Official Thread for Mayhem Missions
By
13th_Stranger,
Posted on: 2006-05-01 24:55 in Developers' Corner
Well, I finally managed to get inside a Mayhem Mission tonight. It was generally awesome, but here are a few things I thought could be improved (probably stated by others above me, but I haven't read this thread):
1) Side quests should indicate what the objective is in some way or indicate that their objective is complete. I managed to figure out what to do without too much trouble, but it was unclear how many firebombs to plant (did I need to go upstairs and plant more?), and the smash&grab wasn't obviously a smash&grab (and how much to grab) until I had finished it. Also, there wasn't any smashing involved inside...would have been nice to be able to take out some of the display cases or something. This isn't anything that a bit of experience with the missions wouldn't solve, but it would be nice for the first few times exploring them.
2) I could not successfully complete the mayhem mission solo, even on villainous difficulty, because the hero who came after me was an EB version of Aurora Borealis (who was initially a full hero on relentless). Since these are replacing heists, I'm assuming that we'll need to complete these things in order to get contacts -- as long as the game throws EBs with triangle-mez-protection at my lvl 40 dominator, he's never going to be able to complete these missions. I would consider this a feature-breaking bug for me.
3) The unkillable, attackable civillians played havoc on my imps. I'd be fighting against a couple of PPDs, and my imps would be chasing down civillians as they ran away in terror. Would be nice if it could be fixed, but it's not really that big of a deal.
4) My imps wouldn't attack the cell door from the inside after being defeated by Aurora (twice). It would be nice if my pets would help me break out of jail.
Overall impression: excellent work, lots of fun, and really a more villainous experience than anything currently in CoV. However, I wouldn't push this live as long as it forces solo heroes to defeat elite bosses in order to get contacts.
Finally did one also and was a blast. Was just on villianous and pretty darn hard. Only bug was a MM pets couldn't get out of prison cell.
I enjoyed that it was pretty chaotic and a bit confusing (the first time at least). Many of the complaints here seem to want things more defined/slower/predictable. I would disagree and lets keep as much mayhem in them as possible.
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A few things about the mayhem missions I was on last night.
1. Targetable citizens means distracted pets. My plant would stand around trying to immobilize a citizen just inside the door to the jail instead of help me fight the dangerous targets inside. Making citizens targetable is one thing but when a cowering citizen keeps all of my pet's aggro that just isn't fun.
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Agree!!
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2. Was running a friend's mayhem mission with him and ran in to a red con EB named Statesman. He almost one shot me but I survived only to get 2 shotted by him a few short seconds after I was back at full health. I couldn't hold him despite Domination being active. I've held every AV in the game, at least temporarily when the triangles allow it, only to be shown I can't hold an EB despite stacking multiple holds on him with their magnitude doubled from Domination.
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Well there's your problem! 
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After failing a Mayhem Mission miserably, I can confirm that they will hand you a contact, on success or failure.
SWAT shouldn't be loitering around -in- the cell area. We need time to set up and gather before getting screwed in the butt by SWAT. And, please, for the love of all that's holy, dial back the door explosion damage. Severely. I swear, it one-shotted my Drones.
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2. Was running a friend's mayhem mission with him and ran in to a red con EB named Statesman. He almost one shot me but I survived only to get 2 shotted by him a few short seconds after I was back at full health. I couldn't hold him despite Domination being active. I've held every AV in the game, at least temporarily when the triangles allow it, only to be shown I can't hold an EB despite stacking multiple holds on him with their magnitude doubled from Domination.
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Well there's your problem!
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Yeah...about the only way a villain could have a worse day than Statesman showing up would be if you were in the DC universe having a nice lunch of grilled space dolphin, and you hear the words "Feetal's Giz" from behind you.
I did one mayhem mish so far with a level 31 fire/kin corruptor and, totally enjoyed the experience until I got out of the bank (heist portion). While running around building time and looking for side missions, I ran into a PPD Ghost/PPD Shell duo who flashbanged/glued me constantly and left me practically helpless. At this point I lost my enthusiasm and found it a somewhat annoying learning experience.
Always carry break frees and accuracy inspirations!!
Even though my powers are mostly 3 slot accy, I was like a volcano spewing fire in every direction except where I wanted it. The only powers I was able to land were fireball (fortunately an AoE power ) and an occasional brawl.
I put fireball on auto attack and punched brawl as it recharged until the time ran out then waited outside the mission for the flashbang effects to finally wear off.
On villainous setting I never was defeated but I think something should be done about the accuracy debuff being so bad (my only real complaint).
On the "manage enhancement " screen I noticed that accuracy enhancements the value is not shown so maybe its part of the ED I need to find out how to work with.
Otherwise my first Mayhem was a blast 
Thanks for letting me be mean lol.
Afew noes I have mentally gathered one 4 diffrent mayhem missions. 2 I ran with simultanious strategys but never got to the vault. 1 I sk'ed with a group of level 40's and we got all the side missions and the bank. 1 I ran trying to destroy the entire area of steel canyon and side missions.
1) The more damage and side missions you do the more powerful the end hero is so there is no need to gripe that you were unfairly seated with a AV/EB/B You brought it on yourself.
2) The firebomb mission really does need a time maby counting down from 10 to give you time to run but still encourage you to get the hell out.
3) The random !BOXES! !BUSSTOP! !ETC! bonuses you may get are actually from the missions roving bad guy mobs wreaking havok as well. The damage they induce is added to your damage.
4) It seems (to me) that the kidnap side mission is unfairly hard for soloers as you can quickly get pigon holed into the long corridor by a duel ambush of swat bent on rescueing the kidnapping vic and longbow bent on killing you.
5) The prision cells should be made alittle bigger becaues pet pathfinding gets borcked by that as well as the steel doors should be given vulnerability to smashing/lethal (personal opinion on last part)
6) The civvies should either take damage and be "defeated" or on a diffrent shot take damage and run to the nearest non-side mission door and dissapear for inf and exp.
7) Personal suggestion but how about some paragon city police vehicals? Like Patrol cars, swat vans, longbow APC's.
8) I may be a fringe or even lone minority but I for one enjoy the swat glue nades. Not so much in they glue me but they actually are a fun challange. Granted maby a bit of a nerf on the time between how long between nades but still I like it.
9) The choice between 2 diffrent areas for a mayhem mission. It may be fun running about gunnin down everything in god and sin but still I would like some variation between my mayhem missions. Like your broker would let you chose between robbing the comercial distric of founders falls or the financial district and both would have diffrent side missions or mob spawns.
Sorry if I rambled. Hope you enjoyed the post.
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The Hero that shows up to stop you is just too hard. Seriously, devs, rethink this... right now my only options are to drop the difficulty before every mayhem mission, and to solo only and not bring along teammates. I can't understand posts that read "Sure, I got pounded 10 times and reached my debt cap, but WHEE FUN!". Fun starts to drop off when you feel like you're hitting an insurpassable brick wall of frustration and futility.
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Agreed.
I did a level 40 Mayhem mission and found it to be fun but also impossible. I was part of a duo and we were set on Relentless. The Hero at the end was Aurora Borealis and was way too much for a our duo.
I know what you're saying: just drop the difficulty. That's fine, but I hate the thought of constantly adjusting the difficulty of the missions to do one Mayhem Mission.
I mostly play solo. I mostly play on Relentless. This means that if I want to do Mayhem missions, I'll have to run several missions at Relentless, find a Fateweaver and set my difficulty to Villainous, do the Mayhem Mission and get the contact, then go back to Relentless. At level 40, that means that I'd have to shell out about 70,000 infamy to do a Mayhem mission and then go back to normal.
Granted, you could say that I should team more often... I get teams together to fight many AV's as I progress through the game... I'm not going to change my playstyle to amass a team once every five missions...
Right now, my plans are to enter a zone, do an adequate number of newspaper missions to the get the Mayhem Missions three times in order to get the contacts, get the zones contacts and then set the difficulty to Relentless and then just skip the Mayhem Missions thereafter.
While blowing things up is fun, the novelty will wear off eventually. The missions themselves are fun but Villainous is too easy, and Relentless is just right but the Hero at the end makes it impossible for me to solo it or enjoy it. Even an EB at the end of every mission would be a lot to fight against.
Maybe my attitude is wrong... maybe these missions aren't built for solo players... either way, my current attitude towards Mayhem missions is that they'll be a means to an end and will only be done as necessary.
After doing pretty much nothing but newspapers and mayhem missions for 14 levels on Bolt Lass, I have a few suggestions and comments:
<ul type="square">[*]When in a larger team, the time bonuses for mob defeats should be increased. It takes a lot longer to beat up an 8-man PPD spawn than a 2-man spawn. 30 seconds isn't helping at all. I suggest that the time bonuses scale similarly to the way XP scales up in a group of 5+.[*]On the KR map, there's one spawn of PPD that always is stuck inside one or more crates. Pretty obvious when you look. It's been /bugged a few times.[*]The villains you rescue are really dumb. They attack whatever is closest, which is usually a parking meter or cardboard box, while ignoring the Longbow beating you down. Suggest their AI be updated to treat moving targets as higher priority. Also, they won't follow you as long as they still can see any targets, including inanimate objects.[*]Other people's mayhem missions seem to count to move your Broker bar along. I have no problem with that, but I suspect it's a bug.[*]If you get and complete a Heist from the newspaper, it will reset your Broker progress bar. This is a very bad thing, extremely annoying.[/list]I also have an earlier post in this thread with some other comments from running a higher level mayhem mission with my L40 brute.
Having said all that - these are minor issues. Overall, mayhem missions are easily the best thing in Issue 7, and arguably the best in the history of the game. Well done!
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1) The more damage and side missions you do the more powerful the end hero is so there is no need to gripe that you were unfairly seated with a AV/EB/B You brought it on yourself.
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This is either completely wrong or bugged. I did a L40 mission with my brute, solo, did none of the side missions, and was attacked by an Elite Boss version of Numina.
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Well if you had run around blowing up everything and destroying everything I think you would have gotten a AV version of some hero.
I dont think you ever get a Boss hero except maby in the low levels but then again Im not sure. I just threw the B into my line of ranks becaues I wasnt sure if people got Bosses.
In my mission with the level 40's were I was SK'ed they got an EB becaues they all just beelined to the bank after sweeping the police station. However my level 22 MM got wailed on by a very angry strong valkyrie after looting the vault.
I'd really like to see the stuff in banks, police stations, and other areas destroyable too.
Also, is it just me, or do you not get time bonuses for items after you finish robbing the bank?
When I did my mayhem mish with my level 40 MM...when I went into the bank and stole the loot, solo I got a EB/White Swan...shes very tough and IMO the elite bosses are a little too tough to defeat solo. Later in the day I took my lowbie thugs mm on a 8 man mayhem mish in Atlas park. The only issue with this is when we decided to do the bank mish we got attacked by an huge mob of LB. A very huge mob...more then we were actually able to defeat. We had several team wipes doing this. Not sure if this is supposed to happen but I believe the ambushes are too large, even for an 8 man team.
Also, when we tried to do our sub missions, when we got the keys we were not gettting map pointers as to where the sub mission was. Think we should be able to see where the sub mission is at all times just like the bank robbing is.
Ok, i'm gonna chip in here.
I've ran a few 29/32 mayhem missions and to be honest the PPD Ghost at the least should be looked at...Glue, fine it slows me.. i have things to stop them getting close, but its got a pretty heavy slow on it. The sniping, ok i can deal with that, pop a minor insight and get closer. What really gets me are his flashbangs, we're back to earth thorns and their quicksands here. I just had an ambush (mid-hero battle) of a ghost, shell and the one beginning with e...on villainous. I just about managed to take out the hero before the shell got to me, already had a glue on me and a flash... then a hold... and a stun.
Right, how do i get out of this? small breakfree, medium insight, medium damage, medium sturdy. And i pounded as best as i could on the ghost... for about 2 shots (slowed) and then i was flashed again, this is compound of 2 flashes and i can now no longer hit anything with anything bar a rare cone attack. Just about manage to stagger around a corner after tar patch, but the shell came and stunned me again, at which point i was in the red. I willed the stun to wear off, but alas in came yet ANOTHER flash (thats 3 *stacked*).. i feebly attempted a twilight grasp to no avail...
Whats my point in this rant? The ghost recharges have to be looked at for both the hold and the flashes. The PPD can inflict so many status effects its unreal for just 3 guys: slows, immobilises, holds, stuns, acc debuffs, def debuffs, res debuffs all cycling quickly... and those are just 3 minions. As a (supposedly) post-hero ambush arriving mid-battle, not only is a player likely to be low on health or endurance, but the lack of notification (no npc shouts) that theyre coming is a bit of a nasty surprise.
I've done three Mayhems with my Thugs/Poison MM Mr. Pagliacci (one in AP, two in KR, all on Malicious), and one with my 40 Bots/Traps Vector Alpha (in FF on Ruthless).
Mr. Pagliacci only failed one of the KR missions, and that because I spent too much time breaking down doors in the police station looking for a captured villain who wasn't there. Other than that, no real issues for him aside from the oddities others have reported (such as there being no discernable rhyme or reason to time awards).
Vector Alpha, on the other hand.... Things started out well. I got a map full of Psi Cops and the occasional Police Drone, which was pretty laughable for a bunch of psi-resistant robots. I heard a Greater Devoured say the cops had arrested someone, so I took him out and hit the police station to liberated (IIRC) Silent Blade, who seemed to be a Kat/SR Scrapper (not Stalker) with ADHD. I did not get a time award for breaking her out; I don't know if that's because you're not supposed to or because I did something wrong or because of a bug. I took down another Greater Devoured and got a key to another building, but time was getting short and I decided to go for the bank first. I blew through the guards and the Freedom Corps Officer, opened the vault and got the loot.
Then Statesman showed up.
In two attacks in about as many seconds he destroyed an entire group of robots at full health. The third attack defeated me. I then timed out trying to get out of jail, and got booted to login which is what happens about 60% of the time when I try to enter Grandville.
Seeing as how I soloed Aurora Borealis as an AV with this guy several levels ago, I have to say this was more than a little excessive for a +1 EB. I strongly suspect the signature characters are all statted as AVs, and the new AV improvements are being carried down to the EB versions. I certainly hope that the designers don't intend for signature characters to signify unavoidable defeat. Nor do I believe bringing more players would have helped -- his AEs would have just killed everyone except maybe the Brutes, who would live a few seconds longer.
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Well if you had run around blowing up everything and destroying everything I think you would have gotten a AV version of some hero.
I dont think you ever get a Boss hero except maby in the low levels but then again Im not sure.
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Well allow me to add my 2 cents. I just ran my first Mayhem Mission (sorry, had been working on the 4th debt badge for the past few days )
Anyways I was running it with my MM on Relentless and destroying everything in site. Had completed 2 side quests and was about to enter my 3rd. Time at this point was down to 16min. Upon clicking the 3rd side quest door, the mission locked up and CoV crashed. After the game verified image and reloaded and then rezoned. I was down to 5 min. So I hauled to the bank thinking I may still have a chance. After blowing the vault door and grabbing the loot, Overhaul comes. She conned as a +3 Boss. Remember, I'm on Relentless but this time around I hadnt touched a single thing. NOTHING. Not even a single box. Just ran straight to the vault (even bypassed the guards in the lobby).
So I think there may be some merit to the Boss / EB / AV depending on how much of a rucus you create. Either that or I got damn lucky with just a boss on Relentless 
My game crashes whenever I try to enter my mayhem mission. 
Please tone down Swat forces.
Longbow and Circle of Thorns don't have ANYTHING on swat. And considering those are the two hardest enemys in the game, thats very, very bad.
In another thread I showed how my corrupter took five minutes just to kill two white minions. This is wrong no matter how you cut it.
Reduce their special effects such as the glue, flash bangs and morters. Allow them to use them ONCE per battle and thats it. The stacking of these debuffs means you may as well just shut off your game, cause there is nothing you can do.
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I'm very confused about what conditions give you what level of a "Hero".
As I posted above, my lvl 37 dominator on Relentless got a boss, and my lvl 18 MM on Villainous got a lieut.
However, Cosmic Mango got a Vindicator as an Elite Boss when he was level 25 set on Villainous.
Either the hero spawns at random levels, which makes very little sense, or the difficulty of the hero increases as you spend more time in the mission.
If so, everyone should just go straight to the bank and clear that, fighting a normal boss (or lieut on Villainous), and then spend time clearing the side missions.
I'm going to get my dominator to a full contact bar on Live, then copy her over 8 times and try different combinations of Mission slider level and varying how late in the mission I run the bank heist to try to figure this out.
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Villainous - There are no Bosses. Ever. They all become LTs.
Malicious and up - Bosses.
Level 20 and up - Elite Bosses.
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Not quite true. I've done 2 mayhem missions with my lvl 30 MM on the lowest difficulty. The first one I blew up everything I could find and eventually made it to the bank, EB. The second one I barely blew up enough to accumulate a total 2 minute time bonus, Lt. I think its tied to several things, just has a weird combination factor.
Ice Patch caused a mass group of civs to hinder me whilst attacking a couple of mobs. They run away from me and right onto the patch and get in the way. All knock down powers should do knock back on them.
To echo a few of the Pet issues:
Jack Frost on my Ice Dominator. I also broke some guy out of a jail and he demonstrated the same behavior.
First issue is that he would be attacking civs and doors, ignoring real threats. This has definitely got to be fixed.
The ambushes would come straight at me - as usual - but even when not attacking and letting Jack attack they just completely ignored him.
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The signature heroes *are* very tough, but the EB version of Aurora Borealis EB is soloable.
I mean, if you were reading a comic book about a "named" villain robbing a bank in Metropolis and Superman showed up, I think you'd expect a really tough fight and possibly getting beat up by the "premiere" hero of the world.
Still here, even after all this time!
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Mr. Pagliacci only failed one of the KR missions, and that because I spent too much time breaking down doors in the police station looking for a captured villain who wasn't there.
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This happened to me too. Thorny Dilemma (lvl 11) in KR mayhem mission. The jail was marked on the map to I went to check it out. Although I couldn't see anyone inside the cells through the view slot, I decided to bust the doors down anyways and see if a prisoner spawned. Nope, just a big time waster. If a side mission isn't unlocked, it shouldn't be marked on the map.
I'm not going to read through 246 posts to find out whether this has been reported before ...
On my level 21 Brute, Mayhem Missions were great, did one in Steel Canyon. All desctructable things were gray to me, 2 hits at most would destroy them. Lots of fun ...
I rolled an Elec/Elec brute ... not too bad ... will have to play a little more to find out whether I would roll one ... anyway, thats not the point ... I got to level 5, headed to Port Oakes, did my paper missions, got my Mayhem Mission in Atlas Park ...
I could only find 1 little side mission, that was a kidnapping ... kinda annoyed with that ... I explored as much I could, only could find 1 side mission ....
The only problem I had with the mission, it was boring ... everything (almost everything ...) conned purple to me ... most destructable items were level 10, compared to my brute who was level 5, I even found a few things that were level 15! I wasnt going to sit there and spend 5 minutes trying to blow up a car ... so the mission was quite boring just taking out PPD and Longbow as I made my way to the bank ...
Bugged it after mission, and i'll try a few more to see if it happens again ...
CHAMPION!
I ran my first Mayhem last night. Unbelievable fun. First time around, I forgot about the side missions and just destroyed my way to the bank. Finished it all with 15 minutes to spare (considering the time bonuses) here were my issues from the first run:
* Objects gave time at random. Not sure if there is a cap on what gives you time or if it is dependant on the objects con, but we couldn't figure out why no time was being awarded for objects.
* There were +6 Metal Crates conning purple. Cars and "Dyne" sized crates were orange. Bus Stops were even con. Everything else was grey.
* Even conned PPD take a while to take down. They seem more resilient than longbow (that we take down pretty easy).
We then finished the mission and we left. but something odd happened (please advise if this is normal) When I got the "mission completed" the ticker was still ticking. We left the mission and it said "return to contact" and still ticking. I high tailed it back to the broker just in case as I wasn't sure if that was normal. Secondly, it did not flash "Temporary Power Awarded" or whatever it says so I didn't know i got one until after i ran back (no travel power and Hook as my broker [you may begin too laugh]) for the second mayhem mission also in atlas. Here is what we found then:
* Same random bonus for objects
* Hench AI is berzerk. They CANNOT be on aggressive or you will never see your henches again.
* Tried the Jail side mission and broke every door to find no villain
* Didn't know there were so many other side missions, nothing on atlas map but a store and the green dot for the Jail.
* On malicious and two mayhems, this last one spawned one PPD boss. Much tougher than the fire hero that followed the heist.
So far that's it. The thug AI was discussed in the Thug Thread. Can't wait for the next one...hopefully tonight.
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What is the point of that reinforced door on the ground floor of the police station when you can just run around the office and get out without expending the effort?