by golstat2003

[Brutal Justice]

15 hours ago, Vanden said:

To be clear, you're voting in favor of leaving a specific, likely chance that a player will be completely unable to proceed, caught in a death loop that is literally impossible to escape without logging out or using an exploit command to leave the mission. That is what you want to keep in the game?

Yes I am.  It’s already been mentioned but if you wipe in the reactor room of a respec trial you lose.  

 

What happens when you lose?  Nothing.  The city doesn’t actually explode.  It’s not game over.  I believe you can even restart the mission.  

 

If you go back in with an understanding of what will happen I am confident any team that made it that far would be able to complete the mission.  It’s not even a “get good” scenario.  It’s a “the more you know” scenario.  

 

Its also a situation that adds value to many different powers and archetypes.  Breaking up the damage is king mentality.  Instead of “lolz you took rise of the phoenix, my toon never dies!”   It becomes, “rise of the Phoenix, I guess we are saved, but fix your build bro.”

[Brutal Justice]

12 hours ago, Puma said:

And doing so admitting that they haven't actually "experienced this mission".  

Indeed!  I did however provide a long winded example of the same thing happening in a different mission.  Do you know how we recovered from that situation?   Just like @nihilii mentioned.  People were not waiting around to Rez.  They were rezing continuously, over and over again. Even as others were still alive people were rezing and dying, stretching the ambushes out.  If even one or two people were on their feet we still had a chance because it gave enough breathing room to get maybe one more up.  

 

All of the debt we acquired was cleared within minutes.  It really had no long term effect on anybody.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

39 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

Or just autocomplete the mission and move on. Life's too short to deal with bugs that probably won't be fixed anytime soon. And to be clear that sounds EXACTLY like a mission bug. Not a WAI experience. Let's call a spade a spade.

What exactly sounds like a  bug? The mish is to defend the mansion, they even give you several powerful npc allies, that as long as you work alongside will easily last till the Ward part that seems to be the focus of the discussion.

 

We revive off to one side of the mansion, an area that if you  have done your part wont have any mobs in range of, and have several NPCs near by helping to protect. We are also just beside the door to the mansion that serves as the mish entrance/exit.

 

The only moment things can get real hairy, is if when the script makes Ward untouchable( which is very much intended and not a bug) you need to go get clarity. So far for myself I did struggle there on my first run on a stalker solo, only because I was so rusty I initially wasnt paying attention to the scenerio and was just in hack and slash mode.  Even then I didnt get overwhelmed and killed, I simply dropped off the ledge, leaving ward and the bulk of his friends behind, ran over to clarity, and used a mixture of abilities to keep mobs off of us while leading her to the pond.

 

For my blaster, The one time I did die, was at the end up against the group of EBs, and this proved to actually play to my favor, because the named EB that matters to finish the mish, flew off and was hiding on a roof top all alone, making the finish easy.

 

There seems to be one golden moment, that if the players ignore the mish goal, and try to keep beating on Ward, or trying to clear the endless waves that will keep coming to try and prevent you from leading clarity to the pond, that can lead to this issue in the topic. IMO its good to have at least a few bits of content, were there is very little margin for failure, and demand players focus on the content goal, rather then just blast everything to ash.

 

A bug would be clarity not following, or her reaching the pond not triggering the next stage.

 

And again please understand that the case in topic is a group going above their ability. 2 of the 4 were side kicked up, none were front liners. They had dif further upped by +1, and then suffered a wipe during what for me has been the easiest part of the mish when Ive run it 2 times now the last couple days.

 

Had they been on -1 or had a decent team I doubt this post would ever have happened. Hell guys this is technically praetorian content, some of the last added to the game, tuned to deal with the higher performance of players and builds.

 

Understand to all the ones saying this is so hard. I as a single blaster, on a dif setting meant to mirror the OPs of x4+1 soloed the mish in question just by standing up top and hanging with the midnighter npcs while clearing waves, kept them all alive till the ward moment, and easily, casually stepped off the ledge, walked over to clarity, and lead her to the pond. Yes my toon is fine tuned, yes I know how to use him and adapt him to a wide range of things during play. He basically acted as tank and nuker and kept the mansion safe easily. So if 4 people are struggling with this encounter, before any QQ on the forums they really should of re run at base dif or even -1 rather than act like completion at +1 was something they are entitled to.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

On 8/2/2020 at 9:39 PM, Galaxy Brain said:

To all the people saying get gud:

 

My Claw/EA was able to wipe the floor with the entire mission until Ward turns on you, I got unlucky and died.... which I then went to the hospital.

 

I was spawn camped by tons of enemies that would kill me during my rez animation where I could not retaliate, and eventually had to cheese my way out of the hospital by mashing movement off the ledge as I spawned / got killed to where I could fall down and use a wakie without as much aggro.

 

That part is not challenging, it's just frustrating as you do not even get a chance to react / do anything other than repeatedly get wrecked by what Ward Summons mere feet away. If the hospital were moved some distance away it'd fix the mission honestly.

My Q is why did you die at the ward part? Did you keep fighting up there, or as soon as your told to get clarity move to do so? Or did you genuinely get overwhelmed by ward before he went untouchable? And why do you feel it should be an easy recover, rather than the one that demands you made sure the area was kept clear, and the NPCs alive to offer you back up. If you were solo, what was your dif setting at? If more then x1, why do you feel the mish should be made easier, when you already had a pretty easy time by your own account at the dif setting you were at?

 

As one who has played a claws WP and Soloed more then a few AVs with one, and consider WP game breakingly OP, I find it odd you would struggle against base line dif in the mish, which is the only dif anyone has any right to QQ about not being able to handle. The second I hear + anything about the run, I put that as the first and foremost reason for the groups struggles. And until the OP comes back here and says yep had the same exact ish happen at -1 with a decent team, I will see it as a player problem, and the possibility of a wipe that can not be recovered from, as a perfectly acceptable aspect of the mish, and yes tell anyone struggling to adapt, and either reduce dif, alter team composition, or just plain ol get gud!

 

Because you are not entitled to completion.

[Coyotedancer]

23 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

Perhaps find a team that will wait for you? 

'Was about to say... I don't think App's problem is really so much a matter of transportation methods.

 

It sounds more like they were just running with a bunch of impatient assholes. (And trust me, as someone who almost exclusively plays fliers, I understand the problem. I've run into groups like that, too. They're halfway done with the map by the time I get my slow butt in the door. <_< It's annoying. But something well beyond the base macro.)

[Galaxy Brain]

17 minutes ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

My Q is why did you die at the ward part?

Does it matter?

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

3 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Does it matter?

It very much does. If you for example like my first run, didnt pay attention, and stayed up there after he went god mode, and didnt focus on the objective of getting clarity, then yeah you kinda had that death coming.

 

Also, what was the dif setting you ran at? That is also a pretty big detail that is very relevant.

 

I need to hear from a group on a good team of 8, that against that with 8 people, they couldnt maintain their defenses,, they got overwhelmed there through no fault of their own, and could not recover before I am even going to begin to consider the dumbing down of this a valid ask. So far none of you have made one valid point, or outlined one reasonable.

 

Because so far Ive not read any thing from those wanting change, that seems valid, and my own play throughs have shown no glaring issue to me that needs to be fixed to make it easier then the game is already.

[nihilii]

2 hours ago, Monos King said:

I've never even done this mission before but what you just described is so absurdly ridiculous that Vanden's exaggeration now sounds like a well-warranted approximation. That is rough. Unless the reward is like 150 merits or such at the end of the mission, no one should really need to do all that

It does sound ridiculous if you cut out the part where I decided to run it at +4/x8, solo. 😉 Which is certainly not something I, nor anyone else, *needed* to do.

For comparison, a solo STF/RSF/Apex/TinM is significantly more challenging.

 

I am, again, in support of fixing that spawn point simply because it's incoherent and might cause frustration for others. Really, I was just taking exception to the claim it is literally impossible when even a solo player can tackle it on maximum difficulty designed for teams.

[Galaxy Brain]

48 minutes ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

It very much does.

It doesn't. 

 

What matters is that I happened to die and then essentially get locked in place forever in the mish and that blows.

[Replacement]

@Bentley Berkeley Let's say I am a bad player and I die.

 

How do I exit this mission to reset to a lower difficulty?

 

In other news, how do I learn from my mistakes and git gud if I cannot respawn without instantly dying again before I'm even allowed to finish an attack animation?

[Onemantankwall]

Love the people still pushing rez removal running it at anything over -1 as even +1 in nightward is nasty to a underbuilt toon. As i said even if you rez outside mish and reenter ur swarmed before you even fully load in at least you can get something off rez spamming BESIDE THE DOOR you so very much want to reenter through. As i said this arc is 1 of the hardest in the E N T I R E game theres a reason i broadcast "not for the faint of heart" when running it. I've also said you can skip this arc till higher lvls where you are built to take the pain that is nightward. 

 

Lets run 1 of the most brutal arcs in the game with under geared under leveled squishies with no tank or heals on a difficulty you know you cant handle and cry and scream when it destroys you wanting it to be nerfed in some way when its a completely O P I T I O N A L arc to run with the ability to auto complete abandon or never even have to pick up the mission. I've taken PUGS through nightward plenty times and have not once or ever failed to complete the mish tho ive also not been stupid enough to run on a difficulty ik we cant handle as nightward gets very nasty on higher difficultys. This scenario of yours is the equivalent to asking someone to shoot you before you put on a bulletproof vest. As i said once more ill repeat it, if they move respawn out of mish ull just get swarmed and butchered at the door.

 

You found a arc you cant instsntly steamroll.... instead of pouting, throw a party because so VERY FEW of them even exist anymore.

 

 

P.s. kudos to the brave soul who said they soloed it at +4 x8 you need a medal

[Galaxy Brain]

If they simply move the respawn somewhere else in the mission so you have time to prep, but not enough time to have the ambushes swarm the location like if it were outside, that would help the issue.

 

For context, my claw/ea soloed all of nightward on +1/x4 with only an Overwhelming Force KD in Shockwave / numina/ perf shifter for IOs, the rest being generics, while leveling. That was the only mish to give me trouble due to getting bad luck at that one part.

Edited August 4, 2020 by Galaxy Brain

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

25 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

If they simply move the respawn somewhere else in the mission so you have time to prep, but not enough time to have the ambushes swarm the location like if it were outside, that would help the issue.

 

For context, my claw/ea soloed all of nightward on +1/x4 with only an Overwhelming Force KD in Shockwave / numina/ perf shifter for IOs, the rest being generics, while leveling. That was the only mish to give me trouble due to getting bad luck at that one part.

But the thing is you have yet to make a good case for why it should be moved. You say you did it at increased dif, and had trouble. Ok fair enough so did I and we seem to have very opposing views to the good and bad of it.

 

My blaster on the same dif had zero issue clearing the waves, and when it came time to grab clarity just walked off the edge to go get her. Easy peasy for me. This seems to be the critical moment some are struggling with like yourself. So I ask, did you have issue before or after it was time to get clarity, and if after,was it because you didnt leave the area around ward quickly enough to avoid the added spawns the event triggers?

 

Frankly atm the only way Id support the change you want, is if when it came time to get clarity, she was a very very fragile NPC, that the team had to react quickly and protect her against tons of aoe and the like that would just about one shot her, forcing the team to be extremely effective in mob clearing during that phase to justify making the revive point safer, and make claritys death an auto fail obviously.

 

Because I see this mish as honest legit challenge, and like the added twist of needing to keep the npcs alive, and mobs cleared so when Ward and event spawns dont overwhelm easily.

 

Let me  ask, do you think on base dif you would of been challenged at all? because for one character that really is all that matters. and have yet to hear from any group of at level doing it and suffering at all, just the OP who by their own statement 2 of the players were underlevel by a fair bit and side kicked up. So 4 players on +1 with half of them be at -2 to the mobs base, plus being weaker power/slot wise then a character should be for the content for discussions of balance.

 

Also they lacked good front line. Would you for example think had you say a good bit of cc support, and a blaster for nuking, had any trouble with an x4+1 setting in this mish honestly?

 

Because understand I am not contesting that a sub par group in over their head can encounter a no win scenerio they cant easily brute force their way through. Im saying that such is a good thing, to help act as a build check for players to consider possible respec ideas and other needs if they want to push past the inherent limits of a given at/power set combo.

 

So far we have one group of 4 who were sub par for the baseline trying to do above baseline. and a few players like you and I who have gone in at the OPs dif while short manning and had varied results. For me the results are not saying the mish is unfair or excessive in any way, it just has a scripted event, that combined with players not prepping the area or being up to the dif setting they are playing on can create a very very hard to fight their way out of situation, not even truly impossible, just time consuming enough to act as a real negative consequence that can make reset a viable option.

 

Because I am here trying to discuss this, Ive taken my game time to explore the issue now a few times. So far very few yourself included, are taking the time to really break down the events in the bad runs youve experienced or given even the basic sketch of tactics used. Hell you didnt even mention if you kept the NPCs alive until the ward/clarity event kicks in. These are relevant, those npc are clearly there to act as aid in the final fight if not just ignored and treated like cannon fodder they will be right there to help protect you if you need to revive.

 

And since you were WP I have to ask, when that event occurs, did you keep your taunt aura on while trying to go get clarity? Or did it even occur to you it was one of those times rise to the challenge might be more harm  then good by painting a giant glowing shoot me sign on you.

[ShardWarrior]

To me, it is irrelevant whether someone can solo the mission or not.  The issue is the placement of the spawn point inside the mission and that more often than not, players can consistently get spawn camped because of it.  That is indicative of a bad design in my opinion.  Other maps which have the hospital in the mission allow the player to collect themselves in safety. 

[Myrmidon]

1. Fix this mission in normal content.

2. Place the current mission as an echo in Ouroboros for the people that enjoy the insanity.

 

 

I have had the solution for a few days now, however, posting it would have deprived us of days of outstanding forum entertainment, and that is something that I could not do.😁

[Galaxy Brain]

15 minutes ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

 

And since you were WP

I've said twice that I am /Energy Aura. If you are not going to read my posts saying that the mission has an objectively broken aspect regardless of difficulty then idk what to tell you.

[Onemantankwall]

Could just simply fix Ai like the OP originally means and disable ambush lock on targeting after char death on MULTIPLE mishs including as early as posi 1 with the town hall door

 

Edit: plus sounds like OP wasnt 50 so their +0 was actually +1 and a +1 diff was actually +2 mobs to lead which is +2 or +3 to everyone else because diff raises itself to +5 pre50 so +2-3 with lack of argo holder and sets pretty much sums up how ur mish will end up.

Edited August 4, 2020 by Onemantankwall

[Vanden]

23 minutes ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

So far very few yourself included, are taking the time to really break down the events in the bad runs youve experienced or given even the basic sketch of tactics used.

The only people talking about their tactics in the mission are the people that, like you, are missing the point. The issue is that if you die, you can get caught in a completely unfair death loop. The issue is not that it’s possible to die in the first place.

[Galaxy Brain]

Just now, Vanden said:

The only people talking about their tactics in the mission are the people that, like you, are missing the point. The issue is that if you die, you can get caught in a completely unfair death loop. The issue is not that it’s possible to die in the first place.

Exactly this. I just so happened to die due to bad luck on a defense set. It happens.

[Onemantankwall]

4 minutes ago, Vanden said:

The only people talking about their tactics in the mission are the people that, like you, are missing the point. The issue is that if you die, you can get caught in a completely unfair death loop. The issue is not that it’s possible to die in the first place.

except its not the loop thats the issue the loop is breakable (yes ull collect debt yay badges!) Problem is overall ambush ai target lockon needs adjusting try reading threads before commenting even OP admits to ai focusing being whacky

Edited August 4, 2020 by Onemantankwall

[AerialAssault]

21 minutes ago, Onemantankwall said:

Could just simply fix Ai like the OP originally means and disable ambush lock on targeting after char death on MULTIPLE mishs including as early as posi 1 with the town hall door

 

Edit: plus sounds like OP wasnt 50 so their +0 was actually +1 and a +1 diff was actually +2 mobs to lead which is +2 or +3 to everyone else because diff raises itself to +5 pre50 so +2-3 with lack of argo holder and sets pretty much sums up how ur mish will end up.

Yes, this is exactly what myself and others have been saying. 

 

The way ambush AI is scripted (or at least, some ambush AI, it's not consistent) is that they will chase player characters to the ends of the Earth. They can see through stealth, they ignore any aggro that isn't a taunt so RIP Masterminds, and they start homing in on the first character who re-enters the map as they're loading in and unable to defend themselves. The cheapest of cheap shots.

 

If Ambush AI didn't do that, and instead turned 'dormant' after a fight, then scenarios like this wouldn't happen.

[Patti]

Or lay dormant for 120 seconds before refreshing the ambush behaviour maybe?  So if one ran off in a corner and you need to defeat them to win they will eventually come looking for you.

[golstat2003]

42 minutes ago, Vanden said:

The only people talking about their tactics in the mission are the people that, like you, are missing the point. The issue is that if you die, you can get caught in a completely unfair death loop. The issue is not that it’s possible to die in the first place.

I simply gave up talking to Bently, clearly from other posts he's not reading or properly understanding what folks are saying.