I9 Statesman's Task Force Preview - Discussion
By
Aett_Thorn,
Posted on: 2007-02-21 16:14 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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This is funny. When the RSF was introduced, they dared villains to complete it because they knew it was ridiculous. At least Heroes as overpowered as they are know that they will a TF that is completeable, and have an idea about what AT's to bring to the table in advance.
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A ton of that though is due to two important facts. A) We have some general idea of what's required for this sort of thing exactly because we've seen it done in the LRSF. B) The devs know the LRSF is (still) broken and apparently are at least trying to address the recognized problems with it in the design of the SMTF. (That sounds like some sort of radio frequency band).
Hopefully if they're successful they can roll any improvements back into the LRSF. While I'd love them to fix the LRSF first, lets see how this turns out. If it sucks too, we really don't want new suckyness in the LRSF.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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The robot is a toxic from the looks of it.
The glowing sword is becuase of build up.
The spike shown in the other pic is the character's sword.
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Yes the Spider-bot. Is a Toxic Tarantula. Nasty as it's Toxic damage.
No that's not Build Up with a Sword. Tha's the end of the Toxiic Tarantula as it's attacking Samuari dude. Those green droplets look an awful lot like those from Dominators Thony Assault attacks with Physiics Effects enabled.
And that isn't a sword in Samauri Dudes left handle. Otherwise from the position of his handle a sword woulf be point upwards towards 10 o'clock with a visble pummel. If you enhance his right hand, you see what appearts to be a similar similar object with a similar color in an like orienttal to the right hand. And from playing my Plant/Thorns Dominator up from 1 to level 33 in the past few weeks, that looks like the graphics for Quills/Lunge whic is similar enough to Thorns/Skewer.
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I don't think we are talking about the same picture and that may be my fault. At the very bottom of the webpage there is a set of five pictures. I am referring to the top middle picutre. I would attach it but I do not know how.
It def looks like Black Scropion, no? and the same pic shows the samurai crouched with a wooden? spike protruding from each hand (the right hand can barely be seen). That is what I am referring to.
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Yes. That is Black Scorpion.
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I don't think we are talking about the same picture and that may be my fault. At the very bottom of the webpage there is a set of five pictures. I am referring to the top middle picutre. I would attach it but I do not know how.
It def looks like Black Scropion, no? and the same pic shows the samurai crouched with a wooden? spike protruding from each hand (the right hand can barely be seen). That is what I am referring to.
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Yes. That is Black Scorpion.
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Finally!! Someone finally confirmed it, I thought I was going crazy!
Thank you.
i've said multiple times, that spike like weapon is actually the Fing-Longer (look it up on wikipedia if you've never heard of it)
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@Yuuden on Victory Server.
Badge count as of 02/01/11: 1165
I can't believe people think that the Statesman TF will be hard for heroes to do.
I mean, look at the devs - they are using an AR Blaster and Archery Blaster as part of their main team. Talk about non-optimising your group :-)
And taking a moment to think about it, it's likely that in Statesman's TF you have to stop Lord Recluse's scheme - you may not have to defeat him to succeed at the trial. This fits with comics where the hero stops the scheme but the villain escapes to cause trouble another day.
Comics usually require the villain to defeat the hero to be a success. The LRSF reflects this.
And there WILL be an optimised hero team for this mission. It may be 3 ATs instead of 2, but there will be ATs and builds that are disadvantaged by this TF. That's just the way it goes when there is so much flexibilty in CoH/V.
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I can't believe people think that the Statesman TF will be hard for heroes to do.
I mean, look at the devs - they are using an AR Blaster and Archery Blaster as part of their main team. Talk about non-optimising your group :-)
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Veng Bait 
Sign It : http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
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I don't like it.
Not because of the AT balance, that's nice.
Not because of Oranbega, I like that place.
But because the Statesman Task Force, the grand be-all-end-all of missions, is against Arachnos.
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I still like it overall, but I agree with you on this last point.
I think Arachnos, and Lord Recluse in particular, are lame. I far prefer Nemesis as the "big bad" of the game, and I feel that they've been marginalizing him and putting Lord Recluse in his place as the ultimate threat ever since CoV came out.
Nemesis is deeply embedded into the history of CoH, and set up to be the ultimate villain. He's been plaguing the world for almost 150 years, and is responsible for Statesman indirectly causing the Rikti War, yet nothing has yet to come of that incredible and horrible realization.
I knew it would be Arachnos we'd be facing in this, but I had the faintest glimmer of a hope that we'd be sent to stop some awesomely complex plot, and at the end we would face the new, improved, super powerful Prussian Prince himself, complete with some never-before seen creations to assist him.
And by that I mean he wouldn't be the incredible pushover he is in our personal missions.
Edit: I'm making a quasi-New-Year's resolution to include more positive comments in my posts. I generally only get motivated to post when I'm not happy about something.
So. I'm still excited about this TF, and I hope maybe the devs will one day implement one like I suggested!
Please try my custom mission arcs!
Legacy of a Rogue (ID 459586, Entry for Dr. Aeon's Third Challenge)
Death for Dollars! (ID 1050)
Dr. Duplicate's Dastardly Dare (ID 1218)
Win the Past, Own the Future (ID 1429)
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And there WILL be an optimised hero team for this mission. It may be 3 ATs instead of 2, but there will be ATs and builds that are disadvantaged by this TF. That's just the way it goes when there is so much flexibilty in CoH/V.
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Fuzon and Unsub need to read this, since they obviously don't understand this point. 
I think you two are just too used to soloing your missions and not needing entire at's because everyone does the same bloody thing. Like some kind of crazy "World of Heroes" madness.
BTW, those spikes you see (from dude in samurai armor's wrists) in image 6 must definately be a new Spines animation. If you look at image 3 you can see the blood widow beside him's been hit with impale or spine burst.
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You can't have it both ways. Needing an AT to get past a section of the TF is preferable to that AT not being able to do the TF at all because no one wants to invite them.
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I somehow missed this argument earlier. If I understand correctly, you are arguing that
A) The STF must *require* all ATs
or inevitably
B) Most players will deliberately exclude some ATs from their teams (like the RSF).
I was all set to disagree with you, but after thinking it through I believe you are right. Mind you, I stand by my argument that creating contrived circumstances that require specific ATs would not be fun. The problem is, if you create a TF that is so insanely difficult to complete, players will use extreme min/maxing in order to succeed. This will lead to excluding ATs/powersets. Logically, there are only two ways I see to prevent this kind of AT exclusion:
(1) Create contrived mission goals that require specific ATs so that teams must have X AT to succeed. This option would not (imo) be fun, and ultimately will fail (see below).
(2) Make the damn TF easier so less min/maxed teams have a reasonable chance of success. This option the devs aren't likely to do.
About (1) failing: Even with created situations that require specific ATs there will still be exclusions occuring. For example: I have a 50 brute that has trouble finding RSF teams. Why? I'm the right AT... but I'm not /Stone. There will be specific powersets that are more favored, and some powersets will still face exclusions.
The Devs have really dug themselves into a hole here. Hamidon is a similarly difficult encounter, but there is no limit to the number of people that can attack him, so there is no reason to exclude people. By creating a small scale encounter (max 8 people) that is Hamidon level difficult they have created a situation that will, by design, need min/max teams to have a reasonable chance of success, and thus, AT/powerset exclusion is inevitable.
No one likes this. The devs are against min/maxing, and the players have made it clear that the RSF final encounter is universally hated. The only remaining solution is (2), make the damn things easy enough that a less min/maxed team has a reasonable chance of success in a reasonable length of time. Bring some fun back to the endgame. I'll wait on pronouncing total doOo0oOmage until we see how it turns out, but I'm not really looking forward to the STF now.
Greyhame you have a good point, but consider that just about any type of tank could handle the RSF final mission if he were placed in it, while only Stone brutes are hearty enough to withstand it. Defenders can smack on unresisted debuffs, blasters can fire at a greater range and do more damage than corrs, and scrappers can survive better than non /stone brutes in the middle of AVs and put out consistent DPS.
It's just a fact that heroes are stronger than villains in general.. and will have an easier time taking down AVs. Same reason why highly organized Villain teams will be butt burgled by highly organized Hero teams in PvP every time.
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Defenders can smack on unresisted debuffs
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Defender unresistable Debuffs apply only in PvP. The few debuffs that are unresistable are so across all classes.
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I really, really can't remember the last time I've said : "Stop the team, we need a Blaster."
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Or, "If we could only find a Controller."
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Er, I can actually say I've said that recently. Trying to stop Diabolique is a PitA without decent, long-lasting immobilizes.
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Crey Pistol. That's what my controllerless teams use against her.
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This is what 3700 heroes in a single zone looks like.
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I love the "We learned from our mistakes" bit.
Ok they figgured out what they did wrong, so do they fix it? Hell no, they create another without the need for a specific group build to complete and.... give it to the hero's.
COV... City of Victoms? Should be called COG.. City of Guneapigs.
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Ok they figgured out what they did wrong, so do they fix it?
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Dunno, why not ASK?
People are just ASSUMING that there won't be any change to the LRSF. Do people really think the head developer is going to go out there and say - on record and in public - 'We got this wrong' and then just LEAVE IT?
I suppose that could be the case, but has anyone actually thought of asking Positron what HE thinks?
No, everyone just assumes the worst as bloody usual.
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Ok they figgured out what they did wrong, so do they fix it?
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Dunno, why not ASK?
People are just ASSUMING that there won't be any change to the LRSF. Do people really think the head developer is going to go out there and say - on record and in public - 'We got this wrong' and then just LEAVE IT?
I suppose that could be the case, but has anyone actually thought of asking Positron what HE thinks?
No, everyone just assumes the worst as bloody usual.
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ROFL..... How many examples of "Yes we know this is broke" do you need? After 3 years of seeing how the devs act I can say I have seen it happen time and again.
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BTW, those spikes you see (from dude in samurai armor's wrists) in image 6 must definately be a new Spines animation. If you look at image 3 you can see the blood widow beside him's been hit with impale or spine burst.
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Castle already told us that it wasn't
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@Yuuden on Victory Server.
Badge count as of 02/01/11: 1165
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How will the people who don't have CoV be able to get into Grandville?
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First of all, on your computer the only difference between CoV and CoH is the skin of the log on screen. All the maps for both 'games' are on your hard drive.
Second, they wont be going to the 'real' Grandville. The will be going to an instanced version. There are a few CoV missions, not counting the mayhem missions, where Villains visit the City of Heroes. All of them are instanced.
The author of this post is speaking in generalities from his personal experience.
Your experience may vary.
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I somehow missed this argument earlier. If I understand correctly, you are arguing that
A) The STF must *require* all ATs
or inevitably
B) Most players will deliberately exclude some ATs from their teams (like the RSF).
I was all set to disagree with you, but after thinking it through I believe you are right. Mind you, I stand by my argument that creating contrived circumstances that require specific ATs would not be fun. The problem is, if you create a TF that is so insanely difficult to complete, players will use extreme min/maxing in order to succeed. This will lead to excluding ATs/powersets. Logically, there are only two ways I see to prevent this kind of AT exclusion:
(1) Create contrived mission goals that require specific ATs so that teams must have X AT to succeed. This option would not (imo) be fun, and ultimately will fail (see below).
(2) Make the damn TF easier so less min/maxed teams have a reasonable chance of success. This option the devs aren't likely to do.
About (1) failing: Even with created situations that require specific ATs there will still be exclusions occuring. For example: I have a 50 brute that has trouble finding RSF teams. Why? I'm the right AT... but I'm not /Stone. There will be specific powersets that are more favored, and some powersets will still face exclusions.
The Devs have really dug themselves into a hole here. Hamidon is a similarly difficult encounter, but there is no limit to the number of people that can attack him, so there is no reason to exclude people. By creating a small scale encounter (max 8 people) that is Hamidon level difficult they have created a situation that will, by design, need min/max teams to have a reasonable chance of success, and thus, AT/powerset exclusion is inevitable.
No one likes this. The devs are against min/maxing, and the players have made it clear that the RSF final encounter is universally hated. The only remaining solution is (2), make the damn things easy enough that a less min/maxed team has a reasonable chance of success in a reasonable length of time. Bring some fun back to the endgame. I'll wait on pronouncing total doOo0oOmage until we see how it turns out, but I'm not really looking forward to the STF now.
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You're right in what you say. I myself was hoping that the mission would be easy enough so certain power sets in an AT aren't favored enough to the point that the other sets can't get teams. Kind of a cost/benefit analysis of how long you want to wait to find that perfect team vs. how long it's going to take you to find those specific ATs.
I don't think creating situations where certain AT's are needed is contrived though. Situations where you need certain skills to pass by something in an RPG is very normal. If for example, you were attacked by a cadre of high-flying enemies you'd encourage your flying and ranged attack characters. In any good RPG running up into melee with something and beating it into the ground isn't /always/ the answer.
Thinking on it, I think the Terra Volta trial is an example of a mission that has good alternate goals in the mission that encourage some different sets than usual to be helpful. (But notice it's not tarring up the other sets either.)
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Thinking on it, I think the Terra Volta trial is an example of a mission that has good alternate goals in the mission that encourage some different sets than usual to be helpful. (But notice it's not tarring up the other sets either.)
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That's the way I'd expect it to work. There's really no situation that control can handle that aggro management, (de)buffing, or large amounts of damage can't handle. Control may make it easier, but just nuking them all should work too.
We'll always have Paragon.
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ROFL..... How many examples of "Yes we know this is broke" do you need?
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By all means, find me some more public examples of an admission that something is broken, which weren't then followed by a pledge to fix it.
I won't be holding my breath.
posi said they were gonna fix the arena bugs before I8, what did lucas win?
The Kronos has a hold n00b!
This is funny. When the RSF was introduced, they dared villains to complete it because they knew it was ridiculous. At least Heroes as overpowered as they are know that they will a TF that is completeable, and have an idea about what AT's to bring to the table in advance.
I wonder if heroes will have to carry a retarded technician around, and have an aggro happy mission pet like villians do.
I must admit that it looks interesting, and I am looking forward to running it with my blaster and my troller.
"Sorry bucko, but CoH and CoV are the same game." -BackAlleyBrawler
"Silly villain, CoX is for Heroes!" -Saicho