Official Thread for Mayhem Missions
By
13th_Stranger,
Posted on: 2006-05-01 24:55 in Developers' Corner
Were you in Founders with the Crey (and Hellions) or another zone? It might be zone specific (or at least be mobs that normally appear in those zones).
Well, I recently tried out my first Mayhem Mission (finally!) and wrote up my comments on it elsewhere. But I thought I'd port them here so they might actually be useful, maybe. So here we go:
I finally get a Mayhem Mission from Kara the Scorpion. Rob a bank in Steel Canyon. I enter SC in an instance that starts just a tad north of the southern Tram with lots and LOTS of tab-able objects. Parking meters, boxes, barrels, cars, CIVILIANS. On the one hand the sheer amount of stuff to destroy was pretty neat. On the other, trying to tab your way to actual enemies becomes a HUGE pain, and pretty much impossible out in the main city. Another problem came up when my pets went absolutely ballistic in certain parts, so much so that I really had to keep them on Passive until I had something targeted for them to beat up, and sometimes even then they wouldn't obey my orders, or run around blindly for a few moments before doing what I want them to do. (Oh hey, that Longbow Eagle is hovoring over a fence, I think we should run all the way to the END of the fence to jump up on top of it, it's only 400 yards!) Also, while Civilians are targetable, you can't actually HURT them. My zombies beat the snot out of one for a bit, but his health bar didn't even flinch. Typically, when attacked Civilians run straight to the nearest building/entrance. I think you DO get bonus time for 'terrorizing' the populace, but you can't actually beat them down. Pity. This actually becomes a bit annoying when you get to the actual bank robbery, all the civilians in there are ALSO targetable, though you can't do anything to them, so trying to tab through all of them to fight the actual GUARDS is a bit of a pain.
Anyway, I get to cause a fair bit of carnage while cutting a swath to the bank, though I don't unlock any 'side' missions, I was mainly focused on just getting to the objective, and seeing how it plays out. The bank in Steel Canyon is formatted a bit differently than the ones on the Rogue Isles, so it's nice that they didn't just slap another coat of paint on the ones from CoV. There's an elevator to the second floor, where the vault is, and this time the glowie to get the loot isn't an instant thing, it has a 'countdown' like other glowies in the game do. Once I got the loot, well, I wasn't expecting company so SOON. When I made it back up to the first floor I was suddenly jumped by an Elite boss. Not one of the signature heroes, this guy was Doc Quantum, I recall meeting him once in the CoV cape mission. However I quickly realized the battle with him was going VERY badly, as he was totally fixated on attacking my Mastermind, totally ignoring my minions. That's bad news for any MM. But not unexpected, since it's how most, if not all, ambushes operate, so I just wasn't expecting to run into him so fast. I won't make that mistake again. After getting my health knocked down to a tiny sliver of bleeping redness I manage to use all my respites, and drop a Tar Patch, and hit the Doc with Darkest Night. Then I hid behind a file cabinet until my Zombies were through with him. Mission accomplished.
I explored a bit more, but left the mission soon after when I ran into a SWAT Grenadier. It IS nice to see the police of Paragon cut back the slack, though. Anyway, my overall thoughts are as follows:
The devs should code in a way to use Tab to only cycle enemies, so if I want to get the destructable objects I can, if I just want to hit the things that are actually a threat I can.
We should be able to do SOMETHING to the civilians. I can understand that having the game allow you to willfully kill civilians would drive up its rating, but we should at least be able to knock them out, or otherwise eliminate them from being a target, at the very least for convenience sake.
Mastermind pet AI needs to be tweaked a bit regarding their priorities in Mayhem Missions (hell, it needs to be tweaked anyway, but there it was particularly bad). Even when I gave orders they sometimes completely ignored the target I was giving to them, and almost always ignored the 'GoTo' command which is pretty bad.
I guess the level of hero that comes to stop you depends on how much Mayhem you've caused, and what level you happen to be. Hellscape was only Lv23, so I wouldn't expect the Freedom Phalanx to send one of their members to stop her. They probably become more frequent in the later levels. I didn't cause a lot of carnage this time around either, nor did I find any optional missions. Yet. It was my first go at the Mayhem Missions, so I'll get the hang of them eventually.
I get the feeling this is something my Brute will enjoy a lot more. Basically because he won't have to worry about pets, and can just smash whatever he feels like, at his own pace. The Mayhem Missions still seem to be a bit trickey for Masterminds. However, we CAN just head straight to the bank/heist and get it over with quickly if we decide. It gets the job done, though where's the fun in that? It seems that you'll get an Elite boss thrown at you either way, though, I'm not sure yet if they get bumped down to Lieutenants on the lowest setting. They SHOULD, especially since you can be given Mayhem Missions in the Lv5-10 range in Port Oakes, and you won't even have Dual Origins at that point, so Elite Boss = Nasty.
I've seen posts of people encountering Back Alley Brawler, Positron, and Valkeryie in Mayhem Missions. I somehow doubt that Statesman will show up in one, but hey, y'never know. It's only been on test for a few days, no one's picked them apart enough yet, I guess.
Anyway, bottom line, Mayhem Missions still need to be tweaked a bit, but they're a very nice addition to the CoX gameplay.
So I've managed to do a couple Mayhem missions to Atlas Park with my Brute. (EDITED TO ADD: This was on Villainous difficulty, as I'm a big wimp.)
The first time, I quickly found the police station and thought "Aha, there's supposed to be a sub-mission here to rescue the villain!" So I popped in and sure enough, there was a guy named Icecap in one of the cells. He was a decent amount of help for the rest of the mission. I also noticed that I had a clue in my clues panel - "Wanted Poster: Icecap". I now think I got this, somehow, and it unlocked the sub-mission. More on that later.
I also found the jewelry store, which needed a key. Couldn't find that, so headed to the bank. Got the loot, and was ambushed by a heroine, Flambeaux. Beat her up. Still had plenty of time left, so tooled around causing mayhem. Found a Bone Daddy and a Skull minion. Beat them up and got a key! But it wouldn't let me into the jewelry store. I *assume* that's because I already had Mission Complete.
Tried again, new mission. This time I found the Skulls right away and got the key, went in, and grabbed all the loot (a total of eleven extra minutes added!), then headed for the police station. There were no villains in the cells - this is what makes me think that the "Wanted Poster" is necessary to unlock that sub-mission, but I'm not sure how to get it. Beat up police? Wreck stuff?
My end-of-mission ambush was Flambeaux again.
So here are my questions: If you're on the same map, do the same villains and heroes always show up? How do you get the Wanted Poster? Are there any other sub-missions in Atlas Park?
T
(Oh, and I got the exploration badge in the first mission, about five seconds after I zoned in)
I had DE in founder falls and the only reason I knew about the villain in the jail was because when I zoned in there was a Greater Devoured across the street shouting "Silent Blade has been captured!"
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I had DE in founder falls and the only reason I knew about the villain in the jail was because when I zoned in there was a Greater Devoured across the street shouting "Silent Blade has been captured!"
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Yeah, I had that happen. I had to ask myself why a DE would care.
I did my first Mayhem Mission this morning as Dancing Diva (Energy Melee/Invulnerability Brute) at level 5. First problem: The "door" was the submarine at the far north end of Port Oakes. At level 5, that's virtually a suicide run. I had to rest on the submarine because I had 1/8th of my bar left when I got there. I'd say ditch that door and put it almost anywhere else in Port Oakes and I'd be fine. The mission took place in a portion of Atlas Park.
Got inside. Destructable objects! Although... cars were all level 10... some other things were level 9... I never got a time bonus off a car or crate or barrel, but every bus stop, pay phone, and newspaper stand I hit gave me time. Well, for the first street. Then only the police spawns did.
I kept looking for alternate objectives, but couldn't find any, so I went into the bank and did the heist. My "boss" was a Lieutenant (Villainous difficulty). Probably would have been a boss on a higher difficulty. She was actually pretty easy as a brute. I dinged 6 in the midst of all that.
I then explored after escaping the bank. I found a couple Skulls who were merilly blasting the pedestrians to no effect. Beat them up and took their keys, but no new objectives actually appeared on the map. I accidentally clicked on the Police Department door and wound up inside. Managed to free an Ice Corruptor who took great joy in blasting the citizenry ineffectually for the rest of the time I wandered around.
All in all, it was slightly disappointing. I had virtually no inspirations to use, as I didn't actually get any to drop until I was done with the main mission, and what I did get I didn't need. The AI for the helper needs help. Such as ignoring the pedestrians since they can't actually be killed and attacking destructables when I am doing so. My "Boss" was sorta anti-climactic, but at that level I would expect it to be.
I'm going to try one again tonight with my Mastermind and see how that plays out. I'm thinking setting my pets to "Passive" is going to be the only way to get anything done.
Kung Ru - 50++ MA/Regen Scrapper
Kalleesta - 50 Necro/Dark MM
Hidden Justice - 44 Kin/Psy Defender
Altaholic
Yeah I did my first SOLO Mayhem Mission in Brickstown instanced map last night with my Level 40 MM (on Viscious difficulty). My Robots blasting objects merrily as well PPD psi cops and police drones for more time. Various Longbow ambushes try to stop me and I waste them. The real challenge and significant time waster was the Level 42 Crey Power Tank we ran into. I get into the Bank, but the Level 42 Lt. Private Security Officer and his minions manage to blow me and the Robos away and this send me to a jail cell.
Observation: I was disappointed that I could not resummon fresh pets that had fallen in combat. This happened whether I was outside or inside a building. Not being able to summon new pets seriously diminished my effectiveness as a MM. Somehow much later on in the mish, i was able to summon new pets. Weird.
So I summon my Robos in jail and have them begin blasting the Reinforced door. Some PPD Guardian managed to walk through the reinforced door and begin attacking. I think "thats bogus". Definitely the graphics bugs still need to be fixed where enemies get to blend and/or walk through geometry in the game. Manage to destroy the door and I force bolt the Guardian out of the cell. I keep force bolting him and manage to push him through the reinforce door on the other side of the room where he stays and can't attack through. So I make my escape from the Police Dept after that.
I get back to the bank but I only have like 3 minutes left. And making my way back to the bank, the objects I destroyed did not give me more time. I only time I was awarded was 30 seconds for resisting arrest of the PPD personal I killed along the way.
So I fail the mission as I ran out of time, just within sight of the bank vault. I'll dial down the difficulty to Villainous and see how it goes tonight.
I played my first mayhem mission last night with my level 40 brute on relentless. IT ROCKED!
Lot's of fun! Just smashing everything is site is a great thrill. Even targetting the citizens and doing foot stomp was great as they flew thru the air. The Crey Tank bosses were very challenging--especially when the Longbow ambushes would find you half way thru the fight. The side missions were fun too. The only complaint I have about them is I would like to see their location disappear off my map once I completed them. It was kind of hard to tell which one I had a key to, and which ones I had finished.
The fire tank hero in the bank defeated me once, but when I broke out of jail I had a device corrupter pet follow me around and we made short work of the hero the 2nd time.
Overall, this is the funnest new thing I have tried so far in I7. Now if I could only gain access to my villain again...
Proud member of the LEGION, and Sisterhood
One little thing I love - When you enter a bank, the normal people run for the doors. Nice touch 
Also, a bug. On the KR map, when you leave the pawnbrokers I am sent back to Port Oakes, not outside.
I figured out the following (assumeing this isnt common knowledge) Its not a bug you dont get time for every object you blast but if you blast a larger number of object (like 20 crates) after you get the first one you unlock a larger time bonus. I had fun racking up major time rolling through parking meters, boxes and trash cans.
Also to find the bonus objectives I *think* you have to nail a cop to get the release the villain side mish, and to get the keys to the door missions you need to lay the smack down on villain mobs bosses (or lt's depending on difficulty) and to find the door try and refrence what they talked about (Like if they say "Hey this warehouse is full of phat lootz!" try looking in the nearest warehouse)
Thats all I got.
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One little thing I love - When you enter a bank, the normal people run for the doors.
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Unfortunately they still don't do that in the regular heist missions.
The biggest issue I noticed with the mayham missions is the Master Mind pets behavior against large trucks or crates. They'll run around it and usually never can hit, they just keep hopping around it. This was with Thugs too, but i'm sure it'd do it with the others.
Also an odd thing happened. As me and my teammate were exiting a store in the first mayham mission from the the russian guy in Cap we actually ended up exiting the whole mission and loaded up into Cap.
These missions are so fun and exactly what cov needed.
Last night my team and I were doing the Founder's Falls mayhem mission. We decided that we were going to do everything possible. So we blew up almost all the objects, killed almost all the Paragon police, and did all 4 Mini-Missions. Some of us also grabbed the badge by the water fountain.
So after all that we headed into the bank and blew up the vault. And the Hero that we have to defeat is STATESMAN! He was a bad mamma-jamma. He killed me and Captain Uranus (the villian standing next to me) with a Hand Clap. But thanks to the team I was rezed and then I rezed Captain. After we cleared the help we started on him, his restiances were very good, but after about 3 mins of pounding we took him down.
Even though the mission took an hour it was an hour of non-stop fun for the whole team.
@Iron Destroyer
Iron Destroyer - 50 Inv/SS
Intense Heat - 50 Fire/Thermal
-------------------
When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all. -God
So I tried the Mayhem Mission with my lvl 22 Bots/FF MM and one thing I noticed is that it seems a bit difficult to be solo-able being timed and all. I failed the mission because first the swat team hit me and my bots with glue and then eventually killed me and then I ended up in the police station where they did the same thing. Also wanted to comment that the wording may need to be changed because when you destroy a car or a bus stop it says "You defeated a car." or "You defeated a Bus Stop." I think it would be better if it were something like "You destroyed a car." It is a pretty sad state of affairs if your villain has to sink so low to actually "fight" and "defeat" a bus stop. Come on now a Bus Stop is a pole with a sign I do not thing it is going to fight back. Please consider changing the wording for these types of items. I do like that you can "defeat" civillians though. Really Cool. Keep up the good work!
On Victory
Justice Bruiser DM/Regen Scrapper - LVL 50
Pocket Loki � Rad/Sonic Defender � LVL 50
And Many Others
On Protector
Warden of Hades - Fire/Fire Dom � LVL 50
Debt Bomb � Fire/Kin Corruptor
And many others
holy crap your graphics are toned way down! thats ugly!
Please, if anything they need to be harder. Whoever you fight should always be an eb or an av depending on difficulty setting and number of players. On a team of 8 me and a friend were able to basically solo all the side quests and the bank mission while the rest of the players tried to figure out what was happening.
the difficulty of the final boss should be the same as for the cape mish. a lt. on lowest diff, a hero on highest
and all the spamming of glue webs and stuff sounds even nastier than fighting CoT...ugh
I did 3 Mayhem Missions last night and had a blast.
Issues I noted
Couldn't figure out how you get another villain. Went to jail all 3 missions and only ended up with pet villain once.
Once you get the pet villain it likes to beat on citizens all day long. Though will occasionally randomly come to you.
Annoying that during a battle you can target the unkillable citizens as this leads to wasted shots and occasionally your death.
In one of the mini missions I had to lead a guy out. Got him outside that building but couldn't get him to mission exit. Later he got stuck inside another mini mission.
The author of this post is speaking in generalities from his personal experience.
Your experience may vary.
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Were you in Founders with the Crey (and Hellions) or another zone? It might be zone specific (or at least be mobs that normally appear in those zones).
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I think it was Steel Canyon (but I always get it mixed up with Skyway City -- damned initials!). I think it is based off the normal spawns for the zone.
@Glass Goblin - Writer, brainstormer, storyteller, hero
Though nothing will drive them away
We can beat them, just for one day
We can be heroes, just for one day
At lvl 40 i joined a bud to do his lvl 30ish Mayham Mission (Just to see what it was like )
I must say I loved the whole thing . With all the free Smash time I was allowed (since i was to high lvl for anything to risk hurting me ) I was really able to test a few things
I found a few Key Problems that are the root of a lot of other peoples problems , Such as MMs Pet issues withthe objects
Issues
1- Once a object is targeted either a truck or box or whatever, And useing the FOLLOW cammand that i use often on my brute to bring me with in melee range in a fight . You get close to the object and then it seems I get pushed back.this Delay in fight can last around a sec or two where my toon keep running tward the object but not getting close enough to attack with melee. The fix is then to actually use the Forward Key and to force him to take the few extra steps to get into attack range .
What ever is the couse for this (unknown to me ) Is the big issues with pets in these missions. Since most pets will attampt to attack a target with melee at times they just get stuck around these objects. The MM Caster will have to pull them back and set them to attack with a range power (This in turn cost you time which is bad )
Issue
2-Civillions: ok itsa really cool that you can now attack noraml people ......That being said. its a rather pointless addition to the mission when they are targetable yet you cant actually kill/defeat them . So mostly what we are dealling with here are a ton of none leathel Decoys in a mission . This is a problem since they target like normal NPCs. Yet even if attacks they will never die/be defeated . This allows them to act as a very annoying decoy for the Bad NPCs when in a large fight . I constantly found myself attacking/targeting for attack . these Civillion when i was in the middle of a fight with the SWAT guys or other badys. This is in effect another delay in fight time couseing you to have to manualy target your foe useing the mouse . These I'm sure would be an even more headache for MMs .Where there pets may leave a actuall fight to attack one of these decoys.
Issue
3-Keys . I was able to unlock a key dureing the mission and we did that befor our main task. all i could fig out in there was that iw as to set up 5 bombs while fighting a few ambushes . No big deal . They then exploded and started fires. This in turned killed my lower lvl partner and put a bit of a hurt on me as well. We found it rather a blind run dureing that task , not haveing any clue what we where suppose to do. A lil mish detail woulda been nice there .
Issue
4- SWAT
very nice addition to the game i must say . Allways cool to fight new things . That being said I beleave these guys may be a bit over powered with there glue and blinding attacks
At one point i desided to malifactor down with my partner and take on a mob of 5 Swat guys. Befor i was able to take out the firt one i found my self Stacked to the wall with Blinding debuffs and glued down to an insain degree. The only reason I say these are over powered is the fact that for most of us we have NO defence to such a attack , Being that breakfrees have no effect .
I think the powers are cool and all , they just need to be less spamed .
The end HERO...VERY nice
Make NO changes here at all
And i really like the 3 day temp power speed bost from killing her .
Thank you for that much needed addition
All in all I wil say that the Mayham mission are very cool .
With only a few minor bugs to work out .
Great Job
Very happy customer on this one
Please make the citizens non-targettable, since they can't be harmed. The tab-target spam in these missions is already at an ungodly level.
Just did one in a group of 4 players, two brutes a dominator and my corrupter, all 40. We got the rob brickstown bank.
All went well until..... Malise showed up. He was same level as us, 40, and unkillable.
We beat on him for maybe 5 or 6 minutes, his health barely moved and when it did move he'd hit one of the brutes with transfusion. >.<
Needless to say, we all went to jail. Then we came out and trashed some more stuff but ultimately ended up failing it since we couldn't take down the hero.
All in all it was fun, but an unkillable hero takes a lot of the fun out of it.
I did my first Mayhem Mission with my Lvl 37 Dom tonight. It was lots of fun being able to destroy everything. Combustion was great standing the middle of piles of boxes....*boom* :P
Anyways I didnt have much trouble accept with the bosses
when I didnt have Domination going, though i actaully never had a problem accept once when it was totally my fault and I let a hold let up >.<
The boss that i got at the end was a Fire/Fire tank from what i could tell...didn't have time to look since he was beating on me....He got really close to doing me in but I was able to get him held and have my way with him.
I cleared a pretty good area out around the bank but didnt find any side missions so cant comment on those :/
I did one mayhem mission with my em/ea brute. Rob bricks bank from the nerva broker.
Overall is was great fun tons of stuff to beat on and destroy. It wasn't too hard, I got killed once by a psy boss guarding a civillian that you can kidnap for extra time.
I got a huge rock from a coucil warehouse, description is 'ranged smash' really brutish but as a temp power with only 1 use with no acc bonus I find it's not gonna be of much use.
Mobs inside included police drone, rather annoying since they're rikti drones clones with a diff graphic so they got lots of def and I missed (deflected) 3-4 times in a row often. Psy cops aren't much trouble since most minions level have only 1 or 2 attacks but bosses are nasty with high dmg psy dmg (400+ will domination + sleep effect). I saw only 1 mech guy boss level, he spend most of his time disoriented with ET-TF but they seem similar to power tanks.
The major annoyance was when I took the money, the hero Swan spawned in the mission and since I was on the highest diff she was hero she killed me in less than 5sec. So I had to reset the mission and set it on vicious diff. I got swan again as a elite boss, she was rather hard with psy dmg and kinetic buff/debuff. I had to use some 33% luck and a 20% resist, spam aid self when it was up.
I think the signature heroes as eb/av with triangles will make those missions really hard for some AT. And since they are timed missions you won't always have time to get someone to help finish it. Also note that the broker doesn't warm you that a signature hero can come to stop and that you should bring help.
Maybe beating the signature hero should be a optionnal objective giving the temp power. So if the hero kills you, you bust out of jail and take the money to the exit (like hostages) and you get mission complete, with the bonus and your broker will intruduce you to a new contact.
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Anyone else getting random other factions?
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I had Hellions in mine.
@Glass Goblin - Writer, brainstormer, storyteller, hero
Though nothing will drive them away
We can beat them, just for one day
We can be heroes, just for one day