Well, devs, my favorite TF is no longer fun to solo.

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, Voltak said:

This is not even up for debate

 

Fine. Nor is the fact that the ITF is less fun for me now to the point I don't bother soloing it at all when it was my goto meditation time in game. Hopefully this mode of "fuck the soloists" won't become the modus operandi around here. Too bad rumblings I'm hearing point to exactly that.

 

And I'll need vid of that tank run. 36 mins sounds a bit far fetched considering all the other posted times for such runs around here.

[Werner]

3 hours ago, Voltak said:

@Nova's tanker 

Stone/Super Str 

Did the ITF, 54 x8, no insps, no temps allowed, no deaths 

36 minutes 
*** before the fix to Shield defense for Cimerorans ***

Nice! I did it once in about 1:24 on my Shield/Martial Arts Tanker before the fix. Enemies buffed but I think I’d only go marginally faster with normal enemies. Super Strength can put out more damage, but that’s a LOT more damage. Looking at Trap Door testing, I can imagine SS getting down under an hour on damage alone. Not sure where the remaining time comes from to get to 0:36. I’d think tactical differences? Proper use of Lore might cut a lot of time on the AVs. I didn’t use Lore. So yeah, my main curiosity is tactics used. Do you happen to know? I usually do it defeat most, but I occasionally enjoy going for speed, and it’d be nice to be able to go faster.

[Voltak]

" Fine. Nor is the fact that the ITF is less fun for me now to the point I don't bother soloing it at all when it was my goto meditation time in game. "

Ok, I do admit , you had me laughing here.   Meditation time... 
Damn, that was good. Kudos 

It's not about screwing the soloist, brother.  Shield defense should have what they have now, like players have it too.   Rad melee toons have less problems hitting. 

Different ATs won't even notice this too much since they have defense debuffs as well. 

About the tank solo

Please read above , my previous post. 

Thanks for the smile, bud.  Sincerely 

[Voltak]

2 minutes ago, Werner said:

Nice! I did it once in about 1:24 on my Shield/Martial Arts Tanker before the fix. Enemies buffed but I think I’d only go marginally faster with normal enemies. Super Strength can put out more damage, but that’s a LOT more damage. Looking at Trap Door testing, I can imagine SS getting down under an hour on damage alone. Not sure where the remaining time comes from to get to 0:36. I’d think tactical differences? Proper use of Lore might cut a lot of time on the AVs. I didn’t use Lore. So yeah, my main curiosity is tactics used. Do you happen to know? I usually do it defeat most, but I occasionally enjoy going for speed, and it’d be nice to be able to go faster.

I fixed the post 
He still beat your time 
And it was a speed run, since in our chnl we go and try to beat times for these challenging settings 

Use of Lores is a huge key 

Edited September 25, 2021 by Voltak

[Werner]

Just now, Voltak said:

I fixed the post 

And it was a speed run, since in our chnl we go and try to beat times for these challenging settings 

Use of Lores is a huge key 

Ah, boo. I was hoping I was about to learn a new tactic! 😁 Still great. 

[Voltak]

I was astonished to see a stone tanker doing that. 

But then I took a very hard look at Proc Bot's build (it's here in the forums). 

That proc bot is a true monster 

[Bill Z Bubba]

4 minutes ago, Voltak said:

Thanks for the smile, bud.  Sincerely 

 

You're welcome. It was absolutely a true statement. Soloing through the hordes has been one of the best tools at my disposal to counter the idiocy of being in IT for 20+ years.

[Werner]

2 minutes ago, Voltak said:

I was astonished to see a stone tanker doing that. 

But then I took a very hard look at Proc Bot's build (it's here in the forums). 

That proc bot is a true monster 

I can believe it. 

[Voltak]

1 minute ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

You're welcome. It was absolutely a true statement. Soloing through the hordes has been one of the best tools at my disposal to counter the idiocy of being in IT for 20+ years.

😄😄😄😄😂😂😂😂

Oh, man.  

This is therapy indeed 

Well, from one such similar soul ( although I can come out of the closet and say the same ) 

That's one of the reasons I did the games first and only dominator to solo the MoITF 

Some may say this is insane but I found therapy in doing it 

[Werner]

8 minutes ago, Voltak said:

" Fine. Nor is the fact that the ITF is less fun for me now to the point I don't bother soloing it at all when it was my goto meditation time in game. "

Ok, I do admit , you had me laughing here.   Meditation time... 
Damn, that was good. Kudos 

I’m sure he’s serious. It’s still my go to meditation time. I’m a grinder by nature, and it’s more fun than a fire farm or something. I feel like I should switch to 801.2 for my meditation, but I’m still having trouble being calm playing it. 😉

[Bill Z Bubba]

7 minutes ago, Werner said:

I feel like I should switch to 801.2 for my meditation, but I’m still having trouble being calm playing it. 😉

 

I need to revisit this. Matter of fact, doing so.

[Werner]

1 minute ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I need to revisit this. Matter of fact, doing so.

I need to finish this Werner Rules ITF first. 😉

[Voltak]

1 hour ago, Werner said:

I’m sure he’s serious. It’s still my go to meditation time. I’m a grinder by nature, and it’s more fun than a fire farm or something. I feel like I should switch to 801.2 for my meditation, but I’m still having trouble being calm playing it. 😉

I agree 100% with him on the therapy or meditation idea here.  I personally find this to be the way in my case some times

[Voltak]

1 hour ago, Werner said:

I’m sure he’s serious. It’s still my go to meditation time. I’m a grinder by nature, and it’s more fun than a fire farm or something. I feel like I should switch to 801.2 for my meditation, but I’m still having trouble being calm playing it. 😉

Look up @Voltak2 

In the AE system 

Linea and I have both done both, his and mine. 

Mine are just a bit higher diff level than his.   But still a challenge if you ever want to find a team to do so 

[ninja surprise]

4 hours ago, Voltak said:

Missing proves that there is an added challenge. 

The challenge is actually being able to hit them. 

They have more defenses so obviously they present a new challenge.  
If they are more difficult to hit than before then it is more challenging to defeat them. 

This is not even up for debate

 

What's up for debate is the opinion of what a person considers a challenge or an annoyance. Or if something is just plain impossible it's not really a challenge because it can't be overcome.

 

Nemesis or his Fakes in their bubble, Paragon Protectors in their MOG state, Council Ascendant guys behind their shield, a crowd of Tsoo Sorcerers with Hurricane on, etc, are in the same category: impossible or difficult to hit while in their buffed state.

 

IMHO it doesn't make the game more difficult when there's nothing I can to do make them hittable. It's just a time-sink waiting for the effect to wear off so I can hit them in the face with a stone mallet again.

 

On my All Shield ITF there were times where we had all the aggro in a room. Every attack produced dozens of "Deflected!" messages instead of damage numbers. We couldn't hit them and they couldn't hit us. That's a stalemate, not a challenge.

 

Sure the challenge could be that there's just certain things in game that are impossible for certain ATs or powersets to do. Like my Super Reflexes guy can't take on a horde of Rularuu no matter what he does. They just chew him up.  In that case the challenge is to run away fast enough to survive. 

[Werner]

For me at least, it feels like an additional challenge. I need to be careful how many I group together based on what powers I have recharged. If I have build up and all my AoEs, I prefer two groups at once, as I can wreck enough of the group to be worth lower to hit until build up is back. I’ll stick with a single group if judgment isn’t up. I’ll beat on the minotaur or cyclops, which I’m able to hit, and use build up and AoE to thin the herd as I do. There are times when it is just a whiff fest regardless, and that mostly feels annoying rather than challenging, but most of the time I’m hitting. I’m undecided yet if the additional challenge is adding to or subtracting from my fun, but at least for me, it isn’t Paragon Protector levels of annoying. And I feel like there was already a similar challenge on the ITF with the minotaurs and cyclopes, which is trying to arrange timing and enemies in the fight such that I’m never wasting time attacking them while they’re unstoppable (?), but also never wasting time not attacking something. Anyway, I still love the ITF.

Edited September 26, 2021 by Werner

[Wavicle]

It's unquestionably a challenge. It is a tactical challenge with several different options to overcome it, from slotting, to teaming, to inspirations, to combat decisions. In some scenarios it will be easily overcome and in others it will be a serious obstacle, depending on how you approach it.

[Voltak]

1 hour ago, ninja surprise said:

 

What's up for debate is the opinion of what a person considers a challenge or an annoyance. Or if something is just plain impossible it's not really a challenge because it can't be overcome.

 

Nemesis or his Fakes in their bubble, Paragon Protectors in their MOG state, Council Ascendant guys behind their shield, a crowd of Tsoo Sorcerers with Hurricane on, etc, are in the same category: impossible or difficult to hit while in their buffed state.

 

IMHO it doesn't make the game more difficult when there's nothing I can to do make them hittable. It's just a time-sink waiting for the effect to wear off so I can hit them in the face with a stone mallet again.

 

On my All Shield ITF there were times where we had all the aggro in a room. Every attack produced dozens of "Deflected!" messages instead of damage numbers. We couldn't hit them and they couldn't hit us. That's a stalemate, not a challenge.

 

Sure the challenge could be that there's just certain things in game that are impossible for certain ATs or powersets to do. Like my Super Reflexes guy can't take on a horde of Rularuu no matter what he does. They just chew him up.  In that case the challenge is to run away fast enough to survive. 

You seem con conflate another issue and another statement which no one said in order to argue vs me. 

It's not going to work. 

I never talked about impossible things. 

I only said that it is a fact that now the ITF is more of a challenge since the present challenge which was not present before is that Cimerorans are harder to hit than they were before

THey have higher defenses so it is more of a challenge to hit them

That's not at all saying they are impossible.  

If you could more easily hit them before and now they are harder to hit, that's a challenge now, the challenge to kill them or hit them. 

In your scenario, of the ALL shield ITF, you had a challenge :  Your challenge was to kill them. In order to kill them you had to hit them.  Since you could not hit them because now the challenge to hit is more difficult than before , then you failed the challenge, again, the challenge to kill them. 
You are the one with the mission to complete the ITF, if you cannot complete it because you can't kill cimerorans, then you failed. 

Another Shield/Rad duo combo could hit them after the debuffs set in.  They succeeded and met the challenge and did it. 
You failed, and they did not. 

Have a good one. 

[Voltak]

1 hour ago, Werner said:

For me at least, it feels like an additional challenge. I need to be careful how many I group together based on what powers I have recharged. If I have build up and all my AoEs, I prefer two groups at once, as I can wreck enough of the group to be worth lower to hit until build up is back. I’ll stick with a single group if judgment isn’t up. I’ll beat on the minotaur or cyclops, which I’m able to hit, and use build up and AoE to thin the herd as I do. There are times when it is just a whiff fest regardless, and that mostly feels annoying rather than challenging, but most of the time I’m hitting. I’m undecided yet if the additional challenge is adding to or subtracting from my fun, but at least for me, it isn’t Paragon Protector levels of annoying. And I feel like there was already a similar challenge on the ITF with the minotaurs and cyclopes, which is trying to arrange timing and enemies in the fight such that I’m never wasting time attacking them while they’re unstoppable (?), but also never wasting time not attacking something. Anyway, I still love the ITF.

THis here.  Like also the same NOVA person I said earlier, I asked him on his adventures with the new ITF changes. 
He said he changed his tactics. He started to work from the outside instead of what he was doing before. 
What he was doing before is start inside in the middle of the pack. That's the wrong way to do it now because you are trying to hit them at the strongest point. 
The weakest point are the critters on the outside of the group. 

He saw the new challenge and found a way to accomplish the mission. 
Done. 

[Sovera]

Bill does have a point though. It's the old game designer adage of difficulty = more HP instead of game mechanics.

 

WoW had this a couple years back when they changed leveling (not the most recent where they made timewalking leveling which was well received) where players were 'leveling too fast' and thus things were tweaked. Turns out the tweaks were giving more HP to mobs.

 

Not more mechanis, not hitting harder, just more HP, and the players argued (with good reason) that there was no extra challenge, all it did was slow people down.

 

So in that sense yes, there is no extra challenge. But in a full team the extra defense does not matter since the enemies have such low HP compared to the overwhelming tsunami that is incarnated IOed players going ham. All it takes is a couple of hits for things to die and with 8 AoEs everything dies.

 

It will only slow soloists because the damage output is reduced to x1.

 

But on the other hand I'm not on Bill's side that TFs ought to cater even more to soloists. They already do that. That's what the difficulty slider is for and what allows pretty much any AT to solo a TF with a minimum of a build. +4x8 with or without any other attributes is for the bragging rights and the harder it is the more bragging rights.

[ninja surprise]

9 hours ago, Voltak said:

THey have higher defenses so it is more of a challenge to hit them

That's not at all saying they are impossible.  

 

By definition, if you can't do something, isn't it impossible?

[Triumphant]

1 hour ago, ninja surprise said:

 

By definition, if you can't do something, isn't it impossible?

 

Well, that's kind of a dead-end discussion.  All content in the game is impossible for some players and possible for others, depending on level, character build, and player skill/experience.

 

For example, I have about 3 incarnate level characters.  I find team play so easy on teams comprised of characters of my level that I often become actively bored, even when playing at +4 difficulty.

 

On the other hand, when I take those same characters and play in groups doing AE 801 missions, I find them overwhelmingly difficult, often to the point of futility.  There are people that can run 801 content, though, so it isn't impossible.

[Bill Z Bubba]

7 hours ago, Sovera said:

But on the other hand I'm not on Bill's side that TFs ought to cater even more to soloists.

 

That's not what I meant earlier. There's a difference between catering to soloists and actively choosing to nerf them for the benefit of team play.

 

That isn't what happened here, of course, this was just a fix after all. And as mentioned, a fix like any other change has consequences.

 

But it does appear to be a mindset for future changes that I'm certainly not too keen on, especially if it's utilized for changes to existing content rather than ONLY being used for new content.

Edited September 26, 2021 by Bill Z Bubba

[Voltak]

5 hours ago, ninja surprise said:

 

By definition, if you can't do something, isn't it impossible?

I never said it is impossible To hit them 

That's not the truth

The truth is they are harder to hit now. 

More difficulty and only more difficult to do so 

That's the challenge 

[Werner]

On a few occasions, my hit points went lower than usual during the shadow cyst ambushes. I assume it's my misses preventing Might of the Tanker from keeping my resistances as high as normal. So there is at least a little bit of a new survivability challenge for me. So now I find myself staying on the minotaurs and cyclopes even when they're unstoppable, because I can reliably hit them, and they don't go down, so I don't need to think about finding the next space lobster or squid to hit. Then I just clear with AoEs until it looks like I can hit the Cimerorans reliably. Clearing out the seafood before taking down the cysts would also work, but it's more fun being completely surrounded and being beaten on. Tanky tank tank! I think the more I get used to the defense boost, the more I like it. While it's no fun to miss, I find it more fun overall needing tactics with more depth than kill surgeons, get surrounded, and spam attacks until everything is dead. But it's still straightforward enough that I can turn off my brain and relax. My Shield/MA isn't complicated to play.