People hate Defeat All, especially in large maps, because of the high chance of missing one mob or one spawn and needing to spend a ton of time going over every last inch of the map trying to find the darn thing. Or, in some rare cases, having to petition for help because the last spawn has gotten itself stuck in unreachable geometry or is otherwise invisible. Or in the worst case, not being sure whether you're an idiot because you can't find the last mob, or you can't find it because it spawned bugged.
Woe betide you if you combine Defeat All with one of the unique maps that don't have a minimap, thus preventing you from seeing where you've been. (Woe betide you if you have people hunt for anything in one of those maps, period.)
Defeat All is also extra-annoying in maps that are inherently a pain, like the layer-cake caves. It's far too easy to miss mobs in there, and if you don't have hover/fly, super-annoying to go through.
Solo players who don't have much damage output prefer missions that are at least somewhat stealthable. They get their XP primarily through the mission-complete bonuses, rather than killing things.
The effort-to-reward ratio of a Defeat All can be overly low. If you're looking at a fairly static mission complete bonus, you want to get to that bonus in some reasonable amount of time.
In general, I don't voluntarily solo Defeat All missions unless the map is reasonable (small and medium-sized office or warehouse maps, for instance). If I'm playing for XP, faster mission complete bonuses are better. If I'm playing for story, I'd like to actually see the story, with only enough time spent punching mobs to get the flavor of things.
I use Defeat All in my own arcs if there's a good story reason for it -- "leave no witnesses", for instance. That only has useful impact if it is used sparingly, though, and I generally only do this in a map of very limited size (Tiny maps, uniques like the banks, casinos, stores, etc.), where you're probably going to just wipe everything out anyway in the course of completing the mission.
If you want to think of this from a roleplay perspective, not all characters feel that they need to stop every crimewave personally. Maybe they grab what they need and call in Longbow or the Paragon Police afterwards.
Defeat All is simply not fun, for me. Fighting thirty, forty times the exact same mob group with the chance that one of them will be stuck in a wall or hidden behind a crate... No thanks, I'll pass.
If there was a "Defeat Most" objective, it wouldn't be so bad, but that brings me to my next point (well, opinion) :
Defeat All is immersion breaking in most situations, at least for my characters. It doesn't make sense to waste their time hunting down every joe-shmuck. Given the choice between stopping ten different mob leaders and one leader and his one hundred minions, my heroes would do the former ; my villains simply wouldn't care about the canon fodder getting away.
I tend to agree with these opinions . . .
With a major exception.
As the OP mentioned, . . . small maps. Banks, Casinos, pawn shops, etc.
I think heist size should usually be Defeat All.
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Curious as to The Defeat All. I made a B Movie arc called GraveRobbers from Outerspace!. A two part arc, simple. Yet after testing, I found that Defeat All, without any kind of goal, seems like a farm(which I don't like). The first map is open outdoor, which means Defeat all is generally a search and destroy. At any rate, thanks for the advice. MA is way too much fun! 
"When war turns whole populations into sleepwalkers, outlaws don't join forces with alarm clocks. Outlaws, like poets, rearrange the nightmare." -Tom Robbins
Also, defeat all is always an available option for me if I want it. I can scour the map after mission complete if I feel like it. Rather than setting the defeat all flag, why not just add some contact dialogue "You probably should clear out every last one, if you don't the plague will probably spread", skip the defeat all flag and let the player do as much as they want.
I just wish they'd give the Unique maps a size indicator. Mine starts out with a Defeat All, but it's in a casino! There's no way you'd miss something. People wouldn't be scared of a defeat all in a tiny map, would they?
Dec out.
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I'm painted myself into a corner again me thinks.
I've seen alot of reviewers, Talen_Lee, dragonslay, and Lazarus, and the top guru of reveiwers hailed by Positron himself, Venture, all seem to agree on one thing:
Defeat All as a flag should never be used.
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"Never" is such a harsh word.
I come down on the side of it being okay on a small map or for a specific story purpose.
I played a "Defeat All" last night that was one long Boss Hunt on a REALLY big map (the flooded ruined city). Basically, the mission was to take out a Villain supergroup.
Now, it wouldn't have been so bad if there had been only one of each villain, but re-spawns over a map that large meant seeing clones of the same six custom characters over and over again. Despite the fact that each was very cool looking and had interesting power mixes, the repetition drained the fun out of the activity. When it was over, I had over 950 tickets from that one missions and I realized "Oh, it's a ticket farm mission."
I'd have much preferred one each of the bad guys with all of them Elite Bosses on a Tiny map and it would have felt more like I was actually taking down a group of super villains. And yes, I'd have happily passed on all those tickets.
On the other hand, I use "Defeat All/Final Room" quite often. Especially if the enemy is defending their Big Bad Boss or WMD, then it can make sense story-wise to give them a dash of fanatacism.
So basically, I try to treat "Defeat All" like any other spice, and use it for flavor, not for taste.
Dasher
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If we can save this game, I promise I will never complain about Travel Power Suppression again! You have my word on it!
"The customer is always right."
I think it's because we've all had to go through way too many defeat alls on huge maps, complete with patrols and little nooks and crannies for enemies to hide in, in dev-created content.
They've become the Oranbega of mission objectives. Even if you use the smallest, most linear Oranbega map available, people will groan when they see it, even if your story is about CoT and that's the only map that makes sense. For that matter, I have yet run a single arc that uses the blue or yellow caves.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
I agree with what's been said already If the map is small and doesn't present any huge difficluty in locating mobs Defeat all would not be an issue for me in playing that particular mission. LOL I do find it amusing that POSI himself said "never" use kill all considering how may Defeat alls the devs have in game and let's see a show of hand how many of you have multiple experiences where it's even "Defeat Boss" and find him in the Layer Cake Cave meaning you get 5 layers of fun trying to find all the villains and hopefully not drop through some unseen hole on top of a mob that promptly wipes YOU out?
Definately avoid Kill all on most Outdoor maps especially the ones with no MINI .. I ran into one like that a while ago. The Recluse Victory Atlas Park map and a ton of Martial Arts ninjas. Half the time I wasn't sure where I was, had no idea where I'd already been and after about 10 minutes I simply quit the mission without finishing it. I didn't rate it but did send the writer some suggestions about finding a different map to use. His story wasn't bad and his characters were.. well a Ninja is a ninja but they were colorful and had neat names but THAT map spoiled it for me.
�We�re always the good guys. In D&D, we�re lawful good. In City of Heroes we�re the heroes. In Grand Theft Auto we pay the prostitutes promptly and never hit them with a bat.� � Leonard
�Those women are prostitutes? You said they were raising money for stem cell research!� � Sheldon
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I'm painted myself into a corner again me thinks.
I've seen alot of reviewers, Talen_Lee, dragonslay, and Lazarus, and the top guru of reveiwers hailed by Positron himself, Venture, all seem to agree on one thing:
Defeat All as a flag should never be used.
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"Never" is such a harsh word.
Dasher
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"Never" never means never. It means never. Which means that if ever, there better be an awfully good reason. And probably not even then.
Defeat alls have their uses just as "layer cake" cave maps do. If one of my high damage types is on a small map he may clean everything out. Sometimes doing so fits the character and situation.
I tend to stick to objectives on larger outdoor maps because I want to enjoy playing not grind away working on kills. I'm not that much of an XP slave.
I have used defeat all missions in my arcs. I will do so again if it fits the story. I will limit them to small easy maps.
I believe that defeat all missions are sometimes necessary but should be done on small maps. Necessary as in like invasions in which lone survivors could? reproduce and as such again threaten the planet so to speak. There are other examples but I need not go into them.
As a general rule though, defeat all is far to often a pain. I'm sure the devs get tired of petitions dealing with defeat all missions because of 1 idiot enemy hiding in some stupid place and the tab key not being able to locate it.
I prefer the idea of a defeat most or barring that have an option when the mobs get down to the final 5% they automatically start some dialog to allow players to find them with greater ease.
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Defeat All is simply not fun, for me. Fighting thirty, forty times the exact same mob group with the chance that one of them will be stuck in a wall or hidden behind a crate... No thanks, I'll pass.
If there was a "Defeat Most" objective, it wouldn't be so bad, but that brings me to my next point (well, opinion) :
Defeat All is immersion breaking in most situations, at least for my characters. It doesn't make sense to waste their time hunting down every joe-shmuck. Given the choice between stopping ten different mob leaders and one leader and his one hundred minions, my heroes would do the former ; my villains simply wouldn't care about the canon fodder getting away.
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The idea of it being immersion-breaking never occurred to me. I'd think it was just the opposite; if I left a bunch of hoods running free in a building full of innocents, I wouldn't be much of a hero. It just makes sense to take them all down to protect the innocent.
However, I do agree with the technical limitations (i.e., critters stuck where you can't get them) and the misuse of defeat all on large or complex maps that turns finding the last critters into a chore instead of an adventure.
hmm...morally as a hero we should take them all out...but in the real world time constraints often make the "defeat all" unappealing.
Also...you can stay after a mish has completed to clean out the area if you want to....which might be a good idea if the enemy are virus infected zombies that will infest the rest of Paragon if set free...
just a thought
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First of all, your reason for defeating all enemies is just fine. No one is stopping you from defeating all enemies. When you use that same reasoning to force other people to defeat all enemies, then that's a different matter. Other people might believe in the "cut the head off the snake and the snake dies" approach. I generally figure that, once I've done 99% of the work, the police can come in and clean up what's left. Someone might figure that the heroic thing is to engage in the least amount of violence necessary to prevent the imminent crime. Whatever. The point is that your motivation for defeating all enemies does not translate into a motivation for forcing other people to defeat all enemies.
Second, there is a big difference between defeating all the enemies and defeating all the enemies you can find. If defeating everyone is not required, then I can defeat all the enemies I see and go on my merry way. If the defeat all flag is set, then I will probably defeat all the enemies I come across and then spend another half hour running around an empty map trying to find the last guy hiding under a staircase. That is one of the least fun things in the entire game.
Third, just because your missions haven't been played as often or rated as well does not mean you are doing anything wrong. There are just a boatload of stories right now. It is hard to get anyone's attention. The mission in my sig has been scientifically proven to be 17% better than sex, and yet only seven people have played it so far and it's stuck at a 4 star rating. It's not my fault that the rest of the universe has failed to recognize my genius. In fact, the lack of five star ratings is proof positive that I'm just as talented as Van Gogh, because none of his paintings got five stars either.
Make missions you are happy with. Listen to feedback, but stay true to yourself. Maybe eventually you'll be discovered. Maybe not. Try to be patient. And if that doesn't work, throw eggs at Venture's house. It's all his fault anyhow.
Avatar: "Cheeky Jack O Lantern" by dimarie
what others have said, and the same goes for having to find clues. If its a huge map, the probability of missing one enemy or one clue can force the team or soloer to have to look for 15 min to find it, and nobody will be playing your arc again if they have to do that usually. On short maps it isnt too much of an issue, but this is player created content to begin with- we are already expecting lower standards- So we will "FAIL" an arc that much faster.
I had to change my croatoa map i was using for my mish to a non croatoa outdoor map because the computer was spawning my bosses in near impossible places to find. The pain to find them just wasnt worth the nice map. It turned out I liked my burning forest map better during playtime on the mish anyway, so I'm glad I changed it.
Unless there is some compelling story reason for a Defeat All (like a bank robbery or some kind of invasion, or intentional genocide), there's no good reason for a Defeat All. It is an authoritarian dictate from the mission author.
It means that the author does not value my time because it forces me to hunt down every single solitary mob on the map, something that the system does not even guarantee is possible.
Furthermore, if I'm actually interested in the story, and not just farming for XP and tickets, a Defeat All adds nothing to the mission. Most of the other goals provide some additional information -- an NPC's appearance, description, dialog, a clue -- but a Defeat All contributes nothing to the story.
Many of the maps are prone to spawning mobs inside walls, ceilings, etc. Additionally, knockback attacks on many maps (especially caves) will often drive mobs into the wall where they can still attack you, but you cannot attack them. These are defects in the map and/or programming, but you can't just shrug and blame it all on the devs.
By specifying enough real goals in a mission and placing them throughout the map, the author can satisfy players who are just interested in story, and also those who are interested in defeating all the mobs.
The key is that you're giving your players the choice between wiping out everything and just getting the interesting story elements.
Defeat Alls aren't the only bad mission goal. A series of two or more chained spawns will also waste the player's time.
I did a mission on the Training Room that spawned five AVs sequentially on the defeat of the previous one, and then spawned three destructible objects. This was a horrible waste of time. I had pretty much gone over the huge outdoor map for the first AV, clearing the "fog". That meant I couldn't tell where I'd already searched for the second and subsequent AVs.
I wound up going over the whole map 10 or 15 times looking for the AVs and objects hidden among dozens of acres of buildings. The last destructible had spawned inside another object, so it wasn't immediately obvious unless you were right next to it. Since it didn't make the glowie noise, it was nearly impossible to detect.
The developers made defeat all missions to stretch their content -- they only have so many writers and have to produce so many hours of content to keep us entertained all the way to level 50. There's no reason for us to do so, since there are so many of us making thousands of missions. We can also repeat these missions immediately and indefinitely, unlike missions from regular contacts (before Ouroboros).
I would advocate removing them as an option from MA missions completely. When I look for MA missions to play, Defeat Alls are pretty much a deal-breaker. If there's just one and the story sounds good I'll try it, but if there are two: forget about it.
Interesting viewpoints on this, I thank each and everyone of you! You've helped me understand a bit better ^_^ Also I must go buy eggs ^_~
Regards,
-C.A.
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I just wish they'd give the Unique maps a size indicator. Mine starts out with a Defeat All, but it's in a casino! There's no way you'd miss something. People wouldn't be scared of a defeat all in a tiny map, would they?
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I actually ended up taking this out. I figure, the main objective is a glowie. If they don't clean everyone (or very close) out of the casino, they're going to get interrupted clicking it anyway. If not...eh, there'll only be one or two left. It didn't pass the "do I really NEED this" test, so no sense scaring people off with it. I did add to the glowie text in the mission bar "...and clean out the [group]" so the flavor's still there without it being a requirement.
Dec out.
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I would advocate removing them as an option from MA missions completely. When I look for MA missions to play, Defeat Alls are pretty much a deal-breaker. If there's just one and the story sounds good I'll try it, but if there are two: forget about it.
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I don't really like defeat all missions either... but I have no problem with the familiar idea of "defeat all in final room" which is an available defeat all flag.
I just wish people wouldn't put "defeat all in final room" in their nav bars. It's really immersion-breaking. "Defeat X and his guards" gets the point across just fine.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
You can make Defeat Alls non-required objectives, I think. That way it would show as an objective (as long as you gave it compass text), the obsessive can work on their Showoff badge, and the weary can skip it altogether after clicking the final glowie, or whatever. But you still run the risk of the knee-jerk reaction to "Defeat All" in the description.
My objection to Defeat Alls has been expressed here, and I think it's the biggest one everybody has: there's always that one last guy, and sometimes he's even wedged in the scenery and cannot be attacked. Or he's hiding in some nook between crates in a warehouse, and only the most diligent scouring will discover him-- horrible if it's a large warehouse.
Besides, I prefer to leave one alive, to back and tell his buddies how scary and awesome I am. 
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I tend to agree with these opinions . . .
With a major exception.
As the OP mentioned, . . . small maps. Banks, Casinos, pawn shops, etc.
I think heist size should usually be Defeat All.
.
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Yes, as long as the map isn't too big, if it's a nice small map (even larger than heist size... but not larger than small) the defeat all is fine. But I do not want to roam the labrithine halls of a large map, or run all over a huge outdoor map for an hour to find the one guy hidden behind a ramp somewhere. That's just annoying.
Smallish maps, defeat all is fine. Larger than that, then no.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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Oh and if I see "Defeat All" and "Patrol" in the same description...just don't.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
I'm painted myself into a corner again me thinks.
I've seen alot of reviewers, Talen_Lee, dragonslay, and Lazarus, and the top guru of reveiwers hailed by Positron himself, Venture, all seem to agree on one thing:
Defeat All as a flag should never be used.
Now I'm not understanding the idea behind this. Is it merely the fact we're a short term attention span society? Or is it pref? Is it the sheer workload on these reviewers? Or is it a common dislike for the defeat all tag? I've never had a team complain about having to defeat all things, HOWEVER, that doens't mean it isn't a majority feeling. I'm just a bit confused, perhaps I'm not running in the proper circles.
If I'm a hero, and I'm there to stop crime in a warehouse, be it the boss stole mako's teeth again or someone stole that damn P.L.O.T. Device again, what sense does it make to NOT take them all down? x_x Is it acceptable hero standards to let the minions GO and go after the boss? Surely a minion will rise to leader if you don't take IT out too?
The reveiwers, espeically Venture, are the end all in whats correct to the majority in the case of the game the best of my knowledge.
I've got several things that are defeat all for the reason I listed above, and I'm really starting to doubt my usefulness in making missions if another flag is turned off to me, heck I just learned what idiot ball meant this month. I see all these short arcs that are 999+ stars and they seem to do the same things I do. I see farms getting more run throughs then mine despite advertising. I have come to the conclusion I'm doing something wrong.
Could anyone help me look at this from another perspective?
Regards,
-C.A.