Official Thread for Mayhem Missions
By
13th_Stranger,
Posted on: 2006-05-01 24:55 in Developers' Corner
Except the FBI don't go out in public in candy cane colored spandex. 
Another awesome thing, I got to fight Police Drones and win this time. Revenge for the time I was dropped in Atlas Park back in beta!
Are mayham missions for both heros and villains? i havent looked into it, send PM w/ answer please.
Mayhem missions are very awesome. I think everyone is in agreement here on that. A few things I noticed immediately:
1. Escorts. I beat down some Crey in the Bricks map and got a key. Entered the building and captured and informant or somesuch. At this point, he was as usual, a kidnap victim and was following as per normal. I left the building to go take him back to the way point, when my Dark Servant got distracted attacking an invulnerable civilian. Between this and some unknown cause, my kidnapee decided he did not want to follow me anymore. He made the usual "Where are you?" comment, but was no longer interested in following me or paying attention to me at all. No stealth powers were on, as I needed to turn off Shadow Fall in the first place to get him to follow at all. I could not complete this objective since he wouldn't budge.
2. Pets and civies. While I love the fact that I can attack civilians and I don't mind that I can't kill them, I do mind that my pets do the same thing. Only since a pet is not smart enough to think on his own, and if not a MM, you cannot stop him short of un-summoning him, this creates a situation where a pet will attack a civilian forever. This is not a happy place for Dominators nor /Darks who may need that pet for backup when being attacked by spawns of Longbow. Especially at those high levels. Recall friend still works, but not everyone has it, nor may have the time un-interrupted to do so.
3. Heroes. I finished the bank vault and was on my way to defeat the hero, when I see that said hero is an Elite Boss Malaise! I fight him along with his spawn of Longbow and nearly take him down, but his HEAVY mezzes, Spectral Terror and Phantom Army are simply too much to deal with. You cannot defeat these pets nor can you run from them in the crowded space of the bank. Even as a /Dark who resists Psi and Fear, plus a pet to back me up, it was far too difficult. The difference between the normal mission and the Hero at the end was far too great a jump. I like that he's a hero and it's hard, but perhaps a better sliding scale? Boss versions of Heroes instead of EBs at lower settings? Lts<Boss<EB<Hero? This was on Malicious.
Also, after dying to him twice, upon the third time I came back to the bank to beat him, he had completely vanished. I used the rest of my time trying to find him and gaining more time in order to search, but he was nowhere to be seen. I could not finish the Mayhem mission at all. This was *very* disappointing.
4. Jail cell doors. These things are way way too tough to beat. I understand that they're re-enforced doors and that they're supposed to be tough, but it takes me at least 3-4 minutes to break through one. And this is in a timed mission, nonetheless. Also, why do they still explode? It does heavy damage to a squishy and just doesn't make sense. The vault door is much bigger and more complex yet doesn't explode. I don't see the logic. You must also defeat a new door everytime you die. While this does make sense, so that you don't immediately escape, the likelyhood of dying to an EB is high, solo. And you must spend your precious time wailing away at a door that will also do severe damage to you every time. This is not fun at all, compared to the greatness that the rest of the mission provides. I would like to see a lowered HP count on the door, and no damaging explosions from a hunk of metal. This would still make life difficult and annoying to be caught, as well as eat up time, but in a much more acceptable manner. On a team, where you can have friends to help it's not nearly as much of an issue, but this is bad for solo play.
I love the Mayhem missions, they're so much fun that I can't wait to do another. But due to bugs and a drastic shift in difficulty mid mission, I died twice, and was not able to complete a single objective at all. I would love for some of these issue to be addressed before the missions hit live.
http://www.virtueverse.net/wiki/Massacre_Melanie -the original Fire/Dark Corruptor -
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=115217
The Guide to BURN
Another bug I forgot about. While everyone else in my mission was 42, I ran into level 24 guards inside the jail.
I also agree that the doors take way to long to destroy, my Dark Melee Brute nearly ran out of endurance breaking through and that was with Stamina and endurance reducers in all attacks.
Am I wrong, or are the prison doors only affected by cone and AoE attacks?
If so, this is a major bug, and fixing it will solve a lot of problems.
I seemed unable to attack it with any of my Brute's single-target attacks... but his cone(fire breath) and AoE(fire sword circle) both hurt it.
Animation major and old-school CoHer.
Art, Animation, and Stuff:
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Did my first Mayhem Mission with a lvl 38 Bots/FF MM.
It was a LOT of fun.. did it on Viscious in Brickstown.
Thoughts/Issues:
1. What gives time extensions? It wasn't clear, as some cars gave 3 minutes and others gave nothing. (It was the same with all targetable objects.)
2. Citizens are annoying once again. Since they are targetable, my pets had a field day with them and not with enemies unless I commanded them to attack. I think after defeating them, they should zone out like someone stated before me.
3. Some objects are targetable, but my bots couldn't hit them. This seemed to happen with large dumpsters and cardboard boxes. I would set the pets to attack and they would run up and keep running at the object not being able to hit it. (almost like the mob stuck in a wall problem)
4. I spawned a Boss level hero who hit my by surprise and sent me to jail. No problem with the jail door because of the bots. In the jail, I broke out a fellow villain that I didn't even know was in there.
5. No problem with the villain, he followed me through the whole mission and helped me complete the bank robbery.
6. By accident, I ended up in a sidequest to plant 5 bombs and blow up a building. COOL
7. I assume that everytime I got a "key" it opened up a side mission. (The keys came from Crey Tank Bosses). I didn't know these existed until I opened the map outside and saw the yellow markers.
8. Zoning bots are a problem.. big time.. in all missions. The good thing is they don't seem to get stuck at the vators anymore, but they take their damn time using them.. if they use them at all!
9. LOVED the temp power. That was a nice surprise.
These will truly kick butt when they all the kinks are worked out.
You don't hit smiling monsters - Sister Flame
i also tried one with my 37 bot/ff, didnt really notice defense scaling or not, since i died a few times (fighting lvl 40's)
got in jail after first death, noticed the door had 2k hp...so i summoned bots and twiddled my thumbs for 2-3 minutes while they killed it. then i promptly got killed by all the guards outside the door
went to jail again (with lots of debt), summoned bots, they started attacking...then my protector bots pushed/shoved their way through the door and started getting hurt pretty bad by the guards out there. I tried healing them and couldnt (aid other), and of course their heal is broken now
then the guards out there killed my prot bots and got aggrod on me, and they started clipping parts of their bodies through the door and attacked me repeatedly. I was able to attack them back, and they killed me (while door was only half dead)
so more debt, click hospital again to go to jail. the clipping thing happened again and i just alt-tabbed until mish failed (was down to 1 minute)
so I didnt get to see much
My main concern and feedback so far as far as the mayhem missions go.
Predictability.
Now, I know, some of you are going "OMGWTH?" at that statement.
However, knowing exactly what mayhem mission you're going to get due to your level gets old, fast. Plus, theres the matter of the exploration badges in the missions, level 40+ villains will have to pretty much beg to be exemped into the lower ones.
Maybe a system where depending on level, the choices increase? IE, a new villain can only really mayhem at Atlas, but a level 40 has the range of Atlas-Founders available.
I do realize this could make spawn programming a bit more difficult, but think this is something that is really gonna pay off in the long run. As is, you wind up running the same mayhem mission repeatedly, and can get everything timed down to a science.
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This thread is solely for Mayhem Mission discussions. From the Issue 7 Training Room Patch Notes
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For Mastermind specifically, and potenitally lvl 4 PPs pets. In mayhem missions going in and out of the banks and side missions. Pet get stalled on the door for a good 20-30 seconds. One time had pets get stuck for a full minute, had to TP out my pets. At that point they ran at 45 degrees down into the concrete, then 20 seconds later all ran out the door. All in all ate about a min and half off the mayhem timer which seems to be enough for this to be an issue.
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Am I wrong, or are the prison doors only affected by cone and AoE attacks?
If so, this is a major bug, and fixing it will solve a lot of problems.
I seemed unable to attack it with any of my Brute's single-target attacks... but his cone(fire breath) and AoE(fire sword circle) both hurt it.
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I was able to affect them with my doms single target attacks... heh, I got stuck in one while attacking it, and /stuck warped me inside the door (healing it in the process >.<, but since it was yellow to me, it didn't take too awful long.
I liked the raid that I was able to do in atlas, as well, beating down some Hellions to steal their weapons cache, which turned out to be an Electromagnetic grenade temp power... I was hoping for a machine gun, but regardless, it was cool to get.
I wandered around the map after I completed the mission looking for other raids, but didn't find anything... I'm sure I missed something.
First off, the missions are very cool.
I ran one on a 37 plant/thorn dominator on Relentless (? -- the 4th step), and one on a 17 zombie/poison mastermind on Villainous.
The brokers mentioned 20 minutes for each mission, but in both cases I had only 15 minutes when I zoned in.
I have no problem with the time bonuses being apparently random, and the graphics are amazing -- I love how you can push around the bits like mailbox letters or truck tires. My Flytrap pet was a great help with destroying objects -- but his focusing on citizens was a bit annoying. Luckily when we went into the bank all the citizens scooted out the door, so after the first guard spawn he kept with me.
My hero was just a normal Boss, something like the cape mission heroes -- I believe he was a fire tanker, but I had Domination up at the time, so it didn't much matter what he was.
Unfortunately, I didn't realize there were side missions, so after blowing up a few more mailboxes and busstops, I exited with my cool +Health temp power.
The MM started off doing a side mission, kidnaping someone and escorting him back to the truck I entered mission by. 8 minutes bonus time, so significant increase. The henchman were again drawn to citizens, but I could direct them to my targets, unlike my dom. My bank hero was a lieut, a Spines scrapper.
Problems with the MM mission: slow zoning of the pets, as others have noted (the Longbow had no trouble zoning in after me 
), and difficulty with the melee henchmen being able to attack the larger objects such as trucks and dumpsters. It seemed that their target box was inside their collision box.
Only issue I have are cycling thru citizens when being amushed and the fact that pets wont follow me into building when they are supposed to.
A couple things I noticed on my mahem mission:
My brute's Energy melee attacks against the reinforced doors didn't have their usual sound effect for a hit, although they were still doing damage, which I found to be a little disorienting.
The second thing was the villain who I rescued from the jail. Name of Shock treatment or something similar. I had read some of the other posts and was prepared for her to be easily distracted, but she had a strange insistence on completely draining parking meters, for example, completely of endurance without damaging them. Don't get me wrong, it was very impressive and all, I just kindof wish she could have finished up with it a little sooner and helped me with the police or something. It didn't seem like an unreasonable request to ME, but NOoooo... <trails off, rambling>
My bank hero was Swan, member of the Vindicators and overall pushover.
I broke a guy named Hollow Point out of jail.
One thing that bugged me about the missions is that I couldn't hold or even damage any of the civies.
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Bugs I noted:
No map in prison. This may be intentional, however the bank has a map. Again though... may be intentional. I can imagine being provided a map of the area I'm infiltrating and the bank but not necessarily the police station.
The villain in the prison ignored the door. As soon as I got close she popped right through the door.
She was EASILY distracted by civilians. Most of the time I didn't have her assistance as she was too busy beating up civilians. They either need to ignore civies or be more biased toward following me once I get to a certain range distance than continuing to beat up civies.
The 'hero' was just a lt in a cool costume. Not a boss, not an eb, not a hero, a bloody LT.
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Lucky you. I got Malaise as an EB and he owned me. And isn't he a villain now? It had him as a Vindicator 
Arc ID: 475246, "Bringing a Lord to Power"
"I'm only a simple man trying to cling to my tomorrow. Every day. By any means necessary."
-Caldwell B. Cladwell
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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?
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I don't think it was your imagination, actually, because my Singularity also wound up a big swirling comet of debris after a little while. I think the Sing is probably one of the better pets to have in that mission, if you're into trashing the place and throwing civillians and do-gooders around.
Yeah, overall, they're very cool. The only issue I saw was that, as others have noted, the time rewards are a bit wonky. I got 3 minutes to the clock for destroying some random car, yet nothing before for all the other cars and nothing thereafter. I also wish, again echoing others, that pets and the NPC Villains you break out aren't so interested in targeting civillians. Hollow Point was awesome outside the bank, but inside, he decided to hang around the door firing his gun and throwing down Ignite patches, and my Sing wanted to stay there too. I had to resummon it down the hall, where the guard were busy doing chain-knockdown on me. ([censored] guards, they're even more annoying at 36.)
Anyway, I don't wanna sound like I'm griping, because those were relatively minor issues, compared to how cool the rest of the mission was. I have to say, I'm VERY impressed with how the devs handled these missions. I was fully expecting everything to have too much hp, but practically everything exploded at the slightest touch. I'm a Gravity/Ice Dominator, without a whole lot of offensive ability, and I had ZERO issues destroying everything. I think the healthiest environmental object was a big truck, and I think it would've gone down in a single Propel.
Well at any rate, here's a couple of screenshots:
A car goes boom.
And another car. The pool table is what I summoned during Propel. Did you know those summons actually STAY in the world now? And you can actually move them around? Sweet.
Another thing I gotta say is the temp powers you find in these missions are fantastic. CoX desperately needed this kinda loot.
Oh yes, definitely. My Dom got an automatic HP bonus...though I don't know how much as I didn't check my hp beforehand and no numbers are given.
It only lasts 24 hours, but no complaints there.
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Maybe a system where depending on level, the choices increase? IE, a new villain can only really mayhem at Atlas, but a level 40 has the range of Atlas-Founders available.
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Yeah, I see no reason why a mayhem mission set in Atlas park couldn't have level 40 PPD and Longbow in it.
Hmm. My dominator got a group teleport temp power ... on a solo mission. It's neat, but not something she's going to use in within the 24-hour limit.
I was a lvl 40 em/da brute soloing a mayhem mission. I was doing well until I met my elite boss hero, Valkyrie. It was a long fight with lots of insps and heals but I managed to beat her. I was standing there feeling pretty good about myself when she SELF REZZED! 
Luckily she regained only about 1/4 of her health so I still had a chance, or so I thought. She then proceeded to fire off some MoG-like power that made her impossible to hit even with 2 or 3 yellow inspirations. I ran around like my [censored] was on fire dodging her attacks as best I could in that little vault but after a minute or so she finally wacked me.
In the picture you can see that she still has God mode turned on. It looks like a regen power to me but it didn't seem like the MoG I remember.
A real 'keyboard out the window' moment to say the least. I haven't had a boss fight that cheesy since Super Contra on the SNES. Overall the mission was excellent but I hope this will get looked at before I7 goes live.
Now where did I put my meds ...
Level 40, I lowered my difficulty down to Vicious for the Mayhem Mission and it wasn't enough. My foe was a red-con Elite Boss --- Swan. As an invulnerable superstrength brute, I knew I'd be in trouble, but not HOW much trouble. She had a Spec Ops with her (who I didn't see at first, thanks to the civilians running around)... I saw the Spec Ops, tried to tab over and wasted an attack on a civilian running by... then the Spec Ops nearly drained my endurance to nothing. Wouldn't have mattered, though, Swan beat me down FAST.
I went to jail, broke out ---- the PPD robot guards (not the drones, the armored suits) look AMAZING. Crashed to desktop. Went back and the mission had re-set but still had only 8 minutes.
Went into the bank, again got Swan, red-con Elite Boss. This time with a Psi-Cop with her (that I NEVER saw). I popped Dull Pain, Rage, and Unstoppable. I popped four +33% heals... and she still killed me. FAST.
Her Dominate was doing just under 800pts, her Subdue 350 or so, her Psionic Lance another 380 or so... Psychic Scream for 580 or so... Teleketic Blast for 400 and change... and she was spamming attacks FAST, and using what looked like Kinetics to sap my speed so I couldn't hit anything... and as an Elite Boss I could not disorient her with Knockout Blow, or knock her on her feet with Air Superiority. So I got sent to prison AGAIN. Then the mission timed out.
I believe if you refuse to do a bank heist, under the current Live system, the Broker will never introduce you to a new contact. Assuming the same pattern holds true, failing Mayhem Missions (or not taking them in the first place) will prevent you from taking any contacts!
I suppose I could lower difficulty down to ~villainous~ for every Mayhem Mission... just galling that the Mayhem Mission was THAT hard. I mean, it was fun up until Swan. I could even tolerate the Spec Ops and their @#!%^@# grenades that suck my endurance... I could even tolerate the red-con bosses (on Vicious) and the fact that EVERY SINGLE COP IN PARAGON IS PSIONIC. But damn, I ain't touching a Mayhem Mission on Live if they go in like they are now.
So...did she use her spear, or what?!
Yeah, that kinda sucks about Valkyrie cheesing you. Back Alley Brawler has a similar Cheeseball Bullcensored Ha-Ha I-Cheat Neener-Neener aura he throws on, that practically makes him immune to damage. Cheap crap, is what it is. That's the kind of stuff "Heroes" like to pull.
Self-Rez....on an EB? Holy schneike...even if that power does sort of fit the concept of a Valkyrie.
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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.
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Why does this remind me of a guy several years ago who attemped to rob a bank in New York city. The bank was across the street from the FBI offices, and he planned his "heist" to occur at lunchtime ... on the FBI's payday? He realized his mistake as he heard the sounds of a couple dozen 9mm clicking their safeties off, and as many agents shouting "Freeze! FBI!"