NordBlast

Originally Posted by Silencer7

I posted this in the 'things I don't like about alpha strike' thread, but it seems more appropriate here.

Originally Posted by EvilGeko

/signed. I still don't understand why they haven't done this already.

Originally Posted by Drsnapion

I've started playing a soldier and just recently got him to 24 and went with bane (the spider legs steer me away from the crab). As of right now his Damage Output:Endurance usage ratio is terrible. I run out of endurance before one mob is done.

So basically, I'm wondering, does the end usage even out a bit in the higher levels? Can Bane's solo missions well? Then is there anyone here with a nice PvE Bane build that I can look off of to get a good idea on how to take this toon? I'd say my budget for this toon is no more than 3 bil sadly =/

Originally Posted by docbuzzard

One question I've always been curious about and never seen answered (in spite of having been doing this TF since it came out) is what exactly do the Pylons really do in the Hammi mission?

I've seen people argue that you take them out first, or that you leave them in place while dealing with the Mitos. I've never seen anyone in game who really seemed to know what they actually did, but they seemed to be parroting what they had seen before (which is, of course, understandable).

I'd just like to know if there is an optimal option (kill first, kill last, etc).

Originally Posted by gec72

Heh...my other character that has the rare slotted is my Grav/Storm. I could see trying that and messing up and/or getting myself killed.

Originally Posted by Horatio

Hi, I’m Bruce Harlick, aka Horatio, the guy who was in charge of the Reichsman Task Force and Strike Force. Thank you for the comments and feedback on the TF & SF. I’d like to take the opportunity to respond to some of them and let you know our some of our intended responses.

To start, there is a difference in the challenge of the final fight in the SF and TF. The TF fight is much trickier and takes longer. We didn’t address that when assigning the initial merit values for the SF. We will be increasing the merit award for the Strike Force to 30 merits later this week. As time goes by and we collect more data on how long it takes groups to complete these arcs, we’ll likely be adjusting the merit rewards further.

There seems to be some confusion as to the use of the dimensional ground ray in the final fight of the Task Force. Before Reichsman’s hit by the ray, he is in a phased state and is running a rather nasty debuffing aura. When he is hit by the ray, it “grounds out” some of his power and he returns to a normal state and his aura is shut down. This will persist for the duration of the fight. The dimensional grounding ray isn’t intended to be used at specific points in the fight; it should be used early on, and one hit will do.

On the villain side of things, our intent was to try to do something a bit different for the end fight. As has been previously stated, we wanted to do a “gadget” fight; something that was more than just hit the bad guy until he fell over. And we wanted to encourage teams to include different ATs, to help shake up some standard team compositions. Certainly, the end fight is more difficult without having each of the appropriate ATs on the team, but it is still doable. Each of the temp powers is intended to make stages of the fight easier. There is no one “golden solution” to solving the fight; by including some or all of the ATs that can take advantage of the various temp powers, you can approach this battle using different tactics.

The Mastermind temp power is not working at this time; Castle has fixed that, but his fix did not go out with the release due to some build issues. This power should be working in a patch this week.

Switching voices, I am aware of the canon issues with the story. The problems are purely my fault; when I came up with the original flow for the story I was under some mistaken impressions on some events in the game’s history. While I did make some adjustments to the story due to the feedback from the training room, I didn’t get all the details nailed down as best I could. Due to a tight translation deadline, I was unable to get final text passes into the build that was going to the Live servers, but rest assured I’ll be doing my best to address them over the next week or so to bring the story of Reichsman’s return in line with the existing history of the 5th Column.

I’ll certainly be reading this (and the other) threads for any other comments you have on the issue. Please feel free to PM me with your comments and concerns if you’d like. I’ll do my best to respond to them in a timely fashion.

-------
-Horatio

Originally Posted by mousedroid

To add another note - when it does fire, there is no visual or audible effect. The only way to tell is to have your combat window open in chat.

Originally Posted by Fiery_Redeemer

I don’t want to sound like I have multiple personality disorder. I’m ecstatic about the solo option. I actually don’t care how many shards it takes, unless it’s like Tier 6 Epic Badge level; i.e. if I can solo a L1 to 4 tier of Incarnate under half a year, I’m happy.

I am, however, concerned, about shards while examplared. I am actually on the dev end of things on this one and I’m worried about the potential exploits on this. A L1 Minion is much easier to solo as a L1 then to solo a L50 minion as a L50. For example, I can one-shot any L1 minion with my distance vet power. My L50 does some nice damage to a L50 minion, but no-where near one-shot.

I don’t want to see devs have to scramble to adjust shard drops rates if they overlook, well, not the above, the devs surely know this more than me, but the AMOUNT of work some will do to min-max the shard drop rate. I’m sure someone will post that (making this up) the “Fight Dr Vazhilok” arc has the best shard drop rate on all levels, and everyone jumps on the one exemplared arc. I’m sure the devs would adjust then and there, but we all know that’ll stem a 100+ page nerf thread, and I’d like to avoid the unnecessary bad feelings by thinking a little ahead. The devs know some players will min-max, but they are routinely surprised by how FAR some will go (cough, MA, cough).

Personally, I’d put exemplared shards only on the WSTs that are under 50, or whatever similar new mechanisms come up rather than blank statements of “exemplar gives shards.” I’m probably a worry-wart, I just feel the dark cloud of misuse around the corner. I hope I’m wrong.

I do hope I also didn’t cause any heart attacks on readers that know me, with my taking the devs side and wanting brakes on solo-ing. I just wanted a solo path. I have it. Now I have to take off my “Solo Hat” and put on my “Fairness Hat” to make sure Teams and Raids get their fair share too. All the while, doing this with minimal exploits and/or bad feelings. Rollbacks are often necessary, but rarely well received.

Originally Posted by mousedroid

I've heard of people loosing all their e-mails, but I've never heard of anyone's e-mails reverting to what they were days earlier. And it must not affect everyone every time, because this is the first time it's ever happened to me.

Originally Posted by Friggin_Taser

Or the more inept are still doing because they can't seem to read simple English that tells them what they were whining for is being added to the game.

I kind of figured that even though the solo cry of "Give us SOME WAY, no matter how long it takes, to solo Incarnate stuff" would almost instantly become "Give us a way that's as quick as Incarnate Raids to solo Incarnate stuff" the moment a change was announced.

This isn't a solo player superhero game like Wolverine: Origins where each fight can be programmed to a specific build to provide the most action and risk for a reward. There is little to no way to make a solo encounter in this game that amounts to more than "Pop a shivan and punch" or "Pop a tray of purples and punch," because each encounter would have to magically conform to whatever AT or build the solo player was playing as.

I think the true data mining I'd love to see would be whether people, in the span of 50 levels, tend to repeat storylines or TFs/SFs/Raids more in average. Whichever one has more people doing said content more times should get more of the developers attention.

Originally Posted by TriAngel_EU

Kind of an open door, which I don't always reiterate explicitly - apologies if that would've made it clearer to you.

Ofcourse, it goes without saying the strategies you can use and which of them is the most efficient for a particular team depend on that team.
This was, however, more generally speaking.


I would've thought that was enough hint as to me being aware there is no set order that any team leader should blindly hold on to in disregard of any and all circumstances.

Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA

Isn't today Thursday?

Originally Posted by Golden Girl

I'm just helping to manage expectations

Originally Posted by Golden Girl

I wonder if "being more on the ball than usual" = Battle Maiden's bombs? I'm pretty sure we'll see a similar mechanic in at least one of the Trails - because the chance to see 48 players jumping around would be too good to miss

Originally Posted by Golden Girl

They mentioned using it for the Hamidon raid, so I think it's posisble they're planning to add it for all the exisiting raids too.

Originally Posted by Eisenzahn

I would not be at all surprised to see a round of Merit Reward "rebalancing" after a few more weeks of Strike Targets. Average Kahn completion time seems to be 2/3 to 1/2 of average Barracuda completion time in my experience, but it rewards 50% more merits.

We are even seeing Kahn times surface that rival Speed Katies. Barracuda is also more prone to ending in frustrated teams disbanding than most other TFs, although unlike the LRSF and STF I think a lot of teams these days just don't bother to start it unless they can assemble the "right" configuration.

Originally Posted by hedgehog_NA

when? I havent done that one in a few months...another hidden nerf.

is it worth more than 7 merits or did they "forget" that part of the change?

Originally Posted by Yogi_Bare

Depends on what you're farming for. Purple farming can still be done at -1.

Originally Posted by Vanden

Actually, farmers typically set to -1 because they get the same drops as they would at +4. Unless they're after shards, and even then, still only even-level.

Originally Posted by EvilGeko

This game hasn't followed a more risk = more reward strategy in years. You know that. Merits demonstrated that.

True story. I was on my newly redeemed Dominator when I got a tell asking to do a Katie Hannon. I had about 45 mins. so I said SURE! Got in there, it was a group that hadn't ever done the TF before. No support, noob tank, real PUG disaster. 45 minutes later I felt bad leaving these folks to the mercy of a +3 AV that they simply didn't have the DPS to defeat.

Since we went to this Time:Reward strategy, this TF isn't done anywhere near as much as it used to be although it's objectively more difficult than TFs that give 4-5 times the reward.