Official Thread for Mayhem Missions
By
13th_Stranger,
Posted on: 2006-05-01 24:55 in Developers' Corner
My first mayhem mission had the Elite Boss Malise! There go any rumors of him returning to his vilianous activities.
After he whooped my behind and sent me directly to jail, not passing go, I went back for another round. Which of course went badly too. I ran out the bank door for a breather, waiting for the dang confusion to wear off. When I returned to the bank for round three, Malise had beat feat, like a coward.
Thats right, the 'hero' had gone MIA. I spent about 15 to 20 minutes searching the instance for him, but he was nowhere to be found.
Once test is back up again, I'll be checking to see if this disappearing act is a repeatable bug.
I made the mistake of doing a Mayhem solo as a Dominator on Malicious. White Swan showed up after I robbed the bank and proceded to kick my [censored] all around the premesis as an Elite Boss with Hero/AV triangles.
So don't worry about the 'LTs in costumes'. Crank up the difficulty and you'll get real heroes.
Actually, I was finding that my time bonusses for randomly destroying things were not updating properly. For a while, it'd be +1 minute per car I blew up - but every now and then, it'd "skip" a car. Boxes and barrels, eh, I don't know if it's thirty seconds EACH, or, thirty seconds for X number of them, or, what.
And my supposedly twenty-minutes-to-start mayhem mission started the clock at thirteen minutes and fourty-nine seconds (?!?), two minutes of which were consumed with setup time (I was on my Mastermind at the time).
This was, specifically, for a Mayhem Mission gained in Sharkshead ... was sent to rob the bankin Steel Canyon.
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Mastermind Pets (I tested with bots) take a long time to use building doors (I tried the police station, front door and inside elevator). This means the Mastermind is left on the other side of the door without any support. This should be adressed, as it not only casues a danger to the player, but also wastes precious time.
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I can confirm this. And it's REALLY annoying when the Longbow you're RUNNING from get through the door faster than the henchmen who were right behind you.
THe Steel Canyon gig was a BLAST.
My stalker was running around destroying cars, parking meters, newspaper racks...
realized that I had some of the Drop of Nectar left from V-day (that's when I copied her over to Test) and when I used that on a batch of SWAT cops... they started taking stuff out too - hey look, bonuses!! Got "arrested" twice, but the police station wasn't too hard to break out of. And then got into the bank, got the cash, and took out Ms. Shock and a couple of Longbow... WHILE being glued... with all of 20 seconds to spare.
WOOT!
The temp power given for a successful raid was pretty sweet. Now I'll have to get a team together to see how it works (supposedly a 'team' version of Recall Friend... hrmmmmm!!!!)
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
First off: HOLY COW >< that was awesome! <,<
I just got done with my first Mayhem mission and... all I can say is that was among the coolest things I've ever done in an MMO in a non-story-based way. Particularly awesome was blowing the crap out of the parking meters and spilling the change everywhere <,<
The hero I got was a normal boss on Malicious; named Overdrive (I think) something like that >.< Energy/Energy blaster. At first she was kinda mean; because she would *only* hit me; but once I set bodyguard back up I was OK; still hate how they only focus on the MM.
Now then: Huge bug time ><;
I didn't get xp for *any* of the defeats I made in the mission; nor the mission itself >.<; none. zero. zilch. No Inf either.
It was just like the tutorial in that aspect >.< I /bugged it in game; so hopefully that'll help.
Also the time bonus thing people have mentioned was happening for me too; I couldn't seem to keep the time up high enough to have a real chance at the bank without giving up on optional objectives fairly early >.<
I only had one optional going >.> I found a building guarded by 3 Crey; and when I beat them I got a key... using that key, I went downstairs and there were weapons of all sorts lining the walls <o.o> and several safes to rob! <,< mwahahahaa... it was great!
PPD Shell and PPD Psi Officers are both *awesome* >.< this is the kind of enemy we need more of... interesting! I didn't see anything else but them and some longbow though <;.;> was really hoping to fight the huge Policebots; but I'm guessing I didn't cause enough mayhem >.<;
When I finished the mission; I got what might be the blandest temp power ever; but also a very good one: Max HP boost. Just a basic auto power that boosts max HP for 24 hours; I think I only gained 100HP; but for a mastermind >.< that's a fair deal (I only have 600 some without it; 700 some with it).
Anyways; Cryptic... once the bugs are worked out of these they'llbe *amazing* >.<b Thanks for the awesomeness!
Now we just need a heroic version <O_O> (Arachnos base trashing anyone? <,< Or a PVE 'battlefield' similar to the stuff in Siren's Call; but with destructable objects and of course, just PVE)
First off:
I loved the one I did. Lv26 Brute, went to Independence Port to rob the bank. Smashing things is SO fun, I wish it was doable in every zone. But know that's not possible. ^_^;;
I made good time to the bank, about 10 minutes to spare(after smashing numerous things and resisting arrest several times). No problems getting to the vault, busting it open, and taking out the guards. It was a challenge, but FUN.
That beings me to my second set of comments:
Once the hero showed up, things went from 'challenging and fun' to 'nearly impossible'. Thanks to other enemies spawning in addition to the hero(a flying MA scrapper, looked like) and his longbow minion, I was unable to do anything but get slowed to a crawl, have my accuracy debuffed to useless, then die.
Breaking out of prison was neat. The first time. But the 5 other times I had to do it weren't fun at all.
Now, add my normal problems to enemies, again, constantly spawning and chasing me. I duck inside the bank to fight the hero again, and... all those guys follow me in.
I have 2 minutes left on the clock.
The only way I made it was to down every single inspiration I had available, which was about 5 damage ones, and lots of health and endurances. My tray was full. End of the fight, it was empty.
And then I died.
Uhm, so.
To sum up:
-The missions are a BLAST.
-The ability to solo these missions seems 'feasable', but not frequently repeatable. This is mostly due to the enemies that debuff your speed and accuracy spamming the attacks that do so.
My suggestion for a quick fix would be to change the strength and frequency of those debuffs to a much lower level.
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After running the IP version as a Brute a couple of times -- fantastic fun! Really well executed, Cryptic.
I did note however that almost as soon as I entered my first solo mission, the timer dropped to 16 minutes, and then proceeded to work its way up to ~22 from bonus points whilst I was just standing around. The map had a lot of Council in it, and I think I saw some fighting PPD. Perhaps they were winning me points?
PPD Ghosts are just plain evil. Overpoweredly so. With just one in a group before I realised what was going on, they could easily stack three Flashbang Grenades, which made them untouchable to my 1 Acc SO + 2 Insights + 3 ToHit SO Rage. If I didn't kill them straight away, I just ran off and waited. The debuffs last for far too long.
SWAT Equalisers (the guys firing Glue/'StickyArrows' and dropping Acid Mortars) were annoying, but fun.
Although I couldn't damage the civilians, I enjoyed smashing them anyway, and watching them scream and run for the nearest building. 
On whatever the second difficulty level is, my hero spawned as a Boss. After defeating him, I scored a temporary power that increases my Run, Jump and Flight speed for three days!
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OK ran a MM on villainous (2 man team) went OK till White Swan showed up as an Elite Boss.
Her in addition to the constant swarm of ambushes caused multiple deaths. If their is even a possibility of generating an EB my Dominator is going to hate doing these missions...
Most fun I've ever had failing a mission.
Couple of points:
It wasn't altogether clear what we were supposed to do to gain extra time. We kept getting a bonus 30 seconds for resisting arrest, but what does that mean exactly? As far as we knew, we were smashing things and hitting the heroes without much of a battle plan.
Silent Blade seemed to be a bit useless.
I got a raptor pack, jet pack that lasts 2 hours. Next run caused more devastation and didnt recieve a temp power at all. Are we only allowed one temp power? Or is there something I missed?
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I got a raptor pack, jet pack that lasts 2 hours. Next run caused more devastation and didnt recieve a temp power at all. Are we only allowed one temp power? Or is there something I missed?
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One temp power per ten levels, based on the Mayhem Mission you can get at the time.
61866 - A Series of Unfortunate Kidnappings - More than a coincidence?
2260 - The Burning of Hearts - A green-eyed monster holds the match.
379248 - The Spider Without Fangs - NEW - Some lessons learned (more or less.)
INSANE fun. Just insane.
But, as has been noted, the irritating-power-Spamming is less of a challenge and more of a drag. I was fortunate that I had Entropy sheild and teammates to pull attention away when I got hit simultaneously by *10* EMP grenades. I survived, but it sucked hard.
We also had a major problem in completing the mission. We took out our Hero in a fun little fight.... and no complete. No nothing. We weren't sure what was up. Possibly some Longbow guy spawns with the Hero that we missed, but with upwards of 30 longbow and PCPD firing at us, we sure couldn't find him before time ran out. Very frustrating to fail a good run because you can't find one guy amidst all the spawns, if that's what happened. We either need a way to see the "required" enemy targets, or it needs to be made such that you only have to take out the hero. They're relatively easy to see, even in an 8-man mission.
so how are these assigned? do they come up in lieu of heists from brokers now, or what?
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so how are these assigned? do they come up in lieu of heists from brokers now, or what?
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Yes.
Heist can be choosen as any regular newspaper mish and mayhems replace heist every 5 missions.
I got defeated by the hero, and ended up in jail. Had a little trouble finding my way out of the PD, and when I clicked on the doors, I fell under the map. /stuck just took me back to the point I fell from.
While it was fun, I wish I had the choice of heist or Mayhem. Why?
(1) I strongly dislike the need to use the broker to get contacts anyway. When I'm ready for my next contact, I hate having to do five random missions and then another mission just for my next contact. Heists seem to take longer (particularly some of the casino ones where I just clear a room and a couple of ambushes) and seem to have a much greater chance of debt.
(2) It doesn't fit my characters. None of my villains are the "let's go cause chaos for the hell of it" psycho types. They are more the scheming and plotting types.
If I can choose between heist and mayhem, then I can do mayhem when I'm in the mood, or heist if I just want it over with.
My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
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GadgetMania Under Attack: The Digg Lockout
Did a four man mission on the max setting, was the rob bank in brickstown one.
Temp power at the end was a 10% health boost for 24 hours. Gives you a dull pain green sparkle look.
There was A LOT of psi. I think maybe to much heh. /Dark brutes would have a field day.
Pretty fun though.
I love, LOVE how when you break a mailbox letters fly everywhere. And when you fly over the letters . . .they move from the breeze.
Best issue since issues 2/3.
Got on Steady Arsonist, L40 SS/Fire Brute, to test out Mayhem missions. I actually wanted to test Grandville, but every time I try to enter a mission there I crash, so I went back to St. Martial and grabbed a mayhem mission from my broker. My thoughts, in no particular order:
1. The mobs are spread out all over the place. I was running on Vicious, and I rarely saw more than 2 enemies at a time. Not a bad thing necessarily, just not like normal outdoor maps where you can usually see 3-4 mobs groups at any given time.
2. It's really annoying to try to target an actual enemy. All the objects show up in the normal TAB target cycle. I'd really like to see the options window have target next enemy and target next object. You may be able to do this with keybinds now, but many people won't know how. Ideally, make whatever TAB currently is be enemies, and add something new that includes objects as well.
3. Destroying stuff is cool. 
The cars and bus stops are especially neat.
4. The timers seem to be messed up a little. I got a time increased message for destroying bus stops while I was beating on a car - hadn't destroyed any bus stops yet. Then I went and broke down a bus stop, and got a time increased message for destroying something else, crates maybe.
5. After I robbed the bank, I looked at my message window to see what was ambushing me - and it was Numina! Holy Hero, Batman! Luckily I was on Vicious so she was an Elite Boss, and I had a ton of inspirations, but even so it was a near thing. If I'd been playing a dominator or corruptor, there's no way I could have beaten her. This is not good. Not because fighting signature heros isn't cool - it is, very much so. But these missions are part of your Broker cycle, which means you must complete them in order to even start on new contacts. The missions should be easily completable by any AT on Villainous. Heroes/Elite Bosses are not a good idea in broker missions.
6. I was greatly disappointed that I couldn't hurt the civilians. It's cool that they run in fear, but I wanted to see them go down.
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6. I was greatly disappointed that I couldn't hurt the civilians. It's cool that they run in fear, but I wanted to see them go down.
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/agreed
I enjoyed destroying the world objects but on the mission I had I was perma slowed and perma blinded by the PD. I have to say my fun was greatly reduced because of that. All I wanted to do was get the hell out of the mission.
Level 7 villainous difficulty solo Mayhem Mission from Port Oakes to Atlas Park with a Thugs/Poison MM ... and the most fun I've had in this game in months.
1) I couldn't figure out any pattern to how many of each item I had to destroy to get the time bonus, either. But I suspect that's on purpose. I did notice that hardly anything gave more time bonus than it took to destroy.
2) I gave up after three cell doors in the jail. It was taking me way too long to break down the doors, and if I'd had to do all six to find the villain, I would have been out of time.
3) I only found one of the other side quests, and unfortunately I didn't find it until after I'd finished the bank robbery itself. I was out of time; I only got halfway in. I don't blame you for that, just saying why I don't have anything to say about the side quests.
4) Since they can't actually be destroyed, pets and minions need to ignore civilians unless they're told otherwise. Otherwise, if they've gone aggressive, they'll never catch up with you.
5) On villainous difficulty, solo, I got a named superhero at LT level with more or less the same powers as a LT-level Hellion D_mned. And I don't mind one bit, because hey, name, and hey, unique costume -- coolness! I notice that after that mission I had a counter bar for defeat-n-named-heroes, and boy is that a cool badge to want.
6) I did get the Global Threat badge. Since it came up under Exploration, may I assume that these are based not on what you do in the map but how long you're actually on the map?
7) Raptor Pack reward. Oh Em Eff Gee. Heroes are going to give birth to a porcupine, breach presentation, with all attendant sound effects, when they realize that villains are given two hours of flight time somewhere around level 6 to 8.
8) Thank Ghu for ranged attacks. I dread to think what it would take for a brute or a stalker to deal with a jail cell door or a car or any of the other things in here that have huge explosions.
While I had more fun than a pig in Congress, I predict that you're going to get a lot of negative feedback on the design of these. For one thing, it ruins the immersion of all of the people who were role-playing double agents; while they could justify robbing banks that are owned/used by supervillains, attacking Paragon City will be harder for them. But there'll be a lot more people who have a problem with the Mayhem part of the Mayhem mission, because it's just too relevant. It basically turns all of the Destined Ones into state-sponsored terrorists. I'm cool with that, but I suspect that a lot of them won't be.
You may be able to alleviate that somewhat by adjusting the mission text so that people are told that if they head straight for the bank and go around the cops and so forth, there's plenty of time to rob the bank. That won't make the first group of potential complainers happy, but it at least skips the terrorism aspect.
I love the Mayhem Missions. I got to run one..I kidnaps some poor sob..robbed what looked like a pawnshop and ofcourse, robbed the bank. Oh yeah I also busted up the police station. I can see myself leveling many characters on paper missions alone.
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For one thing, it ruins the immersion of all of the people who were role-playing double agents; while they could justify robbing banks that are owned/used by supervillains, attacking Paragon City will be harder for them.
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Well, if that's really such a big deal, they can let the timer tick down and do nothing. You get introduced to the new contacts whether you succeed at the Mayhem Mission or not.
Independance Port Mayhem!
1) As stated by the developers, we are now supposed to have "regular" bank heists as part of our newspaper. These did not show up at all in Shark's Head.
2) I had no problem wreaking havoc and clocking up my time so that I could do my bank job. Smashing cars worked very good and I think some of the NPCs were breaking stuff to give me some time. 
3) Slows and -Jump: Um, wow were the debuffs used often and lasted long. A chainlink fence became an impassible barrier. I would suggest toning this down a bit, as it slows down the action a lot.
4) Longbow showed up just as I found my bank from all the insurance premium increases I was causing. They, of course, followed me right in the door. Nice!
5) Vindicator alert! The Elite Boss Aurora Borealis showed up to beat me down, only to find out that a SS/Inv brute at full fury and eight reds is a quick beatdown*er*! Nasty fight that I came out with 1/30th of my health bar. Dang Psi damage.
6) Random wanderings afterwards, I found the little Police Station (dang, I was looking for something else.) No badges for me!
7) It was a blast, plain and simple! Temp Power of "speed" increase was quite nice. I need to see if you can earn the temp powers from the lower levels.
Still here, even after all this time!
I loved most of the mission, the only problem was the Villain that was supposed to help me. He kept chasing after citizens or randomly attacking things on the way back to the bank. The most annoying part was when his force field drone blocked the door of the very small room I was in and I was stuck! Shouldn't pets be movable by this point? I had already completed the mission but I was trying to do as much other stuff as I could. Blocked by your supposed ally was not a good thing. Aside from that, I really enjoyed the whole mission.
Whole lots of ambushes, made it difficult to do anything at times, died multiple times as a result (3 person team in the mid 20's). I agree with what some posters have said about needing to quantify in some way what you're getting the time bonuses from so you can know what might be good to be working for.
Definitely like the side missions in it, robbed a jewelry store and was getting ambushes like CRAZY, so after the two deaths, I sent the other two ahead to the bank at the end and stealthed my way to stealing the other stuff in the store. Got around 6 minutes of extra time as a result. Great stuff, though the sheer amount of ambushes may be a bit over the top.
I can't remember what our hero was like (It was Ms. Shock, she was Boss rank), since she went down quick. Given that we were fighting other ambushes at the same time, I don't have a problem with that.
I know the broker (Mickey the Filch in Sharkhead) said we'd have 20 minutes in Steel Canyon, but when we entered the mission we had 15 starting. No timer was active prior to entering the mission.
The temp power we earned for finishing the mission is cool: Group Recall Friend, on roughly a 2 minute timer (didn't actually time how long it is, that's just a rough estimate). It lasts for 24 hours of gameplay. One thing that was fun that we did with it was everyone go to different locations and recall the group at once. People were swapping places all over the place. Very useful temp power though, it's a shame it's only 24 hours of gameplay. But I can understand that they don't want people to have it forever and stuff. Also didn't get a chance to check (or more accurately I didn't think about it until I had already logged off) whether this would recall pets as well, hopefully it will though.
Also, two of us in the group had access to doing a mayhem mission, we did one of them, for the person who's mayhem mission we didn't do (mine), I still had the option to do my mayhem mission and didn't get credit toward a contact by doing my teammate's mission. Not sure if this is intended or not, and in a lot of ways I like it this way because this means more mayhem is available. But wanted to mention it just in case.
Overall, VERY fun stuff. Was difficult due to the sheer amount of ambushes. The SWAT may be a bit burly, especially in the quantity we were fighting as a team of three all on villainous. Didn't have a problem with the Longbow.