Good news:new players. Bad news: horrid positrons

[Snarky]

Today i slipped my new crawl toon Rogue. I went to Atlas and badged. Got a duplicating gift.  An Ouro portal.  4 DFBs for the up to 22 buffs (will do DiB 4x to extend them to 30).  Now am currently at 14.  I have completed all Redside 1-9 content.  The DFBs took me from 9-14. 
 

Normally I would wait to do Posi until 19 and exemp down. An extra power, more slots.  But it is the weekly.  New Years eve.  The weekend.  Roll the dice.   And lose.  Just lose

 

The Posi 1 was a PUG and I thought nothing about level 10 leader.  They will pass the star I thought.  You ever been wrong? Happened to me.  They also, as they started, stated they were running at +1 to ensure we got Ruin Mages.  It was not good.  There were a couple good players.  But we had team wipes.  We had a MM whose pets pulled everything from everywhere.  Which the team ignored and just split to do different things.  We get inside city hall and they go straight instead of taking the left group.  Finishing the center half the team races to the shadows (and I mean race, no wait/buff etc) and the other half pivot to the group on the left….   F that TF

 

A couple hours later after doing some Winter stuff I joined a Posi 2.  I checked. A level 20+ leading.  Okay.  It started okay.  Not Cosmic Council crush things while making it look like a ballet.  But okay.  Then one of the players could not find Faultline.  I gave them the copy paste base macro.  They did not understand how to copy paste.  Meanwhile the team is down two players and are hurting.  I dive into combat.  The lost player is now in Perez and someone goes to get them.  We bumble along and are still not doing horrid, it’s borderline quite a lot of the time. We keep moving. Then we get one of the oddest Oranbega maps and cannot find the glowie in the next to last mission.  WTF.  That map never shows up.  Then, last mission.  A few people are acting like speed runners.  Which is okay, get glowie go.   But….we get inside the dam and parts of the team just start. I am not sure how. to describe it.  I did ask in team chat if we had 4 MMs running ninjas on the team that I had not noticed.  They agroed everything.  They went all around the room like they were Fing sight seeing.  Is this a dam?   Is the water in here?   What is that behind those ghosts?   The speed runners have went outside and the cutscene starts.   I am TPd. (Dead) and a few players race to fight Vahz while I am still kneeling getting my blue up.  I jump up there and burn team insp for the half the team that is there.  We defeat Vahz.  TF does not complete. WTF?  Oh, they didnt get the bombs.  *facepalm

 

Happy New Year!!!  We have new players.  Or really drunk and stoned old players.  Anyways, back to soloing Redside.  I’ll send a postcard

Edited January 1, 2023 by Snarky

[Doomguide2005]

😳

 

And Happy New Year

 

 

 

[Ghost]

You have horrible luck……or are bad luck.  Not sure which.

 

I run on PUGs all the time.  Occasionally I will find myself on a team of players who either don’t know what they are doing, or have no interest in playing like a team.  Don’t believe I’ve ever had messes like you run into, twice in one day.  
Im gonna have to run with you at least once to experience one of these messes, and figure out if you have an aura of bad luck following you around.

Edited January 1, 2023 by Ghost

[Clave Dark 5]

3 hours ago, Snarky said:

What is that behind those ghosts?

Ha!

 

I've had a few go this badly, but not terribly often.  I almost always PUG as I don't have an SG or a group of repeating/returning friends in-game (*sniff*), and I generally have much better luck than this. 

 

I did do a Katie Hannon with you a month or two ago, also a PUG, that went just fine, so it's not all sour grapes and out of control ninjas! 

[MoonSheep]

reading your story makes me think of the paradox where people are able to read LFG to see a TF advertised, message the lead for an invite.. then lose all communication abilities for the rest of the TF, completely unresponsive no matter the chaos unfolding

[gamingglen]

I have no friends in the game any more so I have to PUG the TFs. Except Posi 1, I solo that in a speed run style (stealth everything possible). It's amazing how much you don't have to fight compared to PUGs who think in terms of XP.  There's plenty of XP out there, let's not treat non-kill-all missions as kill-alls, please. 

[Scarlet Shocker]

It's sad it may have been difficult for you but clearly the guy leading seemed to know something about the game because ruin mages. Perhaps you might have used your experience and skills to gently mentor some of the less well versed players into improving their effectiveness.

 

Or perhaps it really was just New Years Eve

[Ghost]

11 hours ago, gamingglen said:

I have no friends in the game any more so I have to PUG the TFs. Except Posi 1, I solo that in a speed run style (stealth everything possible). It's amazing how much you don't have to fight compared to PUGs who think in terms of XP.  There's plenty of XP out there, let's not treat non-kill-all missions as kill-alls, please. 

Not all “Kill Alls” are about the XP.

When I put together a kill all/kill most TF - it’s my way of insuring no one runs off at hyper speed, leaving the rest of the group behind to either chase after, or stand around doing nothing.

[Zect]

I find Posi 1 rarely worth doing with pugs. The chances of getting unintelligent players with no idea how to do the last mission is simply too high; most players lack situational awareness to avoid the unecessary mobs, pay attention to the location of the team, or notice when and where new spawns are engaged.

 

They then have the temerity to accuse others of "rushing ahead". My friend, if you're still trying to fight a random ruin mage with your unslotted (of course) powers while the rest of us have already freed the 4 heroes and arrived at city hall, because you have neither eyes to see we've left nor a jetpack to follow, we're not rushing forwards; you're rushing backwards.

[WumpusRat]

It's odd. I pretty much pug every single TF I do, since I don't have a stable group of people I play with. I've had maybe one bad TF run in the last two months. A few "wtf?" moments here and there, but nothing that stands out as "ugh, this is awful". Maybe my tolerance is just higher, or I've just been having good luck.

 

I've run a ton of Posi-1/2's in the last few weeks, both leading them as well as hopping into pugs. The only one that was a bit bumpy was one where a farmer (who had never done a TF before) came along, and was baffled at how difficult it was compared to farming, and the fight with the last boss inside the dam got away from us a bit as someone got pushed back close enough to another spawn to aggro them. But everyone just laughed it off, we picked ourselves up, brushed off, and pounded Doc Vahz into the dirt like a tent-peg.

[JasperStone]

*hangs head in shame

I may have been on one of those Posi.

 

I am a bad bad bad player.

 

*jumps into Shadow Shard ... endless falling

[Snarky]

11 minutes ago, JasperStone said:

*hangs head in shame

I may have been on one of those Posi.

 

I am a bad bad bad player.

 

*jumps into Shadow Shard ... endless falling

oh, now i know who to scream at!!!!

[cranebump]

I’ve had some wonky experiences with different TFs. Just never felt the need to consistently air them publicly (even though a wonky experience is always more interesting than the TF where Commander Maxout runs off to do their own thing - if we’re yelling at each other it’s at least an acknowledgement there’s more than 1 or 2 people there).

[ZemX]

Posi 1 is just badly designed.   Not so much because of how hard it is but because of where it sits so early in the game.

 

It's a cruel joke that this is the first real TF most new players would end up running because its enemies are NO joke to a level 8-15 player.  Crushing stacked toHit debuffs.  Toxic puke.  Heat-seeking CoT ambushes that follow you even after you hit the hospital and return.   And then a gang of "clones" that gets cloning so wrong it ends up making them more powerful than you are (e.g. my Rad tankers get to face "clones" that somehow have crippling rad debuffs that I don't even get).

 

All of this can be handled by experienced players who know what they are doing.  And that's the problem.  It's the FIRST Task Force.  It should be "training wheels" level of easy.  Really, Positron 2 gets it more right in that respect.  It's not nearly as challenging.

 

I've learned to ask "We're running this at +0 right?  RIGHT?!" before the TF launches.

[lemming]

Posi 1 is a pretty good learning experience.  Wether it's how to deal with different tasks, or how to herd cats.

 

I'd say most of the ones I've been on as PUGs have been good.  The ones that haven't tend to stand out more.

[Ambidexter]

First of all -- a bad PUG is super frustrating because of the time it wastes. No-one wants to play a fun game and have it not be fun!

 

Slightly related, I do want to put a good word in for the kill-all or kill-most philosophy. I don't care as much about the XP as I do about the combat, which is what keeps me playing this game. Aggro management, intelligent debuts, etc; the dynamics of combat are what I'm looking for and so I prefer to push through than to rush around.

 

That all being said, having conversation about goals and strategies is critical.

[InvaderStych]

5 hours ago, ZemX said:

And then a gang of "clones" that gets cloning so wrong it ends up making them more powerful than you are (e.g. my Rad tankers get to face "clones" that somehow have crippling rad debuffs that I don't even get).

 

"Clone" characters don't get exact copies of the powersets of the PC toon being cloned.  Most noticeable with my Psi Melee scrapper with the Hostless posession in HM-ITF, which results in a "clone" that uses Psi Blasts.  When I reported it Beta I was told, briefly and without much detail that they're never 1:1 with the powers available to the clones.

 

Also, why are you guys pugging Posi 1?  Just solo it.  There's no AVs until Posi 2 anyway, or I am remembering wrong, but with AVs off it is totally a solo-able event.  Save yourself the trouble and pug up for Posi 2.

[ZemX]

4 hours ago, InvaderStych said:

Also, why are you guys pugging Posi 1?  Just solo it.  There's no AVs until Posi 2 anyway, or I am remembering wrong, but with AVs off it is totally a solo-able event.  Save yourself the trouble and pug up for Posi 2.

 

I might complain about some PUGs I've been on, but I still love em.   I probably wouldn't play this game if it weren't for that random team composition making things interesting.  

 

Doesn't mean some content couldn't be improved.  

[TheZag]

New players tend to join the higher population servers.  There are less pugs over here on torch but i havent been on a failing team in over a year.

 

[JasperStone]

To be honest .it probably wasn't my PUG

I joined a Psi 1 +1 and we pretty much rolled through.

 

The mission where you fight your doppelgänger is a true test of how good a team is.

 

We rescued the heroes no problem.

Cleared the sides.

Survived the incoming from behind.

Cleared inside.

Most of the team wiped fighting our copy....all of a sudden BAM 4 of us down ...lol

 

[lemming]

Last week I did a few Posi 1 as PUGs, and a couple solo.

 

Only notable was we were starting to fight the dupes and one player complained they were having to solo a ruin mage.  They had never come into City Hall and had picked another fight outside.

 

Some months back I was on a Posi 1 and we had four controllers.  Lots of holds and debuffs that just wiped our team in seconds.   Finally got around it since one of our controllers had confuse and just got the dupes to fight each other instead.

[BitCook]

Bad pugs are just progress to debt badges and opportunity to RP 🙂

I was on a 50+ defeat Posi I and had a ball.  To be honest, steamroller teams are rarely fun.  I'd rather have a challege and people who can laugh at what's happening.

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, BitCook said:

Bad pugs are just progress to debt badges and opportunity to RP 🙂

I was on a 50+ defeat Posi I and had a ball.  To be honest, steamroller teams are rarely fun.  I'd rather have a challege and people who can laugh at what's happening.

you couldnt tell i think this is all funny as hell?  i just hate seeing these same idiots on the freeway cutting off semis.  that is less funny

[InvaderStych]

6 hours ago, ZemX said:

I might complain about some PUGs I've been on, but I still love em.   I probably wouldn't play this game if it weren't for that random team composition making things interesting.  

 

Absolutely.  I might do a mix of solo/team stuff, but my soloing is mostly because I want to slow-level something to 50 and work out the nuances.  My latest stalker solo'd Posi 1 as I mentioned, but the rest of TFC for him was all PUGs and all excellent.

 

6 hours ago, ZemX said:

Doesn't mean some content couldn't be improved.  

 

Completely agree.  I've more complaints about Synapse (boring slog) than I do about Posi 1, but it is so basically simple to solo on most of the toons I'd usually play (or while using summons and temps if one is inclined) that it's likely to become part of my early leveling process for a while.  If I remember.  🤣

[RCU7115]

18 hours ago, JasperStone said:

*hangs head in shame

I may have been on one of those Posi.

 

I am a bad bad bad player.

 

*jumps into Shadow Shard ... endless falling

It's ok Doug. You saw a squirl.