The perils of 'official' content

Further 'adventures' with Steven Sheridan:

for some reason I woke up before my son this AM and had some time to kill- how better than by revving up CoH for some early morning mayhem?

Logged in my ar/dev to check his marketeering (today's free tip: there's plenty of profit in flipping Alchemical Gold right now!) and decided to run a couple of missions before the Tiny Dictator awoke.

Today Sheridan is obsessed with rescuing doctors from the Rikti.
I accidentally took a 'hunt 40 rikti' mission, but since I was standing at the gate to Crey's Folly that wasn't a problem. Call Sheridan, "rescue doctors from Riki in Creys!"
Okay, no problem.
Next mission, Rescue Doctors from Rikti in...Perez Park?
Well, I guess that's what Oroboros is for.
I hop to Atlas, jog over to Perez- mission is on the other side of the zone.
On my way I clean house on Skulls (buckshot slotted for KB + giant spawns of deep gray Skulls = fun) and pick up both the Defeat badges- hooray for multitasking!
I find the mish, which happily was not buried deep in the canopy...and it's an old purple cave. GAH.
And yes, the hostages were all secreted in hidden rocky nooks, thank you very much. Since I'd done this a thousand times before I still found them in short order (happily not many stealth-ignoring drones in the mix) and called Mr. Sheridan.
"Uh...talk to this guy at City Hall in Atlas!"
Grrr.
Jog to Atlas, talk to guy.
"Oh hey, good job- now, uh, go rescue some more doctors in Perez!"
GRRR.
Jog back to Perez, the mission is over by the Boathouse, not too annoying.
Nice bonus, it's one of the new cave/rikti homeworld maps (at this point it doesn't take much to make me happy- hooray for low expectations).

Finish mission, call Sheridan again.
"hey, could you help out the Security Chief in Skyway?"
Wow, I haven't helped out a security chief since I figured out running low level missions actually retarded your levelling speed!
Off to Skyway, find the guy- defeat 40 rikti in sewers.
sigh.
Stealth let me zip by the giant spawns of Spawn and CoT and find some riki- lots of cheif soldiers (which aren't too bad, even with the ridiculous sm/lethal resists) and MENTALISTS, which are bad.
I burn all my inspirations mowing two spawns, get careless and let a chief soldier get too close & it's hospital (and log off) time.

I guess it's back to MA for a bit while I wait for my 'drop mission' timer to reset =P

Today is one reason radios were so popular when they came out- nothing I did this morning was any more interesting or involving than running radio missions, except that it ran me all over the game instead of letting me sensibly stay in one level-appropriate zone.

They should at least add in some code to those kind of arcs where the contact acknowledges he is sending you back and forth.

"Hey 'goat, you look like you could use some exercise. How about you run back to Atlas Park and see ..."

well on the plus side, this morning really made me appreciate the little amenities they've added to the game over the years.

Minus Oro the trek from the tail end of Bricks to Perez Park is a decent hike, and pre-mission dropping I'd be stuck with that 'hunt rikti' until I leveled a time or two and trivialized the mentalists. And all the time I spent getting held would have sucked a lot worse without 'newfiance'. Being able to plink away while you're held makes it a lot less annoying, for some reason.

Dear contacts,

I am aware of the existence of hazard zones. I am aware that I have reached the minimum level to get into a new hazard zone. However, all the enemies in said zone are my level or higher, and the spawn sizes are designed for teams. Teams do not want to go to these zones; teams want to do missions. I am incapable of taking out these spawns by myself, and so must waste a mission drop on this introduction to the zone, just to get you to give me a real mission.

Furthermore, contact, two of my other contacts have already informed me of the existence of the Abandoned Sewers, the presence of the Rikti in said sewers, and that they want me to defeat them. The other two contacts want me to go to Eden. I said no to them, what makes you think I will say yes to you?

Please stop trying to make me go into hazard zones and give me a real mission.

Sincerely,
Not a Scrapper.

My first use of the drop mission on each new character is the "Defeat 10 Circle of Thorns in Perez" from the Atlas Park Security Chief.

Say... has anyone run into that "Kill 15 Circle of Thorns" mission that recommends looking for them in Boomtown and Faultline? Funny... the Circle never was in Boomtown, and they moved out of Faultline ages ago.

Well, levels in the Abandoned Sewers vary, but the Atlas Side is generally a couple of levels lower. The spawn sizes, however, are just as big, and yes, you're going to see a LOT of Chiefs down there. It's a trial zone with 8-man-slated spawns.

I don't mind zones designed for team only play, but I would very much appreciate it if the game didn't send solo players in them unless they were just passing through.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Another gripe with 'official' content that I'd totally forgotten about, until being rudely reminded last night:

STEALTH DEFEAT-ALL MISSIONS.


I'm supposed to check out some Crey deal in Steel Canyon and click some glowie.

Since 'real' missions generally end when you complete the objective, I stealth to the end, click the glowie....and suddenly find out I'm supposed to defeat all. On a three level office map.

GRR.

I'm not morally opposed to 'kill alls', unless they're in a giant old-time cave with tons of crevices for that one wandering minion to wander off and get stuck in. But I really hate backtracking, and its is profoundly annoying when these kinds of things get sprung by surprise.

I Ragequit(tm) on the spot and logged in one of my other characters to calm my nerves with a spot of farming.

All I got from the OP is he/she decided to forego repetitive content in favor of doing..other repetitive content.

When you get right down to it everything in this game is based on repetitiveness. Radio missions are just the same mission types on the same mission maps with the same mission objectives against the same enemy groups over and over and over and over.

AE farms are so repetitive I can't even bring myself to do them, going from one group of the same mobs to the next group of the same mobs to the next group of the same mobs to the next group of the same mobs to the...

The only difference is one might be seen as more convenient or rewarding than the other.

Usually I just join teams and do radio missions but I did decided to slow it down on one toon and focus more on story arcs, but not just do them, actually read the story (since they're called story arcs after all..) and it was actually a lot of fun knowing exactly why I'm doing the missions instead of just for XP/merits/whatever.

The Mission Drop feature really was the best thing that ever happened to contact missions.

It just goes to show how annoying and timesinktastic the old school of MMO thought is. Instead of having players run around for half an hour and consider it content, let them spend that time doing MORE missions.

To put it another way:
Old school: "Let's have it take 30 minutes to run to this quest site, avoiding enemies that nobody can defeat solo, and then make players line up to do it. More time spent=more moniez!"
New school: "Let's let the players get right to the mission, and then get right to the next mission. More fun had=more time spent=moniez!"

I only read up to page 5 and then skipped to the end, but I wanted to throw in my 2 inf.

I'm still a relative newbie compared to most. I played a two week trial after someone gave me a code. Later I bought my own copy and got 45 days with that. I've just recently resubscribed, and I'm 2 weeks into a 3 month subscription. I spent months away from the game between each of these times, and the game already feels repetitive.

I decided to rejoin after hearing about power customization, and also because I was curious about the mission architect. I tried it out for a few days, but I was disappointed that none of the teams I joined wanted to do any story arcs, they just wanted to farm xp. In the end I gave up on AE and solo'd the last 3 or 4 levels to get my first level 50.

I hope issue 16 modifies the AE enough to discourage farming. It would be nice to find an AE team and actually explore some good creations. I'm also looking forward to Going Rogue. I like the sound of having options and exploring the grey areas. I hope it expands the AE so that I can use some of that in my own creations.

I'm the kind of guy that likes deep content, and I love to explore a bit too. Sometimes I just like flying around zones and admiring them, though some are better than others. The best ones have lots of interesting landmarks like Atlas Park, though even that has a few areas where its one identical warehouse after another.

Unlike a previous poster, I'm actually in favour of smaller maps. I like it when you bump into other players, and some maps are so big you might never see another person around. The best thing about the game is the social aspect.

The most fun I ever had was doing the task force on Cimerora. We had a varied team so everyone had something useful to do, and everyone was friendly and had a good sense of humour. Its not always easy to find good teams though.

Made even better when they changed it from once every seven days to the current once every three days.