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

[Faultline]

Just now, Aurora_Girl said:

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

 

The secret battle reward never required no deaths, we're not that evil.

[Bionic_Flea]

26 minutes ago, Faultline said:

we're not that evil.

But Faultline, why don't you tell us how evil you are?

[Chronicler J]

3 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

       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 😜

Only during the Master Of run, which was the very first run we did. After that, it was whatever. Can't Touch This is annoying.

 

Also, don't care about PuGs. I care about the challenge side of this, which you pointed out. Hopefully Devs continue to push past the Architect with this sutff. My dream is to get those challenge settings for the AE.

[golstat2003]

29 minutes ago, Chronicler J said:

Only during the Master Of run, which was the very first run we did. After that, it was whatever. Can't Touch This is annoying.

 

Also, don't care about PuGs. I care about the challenge side of this, which you pointed out. Hopefully Devs continue to push past the Architect with this sutff. My dream is to get those challenge settings for the AE.

 

If those challenge settings were put into AE it would indeed be interesting.

[Ruin Mage]

Relentless, with us getting Power Overwhelming too.

This is the sort of stuff you can achieve.

[Faultline]

Fastest run has now dropped to 18 minutes. Median on all difficulties (not just Malicious) currently sits at 98 minutes. Mission5 (the ripples one) has predictably the largest variance, going between 304 seconds for the fastest run, 33 minutes median, to over 9 hours for the slowest (though most likely someone just went to sleep and left their character AFK in the mission; this is why we take the median and not the average).

[Clave Dark 5]

14 hours ago, Linea said:

  *** DO NOT JUST LEROY THE ASF +4x8 BLINDLY *** 

I pretty much hate groups that do that already, so yeah.  That said I have zero idea what an 801.7 tank  is or even refers to, being just a filthy casual.  Combine that with me losing interest in toons (or just the Incarnate system itself, not quite sure yet) before I can get them to Tier 4 specialness, I think I should just forego this one. 

 

Which is fine!  I also don't PVP, I don't feel I have to play everything in the game.  I know lots of people kept saying the game was too easy and to them I say have at it and enjoy.

[Hew]

7 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

being just a filthy casual.  Combine that with me losing interest in toons (or just the Incarnate system itself, not quite sure yet) before I can get them to Tier 4 specialness, I think I should just forego this one. 

Run it like an ITF. Either the absolute lowest, or second to lowest. Absolute lowest can be run at 35 and pretty easily, not much different than an ITF.

[Doomguide2005]

51 minutes ago, Hew said:

Run it like an ITF. Either the absolute lowest, or second to lowest. Absolute lowest can be run at 35 and pretty easily, not much different than an ITF.

This

The lowest setting is essentially normal.  The foes have no additional buffs and no extra powers.  

[Linea]

  

8 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

I think I should just forego this one. 

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 of difficulty to running a 'master of' 'normal' TF.

 

13 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

But Faultline, why don't you tell us how evil you are?

 

Faultline called me 'Just Plain Evil' once upon a time.  I don't remember what I did that time.  But right now I'm working on a solo run of the ASF. 

+0 of course.  It looks to be entirely solo-able +0 Villanous, and probably +0 Malicious.   I have serious doubts at about Vicious.

 

[Bionic_Flea]

2 hours ago, Linea said:

But right now I'm working on a solo run of the ASF.

 

Me too, on my namesake, an Inv/SS tank.  Villainous and +0 and made it to last mission by skipping some, liberally using pets and envenomed daggers, and just out lasting AVs.  Still going slowly in between working and chores and whatnot.

 

Aaaand . . . done.  With some GM help.  The Midas ripples were broken.  Nothing to defeat in two of them so no way to get back to main Midas.  But it was hot patched a fix and should be good to go.

 

Battle Becky is some nice extra DPS and fairly sturdy!  Got my BFF badge (Bionic Flea's Friend).

Edited November 30, 2021 by Bionic_Flea

[Linea]

I 💖 💘 💝 LOVE  💖 💘 💝  Battle Becky!  ... and I definitely want to stash her somewhere safe next run, so I can use her psi-dps later after I clear the hordes.

 

Angel Hornet (EnM/EnA 801-built Scrapper) finished her Villainous (Difficulty 1 of 5) solo run too.  Pretty much a cake walk.  Never even toggled up my full armor capabilities.

• Got a little hairy on the 'DE Horde'.  Had to swap targets to Horde Clearing Mode instead of Primary Target DPS Mode, and funnily enough killed the AV due to splash damage just as I finally started clearing out 'The Horde' and was getting ready to swap back to Primary Target DPS Mode.
• Midas can one-hit for ~80% damage.  Luckily he only did that about once per fight.

I'll crank it up a notch next run.

 

Quote

GM: "OH! It's YOU!"

GM: "I was wondering what scrapper was trying to solo this."

😜

Edited December 3, 2021 by Linea

[Doomguide2005]

8 hours ago, Linea said:

  

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 of difficulty to running a 'master of' 'normal' TF.

 

 

Faultline called me 'Just Plain Evil' once upon a time.  I don't remember what I did that time.  But right now I'm working on a solo run of the ASF. 

+0 of course.  It looks to be entirely solo-able +0 Villanous, and probably +0 Malicious.   I have serious doubts at about Vicious.

 

      Not sure how I'd feel about being just "plain" evil and not "extraordinarily" evil or "ultimate" evil. 👿

[Albion]

Peeps all around already making badge runs for ASF, and here I am still trying to find all the clickable things.

[Ruin Mage]

badge badge badge badge.

Anyway, now its time to start throwing bodies at the Vanguard Challenge Fight.

[Faultline]

On 11/29/2021 at 2:41 PM, Linea said:

  *** DO NOT JUST LEROY THE ASF +4x8 BLINDLY *** 

 

This is the most important advice on this thread. I keep seeing messages from players saying the ASF is too hard because of the exploding Brickernauts and instant-death patches -- which explicitly don't exist in the base difficulty. These are not your standard difficulty settings, they actually change how the fights work.

[Bodhivajra]

I've been working my way through on base difficulty preparatory to going back in and trying the new stuff. Not to gush, but this is fantastic on all levels in my book. The story is interesting, Aeon is hilarious, the fights are fun and challenging even on base, the art is far beyond what I expected. The DE cave is visually terrifying and I love it. The new mechanics I've seen so far have all been fun. I can't wait to see how things work in challenge mode!

 

The devs have yet again impressed me; I start out with high expectations and extreme trepidation with regards to any change, and every time something new has come around it's been, as far as I can tell, soberly and thoroughly considered and tested and it's better than I expect. 

[Ukase]

I have a lot of feedback to give, but it's still incomplete, because I've yet to try it on Relentless mode. 

My very first take, soloing on Villainous, was a bittersweet reaction to Becky. It was amusing. But, I also knew that after a few times, it's going to get stale, pretty quickly. She'll soon be rated right up with Glacia and Infernia with her propensity for dialogue. Still, a good impression from the start. 

The dialogue in the mission with the security/bouncer guy, is interesting too. I like interactions like this, because you can always choose a different answer the next time, and perhaps get a different result. And my third time, I got the best result - but I'll keep quiet about that, cuz, you know, spoilers. 

On Malicious, I really only have one issue with it - and it seems to be more of an issue on my end. I can only tell the Brickernauts are counting down, with the words over their heads, and the yellow beam, from very far away. I've taken my tank in their twice, solo, and neither the numbers or the beam are visible to me. Pretty sure it's just on my end, because everyone I've teamed with sees it clearly. It's just me having this problem. But that doesn't stop it from being annoying. The count-down, from far away, looks a lot like the count-down over the Demolition Charges in the Underground Trial. It would be good to change the coloring of the lettering to red, or something more noticeable. 

It's not really apparent, or clear, that there are more than 10 Aeon Scientists. If you're not paying attention, you can end up waking up a sleeping scientist without having to do so. Although the dialogue that ensues is amusing, once you do wake him up. 

There are a couple of parts that are...well, annoying. Midas doing whatever it is he's doing where we get ported to what seems to be the second floor and can't target him - it's a bit annoying, because it always takes me a second to get my bearings and see where I am, where I'm supposed to be. 

The landing, after being "rifted" when fighting the car, is a bit disconcerting with all the "Rippled" wording in red. I'm never quite sure how my character will take the landing, so I use the jetpack to break my fall. 

One other thing - I noticed that medi-porters can get unlocked. But, it's not obvious from the start that you'd need or want to do this. The only way I learned is when the system message splashed across the screen. Otherwise, the only way you'd know is if you got defeated and didn't have a rez handy. 

The biggest issue, as far as the content of the story goes, is this idea that there's somebody in the car. I was thinking the car itself was the entity, not some punk driver. That really should be ret-conned in a future patch, as some kind of imposter, not the real high roller. But then, that would reek too much of Fake Nemesis, so another option, maybe. 

More of a minor issue is the Beast Within badge. You have to really want this badge to solo up to the car rifting you to the right place.  Not that you have to solo it, It's just annoying to have to find folks that want to do just this badge in order to make quicker work of it. Sure, there are "some" of these Lycanthropes outside this SF, but hunting for those seem like it would be even more tedious. Hopefully, more content will be coming in the future that will allow an easier time of hunting these. As is, it's annoying. I think you'd have to run this 34 times to get the badge organically. And that's about 30 times more than I want. I get it. It's a badge, if you want it - prepare to grind. But, it's just my observation that it's annoying to have to do so. 

[Ukase]

On 11/28/2021 at 7:38 AM, The_Warpact said:

I dont feel bad then for our 89 deaths lol.

I've heard about these higher difficulty settings and numerous defeats. The problem is...for me, I can't accept being defeated an average of 9 to 20 times in a Strike Force as being "fun". Or even interesting. It's like some of my jokes. So stupid, you can't help but laugh. I don't comprehend why people are subjecting themselves to it - when it clearly surpasses "challenging", and enters into unreasonable. And the additional rewards for the greater difficulty is laughable. Toss a transcendent merit into the mix, then maybe you'll have something worthwhile. 

Had a friend yesterday who wanted to run it on relentless. A group of friends did not. We ran on Malicious, and after three missions, he was still recruiting. I wouldn't be able to state for sure, but I think the folks that are clamoring for the higher difficulty options are but a vocal minority. Thankfully, they're options, and not forced upon us. 

[Cobalt Arachne]

48 minutes ago, Ukase said:

The landing, after being "rifted" when fighting the car

There's no fall damage at all on Mission 5, 6, or 7's maps (this is controlled by a per-map variable), so no cause for concern. Rippled does like 6 damage and is just a flavor effect to demonstrate the AU technology is not clean like something Portal Corp would use and it stings a little bit to use it (AU Gold Brickers are damaging their atoms slowly using this incomplete tech).

 

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

More of a minor issue is the Beast Within badge.

I'd recommend doing this badge on the Reichsman TF/SF as they can spawn two per mob (one boss and one LT) and it's generally far faster/more consistent. That defeat badge is not ASF-exclusive.
 

51 minutes ago, Ukase said:

I was thinking the car itself was the entity

Plenty of people had this idea previously or that the Golden Roller WAS King Midas himself. Him being a driver doesn't contradict lore anywhere and the Gold Brickers having a fully self-aware and sentient AI car, years before Zoe had joined or even Arachnos themselves had such tech, would've been far more lore contradictory in my opinion. He's one of the few ASF NPCs who 100% always survives, and that was intentional.

Don't expect any ASF retcons. We thoroughly did our homework on the pieces of existing canon it touched.

[Bionic_Flea]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

I don't comprehend why people are subjecting themselves to it - when it clearly surpasses "challenging", and enters into unreasonable.

Some people like the challenge of figuring out how to do it.  Some folks enjoy being surprised.  Some like playing on the razor's edge where a split second decision means the difference between life and death.  And others just like to complete the hardest content for bragging rights.  For all those people, playing ASF on relentless would be fun.  For many it would not be fun at all.

 

As time goes on, the puzzling aspects are solved, the surprise is gone, so many have done it that bragging seems silly, and without those there are less chances of dancing on the razors edge. 

 

I'm waiting for the video of Voltak doing a Master ASF run, solo with all challenges. 😛

[Ukase]

8 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Some people like the challenge of figuring out how to do it. 

I should wait until I at least try it on Relentless before I talk about it. But, man, I hear those numbers and wonder how retoggling, etc. that many times can anyone be having fun. I'd be putting a hammer through my screen. 

[The_Warpact]

34 minutes ago, Ukase said:

I should wait until I at least try it on Relentless before I talk about it. But, man, I hear those numbers and wonder how retoggling, etc. that many times can anyone be having fun. I'd be putting a hammer through my screen. 

So...the thing that hit me first was that I was shocked. Secondly, 2 ppl on my team were getting clearly aggravated. To me this was a knee jerk response, I was trying to figure out why we couldn't kill Ripplesurge they were getting pissed because they couldn't instant kill it. Once figuring it out no problem and we kicked ass.

That is the biggest issue I see is that people are getting pissed because all of the sudden you gotta think your way through not just use your toon to steamroller it. It gets boring just going through the motions and really not having a challenge. 

If us as a 4 person team can have it 4x8 on an ITF and finish in 60 minutes on a kill all, there isn't a challenge its a joke.

The new settings reset that, and I'm fine with it. The question is will everyone else be ok with it.

 

[Ukase]

3 minutes ago, The_Warpact said:

The new settings reset that, and I'm fine with it. The question is will everyone else be ok with it.

As long as it's optional, everyone will be fine with it. Well, most. 

[Uun]

Ran it on Relentless a few nights ago with a pretty carefully constructed team and we completed it in 2h12m with only 18 defeats (including fighting all the Vanguard AVs). Ran it last night on Vicious with several of the same players (different characters) but less thought to buffs/debuffs and composition and we completed it in 1h55m with 76 defeats (only 2 Vanguard AVs). Everybody is still learning the fights, which foes do what, what builds work best, etc. There are quite a few things that can one-shot you. Soft-capped defense isn't going to save you.