Archvillains: Not working as planned.
By
Aegys,
Posted on: 2004-09-14 04:09 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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He was commenting that there should be a way to bypass them in the story arcs for the casual gamer that does not have time for a team.
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The entire point of the Praetorian Arc in the 45-50 range is the AV fights. The best way to avoid those is to just not take any missions from that contact.
The best (only) way I'm aware of to completely avoid AVs in the 40+ range is to stay on the streets. Fight the Carnies, Nemesis, Rikti, Devouring Earth, and Malta that run all over PI. If a person wants to experience content, that person has to find a way to deal with AVs in the endgame.
Official Bureaucrat of Freedom
Ignis-Daemon-Lvl50 Fire/Rad
Red Singularity-Lvl50 Inv/EM
Lady of Ice-Lvl50 Ice/Ice
Mihoshi Sato-Lvl50 Katana/SR
Cyborg Warrior-Level 40 Robots/Poison
X Syndicate Officer
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In the 40's you get alot of missions with a Archvillain to arrest.
Of course this is impossible for a single Hero to do. Most times the pick up group can't do it either.
What is happening on a regular basis is people are clearing their mission except for the Archvillain then exiting and recruiting a bore lv 50 to quickly come and dispatch of the AV.
This will become the norm as more people hit 50.
So, tell me what the point of having a super high villain that is impossible to solo as a mission objective?
Its just becoming a slight annoyance not a neat game feature.
Get rid of AV's from mission that are attempted by a solo player.
Thanks.
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'Normal' missions are not that populated with AV's. 'Portal Missions' are the creme of the crop as far as missions go. They are way cool, but almost every one has an AV in it. If you don't like AVs, dont' do your portal missions (At lvl 40 the chick by Portal Corp is your contact).
AV's are not impossible to solo. I've solo'd 3-4 AV/Monsters at my level (AV being same lvl as me).
Devs are forcing you to group, that is the point of Archvillains.
They are working as planned.
Well, you'll still get archvillains in normal story arcs too. Praetorians aren't the only guys on the block with archvillains - Nemesis, Nosferatu, Countess Crey, and Kronos all show up in normal story arcs, and those are just the ones I can think of offhand.
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I have never, ever got a AV that was even con. Always purple con, +2 or +3.
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In this context, even con means the archvillain is the same level as you. If you look in the target window you can see the level of the mob you are attacking. If an archvillain is the same level (or even up to 1 level lower then you) it will look purple. The game shows it, for color purposes, as 5 levels higher then you. An archvillain two levels lower then you will look red.
Technically, the color is what it cons to you. People are misusing the word, but when they say it is even, or the same, level as they are they are correct. When you go into a mission the archvillain typically will be the same level as the person who got the mission, though it will still con purple to him.
Infinity:
Ellen, 50 MA/Inv Scr
February Night, 14 Ice/Ice Blstr
Guardian:
SilverSwordmaid, 29 Kat/Rgn Scr
Vicious Killer, 33 Emp/Enrgy Def
Electromagness, 40 Rad/Rad Def
Sense of Humor, 50 Fire/En Tank
Virtue:
Kickfest, 50 MA/SR Scr
Freedom:
Glorious Ending, 29 EM/DA Bru
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TheConfessor has posted several times about scrapper power at higher levels, and has posted a video of him soloing a +2 (I believe it was) AV. Didn't even look like the fight much phased him.
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Then how come he died the first 3 or 4 times he attempted it, had to have a build designed specifically to deal with such archvillains and was maxed out against them, had to be nearly the highest level in the game (highest to find a +3 archvillain), had to use all his inspirations at exactkly the right moment, almost bit it anyway, had to do it against just the right archvillain (any other +2 AV would have beatien him with ease).
Yes, he did it, once, but it was hard as hell, and probably wouldn't have been possible except under these extremely unlikely circumstances. Let's not get carried away. The vast majority of characters can't solo any archvillains, and the few who can can only solo one or two of all the AVs out there, and only if they are even level or below.
There are one or two rare excption builds that can solo most even level AVs if handled just exactly right and by a very skilled player who has absolutely maximized his character just for that at the expense of normal game play.
Infinity:
Ellen, 50 MA/Inv Scr
February Night, 14 Ice/Ice Blstr
Guardian:
SilverSwordmaid, 29 Kat/Rgn Scr
Vicious Killer, 33 Emp/Enrgy Def
Electromagness, 40 Rad/Rad Def
Sense of Humor, 50 Fire/En Tank
Virtue:
Kickfest, 50 MA/SR Scr
Freedom:
Glorious Ending, 29 EM/DA Bru
AV's are intended to be a challenge for several heroes.
If you come across one, I would suggest going out and recruiting help!
We have faced MANY AV's along the way. Each one was challenging in different ways. The one thing you need is to be able to do heavy damage. They are difficult to hold, slow, or debuff. They frequently will one-hit players.
We love the AV's and are dedicating a special page on our SG web site for pics. Since some of us have Phase Shift and Stealth we can get very good screens of them.
Statesman, I'm glad you replied and implied you won't change them.
AV's are not hard to take out in teams. We take on AV's that are, on average, about 3 levels ahead of us (the highest guy in the group gets the mission, the rest of us SK if we are more than 3 levels below him).
Some AV's are worse than others for some groups. There was one AV that use MoG and flew all over the friggin' place, and nobody had air superiority or could hit it with any other knockdown attack and only like 2/7 or our team flew. There were several deaths. But that was the exception rather than the rule. That was the hardest AV we faced, for that particular team. And we eventually won.
Soloing seems like it would be extremely difficult, even against an even level AV. Kudos to any heroes who can pull it off!
I soloed Dr. Vahz..................when i was 3 levels higher than him. And it was still hard.
Dr. Vaz is a gimp.
He just has a metric buttload of hitpoints, and a rather high regen factor. He is also massively vulnerable to lethal damage.
The only ones who have trouble soloing him are low damage or low hitpoint classes.
Any decent scrapper should be able to outright beat him down at even level.
Did it as a fire blaster. No lethal damage.
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This game is steering away from being the casual, solo player type game it was touted as.
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Just re-read the box and game manual (just in case it's been a while)
I see lots about teaming, and how it is a teamwork and social oriented but not a single thing about solo other then you can do it.
Where was this touted then? (not being critical, just curious)
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Terra, the Devoured Earth AV, she wasn't as strong as some of the others, and it took a long time, but it's certainly possible.
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I can confirm this - I was also able to solo her at even level. Her damage output is slow enough (read - half-HP hits every couple of seconds) that a 4 +3 Heal SO'd IH was able to keep me pretty much full.
Of course, with better than 10K HP, overcoming that 500 HP/tick regen without going OOE took some doing... but it's definitely doable.
On the other hand, the Envoy of Shadows handed me my @$$ - twice.
Kam
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AV's are intended to be a challenge for several heroes.
If you come across one, I would suggest going out and recruiting help!
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It seems there are several angles to the issue that are kind of confusing the focus of the original post. The expectation, reasonable or not, of a right to solo for example is something that while is a nicely debatable issue, it isn't really the problem being pointed out here.
If I understand correctly, the problem is (or actually may be, since it isn't really proven yet), that while AVs are meant (as Stateman suggests) as an exciting encounter for a group to take on, AVs are instead becoming treated as nothing more than vermin under the domain of lvl 50s who are being begged as if they were card-carrying exterminators to do housecalls.
Now that I think about it, that's what's happening to me. I just got through the CoT story arc where I have to face the same AV 3 times in 4 missions. Each time I saw I had to deal with him again, I just kinda gave up on the mission, and waited until a sg mate 10 levels higher than me had a free moment to come in and take him out. Now that I think about it, this probably means I'm not much of a hero.
There were times I tried to take on the AV. Once or twice with a couple of others with some judicious sk's, but we couldn't get anywhere with him, not even with some attempt at strategically using nearby crystals. We could have been just morons though.
In the end, I guess I'm becoming accustomed to seeing AV's as insurmountable. And I would probably agree that this is a syndrome starting to afflict a good chunk of the players, (though obviously not everyone as other posts in this thread attest). And thus AV's should be considered a problem in this vein only as far as this feeling of insurmountability has taken hold in the playerbase.
I have a suggestion though. Instead of AV's being a simple defeat/fail option in missions, why not have their function being to compete for something with the heroes? Like, say, have the AV's race the heroes around the map to touch a series of glowies. Or have the AV's attempt to defend a jail room from which the heroes must rescue a hostage. Or have the heroes be required to stay alive for 10 minutes while the AV tries to go nuts on them. No matter what the outcome, having an opportunity for partial success even if the AV is not directly defeated is something that can feel surmoutable again without the need for specialist exterminators.
Just a random idea...
I can't say I've SOLOED an AV, but my electric/electric blaster and a illision/empathy controller whacked Hopkins. We were all even level at the time, I believe.
Can some of you guys who solo'd an AV give details? AT's, powers, slotting needed to do the job? I'd like to think my tank could do it, but I'm interested in other stories.
What the original poster was trying to say is that Archvillains can be made trivial no matter how many powers they get or how hard the players are nerfed. Putting them in single person missions not only becomes frustrating for most players who like soloing, but to those who have the resources of having higher level friends, the fight can easily be made trivial.
Just the other day my friend, a level 17 tank came across his first Archvillain, Dr. Vahzilok. He could have gotten a full team to take the guy out, but that would've taken around an hour to find the specific people needed in the battle, and there's no guarantee that half of them wouldn't be idiots or want to try to take the team off on their own. What did Mr. Level-17 do? He called me up, with my level 50. One shot and Dr. Vahz goes down, and the guy can go on with getting more missions. After all it's not like he's losing a ton of XP by skipping the AV fight. At most he might get a DO, but I already bought him all the DO's he'll need until level 22.
Putting AV's in single player missions is giving certain players with the right connections an unfair advantage while making an unessesarily difficult hassle blocking others from playing single player (forcing people to team is a no-no). AV's are fun for a team to take on, but do not belong in single player missions where their combinations of powers make it often impossible for a single player to complete their mission.
Statesman was here?????
*swoon*
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AV's are intended to be a challenge for several heroes.
If you come across one, I would suggest going out and recruiting help!
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We do!!!! I agree 150%!!!
I just don't get it, PPL are paying for a MMORPG and want to solo the entire game. It's just plain nonsense.
Although I have been soloing lately with my blaster, I really like grouping with all ATs at all levels.
And nobody is forcing anyone to group at lower levels.
I have never played MMORPGs and I was hesitant the 1st time I entered Perez which is the game's initiation into grouping. Back then (early May 2004) I had no idea that teaming will be so rewarding.
CoH promotes a sense of community and I have played with some of the nicest people.
If the devs want to promote grouping at all levels, I give them my support. It is a MMORPG for crying out loud...
I love it when teams get together to fight AVs or Monsters...that is the best part of the experience.
CoH required developers to work as a team!!! Kudos...!!!
'S been a little bit of a while, but I'll give you what I can remember.
First off, I'm Katana/Regen. Important power slotting: IH at 2 EndRdx/4 Heal, all +3 SO; Headsplitter 5(6? not *quite* sure here)-slotted, Whirling Sword 6-slotted, Hack 3-slotted, Disembowel 4-slotted IIRC - all attack slots at 1 acc / (n-1) dmg, all +3 SOs. Buildup 3-slotted with recharge, also +3 SOs. Since Terra doesn't have any status attacks but knockdown, I left Integration off to conserve END.
Since she couldn't kill me (GOTTA love IH 
), my "strategy" basically consisted of whacking her several (many many!) times with a sharp piece of metal. :/ Sequence pretty much ran: Buildup, Disembowel/Hack/HS/Disembowel (all within buildup). Then HS/HS/HS/HS... (in order to conserve END - this pretty much just kept up with her regen ticks) until Buildup recharged. Rinse & repeat. Since she spits out Swarms, every so often I'd substitute Whirling Sword for one of the Disembowels to clean out the slows; other than that, it's a pretty straightforward fight.
I'm not certain a tank could do this at even level - I had a hard time as it was keeping her regen nullified without running OOE. Tanks, with less damage for more END use, would probably have a *significantly* more challenging task.
HTH,
Kam
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What the original poster was trying to say is that Archvillains can be made trivial no matter how many powers they get or how hard the players are nerfed. Putting them in single person missions not only becomes frustrating for most players who like soloing, but to those who have the resources of having higher level friends, the fight can easily be made trivial.
Just the other day my friend, a level 17 tank came across his first Archvillain, Dr. Vahzilok. He could have gotten a full team to take the guy out, but that would've taken around an hour to find the specific people needed in the battle, and there's no guarantee that half of them wouldn't be idiots or want to try to take the team off on their own. What did Mr. Level-17 do? He called me up, with my level 50. One shot and Dr. Vahz goes down, and the guy can go on with getting more missions. After all it's not like he's losing a ton of XP by skipping the AV fight. At most he might get a DO, but I already bought him all the DO's he'll need until level 22.
Putting AV's in single player missions is giving certain players with the right connections an unfair advantage while making an unessesarily difficult hassle blocking others from playing single player (forcing people to team is a no-no). AV's are fun for a team to take on, but do not belong in single player missions where their combinations of powers make it often impossible for a single player to complete their mission.
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Yes, but you can do that with any challenge in the game (except task forces). You can trivialize street hunting, missions, bosses, archvillains, and defeat x of x missions by calling in a higher level player. If someone wants to treat it like that, it's their call, but I feel that they're ripping themselves off. They're intended as a challenge worthy of a hero, and it's benficial to treat it as such. With a well-assembled team (not consisting of level 50s), I've been able to overcome every archvillain encountered so far. This includes the nasty ones like Nosferatu and Anti-Matter. I'm currently up against Infernal, and I'll do the same thing to defeat him as I did the others.
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Where was this touted then? (not being critical, just curious)
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A lot of game mags and articles mentioned the fact that when this game was released, solo play was included as a way to level. It was touted because a lot of players were sick of the forced selection of classes and required teaming of other MMORPG games. It seems now however that this feature which made this game as fun in a way similar to Diablo and it's sequel was not actually part of the original 'vision' of the devs. That's why many people are annoyed with forced teaming that is beginning to be implimented.
I don't think it was ever promised, but it was an integral feature in making the game fun and played a major role in selling it to many gamers.
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Yes, but you can do that with any challenge in the game
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Not true. If you call in higher level help in every battle you don't get any XP. For the AV's though, where the battle is impossible solo and the reward minimal, there's no reason not to trivialize the battle.
My observations with AV are that they are almost impossible solo but often too easy for a well-balanced 4+ hero team.
AV's are just beefed up bosses. Everytime I come across a 5th that changes into a wolf, I wonder why AV's dont do that. How cool would it be to fight an AV that starts out as an armored battle tank. When its defeated, it sheds its armor and fights as a flying blaster. Defeat that and its a nimble scrapper.
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I just don't get it, PPL are paying for a MMORPG and want to solo the entire game. It's just plain nonsense.
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A lot of people are paying for consistant and reliable updates to make the game more enjoyable, not to deal with others and their various mental handicaps. Being able to interact with others players in real time is fun, but the basic game would still be there and fun without it.
I think the OP was not saying that AVs should be made soloing. I think he says that the AVs are fine.
He was commenting that there should be a way to bypass them in the story arcs for the casual gamer that does not have time for a team.
Just clarifying what I think he is driveing at.