Official Discussion: Issue 10 Invasion
By
Aztec_Mummy,
Posted on: 2007-07-24 17:57 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
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The AI in the Serpent Drummer Mission "Rescue the Diplomats" pretty much had my team fail the mission. The schmuck of an airforce general ran up beyond the team who was making our plans, drew his side arm and began to attack the cavern full of nemesis.
He then promptly died and we were ejected from the mission.
Aside from the lag issues, everything else seems to be going quite well.
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You had better luck than I. When I did this mish C'Kelkah could take damage before being rescued. This wouldn't have been a problem if she wasn't being guarded by a Warhulk and 2 Gewehr Jaeger; masters of cones those muckers are. By the time I noticed her health going down, my Total Focus was dealing the final blow on Mr. Explosion. She died on the spot and I failed the mish.
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Since I10 was thrown onto beta and I got to try stuff out with my 50, my brother and I saved our 35s on live from Leveling so we would be in the right level range to try everything.
Oh, Serpent Drummer is a level 40 contact. Great! Back to Brickstown.
That is all.
Just have to say that the mission design in the Rikti War Zone is the best in the game. The plot twists were unexpected and actually elicited some emotion for the first time in all the years I've played (especially for a certain Longbow agent). Missions are finally reaching the level of, say, Guild Wars, and they're quite refreshing.
"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."
"Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man."
- Thomas Jefferson
I, for one, welcome our new server-lag-bringing overlords.
I haven't seen lag like this since the classic hammie raids way back in the pre-ED days. Cap Au just wasn't processing anything -- and that raid saw almost no heavies. Kinda disappointing.
(Pinnacle, Cap Au, ~10:30 pm CST last night)
There weren't any Invasion Announcements while I was in the Shadow Shard which was a relief. It kept with the zone's ambiance.
Teams are the number one killer of soloists.
Ah... I10 is quite fun.
Although the lag can be obnoxious it is just as bad as trying to get to the Black Market sometimes. Try turning off other peoples effects in your adv. graphics options and switching to First Person View when you are running to join in on the fun. That seems to help me out.
Unfortunately I'm not high enough level yet to get into the warzone fun. Hopefully soon though.
The Rikti models look great. As do the new costumes.
I don't see the problem with the red admin chat. I don't think of it as spam.
My only complain with the issue is that the rikti are waaaaaayyyy easy. Just chillaxing with my four minions they pulled a slaughterhouse 9 on everything that jumped me. Worst that happened was nobody killed the monkey so I shot it twice. Way easy.
Well that and why are the bombs so hard to kill? It was like the time I tried to solo deathsurge for kicks. I might as well have been making a sandwich cuz nothing was going on. Then eventually it blows everything up. Very unfun.
Also either I'm really lucky or you devs significantly upped the dropping of costume pieces. Gotten two in the last couple hours of play which is more than my last week.
I am really impressed with this release. The Ritki and Vanguard look snappin' and the zone is a blast. I find the new content quite compelling and dig the new pet team ups. Makes soloing with my Def a little more interesting.
The new maps are quite refreshing and are packed with great design work. Good to see some freshness there.
I've only been in one bombing/invasion run - was a blast. Overall GREAT work!! Have to say that post-issue bugs are at a bare minimum this time. Havent been able to do a Pylon?mothership raid yet as I am waiting for the numbers/lag to die down so I can actually be team-effective sans the lag.
Other than echoing the lag issues (which i have gotten used to post release) and the admin messages that desperately need tweaking, I have to say the amount of merits dropped vs the price of the items is not the best trade off.
/thumbsup
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Other than echoing the lag issues (which i have gotten used to post release) and the admin messages that desperately need tweaking, I have to say the amount of merits dropped vs the price of the items is not the best trade off.
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Go on a pylon raid or two - your merit woes will disappear...
Don't quote me on this, but it "feels" like the rikti spawned form the mothership have close to a 100% chance to drop a merit, whereas normal rikti only have a 10% chance or so.
Also, do the vanguard story arcs - almost every one rewards merits upon mission completion.
I have pretty much loved this game since day 1, and I10 only make me love it more. I was surprised at how quickly it followed I9, and then I thought it made sense, since it didnt seem as complex as adding the whole Invention system or something like that. That said, I guess my expectations were somewhat more modest than other updates. I am pleasantly shocked at how much I love the update. It's awesome! The new custome sets are awesome. The new missions are awesome. That peace treaty mission was very atpyical - very fun and a welcome change of pace. And I love how the Rikti boards have like those little shafts that connect the main corridors. The new Rikti graphics are awesome. The changes to the Warzone itself are awesome. Making it a co-op zone was an awesome idea. Since it has come out, I've spent the majority of my time there, and when I think about playing, my thoughts revolve around which character to try in the RWZ next, or what the next mission is for the one who is furthest along there.
My RL WoW friends wonder why I havent strayed to another MMO since CoH debuted. The main reason I would switch to WoW is to play with my RL friends, but, aside from the also having friends I've made on City, I have a blast playing the game, and it has only gotten better.
As far as lag goes, it was bad at first, until the alternate RWZ zones opened, and then I just went to one of those and all was well. First time I can remember seeing something like "Rikti War Zone: Full." 
I10 is a solid hit. Thanks to everyone over there for this incredible update.
PS. Still busting my butt to get Tech Wings....to no avail. 
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We would love to hear your feedback of Issue 10 Invasion.
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Having played through an invasion with both a defender and a controller (both debuff heavy sets) I have to say that I do not quite understand the unbearable lag that people here are complaining about. Sure, by the time the Rikti start porting in and you have a team of 8 (or two or three teams) clustered together the sheer number of effects is causing graphics and audio overload and the game begins to stutter (looping sound and things like that) but otherwise the game runs no worse than usual. Of course I did miss the launch of I10 so it may have been worse at first.
I do not personally mind the red alert messages in the chat windows. It helps me finding the invasions and should I want to duck out of the attack it warns me plainly where and when to do so (which I suspect is the point of having them so prominently, to prevent players complaining that the event killed them when they did not want to participate).
The bomb run do feel a little weak to me. They do a little damage, but it is more firecracker level than carpet bombing that they are resembling. Personally I would not mind seeing their damage going up a (fair) bit so that the feeling of being in the middle of a war intensifies. And perhaps adding lighter crafts as escorts for the destroyers. Those fighters could swoop down and target heroes (and local gangs) with a lighter version of the big lasers of the destroyer.
The invasion itself is great. The idea to have them level appropriate to the hero fighting them is great. It means you never have too much or too little challenge. Making the Rikti even harder than they are now would be welcome, but I realise that is going to be problematic later when the number of heroes fighting them is not so large. Still, while fighting them is not exactly easy, they do not usually threaten to overwhelm the defenders. They could stand to be a bit more capable of actually winning.
Nadira
I HATE it and I want it to GO AWAY. The lag is ridiculous and stupid. It is enough of an irritation that if I thought the game would be this annoying from this point forward I would definately cancel game and move to some other MMORPG. I have been told my options are:
1. Take a vacation for a few days until Tuesday when it will let up.
2. Move to a less populated server
3. Run into a mission
I am doing number 1 right now - staying away from game for 2 weeks - but you know what - a 2 week vacation may make me decide to cancel the game anyway.
Number 2 option - go to less crowded server - yeah - like I want to go someplace, start all my toons from 1 again, and never be able to find team because it is an empty server.
Number 3 option - run into a mission - you still have the RED SPAM which is beyond ridiculous and a HUGE source of my irritation. ***HOW in the world could you imagine that a group of savy internet users (your clients) would be THRILLED with seemingly never-ending RED SPAM?
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Addressing a few things I've seen on this thread:
1. There is no debt during invasions. The Rikti might down you during a lag spike, but it's painless beyond a free trip to the hospital. If it's absolutely unbearable, try leaving the zone or entering a mission.
2. Invasion Rikti personally scale to level like Giant Monsters do, so any characters level-suitable to Kings Row (for instance) aren't going to see any level 40 Rikti stomping about.
3. Frankly, level 40 characters shouldn't be running to Kings Row to fight invaders in the first place if we're really serious about how irritating the lag is. My very first invasion (possibly THE first invasion) was in Skyway with an alt that scaled with the zone and I had a blast. Zero issues. There were some other heroes around but not scads and scads, as other alerts had been going off nearly simultaneously.
Since then, I might as well be a civilian for all the good my powers do in these invasions. Sitting in Cap Au Diablo with my level 14 Corruptor watching a level 39 Mastermind smite foes isn't my idea of a good time. Try sticking to zones suitable for your level and perhaps we might not experience all of the claymation. There are heaps more lower level alts around than higher, anyhoo. Help yourself along with others.
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Actually I was in AP when there was an invasion, there were relatively few people in the zone and it was still a slideshow...there's something else wrong, its not just the massive amounts of players trying to defend the zone.
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