The SF at least has some interesting stuff happen. The hero one doesn't do anything cool after the second mission, and it definitely doesn't have the SF's cool cutscene.
And yeah. MM power is broken right now.
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....v=#Post13695620
The time I ran it heroside, I logged on just in time to see Markus put up a call to arms on JFA for recruits and I happily joined his group. The team consisted of two tanks (very advantageous in the end, but I doubt it was intentional at the onset), three blasters, two defenders (one emp and one rad) and a controller... if I recall correctly.
About halfway through the TF, the emp had to leave for whatever reason, so we were down to seven going into the last mission or two. Since it seemed none of us knew exactly what to expect going in, we did brilliantly. It took an inordinately long time to kill Reichs, but a liberal use of Shivans and splitting the tanks to take out the reinforcement AVs worked well enough.
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I was on a team with Gad, Tal, Mari and others last night trying the red side SF. I must say it was the most frustrated I've ever been with the game. Our team was mowing stuff down left and right until we got to the last room. We wiped a few times with all the ambushes but that was OK. The worst part, of course, was Reichsman. We could get him about halfway down before he hit unbreakable. By the time it wore off he was almost back at full health. After what seemed like forever doing the lather, rinse, repeat thing we finally gave it up.
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And to follow ths up:
Cuda Force Five attempt #2 tried again tonight.
1 Broote, 1 Widow, 2 MMs, 2 Stalkers, 2 Corrupters
Took us.....2hrs, 40ish minutes but we beat it.
It went a lot more smoothely since I basically said "Ok we need to do this, avoid that, beat on this" for the last mission to try to reduce the death-rate. And fortunate was on my side that my Brute-tanking was not fail tonight.
We wiped... twice, I think, with the ambushes and then took on Reichsman, where after with much experimentation we found out that the MM debuff does -not- work in any way shape or form currently.
However, we were slowly whittling him down, until I said offhandily "ok if anyone has a Shivan please pull them out". Then out popped 4 shivans and he went down faster than Kerse at a pie-eating contest.
Soooo not really a fan of how that last mission was constructed and not a fan of how you have to go talk to Recluse after the SF mission concludesbefore you get your merits/badge. However, I think the story in the villain side is far superior to the hero side. Except for the Empowering Reichsman Clue, 1st sentence, 2nd paragraph which reads:
"The machine like it is very well defending."
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Were your Stalkers not able to use the consoles to stop the ambushes? I haven't seen this done, but apparently only Stalkers can do it.
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We've discovered having a Stalker on the team helps the last mission immensely - they're the only ones that can get into the "kill rooms" without dying, and then trigger the glowies to kill the ambushes.
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What temp power do SoA's get? Just a curiosity, because couldn't an SoA be able to stealth past the lasers with help from Mako's temp?
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We've discovered having a Stalker on the team helps the last mission immensely - they're the only ones that can get into the "kill rooms" without dying, and then trigger the glowies to kill the ambushes.
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What temp power do SoA's get? Just a curiosity, because couldn't an SoA be able to stealth past the lasers with help from Mako's temp?
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VEATs get GW clickie, that grants 66% resistance to -end, it is on 2 minutes recharge timer.
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I was on a team with Gad, Tal, Mari and others last night trying the red side SF. I must say it was the most frustrated I've ever been with the game. Our team was mowing stuff down left and right until we got to the last room. We wiped a few times with all the ambushes but that was OK. The worst part, of course, was Reichsman. We
could get him about halfway down before he hit unbreakable. By the time it wore off he was almost back at full health. After what seemed like forever doing the lather, rinse, repeat thing we finally gave it up.
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*taunts with badge from the SF*
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And go away or he shall taunt you a second time.
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Uh oh... *GOOBER BADGE TAUNT*
On Justice
Super Goober, Scrankster, Dusty McFluffy, SuperHappyFun and others
_____________________________________________
Daily affirmation: net helpmsg 4006
I'm going to need a hacksaw. -- Jack Bauer
I just lost my chicken - Bubbles
Aaawwk! I can feel it in my choadies - Hank Venture
Yup. And my Widow got chewed up when I tried to get past those lasers.
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Were your Stalkers not able to use the consoles to stop the ambushes? I haven't seen this done, but apparently only Stalkers can do it.
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Stalker on our run was able to use it. Just to clarify things: it doesn't stop ambushes, it just kills all 5th column NPCs that are currently in Reichsman room.
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*Throws pies at random*
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*random ducks*
On Justice
Super Goober, Scrankster, Dusty McFluffy, SuperHappyFun and others
_____________________________________________
Daily affirmation: net helpmsg 4006
I'm going to need a hacksaw. -- Jack Bauer
I just lost my chicken - Bubbles
Aaawwk! I can feel it in my choadies - Hank Venture
Our stalkers were able to use it.
I had to use my tier 9 because the ambushes kept following me into the room, but then they all respawned.
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The time I ran it heroside, I logged on just in time to see Markus put up a call to arms on JFA for recruits and I happily joined his group. The team consisted of two tanks (very advantageous in the end, but I doubt it was intentional at the onset), three blasters, two defenders (one emp and one rad) and a controller... if I recall correctly.
About halfway through the TF, the emp had to leave for whatever reason, so we were down to seven going into the last mission or two. Since it seemed none of us knew exactly what to expect going in, we did brilliantly. It took an inordinately long time to kill Reichs, but a liberal use of Shivans and splitting the tanks to take out the reinforcement AVs worked well enough.
[/ QUOTE ]I thought it went well considering it was a pick up group. Lots of fun though!
The villain SF is much more challenging than the hero TF. Whilst the villain one is more fun for the SF/TF connoisseur, I can see how the SF is more tedious and frustrating for those who just want to go with PUGs or who just want a casual experience.
1. The TF can be done in under 30 minutes, and 20 minute times are probably doable. The SF can be done in under 90 minutes, but I think it would take an exceptional team to get it done in under an hour. I believe that sub 45 minute times are doable, but it would likely be a very structured and disciplined team that would have to be assembled.
2. The rewards for the villain SF are the same as the hero TF. 20 merits. Given the increased level of complexity of the SF, it would appear that villains get screwed again. It is likely that the developers haven't benchmarked the times of the new TF/SF given the last minute changes leading up to launch. I think the merits on both will be bumped, probably 25 for the TF and 45 for the SF.
3. The SF has an escort. Since villains are already scarred from the RSF technician, I guess someone decided to flog the villains some more by inflicting another NPC that can and usually does get lost and vator freaks. Can someone please fix this annoying issue? Of course both the RSF and this escort have massive Longbow spawns so it is quite easy to get team wiped since you are not able to use stealth/AoE stealth to your advantage.
4. The final boss isn't classified as an AV or Hero in the mission, which is interesting. Too bad the hero TF he is kind of vanilla in his makeup, which he is much different in the SF.
4a. The SF version he does have more interesting responses/powers, but in some ways it seems like a crutch to give underperforming ATs a buff specifically for this SF.
In any event, if you bring more than 1 MM on your team, you should have a stalker to zap the ambushes (4 shots), since the ambushes are the most likely thing to overwhelm the squishies and pets since it is quite difficult to kill all the spawns fast enough.
If you do not have a stalker to zap the spawns, it can happen that your team wipes. Note that the ambushes will keep coming once they have started, although the ambushes will eventually run out. If you do have wipes and come back into the mission, note that the (new) ambushes will come out of the main room and chase you. This makes progressive wipes difficult since squishies travelling to the main room will get ambushed as they are coming back. A solution to this is to tp your friends to you.
If you keep getting ambushed from more than one side, there are alcoves on the map in which your team can hole up and manage the aggro by placing the tough guys/gals further front and then defeating all the incoming mobs. Once the ambushes are exhausted you should be able to defeat the final boss without interruption.
Theoretically it is possible to defeat the boss without zapping the spawns but the current MM temp power cannot unphase the boss, lengthening the time to beating him and therefore increasing the number of ambushes. Until the MM temp power is fixed, you should bring a stalker to zap the ambushes.
Note that the boss cannot leave the room. He will teleport back if he passes the carpeted area, so you cannot lure him into the narrow caves. The ambushes are not restricted to the room.
The final 4 AVs that you have to lead seem to spawn in the same location each time. It does seem possible that the AVs can be defeated by NPCs before being escorted to their destination. I don't know what will happen if you let that pass. Try not to buff the AVs since you have to fight them later.
4b. The TF is much simpler at the end. The boss fights and as his health goes down 4 more AVs will 'wake up' and fight your team. The order in which they wake is random, and you must defeat all 4 AVs and the boss to finish the mission. The boss has no phase power like in the SF version and in one run we kept beating on him, spawning all 4 AVs and fighting them all at the same time. This was done without a tank, but with 4 defenders, a controller, a scrapper and 2 blasters, just to illustrate how much more simple the TF is than the SF.
In both the SF and TF, shivans weren't necessary but vengeance did help a lot. Kinetics also plays a big role, especially in the SF, where the fight seems to go on longer.
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4a. The SF version he does have more interesting responses/powers, but in some ways it seems like a crutch to give underperforming ATs a buff specifically for this SF.
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Yeah, this is what I thought too when someone told me about the Stalker thing. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation for the designer though. He can either attempt to make each AT feel useful, or genericize the entire encounter to the point where any team can do it. I don't mind seeing a few things out at this extreme, I just hope it doesn't end up the "norm" for the villain side. Other MMOs have had similar problems with trying to validate the usefulness of a class (AT) in end-game content. It often does feel forced, but there's not much you can do about that feeling if the class in question has a long established non-role (or questionable role).
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Theoretically it is possible to defeat the boss without zapping the spawns but the current MM temp power cannot unphase the boss, lengthening the time to beating him and therefore increasing the number of ambushes. Until the MM temp power is fixed, you should bring a stalker to zap the ambushes.
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Once this works, I suspect average times on the SF will go down. The spawns can get to an overwhelming point pretty quick, but a team with decent support and damage output can probably drop him before that point. If you have a Stalker, it'll be even easier.
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4b. The TF is much simpler at the end. The boss fights and as his health goes down 4 more AVs will 'wake up' and fight your team. The order in which they wake is random, and you must defeat all 4 AVs and the boss to finish the mission. The boss has no phase power like in the SF version and in one run we kept beating on him, spawning all 4 AVs and fighting them all at the same time. This was done without a tank, but with 4 defenders, a controller, a scrapper and 2 blasters, just to illustrate how much more simple the TF is than the SF.
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My intial TF run involved a couple Scrappers, but no tank. One scrapper kept the boss busy while the rest of us jumped from boss to AV. It really wasn't very tough, though I (the other scrapper) did get insta-pwned by the psi using AV, but that was my fault... I haven't played my Scrapper since day jobs came out, and I was woefully out of practice. 
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Were your Stalkers not able to use the consoles to stop the ambushes? I haven't seen this done, but apparently only Stalkers can do it.
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Yup it worked, but we learned that there is a set number of times you can use the consoles to zap the 5th in the room.
So I think for future runs I'll wait later on in the encounter for a larger number of 5th to appear before using it.
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2. The rewards for the villain SF are the same as the hero TF. 20 merits. Given the increased level of complexity of the SF, it would appear that villains get screwed again. It is likely that the developers haven't benchmarked the times of the new TF/SF given the last minute changes leading up to launch. I think the merits on both will be bumped, probably 25 for the TF and 45 for the SF.
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Foxbat, er, Horatio already stated in his very first post on the forums that the rewards will be increasing for the SF, and that they will be datamining and expect them to go up more in the future based on the datamining.
He also gave some insights into the TF and SF as well as indicating that he will be adjusting the story so it fits more in line with existing canon.
For those wondering why I called him Foxbat at first, he will ALWAYS be Foxbat to many of those that know the Hero Games characters he created. Likely the most famous of all those characters is Foxbat.
It's a shame Bruce can't use that name on the forums here.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
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2. The rewards for the villain SF are the same as the hero TF. 20 merits. Given the increased level of complexity of the SF, it would appear that villains get screwed again. It is likely that the developers haven't benchmarked the times of the new TF/SF given the last minute changes leading up to launch. I think the merits on both will be bumped, probably 25 for the TF and 45 for the SF.
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Foxbat, er, Horatio already stated in his very first post on the forums that the rewards will be increasing for the SF, and that they will be datamining and expect them to go up more in the future based on the datamining.
He also gave some insights into the TF and SF as well as indicating that he will be adjusting the story so it fits more in line with existing canon.
For those wondering why I called him Foxbat at first, he will ALWAYS be Foxbat to many of those that know the Hero Games characters he created. Likely the most famous of all those characters is Foxbat.
It's a shame Bruce can't use that name on the forums here.
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Don't really follow the other forums much, or stalk the devs, but 30 is still a little light. In his post he says:
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To start, there is a difference in the challenge of the final fight in the SF and TF. The TF fight is much trickier and takes longer. We didnt address that when assigning the initial merit values for the SF. We will be increasing the merit award for the Strike Force to 30 merits later this week. As time goes by and we collect more data on how long it takes groups to complete these arcs, well likely be adjusting the merit rewards further.
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I think he meant the SF in the second sentence (or should have said SF), but interesting nonetheless.
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We've discovered having a Stalker on the team helps the last mission immensely - they're the only ones that can get into the "kill rooms" without dying, and then trigger the glowies to kill the ambushes.
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What temp power do SoA's get? Just a curiosity, because couldn't an SoA be able to stealth past the lasers with help from Mako's temp?
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Here is what they all get just to throw it out there. Just note that the MM temp is bugged currently.
Stalkers get Makos Temp so they can sneak past the lasers to activate fail saves which kill all the 5th column ambushes. NOTE: There are only 4 fail saves.
Brutes (and VEATs) get Ghost Widows Temp power that shuts off Reischmans debuff aura (purple swirly thing) OR protects from the debuff aura.
Dominators get Scirroccos Temp that is a hold for the 5th Column ambushes.
Corruptors get Scirroccos Temp that kills all the held 5th Column ambushes (both regular holds and Dominators version of Scirroccos Temp).
Masterminds get Black Scorpions Temp that allows to knock Reichsman out of Unbreakable mode OR prevent him from going to Unbreakable mode OR kill his regen while in Unbreakable mode. (Currently bugged)
Post Comic book Fan Films that ROCK!
Fight my brute
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Masterminds get Black Scorpions Temp that allows to knock Reichsman out of Unbreakable mode OR prevent him from going to Unbreakable mode OR kill his regen while in Unbreakable mode. (Currently bugged)
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I suspect that due to the long recharge time, it's probably meant to prevent him from using unbreakable, rather than using it while he is in unbreakable to take him out of it.
I had hit him with the MM temp power before he went unbreakable and it didn't stop him from doing it.
I was wondering what the deal was with the temp powers we received during the TF I ran. They didn't seem to do much of anything, even when a number of us used them on him at once. Of course, I didn't ask what others had gotten since I just assumed it was kind of like the powers you get in the Sewer Trial. *shrug*
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I had hit him with the MM temp power before he went unbreakable and it didn't stop him from doing it.
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From Castle
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....v=#Post13705303
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(QR)
The Power of Black Scorpion Click power given to Masterminds *is* broken. A fix is in the pipeline; not sure when it will reach live.
How it broke:
Basically, just before the deadline, I completely rebuilt the power to do something different from what it had done before. The previous version had always been problematic and it just wasn't working out, so I replaced it with something more reliable at the 11th hour. Unfortunately, there was an error in my testing process and I failed to detect that, unless you had Dev Tools enabled, the power simply wouldn't actually trigger on Reichsman. So, you can use the power on him all day...and the attributes simply don't process.
This was caught just before launch, and I fixed it, but the fix had not gotten through the production process in time.
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Post Comic book Fan Films that ROCK!
Fight my brute
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I had hit him with the MM temp power before he went unbreakable and it didn't stop him from doing it.
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From Castle
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....v=#Post13705303
[ QUOTE ]
(QR)
The Power of Black Scorpion Click power given to Masterminds *is* broken. A fix is in the pipeline; not sure when it will reach live.
How it broke:
Basically, just before the deadline, I completely rebuilt the power to do something different from what it had done before. The previous version had always been problematic and it just wasn't working out, so I replaced it with something more reliable at the 11th hour. Unfortunately, there was an error in my testing process and I failed to detect that, unless you had Dev Tools enabled, the power simply wouldn't actually trigger on Reichsman. So, you can use the power on him all day...and the attributes simply don't process.
This was caught just before launch, and I fixed it, but the fix had not gotten through the production process in time.
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I hope the fix is to give us the Dev Tools. First thing I'd do is fix teh ch4t I3uG.
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I had hit him with the MM temp power before he went unbreakable and it didn't stop him from doing it.
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Well, I mean after it gets fixed.
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I had hit him with the MM temp power before he went unbreakable and it didn't stop him from doing it.
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From Castle
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....v=#Post13705303
[ QUOTE ]
(QR)
The Power of Black Scorpion Click power given to Masterminds *is* broken. A fix is in the pipeline; not sure when it will reach live.
How it broke:
Basically, just before the deadline, I completely rebuilt the power to do something different from what it had done before. The previous version had always been problematic and it just wasn't working out, so I replaced it with something more reliable at the 11th hour. Unfortunately, there was an error in my testing process and I failed to detect that, unless you had Dev Tools enabled, the power simply wouldn't actually trigger on Reichsman. So, you can use the power on him all day...and the attributes simply don't process.
This was caught just before launch, and I fixed it, but the fix had not gotten through the production process in time.
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I hope the fix is to give us the Dev Tools. First thing I'd do is fix teh ch4t I3uG.
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100025000300What chat bug?
Yeah, I'm mostly in line with Tal's opinion on this one except for the 'story in the villain side is far superior to the hero' part. I don't know that either is particularly good, to be frank.
One of those wipes could be attributed to my Widow and poor aggro management. It worked much better once we used the hallway to control the flow of the ambushes a bit. But honestly, it's kinda hard to imagine how we could have avoided the other wipe. I guess if you took a slow and safe MoSTF-type mentality toward it and completely ignore pace.
I never really like the whole betrayal thread running through the high-level villain play. I can see why it is there. Afterall, loyalty is a heroic trait. But having to fight Ghost Widow in her own patron arc? And betraying the entire cadre in this mission by leading them into that machine? I'd rather they gave you a choice to remain loyal to one of them if you so decide. Even in this one, a 'Pick your Ally' would be cool.
Thanks for the run, Tal. I was happy we completed it on my first attempt.