Official Thread: Safeguard Missions
By
1tonweasel,
Posted on: 2006-11-14 21:05 in Developers' Corner
Have done three.
Last night, duoed the Founder SGM with my Kin/Sonic and a SGmate's Grav/Kin. Everything went smoothly. No complaints.
First today. Exemplared for an IP SGM (my fire/fire blaster, SGmate's Fire/Elec). No problems, completed all side missions, stopped the bank robbery easily. Mobs, all of them, were seeing through Stealth+SS which was *NOT* cool.
Second today. Same teammate, but we did my PI SGM. We kill off a few mobs that spot us and head to the bank. We get close and get ambushed by Arachnos as the robbery starts. My teammate dies, rezzes to the entrance and comes back to me. I was fighting the bank robbers right at the bank entrance (initiated the fight right as they exited). We nearly had the boss killed when all of a sudden... Loading screen. Mission failed. I /bugged that. Horrid. We were in the mission maybe 5 minutes.
"A good Defender is the battle hardened Corpsman who will kill a Nazi with a tongue depressor while putting a splint on your leg, then hand you a fresh clip of ammo." ~Jock_Thompson
Repeat Offenders, TNT Profile, My little hero
I've only done two safeguard missions, myself. First one was the KR one with my L14 blaster- didn't have any real problems with it, although I LITERALLY scoured the entire map and couldn't find that damn exploration badge..
Second one I did with my L35 Tank in Bricks, and a L28 Def I was SKing. We got screwed over royally. While we had no actual problem stopping the bank robbery (I got there early and pummeled the boss into submission while he was still in the lobby), everything else gave us severe grief. My partner wound up with who knows how many bars of debt from mobs that just kept showing up from out of NOWHERE. Then the sewer bombing side mish screwed us- we got there early and managed to take out three of the bombs, then we took off for a moment to take out some vandals, then we went back inside; took only about 3-4 minutes since we started the side mish. Suddenly I'm on fire, and the side mission is declared a failure- [censored]? They gave us six minutes total- weren't we supposed to have at least two minutes left? We didn't even have enough time left to stop the breakout at the jail...
But yeah, the mobs are definitely way too clumped together- the PPD in Mayhem missions aren't NEARLY as tightly packed as they are in the safeguard missions. Plus it doesn't help when you have to leave your side mission to take out vandals, under penalty of losing time- especially when the side missions are timed themselves.
I really hope the devs manage to work out all the problems with these new missions- they seem like they could be really promising once all the bugs are worked out.
Two wrongs don't make a right. However, three rights make a left.
L00k, w3'r3 r3f0rmed! W3'v3 g0t l1v3s n0w, 4nd 1'm 4 buz1n3ss Pwnz0r! -Reformed Freak Proprieter
Seek. Find. Rularuu.
Target. Destroy. Rularuu.
Go. Hunt. Kill Skuls. Rularuu.
I discovered an easy exploit to give yourself unlimited time on a Mayhem mission: use Knockback to throw the villain through the vault door. Easy to do, very repeatable. Once they're on the far side of the door, they don't aggro the door anymore, and they don't aggro you. The timer never goes off, and you have as much time as you want to clear the entire mission.
I'd really call this a "bug", rather than an exploit, because it prevents a successful completion of the mission, too. But exploits tend to get fixed quickly; bugs can go for a long, long time
The ability for all mobs to see everything and aggro from extreme distances is a serious pain in the butt. After a few successful Safeguards, it's easily the biggest problem there. VERY frequently spawns will aggro from completely unreasonable distances (I had one aggro from outside snipe range earlier), and will start wreaking havoc on the surrounding objects before a player can even attempt to engage them. One player I teamed with mentioned that the spawns were aggroed before they even rendered on screen.
This makes going straight for the bank troublesome too - it invariably aggros two or three spawns enroute that promptly trash the area around them (penalizing the players), and spawns in the area around the bank also aggro. While my team survived our first mission to FF, the initial battle versus two full Crey spawns, the Arachnos robbers AND Barracuda was utterly unreasonable for the average team - we only succeeded through some truly excellent play and because the team was top notch (and equipped with a lot of crowd suppression).
Of the aspects that aren't design-integral, that one is easily the most infuriating aspect. Having Invisibility go from being able to walk up to a mob and /e batsmash it, to having them spot you from a full city block away is senseless. It makes any form of stealth worthless in a situation that directly calls for stealth, and works in a way which is both counter-intuitive to how the rest of the game functions.
Only a few bugs so far and most of they have been mention already. I would just like to say that the safe guard missions are way easier to manage time. In fact the lvl 50 zone we had 20 minutes left prior to leaving after completing all the missions and wiping out most of the spawn....even tried to see if we could merge a few hercules titans together. Didn't happen by the way. I just feel that the villains is so much about destroying everything that once you get into a larger group yes its fun to destroy stuff....but sometimes its oh man I hope I get time for this ppd car because we don't have much time left.
I've so far done:
Atlas with a Stone/Stone Tank
Skyway once solo with a Fire/Fire Blaster and once teamed with a Scrapper.
PI with a Dark/Dark Scrapper.
The Tank probably had the easiest time of it but I didn't fail a single one. If it's a matter of tactics, it comes down to having a mixture of control and damage. Or just a ton of either. Wow, deep. But true.
What I usually do is, I fight my way to the bank in as far as is needed. I don't want the street mobs aggroing on bus stops or whatever while I'm elsewhere. So I do that. In PI that cost me a ton of time. I hit the bank just as they're leaving. Cloak of Fear goes up and all runners are stopped right around the corner from the bank exit. Likewise, the Tank's Gauntlet turns out very useful for stopping runners (no Taunt yet), as does his massive DPA. The Blaster's built as a PBAOE Blapper. Hasten - Build Up - Fire Sword Circle - Combustion -- everything's dead. No need for control.
Anyways, on the way out, I usually get vandals right away. Same tactic. Along the way to hit the vandals, I take out any street spawns I can't dodge. If anything has given me trouble so far at all it's the side missions. Bombing can be stealthed, but Arson prevention can admittedly be really tough once a Dark Ring Mistress enters the scene. Mostly it's the fact that they're appropriately clustered on higher difficulty settings and might require some massive AOE damage to get through in a feasible amount of time. Once side missions only add around as much time as they take to complete, it becomes pointless.
"If you're going through hell, keep going."
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Was part of my 1st SGM last night, and the day after, I'm still confused, and annoyed by the experience.
Team of 8, roughly lvl 23 in new Faultine. Save the Steel Canyon Bank. We're all new to the experience, so we load in with instruction to rush to the bank. One guy was VERY slow loading, and broke the team up spatially, some waited for him.
I flew to the bank, others ran, jumped, whatever they travel- although the jumpers were often aggro'd and low in health just getting to the bank. I'm a DDD, and couldn't decide whether to heal the team, debuff the enemy, or plain attack. Didn't matter, I died within seconds of arriving at the bank, by a freaking AV surrounded by a small army of lts, etc. Way overkill IMO.
Rezzed at hospital, flew back, engaged AV as the team slowly regrouped. Fighting AV near the bank still, mision failed. Total time in mish, I'd say 5 minutes.
Having to fighting an AV takes time, meanwhile the bazillion mobs run away. Now, I thought I saw a WP at the far end of the map for the truck, and assumed the bad guys (assumed to be the AV, who is carrying a sack of money) reach there=mission failed. There is no way they reached that truck in that time, and if they did, screw these missions, they can have the money. Not fun.
The Safeguard missions for any level 50 can be ridiculously hard even on the Heroic setting. Having to fight through the Carnival of Shadows and the Malta group is frustrating beyond belief. Two groups that can see through any type of stealth (which is probably a bug) and sap your Endurance in two shots can get annoying.
I also agree with other posters that the mob seem to be placed too close togther. It is rather difficult to try and get a side mission from the Carnies when a group of Malta begins draining your endurance and hitting you -Fly attacks because you happened to be kind of close to them.
I think changing the enemies would go far to improving the SafeGuard missions. Instead of always having to fight Malta and Carnies at level 50, change it up sometimes with Nemesis and The Council. Both of those groups scale up to level 50 with out any problems. Hell, even stuff the place full of Arachnos troops! (I love fighting those guys!)
I can't comment on the lower level Safeguards as I have not played them yet. I do agree that high level characters should be able to take a Safeguard mission anywhere in the city. It just seems kind of silly to me to not allow me to be in say Atlas Park and not be able to hold off an attack by The Council (or some enemy group). I agree that if high level players can't use the Scanner in low level areas, why bother giving us the police contacts for that area?
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Well, I just tried my first SGM a few minutes ago, and I had some questions. I got into the mission, flew straight to the bank, and saw the "The Bank is Being Robbed" text. I ate a bunch of defense and resists, then charged in and defeated *everyone.* Immediately kicked to a big "mission failed." I thought that saving the bank started the clock? And...assuming that someone somehow escaped--don't they show up on the map or something? Running to a car? There was nothing. Just...save bank, fail mission.
Has anyone else experienced this, or is it just me?
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Atleast you lasted 5 minutes....
Took my first Mish last night....
Lvl14
archer/fire blapper
KR mish
entered flew streight to the bank was walking into the door when I got the bank is being robbed message as I walk into the alcove I am met by the guy with the loot and 3 skull minions, minions aggroed took all three out the loot guy dashed for the door exited and i IMMEDIATLY got a mish failed before I could even turn and get through the door back outside....... was in the mish for MAYBE a minute total
Having done Mayhems on the V side, I was very much looking forward to Safeguards in H. Unfortunately I find them quite disappointing.
Archetype: Earth/Storm controller
Level: 44.
Safeguard Mission: Founder' Falls, Difficulty: Rugged
ATs with (relatively) low damage output are at an extreme disadvantage when attempting Safeguards solo.
The frequency of Vandals spawning coupled with the low damage out put makes it extrordinarily difficult to be able to have time to find the key villain groups, defeat that mob and it's boss, get the key get to the side mission, beat that and it's boss all the while losing time to vandal on the streets above that you can't do anything about because you're trying to complete a side mission.
Frustrating to say the least.
As far as I could tell, I was not getting a time bump for defeating the villains standing about in the streets the way you get 30 seconds for every PPD you defeat in Mayhems.
If the amount of time given at the start of the mission isn't bumped up, then there needs to be some way other than defeating Vandals to pile up time or, the amount of time vandals chew up/spawn rate of vandals needs to be turned down.
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Had they told us to go to rouge isles and destroy stuff there I bet people would have taken a liking to safe guard missions then.
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Actually I've taken a liking to them and judging by the broadcast spam and activity at the PPD stations so have a lot of other people. I don't have a problem with not being able to destroy things but I did notice that there isn't as much to do to add time. It seems other than side missions the only thing that adds time are the vandals. There are mobs on every street corner but they don't add time to the mission unlike Mayhem missions.
It would be nice if you could auto-exemplar down to do misisons in the lower level zones.
A few tips for those confused by safeguard missions.
<ul type="square">[*]You have 5 minutes from the time you enter the mission until the bank starts getting robbed. [*]If you get to close to the bank the robbery starts even if your 5 minutes are not up.[*] There will be a villain plus looters racing for the vault. If you can stop them before the vault door is destroyed the rest of the mission is casual.[*] If the vault door is destroyed you must stop every one in the bank. Best two options for this are stay outside and get them as they exit, or intercept them as they head to their get away point.[*] If you get everything in the bank and the mission didn't complete race outside and for the get away point. One or more of the robbers escaped.[*]Once the mission complete happens the 15 minute timer starts. [*] You gain time for stopping vandels[*] You gain time for stopping various side missions from occuring[*] All side missions will be keyed by the same villain type as did the robbery.[/list]
But it's MY sadistic mechanical monster and I'm here to make sure it knows it. - Girl Genius
List of Invention Guides
I have done one safeguard at level 14. I superspeeded to the bank, went in, managed to recall 2 team mates and was attacked by the robbers before I could get the rest of the team. We got wiped. Rezzed. I ran to the escape point and recalled enough of the team to defeat the robbers there.
So, fun-ish, but the time crunch really kills any desire to experience the map before the robbery. And after the robbery is foiled it feels anti-climactic to stay and battle random vandals.
Compared to mayhem missions, safeguards seem harder and less cool. Temp travel powers are always cool tho... 
@SBeaudway on Pinnacle, TaskForce Titans Supergroup.
I've done a few with my 50 scrapper.
1. <sarcasm>Malta and Carnies in the same mission is fun times 2!</sarcasm>
2. When I get to the bank as the bad guys are leaving, we pass each other in the doorway without seeing each other (but I did hear the door sound). Someone got away, apparently. I was left there scratching my head wondering why my mission failed when I didn't really do anything wrong. I did catch the boss and a henchman outside and was beating them quite handily until booted from the map. It was a real letdown, but I gave it another shot and eventually got the hang of it.
3. In the prevent Breakout side mission, I wasn't ready to fight yet another Dark Ring Mistress, so I bailed out and waited for some endurance to recover (I've only got 3 slots each in Quick Recovery and Stamina). Didn't have to go far. They didn't follow and even disappeared, never to be seen again. It didn't prevent completion of the side mission, so no harm done.
4. The end drain in the PI safeguard is *less* fun than I thought it would be. I'm a regen and I actually used Rest. It felt icky.
5. What's with all the end drain in the PI safeguard? My dark def is going to hate it even on heroic.
Jeromus
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A few tips for those confused by safeguard missions.
<ul type="square">[*]You have 5 minutes from the time you enter the mission until the bank starts getting robbed. [*]If you get to close to the bank the robbery starts even if your 5 minutes are not up.[*] There will be a villain plus looters racing for the vault. If you can stop them before the vault door is destroyed the rest of the mission is casual.[*] If the vault door is destroyed you must stop every one in the bank. Best two options for this are stay outside and get them as they exit, or intercept them as they head to their get away point.[*] If you get everything in the bank and the mission didn't complete race outside and for the get away point. One or more of the robbers escaped.[*]Once the mission complete happens the 15 minute timer starts. [*] You gain time for stopping vandels[*] You gain time for stopping various side missions from occuring[*] All side missions will be keyed by the same villain type as did the robbery.[/list]
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First thank you for posting this in such a concise and easy to understand way. I went into my first SG mission "blind" I hadn't done any Mayhem missions, and I had no idea what to expect other than what I got from the contact.
Me: Ice/Axe Tank lvl 50 (solo)
Going in all I know is that there is a bank robbery starting soon, that I can add time for defeating vandals and doing side-missions.
I enter the mission and not wanting to fight malta just for the "fun" of it, I simply head straight for the bank.
1st indication of a problem: I get attacked several times bounding over there at distances from mobs that would generally never aggro on me. I shrug off the attacks, and keep going to the bank.
Just as I enter the bank a group of theives are running for the door.
2nd problem: The text had stated that I would have 5 minutes. Why would a game lie to a person? I figured that at most I would stop them early in the process and at worst would have to actually sit around and wait for them.
So, luckily I have a good solo build and aggro control, so as soon as the Carnies come anywhere near the door they're on me like glue (how I heart Chilling Embrace). I defeat all the Carnies and complete the mission. At this point I'm so ingrained to click Exit Mission that I had to practically grab my clicking finger with my other hand to stop myself from exiting. I had heard about exiting Mayhem missions and knew better. Hopefully it would have warned me, but if not I can guarantee a lot of people will click exit mission and wonder whatever happened to side missions.
So, speaking of side missions: Immediately after defeating the robbers, I get a message about vandals. I head over to the vandals and defeat them all with no problem, and get more time. So, now once again I'm sitting around wondering what to do. I see the arachnos "chopper" on my map and check that out but am unable to enter. Okay, I guess that's not the side mission. I see more messages of vandals and defeat them... Are those the "side missions"? What's going on? Finally, I ask my SG how I do side-missions and they tell me to find and defeat Ring Mistress spawns.
MAJOR PROBLEM: how in blue blazes was I supposed to know to defeat Ring Mistress spawns? Did I glom over that in the mission description? Was I supposed to just start clearing the entire board and figure it out eventually? The fact that side-missions have to be earned via a secret mechanism annoys the heck out of me, but after hopping around a bit (under constant fire because of the crazy perception/aggro bug - but ignoring it because I'm a giant block of ice) I find a Ring Mistress spawn and take it out.
Success! A side-mission and stil about 5 minutes to spare. I head to the mission and start looking for glowies. Thankfully these spawns do not have the aggro AI bug of outdoor spawns so I'm able to deactivate most of the bombs without having to fight. The mission map, BTW is really awesome. It's a shame that it took until Issue 8 before we had multi-tile maps, but I'm glad it's finally here (went from sewers through a tunnel and into an office building)
After I get out, I begin searching for another Ring Mistress spawn. I find another one, but for some reason this one is just frakin' impossible. First I aggro a Malta spawn at least 50-100 yards away, which I don't notice until I am sapped->perma held->hospital. I go back, Freeze the Sapper with my Ice Hold defeat him, and the next thing I know I'm held again. This time I don't even know what held me. I've been held by Carnies before *when on 8 PERSON TEAMS* but never solo. I don't think they drained me, I think they just overcame my hold protection. Hospital -> run back defeat Ring Mistress and in trying to sweep up her minions run out of time.
Conclusions:
1) Why aren't we given the quoted information by the game in a straight-forward manner. It would have prevented some frustration, and if I weren't in an active SG/Coalition, I never would have figured it out
2) I don't mind Carnies and malta combined, as long as I can manage them by the usual methods of monitoring my distance and being careful to not over aggro. The "auto-aggro" bug must be fixed
3) Has mob hold mag gone up? I was being held much much easier than in any other PvE experience. Is this by design? Maybe I'll get those "held" badges after all.
4) Change "key" system to "defeat x" or simply assign the side missions after x time after main mission completion, preferrably where x=0.
It started out fun if confusing and I really liked the new sewer/tunnel/office map, and I do enjoy a challenge, but if I wanted to be perma-held to death I would have rolled a Hami. I have a feeling that it will be more fun the next time now that I've learned a few things. It's not DOOM, but the aggro thing really really should get looked at, as well as mob hold mags.
Not too impressive, in low levels.
Ran two last night, with my level 10 fire/fire blaster and another level 10. I believe he was a scrapper -- I team with him a lot, on various chars. We both had the King's Row SG up, and we're both on Heroic (? -- the lowest).
Get in, and try to clear the path to the bank. Not halfway there, we get the 'being robbed' message, and we try to book it over there. Clocks with absurd range and sleep holds do not help with that. We get there as the Skulls are coming out, and the main villain cons red to us. Red is usually not a big deal, but with a large spawn with it (7-9 minions?), it was problems. Cue some of the spawn racing to the exit, us running back from the hospital, and mission failure.
We try agian, this time ignoring the Clocks in the roads and racing to the bank. Rinse and repeat of the first, with the added bonus of Clocks on the already too-large bank spawn. We did get the main guy down, but it was the minions racing for the exit that did it.
Nice touch of the hospital inside the mission, instead of a jail. The time crunch seems too short -- each run lasted maybe five minutes before we got booted out. I'll agree that these seem -much- harder than mayhems. A red, with that spawn, that level, and that setting? Orange, maybe.
I know as a blaster I should learn to love teh debt, but this was just bad. And at low levels, there is only so much damage I can dish out. It didn't help we were trading deaths, so neither one of us had much backup -- he was down by the time I got back, and vice versa. We were (mostly) okay until whoever had the agrro went down.
Overall -- not that it needs to be easier, but it does need to be reasonable. Reduce the spawn a little, make them stay and fight instead of bolting (within reason -- not while we're in the hospital or anything), and street mobs further apart might help.
So,
Here are some issues i've found since I8 went live.
I've run about 6 safeguards so far and while i love them there are some problems.
First issue. On my Defender with Shadowfall in the KR map the standard clock spawns on the street not only ignore my stealth but appear to have a longer detection range than normal.
That's somewhat annoying.
Second issue, I run straight to the bank and bypass the spawns of skulls standing about not activelly robbing the bank. I go and stop the main villain and their spawn. Now at this point unless i go back and finish off the spawns in the bank not doing anything i now have unlimited time to go and explore the map do side missions etc. Also no mobs of baddies attacking the environment will spawn.
Finally when i go and clear the non robbers at the bank the timer starts and the environment attackers spawn but any side quests done previously don't add their time to my timer.
I would think as unlikely as it might be a team might be able to run a side mission and the bank at the same time and it would be a bit of bad if the side mission's effort didn't add to the timer just because it completed before the bank mission.
Overall, i'm loving them though.
Cheers
I've only run two Safeguards so far. One with a controller, one witha tank. My controller did the KR one, and it didn't seem the CK were that much different than before. The bad guy also came out as a Lt spawn, not Boss or EB or even AV. Afterward, I "gravved" my way through the mission and gained a level from it (5 blips of mid-teen experience packed into one mission, nice).
My Tanker was a different story. But, I think I know a way around it. I'm going to jsut wait outside the door next time. Bad gu exits, I'm standing right there, and mud pots are slowing "him" and "his" spider bot to a crawl. Should work better than getting ransacked by a group of Arachnos Scouts (who I incidentally mud-stomped) and wailing away on the robber while an itsy-bitsy spider runs off with the rest of the loot. The fact that if even one of them gets away the mission is a bsut is a bit of a let-down.
On a side note, I love the way dollar bills fall out of the bag as you take a round out of the baddie.
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
So far only one heroic solo Steel Canyon Safeguard to my credit, but it was a load of fun with my level 11 Ill/Rad controller. For the record, although I have lots of CoH time under my belt I do not own CoV, and thus have not experienced Mayhems.
I headed straight to the bank as fast as my Sprint would take me. I had to take down maybe 6 clocks/Skulls on the way to clear the path.
I arrived to find a group of 3-5 Skulls in the foyer of the bank. As I cleared them, I got the "Villains are Escaping" message. I was maybe 1-2 minutes into the bank at that point, a little quick in my view. To ensure the baddies didn't get past me I turned and ran the 25 feet to the door. In moments the Fire-based Lt and her buddy showed up, I Deceived one, Blinded the other, and then it was all over but the shouting.
With now 16 min remaining I headed outside to deal with some Vandals, and after that happened upon some Skulls. Taking them out unlocked the Arms Deal mission. Easily completed although it would be nice if it would then STOP showing up on the *map* as mentioned by others. I leveled on this side-mission.
Having now gotten the idea I scoured the map for more Skulls and unlocked the Arson mission. Also quickly dispatched. Now I had 11-12 minutes.
I had been told there were 4 side-missions. I cleared the whole map looking for more things to unlock and dealing with Vandal spawns, but found no new keys. I found the exploration badge, but could locate no more mobs with 6 minutes left.
Does anyone know if the lowbie Safeguards have fewer side-missions, or am I missing something?
For my trouble I got a Med Kit and a Zero-G jump pack. The latter, for a non-travel power enabled hero, is the greatest thing since sliced bread. No matter how the rest of the Safeguards go, I'm extremely happy with this temp power.
I concur with the aggro "bug", although when it's just even con Skulls and Clocks it doesn't hurt much. With Malta and Carnies it would suck...literally.
Finally, formal instructions on how to locate the side-missions need to be provided. Failing that, they could just tell you to "Patrol the streets! The Skulls are plotting dastardly deeds!" At least that way I'd know where to look.
68 Level 50s, all made the old-fashioned way.
Original: Quasar Lad - Fire/Kin troller. Latest: Asp Kicker - Grav/Poison troller.
Completed the "Full Alty Challenge" - level 50 in every archetype, and "Alty's Ultimate Power Challenge" - level 50 in every available powerset in the game.
Member of the Repeat Offenders
I ran my first Safeguard mission last night with my lvl 7 archer blaster. The mission was in Atlas Park despite being gotten in Kings Row from Detective Frietag. (I assume all his missions are true, only the names have been changed to protect the innocent 
).
I got to the bank and got the expected "a bank robbery is in progress" message when I got a hundred feet away or so. I went inside and was immediately jumped by a spines villain and vazilok accomplices. Defeated the villain and got the "mission success" message.
So far, so good.
Killing, excuse me, *defeating* random bad guy spawns on the streets didn't add to my timer, so I quickly ignored those. Perhaps I should get 30 seconds for each one so it's worth it to me to be defeating them.
BAD BUG: Periodically I would get "Vandals are trashing the City" messages. However, when going to the red dot on my map there was often (roughly 2/3rds of the time) no Vazilok there to be kil... er, defeated. That was very annoying. As my friend watching over my shoulder said, "Wow, what a bad bug." So I ended up having no good way to add to my rapidly dwindling timer.
I did find a side mission, prevent a vault door from being blown, but mismanaged aggro on the spawns near said door and was killed. I woke up in the middle of the street (near my original entrance point I think), went back to the mission, and saw that the vault door was already open. I assume that means a side-mission failure, but never got and message confirming that fact.
All in all, I will certainly try Safeguard missions again, but hope some of the problems get addressed soon.
Oh, and being a badge-completeist, I hope that my lvl 37 scrapper will soon be able to easily take safeguard missions in zones he has outleveled.
-Buxley
"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." -- Dr. Seuss
When you get the vandals are trashing the city , if you're quick you can actually arrive well in advance of them. best to wait for them or get some altitude to see where they're coming from and intercept them.
There should be if it follows Villain side, fewer side missions the lower lvl the safeguard mission is. There are sets to this depending on your lvl so you should bascially get one safeguard for every normal city zone (though i'd assume they're only going to cover ther original primary zones and peregrine).
Cheers
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Issue:
Malta (Sappers at least, then the rest once hit) seem to be seeing through Super Speed and Stealth on Peregrine Safeguard. This occured multiple times to multiple individuals with varying degrees of stealth running.
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This is true for the street groups in all the safeguard missions.
Although I enjoy the missions, it annoys me that concealment powers don't provide any benefit. As soon as you get in an enemy group's activation range, they aggro on you (as well as nearby objects). I don't mind the enemies attacking objects when you activate them, but they still shouldn't see you until you're in their concealment-adjusted aggro range.
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Someone came up with a logical theory for this and it was reported numerous times in the training room. The enemies see you because all the items they are attacking are friends to you. So basically you head down the street super invisible and a nearby mailbox says Hi there SuperStealthGuy! and blows your cover more or less
Djeannie's Costume Creator Overhaul Wishlist
Carnie Base
"Once the avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote" -Kosh
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My first attempt at a Safeguard was very humiliating.
All of my friends were busy with villain side rsfs, so I decide to 2box between my 50 ff/psi def badge hunter and a midlevel ill/storm controller that could use some skxp. I have my 50 pick up the police band contact for the first time, ghost as much as I can through about 8 cave missions in a row (didn't keep close count). And I get a call to go safeguard in PI.
My duo enters the mish, and right away we encounter some Malta laying waste to a parking lot. I was tempted to leave them, but I wasn't confident enough that safeguards aren't set up to not punish heroes who let too much vandalism happen, so we engaged. I didn't handle the encounter too well, and the controller got out of sk range and died.
This wasn't so bad though, as I could vengeance and get some vigilance benefit. So once the Malta were done I flew down to the bank door and entered.
As I was tp'ing my dead sk into the lobby, the main villains started running past me and out the door! I thought I had had several minutes yet but I guess not, so I started scrambling, trying to throw my single target crowd controls on various guys still in the lobby, then running out the door myself.
Outside there was an extra Arachnos ambush right at the door. So I'm trying to scramble to catch up with a 51 boss and a handful of lts and minions fleeing to the escape copter, while trying to fend off -fly spiders and critical strike guys and psi girls and nearby-aggroing sappers and turrets and gunslingers. I start missing (control) attack after (control) attack despite running tactics (I didn't think there was a night widow around but I didn't have a good grasp of what was around me in the chaos). I die quick.
I dejectedly click to go to hospital, and find I get spawned in the middle of a street somewhere. Disoriented, I check my map and notice that the escape copter is lit, so I fly to it, and then start flying down the street towards the bank. Half a block away I encounter the first bankfleeing mob, and I start whittling on him, and soon he's joined by the main boss and others, and some Malta too. I'm behind on my toggles and I can't fend them off for long again. 10 seconds later the mission failed and my 2 guys are dumped unceremoniously at the feet of a random hero who laughed at me.
Now, I imagine we did look kind of funny, but I was definitely not in much of a mood to deal with that. I wasn't much in a mood to deal with other heroes who came by willing to rez us either.
I didn't say anything to any of them. I was just trying to think of what I could've done better, but going over it in my mind all I could conclude was that there was just too much stacked against me to overcome. Primarily, dps for a ff/psi is too weak for the haste on the (lvl 51 on heroic?) bank robbers, and 2boxed crowd control is too thin to handle bosses and ambushes and adds all at once.
I could try it solo to hopefully drop the boss to a lt and thin out more of the spawns, which would help make the encounter fit more with my control powers, but I'm still low on dps for how quick they are and I'd have to sacrifice playtime my controller is hurting for.
I could try to get more of a team to help take on the mission, but lately I've been having trouble with that... I haven't managed to log on at a time before my friends are committed to other endeavors, and I haven't had much interest from random heroes on the search list with whom I've tried chatting.
I suppose I could start the mish, leave my controller in to hold it open and then switch my main to my regen scrapper, and just own the map. But that's silly and doesn't get my def anywhere.
Which leaves me maybe with trying to keep the controller alive better, and either blindly rushing to the bank, or camping the escape helicopter, (maybe clearing the area a bit). I can probably get somewhere with either approach, but I just can't see how it'll be more than a marginal improvement.
I don't know what to suggest really. Maybe the devs can double check that the bank robbers aren't jumping the gun on fleeing? But it doesn't seem like there's anything wrong with the intended design, there's nothing that can be fixed, it just doesn't work for me. It just seems like I'm being denied the content of a safeguard mission solely because I'm the wrong AT or the wrong build. Much like the sense of being denied the content of rsfs because my stalker is the wrong AT, or being denied the content of the isolator badge because I'm the wrong build (as in I timestamped my build too early).
I imagine in general safeguards are fun, I just fall into the humiliated minority I guess.
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That is another problem with them that you pointed out. The higher level you get the faster the boss can trash the safe and then its all "stop the peons and boss from fleeing". At that point you're in trouble and will probably lose. Any single peon gets by you and its game over. Miss one attack and thats it. Toss in endurance draining mobs at higher level and its a real nightmare.
Also make sure that you are on heroic or you'll be in a world of hurt as most AT's
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Carnie Base
"Once the avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote" -Kosh
I very much enjoyed my first Safeguard Mission last night. Having done numerous Mayhem Missions, it was cool to see the mission from 'the other side.'
I was a lvl 39 scrapper playing on Heroic (I do all mayhems on the easiest setting) and had no mission bugs. Hopped right over to the bank and got the 'being robbed message.' I took out the spawns in the lobby and on the way to the vault. The villain (Ms. Shocker, I think) had just blown open the vault. The moment I attacked, she totally focused on me and never tried to leave. Took her out, completed the bank and got the bonuses.
A vandal message popped up and I went out to the mark. I found no vandals there, but figured I might have beaten them to the site.. and I had. Took them out.
I had 4 side missions: Arms Deal, Sewer Bombing, Jail Break, and Theft. Each one was pretty straight foward and actually quite fun. I realized there was no timer on the sewer bombing mission, even though it said 6 minutes to explosion, but I actually liked that. It added to the frenzied pace.
I felt that the mission had a fast pace to it and kept things going very well. As some people mentioned, the mobs do seem to have a longer aggro range (didn't notice that until I thought about it today.) Time was never a problem. Infact, I cleaned out the map with 20 minutes left to spare. I was hoping for more Vandal messages.
I would say I had a total of 4 vandal messages, one of which I ignored because I was in the sewer bombing mission and didn't want to time out. I do like that the vandal markers appear, but it seems they ttake a bibt of time to dissappear after foiling the vandals.
The side quest markers weren't a bother to me as I am used to that from Mayhem Missions. Having them disappear after completed would be nice.
In the theft mission, I didn't seem to get any credit for rescuing the hostages and I felt I should have gotten something. Like a bonus if I get them all.
All in all, I think they are a great compliment/parallel to mayhem missions. Granted, Council and Nemesis are easy foes. I think I'll hate to face Malta/Carnie in the same mission.
You don't hit smiling monsters - Sister Flame
I've been in two of these now, just Atlas. One with a team and one solo.
Consistent with mayhem missions, it went swimmingly when I was solo (Dark/Dark Defender) and HORRIBLE with a team. Also consistent, but not in a good way... the only way to do it successfully is just just scramble straight for the bank and ignore everything else.
I was under the impression that we were supposed to have a few minutes to fight our way to the bank before we were prompted that the robbery was underway. I realize the notes say "immediately", but starting us on the other side of the map and expecting us to ignore everything (and survive running past it) is very harsh.
After stopping the robbery, the timed portion is very cool.
Bottom line, though, the timer could be longer before the robbery is triggered.
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