Now that ASF went live, what do you think of it?

[Snarky]

33 minutes ago, The_Warpact said:

Just say "No to PUG"...

 

On a serious note if they want those badges they can get help here, the badge channel, and some of the large SG/VG.

With a will there is a way ole Snark-a-roo.

On a serious note all those things existed on live but I did not use them.  I did not know them.  I did not trust them.  I did what i knew how to do. PUG content.  
 

Writing for the best gamers and doing it well deserves respect.  These Devs have my respect.  For that.  They did a fantastic job

 

Writing and publishing something that is akin to building a network of freeways in a busy city that only work well if every driver knows exactly what they are doing two miles in advance and is respectful of other drivers right of way is not good.  I have to say I am taking a look at this and seeing traffic accidents ahead.  A lot of really bad accidents.  

[Glacier Peak]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

sure.  we race the itf for 11-14 minute runs weekly.  top time is 4-7 minutes?  something like that.

 

that is not normal.  that is not "forming Dr. Q try for speed" in LFG.  that is not "aeon Relentless Badge run try for speed" in LFG.

 

If badges were not attached (you get the badge for ITF for a 5 min run) then your point would be valid.

 

But if you are a PUG player (as I was for a many many years) if you want those badges you are screwed.

 

I still remember an Old Posi from live that disintegrated.  I was trying to finish solo on a Blaster and kept trying to snipe the EB and escape down the elevator.  sad.  failure.  The Devs have created a new petri dish for many of these types of events to form.  

There you go again with not liking change. This isn't a normal SF, it's entirely new content created by the Homecoming volunteers and isn't based on how much money they can make or some other tired MMO marketing strategy. 

[Ruin Mage]

Using TFs/SFs that have long been mastered as weight against the ASF is bad. Of course ITFs are super fast. That doesn't mean all future content needs to be fast. Not only that, but getting sub-hour ASFs is about as hard as you make it. Don't have someone to Incan / stealth? Then yes, you're going to take a while. Have someone with incan/stealth? Your team now can get some pretty quick speeds.

Dr. Q on average takes 2hrs, give or take some minutes there. It used to be much worse. It isn't now, but the tedium comes from the kill alls.
The ASF has never gone above 2 hours for me, outside of Relentess on beta. And Relentless is an apt name for what one faces. The ASF has no kill alls within it and every map is different.

[Apparition]

One Relentless run on live for me was about three hours and fifteen minutes, but we had a substantial lack of damage.  Too much support, a Tanker built for surviving, and very little damage.

 

I'm not complaining though.  IMO, the latter Task Forces and Strike Forces made by Paragon Studios (Apex, Tin Mage, Mortimer Kal, and especially Penelope Yin), are entirely too short.  They don't feel like TFs/SFs.  While the ASF may be a little long, I'll take that over running a ten or fifteen minute TF/SF any day.  They feel very anti-climatic and not worth the effort.  The ASF is a very nice change of pace.

[Zhym]

8 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

I'm thinking this is one of the biggest problems CoH has: only the leaders get the story.  I was realizing that I've missed much of the story and lore in CoH because I PUG most of the time, I'm not too much of a solo player.  Plus it's obviously been a plague for any writing of note in the MA.

 

I hope the current devs are looking at this.  I don't know what you might do to solve it.

 

Short of a "Tourist Mode" (which I mention upthread), I think a few design principles can help:

• Keep the plot simple
• Use cutscenes for the essential plot
• Put other plot points in captions
• Flavor text goes in NPC dialog

BAF, of all things, is a good example of this.  We all know the plot of the BAF iTrial—not just because most of us have run it a hundred times, but because we get the (pretty straightforward) plot explained to us at the start of the iTrial.  Then we get instructions in captions as the iTrial progresses. 

 

There's a lot more going on in ASF than BAF, of course.  And it does have some cutscenes that help explain what's going on.  I think it could use a few more, though.  For example, we get the resolution of the chip switcheroo at the very end, but that's the first most players will have learned about it.  Professor Echo's dialog warning about Aeon's double-cross could be replaced with a cutscene, for example.  The side-quest at Portal Corp. is another one where there's a (very cool) cutscene for the resolution, but no one but the leader gets the setup.  By contrast, I think Becky is mostly done right: her chatter is flavor, so it can go in NPC dialog bubbles (although the first time I ran ASF, I thought she had a timing error in her dialog—well, monologue; only later did I realize that it was the team lead speeding through her chat). 

 

I know that "more cutscenes!" isn't something you often hear people ask for, but in a SF as long and involved as this one is, I think a few more would actually help.

Edited November 29, 2021 by Zhym

[Linea]

  *** DO NOT JUST LEROY THE ASF +4x8 BLINDLY ***     It's pretty explicit this is NOT intended to be your normal Steamroll  Task Force.

•   Run it +0x8 Villainous (difficulty 1 of 5), this is equivalent of running 'normal' TFs +4x8.
• or Run it +0x8 Malicious (difficulty 2 of 5) for badge runs. This is equivalent difficulty to running a 'master of' 'normal' TF +4x8.

 

Running the ASF +0x8 will be roughly equivalent to running a normal TF +4x8.

• Start it +0x8 until you are very comfortable with it, then ease it up one notch at a time.

Running the ASF +4x8 will be roughly equivalent to running a normal TF +8x16.

• I Strongly suggest you have a core of at least 2 very competent players on very competent builds, then build from there.
• I would also suggest a FULL and WELL BALANCED team of Tier 4 IO Tier 4 Incarnates.
• At a minimum I'd suggest an 801.7 capable tank, backed by a highly competent defender, and controller, and then some 801.7 capable dps.  One of the support should probably be resist based, and one defense based.  Expanding to a full team of 8 should make this much easier overall as well as lower the requirements on the armor down to as low as 801.2 levels.

PAY ATTENTION TO THE BIG BOLD WARNINGS.   The powers that give a massive big warning, similar to the warnings in the Lambda, are effectively one-shot tank killers when set to +4x8.   I would have preferred 95% lethality to a def/res capped tank ... I'm not sure exactly where they ended up, but I suspect it's still in the 100% lethality range.

 

 

On 11/29/2021 at 7:23 AM, Albion said:

... the key element is the coordination, team play and at behavior, if you try and rush run it like any other content of the game and go in guns blazing (more so in the challenge modes) you gonna get screwed, if you stop, strategize, and focus ...

 

On 11/28/2021 at 3:50 PM, The_Warpact said:

This is like running the 801 series in AE.

 

On 11/28/2021 at 5:25 PM, KaizenSoze said:

I got that build from @Linea on their 801 thread.

 

(at least some of) The devs have seen my 801 builds and what they are capable of in-game, and (some of them) have played 801 from 801.2 up through 801.A.   If your team can't handle 801.7 +4x8, then you'll probably get slaughtered in a Hardmode 5 +4x8 ASF. 

 

The Devs are even nastier than me and have access to even nastier and more complicated tools and techniques than AE.   The same way that as you increase the decimal in 801, the mobs get harder and get more powers; the devs did that using the + difficulty factor in the ASF.  When they say +4 mobs get exponentially more and stronger powers, they are NOT joking.

 

Edited December 1, 2021 by Linea

[Snarky]

4 hours ago, Linea said:

  *** DO NOT JUST LEROY THE ASF +4x8 BLINDLY ***     It's pretty explicit this is NOT intended to be your normal Steamroll Task Force.

 

Running the ASF +0x8 will be roughly equivalent to running a normal TF +4x8.

• Start it +0x8 until you are very comfortable with it, then ease it up one notch at a time.

Running the ASF +4x8 will be roughly equivalent to running a normal TF +8x16.

• I Strongly suggest you have a core of at least 2 very competent players on very competent builds, then build from there.
• I would also suggest a FULL and WELL BALANCED team of Tier 4 IO Tier 4 Incarnates.
• At a minimum I'd suggest an 801.7 capable tank, backed by a highly competent defender, and controller, and then some 801.7 capable dps.  One of the support should probably be resist based, and one defense based.  Expanding to a full team of 8 should make this much easier overall as well as lower the requirements on the armor down to as low as 801.2 levels.

PAY ATTENTION TO THE BIG BOLD WARNINGS.   The powers that give a massive big warning, similar to the warnings in the Lambda, are effectively one-shot tank killers when set to +4x8.   I would have preferred 95% lethality to a def/res capped tank ... I'm not sure exactly where they ended up, but I suspect it's still in the 100% lethality range.

 

 

 

 

 

(at least some of) The devs have seen my 801 builds and what they are capable of in-game, and (some of them) have played 801 from 801.2 up through 801.A.   If your team can't handle 801.7 +4x8, then you'll probably get slaughtered in a Hardmode 5 +4x8 ASF. 

 

The Devs are even nastier than me and have access to even nastier and more complicated tools and techniques than AE.   The same way that as you increase the decimal in 801, the mobs get harder and get more powers; the devs did that using the + difficulty factor.  When they say +4 mobs get exponentially more and stronger powers, they are NOT joking.

 

So they added a TF to the game which is specifically not for PUG groups.  ....just....danged.....really?

 

Split the thing into 2-3 parts.  At least you will have a crapshot run with a PUG of getting something

[Ruin Mage]

You're not reading them right, Snarky.

A PUG group can, on normal difficulty, complete it just fine and get 40 reward merits + extra stuff along the way.
The optional challenge difficulties offer more, but they do not need to be engaged.

It is at Relentless that is meant to be a top tier challenge outside of some really hard pushing players. 
Like the whole challenge mode settings is meant to be putting the teamplay back into the game.
It's not like that's HARD for a PUG to do. People just need to lose their Council +4/x8 breeze mentality.

It's fine as is, unless for some reason you have not a soul capable of stealthing & TPIng and are for some reason pressed for time.

Edited November 29, 2021 by Shadeknight

[PeregrineFalcon]

53 minutes ago, Snarky said:

So they added a TF to the game which is specifically not for PUG groups.  ....just....danged.....really?

Yeah. After a solid year of constant weekly threads on the forum screaming "This game is too easy!!!!!!!!!eleventyoneoneone111!!!!" the devs finally said "Yeah, ok we hear you" and added a difficult Task Force and an additional really difficult mode to the game.

 

What did you expect them to do?  🤪

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, Shadeknight said:

You're not reading them right, Snarky.

A PUG group can, on normal difficulty, complete it just fine and get 40 reward merits + extra stuff along the way.
The optional challenge difficulties offer more, but they do not need to be engaged.

It is at Relentless that is meant to be a top tier challenge outside of some really hard pushing players. 
Like the whole challenge mode settings is meant to be putting the teamplay back into the game.
It's not like that's HARD for a PUG to do. People just need to lose their Council +4/x8 breeze mentality.

It's fine as is, unless for some reason you have not a soul capable of stealthing & TPIng and are for some reason pressed for time.

No, i get it.  If there were no badges for the insanely difficult way I would withdraw my complaint.  Give more rewards.  whatever.  But a badge?  EVERYONE deserves a chance at the badge.  But the badge is gated behind knowing 7 people who are very good and have two hours to kill.  Anybody else see an issue with this?  No?  Then you know 7 strong players with two hours to kill.  PUG players are screwed here.  The badge is out of reach.  Split into 3 and award the badge for completion of all 3 parts.  PUGging it would be tough, but doable, after a few misses and various teams.  But all one run?  Will rarely happen at best.

[Ruin Mage]

Ripple Raider requires no specific difficulty.
All the rest require Malicious, the lowest (besides Villainous) difficulty on there. Each challenge badge is doable on Malicious if a team knows what they're doing and what to look out for. If anything they require coordination on Mission 4, 5, 6, and 7. That is the later half of the TF, with 1 badge per mission. 

One badge requires confuse, which you get with the Temp Power Wrench you get for completing the SF.
No deaths on Mission 5 is getting removed from RR, and so it'll be easy. All you need to do is do the 3 ripple fights.
One badge requires you to time things. This is not a PUG unfriendly thing - you have to make sure Ripplesurge is on a puddle that spawns from an effusion being eaten. This is getting modified tomorrow as well.
The final badge for MoASF is a badge for dodging blue beams. That's it.

None of those badges are impossible for PUGS. 
Getting them in one run come tomorrow will be easy IF a team can pay attention and coordinate. That's it. That's ALL it requires.

Edited November 29, 2021 by Shadeknight

[Doomguide2005]

     Knowledge is power.  Familiarity is a form of knowledge.

 

     I've stated this elsewhere but I was in on the closed beta where Cimerora and the ITF were being tested.  8-man team, we lost 3 trying to take down Rommy.  And by lost I don't mean by defeat/death, I mean they gave up in frustration because we were getting our butts handed to us repeatedly.  They didn't see us being able to finish.  We did eventually but it was painfully long in happening.

    Now PuGs complete it as kill most in way less time with few problems typically.  I fully expect completion times to drop even on Relentless and likely substantially as time goes by.

[PeregrineFalcon]

33 minutes ago, Snarky said:

EVERYONE deserves a chance at the badge.

Everyone has a chance to get the badge.

 

33 minutes ago, Snarky said:

But the badge is gated behind knowing 7 people who are very good and have two hours to kill.  Anybody else see an issue with this?  No?

I do not see an issue with this. Not in an MMO.

 

Finding a competent team is part of the challenge of getting the badge.

 

You post on the forums all the time. And now you're like: "ZOMG! You expect me to actually TALK to other REAL PEOPLE?!?!" C'mon man! Seriously?

[Glacier Peak]

39 minutes ago, Snarky said:

No, i get it.  If there were no badges for the insanely difficult way I would withdraw my complaint.  Give more rewards.  whatever.  But a badge?  EVERYONE deserves a chance at the badge.  But the badge is gated behind knowing 7 people who are very good and have two hours to kill.  Anybody else see an issue with this?  No?  Then you know 7 strong players with two hours to kill.  PUG players are screwed here.  The badge is out of reach.  Split into 3 and award the badge for completion of all 3 parts.  PUGging it would be tough, but doable, after a few misses and various teams.  But all one run?  Will rarely happen at best.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume you've gathered a few data points to make that conclusion about pick up groups. Would you mind telling me the makeup of some of those PUGs that found the Aeon Strike Force tough? What difficulty were they on? Maybe some builds or powersets to illuminate inquiring minds a little. 

[Chronicler J]

43 minutes ago, Snarky said:

 knowing 7 people who are very good and have two hours to kill. 

 Did it with 4. Was pretty casual. Just had to pay attention.

[Chronicler J]

13 hours ago, Shadeknight said:

Not sure how harder you'd want it because on paper it's pretty scary. 

 

It was similar to stuff we'd already done in the Architect. I was hoping for something snazzier that would force us to go get a full team, not half the suggested size.

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, Shadeknight said:

Ripple Raider requires no specific difficulty.
All the rest require Malicious, the lowest (besides Villainous) difficulty on there. Each challenge badge is doable on Malicious if a team knows what they're doing and what to look out for. If anything they require coordination on Mission 4, 5, 6, and 7. That is the later half of the TF, with 1 badge per mission. 

One badge requires confuse, which you get with the Temp Power Wrench you get for completing the SF.
No deaths on Mission 5 is getting removed from RR, and so it'll be easy. All you need to do is do the 3 ripple fights.
One badge requires you to time things. This is not a PUG unfriendly thing - you have to make sure Ripplesurge is on a puddle that spawns from an effusion being eaten. This is getting modified tomorrow as well.
The final badge for MoASF is a badge for dodging blue beams. That's it.

None of those badges are impossible for PUGS. 
Getting them in one run come tomorrow will be easy IF a team can pay attention and coordinate. That's it. That's ALL it requires.

Ah, this was my misunderstanding.  Thank you.  As a lazy PUG specialist I have only done one run on Beta.  yeesh.  just, yeesh.  very cool, very overwhelming.  Since there are no badges gated to the hardest settings a PUG, in theory at least, should be able to bumble through on a good run and get some badges, adding multiple runs until you get a master badge.  fair enough.  the hard hard super hard challenges reward cash and prizes for the hard core maniacs.  Which....honestly I doubt I will ever run on.  I have in game wealth and absolutely HATE things like the AE 801 arcs.  I am a super villain not a chew toy.  

 

I still feel this would be better served up as two installments, Apex/Tin Mage style.  But, as long as all badges are available (abd relatively achievable) without insane settings my objections are respectfully withdrawn.  Quality work.  Seriously.  And on closer inspection at the badge/reward/difficulty sliders wisely done as well.  

 

Edited November 30, 2021 by Snarky

[Doomguide2005]

2 minutes ago, Chronicler J said:

 

It was similar to stuff we'd already done in the Architect. I was hoping for something snazzier that would force us to go get a full team, not half the suggested size.

       I'm assuming you did it on Relentless and did it with 4 fully IO'd and Incarnated players who frequently team together.  Which if true is about as far from Snarky's PuG team concept as you can get.  About like putting together a GM based team and calling that casual.

 

     Hey at least you had to pay attention 😜

[Albion]

4 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Ah, this was my misunderstanding.  Thank you.  As a lazy PUG specialist I have only done one run on Beta.  yeesh.  just, yeesh.  very cool, very overwhelming.  Since there are no badges gated to the hardest settings a PUG, in theory at least, should be able to bumble through on a good run and get some badges, adding multiple runs until you get a master badge.  fair enough.  the hard hard super hard challenges reward cash and prizes for the hard core maniacs.  Which....honestly I doubt I will ever run on.  I have in game wealth and absolutely HATE things like the AE 801 arcs.  I am a super villain not a chew toy.  

 

I still feel this would be better served up as two installments, Apex/Tin Mage style.  But, as long as all badges are available (abd relatively achievable) without insane settings my objections are respectfully withdrawn.  Quality work.  Seriously.  And on closer inspection at the badge/reward/difficulty sliders wisely done as well.  

 

I wanted to fight you, but look at that face, how can one get mad with such a lovely eternal dweller of darkness?

[Ironblade]

13 hours ago, Faultline said:

The TF can be completed in as little as 27 minutes (actual datamined time) in the lowest difficulty, so the 40 merits aren't out of line; it'll go up some but those expecting 100+ merits at once on completion will probably be disappointed. On Relentless it can certainly take two hours, but then each AV drops 3 astral merits (5 astrals convert to 1 empyrean, 1 astral converts to 2 merits) so you're talking 6 extra merits per AV fight starting on the very first mission. Mission 5 alone has 12 AVs, that's 36 astrals / 7 empyreans / 72 merits right there. You can currenly start the ASF on Relentless, fight to mission 5, quit, and still walk away with the equivalent of 100 merits; if those were moved to mission completion instead, you would get nothing. Players will just need to get used to the idea of getting the reward over time during the course of the TF rather than a massive bulk payout in the end.

Okay, but my understanding of the merit reward system is that it's based on AVERAGE time to complete (for a given difficulty level under the new system).  So, the fact that it "can be completed in as little as 27 minutes" should not be the metric here.  Can you tell us the AVERAGE and MEDIAN times for the lowest difficulty setting?

 

As for the higher difficulties, sure, all those extra rewards are absolutely nothing to sneeze at.  I haven't run it at the highest difficulties (and probably never will) but those rewards seem pretty good.

[Faultline]

31 minutes ago, Ironblade said:

Okay, but my understanding of the merit reward system is that it's based on AVERAGE time to complete (for a given difficulty level under the new system).  So, the fact that it "can be completed in as little as 27 minutes" should not be the metric here.  Can you tell us the AVERAGE and MEDIAN times for the lowest difficulty setting?

 

As for the higher difficulties, sure, all those extra rewards are absolutely nothing to sneeze at.  I haven't run it at the highest difficulties (and probably never will) but those rewards seem pretty good.

 

Median, not average. Floating around 60 minutes at the moment. Will likely go down as people get used to it.

[Aurora_Girl]

2 hours ago, Snarky said:

No, i get it.  If there were no badges for the insanely difficult way I would withdraw my complaint.  Give more rewards.  whatever.  But a badge?  EVERYONE deserves a chance at the badge.  But the badge is gated behind knowing 7 people who are very good and have two hours to kill.  Anybody else see an issue with this?  No?  Then you know 7 strong players with two hours to kill.  PUG players are screwed here.  The badge is out of reach.  Split into 3 and award the badge for completion of all 3 parts.  PUGging it would be tough, but doable, after a few misses and various teams.  But all one run?  Will rarely happen at best.

 

There are no badges for the insanely difficult content. By design. 

[Aurora_Girl]

2 hours ago, Shadeknight said:

No deaths on Mission 5 is getting removed from RR,

 

What? When? Why?

[Faultline]

Just now, Aurora_Girl said:

What? When? Why?

 

Next patch, and because the expectation was that killing the AVs for extra rewards would be the normal path, but nobody's doing that, so just killing the 12 AVs is enough extra effort for the badge, no need to add the no deaths condition.

[Aurora_Girl]

6 minutes ago, Faultline said:

 

Next patch, and because the expectation was that killing the AVs for extra rewards would be the normal path, but nobody's doing that, so just killing the 12 AVs is enough extra effort for the badge, no need to add the no deaths condition.

 

But but but that takes the fun out of the secret battle!