Focused Feedback: Dr. Aeon Strike Force

[Ruin Mage]

Yeah, some power interactions may be goofing up her intended mechanics.  At least its been reported!

Have to wonder if its something with holds/immobs

[Tsuko]

12 minutes ago, Shadeknight said:

Yeah, some power interactions may be goofing up her intended mechanics.  At least its been reported!

Have to wonder if its something with holds/immobs

 

soem -fly go along some iresistable immob

Edited November 7, 2021 by Tsuko

[Piecemeal]

16 hours ago, Nemu said:

Lastly the vacuum effect is cool and puts a spin on the kind of controlled choreography of the fights on live. However dying to something that you can't do anything about is not a good game mechanic. I haven't learned the nuances of this mechanic since it's my first run through so I may be completely off base. But if the effect is indeed uncounterable, then can we look into player buffs adding resistance to the effect so that squishier ATs have a fighting chance to get out of a kill zone they are being sucked into?

 

I designed that power. We discussed the response such as yours coming up early in the process, and came to this conclusion:

Autohit powers are fair game if you are given warning.

 

The power gives an on-screen message, the enemy itself has a radius'ed affected area around him, and a purple beacon. You have five seconds to escape it.

 

I understand the "lots of Fx" bit of it too, but the purple beacon should be visible in most circumstances.

 

As you test, please look for these clues when you see the text and let me know.

[Piecemeal]

Additionally, all the "ripples" are given quick-outs for time-conscious players.

 

You can defeat a 5th Boss Grunt in Ripple 1 and portal out.

You can talk to Terra and not engage the DE to get 4 glowies and scoot out.

You can dismiss PsiCurse, beat up Flagg, and portal out.

 

The length of this SF can be dictated in part by your desire to steamroll or speed, and the DSO awards all the same, ripple or not.

[Piecemeal]

15 hours ago, Pzn said:

One option I've found is teleporting out quickly.  If I'm quick enough I can save a teammate with tp target as well.

 

This power does immobilize as well if you've been snared, so teleporting isn't a bad approach at all.

[ShardWarrior]

41 minutes ago, Piecemeal said:

I designed that power. We discussed the response such as yours coming up early in the process, and came to this conclusion:

Autohit powers are fair game if you are given warning.

 

The power gives an on-screen message, the enemy itself has a radius'ed affected area around him, and a purple beacon. You have five seconds to escape it.

 

I understand the "lots of Fx" bit of it too, but the purple beacon should be visible in most circumstances.

 

As you test, please look for these clues when you see the text and let me know.

 

We were told that auto-hit powers were not going to factor into the Advanced Difficulty before, so I guess that changed since then?  I have no objection to them other than the VFX spam can very much make the visual cues an issue.  The one team I ran this on had a Seismic corruptor and some of those stone powers covering entire mobs we had herded made it difficult, if not impossible to see the purple rings.  Maybe some sort of audio cue can get added as well similar to the nuke?

[Ruin Mage]

Some things that feel auto-hit are because of the high amounts of ToHit these mobs have.

Strangely, I've tanked - for example - a Brickernaut explosion only for the next one to blow me up.

[golstat2003]

3 hours ago, Shadeknight said:

Well, that's the thing - Relentless isn't meant to be a super quick easy thing. The three hour marks are because people are still kicking old habits, getting used to the challenge, and so on. It's meant to be a challenge, and it's meant to be for Incarnates / fully IOed characters. The base ASF (without all the added powers, for example) has been getting around regular 45 minute runs from what I hear. That can easily be cut down once more people get out of the 'ooh new lore/new shinies/new maps' phase and more used to what it offers.

From my experience, you should not go into Relentless unless you can commit to most of it. The Midas fight is tedious but manageable, for example, without a tank. It's the other fights that you will have a hellish time with depending. I do think the 3 hour timer will start to drop as people figure out effective skips, figure how to focus bosses, and get used to having to play as a team again. It will still be a lengthy TF, but that's okay. Not every TF needs to be done in 10-15 minutes like the TinPex easy-farm. This isn't TinPex or the ITF or PennyYin - not with all the additional powers and mechanics.

The additional thing is that this is all optional. I have run Relentless three times so far, and I can tell that the adjustment period will last a little while and some people may swear it off. I personally find it to be fun to try and see how each team composition handles it. How certain power sets can make things go from bad to good - I've seen insane recoveries from deaths. I've also seen pulls go from "We're good." to "oh god the pain."

Which is what's been lacking. A real challenge that doesn't get easy-moded by a team of 7 blasters and a corruptor.

People aren't used to telegraphed mechanics, their maxed out characters being challenged, or anything else the challenge mode offers. Things are going to need to get used to, but nothing about the difficulties should change or needs to change until more data comes in. Personally, it's shippable besides a few typos and some tweaks to how Midas' blue beam blast works.
 

I would say the bug with the tethering and the reward window should be looked at before I would call this ship able.

 

Besides that I agree with most of what you said.

[golstat2003]

2 hours ago, Excraft said:

 

Speak for yourself.  Teams I've been on haven't been trying to zerg rush it and have been "playing as a team", whatever that's supposed to mean.  There's a fine line here between encouraging a specific team makeup/style of play and turning the game into yet another WoW clone with heavily scripted dungeon encounters.  I'd hate to see this game become that. 

Let’s keep in mind that all of this is Optional. Even when this setting is brought to older TFs it will still be optional.

[Piecemeal]

2 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

 

We were told that auto-hit powers were not going to factor into the Advanced Difficulty before, so I guess that changed since then?  I have no objection to them other than the VFX spam can very much make the visual cues an issue.  The one team I ran this on had a Seismic corruptor and some of those stone powers covering entire mobs we had herded made it difficult, if not impossible to see the purple rings.  Maybe some sort of audio cue can get added as well similar to the nuke?

 

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.

[ShardWarrior]

2 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.

 

I could very well be wrong, but I do not think that was what was being implied here.  I think it had more to do with the design approach to solving the "support has no use" and other myths in how to design future content.  The ASF is not a WoW dungeon, although one could see how easy it would be to try and turn it into one in order to "solve" the "support has no use" myths.

[Ruin Mage]

Oh right, the Incarnate reward bug. Why did that escape me LMAO.

The tethering too. I kinda forgot about that with all the "OH NO." moments from my runs.

Oops.

[Ruin Mage]

5 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

I could very well be wrong, but I do not think that was what was being implied here.  I think it had more to do with the design approach to solving the "support has no use" and other myths in how to design future content.  The ASF is not a WoW dungeon, although one could see how easy it would be to try and turn it into one in order to "solve" the "support has no use" myths.

But the thing is it isn't a myth. It's not pulled out of thin air, but based on experience at the end-level. It's not a perfect solution, but nothing ever is.

The ASF itself is not, but the advanced difficulties are a way to use what is in CoH already (iTrials, specific TFs) and build up on them. It's nothing different from what one does in task forces or iTrials, but rather all of it brought together. A WoW dungeon is also not comparable because WoW caps out at 5 team members with a very different design due to classes & specs vs Archetypes & powersets.

Later TFs have had similar count of AVs anyway, but the Challenge-ASF has 3 optional ones. Without those three its Frobe, Zoe, Roller, Rodney, Surge, and Midas. Well, Surge changes based on Difficulty I think.

Edited November 7, 2021 by Shadeknight

[ShardWarrior]

2 minutes 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.

 

I guess it must be an interpretation thing.  I had assumed that no auto-hit powers meant we would not be seeing things like fights in lava pits, puddles, nukes and the like that are auto-hit as a means to make healers/support "more useful".  I was concerned that in order to do that,  there would be stuff like this to make melee less useful.  I guess I was correct. 

[ShardWarrior]

1 minute ago, Shadeknight said:

But the thing is it isn't a myth. It's not pulled out of thin air, but based on experience at the end-level. It's not a perfect solution, but nothing ever is.

 

Can you provide a link to your empirical data for this?  Thanks.

[Ruin Mage]

The only time you need to stand in something is in the Midas fight, and that's more so that you can damage him.

Otherwise, don't stand in the blue.

And can you pull out data that shows it is a myth? Thanks.

It's as I said either here or the other thread - experiences will differ and its personal experience. Right now, without the ADO-enabled ASF, support is not needed to make a team effective. This is based on the homogenization caused by Incarnate powers & the ease of access to softcapping almost any character. Now, this does not speak for things BELOW 50, but the ADO stuff is for Level 50+ (including Incarnate) characters. The ASF, at its base, is not terribly difficult from what I've read. If you are trying to engage in the difficulty options with a lower than 50 character you will have a bad time (outside of, from what I understand, HM0)

Support, such as controllers or dominators, are not in high demand in the content pre-HC (aka everything) because you can often murder tornado everything. Just because you don't does not mean it does not happen. Just because you have not seen a case of something does not make it a myth. Experiences differ and mileage will vary, and especially so across different shards.

[KaizenSoze]

I have had a day to think about the relentless run.

 

• Voice chat is mandatory
• The tank will almost always be aggro capped. You need at least two forms of aggro control.
  • Second tank/brute
  • Illusion controller with perma Phantom army
• High levels of stealth is still useful to bypass mobs
• Have 1-2 teammates with Incandescence for two reasons
  • Bypass mobs
  • Move the team out of nuke range. I won't elaborate as to not spoil things
• Buffing, nothing is bad
  • Resists will be extremely useful, but won't save you w/o a strong team
    • My SR/DM tanker with 100%+ positional defense would often see -10% on resists
      • The worse I saw was -66% s/l and -96% energy
  • Recovery buffing is needed, as you get your recovery zero'ed out fairly often
• Healing
  • Due to the amount of -resist from mobs. Single target healing is useful, but often too late.
  • Absorb shields and heal over time might be better
    • Natural Affinity might be very useful, but we didn't have one
  • Having at least one 1-2 teammates with rebirth is also useful. My tank uses the Radial heal/regen version
• Revive
  • You'll need 1-2 players with revive powers
  • Large revives inspirations do work on relentless
  • Consider slotting the Radial barrier that rezes up to two players

[Bionic_Flea]

I disagree with everything above that says "mandatory" or "need."  But I agree that all of them are nice to have. 

I finished this with 4 players on +2/x8 - A tank, a blaster, a cold corrupter, and  . . . an MM?  Not sure of the last one.  Oh, we died a lot and it took a long time, but we did it:

• Without voice chat.
• Without extra aggro control
• Without revive powers other than inspirations
• Minimal healing
• Moderate stealth
• Moderate buffing

Edited November 7, 2021 by Bionic_Flea

[Glacier Peak]

12 minutes ago, KaizenSoze said:

I have had a day to think about the relentless run.

 

• Voice chat is mandatory
• The tank will almost always be aggro capped. You need at least two forms of aggro control.
  • Second tank/brute
  • Illusion controller with perma Phantom army
• High levels of stealth is still useful to bypass mobs
• Have 1-2 teammates with Incandescence for two reasons
  • Bypass mobs
  • Move the team out of nuke range. I won't elaborate as to not spoil things
• Buffing, nothing is bad
  • Resists will be extremely useful, but won't save you w/o a strong team
    • My SR/DM tanker with 100%+ positional defense would often see -10% on resists
      • The worse I saw was -66% s/l and -96% energy
  • Recovery buffing is needed, as you get your recovery zero'ed out fairly often
• Healing
  • Due to the amount of -resist from mobs. Single target healing is useful, but often too late.
  • Absorb shields and heal over time might be better
    • Natural Affinity might be very useful, but we didn't have one
  • Having at least one 1-2 teammates with rebirth is also useful. My tank uses the Radial heal/regen version
• Revive
  • You'll need 1-2 players with revive powers
  • Large revives inspirations do work on relentless
  • Consider slotting the Radial barrier that rezes up to two players

This is a great look at what players have done so far and as the ASF gets refined and players find new or better strategies, I am confident the things identified as needed or mandatory will be much more flexible to alternatives.

[KaizenSoze]

5 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

I disagree with everything above that says "mandatory" or "need."  But I agree that all of them are nice to have. 

I finished this with 4 players on +2/x8 - A tank, a blaster, a cold corrupter, and  . . . an MM?  Not sure of the last one.  Oh, we died a lot and it took a long time, but we did it:

• Without voice chat.
• Without extra aggro control
• Without revive powers other than inspirations
• Minimal healing
• Moderate stealth
• Moderate buffing

Yes, but I am talking about Relentless, not 2x8.

 

Relentless is much much harder, than 2x8.  2x8 is a walk in the park in comparison.

Edited November 7, 2021 by KaizenSoze

[macskull]

You definitely don't need voice chat even on the highest difficulty levels, the team leader (or someone who's run it before) just needs to communicate in team chat. If not, it's still doable but it'll be slower and people will die more.

[ShardWarrior]

1 hour ago, Shadeknight said:

The only time you need to stand in something is in the Midas fight, and that's more so that you can damage him.

Otherwise, don't stand in the blue.

And can you pull out data that shows it is a myth? Thanks.

It's as I said either here or the other thread - experiences will differ and its personal experience. Right now, without the ADO-enabled ASF, support is not needed to make a team effective. This is based on the homogenization caused by Incarnate powers & the ease of access to softcapping almost any character. Now, this does not speak for things BELOW 50, but the ADO stuff is for Level 50+ (including Incarnate) characters. The ASF, at its base, is not terribly difficult from what I've read. If you are trying to engage in the difficulty options with a lower than 50 character you will have a bad time (outside of, from what I understand, HM0)

Support, such as controllers or dominators, are not in high demand in the content pre-HC (aka everything) because you can often murder tornado everything. Just because you don't does not mean it does not happen. Just because you have not seen a case of something does not make it a myth. Experiences differ and mileage will vary, and especially so across different shards.

 

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.

[Albion]

49 minutes ago, KaizenSoze said:

Yes, but I am talking about Relentless, not 2x8.

 

Relentless is much much harder, than 2x8.  2x8 is a walk in the park in comparison.

We have done Relentless over and over with various setups and nothing is really mandatory, now, if you want a "fast", minimum deaths, highly focused run, yes those things can be advisable, Relentless is not such a monster though, can be done even by a pug team that fools around and has fun, the only thing that will change is the time it will take to finish, and how many rezes there will be. The key is team play, if everyone listens and follows, and every at focuses on their field of expertise, it flows smoothly (until you get nuked but thats the fun of it!).

[Excraft]

1 hour ago, Shadeknight said:

Otherwise, don't stand in the blue.

 

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

[Apparition]

1 hour ago, KaizenSoze said:

I have had a day to think about the relentless run.

 

• Voice chat is mandatory
• The tank will almost always be aggro capped. You need at least two forms of aggro control.
  • Second tank/brute
  • Illusion controller with perma Phantom army
• High levels of stealth is still useful to bypass mobs
• Have 1-2 teammates with Incandescence for two reasons
  • Bypass mobs
  • Move the team out of nuke range. I won't elaborate as to not spoil things
• Buffing, nothing is bad
  • Resists will be extremely useful, but won't save you w/o a strong team
    • My SR/DM tanker with 100%+ positional defense would often see -10% on resists
      • The worse I saw was -66% s/l and -96% energy
  • Recovery buffing is needed, as you get your recovery zero'ed out fairly often
• Healing
  • Due to the amount of -resist from mobs. Single target healing is useful, but often too late.
  • Absorb shields and heal over time might be better
    • Natural Affinity might be very useful, but we didn't have one
  • Having at least one 1-2 teammates with rebirth is also useful. My tank uses the Radial heal/regen version
• Revive
  • You'll need 1-2 players with revive powers
  • Large revives inspirations do work on relentless
  • Consider slotting the Radial barrier that rezes up to two players

 

Voice chat is far, far from mandatory.  So far, I have been on two successful Relentless runs in the past two days without voice chat.  Then again, I have also been on successful The Really Hard Way runs without voice chat.  Absolutely nothing in City of Heroes requires voice chat.  Nothing.

 

 

 

 

That was from last night.  We fought all of the optional AVs.  No voice chat was used.  Heck, we didn’t even have a Tanker nor a Brute.