BP Ambush WAY overleveled

[Hedgefund]

I was doing the "Scroll of Tieleku" arc for Miram Bloechl in the field, not Ouro when an unreasonably high level ambush (lvl 40 BP) went for me (lvl 33 once, lvl 35 another)

 

Some background:

 

I was in the midst of the arc at level 29 when I joined a team doing other activity (Silver Mantis when it was WST, just to provide all info).  When I returned to complete Bloechl's arc I was level 33.  I took the mission "Take the Scroll to Dr. Cheng" https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Miriam_Bloechl#Take_the_scroll_to_Dr._Cheng and 2 level 40 BP mobs ambushed me in Independence Port, near Cheng.  The mission was at the max level for the arc (29) and I set the difficulty to +4 so mobs would be even con.  Whether the ambush should have used level 33 mobs (mission level +4) or 37 (my level +4) I don't, but it certainly shouldn't have been 40 (+7 to me).

 

But wait there's more!

 

Before completing the second part of that 3 part sequence (https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Miriam_Bloechl#Recover_tomes_from_Circle) I again joined a team (Maria Jenkin's arc) and earned 2 more levels.  Furthermore, I switched alignment to rogue for some accolade work then back to vig, no additional levels were attained.  This put me back at the first part of that 3 parter ("Take the Scroll to Dr. Cheng").  Once again, a level 40 ambush came after me.  This time, I had not adjusted my difficulty.  The mission was at level 29 and my difficulty was +0.  I did take a screenshot of this.

 

I just noticed the image doesn't include the level of the ambush as I was hoping so you'll have to trust they were 40 both times.  You can see however that they con purple for a mission that's -6 to me with a difficulty of +0.

 

I was going to let this go after the first time but since it does appear to be reproducible, I decided to log this.

 

[Rudra]

With a mission at level 29 and your difficulty set at +4, the mobs should have spawned at 33. The level shift is applied to the mission, not you, for determining mob levels. You could be a level 50 with a level 10 mission you forgot to do, and the mobs would be capped at 14 if you were +4. (I've actually had level 14 mobs from a forgotten level 10 mission I was saving attack my level 50+3 in Dark Astoria because my difficulty was set at +4.) That said, apparently TFs/SFs can break that. Don't know why. So yes, your being attacked by level 40 BP as part of a "You're forgetting to do this mission!" or a "You've accepted this mission!" triggered ambush on the zone map is... broken.

Edited January 17, 2022 by Rudra
Edit: Fixed word choice "you're" to "your".

[ZorkNemesis]

Do regular BP mobs go above 30?  The group that's attacking you in the screenshot are the ones usually found in the new Dark Astoria incarnate stuff.  I wonder if it's just pulling the next lowest level possible and it pulled DA BP instead of normal BP.

 

Also DA BP can spawn at level 40?

[Rudra]

That is a possibility. And I am ashamed to realize I didn't clue in to the BP being a Shamaness. Problem being, he said later in his post he was running +0 later and was still ambushed by level 40s. At +0, they should be regular BP spawning at 29. And BP come in 3 tiers. Normal at 20-29. Then a 40-54 group that uses the incarnate tier mobs. Then incarnate tier at 50-54. So it looks like you are right about them being pulled from the wrong group (40-54).

[TheZag]

Possibly with the lvl 29 +0 mission that it gave you the wrong mobs.  But if its a +1 ambush and there is no lvl 30 mob then its going to take mobs from the next list.  It can happen in a few places but im not aware of a way to fix it short of making new mobs to cover all of the level ranges.

 

Another example is a council mission.  The mission was high 30s or low 40s but the main boss for the mission is 20 something.  Its because the boss for that mission is set to be a specific mob and that mob doesnt exist in all the level ranges.