MSR and various societal norms

[dude_242]

I remember enjoying the Rikti MSRs back in the day.

 

I hadn't yet had the opportunity to try them out in Homecoming.  And based on what I've read here, I don't think I'll bother - it seems like there are plenty of other options for fun / xp / whatever that would be a more efficient use of my time.

 

Actually, done right, with a nearly full league, and ship raids are one of the more lucrative passtimes in the game.

45 minutes (roughly)

1-2 levels worth of XP.

800-1600 Vanguard Merits

 

As for "control freaks".

 

Normally my main thing isn't really people who leapfrog pylons.

Just, if someone is going to clear pylons BEFORE the actual event?  NOTIFY the raid leader so they can just SKIP them.  It's annoying to run out to a pylon site and find it empty.

 

Also, people hopping into the bowl to drag U'kon.

I normally ask people NOT to do this.

I prefer just zerging the bowl as, post-Incarnates, we have people who are MORE than tough enough jump into that and take no damage, and they can grab aggro in the initial seconds.

And it gives EVERYONE a chance to get into the bowl and take their whack at U'kon to get the Reward Merits.

It also gives people killed during the bomb phase a chance to hosp or rezz and get buffed super-shiny by the pre-zerg crowd.

 

My preference is to have the tanks/brutes/scrappers drag enemies all the way down into the "green monster" heal-cloud in the bowl.

 

1: If tanks are too far from their teammates, they do not get credit for team kills of Rikti and their teammates don't get credit for their kills.

2: Dragging them down into the bowl gets them killed off faster, rather than dueling with one group of 10 for the entire 45 minutes.

 

This way the raid is more lucrative for EVERYONE.

 

 

 

And the final thing is pets.  Purely for practical reason.

The game has a maximum number of entities that it'll render into a secene.

Beyond that, other enemies simply aren't shown.

Mastermind and other pets (including Incarnates) count against this.

Too many MM players or everyone sporting pets simultaneously means we can't see EACH OTHER, let alone all the pets!

If you can't target, you have to hope tabbing through to acquire an enemy will work.

And not being able to see anything is kinda a buzzkill.

 

On a full league, I generally ask that pets be limited to MM standard powers pets.

 

On a non-full league, I try to condense into as few teams as possible.  And then I'll let people know they can start popping pets if they want.

 

This is a great post, Hyperstrike.  I also do the zerg style rush to the middle.  I also call for lots of heals just to make sure they're poppin'.  In my opinion, MSR raids are one of the best ways to level up in the game.  I've also met quite a few cool people in game just by doing raids.  If you get to going with some regularity, you'll notice a lot of the same people showing up over and over.  There's some amusing banter that goes on, and I just find it a generally fun time.  Now, it must be noted, that this is a very different way of playing the game compared to doing radio missions or even task forces.  I can understand how people would find it boring and/or graphically annoying enough to not do MSRs.

 

As a side note, I wasn't aware of the pet thing.  Very interesting!

[Hyperstrike]

Plus, raids are GREAT opportunities for odd, humorous conversations!

 

Some of the crap I've heard on raids made me SO glad I wasn't drinking anything at the time....

[Robotech_Master]

If you get the timing exactly right, you can actually plant two bombs on a raid--one at the beginning, and one exactly 30 minutes later. Raids last just slightly longer than 30 minutes, so the opportunity is there if you plant really early and really late. Apparently it doesn't actually extend the length of the raid, oh well, but that's still two bombs' worth of credit toward the badge, I think.

 

Also, on the raids I've been on, I've nearly never had people call out specific pylons in specific order. People generally just sweep counter-clockwise and head to the nearest one next, and it seems to work out fine. I'm not sure that level of micromanagement is really necessary when most people already know what they're doing.

[Apparition]

I remember enjoying the Rikti MSRs back in the day.

 

I hadn't yet had the opportunity to try them out in Homecoming.  And based on what I've read here, I don't think I'll bother - it seems like there are plenty of other options for fun / xp / whatever that would be a more efficient use of my time.

 

That's the decision I reached after attending a few.

[Ukase]

I want to thank all of you for taking the time to reply.

 

Hyperstrike - what server are you on, leading these raids?

 

 

As for FPS, Lag, and all the reasons not to do the MSR -- I don't have those problems. I guess I'm fortunate that my system seems to handle the large zone events like MSR and Hami without any problems. Everything in computers will bottleneck somewhere, no matter how good the system, so I'm certainly not immune to such things, but they just haven't impacted me, aside from some targeting issues - which I took for the league killing quickly.

 

It's been a few days, and particularly trying to look inward, it's true that it was my own enjoyment in busting the grate open and watching the ritki simply be unable to hit me while the progress bar slides down is what I was after.

 

As stated by one of the earlier responders, it's just not worth it for me to worry about things outside of my control. I had just hoped that there was a prevailing norm that I could call upon, that maybe I'd missed.

 

As for pylon order - who came up with the odd numbering system for those anyway? Seems like they expected us to do 2 revolutions around the mothership for some reason. <shrug> That said, I remember in live, playing on Liberty, and then Champion. The same event - but a different meeting point, and a different pylon order for each server.  Ultimately, the order isn't that big of a deal, but having the league split means less merits for them and me, unless someone on my team splits from me. (something I now communicate prior to the raid)

 

As for the time invested for a relatively small return - that will vary with all of us.

[Sothoth]

Plus, raids are GREAT opportunities for odd, humorous conversations!

 

Some of the crap I've heard on raids made me SO glad I wasn't drinking anything at the time....

 

We had a great time last night making Rikti puns on Excelsior.

Rikti Ricardo - U'Kon, you got a lot of 'splainin to do!

[Coyotedancer]

All I'm going to say is LISTEN TO HYPER.

 

Hyper is wise.

And a damned fine raid leader.

 

When it comes to kicking copious Rikti butt, he knows what he's talking about.

[Hyperstrike]

All I'm going to say is LISTEN TO HYPER.

 

Hyper is wise.

And a damned fine raid leader.

 

When it comes to kicking copious Rikti butt, he knows what he's talking about.

 

I will say that I have a speck or two of Rikti poo on my shoe...

8)

[mousestalker]

The movie quotes were coming fast and furious on Everlasting this afternoon. There were a couple of minutes of nothing but Monty Python. :D

[Apparition]

As for pylon order - who came up with the odd numbering system for those anyway? Seems like they expected us to do 2 revolutions around the mothership for some reason. <shrug> That said, I remember in live, playing on Liberty, and then Champion. The same event - but a different meeting point, and a different pylon order for each server.  Ultimately, the order isn't that big of a deal, but having the league split means less merits for them and me, unless someone on my team splits from me. (something I now communicate prior to the raid)

 

Yeah.  I lead Rikti mothership raids on the Champion server for years.  Then when the Exalted server opened in 2011, I moved there for several months and lead Rikti mothership raids there.  There was also someone else on Exalted that lead Rikti mothership raids, and as we came from different servers, we had different meeting points and different Pylon orders.  I would have everyone meet on the rooftop next to Pylon 17, and start there, working clockwise.  The other Rikti mothership raid leader had everyone meet at Point du Hoc and start there.  It confused everyone at first, but people got the hang of it.

 

Now, at least on Excelsior, just about every raid starts at Point du Hoc which seems somewhat foreign to me as a Champion bred Rikti mothership raid organizer. :D

 

[Hyperstrike]

As for pylon order - who came up with the odd numbering system for those anyway? Seems like they expected us to do 2 revolutions around the mothership for some reason. <shrug> That said, I remember in live, playing on Liberty, and then Champion. The same event - but a different meeting point, and a different pylon order for each server.  Ultimately, the order isn't that big of a deal, but having the league split means less merits for them and me, unless someone on my team splits from me. (something I now communicate prior to the raid)

 

Yeah.  I lead Rikti mothership raids on the Champion server for years.  Then when the Exalted server opened in 2011, I moved there for several months and lead Rikti mothership raids there.  There was also someone else on Exalted that lead Rikti mothership raids, and as we came from different servers, we had different meeting points and different Pylon orders.  I would have everyone meet on the rooftop next to Pylon 17, and start there, working clockwise.  The other Rikti mothership raid leader had everyone meet at Point du Hoc and start there.  It confused everyone at first, but people got the hang of it.

 

Now, at least on Excelsior, just about every raid starts at Point du Hoc which seems somewhat foreign to me as a Champion bred Rikti mothership raid organizer. :D

 

 

Protector, AFAIK, always started out at PDH.

It provides a nice gathering point, relatively safe from pylon fire.

 

That and during Halloween events, provides the league with something to do (ToT) while waiting.

[Apparition]

Yeah.  I lead Rikti mothership raids on the Champion server for years.  Then when the Exalted server opened in 2011, I moved there for several months and lead Rikti mothership raids there.  There was also someone else on Exalted that lead Rikti mothership raids, and as we came from different servers, we had different meeting points and different Pylon orders.  I would have everyone meet on the rooftop next to Pylon 17, and start there, working clockwise.  The other Rikti mothership raid leader had everyone meet at Point du Hoc and start there.  It confused everyone at first, but people got the hang of it.

 

Now, at least on Excelsior, just about every raid starts at Point du Hoc which seems somewhat foreign to me as a Champion bred Rikti mothership raid organizer. :D

 

 

Protector, AFAIK, always started out at PDH.

It provides a nice gathering point, relatively safe from pylon fire.

 

That and during Halloween events, provides the league with something to do (ToT) while waiting.

 

Champion server Rikti mothership raids started at the rooftop next to Pylon 17 a year and a half or so before I began leading them.  I believe that the thinking was that it was the closest Pylon to the Vanguard base, was a relatively safe meeting area from the Pylons, and was a good starting point to take the Pylons down clockwise.

[Hyperstrike]

Yeah.  I lead Rikti mothership raids on the Champion server for years.  Then when the Exalted server opened in 2011, I moved there for several months and lead Rikti mothership raids there.  There was also someone else on Exalted that lead Rikti mothership raids, and as we came from different servers, we had different meeting points and different Pylon orders.  I would have everyone meet on the rooftop next to Pylon 17, and start there, working clockwise.  The other Rikti mothership raid leader had everyone meet at Point du Hoc and start there.  It confused everyone at first, but people got the hang of it.

 

Now, at least on Excelsior, just about every raid starts at Point du Hoc which seems somewhat foreign to me as a Champion bred Rikti mothership raid organizer. :D

 

 

Protector, AFAIK, always started out at PDH.

It provides a nice gathering point, relatively safe from pylon fire.

 

That and during Halloween events, provides the league with something to do (ToT) while waiting.

 

Champion server Rikti mothership raids started at the rooftop next to Pylon 17 a year and a half or so before I began leading them.  I believe that the thinking was that it was the closest Pylon to the Vanguard base, was a relatively safe meeting area from the Pylons, and was a good starting point to take the Pylons down clockwise.

 

While it might sound "elitist", PDH kinda REQUIRES characters to make the "death march" out.  Generally, if you're tough or fast enough to get there, you're tough or fast enough to be something OTHER than venge-bait during the raid.

 

Right after the advent of the Mission Teleporter (not Transporter), we had a flood of ultra-lowbies in the zone.  When half the league is under 20, that severely compromises the league.

 

Hell, my FF defender, whom I use to lead raids now, GREW UP in the War Zone from such abuse.

 

[bubbleshot] L20 FF/Arch Defender looking for raid!

[Random Raider] OMG?

[Random Raider2] WTF?

[Random Raider3] BBQ?

 

Granted, on that first raid, I was the ONLY one under 35.

 

We're a BIT more relaxed now.  But ultra-lowbies usually get picked LAST.

Primarily from a practical standpoint, as I fill the first two slots in each team with a 50+ to give us general protection against a catastrophic team de-level from disconnections.

[Apparition]

While it might sound "elitist", PDH kinda REQUIRES characters to make the "death march" out.  Generally, if you're tough or fast enough to get there, you're tough or fast enough to be something OTHER than venge-bait during the raid.

 

Right after the advent of the Mission Teleporter (not Transporter), we had a flood of ultra-lowbies in the zone.  When half the league is under 20, that severely compromises the league.

 

Eh.  Considering that you can now have Super Speed and a Stealth IO by level 14, making it from the Vanguard base to Point du Hoc isn't a big deal.

 

I agree though about the lowbies.  I think the removal of the level 35 prerequisite (somewhere around Issue 16 I want to say), to get into the RWZ was a mistake, but c'est la vie.  But I don't think having the raid start in Point du Hoc in comparison to the rooftop next to Pylon 17 makes any difference there.

[Erydanus]

I feel like pylon calling is completely pointless. When we were originally doing raids we didn't have leagues so one team would be starting the raid. Calling pylon order in broadcast helped anyone else who was tagging along but it wasn't necessary. One team is all that's necessary to start a raid. When you have a full league it'd be much better to assign each team about 3 pylons to go after or else just sic the whole league on one starting pylon and have it zerg in one direction and meet at the designated last pylon. Organizing pylon order is totally overkill.

 

Now, grates? I can agree those should ideally be assigned just to make sure every team gets one, even if it's just each team leader grabs a fresh one and their team meets on them. I have actually been on raids where, thanks to lag and people moving out of sync and jumping right to the center, multiple bombs were not set.

[Hyperstrike]

Pylon calling is only MOSTLY pointless.

 

It's a service to people who may not be familiar with a certain Raid-Leader's preferred order.

 

I generally ask if there's anyone who HASN'T run the raids with me before.

 

If there's nobody, I'll sometimes dispense with pylon calling.

[Ironblade]

I remember enjoying the Rikti MSRs back in the day.

 

I hadn't yet had the opportunity to try them out in Homecoming.  And based on what I've read here, I don't think I'll bother - it seems like there are plenty of other options for fun / xp / whatever that would be a more efficient use of my time.

Don't let a handful of cranky people influence your decisions of what to do in the game.  Try everything again.  Back in the day, I did MSR's occasionally - once a week or so.  And I've been doing them with about the same frequency now.  They're just as fun as they used to be.

 

On a side note, the conversion from Vanguard Merits to Reward Merits is irrelevant to me.  I stockpile VMerits to buy the Vanguard Heavy temp pet.