I really wanted to enjoy Synapes WSTs this week

[kelika2]

I really did.

But the amount of shitty players this time around totally overwhelmed me.

people who have hurricane on all the time and gale but then scream bloody murder if you kick them

the mindless dregs who frontload their respecs/builds with power pools who complain about being bored with one or two attacks

and the people whos minds are eroded to speed only even when clearly said not speed instantly taking off on the first stealthable mission.  they dont fucking reply to "this isnt speed please come back" but suddenly they have a voice after getting kicked

 

and its monday, the grand people with their A-game alts refreshed and good to go are suppost to be here and hitting hard until thursday or so

 

the ingame community is turning to shit and i dont know if things will get better

[Uncle Shags]

Alternative perspective:

Synapse is a horrible tf. It's long, boring, repetitive, and made worse due to lack of access to many powers. Most people who thought "OK, I don't need to speed..." are going to be smashing their face into the keyboard by the 1.5 hour mark, screaming "When will it end?! Please, God, can it just end?!" 

 

I only ever do it for the accolade, and hate it every time. 

 

Also, take a deep breath.  The sky isn't falling. 

[biostem]

59 minutes ago, kelika2 said:

the ingame community is turning to shit and i dont know if things will get better

If people joined, knowing that it wasn't going to be a speed run, and they went off on their own anyway, then that is definitely a dick move on their part.  That being said, people may not be aware of the actual time requirement for the TF, or perhaps they just want to get credit/rewards for the WST, and yours was the first announcement they saw.  I guess what I'm getting at is that some people see these longer, older TFs as something you just have to "get through", and all other impediments be damned...

Edited yesterday at 06:44 AM by biostem

[Sovera]

Completely different experience in Everlasting. We go in, we have a chuckle. I'm always the lead so I coordinate TTs. It's common to do it in an hour even without stealthing and since I only do it when I'm leveling I don't push for stealth since I want the XP.

[Maelwys]

3 hours ago, Uncle Shags said:

I only ever do it for the accolade, and hate it every time. 

Get the accolade RedSide instead. Chugging through the mayhems solo takes considerably less time than it does for a PUG to complete a Synapse.

[ZamuelNow]

By some weird fluke, Synapse is currently my most run TF on Homecoming.  While not mindblowing, I've never had a bad time on one.  While my kneejerk reaction is asking what server the OP played on, I think the more overt issue is that it was played on a Monday.  I'd think that the people most aggressive about trying to speed run would be on the first and last days.

[tidge]

7 hours ago, kelika2 said:

the mindless dregs who frontload their respecs/builds with power pools who complain about being bored with one or two attacks

 

This bit I snipped isn't specific to the Synapse, but this is a good place to see this issue(*1). FWIW, even on characters for which I don't have many attacks, I usually try to have some plasmatic tasers or hand grenades in the pockets; each is a relatively temp power from S.T.A.R.T.

 

(*1) The issue being: players with relatively ineffective characters for low level content. The number one head-scratcher for me is the commonly-seen-in-build recommendation to take Hasten at level 4, although any time Hasten is taken much earlier than a power with something like a 60+ base second recharge is available seems wasteful IMO. I suppose there are REALLY tight builds possible, but usually those I've seen also have more than one pool power picked before level 20.

[srmalloy]

7 hours ago, Uncle Shags said:

Synapse is a horrible tf. It's long, boring, repetitive, and made worse due to lack of access to many powers.

"...made worse due to lack of access to many powers" ...if you wait until you've leveled to 50 and only then go back and do his TF. Run it at level or close to level, and you don't even have those powers whose inaccessibility you bemoan. Whining about not being able to use powers you wouldn't have had at that level is bootless.

[Snarky]

Synapse is a dice roll.  People do not have slots to invest in things like KB->KD and are experimenting with new powers.  Makes it hilarious.  Be patient and relax into the madness

 

Edited yesterday at 02:02 PM by Snarky

[Water]

20 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Synapse is a dice roll... Makes it hilarious...

 

 

Pretty much. I find more enjoyment watching the fray from a distance than being in the middle of it. Take a ranged and watch the stupidity (on occasion my own).

 

 

 

 

 

[High_Beam]

Back in the day the OG Positron Task Force was the evil, terrible, no good slog of Task Forces, amplified in its terribleness early on by some of the game mechanics that later changed (auto-sidekick/exemplar, auto-re-join if DC).  That is the past and the now is that Synapse is the new Positron.  And while its annoying, it gets painted with a broader hate brush than it deserves, a lot of it heavily based on the aforementioned bad build characters.

 

I do not believe everything should be easy or quick.  With that said, it could be tightened up for sure, a number of its missions killed and the exposition in them relocated to what remains.  What I fond most ironic is that the fight against the King is always anticlimactic; Babbage a tougher fight and there is no unique Clockwork Throne Room which would be a great cap to the creepy aesthetic of the joint.

 

With all of that said, I do Synapse once per character, for the badge, not the Accolade, the Synapse Badge that says I persevered through the suck.

[TheMoneyMaker]

Synapse and Positron TFs suck.  Just copy someone else's homework to get the badge

[Skyhawke]

*Mission doors all over the place

*Loooooong traveling unless you're lucky to get people with team transport (40/60 usually)

*So. Many. Samey. Maps. 

*Everything High_Beam just said

 

Add that together and insert at least a couple "bad" players and their negatives increase 10 fold. I've done Yinns that had the worst players, but it's fast and can be bulled through. Synapse bulls back. 

Edited yesterday at 03:38 PM by Skyhawke

[Lockpick]

9 hours ago, Uncle Shags said:

Alternative perspective:

Synapse is a horrible tf. It's long, boring, repetitive, and made worse due to lack of access to many powers. Most people who thought "OK, I don't need to speed..." are going to be smashing their face into the keyboard by the 1.5 hour mark, screaming "When will it end?! Please, God, can it just end?!" 

 

I only ever do it for the accolade, and hate it every time. 

 

Also, take a deep breath.  The sky isn't falling. 

 

Agrred, and I usually solo it if I feel my character can do it, because I can finish in 60 to 70 minutes and I have been in bad groups that are 90+.

[tidge]

The original Positron TF had (and still has, via Ouroboros) one nice feature: it is soloable by pretty much any AT, at level.

 

Of course in the way-old days, you needed a team to start the TF, but it wasn't unusual for players to give up and quit, which would allow those who didn't quit to finish it (solo).

 

Synapse isn't as easy to solo at-level, but if exemplared down it is completely do-able, especially with any sort of temp summon for the final mission.

[RCU7115]

The thing I hate about the Synapse TF is the first 5 missions are kill alls. The first mission always has the biggest map. If they could just take 2 of the first 5 missions and give them a defeat boss/minions instead it would take 10 minutes or more of boredom out of the TF.

[Uun]

Saturday Night Synapse, run weekly at 8pm Eastern on Torchbearer by @Kalikamata. Synapse run in league format, with the Babbage spawns coordinated. Most fun you will ever have running Synapse. A new record was set this week with 31 Babbages spawned.

 

[SeraphimKensai]

I typically form my own with the goal to get it over as soon as it's done. Otherwise if I wake up on the weekend early enough where I'm the only person awake on the server I'll occasionally triple box synapse for double merits and just fly through it as fast as I can only logging the alts in for Babbage and the king.

[catsi563]

heck I run Task Force Madness sometimes running posi 1-2 and synapse and yin back to back or running just the individuals or running Cit Manti and Numina all in a row

 

the TFs are fun generally done in an hour or less each on a casual kill as we go speed and lots of fun

 

so look me up on any of the shards and Ill run anyone through the TFs including katie hannon and Moonfire as well

Edited yesterday at 05:31 PM by catsi563

[srmalloy]

2 hours ago, High_Beam said:

amplified in its terribleness early on by some of the game mechanics that later changed (auto-sidekick/exemplar, auto-re-join if DC).

Watching a TF completely fall apart because connection problems caused two of the low-level exemplar anchors to disconnect for longer than the 'grace window', kicking their exemplars from the TF... Or having to run the OG Positron TF in a single sitting, because while everyone could log out and back in the next day to finish, if the low-level exemplar anchors didn't log in before the exemplars did, the exemplars would be autokicked...

[Jacke]

3 hours ago, tidge said:

The original Positron TF had (and still has, via Ouroboros) one nice feature: it is soloable by pretty much any AT, at level.

 

Of course in the way-old days, you needed a team to start the TF, but it wasn't unusual for players to give up and quit, which would allow those who didn't quit to finish it (solo).

 

Way back in the day, pre-Shutdown, in 2007 during Issue 9, I think, I was on a Positron Task Force on my main AR/Devices Blaster.  Can't remember how many we started with, but by the last mission had gotten down to 3 Players including me.  However, the other 2 decided to give up on the Task Force.  So there I was on the finalé of the Positron TF, on a mission set for 3 Toons.  (Had no knowledge of the time on how to reset TF missions.)

 

It was brutal.  I kept defeating the mobs until they defeated me.  Then it was run back from the Hospital in Steel Canyon to the mission door in Perez Park to rinse and repeat.  I remember this one spot in a hallway where it widened out so that there was a spawn left and right.  It was particularly hard to grind down.

 

But I persevered and won!  Got a L15 Celerity: Stealth Recipe.  Which started my pursuit of stealth for all my Toons.  😺

 

 

[kelika2]

12 hours ago, Uncle Shags said:

Alternative perspective:

Synapse is a horrible tf. It's long, boring, repetitive, and made worse due to lack of access to many powers.

1 hour is not long, 45 minutes if your group is good.  anything longer than an hour is the reason i made this thread, bad players

its only boring if you make it boring.  ex two trAvel powers, tough/weave and shit at such a low level

the whole game is repetitive, its not just unique to synapes.  what you thought the pinnacle of gaming was having some dark novas appear in ITF?  oh what about a mission of council instead of freaks in yin?  please note that a lot of KM ITFs are 30-60 mins.  please remember all the sidekicks that might appear before you go nuts on me how your highly specialized group of friends that are +4s running on constant Ultimates did it in 9 minutes

and 2 or so years ago the devs did a level-available squish.  things that were available at level 28 are now at level 24, things that were level 26 are now level 22.  mastermind pets, burn, invincibility, defender oil slick, peacebringers solar flare and light drones, shades corpse explosion and pet are all things that are now available in synapes

 

if you dont do a proper respec with exemplaring in mind you have zero clout to call something boring, because that is 100% on you if you took one of those lazyass slapped together forum builds or you just not caring because you hate doing respecs.  to put the forum builds thing into perspective, assuming you even get the reference, i want you to imagine someone on nexusmods's skyrim section uploading HUNDREDS of character presets using Bodyslide and thinking thats good content

 

you can put off the fighting pool until late 20s/30s/40s.  not much will be kicking your ass THAT HARD that you need to dedicate 3 power picks to it so early.  most of the early game is not s/l anyways

You dont NEED more than one travel power.  it blows my god damn mind watching someone with SS and SJ still in positron

[JasperStone]

5 hours ago, Snarky said:

Synapse is a dice roll.  People do not have slots to invest in things like KB->KD and are experimenting with new powers.  Makes it hilarious.  Be patient and relax into the madness

I almost shared this a few weeks ago... but now seems good.

 

I joined a PUG Synapse a few weeks ago. Needed that badge.

 

As we waited to fill a bit more, the team banter showed that these players either ran together in an SG or just played together regularly.

 

We fill, and team leader says, "+3 good for XP?"

This was immediately followed by several "yes!"

...

+3 was not in the invite.

For XP, it meant these were not fleshed-out characters playing low-level.

I just about slammed my head on the desk.

 

*sigh* I glance at the time ... well, it's gonna be a bit longer than expected.

A slog-fest it was.

Many deaths. MANY.

 

BUT

It was a pretty chill experience.

The players knew HOW to play the characters and were unfazed when they went down.

 

The team banter was above anything I experienced to date.

Amusing stuff.

 

Yes, it took WAY longer than usual.

This group was unfazed by that.

Overall, it was a good time.

 

 

 

[Snarky]

13 minutes ago, JasperStone said:

I almost shared this a few weeks ago... but now seems good.

 

I joined a PUG Synapse a few weeks ago. Needed that badge.

 

As we waited to fill a bit more, the team banter showed that these players either ran together in an SG or just played together regularly.

 

We fill, and team leader says, "+3 good for XP?"

This was immediately followed by several "yes!"

...

+3 was not in the invite.

For XP, it meant these were not fleshed-out characters playing low-level.

I just about slammed my head on the desk.

 

*sigh* I glance at the time ... well, it's gonna be a bit longer than expected.

A slog-fest it was.

Many deaths. MANY.

 

BUT

It was a pretty chill experience.

The players knew HOW to play the characters and were unfazed when they went down.

 

The team banter was above anything I experienced to date.

Amusing stuff.

 

Yes, it took WAY longer than usual.

This group was unfazed by that.

Overall, it was a good time.

 

 

 

I love the fact every CoH group has their own rhythm.   

[ZacKing]

You all should run Synapse on Saturday evenings over on Torchbearer for the SNS league.  Always great fun.  Last week set a new record - 31 Babbages at once!