Telegraph the death-explosion of the void crystal/overhaul them in the hard ITF

[DrunkFlux]

Small Spoilers below.

 

A thought/idea for the void crystals, because to me, they violated the most important rule of challenging gameplay; avoid auto-killing the player with no warning.  Before the crystals only damaged players/killed them if they were not full health, but now it's capable of one-shotting players who are not high resistance builds vs dark energy.  It's allegedly auto-hit also.

 

This is outright unfair to melee builds who are using defense, as other than firing barrier off just before it dies or just staying away while everyone destroys the crystal theres nothing else that can be done.  Contrast this to the final boss and his judgement, that can be avoided, is telegraphed and dodgable, or the nictus possession attempts that can be countered before disaster strikes.  The void crystals just explode and can by-pass the one shot rule.

 

Instead of having there explosion just do multiple damage-tics bypassing the one shot rule, let there be a bomb or something that drops for players to avoid so damage CAN be avoided.  Unavoidable damage like that just means scrappers/stalkers or defense based brutes/tankers have to stay away from the crystals and let ranged toons or dark resistance tankers take the hit.

 

Since it is kind of punishing, once again I'll reference the when difficulty is fun video:

 

 

Solve that one issue and I'd say the ITF is very close to golden for it's hard mode challenge.

[Rudra]

My scrappers and stalkers were almost always killed by the crystals on regular ITFs. So if I am on a melee on an ITF, I always move to a safe distance when the crystals get near death to avoid that fate and let the ranged characters finish it. Nemesis Staff and Black Wand let me continue to damage the crystal without being in the explosion radius.

 

That said, making the crystals very obviously pulse when at or below 10% health as visible warning for those not watching the crystal's health bar would be helpful.

[lemming]

Not auto-hit: "Shadow Crystal MISSES! Medium Explosion power had a 10.72% chance to hit, but rolled a 74.15"

[DrunkFlux]

I was hit 5 times in a row on my bio armor character for a 1-shot, and some players are trying to tell me it is auto-hit.  Question Lemming was this not-auto hit on the new version?  If so then that means the person telling me it is, is a liar.

[SuggestorK]

The crystals didnt autohit before the hard mode change that is absolutely sure, often enough they missed me although standing right next to em (even as blaster and such).

 

But well +4 means something and higher hit rate is one of em.

 

If the hard mode change did have an effect i cannot say maybe its an overlooked /unwanted change if that has happened at all?

[MsSmart]

10 hours ago, DrunkFlux said:

Small Spoilers below.

 

A thought/idea for the void crystals, because to me, they violated the most important rule of challenging gameplay; avoid auto-killing the player with no warning.  Before the crystals only damaged players/killed them if they were not full health, but now it's capable of one-shotting players who are not high resistance builds vs dark energy.  It's allegedly auto-hit also.

 

This is outright unfair to melee builds who are using defense, as other than firing barrier off just before it dies or just staying away while everyone destroys the crystal theres nothing else that can be done.  Contrast this to the final boss and his judgement, that can be avoided, is telegraphed and dodgable, or the nictus possession attempts that can be countered before disaster strikes.  The void crystals just explode and can by-pass the one shot rule.

 

Instead of having there explosion just do multiple damage-tics bypassing the one shot rule, let there be a bomb or something that drops for players to avoid so damage CAN be avoided.  Unavoidable damage like that just means scrappers/stalkers or defense based brutes/tankers have to stay away from the crystals and let ranged toons or dark resistance tankers take the hit.

 

Since it is kind of punishing, once again I'll reference the when difficulty is fun video:

 

 

Solve that one issue and I'd say the ITF is very close to golden for it's hard mode challenge.

You think this is bad for melee? How about support types, who all they have, maybe, is some defense and even less resistances. I have never been a fan of the auto hit feature anywhere, it just goes against my grain of fair sportsmanship, same with auto kill, again its just arbitrary...

 

Sue

[Indystruck]

2 hours ago, MsSmart said:

You think this is bad for melee? How about support types, who all they have, maybe, is some defense and even less resistances.

 

My supports shoot the crystal from 80 feet away.

[lemming]

10 hours ago, DrunkFlux said:

I was hit 5 times in a row on my bio armor character for a 1-shot, and some players are trying to tell me it is auto-hit.  Question Lemming was this not-auto hit on the new version?  If so then that means the person telling me it is, is a liar.

I'd go with mistaken.

 

My excerpt was from the new ITF, one of the hard modes. (Two star?)  My scrapper did get taken from ~2400 to 300 health when hit.

[Doomguide2005]

     Not run yet but yeah hard mode adds not insignificant amounts of to hit potentially on top of Incarnate to hit base (No idea if the ITF cysts are Incarnate or not).  As in your softcap value is pushed into the 75% region not 45% at 4-star before any additional incarnate bonus is applied.  Add in a touch of Nova boss/EB blasts which carry -defense and yeah it could get really painful really fast no auto-hit required to appear so.

 

     And Bio Armor, afaik, carries minimal if any DDR.  Those Nova blasts you could be taking while laying smack down on a Cyst are going to shred your base defense on a character with minimal or no DDR.  Nevermind all those incoming Cimeroran sword attacks.  

 

     That said I'm going to agree that some visual warning would be nice.  Especially if my attention is elsewhere when the Cyst is about ready to pop (like healing/buffing teammates).  Pretty easy in the light show to lose track of the Cyst's health while focused elsewhere.

[lemming]

12 hours ago, lemming said:

I'd go with mistaken.

 

My excerpt was from the new ITF, one of the hard modes. (Two star?)  My scrapper did get taken from ~2400 to 300 health when hit.

Hmm.  Log from a two star run shows: "Shadow Crystal HITS you! Void Explosion power was autohit."

 

and now a better look at the previous three star run shows the same.   May have gotten the wrong line since I did run missions earlier that may account for my mistake

[Doomguide2005]

9 hours ago, lemming said:

Hmm.  Log from a two star run shows: "Shadow Crystal HITS you! Void Explosion power was autohit."

 

and now a better look at the previous three star run shows the same.   May have gotten the wrong line since I did run missions earlier that may account for my mistake

How do 'tics' of damage record (been long enough i don't recall)?  Did the initial tic have a to hit roll ... then 1 or more 'autohits' or other?

[lemming]

3 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

How do 'tics' of damage record (been long enough i don't recall)?  Did the initial tic have a to hit roll ... then 1 or more 'autohits' or other?

2022-08-25 16:51:45 Shadow Crystal HITS you! Void Explosion power was autohit.
2022-08-25 16:51:45 Shadow Crystal knocks you off your feet with their Void Explosion!
2022-08-25 16:51:45 Shadow Crystal hits you with their Void Explosion for 242.09 points of Negative Energy damage.
2022-08-25 16:51:45 Shadow Crystal hits you with their Void Explosion for 968.38 points of unresistable Special damage.
2022-08-25 16:51:45 Shadow Crystal hits you with their Void Explosion for 17.74 points of Negative Energy damage over time.

 

Looks like one big glob.   The "over time" damage seems to be just one tick since I only see it grouped in with the rest like this

[Doomguide2005]

Interesting.

I suppose it could be argued their health bars are the visual warning (if enabled).   Good communication here between teammates would be key.  At least one player should know the Cyst is shy on health (whoever is beating on it) and needs to communicate this teamwide.

[biostem]

All this tells me is that they was us to finish them off with ranged attacks only.  I've never been a fan of autohit powers vs players... are the increased rewards worth it?

[lemming]

5 hours ago, biostem said:

All this tells me is that they was us to finish them off with ranged attacks only.  I've never been a fan of autohit powers vs players... are the increased rewards worth it?

Near 100 Reward merits from the two star plus 9 Aethers.   (Bunch of other stuff)

 

I like the new difficulty, it's more interesting than what we used to be able to knock out in 15 minutes (or much less)

[Clave Dark 5]

11 hours ago, biostem said:

All this tells me is that they was us to finish them off with ranged attacks only.  I've never been a fan of autohit powers vs players... are the increased rewards worth it?

Yeah, I figure this was one of the added factors that were intended to make the usual steam-roller slow down a bit and have to consider what they were doing.  I just ran a 2-star and had to learn the hard way (three deaths iirc) that my stalker really had to just sort of hang back and do, uh, well not much at all, while others finished those off from a distance (I might have started out hitting them, but started backing off pretty soon).  And that I had to tab through the crowds we were fighting to see if there was a crystal that I needed to avoid.  I can't say I love this either, but I'm not planning to make a habit of HARD STUFF runs anyway.

[Doomguide2005]

     Yep, time for a target bind to rapidly locate Cysts again.  Had one on Live just for this for when Cysts were still blooming into lethal amounts of nictus but this seems to call for similar action.

[lemming]

Target binds that I tend to use for ITF now: Surgeon,  Shadow Crystal, Hostless