Issue 9 Hamidon Overview, 4/3/2007
By
Anglican,
Posted on: 2007-04-03 11:32 in The Market and Inventions
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Do the attacks from hami / the mitos still ignore defense?
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Yes. Defense is of zero importance.
The only things that help your survival are Toxic Resist, EoEs, Mez Protection, and HP.
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And this is what make Hami an insidious and challenging nut to crack.
EoEs will stop the 'regular' untyped damage, but not the toxic damage. However EoEs are limited in duration. They are also limited in supply since it takes a time investment to harvest them.
HP sounds like a boon to /Regen and Healers until you realize all that -regen and -heal make HP regen and healing come to nought the longer you stay in the goo.
There are several different mezzes and controls and debuffs to worry about, so, no one-trick ponies need apply.
It's really nice to need so many different ATs and powers working together.
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I need a general consensus for the major testers on beta. Mar has already expressed his opinion.
I removed the link to his strat in the beta forums for two reasons
1)I wasn't sure poeple had access to it
2)I wasn't sure what the consensus was among the most prominent in the beta raid community.
I would rather have the strat up, and linked to here. It provides a point of progress, and prevents people from reinventing the wheels we took so much time and effort to carve. Yes, it potentially predisposes people toward a given approach, but it is not dogma. We are not bound to it any more than we are bound to compelting the Katie Hannon TF by normal means or by flying her above ambushes.
However, the choice is only, in part, mine, The only people I want to hear from about this are Mar, LL, Surraht, ZM, and anyone else of note that i left out in the beta discussion threads.
I'm all in favor of letting people see what we did and let them decide whether they want to cover the same ground again.
I'll be the first to admit there's a ton of room for improvement in what we did. There's also the chance that someone will see things we missed.
However it would save a lot of time for those interested, and save those of us that contributed some time in reiterating a lot of those points when the questions get asked again.
"Null is as much an argument "for removing the cottage rule" as the moon being round is for buying tennis shoes." -Memphis Bill
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ZM is dead right. The raid that lasted so long and eventually worked suffered terribly from lack of raider preparation AND working with then-still unknown factors. With those out of the way, a prepared raid group should be able to take down Hamidon in no more than 2 hours, and probably quite a bit less if they're coordinated well.
-M
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Under the best possible circumstances, maybe 2 hours.
Does that 2 hours include EoE collecting, though? The first day of the hami takedown, there were teams farming GMs several hours before the event, plus BaB's gift, and EoEs still ran out by the first respawn. (Though probably folks weren't as economical as they could have been.)
Meanwhile, the no-EoE solution (though pretty disorganized) we tried for the first respawn led to many many wipes. With the oil slick trick wipes are far less of a setback, it begs to be seen if the devs will continue to allow the trick.
We'd better. Otherwise "Oil Slick, WTH" will cease to be a punchline.
I wish peopel would understand this this isn't an end-all strategy. There's a HUEG amount of room to iron out details, and still then a potentially HUEG amount of room to change things up.
Stop acting like our runs were the real deal. Don't criticize the sculpture before we're even done chipping out the head.
I'm figuring approx 2.5 hours, including EoE farming immediately beforehand if needed.
Bluntly, Hamidon is not particularly "open raid" friendly anymore. He's more a task for prepared and very coordinated crews. The method we used to take him on Test effectively dealt with the inherent "Pug" nature of the raid crew by dumping the majority of the responsibility on the heads of a small percentage, and then using twists on more familiar methods to pull the rest down. In short, it was a very rough application of the strategy.
An SG/Coalition/Group of friends that took this on, using the same method, and say, voice chat or the like, could pound through it very rapidly. In fact, with the exception of perhaps Hami himself, I am pretty certain that the encounter could be done with 8 players, each with three alts. And it wouldn't take any longer, if they already had EoE. Beating Hami's regen would be an issue though. 
-M
Marut, 50 FF/Rad/Power Defender - Champion
Leader of The Earthguard
Leader of The Galactic Empire
Wow, not impressed so far. Difficult to resist status effects, plus required farming? Not nice.
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I wish peopel would understand this this isn't an end-all strategy. There's a HUEG amount of room to iron out details, and still then a potentially HUEG amount of room to change things up.
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That's exactly it, though. There IS a working strategy, though it's not terribly viable, and we should be MORE forceful in pointing that out. It was more a proof of concept than anything else. (Yes, hami can be killed.)
It's a brute-force approach that is either EoE-heavy or wipe-heavy, both of which are time-intensive (and I personally doubt that farming EoEs for the entire raid takes half an hour).
Only a very very select group of people (if any!) can wrangle up 50 people with the right distribution of ATs for the current raid to happen in 2.5 hours, if it's even possible, since it lies in the realm of theorycraft right now.
I'm rather sure that most people won't manage the current brute-force strategy at all. Not only that, but this slow brute-force method is competing directly with the STF, which not only has much laxer AT requirements and is easier, but also gives one more recipe than hami does.
So I think we should put more emphasis on: there is a working strategy BUT it's brute force and not what the devs intended. Much like how the hami strategy folks came up with for current hami was far more brute-force than the devs expected. When Zombie-Man says 'no raid has been attempted, raids would go faster', or Marut says 'the raid can be done in 2 hours' it seems to me like they're exagerating on the viability of this strategy. Sure it works. But if we're going to be wipe 3 times to kill hami, then it's the stupidest thing ever, too.
They sure buffed him, Marut! 
Keep in mind that Back Alley Brawler, who watched us several times attempting to raid, stated that we had all the pieces but didn't put them together right. At least the way they felt it should be done. So there is something we didn't see or ignored that could be the key to this.
Remember guys and gals its a game if someone kills you when you are grabbing a badge you do not die in real life. - Beef_Cake
Favorite i9 post:
Lady_Sadako: Devs: have you actually taken down the new Hami?
Positron: We never defeated the old one.
ir0x0r: Weak!
Also need to note that we're operating from the extremes, and there's always the likelihood things will be cranked down some more before it goes Live. We went into our first two attempts knowing we wouldnt be able to significantly dent Hami. But we did it anyway so they'd have data to crunch.
Just like the salvage carry capacity and the table recipe prices, we're working downward toward the right spot, instead of starting too generous and then trying to make things harder.
I think the Closed Beta Raiders did an awesome job, but not perfect. I say please learn from us, but do your damnedest to improve on what we did, because I know everyone can.
"Null is as much an argument "for removing the cottage rule" as the moon being round is for buying tennis shoes." -Memphis Bill
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Keep in mind that Back Alley Brawler, who watched us several times attempting to raid, stated that we had all the pieces but didn't put them together right. At least the way they felt it should be done. So there is something we didn't see or ignored that could be the key to this.
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See sig. He clearly told us the key. 
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Keep in mind that Back Alley Brawler, who watched us several times attempting to raid, stated that we had all the pieces but didn't put them together right. At least the way they felt it should be done. So there is something we didn't see or ignored that could be the key to this.
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See sig. He clearly told us the key.
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LOL! Does anyone still have the link to that picture?
Remember guys and gals its a game if someone kills you when you are grabbing a badge you do not die in real life. - Beef_Cake
Favorite i9 post:
Lady_Sadako: Devs: have you actually taken down the new Hami?
Positron: We never defeated the old one.
ir0x0r: Weak!
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
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Keep in mind that Back Alley Brawler, who watched us several times attempting to raid, stated that we had all the pieces but didn't put them together right. At least the way they felt it should be done. So there is something we didn't see or ignored that could be the key to this.
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See sig. He clearly told us the key.
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LOL! Does anyone still have the link to that picture?
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>_>
What about the Oil Slick one?
Oil Slick, WTH?
bwhahahahhaha
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Bluntly, Hamidon is not particularly "open raid" friendly anymore. He's more a task for prepared and very coordinated crews. The method we used to take him on Test effectively dealt with the inherent "Pug" nature of the raid crew by dumping the majority of the responsibility on the heads of a small percentage, and then using twists on more familiar methods to pull the rest down. In short, it was a very rough application of the strategy.
An SG/Coalition/Group of friends that took this on, using the same method, and say, voice chat or the like, could pound through it very rapidly. In fact, with the exception of perhaps Hami himself, I am pretty certain that the encounter could be done with 8 players, each with three alts. And it wouldn't take any longer, if they already had EoE. Beating Hami's regen would be an issue though.
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Why is that remotely a good thing? What's the point in making Hamidon harder for casual players who don't have voice chats, dozens of Co* obsessed friends and a fine sense of coordination?
I'm with Kali. It sure sounds like the encounter has not been improved at all, save that it is probably easier on my graphics card. I'll be happy to send Darkonne along for some hero side testing when I have a chance, but I'm not feeling very enthused at the moment.
-D
Darkonne: Pinnacle's (unofficially) mighty Dark Miasma/Radiation Blast enthusiast!
Be sure to check out this mighty Arc:
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high end (50+) is almost never casual friendly, just by it's very nature. At least in the early stages. Trying to build it so it is, just means designing for the lowest common denominator and ending up with inferior content. Better to build it tough, and let the player community improve iteself so that more and more people can do it more easily.
It's my understanding that's the way the old Hamidon Raid began, and it's not so terribly wrong if the new one begins the same way. Almost every big chunk of content of this nature that I've seen added to any game, always begins as something for the most dedicated, and as time goes on and knowledge expands, it becomes more readily available. More than likely because of the hard work of those initially players.
I was disappointed when community tendencies made the LRSF more and more insular instead of more and more egalitarian, even though it's been shown time and again that wasn't nexessary. I've strong hopes that this time, the things we've learned will create a different social inertia. One that trends toward more and more people involved.
"Null is as much an argument "for removing the cottage rule" as the moon being round is for buying tennis shoes." -Memphis Bill
Alot of great info here. I will admit that when I heard New-Hami had been beaten I felt a bit cheated. Probably quite a few of us would have liked to been there when he fell for the first time. But after reading all the information that I could I have a new sense of adventure in helping to find a better way to take him down. Of course if the open testers do find an efficent way of taking him down that might leave the non-testers feeling a bit cheated 
So I've romped around the hive and have seen Hami sitting snug in his ring of mitos and now I wonder when the next attempt will be made.
Are several different groups trying differen't methods? Is each server hosting their own raid attempt? Yes, I know test server has just been opened up to the rest of the games participants but I'm not very patient.
-Icy "Full of Wacky Ideas" McFlame
Personally, I don't see why this is such a pissing contest over who got the damn thing dead first. If we really wanted to, the beta raiders could spam the screenshots all over the board in some sort of ejaculatory blaze of glory, saying "OMG WE DID IT !ST WERE THE GREETIST"
Aside from the feeling cheated, it'd be nice if people took your attitude toward this; that there is still a lot to uncover, and that this strat is only one way of getting it done. I think I speak on behalf of the beta community when we say we want peple to make this better. We want people to find a more efficient, effective way for people to get this encounter done. However, we don't want the extremes of a)people whining about the fact that we had access first (which is disingenuous, since peopel could just as easily whine about how peope had access to inventions and the rudimentary economy first) or b)people acting like they don't know anything and failing to build upon that which we have worked hard on.
To characterize it precisely, we don't want a ticker-tape parade, but it'd be nice if people wouldn't also dismiss what we have come up with at the time as inherently flawed and thus, valueless.
Marut said it best to me: He wanted something available to people right out of the box so that they could, if they wanted to, run it that way to get an idea of how it works. If people get stuck before they clear mitos, or they have no chance of figuring out how they work, then we're back reinventing wheels.
Further, deigning this as "brute force" by virtue of the fact that it isn't what the devs had in mind is a littl disingenuous to the strat's design. The Mk II strat is designed precisely to maximize melee team safety with the only means available to us right now. If we wanted it to be brute force, we'd call for all 20 or so Melee capable toons to pop an EoE and rush yellows. If you think EoE farming is bad with Mk II, try it without team TP.
Lastly, this encounter is not supposed to be easy. We're not supposed to walk in, do some mindless crap, then walk out recipe/HO in hand. Maybe it's not suppsoed to be this hard, but it's stuill supposed to make our lives difficult. If anything, all this talk is reminiscent of the Regen nerf whining. Don't cry when the bottle is taken away because, y'all are big kids now. Old hami is a luxury the devs don't want us to have anymore.
Edit: Major typo. Freudian indeed. 
Question...how many monsters are in the hive that need to be cleared? Is it the same huge number there were before, spawns with half a dozen or more giant monsters clustered together, or have the spawns been redone.
I dunno. From what I've heard, the devs have done the impossible. Make the Hami encounter even more unfun.
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8 or more. It's been a strangeness that we haven't fully accounted for yet. Sometimes it takes more, a lot more.
I'm not sure where "unfun" comes from. I had a lot of fun each time I've done this. It's not easy by any means, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily unfun.
"Null is as much an argument "for removing the cottage rule" as the moon being round is for buying tennis shoes." -Memphis Bill
PS if there are specific things you find unfun, then by all means post them in the official thread, but I recommend waiting until you've at least tried it.
"Null is as much an argument "for removing the cottage rule" as the moon being round is for buying tennis shoes." -Memphis Bill
Updated guide as to spawning hami. Pls rd kthxbye.
ZM is dead right. The raid that lasted so long and eventually worked suffered terribly from lack of raider preparation AND working with then-still unknown factors. With those out of the way, a prepared raid group should be able to take down Hamidon in no more than 2 hours, and probably quite a bit less if they're coordinated well.
-M
Marut, 50 FF/Rad/Power Defender - Champion
Leader of The Earthguard
Leader of The Galactic Empire