Challenge Runs

[TheMultiVitamin]

I had a couple of ideas for a few challenge runs and was curious to know what kind of challenges, if any, that any of you might have done!

A few I thought of were:

-Partnership/Sidekick Run: Grab another person, duo through all of the content all the way up to 50, you can't level solo, your partner/sidekick has to be there with you, no multiboxing. Fairly simplistic, but the scheduling is what makes it difficult 😉

-Tip%: Reach level 50 by only doing Tip and Alignment/Morality missions. Pre-level 20 you can do street sweeping, radio band/newspaper and mayhem/safeguard missions, but once you hit 20 you can only do Tip/Alignment/Morality missions. See how long it takes you to reach 50! Honestly there's a TON of them for every 10 level bracket for all 4 alignments, so you hopefully shouldn't be getting repeats unless you decide to not go through all the alignments as you do it.

[Ukase]

The challenge I hate to love and love to hate is what I call "The Drop Challenge". 

And candidly, it's kind of brutal, particularly over level 15, when certain powers require more endurance. For whatever reason, end mod enhancements and recipes drop at a rate of 1:75, if memory serves. Not as rare as a purple recipe, but they sure seem quite rare. 

The challenge is as stated: you can only slot or use what drops. 
Say you get a level 10 Kismet Def/End recipe. 
Not only do you have to wait for the right salvage to drop to craft it, if you want to make a 6% ToHit Kismet, the converters will also have to drop. For those unaware, leveling organically 1-50, a player can expect about 20-30 converters to drop. 
And, because you're gimped - absolutely no teaming, unless it's with others who are in the same challenge. It would be very unsavory for any teammate for you to be playing in such a fashion, missing frequently, and when you are hitting the target, pretty much only doing base damage, plus a little bit if your enhancement is still good. 

The merit vendor is off-limits. 
The AH or other stores are also off-limits to purchases, but you may sell items. (not like you need any inf until 50, when you can say you completed the challenge) 


If you really want to make it tough - if you get defeated, you get deleted. Instantly. 

A heads up: endurance is the biggest issue. Even if you get lucky and get an end mod DO, or a lower level common end mod recipe, these are rarely enough to sustain you. 

I would recommend a character that can mitigate the endurance issues, like radiation powerset with Accelerate metabolism. If melee is your thing, the bio armor is pretty good with the efficiency adaptation. 

Initially when I did this, I used the AE for tickets to acquire the specific salvage for the recipes I got. But then, I figured that was really making things too simple, so I leave that up to you. Maybe allow it your first time, and disallow it if it seemed too easy. 

[TheMultiVitamin]

27 minutes ago, Ukase said:

The challenge I hate to love and love to hate is what I call "The Drop Challenge". 

And candidly, it's kind of brutal, particularly over level 15, when certain powers require more endurance. For whatever reason, end mod enhancements and recipes drop at a rate of 1:75, if memory serves. Not as rare as a purple recipe, but they sure seem quite rare. 

The challenge is as stated: you can only slot or use what drops. 
Say you get a level 10 Kismet Def/End recipe. 
Not only do you have to wait for the right salvage to drop to craft it, if you want to make a 6% ToHit Kismet, the converters will also have to drop. For those unaware, leveling organically 1-50, a player can expect about 20-30 converters to drop. 
And, because you're gimped - absolutely no teaming, unless it's with others who are in the same challenge. It would be very unsavory for any teammate for you to be playing in such a fashion, missing frequently, and when you are hitting the target, pretty much only doing base damage, plus a little bit if your enhancement is still good. 

The merit vendor is off-limits. 
The AH or other stores are also off-limits to purchases, but you may sell items. (not like you need any inf until 50, when you can say you completed the challenge) 


If you really want to make it tough - if you get defeated, you get deleted. Instantly. 

A heads up: endurance is the biggest issue. Even if you get lucky and get an end mod DO, or a lower level common end mod recipe, these are rarely enough to sustain you. 

I would recommend a character that can mitigate the endurance issues, like radiation powerset with Accelerate metabolism. If melee is your thing, the bio armor is pretty good with the efficiency adaptation. 

Initially when I did this, I used the AE for tickets to acquire the specific salvage for the recipes I got. But then, I figured that was really making things too simple, so I leave that up to you. Maybe allow it your first time, and disallow it if it seemed too easy. 

That one actually sounds both insane to do but incredibly fun! If I ever attempt it I'd probably temporarily turn of XP gain every now and again as well, mostly just to farm without gaining XP and making the current enhancements unusable (at least until IO's are acquired).

[Ukase]

37 minutes ago, TheMultiVitamin said:

That one actually sounds both insane to do but incredibly fun!

It can get old, I assure you, lol. 

But one thing it does do, it makes the smallest drops seem more precious than a very rare. When I got my first End Mod DO (not an SO, but a lousy DO) I was giddy. I was happier than when I got my first purple recipe. 

[Trike]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

The challenge is as stated: you can only slot or use what drops.

This is literally how I play regularly. Am I a Natural Hardcore? LoL 

[TheMultiVitamin]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

It can get old, I assure you, lol. 

But one thing it does do, it makes the smallest drops seem more precious than a very rare. When I got my first End Mod DO (not an SO, but a lousy DO) I was giddy. I was happier than when I got my first purple recipe. 

Oh I imagine it can lol, but it's still something neat to do for a run or 2. And yea it's always neat how challenges can make use appreciate things more then normal.

 

42 minutes ago, Trike said:

This is literally how I play regularly. Am I a Natural Hardcore? LoL 

Too powerful sir/ma'am/person, we're gonna need you to power down, your sheer aura is messing with our powers ;-;

[Snarky]

the challenge runs i do tend to be "solo every redside contact"  or "solo all contacts"  in truth blue is a pita and i have only successfully done it once

[Magical]

I know a couple people on excel that do 4* advanced difficulty challenge runs. all ___ AT, all melee, all ___ powerset etc. anyone who thinks the game is too easy should go join them, I can introduce you.

all melee is actually somewhat challenging, it's not that straightforward to get the dps and mit you need when there's no kin around and no debuffs going out.

I also once ran into a group doing some super hard ae missions. that was the only fun in ae I've ever had, wish I could find them again

[ChzBoi]

...oh good...I can mention this again: "OneSlot Challenge".......can only slot 1 enhancement in a power......!  😋
 

[Ukase]

On 11/3/2024 at 1:43 PM, ChzBoi said:

can only slot 1 enhancement in a power

There goes the way of madness! 

[ChzBoi]

7 hours ago, Ukase said:

There goes the way of madness! 

...of course...but it's all good....

 

[Snarky]

On 11/3/2024 at 5:20 AM, Ukase said:

The challenge I hate to love and love to hate is what I call "The Drop Challenge". 

And candidly, it's kind of brutal, particularly over level 15, when certain powers require more endurance. For whatever reason, end mod enhancements and recipes drop at a rate of 1:75, if memory serves. Not as rare as a purple recipe, but they sure seem quite rare. 

The challenge is as stated: you can only slot or use what drops. 
Say you get a level 10 Kismet Def/End recipe. 
Not only do you have to wait for the right salvage to drop to craft it, if you want to make a 6% ToHit Kismet, the converters will also have to drop. For those unaware, leveling organically 1-50, a player can expect about 20-30 converters to drop. 
And, because you're gimped - absolutely no teaming, unless it's with others who are in the same challenge. It would be very unsavory for any teammate for you to be playing in such a fashion, missing frequently, and when you are hitting the target, pretty much only doing base damage, plus a little bit if your enhancement is still good. 

The merit vendor is off-limits. 
The AH or other stores are also off-limits to purchases, but you may sell items. (not like you need any inf until 50, when you can say you completed the challenge) 


If you really want to make it tough - if you get defeated, you get deleted. Instantly. 

A heads up: endurance is the biggest issue. Even if you get lucky and get an end mod DO, or a lower level common end mod recipe, these are rarely enough to sustain you. 

I would recommend a character that can mitigate the endurance issues, like radiation powerset with Accelerate metabolism. If melee is your thing, the bio armor is pretty good with the efficiency adaptation. 

Initially when I did this, I used the AE for tickets to acquire the specific salvage for the recipes I got. But then, I figured that was really making things too simple, so I leave that up to you. Maybe allow it your first time, and disallow it if it seemed too easy. 

Can you stop experience with this and just run content to get enhancers.  Like run 10 dfbs when stuff gets ihly and refresh all your SOs, or most of them?  

[Ukase]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

Can you stop experience with this and just run content to get enhancers.  Like run 10 dfbs when stuff gets ihly and refresh all your SOs, or most of them?  

The option is there, but I never did. I might have done one DFB, but I've never done more than 2 in a row, mainly because I didn't want to outlevel the Hollows contacts, or Atlas contacts for that matter. 

 
But, upgrading is not allowed - because it's essentially an expensive trip to a store. (super convenient, but still like a store) 

By finishing all the contacts in The Hollows is not only a badge, but a free 20 reward merits. 
Same with the Atlas Park contacts. The problem with Atlas is you have to go through Ouro to get Sondra Costel or Officer Fields, because there's no way to do both. (Well, you might be able to if you shut off XP, but outside of some crawl teams, I never have shut it off. At least, I don't remember ever having turned it off) 

For the purposes of my challenges, while my character has no use for the merits, I have alts that would certainly use them. So, at 50, my marketer might "buy" all those merits exchanged into converters for the going price. Getting the inf from the marketer is fine, because I can't spend any inf anyway in the course of the challenge. 

Again - if anyone is silly enough to try this challenge, be sure to find an AT/powerset combo that can mitigate endurance issues. It's the biggest hassle of the entire challenge. 

[Snarky]

43 minutes ago, Ukase said:

The option is there, but I never did. I might have done one DFB, but I've never done more than 2 in a row, mainly because I didn't want to outlevel the Hollows contacts, or Atlas contacts for that matter. 

 
But, upgrading is not allowed - because it's essentially an expensive trip to a store. (super convenient, but still like a store) 

By finishing all the contacts in The Hollows is not only a badge, but a free 20 reward merits. 
Same with the Atlas Park contacts. The problem with Atlas is you have to go through Ouro to get Sondra Costel or Officer Fields, because there's no way to do both. (Well, you might be able to if you shut off XP, but outside of some crawl teams, I never have shut it off. At least, I don't remember ever having turned it off) 

For the purposes of my challenges, while my character has no use for the merits, I have alts that would certainly use them. So, at 50, my marketer might "buy" all those merits exchanged into converters for the going price. Getting the inf from the marketer is fine, because I can't spend any inf anyway in the course of the challenge. 

Again - if anyone is silly enough to try this challenge, be sure to find an AT/powerset combo that can mitigate endurance issues. It's the biggest hassle of the entire challenge. 

well, the SOs drop from dfb, so tend runs is 50? random SOs at your level. without visiting a "store"

 

but getting a endmod?  not sure i ever seen one drop

[Ukase]

3 minutes ago, Snarky said:

but getting a endmod?  not sure i ever seen one drop

Per the HC Wiki, you can see End Mod has a 1 in 175 chance to drop. And that doesn't even guarantee it will be your origin! That's what makes this challenge so insanely stupid. When you get one, you feel like you got a very rare recipe! 

 

Unfortunately, the HC Wiki does not (at least, not that I could find) show a drop rate for end mod recipes. Even on my farmers, I seldom see them. The market reflects the rarity of them. 
I do not grasp why end mods are so rare, other than typically, most folks wouldn't use more than 3 in a given power due to the diminishing returns of slotting more. And, in most powersets, there's only a couple of powers that might accept them. Unlike the Acc/dam/recharge/end reduction - which many powers can take. 

Still, simply due to endurance issues, this challenge is best suited for AT/powersets that can minimize the pain from lack of endurance. 
A kin would be very painful, because transference comes fairly late. 
But a rad defender gets AM at level 4. 

A bio tank, or any bio melee could use adaptation to reduce the end use to a degree. 

I don't think Rad armor gives quite enough end recovery soon enough to be of consideration. And electric armor...well, I couldn't make it work, but maybe someone else can. 
 

[Snarky]

33 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Per the HC Wiki, you can see End Mod has a 1 in 175 chance to drop. And that doesn't even guarantee it will be your origin! That's what makes this challenge so insanely stupid. When you get one, you feel like you got a very rare recipe! 

 

Unfortunately, the HC Wiki does not (at least, not that I could find) show a drop rate for end mod recipes. Even on my farmers, I seldom see them. The market reflects the rarity of them. 
I do not grasp why end mods are so rare, other than typically, most folks wouldn't use more than 3 in a given power due to the diminishing returns of slotting more. And, in most powersets, there's only a couple of powers that might accept them. Unlike the Acc/dam/recharge/end reduction - which many powers can take. 

Still, simply due to endurance issues, this challenge is best suited for AT/powersets that can minimize the pain from lack of endurance. 
A kin would be very painful, because transference comes fairly late. 
But a rad defender gets AM at level 4. 

A bio tank, or any bio melee could use adaptation to reduce the end use to a degree. 

I don't think Rad armor gives quite enough end recovery soon enough to be of consideration. And electric armor...well, I couldn't make it work, but maybe someone else can. 
 

cool, simple enough.  every 4-5 levels run 500 or so DFBs.  guaranteed to be your origin.

if it cant be done with brute force you are not trying hard enough....

 

 

[TheMultiVitamin]

On 11/3/2024 at 12:43 PM, ChzBoi said:

...oh good...I can mention this again: "OneSlot Challenge".......can only slot 1 enhancement in a power......!  😋
 

Oh god that sounds like both a pain and honestly pretty interesting...

[TheMultiVitamin]

On 11/3/2024 at 8:41 AM, Snarky said:

the challenge runs i do tend to be "solo every redside contact"  or "solo all contacts"  in truth blue is a pita and i have only successfully done it once

I'm doing that with my blueside speedster right now! (new post cause I could not for the life of me figure out how to add the quote to my previous post via editing)

[High_Beam]

On 11/6/2024 at 10:08 AM, Ukase said:

There goes the way of madness! 

One . . . Step . . . Beyond!

[gameboy1234]

On 11/3/2024 at 7:41 AM, Snarky said:

the challenge runs i do tend to be "solo every redside contact"  or "solo all contacts"  in truth blue is a pita and i have only successfully done it once

 

This for me also.  I often try to "do content" and read the text blocks and such, to try to get a sense of how the game was meant to be understood by the developers.  Too often doing content in teams simply means smashing your way through large spawns until you get to the end.

[TheMultiVitamin]

1 hour ago, gameboy1234 said:

 

This for me also.  I often try to "do content" and read the text blocks and such, to try to get a sense of how the game was meant to be understood by the developers.  Too often doing content in teams simply means smashing your way through large spawns until you get to the end.

Agreed, I started doing solo content as well cause of that.

[Greycat]

The "sidekick run" sounds like some teams I've heard of and played on. (Had friends that did all Shield characters, all Electric, etc. And with the electric we put in the ... forget which endmod set, but the "chance to stun" proc in pretty much everything. It was fun.)

 

I know of people who have done "poolboy" challenges... where pretty much everything had to be a pool power (after the first few levels, where you don't get a choice.) Also had heard of someone doing "only brawl" - granted, sets in everything else and a heavily procced out brawl, which apparently did surprising amounts of damage, but they could only attack with Brawl.

 

The stuff I've done has generally been long term (and probably related to all the alts) - getting one of each control set to 50, for instance.  One of each AT to 50, one of each armor set, etc. Even Epic ATs can lead to a number of alts... Khelds? Not just Peacebringer and Warshade, but  - say - human, human/nova, human/dwarf, triform, and inhuman (using human form as little as possible, sticking mostly with nova/dwarf,) or SoAs - Widow, Fortunata, Bane, Crab, Huntsman (basically bane but sticking with the rifle versus the mace.)