Official Thread for Mayhem Missions
By
13th_Stranger,
Posted on: 2006-05-01 24:55 in Developers' Corner
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i LOVE the fact that i can hit pedestrians with my /kin powers. Huge fulcrum shifts, always a target to siphon speed.... Oh glorious day! 
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Probably something that would help with the "immersion" factor is if you hit a civilian it is "teleported" out. That way you are defeating the civilians, but not really hurting them.
I do love seeing level 1s running around.
Still here, even after all this time!
For finishing the last mayhem mission, before bed, I got 24 hours of more hp as a temp power. Hah added frostwork to the brute that I was running the mish with and put him near 2k hp. Payoff for finishing just made me love this aspect of issue 7 even more.
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Heh, your mayhem mission spawned a lieutenant?
Gee, mine spawned an EB Manticore 
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Well aren't you special. Nyeh nyeh nyeh. ::bitter::
lol j/k
I'm ticked though... I saved my domination for him thinking this big bad hero was going to come running at me... and I get a lt with a cape and flamey eyes. Sheesh I coulda' held him with a flashbang grenade on me.
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Thumbs up on the Mayhem missions! Well executed and fun!
I failed mine, though 
Longbow are much easier to handle than Reinforced Doors...
...why, yes, I was playing a Dominator (mind/psi, threat level 28), how did you know? 
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What's your difficulty setting? I totally dominated with my dominator.
The only time I ran into a problem is when I was trying to break the villain out some longbow came up the elevator and blindsided me... I couldn't hit anything 'cause as soon as I exited the elevator a stupid ghost flashbanged me.
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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.
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Not really an issue as the mission will run out within 20 min or so.
Im curious what does the xp look like from mayhem missions compared to the old way of just the bank heist. I ask because I wonder if this is a conscious decision at lower lvls to make sure every character cannot play out every early story arc, as it is in port oakes I have a hard enough time getting all the story arc badges and temp pwrs before outleveling them (thus proving the point).
I'm not saying whether this is good or bad, I can see the use in making sure no character can run through every single story arc, to make sure you have to role another one to see everything.
Got a quick question - are the mayhem mission locations constant, either tied to the broker's zone or the character's level, or do you go back to "earlier" ones - I'd like to hit some of the low-level ones with my villain main.
A thought that might make these easier for those who choose to do so...
What if you didn't have to beat the hero? Yes, the hero will attempt to ambush you, but if you can hold or outrun the hero, shouldn't that be a win?
The rewards should be less. The temp power should be dependant upon taking down the hero, and maybe a reduced mission completion. Give people reasons to do the full-on mayhem, but let those who choose not to able to try to zip in and out.
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i LOVE the fact that i can hit pedestrians with my /kin powers. Huge fulcrum shifts, always a target to siphon speed.... Oh glorious day!
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Probably something that would help with the "immersion" factor is if you hit a civilian it is "teleported" out. That way you are defeating the civilians, but not really hurting them.
I do love seeing level 1s running around.
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Yeah, trying to understand how propel can cripple a level 30 villain but only knocks a level 1 civilian on his butt unscatched...
Of course, we've all seen granny holding onto the purse for 15 minutes with 10 Outcast around her...
It's not so much City of Heroes as City Of Those Who Need Technology To Be 'Immortal' And Actually Fight Mobs Vs Just Resist Them 
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Im curious what does the xp look like from mayhem missions compared to the old way of just the bank heist. I ask because I wonder if this is a conscious decision at lower lvls to make sure every character cannot play out every early story arc, as it is in port oakes I have a hard enough time getting all the story arc badges and temp pwrs before outleveling them (thus proving the point).
I'm not saying whether this is good or bad, I can see the use in making sure no character can run through every single story arc, to make sure you have to role another one to see everything.
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Potential for MUCH more exp. The bank's about as big, plus the side-missions which have mobs in them, plus the mobs on the street, plus the TMK unlimited ambushes...
I think as long as you can maintain time you can keep ambushes coming. I stayed in the mission a good 10 minutes after I completed it just destroying stuff. Ambushes kept coming.
Admittedly Electric Bugaloo was level 5, two bubbles to 6, at the start of the mayhem mission I did...but at the end of it, was about 6-3/4ths. So I'd have to say the XP from running around resisting arrest, knocking over parking meters, busting up cars, and the like was pretty good. I can only assume it'll be less so with higher-level characters (after all, you can practically level up by sneezing in the pre-teen levels).
One issue that disappointed me, presumably a bug...the old heists are part of your regular newspaper cycle now, but don't seem to count toward your broker's bar (whatever you call it, when you advance in influence with the broker to get the 'special' missions). I love the heists, could easily see myself doing those *solely* if at all possible to advance to my contacts, but not if they're not gonna count...I enjoy knocking over banks, but not THAT much!
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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.
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Not really an issue as the mission will run out within 20 min or so.
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also no an issue since you can just say no to the broker when asked if you want the mission, same as now with the bank missions.
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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
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That was annoying. Even if they take no damage they should get knocked down when I punch them. Could've had some extra fun dunking them into the canals in Founder's Falls.
If we can't attack the civilians then please make them untargetable. That and objects should be exempt from the Target_Next_Enemy and Target_Previous_Enemy commands as it makes Tab almost useless when you have to cycle through dozens of objects to target the people actually attacking you.
Another bug: the now "regular" heist missions are not counting towards your Broker's contact bar.
Is the clock supposed to start ticking when you enter the mish? I entered, and the clock was already down to something like 16 minutes, instead of 20.
The first time I exited the police station, right when I clicked the door to exit I feel through a hole in the geometry and ended up waaaaay below the streets of Founder's Falls. The only way I was able to get topside was to fly until I bumped my head through the bottom of a fountain, then type /stuck. Quite odd.
In the bank I had two problems. First, it was really extremely DARK. I've never encoutered that particular problem before, but it was quite hard to see in there. The second problem really isn't a bug... I forgot to turn down my difficulty slider beforehand, so Citadel spawned as a Hero in the bank. He is TOUGH. I pounded on him for a couple of minutes but it became clear I wasn't going to be able to budge his health bar much. It also became clear that even with Unstoppable on, I was extremely stoppable, so I left.
Overall, a lot of fun.
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
If you say no to the mission...do you still get invited to a contact?
My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
The world beware! I've started a blog
GadgetMania Under Attack: The Digg Lockout
I just did my first Mayhem Mission and here are my impressions:
My character: Lvl 35 Stone/Invul Brute (in the new black invul, yesss exellent) With all even or plussed up enhancements.
The Map: Talos, with a bank to rob.
Mission: set to Malicious
The Good: Tremor netted me a lot of property damage, which got me a lot of bonus time, and a very warm fuzzy feeling of villany. Stone Melee is usually smashtastic, but when you mosey down a row of cars golf-swinging them into fiery ruin, well, that's-a-spicy-meat-a-balle. I liked how the PPD guys looked, and the interior of the bank and the prison/hospital were very well done, I took several wrong turns in my hurry to get out of the police building, very frantic and exciting (the first time, see below). I got more fun out of this aspect than I expected, and I had high hopes. Great job Devs!
The Bad: I understand the rationale behind the weaponry of a police force faced with super-powered threats. However, Once I got into the thick of things, I found that I rarely had less than 2 of the sticky "arrows" on me, which meant that I spent a huge portion of my 30 minutes at the slow cap, which is insult to injury for a stone melee character Also, it becomes unfun when every reinforced door takes a whole endurance bar of attacks to break down, and the PPD Assault bosses get 2-shotted by the electric/electric villain I freed, but I struggle to dent their smashing damage-proof armor. Not saying that things can't be tough, but come on, Energy melee has Total Focus and Energy Transfer, please consider making one class of PPD Shell trooper with a rubber suit of armor: tough vs Energy, Bouncy vs, Smash
The Ugly: So, there I am, I busted the door, took the loot, and here comes Mynx. I think, "Yay Mynx! Lethal Damage! I'm Invul, Yay!" Well, it didn't go that way. As a 35 elite boss, she had her pink triangles of "Seismic Smash? HA! Tremor? No, no ,no!" and with the pretty new claws animations and the 4035-odd hitpoints (4 times my own, roughly) she 4 shotted me. 265+ damage per hit, 4 attacks, 4 hits, dead brute. I go to the prison hospital, free a fellow villain, and go back, making sure all my toggles are up. Same thing. I died 4 times, and never got her health down by a quarter. Ow! my pride!
All in all, great stuff, just need to balance out the rapid-fire glue and the soloability of the hero responding to the crime.
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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.
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So if my raptor back runs dry, Im still not able to get a new temp power until 10 lvls after the first one was recieved?
So....The hero at the end of the mission Spawns at hero level instead of Elite Boss if set on invincible? Ouch, not sure if i like that, that means I'll have to reset my difficulty lower for each mayhem mission.
Evil, evil goodness 
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Love the design, of course there are a LOT of bugs, but hey, that's what we're TESTING it for.
The jail rocks, after I saw it marked on my map I just had to go bust the place up (nothing like pre-empting the police).
A design change I'd like to see, however, would be replacing Longbow with the PPD - I just like them better . But seriously, I suppose the Longbow ambushes make sense, PPD calling for anti-super backup and all (though I did notice they had a lot better stuff that Longbow does), but Longbow guarding the BANK? How'd they get the tip-off? A police Captain on patrol checking up on the bank as you 'just happen' to rob it makes a lot more sense to me then a Longbow Warden with his whole team in the vault.
Other than that, great job, I can see why I7 is so big.
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
Just echoing that the Mayhem missions were very fun for me also. Here are my observations:
1. Its too easy to accidentally hit the exit button when there is still time on the clock, and if the bank heist is complete, you can't re-enter. I had a team mate do that: hitting "exit" is so instinctive for some of us, I think there should be a confirmation dialog before exiting a mayhem mission, just because of the nature of the mission.
2. Eliminate the dampening fields in the jails. Its a timed mission designed explicitly to give fun to the players to go out and smash things. While the jail concept itself is great, let people break out of jail fast. There is no game-play breaking issue with allowing fast jailbreaks, beyond the trivial conceptual "why would they let you break out fast" - which is counterbalanced by the "why do I only have 15 minutes to smash things in Paragon City" issue.
3. I did two where I didn't get any time at all for destroying objects. I did one where I obliterated practically everything on the map and never got a key. Seems to be glitches here.
Overall, though, I think its a great concept. Its been a long time since I've genuinely gone "whoa!" in CoX, but seeing a +2 Infernal round the corner just to break up a bank robbery almost gave me a heartattack.
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Well I only had a few minutes in one before the server crashed again, but WOW! Great, GREAT job Devs
With the physics effects turned on they come alive so much, and was it my imagination or was debris actually being sucked towards my Singularity?
Psi mobs were cool and lifting pedestrians high into the air is just far too much fun
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So....The hero at the end of the mission Spawns at hero level instead of Elite Boss if set on invincible? Ouch, not sure if i like that, that means I'll have to reset my difficulty lower for each mayhem mission.
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I don't know about that. My Relentless Mayhem mission had a regular boss but he was buggy in that his shields were way to strong and he summoned pets nearly 10 levels tougher than himself.
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A design change I'd like to see, however, would be replacing Longbow with the PPD - I just like them better . But seriously, I suppose the Longbow ambushes make sense, PPD calling for anti-super backup and all (though I did notice they had a lot better stuff that Longbow does), but Longbow guarding the BANK? How'd they get the tip-off? A police Captain on patrol checking up on the bank as you 'just happen' to rob it makes a lot more sense to me then a Longbow Warden with his whole team in the vault.
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Agreed. Part of it is I just hate level 40 Spec Ops, but the bank should have guards in it, not Longbow just sitting around drinking soda or whatever waiting for a villain to show up. When the robbery begins the Police should arrive, but Longbow should not show up until the Hero arrives to stop you as they should be there to back him up.
For the guy who had Manticore show up, did he come with Longbow or did he bring his Wyvernn homeboys?
i LOVE the fact that i can hit pedestrians with my /kin powers. Huge fulcrum shifts, always a target to siphon speed.... Oh glorious day!