Hellions finally chased out of Atlas Park ... or are they?

[RikOz]

Posting here because this doesn't seem like a "bug" per se.

 

Yesterday afternoon or evening, I ran into an issue where I couldn't find Hellions to defeat in Atlas Park. Specifically, I couldn't find them for the very first mission from Matthew Habashy. Considering that this is likely the very first mission a new player is going to receive upon entering AP for the first time, this could leave a bad taste.

 

If I'm on a Magic-origin character, I'll usually grab the first mission from Azuria at MAGI as well, which is also to beat up 5 Hellions, as I can complete both missions simultaneously. However, while any Hellion in AP counts for Azuria's mission, only the Hellions in a very specific area count for Habashy's mission, and they just weren't spawning there at all. I saw a good number of other characters circling around and around the area, the same characters for quite a long time, so I'm guessing other people weren't finding Hellions either.

 

It wasn't just the mission location, either - There were no Hellions standing around or mugging people in the parking lots and lawns around Atlas Plaza. The Hellion lieutenants assaulting people at the part in the next block for the second mission in the arc were also very scarce.

 

Logging my character out and back in again eventually solved the problem, but I'm wondering if the problem was the result of the sheer number of player characters in AP yesterday overwhelming the server to the point that it was having trouble spawning mission mobs.

[Korbian]

The same thing happened when they first got the servers up and running.  There are literally too many Level 1 characters running around all at once for the spawn to keep up. They've had record numbers this weekend though, what with school being out and it being a holiday weekend in the States.  It's not as big a problem during non peak hours.

[RikOz]

It actually seemed to me that it wasn't a matter of the spawns not keeping up with so many people killing them. At one point I went to a spot where I know for a fact that three separate groups of five Hellions typically spawn for that mission. I just stood there in the one spot for a good 10 minutes, and not a single Hellion spawned.

 

If I encountered this in WoW, I'd assume it was a "phasing issue". I don't know the mechanics behind whatever CoX's version of "phasing" is (I'm pretty sure that these particular mobs only appear to people who have the mission, and that the area remains Hellion-free after completing the missions), but this feels like something similar.

[Impish Kat]

Ran into the same issue yesterday. 

 

Took a friend and new player through the tutorial, hit up Hashaby, and.... No Hellions.  No Hellions anywhere.

 

We eventually found a couple in a parking lot, but since they were not in the phasing area, they did us no good.

 

We finally decided to switch AP instances and were able to complete the mission with plenty of Hellions to choose from.

 

 

[RikOz]

We finally decided to switch AP instances and were able to complete the mission with plenty of Hellions to choose from.

Yup, this has worked for me the last couple times. Hit the tram and "travel" from, say, AP 4 to AP 5. Problem solved.