Level 1-20 Enemy Groups

[venetiasilver]

For fun, which Enemy Group do you find to be the most fun to fight, most frustrating to fight, and could be more fun to fight later but they disappear? 

[Apogee]

Personally, I dislike CoT, mostly because of the maps.  Basically dislike any cave map (I'm looking at you layer cake).

Edited October 25 by Apogee

[venetiasilver]

27 minutes ago, Apogee said:

Personally, I dislike CoT, mostly because of the maps.  Basically dislike any cave map (I'm looking at you layer cake).

Embrace the Layer Cake Room, Live in the Layer Cake Room, Become the Layer Cake Room.

[Call Me Awesome]

34 minutes ago, venetiasilver said:

Embrace the Layer Cake Room, Live in the Layer Cake Room, Become the Layer Cake Room.

Become that last mob hiding behind a rock in a corner of the Layer Cake Room.

[cranebump]

I could beat the crap out of Skulls & Hellions all day long.

 

CoT maps ARE a pain in the arse, though. 

 

Vahzilok can be a nasty surprise, with all that debuff.

Edited October 25 by cranebump

[Snarky]

Well, arachnos are tough.  But if you get a kill all with a large map that includes the Reactor room you got the "special treat"  A quick "get the glowie, or worse "find this guy" in the Reactor room is hilariously bad.

 

I can kill Longbow all day.  E v e r y d a y.

[Techwright]

Those groups just in the 1-20 range?  I'd probably go with the Outcasts.  

 

Frostfire remains one of the most fun things to do via contacts within those levels, and he's got an interesting story arc.  I'd like to see more of that at higher levels with higher class opponents to go along with it.  Frostfire points the way: 

• new Outcast leadership  arising after he's taken down, characters that have also mastered dual environmental powers. 
• Possibly some that didn't go dual but have mastered new, more potent abilities within their discipline, including elemental pets. 
• Possibly one that eventually masters 3 disciplines, say for example, one emulating a volcano: earth, fire, lightning powers.  Or perhaps masters all disciplines, but over a story arc as we clash repeatedly with the opponent as he advances.  Then when he ultimately masters all, we'd have an Avatar-like archvillain for the endgame.

Good stories to go with them, stories that make sense in the reorganizing of the Outcasts in the power vacuum left by Frostfire, something akin to the stories after Dr. Vahz was taken down. 

Oh, and hopefully get female members into the gang as well, with some rising to leadership. 

Also more chambers with interactive sets like that of ice in the Frostfire suite, but reserved for the top tier fights.

 

 

Edited October 25 by Techwright
Expansion of concept

[OEM61]

I think that the Skulls and the Hellions have a lot of upward mobility.

The Skulls are drug dealers, sure, but they also worship death and some members have actual powers.  Where does that come from?  Are the leaders some sort of Death Priests given powers by some death god?  Is there some demi-god leading the gang and granting powers to those that it favors?

The Hellions are in a similar place.   They are "just" a street gang, but one that happens to be made up of devil worhippers.  Do the people looking to join the Hellions even know that their gang leaders are performing ritual sacrifice to bargain with fiendish powers?
Could it be that every member is, in reality, possessed?  That the whole gang is just a front for devils of varying degrees of power to wreak havoc upon the world?

There could be a lot of layers to them yet to be discovered.  The Hellions opening a portal that allows Hell itself to empty into our world could certainly qualify as "high level content".

The problem would be that I think they would need to improve the diversity of the villains.  Every dark powerset needs to be in play for the Skulls and every fire set for the Hellions, mixed and matched in multiple ways, and maybe even cheat a little with some other sets re-colored to keep heroes on their toes.

Edited October 26 by OEM61

[PhotriusPyrelus]

Most fun?
Hellions.  Skuls.  Outcasts.  Trolls.  You can't go wrong with any of the low-level street thugs.

 

Also the Clockwork are fun.  The zappy noises get a little bit old, but I really love their designs.
 

 

 

Least fun?
Vahzilok - They're super easy until suddenly you're dead, or you miss interrupting the enbalmed's self-destruct.  Not nearly so bad if you have hover so the Doctors can't hack you up with their cleavers, but if you can't fly...

 

Circle of Thorns - I actually don't mind the maps that much (nostalgia hits me hard with them; though I admit they can be confusing and hard to navigate), I just don't at all enjoy the enemies themselves.  Not really sure why.  Probably has something to do with the mages self-destructing.

 

Tsoo (West Steel Canyon) - I don't mind most of them, but the sorcs and the ancestor spirits are a complete PITA and waste my time.

[Greycat]

1-20... depends on what side I'm on.

 

Blueside... I don't know, there's not really one that stands out as 'oh, god, not them."

 

Redside, Arachnos, specifically for the times you hit mobs with a *bunch* of Mu who drain you of what little END you have and nuke your recovery when you just don't have the tools to deal with them. (for some reason, clockwork don't seem to affect me as much blueside? *shrug*)

[mechahamham]

The Hellions are pathetic. They literally summon succubi because they can't get girlfriends. Mostly they serve to demonstrated that certain enemies and enemy groups have weaknesses, but they don't do that very well. Their only AV, Tinder, doesn't last long enough in fights to make jokes about.

 

The Skulls used to be in the same camp, before their revamp. They got a much more interesting story and some ethos. I really want to know what happens to Veles and Morana and they just don't show up any more after you finish Eagle Eye's arc.

 

Occasionally we hear Skulls in KR as well as Chernobog speaking broken English. Is this because they're starting to lose grey matter to all the Superadyne or because English is a recent second language? We know the Petrovics are from Eastern Europe. It'd  be interesting to have more substance to this backstory, but there just ain't any in the game.

 

Clockworks are a lot more interesting once you realize just how deluded poor Russel is. A lot of folks miss that because they don't read the clues or mission dialogue:

 

 

The bit at the end of Synapse where he's trying to assure his 'minions' that everything will be okay is... pretty damn tragic. IIRC, Positron wrote that. Good job there, Matt.

 

The bit about Rusty being Penny Yin's creepy stalker gets played just a little TOO much, IMO.

 

Unlike a lot of people I really enjoy Synapse's TF, mostly because of the map variety and the long sessions of figuring out the team's groove and then leaning into said groove for an hour or so.

 

Council and 5th Column. Hah.

 

I'm okay with purple/brown caves. They 're not my favorite, but I can cope with them. I respect the layer cake room for what it is, a trap to split teams. I could comfortably go the rest of my heroing career without *ever* seeing another Council Cave map. I have a strict policy of 1 Citadel TF per character for that reason. And then when I do vs. Council arcs, the fact that I'll have to go into those caves is always at the back of my mind. Lars' Hansen's arc is always a slog even when I cruise through the rest of the Striga arcs. The Council Water Room can bite my ass. I freakin HAET that room!

 

Laura's arc in Steel is BRILLIANT.  I find myself avoiding it just to avoid the few missions that are in Council Caves. Another problem is that you get a lot of 'Defeat 10 Council in Steel/Boomtown' missions if you do the issue 1 contacts. The fights with the 5th Column make it much more difficult to actually find them to beat up. I hate getting my 10 by defeating 10 of those that are lying unconscious on the ground.

 

Between 1 and 15, the Lost exist as basically clues to the big Nemesis Plot that caused a certain war. Before Issue 9, they got very, very little mileage otherwise, despite being pretty interesting to fight. You've got the standard 'Guys with guns and found weapons' punctuated with Lieutenants and Bosses that have Psi attacks and control effects. Then with the Faultline arcs, they get much more limelight. Aside from the comedy of Penny's arc, you start to get a peek into their motivations. You see a little more of their relationship with the Rikti in Montague's arc, which you can do before 20, but it's minor compared to Penny's arc. I'd like to see a lot more about how the Lost virus works and how the Lost recruit the other homeless into their ranks.

 

Circle of Thorns is pretty meh between 1 and 20. Unlike a lot of people in the thread, I actually rather like Orangebagel. It's twisty and mazelike without the terrain and geometry you get caught on for no damn good reason from Council Caves, but you don't see much of it until after 20. You end up with some good exposition and dialogue in Positron Pt. 1, but the Circle doesn't really get very interesting until you're in your early 20s, and you start to get hints about what they've been dealing with. Fighting the Circle is a mixed bag. It's one of the first groups you run into that consistently controls and debuffs you so you have to find counters. (And then Melee folks forget all about that as soon as they get their status protection.) But then between 18 and 38 or so, the difficulty tapers WAY DOWN. You very, very occasionally see 20ish Ruin Mages in Talos. You don't start to feel threatened by them again like you do with Madness and Ruin Mages until you start running into Behemoths and Earth Thorn Casters. I like the 'Master of Ruin' treatment you see on high level Circle mages. I kinda feel like that same treatment should be applied to the Circle at all levels. So it's not 'You fight Fire Thorn Casters at 37 and Earth Thorn Casters at 38, period' cutoffs, but instead you run into interesting lieutenants and bosses.

 

Vhaz  are all about debuffs. Lots of people who come into CoH from other MMOs go up against them and think 'these guys are vicious' without really understanding that what makes Vhaz so difficult is the debuffs. They're interesting to fight. Being able to survive fights with Vhaz is one of the 'milestones' for my solo characters. It's how I know I'm building them well.

 

The problems with their story and their appearances are pretty serious, though. We get little bits of Dr. V's insane rationale for what he's doing, but for the most part it's just the human Vhaz and the Eidolons acting very over-the-top ghouls. There's an Issue 1 one-off where you see an Eidolon who's horrified that her beautiful face is long gone, but because she's an Eidolon, you don't actually SEE that face. They need more of that. Piecemeal's arcs are GREAT, but you don't really see them until your'e in your 20s.

 

Now, the number one reason I avoid Vhaz: Bugs. I don't handle them well IRL. I jump when I see them in game. When you've got a debuff that's got the 'Flies' aura, that's just too much for me. I avoid that arc pretty religiously.

 

Snakes, Coralax, and many other CoV groups: It feels like we got the beginning of these stories and then no middle or end. It's hard to feel invested in Act 1s when you never get Act 2s or 3s. Snakes and Coralax are both interesting to fight because of the unique models and power choices, but there's very little substance to the groups. You get a little bit more meat later in a villain's career, but it's nothing like what they deserve. What is the Shaper Cult? How has it survived so long? WHY has it survived so long? This was right about the time that Cryptic started pulling people off of CoX for Cryptic's other projects, and it sure does show.

 

HC has done a wealth of improvement to the Goldbrickers. I'd love to see the Snakes and Coralax get similar treatments.

 

Praetorians: Good LORD am I sick to death of Praetorian factions. It doesn't help that there's so little room for evolution for them. Tyrant nukes the Magesterium, Hamidon wins. The End. Again, you get what feels like the beginning of stories and are then promptly booted out of Praetoria. There's no more 'City of Spies' after that. The double/triple agent shtick is the most compelling thing about Praetoria, and its absolutely gone by the time you get back to First Ward.

 

Here, NCSoft screwed us out of compelling resolutions. Additionally,  We never got the Clockwork EATs or attached story arcs.

 

Praetoria could use a top-to-bottom overhaul, but I find myself not caring in the slightest if it will ever happen or not.

[Techwright]

7 hours ago, mechahamham said:

Occasionally we hear Skulls in KR as well as Chernobog speaking broken English. Is this because they're starting to lose grey matter to all the Superadyne or because English is a recent second language? We know the Petrovics are from Eastern Europe. It'd  be interesting to have more substance to this backstory, but there just ain't any in the game.

 

 

English as a second language.  You said it yourself, the Petrovics are Eastern European.  Their nom de guerres are from Slavic dieties and the written dialog is designed to mimic someone from a Slavic language origin trying to speak English.

[High_Beam]

Yeah Clockwork and the Skulls Arc are my go to low two.

 

There is this one clockwork mission where they are literally saying "I hate <character>"  Makes me laugh every time.

 

The Lords of Death, if you do a little reading will find all three Cherno, Veles and Morina are Slavic dieties, from the Baltic region so every time Cherno does his speech to me I imagine Peter Stormare saying the words like Lev from Armageddon (yes I know he's Swedish).  "Now I am real Superadine manufacturer!"

[Go0gleplex]

23 hours ago, Apogee said:

Personally, I dislike CoT, mostly because of the maps.  Basically dislike any cave map (I'm looking at you layer cake).

 I don't mind the mages so much as I do Orenbega (or however it's spelled) since the confined halls and some of the cave maps flip my claustrophobia at times.  and I LOVE the cake! :p 

 

The Tsoo are second on my dislike list...stupid sorcerors teleporting all over the place and healing the mob you just about have pounded into the asphalt...grrr

[merrypessimist]

I like the Snakes redside for 1-20 mobs.  They're interesting characters if you do the arcs that have them, and the complete murder hobo BS in the Dr. Graves arc with the serial killer guy and his "special snake mission" that I wont spoil for the... well pretty much everyone who doesn't play it because it's awful mission makes me RL furious the few times I've done it.  The 45+ snakes are all kinds of suck, but the low level ones are great.  I wish snakes got more game time, since there's IMO a lot of potential there in terms of culture and story that could have been explored but wasn't because they're not "hurr hurr spidurs" from Arachnos.

[venetiasilver]

18 hours ago, Go0gleplex said:

 I don't mind the mages so much as I do Orenbega (or however it's spelled) since the confined halls and some of the cave maps flip my claustrophobia at times.  and I LOVE the cake! :p 

 

The Tsoo are second on my dislike list...stupid sorcerors teleporting all over the place and healing the mob you just about have pounded into the asphalt...grrr

As a resident melee player mostly Hurricane is a BANE OF EXISTENCE

[tidge]

They aren't a completely outside the 1-20 level range, but the Shivans/Neo-Shivans are close to being the "are they even in the game?" group. It's not so much that I miss them at higher levels, but I thought we'd get some with more radiation/stone attacks at some point.

[Ukase]

The question posed by the OP had me reviewing just what were the factions one encountered 1-20. 

For blue side, there's Clockwork, Council, Hellions, Trolls, Vahzilok, Lost, Skulls, Coralax (though no contact has blue siders interacting with these for street hunts or missions that I'm aware of - yet they are found in The Hollows.) CoT, Arachnos through Aaron Thiery's & Twinshot's arcs, Igneous, Hydra, Family...I think that's it for blue side. 

Since I can't be sure I can provide an exhaustive list, I can only state the ones I recall. 
Longbow, Snakes, Legacy Chain, Arachnos, Coralax, Family, Council, Spectral Pirates, and CoT. 
I'm sure the list isn't exhaustive. 

The most fun for me: Trolls, simply because of the way they talk, when they talk. 
The most frustrating: CoT - because of the spectral ghosts always running off when they have a sliver of health. And they don't just run off, they phase and become invisible, so you're left with a choice of sticking around until they return (if it's a defeat all, and it usually is) or trying to find them after you've handled the rest of the map. 


 

[mistagoat]

I tend to take missions with Outcasts, Trolls and Skulls in the low levels. No really because I like them so much but more because I know I'm going to level out of them very quickly and probably won't see them again on my path to 50 unless I'm doing flashbacks or something. Snake are my answer for Red side for the same reason.

 

 

The only ones I really avoid are Vaz and Tsoo and that all comes down to the debuffs they do. Hell, for Tsoo it's just the one sorc with Hurricane that makes me avoid the whole group. COT can be a pain sometimes too but I don't seem to avoid them like the others even though the ghosts are responsible for many a string of profanity!

[Jacke]

Eventually learned to take on all the mob groups.  Their maps, however....

 

Although I've disliked the Layer Cake Room, I've learned most of its twists and turns.

 

The Oranbega maps are a pain because of all the wall features to get caught up on.  And finding kidnapping victims can be a bother.

 

The Council/5th Column maps have some hangups.  I do agree that damned Pool Room is a pain, so many niches for things to hide.

 

I've not been on that huge vertical Arachnos map often.  But sometimes, it's a bother too.

[laudwic]

On 10/25/2024 at 11:23 PM, OEM61 said:

I think that the Skulls and the Hellions have a lot of upward mobility.

The Skulls are drug dealers, sure, but they also worship death and some members have actual powers.  Where does that come from?  Are the leaders some sort of Death Priests given powers by some death god?  Is there some demi-god leading the gang and granting powers to those that it favors?

The Hellions are in a similar place.   They are "just" a street gang, but one that happens to be made up of devil worhippers.  Do the people looking to join the Hellions even know that their gang leaders are performing ritual sacrifice to bargain with fiendish powers?
Could it be that every member is, in reality, possessed?  That the whole gang is just a front for devils of varying degrees of power to wreak havoc upon the world?

There could be a lot of layers to them yet to be discovered.  The Hellions opening a portal that allows Hell itself to empty into our world could certainly qualify as "high level content".

The problem would be that I think they would need to improve the diversity of the villains.  Every dark powerset needs to be in play for the Skulls and every fire set for the Hellions, mixed and matched in multiple ways, and maybe even cheat a little with some other sets re-colored to keep heroes on their toes.

 

Just to pile on this post a little bit.  You have the Skulls, with a really nice early game arc, where they are trafficking drugs to the Trolls, a group that goes later in the game than they do, and they just fall off the face of the Earth.   Sure, you can take it as you crippled their operations, but they always seemed to have something bigger in mind.  Some later game ties with Mott maybe.  Their are some inside jokes about them (I remember "Go kil skulls" when it first came up in the forum leading to the badge) but they shouldn't just disappear.  I would like to see them expanded, and more than just adding "Skull Boyfriends".  I want to see a male npc complain "Once Maggie got that deathhead promotion, she just doesn't have time for me.  She is just cold and distant."

 

Hellions are the same way, they seem to have some more grand plan, but they just disappear.   Some of their area is eaten up by CoT but there was room to grow.

 

Also, at low level, I kinda wish the game just had some basic, unaffiliated, thugs.  One's that were just thieves, not in a gang or group.  Just solo criminal morons.

[Apogee]

I think the Council "pool room" and the cave system "layer cake" room are basically the same as far as being a pain in the ass.  Both type of maps in general (caves and council) suck for all of the hiding places.  I groan anytime I get a defeat all and it is one of those maps.  I play on Goldside a lot and the maps there are so much better.  Even the enemy groups are less of a pain compared to Vahz, CoT and Tsoo.

[gameboy1234]

This is a great thread.  I think I'd agree that Tsoo, CoT and Vahzilok are the big bugbears of early fights.  Tsoo and CoT because they tend to just run away, delaying the inevitable and leading to player frustration, without adding any interesting game play mechanic.  Vahzilok because their damage types are poorly resisted by low level players so they just lead to deaths and team wipes, with no real recourse other than "eat a tray of inspirations."

 

Back in the old days, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and EverQuest was new, mobs running away would summon new mobs if they got close to a mob that wasn't aggro yet.  It lead to trains and getting "mobbed" and it was important to stop runners for this reason.  That's a mechanic.  Bad things happen, but players have a way to stop it (hold or kill the runner).  Mobs that were low on health also moved more slowly (like the GURPS table top game), so they were easier to catch.  It was a decent mechanic for players.  In CoX, runners are just an annoying delay, there's no special mechanic other than wait around for it to come back.

 

Personally I like fighting Hellions and Skulls.  It's a real "hero's journey" of slowly building up skill and power, starting with fighting street games in the early levels of your hero career.  It's a nice start for a game (better than starting by fighting snakes and bunnies) and also it's part of the comic source literature.  I actually think there should be a little more emphasis on being a "street level hero" in the early levels before becoming a fully powered hero in middle levels, eventually leading to basically being part of The Avengers in later levels and Incarnates.

 

And yeah the early maps are a pain and need to just go away, but I realize that's a ton of work for the current devs with very limited pay off.

 

Edited October 28 by gameboy1234

[Apogee]

Ahh Everquest, where there was actually a log where people would log out on. So many fond memories

[UltraAlt]

On 10/25/2024 at 11:49 AM, venetiasilver said:

For fun, which Enemy Group do you find to be the most fun to fight, most frustrating to fight, and could be more fun to fight later but they disappear? 

 

Fun

I really don't go out of my way to fight any certain groups, but you have to love fighting Na.... errr... I mean Council and 5th Column.

 

Frustrating

This is a strange question to me.

Any group that has mezes before the same level of player melee characters can gain mez protection are a a bit frustrating. 

But, in general, once you know the "trick" of any group, it makes them far less frustrating.

I really can't make a good call on this because it is sort of archetype related, and I'm pretty patient.

 

More fun to fight later on but disappear

I'm a bit confused about this one.

Are they more fun to fight later on because they are weaker than your character at that point?

On general merit, I would have to say the Minions of Igneous (https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Minions_of_Igneous). They seem to be under used in general.