Attention Heroes and Villains - Halloween Help needed on the Test Servers!

Attention Heroes and Villains!

Please join us on the North American and European Training Rooms for our second 2009 Halloween Event test! We’ve heard many of your suggestions and made some improvements to the event. Please join us on the “Halloween 2009” Global Chat channel on the Training Room. The test will last from 11:00 AM Pacific / 2:00 PM Eastern to 3:00 PM Pacific / 6:00 PM Eastern.

Please post your feedback in this thread!

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I'm a sexy pork-chop!!!! - Running strong since July of '04

"Thread closed; I'm leaving this thread visible for St0n3y's reply." - Mod5

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Paragon Wiki: http://www.paragonwiki.com
City Info Terminal: http://cit.cohtitan.com
Mids Hero Designer: http://www.cohplanner.com

It seemed really unclear how exactly we got progress on the red bar for the banners to move. I'm still not sure why or how it suddenly started moving.

Also, the distance to the greater mystic aspect updated so slowly as to be entirely useless to anyone with a travel power. As in, practically everyone.

Otherwise, fun event.

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Ah...I've been busy doing things/answering calls/emails that I forgot about this on test today :/ About to go to dinner with a friend 'soon' (I think)....don't think I'll make it.

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Leader of The LEGION/Fallen LEGION on the Liberty server!
SSBB FC: 2062-8881-3944
MKW FC: 4167-4891-5991

Some lore info for those still at work, but wanting to know more

Basic Event Background:

"When the Circle of Thorns secretly began linking their magical energy in an effort to make them more powerful, experimenting with ways to extract the power from other magical groups, they inadvertently put into play an event that would change the magical landscape forever. During a series of incantations, with the use of extensive symbols and magical rites, they formed Banners that could summon the 'aspect' of nearly any entity, alive or dead, to be used as a mindless slave in any way the Circle wished. While they could not actually summon the true entity, a piece was certainly enough for their purposes.

At first, they were delighted with their success, imagining a multitude of uses for this new type of slave: more bodies to use as an army, return fallen Thorns to battle, use the entities of other groups as assassins: the possibilities were endless. Unfortunately, the ritual on All Hallows Eve didn't go as planned. The Banners they summoned behaved independently of the Circle's will, summoning Defenders who would not to obey their commands. Worse, they discovered that while these 'haunted' Banners were active, Glyphs appeared one after another, making it more and more difficult to banish them and that as the closer they came to the Banner, their once nearly infinite well of power reversed on itself and made them weaker. They disappeared into the night, leaving the mess for others to clean up, not realizing that an even greater threat had manifested itself.

Banners:

Banner of Terror:

"The Banner of Terror feeds off of humanity's fears and causes it to manifest into the Transparent Terrors that guard this banner. These horrific phantasmal entities seek to shatter the fragile psyches of humanity with terrible fear."

Banner of Fiends:

"Horrible fiends gather at this banner with the intent to commit blind acts of violence and cruelty. As long as this banner stands these Dark Fiends will continue to conjure forth these manifestations of the ugliness within humanity."

Banner of Mayhem:

"This banner feeds upon humanity's need for destruction conjuring up manifestations representative of this urge. The horrible creatures that guard this banner represent an unimaginable threat to the material world."

Banner of Scorn:

"Manifestations of baleful scorned women gather at this banner. The Banner of Scorn channels the vengeful side of human nature to conjure these entities, and will continue to do so as long as the Banner still stands."


Enemy Background:

Transparent Terrors: (Banner of Terror)

"These phantasms are actually manifestations of humanity's fears come to life. At the Banner of Transparent Terrors, they seek to inflict unimaginable terror upon their victims and as long as the Banner of Terror persists, these parasites will feed off of the fear of others."

Dark Fiends: (Banner of Fiends)

"The depraved ugliness festering in the underbelly of humanity is called forth at The Banner of Fiends. These Dark Fiends are a physical manifestation of pure malice, seeking calculated cruelty and malevolence, just because they can."

Abominations: (Banner of Mayhem)

Humanity's dark desire for mindless mayhem and destruction have been channeled by the Banner of Mayhem. The results are these creatures that are fueled by the need to blindly destroy everything around them.

Scorned: (Banner of Scorn)

"There is no fury more intense than that of a woman scorned, and The Banner of Scorn has conjured manifestations of wronged women with a bone to pick. They seek eternal revenge for the horrible things that society, and life in general, has inflicted upon them."

Greater Mystic Aspect: (Giant Monster)

"The malevolent mystic banners have released their energies to form the Greater Mystic Aspect. This colossal entity represents all of the negative aspects of humanity coalesced into physical form."

Lesser Mystic Aspect:

"These horrible creatures are a mere fragment of the wicked Greater Mystic Aspect. Small as they might be they still pose a terrible threat."

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@Golden Girl

City of Heroes comics and artwork

Two bugs found so far:

First one - my team were all getting the AE options in the nav window instead of the event UI - we dropped and reformed, but still had the AE options there.

Second one - the distance to the Aspect counter was not calaculating properly - I was right on top of him, and the number was showing as around 160.

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@Golden Girl

City of Heroes comics and artwork

Message on the test server:

"Unfortunately, we do not have sufficient villain players to conduct testing on villain maps."

Really? You think?

With a dwindling population all spread out, why make new raid-oriented events? New events should be geared towards small groups and solo players (like me), IMO. Or perhaps I'm just being selfish. It may be a much more popular event than I think.

(Sorry I didn't join in with the villain I was playing, but I don't do raids. Besides, there should be players trying to do other things while raids are going on just to make sure nothing else is busted.)

Even the trick-or-treat monsters are tougher these days, with paired lieutenants and bosses showing up very frequently for solo characters. Deadhead used to be the first hunting badge I'd get during the Halloween event, because zombies were so plentiful. Now it's the last, with all the vampires and werewolves and spirits showing up. (At least no one can complain about having problems picking up the Buster badge this year...)

I'm not sure I'll do much on the live servers for this event. I have one lower level character who needs the extra costume slot, but a number of my characters will just be a bit too squishy for all the Vampire Lords and Crones.

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http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

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@Golden Girl

City of Heroes comics and artwork

Forgot to add...

-SSK is a real problem here... 50's exemped down lose access to a lot of their powers, that's not going to be popular. I know about the GM code, but I'm talking perception here.

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http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

My only problem (and the only reason I logged on) was to see if the bug of not awarding a power after the Aspect GM is defeated while SK'ed was fixed.

It was not FIXED!!

If this goes live on 10/20 as is, I might as well wait till next year to enjoy this part of the event. I can imagine the howls of non-Level 50 Players complaining about this if it doesn't get fixed.

Otherwise, I liked the tweaks to the UI when the Aspect shows up. The measurements are a little off, but it's a nice addition to finding the beast.

Thank you for the time...

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Arc 5299: Magic, Mystery, and Mayhem Updated!! 09/15/09

I posted this by accident in the incorrect section - I am reposting it here.

Feedback from testing on 10/13 - redside, lvl 50 Brute (+4 x6 no AV)

Very cool when the event kicks off in a zone - music and audio is perfect for the event. NPCs run away when it begins - nice touch.

Clicking the i in the NAV bar (when near a banner) produced some very helpful information and backstory. I copied and pasted it into Word, and it appears to be complete and helpful.

As I was the only one in Cap, I quickly discovered that this part of the Halloween event is not soloable. That is, despite being at a banner and defeating the critters as they spawned, I was never able to get the progress bar to show any blue. The critters did not spawn fast enough for my liking, and often only two spawned at a time. I assume that because I was the only one there, only minions and LTs spawned.

While the spawning is similar to the Zombie Apocalypse, at least with the AZ you can get some badges just by knocking off minions and LTs. Not the case with the banners, as you can not make a banner vulnerable on your own. Just my observations - however, I assume that folks who play at off hours OR on low pop servers will quickly notice this once it goes live.

I was at two different banners during the event. The Terror banner stopped spawning critters after 5 minutes, so I moved on to the Fiend banner.

Stats for those that like stats:
minion defeat = 2,363 inf; LT defeat = 6,114 inf
defeated 52 LTs, 48 minions during the event
1 SO drop, 12 salvage drops, 13 insp drops, 6 recipe drops (5 generic)

I think there might be an issue with the drops at the Fiend banner. My first 13 kills there dropped 6 inspirations (nothing else) - my next 69 kills there dropped 0 inspirations, 6 recipes and 9 salvage. My insp tray was not full when this happened.

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Go Team Venture!

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@Golden Girl

City of Heroes comics and artwork

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Arc 5299: Magic, Mystery, and Mayhem Updated!! 09/15/09

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Clicking on the <*i*> in the nav bar brings up mission info. Golden Girl posted the lore info. Here is the mechanics info:

Tactical Summary
The Haunting Banners are surrounded by powerful magical barriers, initially rendering them invulnerable. As you defeat Defenders, the red progress bar will begin to change as blue appears, signaling that the Banners are becoming vulnerable. Once the Banners are vulnerable, they focus energy and grow stronger, indicated by one or more glyphs that 'activate' as needed to protect the Banner.

Pay attention to these glyph markers on the ground: they represent the Banner's level of protection. The more glyphs that are visible, the stronger the Banner's protection. Each Banner has its own type of protection, indicated by the color of the glyphs.

As each Banner is defeated, the Event UI icon 'blacks out' and also disappears from the MiniMap. If all four Banners are defeated in time, a Greater Mystic Aspect appears. The UI changes when this happens and shows the distance to the Aspect.

So, what happens is this:


1. Event announcement of unusual magical activity in a zone.

2. If you're in the zone at the time:

• lights go out in buildings
• fog descends (like Dark Astoria, but not as dark)
• citizens cower and flee
• spooky old horror movie music

3. A minute later the four Banners spawn marked on the minimap with red, blue, green, and purple dot-icons.

4. If you're near a banner, you GUI is taken over and you see in the nav bar four badge-like icons for the four banners and a red bar. Also, there is a 20 minuter time counting down.

5. You have four minutes to get to the zone and form up teams and arrange yourselves at the four banners. (Five minutes including the first minute from announcement to banner-spawning.)

Strategy: It is helpful to use /broadcast and have teams communicate with each other. And rather than each team take a banner, it's easier to ensure coverage of all four banners by having each team split up their members among the four banners. That's because if you have less than four teams, you'll need to split teams anyway. You must have the four banners being 'worked' simultaneously to proceed to the next step.

6. At the 16:00 minute mark, foes, i.e. 'Defenders' will start to spawn at the banners and attack you. By defeating a steady stream of them at each banner, you start to wear away the protective glyph protecting the banners. Contrary to a rumor floating about, the 'Defenders' do not have to be Elite Bosses. With only two or three people at a banner, you barely get any Bosses, let alone Elite Bosses, and this minigame progresses without the spawning of Elite Bosses. (In fact, the EU Test Server had a single team beat the event.) As you defeat the Defenders, the red bar in the nav window moves from red to blue.

7. Once the red bar goes completely blue, it disappears and now you can start destroying the Banners. The Banners have very high resistance and they regenerate hp. It's nearly impossible for just one to three players to take down a banner by themselves (at least not in a timely fashion). Thus, strategically, if you don't have at least a full team of 8 or more at a Banner, it's best if everyone in the zone run to the same banner and overwhelm it. For small zones, it's easy to go in the order of the icons of the Banners (and clicking the icon pops up a waypoint to get to it). For large zones, it's best if a zone event 'leader' announces the Banner and travel by order of nearness.

8. Once the four Banners are destoyed, a Giant Monster will spawn in the zone (called a Greater Mystical Aspect). Your nav bar will indicate how many yards away the GM is and you can triangulate on its position. GMs go down very quickly once you start getting more than 10 players there, so, hurry. [Previously, it was said that the Defenders rush to the GMs position... I don't think that is the case anymore -- I tried to use the Defenders as a guide to find the GM and they were chasing the *players* or doing nothing.]

9. When the GM is defeated, there will be a pop up reward window.

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Feedback:

• One of the reward was a medium inspiration (for when you already have the other four rewards). I'd recommend changing that to a roll on the magical salvage table (common, uncommon, or rare) -- the same roll table found in the Brainstorm-to-InventionSalvage conversion table. It's more fitting for the event.

• Wimpy GM -- After the several minute onslaught needed to defeat the Banner. The GM is very anticlimactic and goes down in 30 seconds. I'd like to see that beefed up; however, if it is beefed up, then a single team in a zone will have trouble completing the events. So, here's my suggestion: Have each Banner spawn a Greater Mystical Aspect at each of the Banners; but you only have to beat one to win the event. Once one is beaten, the event ends but the other three GMs are still there until they naturally despawn. This way, a single team can beat the event; and if the zone is loaded with many teams, then there's plenty of GM to go around. Also, this obviates the need for a wonkily working distance locator.

• Trick or Treating -- Please, please, please: Make the trick-spawns use the 'purple' damage scaling code that GMs and just about every other zone event critter uses. (And for those zone events that still don't use them -- Steel Canyon fires and Skyway raves -- change them to purple damage scaling code, too.)

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Hi,

My level 50 joined a team with a level 32 leader and so I was exempted down to 32. Time is of the essence in this event so you have to just jump in to what you can get, and even then how do you quickly find out what level team you are about to join.

I also understand the mechanics of scaling for damage done during these events, but although I was doing the same equivelent damage as my teammates, I was only using half my powers because the other half (epics et cetera) ie my big hitters, were not available to me so therefore I was not at my most efficient.

When this goes live I think it will be the time for all level 50 players to step up and form the teams (which for this event is about all that is required) in order to maximise our player power.

This may not be so significant in prime time on busy servers, but even on Freedom and Virtue during off peak times may just help the smaller number of players be efficient enough to complete the event in time.

And yes there is a huge "wall of text" information and background available if you click on the "i" in the event window, but this is by definition only available during the event and, as was mentioned in the last run, when Ghost Falcon was urging every one to do just that, the old adage "When up to your waist in the swamp you better pay attention to the alligators" was never truer. If we had all stopped to have a browse the event would have timed out before we had all finished!

Lastly what on earth would make me ever choose a "Medium" insp for anything as a reward! The offer is derisory and insulting, make it a "large" at least and better still scrap it and offer some form of random roll which at least would extend the reward getting for a short time as well.

Cheers

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So many cats - So few recipes!

Age is of no importance,
unless you are a cheese!

I thought the event was sorta cool. When I heard about a new Giant Monster, I was hoping for something new looking. I was not expecting Adamastor, Eochai or Jurrasik. Kind of wish they made up something epic looking. As far as their HP goes. It need a lot more HP because anyone who doesn't have atravel power may not get there in time to earn the badge, accolade, or rewards.

I have a 50 tank that has no travel power simply because I built him for ITF and figured I wouldnt do anything but a ITF. Well I was wrong and I regret not taking a travel power but I almost didnt make it to the GM in time. Simply, give the GM way more HP. Maybe HP similar to Hamidon. A team of 8 can do it but it may take the full 20 minutes depending on the team.

Red side however became an utter fail on the training room. I was the one that told Ghost Falcon not to worry about because the only 5 of us were switching to heroes to actually try the event. I did notice however in Port Oakes, a flag on the west side of the area made some enemies spawn on a boat behind me and some even spawned on the ground way down there. That flag needs to be moved over the east a bit more so that does not happen again because that might make the progression bar go down even slower.

Other than that, it was a good test to see how the teaming and leadership would go in the zones to make sure everyone gets to the flags and get rewards (which is still bugged). Just wish Ghost Falcon woulda hit me with his nerf bat so I could say I did get hit >_<

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Hi,

one for all the Dev's or Mods (which ever is most appropriate), when announcing these ad hoc tests, trials et cetera can you please also include the time in GMT as well as your USA specific zones. We are after all a global userbase!

Thank you.

cheers

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So many cats - So few recipes!

Age is of no importance,
unless you are a cheese!

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Forgot to mention The Super Challenge Deadly Apocalypse: The banners share the same spawn spots as the Giant Monster from the normal Halloween event. In Kings Row, I went to one banner and Eochai was literally on top if it with his Unseelie attendants. In another zone (I think it was Atlas or Galaxy) Eochai was close enough that others brought him in on accidental aggro.

Strategy: If you have only a handful of people at a banner, or time is running low, have someone lead the GM away. They can be a huge time sink for this timed event.

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