Focused Feedback: Dr. Aeon Strike Force

[Excraft]

4 hours ago, Shadeknight said:

I don't think it's really heavily scripted.

Let's look at the fights with scripts/mechanics;

Cauldron

• One mini-boss after another
• Boss has two times where you probably want to switch off of him - turrets & additional mobs

Nothing too heavy there. Teams just need to switch. Burning the AV down won't end well.

Zoe

• She calls Brickers to her side, especially ones left on the map
• 3 times, a group of adds spawn in. Two sets of Brickers, one set of harmless dudes. She goes immune during this.

Again, a little add control and some thought of stealthing vs clearing. Not meant to be a speedy fight.

Roller, Ripples

• Roller calls for aid on engagement, nothing like the bad bosses but still some additional mobs
• 3 times, he sends you into a Ripple
• These ripples have optional fights for a badge.
• #1: Fight four AVs with new abilities, take them out, and fight a fifth with the main ability from each AV. That's pretty cool. Also ambushes, but can burn him down to get yoinked to Roller
• #2; Fight four monsters or dogpile the creature in the middle to fight everything in the room. You can try to burn the middle creature to get yoinked back
• #3; 2 AVs, one with a telegraphed Nova-like ability. The other a beefy dude who also hits like a truck.

Nothing out of the ordinary here, but now a dangerous ability has telegraphing.

 

Rodney, Round 1

• Nothing special here, he teleports away

 

Surge

• He summons two adds. Kill them or he heals & spawns puddles

This should not be difficult once you get used to the puddles.

Rodney, Zoe Part II

• Surrounded by mobs, but otherwise they just use abilities with no real mechanics. BEat em up, ez pz

The King

• Blue beams. Like Battle Maiden. Nothing new.
• 3 phases - Dopplegangers, Real Midas, and Zeon
• Oh and he deletes the thing you need to be able to damage him.

The final thing is an advanced version of Reichsman, the second thing is a little different but with some inspiration from elsewhere (Dopplegangers)

None of this is WoW-like, given the vast differences between the two games. None of these mechanics are astoundingly difficult after you see them a couple of times. A few things are new or re-hashed from other areas in the game. Nothing that we've not seen before, but with additional things tied into it.

It should be noted that BAF, Lambda, and various other things have announced incoming attacks but only partly telegraphed some. Some TFs/Trials have had stuff like immune-unless-this-happens, etc. It just so happens that the mechanics hit you in the face with a crowbar if you think its just another ITF.

 

This is great.  You didn't read or understand what I wrote, but it's great.

[Albion]

6 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

 

So you do not have any empirical data I take it?  Thought so. 😉  I totally agree that experiences will vary.  However, I am not the one making sweeping generalizations about the playerbase as whole. 

 

Anyway, seems like this is a circular argument which I really have no use for, so good day and good luck to you.

Mmm, it is a bit shady you demand data that no one will be collecting and stablish that your arguments are facts simply because that is not available, I could say I can breath on the moon since there is no data of me going there and not being able to breath, and then of course you one-sidedly declare the discussion over and leave. While every person personal experience is unique, when there is a generalized feeling among the player base that support alts are cut out of certain runs, and you have regularly on in game chats things like "the answer for everything in this game is damage" going on, not to mention how many support at's struggle to cast two powers together before most of the team already is three rooms away, and that actually sparks a response from the Devs, who clearly are aware of such things, to try and balance things, I would say that is all the empirical data you need, of course you are free to not accept it as is obvious your opinion is already settled.

[Albion]

4 minutes ago, Excraft said:

 

Melee don't do you job and remain in melee ....

You mean like with Battle Maiden?  , It's a mechanic, be melee, range or whatnot, if you don't want to die you should move then re-engage, no one is an impervious invulnerable meta super hero that shrugs off any attack.

[GM Impervium]

3 minutes ago, Albion said:

no one is an impervious invulnerable meta super hero that shrugs off any attack.

 

Well I feel attacked.

I mean..

Let's try to keep the thread on-topic for ASF feedback, folks. There's a separate thread to discuss the advanced difficulty features aside from ASF; Also, be nice! thank you!

[Lorraine of Pinnacle]

Hello everyone !

**HUG HUG HUGS App**

I solo'ed this on my Bio tank it was *GREAT*! (no deaths but it was set at its lowest difficulty) Thank you so much for the hard work and the time that was invested.  It was thoroughly enjoyed!

Reading all of these comments makes me want to run it again!

Personally, its never about the merits.  I am here because I enjoy the game.  This new addition is very enjoyable.  I have no doubt that next year, people will have optimized this down to bare bones but until then, run it, enjoy it, viva la HC !

 

More hugs ** HUG HUG HUG ! **

 

PS. Edit one, didnt mention the difficulty.  Edit two, spelling can be difficult

Edited November 7, 2021 by Lorraine of Pinnacle

[Draeth Darkstar]

4 hours ago, Piecemeal said:

 

That's a bit of an interpretation thing. We wouldn't be making original powers autohit as a way to circumvent player builds with high defense. That'd be lazy and bad. But we did add that power with a warning because, I, personally, wanted something that brought back a bit of situational awareness to the meta. The power itself is enabled by Advanced Difficulty, but similar powers in the future, with appropriate warning factors, could be sparingly used in the future, and not enabled by AD but just part of the natural enemy toolkit.

 

Please bear in mind that, aside from the already mentioned visual noise detracting from autohit indicators, there are people with low vision who play this game. It's very easy for "situational awareness" as a design goal to turn into "this power is just a vision test" in practice. Vision tests are not particularly interesting or relevant to a video game, and if you look at the 800-pound gorilla of the medium in World of Warcraft, they had to make upwards of a dozen changes to the Castle Nathria raid this year because their super cool new boss mechanics ideas implemented with their super cool new particle engine were literally impossible to see for tons of people and made the raid completely inaccessible. We don't have the dev manpower or the playerbase numbers to test against content that WoW does, so please do try to keep it in mind from the design phase.

 

Also, from a mechanics standpoint, autohit powers really, really suck for pet classes in this game, because CoH has no concept of protecting pets from mechanics that the AI doesn't know it's supposed to dodge. In modern MMOs, pets are anywhere from 75%-100% immune to the mechanics players are supposed to be dodging, and Masterminds are already all but irrelevant to the endgame meta here already.

[KaizenSoze]

On a humorous note, given the incredible ingenuity of player base.

 

What is the betting line on how long it take before someone solos relentless mode? 

 

I say three months, then twelve months after that someone will post their emp defender soloing it. 😛

 

[ShardWarrior]

3 hours ago, Albion said:

Mmm, it is a bit shady you demand data that no one will be collecting and stablish that your arguments are facts simply because that is not available

 

Shadier still to make sweeping generalizations about the entire player base as fact when there is only extremely limited anecdotal evidence out there, which was the the point of my asking.  😉  I never suggested my opinion is fact, even expressly stated I was speaking for myself only.  I was merely pointing out others who were trying to do so.

Edited November 7, 2021 by ShardWarrior

[Ruin Mage]

I never meant to say that I am speaking fact, but more so from personal experience. I apologize if It seemed like I was speaking factually.

[AerialAssault]

13 minutes ago, KaizenSoze said:

On a humorous note, given the incredible ingenuity of player base.

 

What is the betting line on how long it take before someone solos relentless mode? 

 

I say three months, then twelve months after that someone will post their emp defender soloing it. 😛

 

 

Oh, someone will definitely solo it. Whether they're actually able to do it in the same day they start it is another thing altogether.

 

The usual tools that people use to effectively solo are unavailable in Relentless. Without Envenomed Daggers, most AVs would simply be unkillable to most ATs. Actually, because of their expanded health pools, and AV regen being the way it is, I doubt anyone would be able to pump out enough damage to kill an AV in a reasonable time.

[Ruin Mage]

1 hour ago, Draeth Darkstar said:

autohit powers really, really suck for pet classes

I'll have to run it with an MM in the team to see how it works at Relentless. It might not auto-slay but there's definitely some bosses that really hate (for example) lore pets. Not sure what's insta-gibbing them but at highest there's a LOT going on.

[hieronymusboss]

I've begun to sift through the new SF's written portions, and have noticed some things I hope you guys on the dev team will consider.

Here's part one of my suggested edits, tweaks and spelling/grammar errors. It covers the first three missions of the SF. I hope its helpful!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rCADAhpa4UoWURCldqp733TUkOxvcbOS7HBwD3LFG88/edit?usp=sharing

 

It should go without saying that there will be SPOILERS. So if you want to experience the SF for yourself, either on Beta or Live, stay away, cuz I'mma reveal all in these docs.

Edited November 8, 2021 by hieronymusboss

[Seed22]

6 hours ago, Albion said:

You mean like with Battle Maiden?  , It's a mechanic, be melee, range or whatnot, if you don't want to die you should move then re-engage, no one is an impervious invulnerable meta super hero that shrugs off any attack.

Agreed! In the run of Ruthless I was on, we had a tank, a brute and a stalker. Didn't seem to bother them. Just gotta *gasp* move sometimes.

Edited November 8, 2021 by Seed22

[Drakwatch]

Just wanna say - I heard the new music for the first time yesterday and it's the PERFECT choice and mixing. Really captures the feel and breakbeat style of the original music that shipped with the game. Kudos to whoever did the music! Hope to hear more in the future.

[Mezmera]

Ran it a few times today.  Lots of fun and very challenging.  Finished it twice on Relentless today.  

 

First run we started with 7 and no tank but all of us were game so off we went.  We had a few VEATs to start which are quite strong for this with all of that super Leadership.  We were rolling through but lost 2 to RL stuff.  The 5 of us were able to finish it in a bit of a slog but we were able to adapt to optimal tactics for the boss fights once people became familiar with what was going on, the Ripple fight was especially tough on our MM with those pools so we had to choose a different area and be sure to kill those Shimmer's. 

 

It's pretty quality that we were able to finish more than half of the SF with the team being a dom, a MM, Crab, blaster and a sentinel.  The Ripple AV was tough and no one to taunt the big guy off of Becky.  Even still it didn't feel like we couldn't do it at any point.  

 

Then I got on another with some that I know from Excelsior.  It does show through how much better it is to have some balance on the team.  It was great to have a good tank and the few times he did go down the others were able to step up and keep things going while he was down for a second.  We were able to finish it in just under 2 hours, it was pretty fast paced and fun.  

 

I'd think once everyone gets familiar with this it wouldn't be far off to say to expect it to be about a 1:15-1:30 long SF with doing all the side stuff on relentless with a well balanced team.  

Edited November 8, 2021 by Mezmera

[hieronymusboss]

Aaand here's part two of my suggestions for edits/tweaks/grammar and spelling corrections, which covers missions 4 - 7 of the ASF. Beware: SPOILERS.

 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EWoOMpaGYQHxwYUiN8CABMU7EbnZjKvyXLc21OqugBk/edit?usp=sharing

 

Edited November 8, 2021 by hieronymusboss
Had to get hyperlink to work

[Cobalt Arachne]

20 hours ago, Excraft said:

 

Melee don't do you job and remain in melee ....

Those blue energy strikes should be targeting players randomly, including ranged, the fact they seem to only target melee is a bug and will be looked into.

[Ukase]

I think I'm posting this in the right spot. Hope so. 
Just a few initial thoughts about the Strike Force, as I've only run it once, on the villainous level, with the sg, focused on going more slowly so folks can absorb/enjoy the new content. 

It's quite long if you do everything. My concern is there will be folks that start the strike force and won't be able to finish, leaving a bit of a slog for those that remain. While the blame for this would lie on the departing player(s) for committing to more time than they had, it seems to happen more and more often on HC than it ever did on live. 

I'm seeing run times of 2-3 hours for this strike force. In my opinion, that's just too long. Is it really needed to defeat so many instances of Aeon? Do we need to get sucked into the other dimensions that many times for the story to make sense? Granted, with familiarity, the average time for this will get faster. But - even at an hour, the pay off for this is too low. It should pay out on par with Dr. Q, given the time commitment. Maybe even more, given the difficulty. 

When you take into account that most players are going to be already t-4'd in all the incarnate slots. What good is that incarnate salvage going to be? You can't trade it, you can't sell it. It's patently useless. (to those who are already incarnated with the powers they want) Maybe increase the emp merits or give a choice. At least Emp merits can be passed on to an alt. 

And while I don't have an issue with it - why move LRSF to Ouro? 

[GM Impervium]

4 minutes ago, Ukase said:

And while I don't have an issue with it - why move LRSF to Ouro? 

 

The LRSF wasn't "moved" per se. Ouro is simply offering the old version of the SF (ala Posi and Psyche when their TFs were revamped/replaced) with all the Heroes, and all at the original levels, before nerfs and the events of SSA 1/WWD.

[Mezmera]

5 hours ago, Ukase said:

I'm seeing run times of 2-3 hours for this strike force. In my opinion, that's just too long. Is it really needed to defeat so many instances of Aeon? Do we need to get sucked into the other dimensions that many times for the story to make sense? Granted, with familiarity, the average time for this will get faster. But - even at an hour, the pay off for this is too low. It should pay out on par with Dr. Q, given the time commitment. Maybe even more, given the difficulty. 

 

That middle mission takes up quite a large chunk of the TF.  Getting sucked up into those instances there's a quick out option at the beginning of each which will make it a lot faster.  Once people are familiar with the mechanics of this SF it's gonna go pretty fast especially on the medium to lower level difficulty.  

 

The first mission can go pretty quick once you know the objective and layout.  Oops missed the bar room brawl in the pot o' gold, that's how quick that one can go.  The 3rd mission very quick with a stealth tp'er especially.  The middle mission super duper quick if you don't go for all of the AVs.  The 5th mission is pretty fast on its own but can be tricky with unfamiliarity of the boss.  Last mission would likely be the longest if you shortcut all of the others but once people get the strategy the only real long part of it is the opening area.  

 

It'll be no longer than a STF once everyone knows what to do.  A little longer with Relentless but you're taking your time to fight all of those powerful encounters.  

 

 

Edited November 8, 2021 by Mezmera
It's still a bit new to me too

[goldenstriker]

I've ran twice now, first time on easy, taking our time reading all the contact dialogue and such, second time on Relentless, going as fast as fighting through would allow, and abusing teleport towards the end.

 

By the end, once you've realized how long you've been at it, it is quite a time suck. But I didn't realize it while I was paying attention to that story! I couldn't think of a single bit of it that I would want to come out. I love the storytelling and development, it is worthy of the complicated characters and the universe.

Spoiler

I get a better sense of who Aeon is, who Midas is, and I am excited to see where Princess Zoe and Rodney end up. Teared up a bit when Midas sent Rodney off to protect Zoe. Arachnos, Crey, Goldbrickers, 5th Column, Devouring Earth, and Vanguard all weaved together in one arc, yes please! And it may be cliche, but I love the incorporation of world-bending that goes along with alternate dimensions into the maps. Thank you so much for the work and time you put into this story, it is not only mechanically, but story-wise, the best SF in the game.

The mechanics feel like they are there to support the story, and not the other way around. Even so, they are some of the coolest mechanics yet. Some will gripe about them being too hard, but that's why there's difficulty levels, right? So, overall feel is VERY enjoyable for the lore hounds, and they will walk away tired, but fulfilled. Those who do not care about the lore drops may find themselves just tired, but there are merit rewards in place for them. Whether they decide it's worth it will be up to personal taste.

 

TL;DR - You could maybe make it shorter, but don't take out any of the story please 🙂

[Albion]

On regard to the concerns of some players about the length of the ASF, some peeps at Brainstorm are already making it from 2 hours downward, approaching hour and a half at ease some, there is a lot of strategies, build tweaks, and maneuvering you can do to speed it up, you just have to find out. And if a group is doing a baptism, pug, kill all or lore immerse runs, one should know beforehand the time investment that requires. It ain't Alpha Strike that is for sure.

[DougReyn]

I just ran this solo at easy on -1x1 with my Ice/Cold Corr. It did take me some time, but can't say exactly how long, as I had to walk the dog in between missions. But I'd say about 3 hours probably. Only one fight was particularly hard (Rodney,Zoe) as everyone kept teleporting in all directions.

 

I like the story very much and also the level designs. Especially the ripple areas and the last mission. Really great ideas.

 

But I find it far too long while at the same time it is a prime candidate for zoomzoom playstyle in many missions. Many current "endgame" TF suffer from this issue. E.g I have tried on many occasion to run a non-speed Apex/Tin Mage, but that is impossible in a Pug. Same goes for Liberty/Recluse. The whole gameplay of those TFs condenses down to flying->nuke at strategic point-> exit mission -> repeat. With some 20s AV fights put in between.

On the longer TFs like Citadel and Numina it is pretty similar. As they are already taking so long people rarely have the patience to actually kill stuff on the way to the goal.

 

And i feel the ASF runs into the same issues on some missions. Once the brand-new feel has worn off, people will zoom through as fast as possible. And I strongly feel that would be a waste of these great zones.

 

Sidenote: It may play out completely different on the new higher difficulties, as I can see people doing them for the challenge, not for fast rewards.

 

My favourite example of a balance TF would be Yin. It does not take long (even could be 1 mission longer), gives you enough stuff that you need to kill without resorting to overly many defeat-all missions (looking at you Synapse!)

 

In my opionion the ASF would be better when split into 2 (maybe 3?) shorter SFs, each though with less zoomable parts.

[BurtHutt]

Hey all, I've been reading all the feedback but yet have to give this a go. I am already concerned about the length of the SF...hopefully it doesn't take hours to complete (after we've gotten the hang of it). That would instantly put it in the do not play often category.

 

I am also hoping the dialogue isn't extensive. Lots of the teaming is PUGs and if we're firing through the material, the written parts can't be read by most of the team. I appreciate everyone here who has run it and I assume they took time to read everything - was there a lot to read?

 

I also feel long missions, overall time length, running around and too much written text really ruined those arcs that were added by Piecemeal et al (again, this is my opinion and some of my friends who also played through with me). I am HOPING this SF does not have any of those issues.

 

Finally, much thanks to the HC crew for doing this and keeping our City going!

[Ruin Mage]

The normal no hard mode one can definitely be sped up immensely once people get a hang of things.