Focused Feedback: Dr. Aeon Strike Force

[Booper]

This is a Focused Feedback Thread

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Dr. Aeon Strike Force

New Strike Force: Chasing Fool’s Gold [Dr. Aeon] (Villain, Level 35-50)

The supervillain genius, Dr. Aeon has begun to take notice of suspicious unscientific activity going on within Aeon City! Such things are inconceivable! None can be permitted to befoul the glory of his utopia!

 

In his unparalleled brilliance, he has decided to enlist the service of local villains for the purpose of helping him maintain and enforce order! Definitely not to deflect any potential responsibility or liabilities from himself! Never!

 

However, even his immaculate mind couldn’t predict the culmination of this plot. Decades of planning sees the rise of an unexpected threat of which Dr. Aeon played no small part in helping create, in more ways than one!

 

Strike Force Contact: Dr. Aeon, Aeon City, Cap Au Diable

• Located atop the balcony of the Arachnos administrative building in Aeon City; This location can be reached through the elevators with rounded doors located inside the lobby.

The Dr. Aeon Strike Force also features brand new musical compositions, created specifically for it!

[Cobalt Arachne]

👀

[jojogladco]

The large spider EBs in mission one have no status protection. Seems off since you'd figure EBs to have the standard suite of status protection. Same for the EB at the end of mission one. Haven't gotten any further than that yet. That was on +4/8 and +4/1 while solo, didn't try any other combinations to confirm if it was always the same or not. 

[Ruin Mage]

For anyone interested, I'll be running this on highest difficulty tonight and tomorrow. Be on the look out for Shadeknight or Occult!

[Cobalt Arachne]

10 minutes ago, jojogladco said:

The large spider EBs in mission one have no status protection. Seems off since you'd figure EBs to have the standard suite of status protection. Same for the EB at the end of mission one. Haven't gotten any further than that yet. That was on +4/8 and +4/1 while solo, didn't try any other combinations to confirm if it was always the same or not. 

They don't have the base Elite Boss status protection values? Should be mag 6 on most types of mezzes. (Those don't show up in Combat Attributes)

[jojogladco]

12 minutes ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

They don't have the base Elite Boss status protection values? Should be mag 6 on most types of mezzes. (Those don't show up in Combat Attributes)

Totally my bad. I didn't realize that the mag 6 base EB value wouldn't show in the Power Analyzer. Went back and can confirm status protection is WAI. 

[KeepDistance]

Spoiler

It'd be nice if there was some hint in the text about what makes King Midas vulnerable

 

[Zed]

Hey there.

Just finished HM1 & HM3 runs. Pretty insane stuff. But we were the nastiest and prevailed.
50+ KOs, i stopped counting. Acceptable loss™. 🤪
Nothing critical to report, just a few things here and there.

 

Yes, i'm picky and i know it.

 

Spoiler

 

... What ? xD
I lol'd.

 

Spoiler

 

Extra tilda before the music notes that is probably meant to be a single eighth note. (Blame google if that's not the correct term)

 

Spoiler

HM3 rewards... wasn't the table supposed to be different from lower difficulty with some incarnate components ?

 

Oh. And i appreciate you put this the WST this week, these yummy 120 merits per run.

 

👍

[KeepDistance]

I read Aeon's initial text over a few times, which was difficult because my eyes kept glazing over, and I'm pretty sure he never actually says why he needs the player's help or what the first mission is supposed to be about. It reads as if there's some other exchange that already happened.

[Hew]

49 minutes ago, Zed said:

HM3 rewards... wasn't the table supposed to be different from lower difficulty with some incarnate components ?

 

Oh. And i appreciate you put this the WST this week, these yummy 120 merits per run.

 

Check your astrals and emps. In V++ mode, you have astrals and emps dropping from all the avs, significantly boosting raw merit reward count.

 

[Teirusu]

Just ran Aeon's Strike Force with Shadeknight on Ruthless.  Took just about over 3 hours on a nearly blind run.

We had 1 tank, 1 scrapper, 4 defenders, and 2 controllers.  Totally amazing work Cobalt and everyone else!  Just absolutely flooded by this SF.  Definitely enjoyed every minute of it.  Thank you for all your hard months long work on this thing.  Definitely enjoyed every minute of it! 😄  Definitely not a snooze fest that is Dr. Q.  LOL

 

 

[Replacement]

3 hours ago, Zed said:

Extra tilda before the music notes that is probably meant to be a single eighth note. (Blame google if that's not the correct term)

I think that's intentional. It's pretty common in fiction for a ~ thing to be used to indicate a vocal warble, such as a syllable being stretched into a music note. It conveys (to me) the word "luck" probably endures through 2, if not 3, separate tones.

 

E: there's an argument to be had that "lu~uck [note]" would work better, but I think authors avoid that for readability. Perhaps that would be better in a comic book which {checks title of the game} might work here.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Replacement

[Ruin Mage]

14 minutes ago, Teirusu said:

Took just about over 3 hours on a nearly blind run.

Aviel and I were trying to not give away too much, but I failed in the end a lot.

[golstat2003]

As someone who was there as this epic content was developed, at various stages, Bravo @Cobalt Arachne and the team that worked on this and the new difficulty options. 🙂 

 

EDIT: The way this was incrementally put together and tested at each stage is an awesome template for the future!

Edited November 6, 2021 by golstat2003

[KeepDistance]

14 hours ago, Hew said:

Check your astrals and emps. In V++ mode, you have astrals and emps dropping from all the avs, significantly boosting raw merit reward count.

 

 

That doesn't match the description given in the patch notes. According to the notes, AVs drop astrals, but not empyreans; those come at the end:

 

Quote

• Arch-villain ranked enemies will reward 1 Astral merit per defeat.
• ...
• In addition to all standard rewards, completion of this difficulty will reward 2 Empyrean merits and an Incarnate reward table containing your choice of: A random Incarnate salvage, an Empyrean merit, or two super Inspirations.

 

 

[Ruin Mage]

I don't believe I saw an Incarnate reward table. I need to run it again.

[Cobalt Arachne]

15 hours ago, KeepDistance said:

I read Aeon's initial text over a few times, which was difficult because my eyes kept glazing over, and I'm pretty sure he never actually says why he needs the player's help or what the first mission is supposed to be about. It reads as if there's some other exchange that already happened.

I'm unsure what this is supposed to mean, can you provide more specific details on what is hard to understand or read? How you described it reads like you didn't understand it because you weren't trying to read it? I'm happy to adjust the text if it needs adjusting, but need more information.

Dr. Aeon hires you to raid Aeon Corp to teach his research staff that he's the only reason they get to enjoy a safe work environment, while also finding out what secrets his head of R&D was selling and to who, since that's illegal by Arachnos law.

[Cobalt Arachne]

38 minutes ago, Shadeknight said:

I don't believe I saw an Incarnate reward table. I need to run it again.

Let me know on that... I was told we can do two reward tables and they simply queue up and you select the first and then second, if the second isn't coming up, that's not working as intended.

 

47 minutes ago, KeepDistance said:

That doesn't match the description given in the patch notes. According to the notes, AVs drop astrals, but not empyreans; those come at the end:

This is in reference to running the content on Relentless:

• Arch-villain ranked enemies will reward 3 Astral merits per defeat.
• Certain powerful Arch-villains have double base health (with normalized regeneration numbers) and will reward 1 Empyrean merits per defeat.

[Apparition]

4 minutes ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

Let me know on that... I was told we can do two reward tables and they simply queue up and you select the first and then second, if the second isn't coming up, that's not working as intended.

 

This is in reference to running the content on Relentless:

• Arch-villain ranked enemies will reward 3 Astral merits per defeat.
• Certain powerful Arch-villains have double base health (with normalized regeneration numbers) and will reward 1 Empyrean merits per defeat.

 

I can confirm that there is no Incarnate reward table, only the standard reward table with merits or D-Sync.

[Cobalt Arachne]

Just now, Apparition said:

 

I can confirm that there is no Incarnate reward table, only the standard reward table with merits or D-Sync.

We'll look into this then; Thanks!

[ShardWarrior]

Ran this with a team of 5 on Vicious difficulty.  Overall very fun and definitely something different.  Only thing I noticed that seemed buggy was the Hero 1 battle.  His constant rabbiting around and healing to 100% seems very buggy. 

 

Props to the folks who designed the new environments.  Very well done!

 

Purely a personal opinion with regard to rewards -  I do not think 40 merits makes this even worth running, even with Incarnate salvage drops.  You will get way more for much less effort doing a Hami raid or iTrial than this.  I may run this once on the most advanced difficulty for badges and bragging rights.  Beyond that, I do not foresee wanting to run this with any kind of higher difficulty.  It just takes way too long.

[Apparition]

2 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

Ran this with a team of 5 on Vicious difficulty.  Overall very fun and definitely something different.  Only thing I noticed that seemed buggy was the Hero 1 battle.  His constant rabbiting around and healing to 100% seems very buggy. 

 

Props to the folks who designed the new environments.  Very well done!

 

Purely a personal opinion with regard to rewards -  I do not think 40 merits makes this even worth running, even with Incarnate salvage drops.  You will get way more for much less effort doing a Hami raid or iTrial than this.  I may run this once on the most advanced difficulty for badges and bragging rights.  Beyond that, I do not foresee wanting to run this with any kind of higher difficulty.  It just takes way too long.

 

 

I'm seeing the length of the Dr. Aeon SF being complained about quite a bit from others I know.  But, I'm sure it will get faster as people learn strategies and get more efficient with it.

 

That said, I wouldn't use Hamidon raids as a baseline to compare with, because Hamidon raids are far too easily farmed as is and is a serious issue, IMO.  When you can do a Hamidon raid for 80 reward merits in five minutes (not counting time forming), compared to live when it took quite a bit longer, that's an issue.

[Cobalt Arachne]

16 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

Ran this with a team of 5 on Vicious difficulty.  Overall very fun and definitely something different.  Only thing I noticed that seemed buggy was the Hero 1 battle.  His constant rabbiting around and healing to 100% seems very buggy. 

The Vanguard AVs cannot be pulled out of the room they are fought in, if you try to pull them too far away from their spawn location (about the length of the room), they will run back and reset to full health.

[golstat2003]

16 minutes ago, Apparition said:

 

 

I'm seeing the length of the Dr. Aeon SF being complained about quite a bit from others I know.  But, I'm sure it will get faster as people learn strategies and get more efficient with it.

 

That said, I wouldn't use Hamidon raids as a baseline to compare with, because Hamidon raids are far too easily farmed as is and is a serious issue, IMO.  When you can do a Hamidon raid for 80 reward merits in five minutes (not counting time forming), compared to live when it took quite a bit longer, that's an issue.

actually I wouldn’t compare haimdon raids as I don’t think they are that easy. Our gifted and friendly raid leaders make it look easy.

 

I don’t consider herding 50 players and organizing ATs into distinct teams via the hard to use league interface, to be all that easy. It’s often a thankless job

 

dealing with 7 other players and getting them to cooperate is much easier.

[Drakwatch]

Today, I lead a team on Vicious difficulty. 5 Incarnates. 1 brute, 1 tank, 2 scrappers, 1 corruptor.
Enemies were at 52+ x8.

Feedback and spoilers below:

Spoiler

This run was very punishing. Our Corruptor was doing a good job with seismic and storm, but we didn’t have a lot of holds or ranged damage and support.  Got punished quite a bit for pulling extra mobs, which I know is intended. We muscled our way through though, the hospitals were very helpful.

Some players understood the danger for the self-destructs pretty fast, and then others did not catch on until later missions.Some folks were initially annoyed at the 1 hit kill, and then they were okay with them. Other players felt that it was unfair, and that it should be tankable if desired. Dimensional disruption was very punishing for melee characters. Some players did not understand that they were being killed while standing in Dimensional disruption puddles until later missions.

 

In the first mission, we tried to get the Elite Boss Scientist to turn into an arachnoid, but we killed him too fast.

 

During the first Zoe encounter, she flew away and summoned her enemies but we were able to keep her in the same spot for the rest of the encounter. Her invulnerability phases played normally, however she was not able to escape us.

 

Portal markers were very helpful in mission 4 (with the ripples.)

 

We attempted to fight the 5th Column leadership, but got our butts kicked accordingly. Pretty difficult with the mob aggro and Nictus essence floating around. Some players mentioned it was “tedious”.

 

Did not attempt to aggro the Devouring Earth in the 2nd ripple.

 

3rd ripple encounter, several players reported excessive lag in the Portal Court area. May be caused by the rain FX.

 

Hero 1 boss fight seemed bugged.

• We fought him and Incandescent, we didn’t aggro the rest of the Vanguard.
• We defeated Incandescent first.
• He was taunted away from the portal towards the entrance of the room.
• He would super-speed run / fly back and forth, from the portal to the other end of the room and sometimes out to the other vanguard room. Very strange movement behavior, he was running laps around us basically.
• Then he would teleport by the portal with full health and no indication of what happened.
• This happened about 4 times until our timer ran out. We did not do enough damage to survive.
• The overall feel from the team was disappointing.

The Ripplesurge fight was pretty brutal until everyone caught onto the effusions healing and then dropping the damage puddles. Additional mobs getting aggroed did not help. The fight started off with players being annoyed at lack of combat log messages for damage puddles (needs confirmation? I did not read my logs closely to confirm.) Once we got into the groove, it went by smoothly as the effusions were getting killed as they spawned.

 

In the final mission, when destroying the devices, it was pretty difficult to navigate the map due to the increased sight range of enemies. We accidentally aggroed 2 or 3 mobs several times.

 

The Midas boss fight went smoothly, as I was able to lead the team through the mechanic of taunting Midas into the smelting cauldrons while avoiding the blue damage puddles. It became tedious when Midas’s AI would get stuck on the lip of some of the cauldron pots.

 

Everyone was in agreement that 40 merits is NOT enough for a challenge run that goes for 3 hours. This should be adjusted to reflect the time played and the Challenge presented. Final completion time was 3 hours 19 minutes. Other rewards, such as Astral Merits at the end of missions were welcome, but the current rewards seem very lackluster compared to doing BAF or Lambda for Incarnate rewards.

 

At the end of the final mission, I didn’t use the “exit mission” button, and instead used the teleporter door in the room and I arrived in the Grandville portal room.. Not sure if intended.

 

Overall, not a whole lot of bugs, and everyone agreed that it was miles above Synapse and other long TFs. The map design, enemies, mission flow, and writing all received much praise. Everyone agreed it was a “solid” Strike Force. As people become more and more accustomed to playing this Strike Force, I think the challenge runs will become less punishing.

This was my first run this weekend, and I plan to  do a few more. Unfortunately I did not have my skip-back recording on at the time. I’ll try to get a recording so I can have more media / screenshots for this.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Drakwatch
typos and formatting