Official Thread for Mayhem Missions
By
13th_Stranger,
Posted on: 2006-05-01 24:55 in Developers' Corner
Well, I won't get started on having an EB Malaise show up in my mission on villainous 
. However, after he showed me a the inside of the ail cell, a police drone somehow walked through the jail cell door and started attacking me. He then teleported my Jack Frost out into the hallway -- where he was greeted by the PPD Mecha boss. Well, eventually I beat the door, the drone and the boss and freed Hollowpoint.
It then takes me almost 10 minutes to get him and a new Jack out of the police station and back to the bank, as they wanted to say hi to everything on the street . Got Malaise down to 1/4 health (after blowing my 4 breakfrees on the first attempt).
A good start, but this thing still has a ton of bugs. Devs, let's not allow Mayhem Missions out the door in the same borked state that arenas and the respec trial were when they went live.
"Can play" is not a binary. It's a float.
There are some pretty low values of "can play" out there.
--Fulmens
The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off
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Just a heads up...when you get a key, read your clues...they're rather helpful 
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Which is fine if the normal "Clue Found!" pop-up actually popped up. Instead, a buried menu item was updated.
Speeding Through New DA Repeatables || Spreadsheet o' Enhancements || Zombie Skins: better skins for these forums || Guide to Guides
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Just a heads up:
I have several devs reading this thread, and are working on the bugs you guys are finding, and on ways to improve the Mayhem Missions (such as making the end Hero non-random; currently the end Hero you get is totally random, and has nothing to do with anything you did in the mission, we are looking into changing that).
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I have a raelly bad bug for you... when I use my gravity powers on LOWLY 5hp Civilians... they don't get crushed into little balls of bloody fleshy goo.
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Nor do they change the rating of the game by allowing players to kill helpless civilians.
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Suggestion for Civilians
When attacked they 'dodge' the attack and run straight for the nearest door. They can still cower a bit or be knocked down, but in the end, the run and hide out of sight. This way, we have a new goal: clear streets of civilians. Once the last one has hid themself, we get a time bonus.
Suggestion for Named Hero
For a solo player:
At difficulty level 1. it's a Boss.
At difficulty level 2, it's a Boss+1
At difficulty level 3, it's a Boss+2
At difficulty level 4, it's an Elite Boss
At difficulty level 5, it's an Elite Boss+1
At difficulty level 6, it's an Hero
At difficulty level 7, it's a Hero+1
At difficulty level 8, it's a Hero+2
[Of course, only difficulty levels 1-5 can be chosen by the player as the starting level.]
For each two side missions done, the level difficulty of the final boss goes up one.
For 4 players, the difficulty level goes up one.
For 6 players, the difficulty level goes up two.
For 8 players, the difficulty level goes up three.
This would mean that a solo player on level 1 who does just the bank job, will get a Boss. If that player does 4 side missions, he or she would get a Boss+2.
A solo player on level 5 who does just the bank job will get an Elite Boss+1. (This allows soloists who run at highest difficulty level to avoid a Hero fight.)
A team of 8 that's starts at difficulty level 1 will get always get at least an Elite Boss. If they do four side missions, they get a Hero. If a team of 8 starts at difficulty level 5 they will always get a Hero+2.
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I like a lot of these ideas.
I think that citizens 'struck' by an attack should suffer the apparent effects, (as allowed by the ESRB) then flee through a door and despawn. Perhaps they could start with a negative modifier to KB, so that any attack knocks them down.
I like the idea of tying the last foe to the Difficulty, and I'll second the idea of your chart as outlined. I also like randomness and not knowing exactly what's coming up, so a 20% chance of going up or down one level on the chart would also be great (but a soloist should not get more than an Elite Boss).
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
Okay a 'formal' post:
Level 33 Grav/energy dom
Talos Island Mayhem
Did the arson mission, no problem.
Did the jewelry store, no problem.
Kidnapped the lady, no problem.
Spayed Mynx and robbed bank, no problem.
There was one problem, we did get a key from a mob of freaks that gave no indicator. As another person said, check clues, however there was no indication whatsoever we got a clue so didn't think to check it.
Villain freed from prison was useless. Would literally burn through all its endurance trying to kill civilians.
My singularity had its moments of uselessness, however it would keep following me so it was okay. It only got really bad near large groups of civilians where as it cycles targets it would cycle to civilians off of dangerous mobs.
No mapping issues that I noticed.
All objects continued giving bonus-time regularly.
Level 8 Thugs/Crap Arr... er... Trick Arrow MM
Atlas Park Mayhem
Only found one group of skulls and they gave a 'useless' key. As another person said, check clues, however there was no indication whatsoever we got a clue so didn't think to check it.
Went guardian mode once I got the loot, destroyed the flame blaster who showed up to beat me.
Villain freed from prison was useless. Would literally burn through all its endurance trying to kill civilians.
I had no issues with my thugs. I entered a mission, they came in right behind me. Please note however they were NEVER out of defensive mode. I ordered every attack. I didn't leave them in aggressive to go nuts on mobs.
There was one dumpster that slid about 5' when I shot it and from then on it was "out of range". I also could walk through about half of it. I didn't even think to /loc it though. 
--EDIT: It was right near the Skull spawn in the alley.
After giving me one or two bonuses objects STOPPED giving me bonus time! After about 5 minutes in the mission the only bonus time I got was for resisting arrest.
Objects need to be re-thought. In my 33 missions I can waste everything in one shot. In this mission it took a minute or so per car (2 levels above me) and even some grey objects took two shots.
The level 15 objects were indestructible to me as they were purple and each shot was only doing 1 damage. So even with my three attacks + my henchemens two attacks that's only 7 points of damage per cycle.
--Thought: Could this be why the other objects stopped giving me time? I wasn't destroying enough 'variety'? Or could it be that once we attacked a purple object the game waited for us to finish it and 'ignore' the other objects we destroyed?
--Does Atlas have more than one side-quest? I only found the ONE group of skulls. I never noticed any of the other mobs with lower health indicating they might have found and trounced other mobs.
At least I got a nice raptor pack out of it. 
It might actually last me until I can get my own travel power. 
I did a mayhem mish set on villainous and was doing fine until I ran into elite boss Valkyrie. And she wasn't alone. So after wasting a minute breaking the prison door I was attacked by 2 swat guys and 2 longbow. That ate up a lot of time thanks to the glue.
Also I tried a mayhem mission on a team and the glue would not disappear for a long time (several minutes) after I had killed the swat guys.
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Just a heads up...when you get a key, read your clues...they're rather helpful
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Occasionally, I've run now 10 mayhem missions, and have only had anything useful show up in my clues twice. Usually its only the "Wanted Poster of <blank>" clue...
Yeah, the Wanted poster isn't too explicit. It means 'Go break that villain out of jail'.
And even when I had that side mission, the time I've had it, freeing the villain didn't net me any extra time- which is a major drawback, given how -long- it takes to break the doors down without something like a brute there. ;p
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Speaking as a stalker who experienced that, it can't kill you. New one shot code you know?
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That only works above 90% health or something.
Besides, I'm not worried about being one-shotted, it's just the high amounts of damage, really. If I have to smash this stuff to get time, it shouldn't be life threatening to do so.
Played another mayhem mission the other day. Really only a few things to comment on:
1. After finishing up the smash and grab side mission, exiting through the door sent me out of the mayhem mission entirely, back to Port Oakes. The mission didn't reset, but it was kind of jarring. Additionally, the mission never appeared to "end". The yellow point remained on my map.
2. I also found a clue for an imprisoned villain. The "free the villain" side trips are totally not worth it. It takes a while to fight your way down to the basement, and then tangle with the boss, especially if the Longbow ambush arrives at the same time. Battering down those reinforced doors is no trivial matter too. Extra time really needs to be awarded for springing the villain.
3. The stalker Echidna only ever seemed to use Impale. I'm sure she had other attacks, but all I ever got out of her was the big wind-up attack. Also, she was classified as a boss, not a pet. Is this intentional?
4. Mastermind henches have severe issues with large metal containers. They run all around the things, apparently unsure of where the actual 'target' is. They also have a bad habit of trying to attack the invisible thing that generates the anti-teleport fields in the PPD jail cells.
Also, many many thanks for making that Raptor Pack the reward for the Atlas Park mission! Jetpacks for lowbies is possibly the best reward in the game.
Arc #41077 - The Men of State
Arc #48845 - Operation: Dirty Snowball
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For a solo player:
At difficulty level 1. it's a Boss.
At difficulty level 2, it's a Boss+1
At difficulty level 3, it's a Boss+2
At difficulty level 4, it's an Elite Boss
At difficulty level 5, it's an Elite Boss+1
At difficulty level 6, it's an Hero
At difficulty level 7, it's a Hero+1
At difficulty level 8, it's a Hero+2
[Of course, only difficulty levels 1-5 can be chosen by the player as the starting level.]
For each two side missions done, the level difficulty of the final boss goes up one.
For 4 players, the difficulty level goes up one.
For 6 players, the difficulty level goes up two.
For 8 players, the difficulty level goes up three.
This would mean that a solo player on level 1 who does just the bank job, will get a Boss. If that player does 4 side missions, he or she would get a Boss+2.
A solo player on level 5 who does just the bank job will get an Elite Boss+1. (This allows soloists who run at highest difficulty level to avoid a Hero fight.)
A team of 8 that's starts at difficulty level 1 will get always get at least an Elite Boss. If they do four side missions, they get a Hero. If a team of 8 starts at difficulty level 5 they will always get a Hero+2.
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Umm, I hate to say this, but a boss at the lowest level is what they've been trying to avoid for a LONG time now. It's the lowest difficulty so that weaker ATs and weaker builds can actually solo a mission.
Also, guessing based on what States said about eventually moving these to the hero side(all be it the opposite of this in some fashion), using this scale would make the lowest levels nearly impossible for some builds. Imagine an Empathy or Forcefield defender that's focused on team buffs and heals trying to complete these solo. Just because long term players know that's gonna be difficult doesn't mean that a new one will.
My level 40 Dominator took on a mayhem mission last night.
Zone: Founder's Falls (off Grandville)
Diff: Villainous
A few comments:
The female stalker (sorry, I forget her name) was the villain in prison. I broke her out, but something strange happened to her after that. She stopped following me (though she would still announce that I left her), was still "friendly" when I targetted her, but her caltrops were slowing me if I walked on them.
Zoning out of the Prison placed me under the world once.
Though my difficulty was villainous, my ending hero was Positron in Elite Boss status. I had no chance of defeating him since he retains his purple arrows and thus resists all of my control effects. There really is an issue with Elite Bosses and dominators. They really need to have their arrows removed when downgraded from AV/Hero status.
I must admit it was neat flying over Founder's trying to "lose" Positron who was flying after me though.
The first key I found in the zone (near the zone-in and Police Department) didn't give me a waypoint on the map or on the compass.
I really like the way these missions are set up. The side missions really feel like missions (the warehouse and office ones are more fun with a "real goal"). Two thumbs way up overall.
EDIT: Also, though I haven't done many of these, it seems the keys are almost always found on villain group spawns (Lost, Crey, etc). It might be neat to have at least one located in an item that you have to destroy to get.
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The first key I found in the zone (near the zone-in and Police Department) didn't give me a waypoint on the map or on the compass.
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The key that doesn't show up is the one that allows you to free the prisoner.
I liked that stalker. I watched her finish Citadel after he went MOG on me and killed me deader than Elvis.
One of the problems related to MM pets I believe have to do with the ambushes that strike when entering side missions. If half of the ambush is in the building and the other half outside, the pets get confused and dont know which to attack. Another thing I noticed is that the pets have a hard time figuring out who is going to go thru the door first.
If one pets is targeted to go thru and another is blocking the way, I think the AI switches targets back and forth for whos going in. So then they get stuck in this loop of getting out of the way of each other and first to go in.
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Nor do they change the rating of the game by allowing players to kill helpless civilians.
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But they sure do get in the way of targeting.. hell if we can't KO them or something then why make them targetable at all. Not to mention MM pets go bonkers around them.
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AGREED! If we can't attack them DON'T make them targettable! 
That kind of thing is NOT fun and reeks of looking like a bug.
If you do leave them targettable, can we at least knock them around a bit (not hurt/maim/kill)? Pretty please with sugar on top? I just want to be able to knock them outta my way. Call it revenge for pushing my hero around. 
(i.e. set it up so when it comes to civies, all powers affect them like knockback/dizzy/holds/etc, whichever's appropriate for the AT)
P.S. Please choose the second option - that's more fun!
I did another mayhem mission last night. This time with my lvl 40 Bot/FF Mastermind, paired with a lvl 30 Dark/Energy Brute that was lackey'd to me. Mission difficulty was at Relentless because I wanted to see what it would be like at that level. The mayhem mission was in Founder's Falls.
We got in, tons of Psi-Cops and Police Drones. The Psi-Cops weren't too bad, but the Police drones were just underwhelming in my opinion. For something that insta-defeats any villain npc around generally, it just felt like they should have been doing something more. The villain group in the area was Devouring Earth, which just felt weird. I don't imagine them being particularly concerned with a villain being trapped in jail or whatnot, but apparently they really were.
So we took out the DE near the PD, got the key, and went in. Went around the reinforced door (why is there a reinforced door there when you can just go another route around it, anyway?) and down to the cell area. There was one of the giant PPD robot bosses in there and that was really neat. Enjoyed that a lot. Also was ambushed by some more at the same time. We defeated them and the Brute started on the door that was supposed to keep the villain in. It didn't since she just jumped over/around it. I don't remember her name but she was a Katana scrapper essentially, who looked kinda like Silver Mantis. No time bonus for breaking her out, which I personally think needs to be changed. She stuck with us for a while but eventually disappeared and I'm not sure where she went.
We got out of there and were making our way toward the bank, killing on the way. Not as much random stuff that I saw for destruction as Steel Canyon, but I could have been imagining things. Found another group of DE, took them out and went in there. It was an arson job, with all four bombs right in the front lobby, so we took out the associated ambush, set the bombs and ran.
Blowing up the building gave us an additional four minutes, doubling our time to eight. The Brute was killed in the ambush that followed, and I decided to just run for the bank. I got there, recalled the Brute, he popped an awaken, and we waited for my bots to enter the bank. They showed up right when the ambush showed up. We took them out and went through the bank taking out the Longbow as we went.
Broke open the safe, the Brute went for the money while I went back to head off the Hero. Turned out to be a Sonic hero named Cacaphony at Boss level. He two or three shotted me, which dropped the bots, leaving the Brute to take everything. I was partially behind a corner, so I popped an awaken and tried to get the bots back up as quick as possible, but the hero kept taking them out via AoE attacks almost as soon as I'd summon them. We got him down to maybe 5-10% health by the time we ran out of time and the mission ended as a failure.
I still got to choose a contact, which was good, though I didn't get the temp power as a result.
Overall feelings on this one. First, it was difficult, but I was intending it to be difficult because I wanted to see what it'd be like. Once I7 goes live though, I'll probably tone it down to Malicious or Vicious for the mayhem missions so that I can actually be more likely to beat them and so I can be more sure of causing mayhem in the meantime. Second, now that I've actually done a mayhem mission with my bots, the serious delay the bots have in entering doors is definitely a pain. Also their huge size in the tight corridors of the PD was a pain for the Brute to move around. Third, as I said, the DE felt weird. Perhaps switching them out for a different type of enemy that shows up in FF? Council would work no problem, Rikti could possibly work, CoT would work.
Now that I'm in my mid to late 20s and getting more and more of the glue-bomb SWAT guys, I'm seeing a huge, huge problem with them, especially when they spawn more than two at a time. As it now stands, you get a 30 second time bonus for defeating a spawn that stucks so many debuffs on you, for such a long duration, that it takes you 60 seconds just to make it to the next spawn. With the duration on that debuff being as severe as it is, you lose time for fighting PPD, not gain it. The duration on the -spd and -jump debuff really, really needs to come down, preferably to no more than 15 seconds.
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If you do leave them targettable, can we at least knock them around a bit (not hurt/maim/kill)? Pretty please with sugar on top? I just want to be able to knock them outta my way. Call it revenge for pushing my hero around. (i.e. set it up so when it comes to civies, all powers affect them like knockback/dizzy/holds/etc, whichever's appropriate for the AT)
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Well, any holds, knockback powers, etc, already do do that... though it -would- be nice if all powers did that, or something similar, so we could seem to have a little more impact on the citizens. As it is, if you don't have a decent hold / knockback power, you feel a little silly. ;p
However, civillians -do- scream and run from you. And they seem to be doing it a little more readily after the latest patch, though sadly on my last check I didn't have time to see if -all- the citizens were responding properly yet before I hit a sound-loop crash.
Ok, so since I haven't seen a list of the temp powers that are awarded for completing a Mayhem Mission successfully, I figured I'd start compiling one. This is what I have so far, please help me fill in holes and correct mistakes.
Level 5-10 - Raptor Pack, giving 2 gameplay hours of Fly.
Level 10-15 - Jump Boots, giving 2 gameplay hours of Superjump.
Level 15-20 - Resuscitation, giving 48 gameplay hours of Self Rez, with a 1 hour recharge timer.
Level 20-25 - Team Recall, giving I think 24 gameplay hours of a group version of Recall Friend, with something around a 2 minute recharge timer.
Level 25-30 - ???
Level 30-35 - (can't remember name), giving I think 72 gameplay hours of +5 maximum Endurance.
Level 35-40 - ???
Level 40-45 - ???
Level 45-50 - ???
Can anyone fill in those holes or provide any additional information?
at 40 I got the life insurance lower debt thing, 2 days worth of In-game time (so it doesn't die on you when you're logged out)
Yeah, I got one-shotted by Back Ally Brawler with my robots in Defensive and half still alive (on villianous even).
Man, that guy hits hard.
Member of:
Repeat Offenders Network - The Largest Coalition Network in the Game, across Virtue, Freedom, Justice and Exalted. Open to all, check us out.
Current Team Project: Pending
Has anyone else found the placement of the Port Oakes Mayhem Mission door really annoying? It's inevitably all the way across the map from Drea, which is a real PIA when you have no travel powers. (and requires travelling through pretty ugly territory for Pre-Lvl 10 characters)
Doing the lvl 20 something mayhem missions in sharkhead are a complete joysuck. Every mob of police have the swat guy with the glue gun and your guaranteed to get hit by it. It wouldnt be so bad if it didnt severvely slow you down and come with a -fly/jump, but to make matters worst it last for a long time a very long time. I've counted the glue being on me for as long as 2-3 minutes. this has to change. Even with a BF your pets are still hindered by the glue so if your an MM kiss attacking goodbye. Your better off dismissing and resuming the pets then training them all over again. it'll be quicker than waiting on the glue to wear off.
Other enemies also need to be toned down. Even on villainous these enemies proved to be too excessive. The swat sergent should not come with full auto. this is a minion with full auto when usually its on family bosses. Not only that theres no time in between his casting of full auto. I.E. I cant click on two health packs before he gets off 2-3 rounds of full auto. This is not fun in fact its border line cheap and should be toned down severly.
Other enemies that should be toned down so that the player can compete against them at the lower lvl like 20. Are the swat grenaders. They also have the unbelievible ability to rapidly fire off rounds of grenades, that do smashing and lethal damage along with knockdown. To give you an idea in 15 seconds they can launch two grenades that do 43+50 each. That means you go from green to red in seconds and since they are paired with swat sergents that usually means you'll be one shotted.
The reinforced doors take to much destroy. Sitting there for two or three minutes to blow up a door because you got one shotted slows the action down to a crawl. Not only that if your mm its impossible to have them avoid the blast which will take half there life. Not good.
I've done the lvl 40 mayhems and there not as hard as the lvl 20 mayhems that should tell you something is wrong here.
Oh one last note having enemies just bypass your pets and come straight for you reguardless of if your pets are attacking them or not is not good. Even in body guard mode if 3-4 longbow, 3-4 swat, and 3-4 police continually just target you and shoot you at the same time your going to die. This is of the norm and needs to be changed.
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at 40 I got the life insurance lower debt thing, 2 days worth of In-game time (so it doesn't die on you when you're logged out)
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At 40, I did two (Nerva & Grand), Nerva netted Health Increase, a +HP (not sure how much) 24 hour thing, Grand netted Life Insurance.
Enemy Resistances - Damage, Mez and Defense
Enemy XP Mods
(Drag my avatar into your mp3 player!)
This was my experince with my lower level brute (9-13)
At lvl 9 many of the objects were lvl 10 or 15 and it was pointless to smash them up .
The cars exploding were cool but for a melee who gets no KB protection and before my stauts toggle, the stun, damage and knockback sucked.
When a sidequest is earned please put clue found, and remove them from the map or grey them out or something when completed.
when you exit a sidequest it takes you out of the misison.
The citizens running away into buildings is great, and being able to attack them is fun. But pets and NPCs wasting their time on them is frustrating.
Overall I enjoy them though, they are an awesome idea....a little tweaking is still needed.
Speaking as a stalker who experienced that, it can't kill you. New one shot code you know?
Ok, my first experiences being able to take someone through a high level one, my grav/energy dom:
-Those PPD Ghosts seriously need to be toned down. One -Acc gernade has me wiffing over half the time with SO's. The fact that they can stack 3 of them means that if I don't hold them in the first hit I have to run away if I want any hope of living. Even three acc inspirations doesn't help at that point. The glue attack from I think it's SWAT's similarly lasts a lot longer than one would anticipate.
-The villians that you free need some work. For the first minute he was cool, then I learned about his little 'problem'. Rar! A door! *spends a couple minutes killing it* Rar! A cardboard box! *kills that* Rar! Cilvilians! *Run around everywhere, at which point I give up hope of bringing him anywhere with me.
-Reinforced doors really hate when you propel things at them, particularly ones that don't occur on the map it seems. The throw objects do this jumpy around things for a few seconds after hitting the door, and only then explode.
-Breaking out of jail was interesting, in that there was a boss on the other side of the door, who started attacking before I could break it down and attack back.
Overall, the high level Mayhem missions are interesting, but I'm not particularly tempted to go back till there's a point when a single common minion does not pose more threat to me than most bosses.
&Edit& So after reading some of the back log of stuff, I have to say that I personally am glad we don't kill civilians. I found the whole GTA experience kind of in bad taste. If the dev vision isn't to make a game like that I'm all for it. After all, I'm a super villain, not a thug.
It would be nice if they did flee into buildings and out of the way after you terrorized them though.