Opinion piece; the worst TF/SF and why

[The_Warpact]

So me and my VGmates over the course of our Friday night play dates have been running the Shadow Shard TF's.

 

Last night was the Justin Augustine Task Force, out of all the TF/SF I have ever ran that hands down is the worst. Now the two prior ones had there moments but JA was just a waste, players standing around while going to do clickies, fly 20 miles to click something else, over and over again, ugh time sink.

 

Not at all impressed and such a let down, the story was ok, the difficulty on the final mission didn't set well, I had it cranked to +4×8 and the CoT were yellow and white.

 

So overall it was very lackluster,  only redeeming thing was the badge and the merits.

 

Do not recommend. Or if you need the badge set for 0×1, set fly on autopilot, and go get a snack.

[Coyote]

Agreed, that's one's terrible. Is that the one where he sends you to a monument to translate a verse... one monument at a time? I was like "just give me the coordinates for all of the monuments and I'll get them in one fly-by around the zone". That's what anyone with half a brain would do, but no... he's supposed to be smart, so's my character, but instead we do this idiocy. And I have to waste my time killing some random Rularuu in the area just so they don't see me or something? Again, a waste of time that isn't relevant to the story. It's long enough without introducing useless time sinks 😞

I also hate the Saga of Ruladak the Strong, largely because of the final map. I hate settings that block my sight, and the dust in that cave is set so strong that you can barely see the ground more than a couple steps away. You can't even see Ruladak if you're a ranged character, just an outline cause by his energy shield, you can't tell distances because you can't see the walls, etc. It takes what should be an epic fight into mindless button mashing because I couldn't actually see the fight. Having a 30' tall AV in a 40' cave isn't very helpful, either... he's so tall that you want to be above him to see him, but that's hard to manage.

[Snarky]

The original Positron TF.  That is so awful. Long and repetitive and so many team disintegrations after an hour with another hour to go.   They should change it.

[Doomguide2005]

My first thought was Numina and all those damn hunts

 

Then I read and was reminded why I've done those particular TF's so seldom that they did get filed away under U for ugggly and forgotten. 

 

I love the Shards for the scenery but sheesh do the mission content and those TFs need some love.

Edited February 13, 2021 by Doomguide2005

[Dr Sausage Jr]

Synapse just called in.....

[Doomguide2005]

14 minutes ago, Snarky said:

The original Positron TF.  That is so awful. Long and repetitive and so many team disintegrations after an hour with another hour to go.   They should change it.

Hehehe, agreed but for one thing.  For quite a while I ran this almost daily with an SG mate.  Both of us IO'd out level 50's speed running it via Ouro for merits.  Regen scrapper ftw at that level while exemping.  Obviously need to NERF REGEN

[Snarky]

18 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

Hehehe, agreed but for one thing.  For quite a while I ran this almost daily with an SG mate.  Both of us IO'd out level 50's speed running it via Ouro for merits.  Regen scrapper ftw at that level while exemping.  Obviously need to NERF REGEN

I still remember a slow team melt on old Posi back on live.  We lost half after first hour.  another a half hour later.  Last mission the other two quit.  Me alone.  On a F-ing Nrg Nrg Blaster.  Not tricked out.  I tried.  I could not get the final EB, even pulling sniping using elevator.  Too many mobs and so much wasted effort lol.  

 

Doing this thing solo on a Blaster may be a White Whale I finally get on Homecoming!  Hmmmm...I will wait a while though.  sheesh.

[Doomguide2005]

31 minutes ago, Snarky said:

I still remember a slow team melt on old Posi back on live.  We lost half after first hour.  another a half hour later.  Last mission the other two quit.  Me alone.  On a F-ing Nrg Nrg Blaster.  Not tricked out.  I tried.  I could not get the final EB, even pulling sniping using elevator.  Too many mobs and so much wasted effort lol.  

 

Doing this thing solo on a Blaster may be a White Whale I finally get on Homecoming!  Hmmmm...I will wait a while though.  sheesh.

Yup, recall doing it on my first Tanker a Fire/Axe.  Started with 8.  Slogged for 'hours' till needing sleep took its toll on the team and we all agreed to meet up the next night.  Well 3 of us showed up and we pressed on.  We had a better outcome at least as several painful hours later we managed to finish.  Yay.  It was a while before doing it again.  But a lot like Numina you needed it if you wanted the badges and accolade.

[Eva Destruction]

Dr Quaterfield is the worst TF, and that is not my opinion, it's an objective fact.  In another thread someone condensed the whole dragged-out mess into five missions without losing any of the plot.  And the plot isn't all that great in the first place. 

[Doomguide2005]

1 minute ago, Eva Destruction said:

Dr Quaterfield is the worst TF, and that is not my opinion, it's an objective fact.  In another thread someone condensed the whole dragged-out mess into five missions without losing any of the plot.  And the plot isn't all that great in the first place. 

LOL I remember that.  Think there was a similar thread on Live.

[Snarky]

13 minutes ago, Eva Destruction said:

Dr Quaterfield is the worst TF, and that is not my opinion, it's an objective fact.  In another thread someone condensed the whole dragged-out mess into five missions without losing any of the plot.  And the plot isn't all that great in the first place. 

Is this like George Carlin boiling down the Ten Commandments into 1 instruction?

[Heraclea]

Dr. Quarterfield does not have the godawful zone hunts that JA does, though.  Most of the missions there are door missions.  

[The_Warpact]

2 hours ago, Coyote said:

Agreed, that's one's terrible. Is that the one where he sends you to a monument to translate a verse... one monument at a time? I was like "just give me the coordinates for all of the monuments and I'll get them in one fly-by around the zone". That's what anyone with half a brain would do, but no... he's supposed to be smart, so's my character, but instead we do this idiocy. And I have to waste my time killing some random Rularuu in the area just so they don't see me or something? Again, a waste of time that isn't relevant to the story. It's long enough without introducing useless time sinks 😞

I also hate the Saga of Ruladak the Strong, largely because of the final map. I hate settings that block my sight, and the dust in that cave is set so strong that you can barely see the ground more than a couple steps away. You can't even see Ruladak if you're a ranged character, just an outline cause by his energy shield, you can't tell distances because you can't see the walls, etc. It takes what should be an epic fight into mindless button mashing because I couldn't actually see the fight. Having a 30' tall AV in a 40' cave isn't very helpful, either... he's so tall that you want to be above him to see him, but that's hard to manage.

Ruladak mission was bad and as an AV he sucked. The fog, stumbling around a cave, and a crappy boss. Thats it in a nutshell...

[Techwright]

I don't recall the Justin TF.  Guess that shows how often I've run it.  But I do recall the Dr. Q TF, and that one made Synapse seem fun by comparison.

 

If I may, with our present development team, how challenging would it be to make those adjustments mentioned in the thread?  Reduce the JA TF by announcing all clickies in one instruction, allowing the team to fan out to get them.  And condensing Dr. Q's TF missions to something that would complete in 1 hour rather than 3?  Toss in Numina to the discussion as well.  While I rather like the Numina TF, because I see taking on the various factions as a timing challenge,  I could see it being reduced by issuing orders for 2 or 3 factions at a time, allowing the team to split up to handle them, like they already do.   I'm just curious, since it would be condensing or reducing, rather than adding new content.

[the1egend1ives]

The Synapse TF is awful. I know how much people hate the Shadow Shard TFs, but those have the benefit of being in the Shadow Shard, a very unique looking zone, and you're fighting unique enemies at a high level with incarnate abilities.

With Synapse, it's soooo freaking long. And you're only level 15-20, so you're incredibly weak and missing half your power tray. It sucks.

[Snarky]

47 minutes ago, the1egend1ives said:

The Synapse TF is awful. I know how much people hate the Shadow Shard TFs, but those have the benefit of being in the Shadow Shard, a very unique looking zone, and you're fighting unique enemies at a high level with incarnate abilities.

With Synapse, it's soooo freaking long. And you're only level 15-20, so you're incredibly weak and missing half your power tray. It sucks.

A simple fix to the Synapse would be having all the kill alls on a small map.  The difference in the time between getting all small maps and all large maps is EXTREME and it is pure RNG

[KaizenSoze]

I vote for Synapse. The level range makes it a slog, huge maps with clockwork, clockwork, and more clockwork. And I did mention clockwork.

 

Citadel is also boring, but at better level range. Even if you are punching Nazi faces, it's still a slog.

 

A properly equipped team can greatly shorten any Shadow Shard TF.  They definitely could use some help, but at least I enjoy the zones.

 

 

[Grouchybeast]

Synapse is the worst.

 

The Shadow Shard TFs have nice scenery, and if you really don't like flying through the Shards then you can pretend they don't exist and not miss much.  But if you want the TF Commander badge then sorry, but Synapse has 358487 identical warehouse kill alls lined up just for you.

[oedipus_tex]

The best thing I have ever read on the internet was posted by someone on these forums a few years ago, telling the story of joining a Doctor Quarterfield TF without realizing it was being run by a group of ERPers. Hahahaha. Just thinking about it makes me cackle. I hope that person makes an appearance in this thread.

[cranebump]

Synapse and Citadel are tied for me, with the latter being more ridiculous due to things like clearing the 2 mishes that literally spawn using the same door, back to back. 

[Coyote]

I find Synapse to be an OK TF to respec back to at 50... kill alls are a lot less annoying when you're effectively farming for Incarnate Threads on your way to a Notice of the Well. It is really annoying on the way up, though.

The Shadow Shard TFs are some amazing zones, but as TFs their design is like deliberately the worst way you could design TFs. And it was because at the time, the thinking was that you needed to provide long, grindy end-game team content in order to keep grind-oriented players interested. Nowadays we see that players much prefer shorter TFs with fewer missions and interesting unique maps/end fights, but at the time, people were complaining that there wasn't enough content for 30-40 and then for 40-50 characters, so they put in content that was long, repetitive, and grindy.... thinking that this was what the players would be happy with. Boy, was it the wrong choice, heh. Usually I'm an apologetic for the Dev team since I've been there, but this... there's nothing good that can be said for the TFs except maybe a bit about the story. And frankly, even there it's not the hotness.

[Tantricsecrets]

I like the shard tfs, but I don't like citadel because every mission is the same tight brown hole. 

[DSorrow]

Shadow Shard TFs probably have to take the top spot for me. I've only ever done each of them once on retail CoH for the badges and never went back because they simply felt artificially prolonged to an extent where even the special enemies and locations couldn't make up for it. With more reasonable mission design they would probably be great because Shadow Shard and Rularuu are otherwise criminally underused for being such interesting lore wise.

 

As for other TFs, Synapse and Citadel are both extremely boring because it feels like you do the exact same mission ~10 times, so you don't really get a feeling of progress during the TF. For Synapse specifically, Clockwork are also an extremely annoying enemy group at low levels given all the mez and endurance drain.

 

The final TF on my list is Numina, purely because of the hunt at the end. It would be fine if you could progress all of the hunt steps at the same time, but you can't so it becomes an exercise in logistics if you want to finish it in a timely fashion. What's also annoying is that some enemy groups just spawn very scarcely in the zones you're supposed to hunt them.

[Crysis]

JA and Dr Q are both utterly skippable content even if you are a die-hard content player.  It’s like the entirety of the Shadow Shard, and the TF’s within, were some summer intern project so someone could learn how the dev mission creation tools worked.

 

I’ve seen fire farms in AE with more meaningful story and missions than these two.

 

If you manage to get on a speed group, it’s worth it to do both -JUST- for the merits and to see what awful TF’s they are.  If everyone on the team has TT, Mission Transporter, Assemble Team, they can be speed-run rather quickly.  But otherwise....skip them.

[BZRKR]

I dislike Synapse the most, which is a shame, since it has a very flavorful villain the cool outdoor monster attack. Everyone knows why it's a slog, but it always struck me as odd that you have to talk to Positron twice in Synapse's task force. I guess teamwork does make the dream work though.