The Valeria Arc... Disappointing

[BlackSpectre]

The subject says it all. This new arc from page 4 was touted as incarnate level... god was it easy... and boring. I and my SG was all hyped up to face a challenge, and instead we got the same ol thing. Not challenging. Not interesting. Just... ho hum. Very disappointing. 

 

I don't mean to criticize our wonderful volunteers and developers, but you always ask for feedback... and unfortunately I have to say this arc is forgetful... at least for me... and my SG mates. We will never repeat it.

 

Why was boring, what am I talking about? Everything about the mission except for the story, and even that was... meh. It had potential, don't get me wrong, but its execution left a lot to be desired.  We all brought your best, toughest toons expecting a real challenge and discovered we could have brought our weakest, least effective toons and succeeded easily. 

 

1) it was in caves which automatically is grating,

2) my tank was killing minions and lieutenants in 1 hit with my axe.. one hit!

3) the elite bosses took more hits to kill, but otherwise posed no threat whatsoever. I could have just sat down and let them wail on me and wouldn't have lost any hit points. BORING!

 

My suggestion for future missions, or even these ones if you want to rework them, is to make then actually INCARNATE level. Not for regular toons but for INCARNATE level toons. Or better yet, for toons that are decked out with set IOs. A toon that was not incarnate should not be able to complete incarnate missions... at least not without incarnates carrying them.

 

For regular missions, fine, balance away. But for Incarnate missions, you need to assume the toons participating in those are not only incarnated but decked out with IOs. Specifically, smashing/lethal resistance at cap, and smashing/lethal defense of at least 45%. 

 

Anyway, it was a bummer doing this Valeria arc. My SG ended up leaving for Diablo Immortal, and I ended up completing the arc solo by myself just to to get it done and be able to say I did it.

 

Anyway, thanks for trying. I do appreciate your hard work and effort, Devs. All the best to you and yours.   

[Coyotedancer]

Try it solo instead of bringing your buddies and steamrolling it. 

[Indystruck]

Yeah, the feedback they got on beta was that some people might not be fully tricked out when running story content. It wasn't meant to be a hard mode. Can't please everyone.

 

wait your sg left for diablo immortal? well buddy ya'll have got other problems then

[Ruin Mage]

None of the Incarnate arcs are terribly hard.

Belladonna, Number Six (hey wait a minute...), and now Valeria - they're not particularly hard, and aren't meant to be IMO.

[Zhym]

FWIW, I ran this solo with my tricked-out DP/MC blaster and found it surprisingly challenging.  But this was the first thing I ran since the aggro changes hit and the incarnate Cimerorans got buffed, so that may have been part of it.

 

I agree, though, that this arc didn't quite make the impression that The Graveyard Shift, The Freakish Lab of Dr. Vahzilok, and the Aeon Strike Force did.  Honestly, I ran it once and couldn't tell you what it was about.  But then, I find that most of the Cimeroran story arcs and missions seem sort of the same. 

Edited October 9, 2022 by Zhym

[Grouchybeast]

It's always seemed bass-ackwards to me that the arcs intended specifically for incarnates inevitably end up being easier than non-Incarnate arcs, because they implement the +3 level shifts where non-Incarnate content only allows for a max of +1.  It's flat-out impossible to set the difficulty as high in the Incarnate content unless you unslot your level shifts, and that seems fundamentally wrong.

[Ironblade]

16 hours ago, BlackSpectre said:

The subject says it all. This new arc from page 4 was touted as incarnate level... god was it easy... and boring.

Well, the fact that's "incarnate content" means exactly the opposite of what you seem to be thinking.

If you're 50 and set regular content to +4, the enemies will be (around) level 54 and you'll be either 50 or 51 (if your Alpha slot is T3 or higher).

If you're 50 and set incarnate content to +4, the enemies will be (around) level 54 - BUT - you will be level 53 if you have all the incarnate level shifts.

 

TL;DR version:  So-called 'incarnate content' is often easier than 'regular content' due to the level shifts.

[golstat2003]

9 hours ago, Indystruck said:

Yeah, the feedback they got on beta was that some people might not be fully tricked out when running story content. It wasn't meant to be a hard mode. Can't please everyone.

 

wait your sg left for diablo immortal? well buddy ya'll have got other problems then

 

Seriously. His buddies sound like nice people but I would not touch Diablo Immortal with a ten foot pole. I say this as someone who tried it for a week. Let's not even get into the silly monetization aspects. Just no.

[golstat2003]

4 hours ago, Grouchybeast said:

It's always seemed bass-ackwards to me that the arcs intended specifically for incarnates inevitably end up being easier than non-Incarnate arcs, because they implement the +3 level shifts where non-Incarnate content only allows for a max of +1.  It's flat-out impossible to set the difficulty as high in the Incarnate content unless you unslot your level shifts, and that seems fundamentally wrong.

 

They need a hard mode setting for it.

[Shred Monkey]

I disagree with the OP.  It's far more difficult then your typical non-incarnate content to run solo at +4x8.  I'd personally rate this as slightly harder then the DA arcs, on par with the Praetoria based incarnate arcs.  If you're looking for challenging 8-man team play you need to run the new TFs, not mission content.  No story arcs are difficult for a full built 8-man team.

Edited October 11, 2022 by Shred Monkey

[Ukase]

For me, I found it a bit harder than I wanted to when I did it solo on my blaster and corruptors. My tank had an easier time of it, though damage being a bit low, the bosses and ebs took longer than I would have liked. 

I did appreciate the new maps, or at least, maps that were new to me. I ran this a couple of times with my SG, and we never really pay  attention to difficulty until someone faceplants. I can't remember if that happened or not. We're too busy correcting each other's pronunciation, and telling stale jokes. 

[BlackSpectre]

My biggest problem in the game right now is getting a team of 8 together to play the difficulty setting TFs. I think I need to join a new, active SG.

 

Anyway, we did the Valeria arc with a team of 4. Turned it up to +4 x8 on the second and third missions. Same result.  Easy.

 

But I hear your points guys... it's meant to be easy.

 

What do you guys think of the idea of incarnate missions starting in hard mode, with the ability to lower the difficulty settings if needed?  Just the opposite of how regular missions are setup. And I'm not talking about starting out at +4... but actually hard mode. INCARNATE!!! Make it mean something... 

[GM Crumpet]

On 10/11/2022 at 2:46 AM, BlackSpectre said:

My biggest problem in the game right now is getting a team of 8 together to play the difficulty setting TFs. I think I need to join a new, active SG.

 

Anyway, we did the Valeria arc with a team of 4. Turned it up to +4 x8 on the second and third missions. Same result.  Easy.

 

But I hear your points guys... it's meant to be easy.

 

What do you guys think of the idea of incarnate missions starting in hard mode, with the ability to lower the difficulty settings if needed?  Just the opposite of how regular missions are setup. And I'm not talking about starting out at +4... but actually hard mode. INCARNATE!!! Make it mean something... 

If I'm on any content with incarnates I up the difficulty anyway. 4 person team sounds about right on +4/8. 8 person team on +4/8 will steamroll over everything.

[Ruin Mage]

On 10/10/2022 at 8:46 PM, BlackSpectre said:

What do you guys think of the idea of incarnate missions starting in hard mode, with the ability to lower the difficulty settings if needed?  Just the opposite of how regular missions are setup. And I'm not talking about starting out at +4... but actually hard mode. INCARNATE!!! Make it mean something... 

Easier said than done, I imagine. It'd require its own window set up or some hard codewrangling.

[BlackSpectre]

3 hours ago, Shadeknight said:

Easier said than done, I imagine. It'd require its own window set up or some hard codewrangling.

I sometimes forget how much work it is to program a game. I love the Devs for bringing this game back. I appreciate all their hard work and effort on trying to improve it and bring in new things.   None of my comments are meant as criticism. Just communicating how I feel is all. If the Devs didn’t mess with the COde at all and just sat back and played like the rest of us I’d still be happy.  

[Xiddo]

Thought I’d come back to this after finally running it.

I agree that it wasn’t hugely challenging. But the half IO’d fire tank, the blaster, the brute and one of the scrappers I just ran it with would not agree. There were some hairy moments when the aforementioned Tank and Scrapper overestimated their survivability and I had to drag aggro from the squishies after their corpses lost it.

 

I’d argue that most of the incarn arcs aren’t too bad if you’re kitted out. So it is exactly what I expected from an incarnate arc, however I think that they could all do with a bump - across the board - as they’re meant to be harder. No HM level. But just a bit tougher.

The badges are good. It’s great to have new content. I quite liked the maps, at least it wasn’t a council or CoT cave. But I can kinda see where OP is coming from, but will defo run again on other toons to see what it’s like.

[Qualith]

Overall it was an improvement writing wise over the Aeon taskforce. The zombees or fast zombies arc is still the worst written one in the game, it contains lines stipulating your character smiles after punching out a freak shows teeth.

[Chronicler J]

On 10/9/2022 at 11:39 AM, Coyotedancer said:

Try it solo instead of bringing your buddies and steamrolling it. 

 

City of Hero

 

The meme never dies.

[Snarky]

On 10/9/2022 at 2:53 PM, Grouchybeast said:

It's always seemed bass-ackwards to me that the arcs intended specifically for incarnates inevitably end up being easier than non-Incarnate arcs, because they implement the +3 level shifts where non-Incarnate content only allows for a max of +1.  It's flat-out impossible to set the difficulty as high in the Incarnate content unless you unslot your level shifts, and that seems fundamentally wrong.

This seems like an interesting observation.  I never thought of it that way.  So you cannot set the incarnate arc to +4?  I do not run the incarnate stuff much except for group stuff I join 

[Grouchybeast]

46 minutes ago, Snarky said:

This seems like an interesting observation.  I never thought of it that way.  So you cannot set the incarnate arc to +4?  I do not run the incarnate stuff much except for group stuff I join 

 

You can set it to +4.  But if you have all three Incarnate level boosts slotted then you are effectively fighting at level 53 and the mobs will only con +1 relative to your character (e.g. level 54 minions will con yellow).  If you ran a non-Incarnate level 50 TF like the LGTF at +4 with the exact same Incarnate slotting, then two of the three Incarnate level boosts would be disabled, and the mobs would con +3 to your level (e.g. level 54 minions would con red).

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, Grouchybeast said:

 

You can set it to +4.  But if you have all three Incarnate level boosts slotted then you are effectively fighting at level 53 and the mobs will only con +1 relative to your character (e.g. level 54 minions will con yellow).  If you ran a non-Incarnate level 50 TF like the LGTF at +4 with the exact same Incarnate slotting, then two of the three Incarnate level boosts would be disabled, and the mobs would con +3 to your level (e.g. level 54 minions would con red).

right, so as you incarnate higher the mobs do not.  interesting (and gigantic) oversight.  

[Ruin Mage]

Welcome to the Incarnate System.

[MistressOhm]

So I tried running this as a duo, storm summoning/electricity/power mastery defender and a plant/poison controller, and while we could stay alive (mostly!) we could not do enough dps to bring the EB's down in the second mission.   I've only got first and some second level Incarnate abilities slotted, so haven't gotten to where I can Incarnate-shift up yet.

 

It's on the back burner until I can upgrade most of my slots.

[Zect]

Currently, the "incarnate" descriptor on content is just shorthand for "level 50 with a story related to Cimerorans or Praetoria". It doesn't mean "designed to challenge characters with incarnate powers".

 

Which is disappointing, because I too am a big fan of the latter. However, if there was more such content people would probably whine about being persistently and constantly oppressed, or how the mission is no longer solo-friendly because contained two +1 Lt's and a minion. Won't anyone think about the casuals and the soloists? 🤪

[lemming]

I've run this arc quite a bit.  Really depends on my setup if it's a challenge or not.   I tend to run it at whatever level shift I have, but there's a load of difference between having my not well built regen brute and my completely kitted out inv tank.    I found it easier to solo with my fire blaster than with my regen brute.