page 3 [FOCUSED FEEDBACK] The Golden Rule - Marigold 'Zoe' Langston's Task Force (Level 40-50)

[The Curator]

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New Task Force

The Golden Rule - Marigold 'Zoe' Langston's Task Force (Level 40-50)

“Langston Corporation has been perpetually busy since their arrival in Kallisti Wharf, and it's now been revealed that they've been collaborating on a joint project with Portal Corporation. One that Marigold Langston promises will change the inter-dimensional landscape forever!

Unfortunately, an emergency has struck that threatens to throw the whole project into disarray: Nemesis has kidnapped several key Langston Corp scientists in an effort to steal the technology himself, or if nothing else, ensure it can never be used against him.

 

Marigold Langston has received official clearance from Paragon City to assemble a super-powered task force of competent individuals who aren't afraid of the threat posed by the Prussian Prince of Automatons. This job will involve delivering a counter-offensive to Nemesis' operations, something not many can claim to have done, but the Gold Bricker's heiress has some tricks of her own she believes will even the odds."

 

 

• CONTACT: Marigold 'Zoe' Langston  /thumbtack 477 -279 3903 

• LOCATION: Kallisti Wharf
• ALIGNMENT / LEVEL: Hero (+Co-op), Level 40-50.

[UnlimitedNoSugarAdded]

When I try to LFG to the contact or go to KW via tram, I keep getting this:


 
or This 



Ive verified, restarted my pc and even re downloaded to no avail.

Tried with multiple characters of varied levels and AT's to no success.

Help?

Edited Tuesday at 04:01 AM by UnlimitedNoSugarAdded
added extra notes

[lemming]

1 hour ago, UnlimitedNoSugarAdded said:

When I try to LFG to the contact or go to KW via tram, I keep getting this:
<picts redacted>

Ive verified, restarted my pc and even re downloaded to no avail.

Tried with multiple characters of varied levels and AT's to no success.

Help?

Hmm.  I'm not sure.   No other zones or LFGs do that?

 

My current char did fine.  Rolled up a new character so that I would know they've never been there and the LFG'd fine.   Not sure what the next step would be.

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

@UnlimitedNoSugarAdded:  When a server is restarted, the various zones don't spin up until someone actually goes there.  If no one has entered yet to start them, trying to teleport to contact or mission door will give an error, but going by tram should not.  And the Open Beta test server was restarted with the new stuff yesterday around 5:30-6:00pm eastern.  It's possible that no one had gone there yet, or it may be something else altogether.

 

Please post in bug reports as well, if you don't mind.  And let us know the name of the character so that we can check logs if needed.

 

Thanks!

 

[Voltor]

Well yesterday I did some solo runs of the new TF, the Knockback King badge awards on zero star but the other 3 have to be on one star. 

 

Working as Intended?

 

Also the character I used didn't get the final badge on the first run, second run it did but its progress meter reset to zero when i started getting progress. The first attempt was on one star the second was on zero star. 

Edited Wednesday at 05:47 PM by Voltor

[Psi-bolt]

In the first mission the boss hero says this line:

 

Oh, yeah? Well, that's good, but I already knew that you guy's [not a possessive] weren't Nemesis fakes. About since you walked in the room actually... I just needed a good enough reason that would get you guys to [add] take me seriously in a fight!

 

There's just a couple of line edits that are flagged above.  First that it should say guys, not the possessive guy's.  Second that you should add the preposition "to" where stated.

[Zappalina]

The language for the boss - I am not a male. Could you please change this to non gender specific? 

[Zappalina]

These are all in the first mission of the task force.

 

What is the mrgrgr...? also you all ❤️ the three dots in this dialogue this is from the first mission. It's usually a tell on what generation you're from Hi Boomer or Hi GenXers 😄 

 Next image 

Is this meant to be the dialogue? the GREATNESS_STATUS VAR

Next image

The dialogue in capital letters - are those meant to be filled in with something specific? 

[Zappalina]

I think i found a Bug:

 

I was on the Zoe task force, I decided to exit the mission and then figured I'd see how it looked in the LFG menu. I did not complete but left the first Zoe task force mission by walking out.

I then used LFG menu to port to Positron was able to choose and started a new task force Posi 1 - Tried to do the second task force as it is in the list for discussion with Positron, when I click on it says better things to do etc. Use LFG to try to port back to Zoe will not allow me to, Ports me to Positron.  I thought this was odd and wondered what happened to the Zoe task force. I figured out that when choosing multiple task forces in the LFG menu it can quit the last task force you are enrolled in upon zoning into a new zone. I was able to recreate this on three characters. I logged into live to make sure it wasn't something I had missed previously on live, it isn't on live it is working as it always had been. 

 

Notes: I did not quit the Zoe task force. But the option to be engaged in a task force the team menu saying Quit was no longer there - it would auto quit when using the LFG if I went to a new zone. - anytime I used LFG to port somewhere else during another task force being chosen. It will allow for multiple options to be chosen/highlighted.  This image below is what I mean by multiple LFG task forces being chosen. 

 

 

My next test was logging onto a character - going to Citadel, using LFG to go to Synapses and upon zoning into Skyway the same thing happened when clicking Synapses, able to start a new task force and the Citadel is gone, but it doesn't say I've quit my task force etc. . 

My next test was going from Citadel to Manticore and starting a new task force with manticore upon zoning in using LFG, again it doesn't say that I've quit the last task force. I have images of the testing but didn't want to inundate the boards with a bunch of images and thought explaining it would work. 

 

If I would use the Tram/Train to go from Talos-Citadel to Skyway-Synapses it would not do this, but seemed to consistently do it with LFG the three times I tried different task forces. I figured that it is using the LFG menu and choosing multiple task forces - I choose the Lock the event for your group (see image above) and leave Willing to join i progress events unchecked. 

Figured this is a bug that may be important.  

Did not test to see if completion of task force missions would give multiple awards or be bugged etc. as I stopped at the these beginning steps of attempting to start a task force. 

 

Bug on LFG and task forces (I did put this in the bug for Beta section but only the video).  As this is a free video sharing website the link is only good for three days. 

 

 

Edited Thursday at 04:12 AM by Zappalina
more info needed.

[Cobalt Arachne]

11 hours ago, Zappalina said:

What is the mrgrgr...?

A sound Zoe makes when she's annoyed/frustrated, a verbal tic.

 

11 hours ago, Zappalina said:

Is this meant to be the dialogue? the GREATNESS_STATUS VAR

That is intended, Nemesis Automatons often glitch and say the raw variable names incorrectly, this was a feature present in older Nemesis content, so kept it here.

[Bionic_Flea]

11 hours ago, Zappalina said:

What is the mrgrgr...?

 

Is it pronounced "MergerRoger" but a bit more mumbled?

[Voltor]

Wanted to do some more test runs, but KW isn't loading up.  Tried both LFG and the train and the zone is not loading.

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

2 hours ago, Voltor said:

Wanted to do some more test runs, but KW isn't loading up.  Tried both LFG and the train and the zone is not loading.

Hmmm . . . You are the second person who has reported the same.  Would you mind listing that in Bug Reports?  https://forums.homecomingservers.com/forum/54-open-beta-bug-reports/

 

Thanks for testing!

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

The zone was indeed stuck and is back open for business now after @Michiyo kick-started it.

 

If anyone has that problem again, please file a bug report with as much detail as you can.

[VeiledOwl]

My only comments on problems in mission one have already been posted, so skipping to M2. 

 

 

Mission 2, breaking out Golden Roller:

After defeating the Weave Spider Judicator, the compass waypoint shows the wrong location - it's 43 yards away from the computer you need to interact with.  It's at [2803.9 -1374.0 -1994.6] , which is on the right ramp up to the level it's on, instead of its actual coordinates at [2831.6 -1361.5 -2126.0] . Minimap shows the correct location, though.

 

Calystix:

When released, he says: 'The Leviathan hungers for fresh blood... Your's will do nicely!' 'Yours' shouldn't have a contraction 

When defeated, he says: ' You worthless landwalkers... Will all inevitably bow to the Coralax.' Subjective, but I feel like 'will' shouldn't be capitalized here.

Also, goodness is it annoying when Dehydrate hits; he was healing for 777 HP per tick, completely wiping out the damage I was doing on him. Probably less of an issue on teams, but I was soloing the arc. Good thing that character has Barrier as their Destiny power. Not sure how much Tidal Power Calystix had at the time, but it was likely a factor.

 

Golden Roller: 

Zoe's caption says:  'Finally, there he is! Oh, wow... Umm, the Golden Roller has made some 'interesting' personal life decisions since we parted ways...Long as he's got his head, doesn't matter, grab him and get out of there!' There's no space between the ellipsis between 'ways' and 'Long'.

t3H g0Ld3n rL0L3R's description has the line: 'Unfortunately, with their strength diminished after losing the Freaklok seperatists' - should be 'separatists'.

 

 

 

Mission 3:

The Supa Miner outside the mission entrance's second paragraph of dialogue is formatted like this:

'Security clearance to be here. Paragon Transit Authority getting

complaints about seismographic shaking when monorail train pass over

support strut on island.

Only began start surveying. Like most of city, caves everywhere below surface. '

...which makes me think there's a missing line break between 'on island.' and 'Only began'. There's usually an extra blank space between paragraphs.

 

His description in-mission has the line: 'their latent Troll stone-manipulation abilities and become a formidible force as a result'. Should be 'formidable'.

 

I did like his design - especially the pickaxe shovel combo holstered on his back. He was quite handy during boss battles, but did get stuck in the Rikti section for a while. It was that thin bridge over water section - the room with three cannons. He jumped down and couldn't get himself back up until I lured him to some rocks. The extra height gave him enough room to leap over the railing. I tend to lose Sefu Tendaji there in the RWZ missions too, so not a TF-specific issue.

 

The stage show (and lyrics, especially) felt out of character for Lord Nemesis and his troops, but the man is also infamous for messing with people's heads. Gives me a whole 'No one will ever believe you' vibe, so I can still believe it despite my initial doubt.

 

Placing the drones has this line: 'Cleared off immediate danger, this spot should work. You set one of Zoe's drones down.' 'of' has an extra f

 

 

 

Mission 4:

The proximity based ambushes around the Mole Machines are a nice touch. Especially since they're not required to progress the mission - gotta make a deliberate detour to walk into that trap.

 

I'm not quite sure what happened, but in the final cave room, I had some Nemesis soldiers killing each other instead of me. Here's the messages:

Colonel has defeated Mini Nemesis Bomb
Colonel has defeated Colonel

I was dead at the time due to not noticing all the snipers lurking in the steam (clever placement, especially the ones on the very top layer), and the character didn't have any confusion powers that could have caused treason in the ranks. While I was dead (for at least a minute), all the troops around Lord Nemesis suddenly did a knockdown flip. I did some testing, and it may be the Mini Nemesis Bombs - they flipped Nemesis twice in a row when they went off beneath his feet. (I, strangely, was fine.)

Speaking of the Mini Nemesis Bombs, their heads turning with the camera angle is a neat effect. If a bit odd when they're behind my avatar, but swivel 180 degrees behind them to stare at me, the player, and not the character beating the sprockets out of Lord Nemesis.

 

 

The reveal of the Nemesis Mole Train was a nice twist, and I thought it had an interesting design. Being able to click on certain pieces to get information wasn't something I expected, but was a neat touch. Unsure if there were more, but I only discovered the phonograph and the steam boiler.

 

I fought my way along the train until the allegedly real Nemesis revealed that he'd brought back all the duplicates I'd already defeated. The compass waypoint pointing to his location was present in the cutscene and blocked his last speech bubble: I didn't take a screenshot at the time, but here's a text recreation:  

"But you know what they say about love and war! Hahaha! 285 yrds. battle be joined!"

The compass waypoint isn't enabled by default, so may not actually be a problem that needs attention.

 

When Nemesis Gamma attempted to kamikaze himself on me, he said: 'If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me!' which doesn't feel like it fits Lord Nemesis's character, defective double or not. The sentiment, sure, but the cliche phrasing, not so much. Good usage of the Self Destruction power, though.

 

The description of the Lord Nemesis on the steed has the same misspelling of 'formidable' as the Supa Miner. It's in the second paragraph: 'Taking to combat atop a mechanical steed, this incarnation of the Prussian Prince of Automatons is more formidible than ever'

 

 

Good lord, 'Mass-Produced Jaegers' certainly aren't lying about their name. I went from 300ish Brass Hunter kills to high 600s in the final train car with the Nemeses. (Also got Unveiler (presumably from the Mini Nemesis Bombs) and made fair progress on Green Machine.) There was a constant stream of them - I can see this arc being popular with people who want the Nemesis army defeat badges. Of course, I was also killing the bosses slower than a team would, meaning they had more time/chances to spawn.

 

 

Non-mission specific

The Gasmeisters and General Field Marshals have colored text at the end of their descriptions (I think General automatons did too?). There's only one line break between it and the end of the normal description - there's usually a blank line between paragraphs/segments in descriptions to break up the text.

 

 

All the Nemesis Automatons being faulty seems odd to me. Sure, we've seen obvious ones in the past, but that was typically due to damage, defect due to a lack of maintenance, or a deliberate reveal of inhumanity as a taunt. Or them just not being in an important enough location that they'll be scrutinized; these things are meant to be indistinguishable from real people when Nemesis puts in the effort, as proved in several missions. So why isn't he? Getting lazy? Is making it obvious they're not real people meant to be some sort of taunt? 

 

...now that I think about it, it could be to draw attention away from the proper, more subtle ones, actually. If people only think about the blatant ones, it's easier for proper ones to slip under the radar. Or it's just another mind game. He loves those.

 

 

[Nutation]

Zoe TF solo on my kinetics defender. I know it's not designed for that, but let's see what happens.
Difficulty +0 x1, bosses yes, AVs scale to EBs

 

Mission 1
It's creepy standing in the pane of the revolving door entrance. Hadn't noticed that feature before.
Why are Blackwing hostile? To Be Determined.
On the second floor in an office, bad pathing by an automaton in the cubicles, couldn't figure out how to get to me.
Warhulk bodies not clickable like the Jaegers, should they be?
Top floor, I have flashbacks to the Frostfire mission, obviously intentional.
Flashfreeze's motives were unclear to me. Maybe just trying to rough me up to see if I'm worth talking to? I assume the dialog tree after the fight has several meaningful choices, but I did a peaceful one.
Flashfreeze was a Hero despite my difficulty settings. There are a lot of AVs in this TF. Mission 2 and 4 are full of them.

 

Mission 2
Aw, can't pop over to Recluse's Victory.
Clickable plaques in the lobby, good.
Weavespider adjudicators at the d-sync elevator saw through my good stealth. I would have liked to click the elevator, but stayed clear after that.
Every prisoner released is an AV. Sigh. They all seem hostile to Arachnos. In retrospect, I should have kited one over to the d-sync elevator and let them fight.

Oh, hey, that was Archus with his new powers. I would have learned more detail if I had not been chewing purples not to be hit.
The renewable pillboxes are no joke.
I thought for a while that I had to click Golden Roller's cell somehow and open it. I didn't notice the directive to get to the computer.
And upon exiting the mission, I see that this portal in the Langston facility pops out Rularuu critters occasionally. A lively setting!

 

Mission 3
Good mystery setup in this.
So that's what the supa-troll miner is for. And his door.
Pity I triggered the laser traps, I can't explore the rest of the Crey facility. Maybe if I run it again, but I can't see getting the supa-troll to avoid those.
The rikti site through the portal has no purpose. I assume it gets interesting at Advanced Difficulty, since it reminds me of the LGTF in that mode.

 

Mission 4
Same door? There is at least one other cave door in the zone, this could be randomized.
Good sound use in this mission - the initial thumping, the Victrola music, later on creaking pipes, and did I hear the Ride of the Valkyries?
These mass-produced jaegers are annoying, of course. The thing to do is stay out of aggro range of a fabricator, but I can't always pick those out.
I got wedged into a ceiling crack at [8.0 125.3 -7989.1] in the tunnel portion of this map. Wiggled free.
I used double-chocolate with sprinkles caution in the appropriate room, and there sure are a lot of snipers. 15? My Moonbeam reaches 200ft, so I can deal with a few at a time.
Excellent use of animation on the sides to represent the moving train.
CRUNCH! Ok, don't do that again. That was falling, but I think I hit the ceiling later. Glad there's a hospital on the train, I use it a lot.
This eventually feels tedious and drawn-out. The tough Nemesis get rezzed as more AVs. 
I beat Gamma. And die as well, but the explosion was telegraphed.
Alpha, Beta, and Delta won't move from their spot. I snipe, I shoot from close, I shoot and duck behind cover, they stay put. I fire on Alpha where the others can't see me, but can't beat the regen. My Transfusion and Diamagnetic Interface are usually sufficient.
I'm giving up for now, but may retry Mission 4 with envenomed daggers.

 

 

[Chachki]

I've participated in roughly a dozen ZTF tests across closed and open beta and I'm a big fan! It has original mechanics, a solid story, and great mission pacing. I've enjoyed seeing it improve over the cycles. Loving all the new music in the TF as well. I have a few suggestions I would like to be considered before it's finalization:

-The challenge fight is missing a timer similar to other 4* challenge fights. A standard 20 minute timer would suffice but seeing how quickly the fight can be accomplished I would be a bigger fan of a 15 minute timer. I believe the chance of running out of time is slightly trivialized at the 20 minute mark as this is no longer an issue on even slower 4* challenge teams.

-In mission one Flashfreeze currently has a placate that was nerfed from a TAoE to ST recently. Instead of this small arbitrary hurdle that puts the fight on pause I think her using the Cryonic Judgement slightly more frequently could make for a more interesting engagement. She could also use something like "Frozen Aura" to panic the team into being slept/slowed prior to the Cryonic Judgement. Separately I also think patches free of ice around her could create a "musical chair" situation for players to have to stand on to avoid it and the sliding.

-In mission 2 I'm fairly certain I observed the Leviathan's/Arachnid's Bounty not prioritizing and using Hurricane when it became unheld. This was post 11/13 changes. 

-In the mission 2 challenge fight it can be very difficult to see if the Leviathan's/Arachnid's Bounty is held among all the other animations occurring. Is there an additional effect that can be added or the Bounty made larger?

-Lastly we are still missing the challenge fight reward/accolade power. Perhaps farfetched but to distinguish the reward from others and as a reference to other MMO's in the process I would love to see an attempt at a "Mount". I'm imagining a reskinned Void Skiff/Rocket Board/Magic Carpet in the form of the nemesis horse or a spider. The Spidernados have a hilarious animation that perhaps could be utilized. Other ideas include a golden Nemesis Staff that can knockdown allies, a power analyzer in the form of an accolade power, a reward merit vendor, or a S.T.A.R.T vendor spider that other players around you can also access. It's a common practice for 4* teams to take a screenshot after a successful run with their new reward so something visible is definitely preferred. 

Big thank you for all the hard work and dedication that went into ZTF!