Part_Troll

Lasat night my common 'partner in crime-stopping', asked me to join his Manticore TF. I mentioned, quite loudly, that it was BUGGED, and he said 'so?'

We got a team together. Other people mentioned, very pointedly, that it was a bugged TF, but nothing stopped us starting it.

We start. First group in mission has a L40 Paragon Protector Elite. one guy faceplants to it.

Next group has another L40 PPE, we have it down to 5% health, it takes out the entire team.

Scratch one Manticore TF attempt.



We went and did Katie Hannon TF instead, which was much more fun. (For very tiny values of 'fun').

Ex

"Hopkins Class AV" means "an AV that is so weak, you can take him down by collectively sneezing in his general direction".

Other Hopkins Class AV's are Arakhn (Moonfire AV), and some of the Strike Force AV's over on Villains.

A word about 'stealthable' missions -- it's a huge difference between a mission where you can stealth to a particular area and TP the team and fight WITH LEVEL 40 PARAGON PROTECTOR ELITES in the map, and doing a 'normal' Manticore, where moving through the map -doesn't' get you pinged by the very high bosses.

As I said, my best time for Manticore is 1 hour and 15 minutes, and I think we could shave 10 or so minutes off that time with some care and forethought.

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
TF Best Average Worst
Positron 2:01 2:30 8+ over two days (2004)
Synapse 2:10 2:30 6+ 2008
Sister Psyche 1:30 2:00 5+ (2005 or so)
Citadel 1:08 1:30 4+
Manticore 1:15 1:30 4+
Numina 1:03 1:15 3+
Katie Hannon :27 :30 4+ (original release, on invincible!)
Lady Grey TF :50 1:15 3
ITF :25 1:00 5+
Faathim 2:30 5:00 10+ over 2 days
STF 1:45 2:00 4+ (and a few Did Not Finish)
Rieschman :30 1:00 2 (only done this three times)
</pre><hr />

EX

Thanks for posting the Patch Notes which mention the PPE's spawning in Manticore.

It was a horribly difficult TF.

Ex

Here is my almost up to date list.

Almost.

Scrub a stalker, add a scrapper and a corrupter, I think.

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>

Magic Mutation Natural Scienc Technology Total
10 12 30 14 28 94

Controller 17
Defender 14
Blaster 13
Tanker 11
Scrapper 9
Mastermind 6
Corruptor 5
Dominator 4
Peacebringer 4
Brute 3
Arachnos Soldier 2
Arachnos Widow 2
Stalker 2
Warshade 2
Total Result 94
</pre><hr />

Did a Manticore TF on Freedom tonight, and man, was it HARD.

Now before you all rag on me for being a TF n00b or something, I have -TWELVE- hero characters on Justice who all have the Task Force Commander badge, and one character on Freedom who has it. I've run hundreds upon hundreds of task forces over the years.

Our fastest time for Manticore is in the order of 75 minutes (1:15), with an 'average' time of 1 hour 30 minutes.

This time though, we were on Freedom instead of Justice. I made triple sure that I was on Heroic difficulty, and we set off at about 8:30local (maint - 2.5 hours) on our trek.

The first mission was a bit tedious. We only had six players, we had a seventh join us just to start it. Turned out we had -three- empathy characters, two of them defenders and my Grav/Empathy controller, plus a scrapper and two blasters. One of the blasters and my controller were 'in level range', the rest of them were all exemplared down.

The second mission was hard. It was incredibly hard. It was so hard it was UNBELIEVABLE. Normally you get Paragon Protectors, since you're fighting Crey in Lab maps, but we were getting Paragon Protector ELITEs. These are very tough hombres, they have a nuke which can take out the team, and there were -two- PPElites in some groups.

With no tank, our scrapper was over-worked trying to keep the PPE entranced. My grav holds were doing nothing to him, he would fly away at supersonic speeds, then come back and nuke the squishies or send them flying.

This second mission went on and on and on AND ON. It was HUGE. We played just that -one- mission for 1 hour and 30 minutes. It was an incredible event. I knew I was still on heroic, it just made no sense.

After the Mission From Hell we were able to breeze through the various 'find clicky' and 'defeat boss' missions, but our time was rapidly running out. At the 2 hour mark we had 30 minutes to play before maintenance, with still a 'defeat bad guy' mission, the fedex to Ms Liberty, the release Birch simple mission, slay 40 Crey in Crey's Folly and finally defeat Hopkins ("The Hopkins-class AV").

We rushed through, instead of only 2 minutes on the free Birch mission, the guy took 8 precious minutes to find him (he hadn't done it before) whilst we were waiting to attack Crey. Birch was freed with 2 minutes left before maintenance. Grr.

Agreed to come back after maintenance (1 hour later).

Came back, Dark scrapper and Grav controller -- we plodded through the defeat 38 more Crey, and were joined by the Empathy/Rad defender.

Hopkins mission turned out to be in Dark Astoria. But we couldn't enter the mission. Clickin on the door would just give you a permanent loading screen. Client would hang. Restart client, logon, and be outside the mission again, click door and hang.

Lather, rinse, repeat. For all three of us.

Grr.

We petitioned it, and a GM came along in a fairly quick time, and then spent 15+ minutes 'doing something' but was unable to categorically solve our problem. Eventually I tried to go into the mission again and this time is was successful! The other two came in, and lo, everything was L36/37 -- the Defender was on challenge level 4. Grr. And there were more Paragon Protector Elites. It was VERY tough with three people trying to get the PPE's down.

But we soldiered on, eventually got to Hopkins who was only L36, and showed him a good time, TF complete and we got our badges, SO's and merits.

But man, it was the LONGEST Manticore I've ever done. As if we had somehow triggered a 'Master of Manticore Task Force, packed with Paragon Protector Elites, in a huge Defeat All map ...

Ex

I am seriously considering

Chester FogDucker

[*]V for Vraisemblance[*]A Little Pain
Passive Aggressive[*]Hero Lion of Iron[*]Ace Rimmer[*]Weird Al Swearengen
My Bajingo[*]Faintly Saintly
Dentrassi Chef
Tachyon Rose[*]Pynchon for Dummies
Shade of Mauve
Return to Innocence
Tachyon Squeeze
Daphne O'Gothic
Deathless Scrivener
Cinnamon Snowflake[*]All Terrain Human
Wild Salvation Jane
Rictus Hep
Banichi-ji[*]Nemesis Nemesis
Lebowski's Rug[*]Cptn Thought-Process
Archvillain Q
Offensive Monica
Relentless Revenger
Admiral Kremmin
Tiny Tuff Controller[*]Tarot Tart[*]Hospital Junkie
Ossifier of Bones[*]Meadow Dopamine
Charismata
Naked Honest Truth
Diceotron 5000
Tiresome Girl
Guru Meditation
Major-General Riker[*]Rather Talented Cat
Siona Weedstrangler[*]CTRL-Freak
Gattaca Polaris
Happyness Quotient
Common Warshade
Manny Widdershins
Severus Seven
Sounds Terrifying
Jayne the Calamitous
Risk Vs Reward
Hideous Orangutan[*]Stump Jumper Gump
Bene Gesserit Witch
Broken Hallelujah[*]Tricksie Trixie[*]-50 DKP[*]Absolute Brutality
Part-Troll[*]Rishathra Robot
xAx
Synaptic Maelstrom
Stompy McBot[*]Fish with Bicycle
Gillian Ganker
Molecular Acid Man
Advocatus Diaboli
Turtle Waxer[*]Harq Al Queda
AlanisIsinalA
Gunky Factotum
Huggity Thuggity
Lensman Altruist[*]Demented Toxophilite
Fat Archangel
Scrith Maiden[*]Heavy Companion Cube
Dread Icy Norsk
Volatile Valentine[*]Revered Incendiary[*]Herdin' Bacon
Rubescent Hiro
Rhyolite Marahaba
Looks Surly[*]Ray D O'Starr
Neon Laughter

Ex

You guys would be MUCH less braindead about 'normal maintenance, isn't it?' if it occurred during your prime time.

Normal maintenance starts about 15 minutes from now, some 2 HOURS after this current 'oh sorry, the servers are going down, bye bye' debacle.

Thats 2.5 hours of 'gameplay' we Aussies don't get between 8:30pm and the 'normal' maintenance start of 11pm.

But hey, live in your glasshouses, unthinking brethren. Your time will come and then you'll be up in arms when the servers go down during -your- primetime.

O.o

I can't remember EVER being -that- raw.

ANOTHER unannounced, unwaranted, unusually 'early' total (all down) Server Maintenance, completely at odds with the PROMISE from some customer service mouthpiece we were to be given of 'more warnings, timely warnings'.

Seriously, GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER NCSOFT.

Monday evening, prime time, 8:30pm, and the servers are dead as a dodo. Nothing in announcements, nothing in News, nothing in Technical Issues. The EU forum has a few people complaining, and some lickspittles pointing to some 'free respecs coming for I15' post, as if that's the -answer-.

Japan, Australia, New Zealand, we're all completely affected by this rampant nonsense. If you sprang surpruse maintenance in US prime time, the screaming and 'I'm cancelling my account' posts would crash the ^%$#@ forum, there would be so much outrage.

Absolutely disgusting customer service.

Ex

Some people have zero sense of humour. (Hey, One Star Rating Guy, thanks for the heads-up).

A cheery hello to those people who 'got the gist' of my post, and agree, kinda/sorta that Mob is deprecated/ambiguous.

As I was saying when I started this shindig:

I prefer "critter" because it's unambiguous when referring to a single foe. You can be referring to a Ghost, a Paragon Protector, Diseased, Vahzilok, Clockwork, Giant Monster, lightning cloud, Carnie, anything, 'critter' nails it, every-time. It is also the term that the Developers use to refer to foes.

"Something we have to overcome to achieve our goals or to make our progress less hazardous".

A bunch of critters is a group or a spawn -- but sometimes you get bunched of critters which are just a random patrol, they aren't a spawn, per se, but a patrol. Ambush groups are even worse, because they ignore stealth completely -- how many Superior Invisibility Illusion controllers have you seen get one-shot by an Ambush group they thought they could ignore?

My main thrust, so to speak, was to try to alleviate the rot from within; make it known that MOB is Ambiguous ESPECIALLY when it is used to denote a group of critters instead of as single entity, but also because of the innate ambiguity of the term. People use it because they -learn- it from the specialist jargon of game players -- the aforementioned Buff is a great example, because to normal non-game players, it means something entirely different to the gamer variant. There is lots of jargon, I'm well aware of this, but the most egregious (common and overused) abysmal usage, to my discerning sense of taste, is 'MOB and MOBS'.

Use Critter or Foe or Enemy or whatever, but DO NOT perpectuate the Mob Myth. Its time has gone. Let it rest.

Now, is I15 coming in tomorrow? My Tuesday Role-Play group on Justice desperately needs to know!

Ex

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

The game would be so much less obtuse if people used Critter instead of Mob.

Too Long, Didn't Read (TL;DR) explication:

MOB is so deprecated. It's time there was some widespread move to remove it from the playerbase's vocabulary.

Why?

It's ambiguous.

Do you mean a MObile OBject? A single critter?

Do you mean a bunch of critters?

[ QUOTE ]

"There is a mob around the corner"


[/ QUOTE ]

Is there a GROUP of critters around the corner, or just a single critter?

[ QUOTE ]

"We have two mobs to defeat in this room"


[/ QUOTE ]

"Does he mean two individual targets, or two groups of targets?

MOB = Group
MOB = Mobile Object (from the old ASCII Multi User Dungeon days)
MOB = Bunch of friends/relatives "My mob is going out for a party this Christmas"
MOB = Collective noun for a group of Kangaroos.

It's so much easier and unambiguous to use the terms Critter and Group.

Then there is no confusion.

[ QUOTE ]

There is a critter around the corner


[/ QUOTE ]

No need to panic, folks, it's a single target!

[ QUOTE ]

"We have a group to fight in the next room


[/ QUOTE ]

A whole bunch of critters, yay, I hope there are some Paragon Protectors, they're so crunchy!

[ QUOTE ]

Has anyone seen the last critter?


[/ QUOTE ]

We're looking for the last guy, end of mission imminent, time unexemplar and rake in the fat mission bonus!

Final comment
This is a minor 'rant', it isn't something people should get all hot under the collar about, but as ever, it's up to -you- how you react.

Ex
[expecting the One Star Posting Dude to make an appearance]

[ QUOTE ]
After reading all the replies, all I can say is...

I'm thankful I solo.

[/ QUOTE ]

We are too.

I hit my -seventh- character on Justice who has earned Task Force Commander accolade.(*)

That was when I Did Numina with my L49 warshade Admiral Kremmin and a random pug team, was pretty good.

Later I did a Respec Trial with an all supergroup team except for me, and it was full of whiny self-important goofballs, who couldn't keep themselves Red Bubbled, and had -attitude- oozing out of their every comment. Yeesh. :/

(*)TFC = 5% health boost.

Ex

He said "I am ignoring your demand because I feel like it", and kept on taking the exit instead of the ouro portal, and THEN casting his own portal outside, so an extra 'zoning' operation for him. &lt; shrug &gt; It didn't slow us down much.

And a cheery hello to the One Star Rating Guy. Smooch!

Ex

Today I was very ill early in the morning, the details aren't overly salient, but it involves regurgitation and loss of bowel control, nuff said.

Just before my technicolour yawn I'd put together a Citadel team with Daphne O'Gothic, my Gravity/Empathy controller on Freedom. Outside the first mission I had time to slam BRB on the kjeyboard, then RACE to the bathroom -- I didn't get back until 20 minutes later. I apologised for the unexpected loss of lunch, and we triumphed through Citadel in 2hours and 8 minutes.

That done, I decided its time to level up my Electric/Ice powerhouse blaster, Tachyon Squeeze. That involved doing yet another Citadel TF for the best xp/hour, so I cast around for team members. Found a PB that was happy to tank, two scrappers, another blaster, and a somewhat insane Storm defender.

We start off Citadel, hit IP, and at the end of the mission I tell them all to stay there, because the next mission is (99.9% of the time) in the same location. Two of the six follow me to Ouroborus, and then have to swim all the way to the far north of IP when the mission pops up. Sheesh.

We're having a hell of a time in the mission, because people are going every-which-way. The PB is all over the place, only partially clearly rooms in 'defeat all' missions, racing forward, aggroing a new group, then going back to the room he just left, leaving the rest of the team dealing with the new aggro, whilst he 'cleans up' the old room. A few deaths ensue.

The other blaster is screaming that the Blasters should pull, and one of the scrappers who started off at L32 and was exemplared to 30, starts complaining of no XP. Well duh!

Next mission, the Scrapper quits team, we're down to five.

Each mission, I tell the team 'use my Ouroborus teleport to exit mission, and each time, one guy refuses, he'll exit mission, then cast his own Ouro outside; what a wierdo.

The team is still really uncoordinated. The PB tank rushes around, leaving huge swathes of room unexplored, aggroes groups and then runs back to aggro new groups. The Storm defender excels at blowing critters around the map, and the other blaster is always in trouble.

Blaster: "THE TANK AGGROS TOO MUCH, LET THE BLASTER AGGRO!"

Team ignores blaster. Blaster wanders off, aggros something, runs back pulling them, almost a team wipe.

Me: "Please Mr 6month badge, don't run off, let the tank lead, stick to the plan"

Blaster "You really calling me names because of the veteran badges?"

me "No, because you're stating that blasters should lead!"

The blaster runs off down a corridor, 180degrees from the team, and aggroes more stuff and dies, then quits the team.

We're down to four.

Scrapper: "Getting to be a small team "
Me: "Just stick with the plan, let the PB/Tank lead, and we'll be fine"

After the loss of the other blaster, things went SO much better.

We caned the rest of the TF, and even made it within the 2 hour challenge (1 hour 56 minutes). So it ended up being successful, but it was a -really- shaky start.

Ex

Thanks for the kind responses. (Usually I would expect all sorts of 'but -you- failed because ...' responses)

It has occurred to me that I should re-emphasise that these stories are the exception to my gaming, rather than the norm. If I had to put a figure on my Successful Vs Unsuccessful Task Force attempts, the fails would be a tiny fraction. Kinda like the in-game hard coded 'you will be hit, 5% of the time'.

Plus, I know that I don't make it easy for myself, because I -do- speak up, out loud, in public, just at the VERY worst of times, when cynical 'I told you so' comments are not going to help at all. That's something I do because I love being right, to the extent where it isn't necessary for anyone else to appreciate my correctness other than myself. Yes, yes, a bad character flaw, one of many that make up my persona.

I have lots of good times, and many people share those good times, even when I'm on the team.

Did a Manticore TF a day or so ago, and it was like extacting teeth getting players to join the team, easily took 40 minutes of zoning, advertising in VU2009 and Virtue TFs, yelling in various supergroup channels, and hitting on any available unteamed players in /search, yet eventually we got a team together, and it just rocked.

In the words of Paul Simon "Bright and Bon Vivant". People were friendly, funny, there was this ongoing joke about the newbie who left a TF to go watch Spongebob Squarepants, which everyone would use if they were late to a mission. We roared through the content, I think there were zero deaths, and we did Manticore in less than ninety minutes. Writing about such great events "we did Manticore in less than 90 minutes and it was fabbo" isn't noteworthy. It isn't something you can share with a wider audience and say 'see what you're missing out on?'.

Whereas writing up a disaster story, gets people interested, it highlights the kind of comprehensive failure of certain players to understand the game, not just nuances, but bloody great big huge chunks "where do I get level 35 enhancements?" kind of fail.

Posting these tales is something I do because I feel I "get it off my chest". I've gotten to explain what happened, point out where things were really awry, and get other people to nod sagely, or cringe publicly "ew, that sounds -awful-". To me, it's a much better use of the forum than posting yet another "me too" or "single line IRC-like comment" (or in todays vernacular, a Twitter post).

With the additional plus that it brings out the TL;DR crowd in -droves-. "ARGGGH YOU WROTE TOO MUCH, MY EYES, MY BRAIN, I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR YOUR .... WORDS!!!!!", it makes me giggle about how pathetic and stupid they must be to -feel- that way about people spending the time to write things up.

Kudos especially to those souls who write up Player Guides. Some really sterling work in that part of the official Forum.

Enough blather from me, time to go get on a Task Force and see what the day brings ...

Ex

I see an advertisement in the Australia channel "2-3 spots for ITF", and I'm at a loose end for 90 minutes so I ask

'What AT do you need, and what level are you running at?"

The answer comes a few minutes later

'A Support AT would be good, we're running L40'

So I look through my 27 or so characters and find Meadow Dopamine, a L40 Empathy Defender, and ask for an invite.

Three times on my way to Cimerora I get invite from the leader, who can't successfully invite me because it's a mixed team of Villains and Heroes.

Finally I get to Cim, and invited to team. I find a bunch of L37 and 38's and then three L50's. Uh?

"Er, you said it was a L40 TF and many of these guys are L50"

'It will autoexemp'

"No it won't!"

They start the task force, and of course, the first critters are L50.

'OMG, they're L50, the autoexemp must be bugged!'

"Guys, ITF has ALWAYS been L35-50 not L35-40"

'No, I've run it before and it autoexemped the 50's'

Chyeah, right.

So then, with three L50's and 5 people 40 or lower, they decided to 'sidekick' people. That's never going to work.

After some deep discussions the leader (a L37 blaster) decides that HE can live without an SK and three of the 5 people get sidekicked to L49. It's just a disaster waiting to happen.

The blaster faceplants quicker than you can say 'LOL', and what's more, he's -surprised- he died so quickly.

'What we can do, is finish this mission, and then EXEMPLAR the L50's down, and it will all be ok'

"Dude, you have NO idea how task forces work."

The team wipes when the (sidekicked) tank has a cascading defense failure which my defender can't heal fast enough, and we all fall down.

That's when I waved the team goodbye and left the 'leader' to work out that his plan was really useless.

Man, some people just have no clue how to run a task force.

Ex

In the last ten days I ran Four POSITRON TF's. All on Virtue.
[*]3 man: 2hours 10 minutes[*]4 man: 3hours 10 minutes[*]3 man: 2hours 55 minutes (third man dropped out on last mission)[*]3 man: 2hours 1 minute (just missing out on the gold badge for that TF)

We used every shortcut we could. Teleport to mission, Ouroborus portal, Teleport to Base, Wentworths Teleporter, Assemble the Team teleporter, and of course we dropped every mission we could (*).

They were all pick-up-groups, not super-teams, and it was pretty good fun. All of my entrants were L30+ so no XP for me.

Master of Positron would be a collosal pain. Heartily recommend that people -avoid-.

The first STF I was able to go on, I was refused entry, because they decided they wanted to try Master of Statesman (they failed). I was annoyed about that for a while.

Ex
(*) lrf, V xabj lbh pna'g qebc zvffvbaf va n gnfx sbepr, furrfu

I didn't forget them. I don't have much expertise at them.

Those listed, I've done many times. Well, Eden trial not many, perhaps half a dozen, but the rest, many times. As I wrote, I did Positron four times in a week (which is only possible because I'm on holidays).

The list wasn't supposed to be a comprehensive list of ALL the TFs in the game. Such resources abound on the wider network.

What it was, is what I said it was, a list of how long I expect TF's to take.

Ex

Well, it depends greatly upon the team. Is it a 'clique team', is it a random pick up group, is it a bunch of friends who you play with all the time? Is the team make-up balanced? Is it an 'easy ' TF or a long slog?

Even with all the myriad variables, with enough experience, it becomes second nature to 'guess' how long a TF should take to complete with a functioning team (some TFs implode on the first mission, especially when they are fill with cluelessness).

So saying, here's little psuedo lookup table of "Excession's Guess at Task Force completion times.

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
Name, Level, Time, Notes
Positron, 10-15, 2.5-3 Best done with 3.
Synapse, 15-20, 3 - 4 A long slog, many 'defeat all'
Sister Psyche, 20-25, 2 - 2.5 Fun, easy Freakshow slaughter
Moonfire, 23-28, 2 Great for those wolves and vampyrii
Respec Trial, 24-33, 1 Really easy these days, if levels are ok.
Citadel, 25-30, 2 - 2.5 Council, in caves, + ambushes
Manticore, 30-35, 1.5-2 Many fast stealthable missions
Katie Hannon 30-34, .5 - .7 Not done much these days, low merits.
Respec Trial, 34-43, 1 Very easy, quick XP
Numina, 35-40, 2 - 2.5 Quick if you're organised with the 'hunt' bit
Eden Trial, 38-41, .25 - .5 Easy peasy.
Imperious TF, 35-50, .5 - 1.5 Depends how the team does it. Fun TF
Lady Grey TF, 45-50, 1.5 -2.5 Depends upon team, quite hard TF.
Statesman TF, 45-50, 1 - 2 Depends upon the team-makeup. Hard tf.
Faathim TF, 45-50, 3.5 - 4 A real slog through the Shadow Shard. Merits++
Quaterfield, 45-50, 5 - 10 22 missions + hunts, tiresome, 111 merits!
</pre><hr />


They're the TF's I do most often, and those times are very indicative of how long they usually take. Some teams can do it faster ('speed' runs), other teams might take significantly longer (6 hours for synapse, ugh). It REALLY helps to have high level 'autoexemplared' mentors along for the lower level task forces. Positron in particular is onerous for 'in-scope' teams, and very hard with more than about 4 on the team.

My Positron runs in the last week with various heroes were 2:10, 3:10, 2:55, 2:01. Synapse 3:45, Sister Psyche 2, Imperious 1:05, and Citadel 1:28.

Most of those runs were with 'random' pick up groups. Not super-teams, or clique-only (SG only, whatever) runs. The speciality teams can blitz through content much much faster than a group of strangers.

Running task forces exclusively for 'levels' is a great and FAST way of levelling your character (although AE missions were stupid-fast up until the Big Nerf, and they're still very quick for low level characters).

I hope this gives people some pointers.

Additionally, don't forget the usefulness of the Ouroborus Portal for those TFs where you're sent all over the place, or the excellence of the Wentworths TP accolade, or even the 10,000inf one-shot version.

&lt; insert LOLcat picture here &gt;

HEY MODR8TOR
PLSLOCKTHISTHREAD
KTHXBAI

I'm not a power-gamer, but I've been on teams that have trounced the LRSF in less than an hour. I must have done it six times. Failed once on Dr Aeon (even when the entire team went and got Shivans, we just weren't sorted out to do the TF).

I've always done it with my L50 mastermind. I've never done it with a Dominator OR VEATs or any of the Warburg nukes.

It's not impossible for a bunch of good players. Not at all.

Ex