It's been a while since I last posted any zone suggestion threads on this board - well, technically I've never posted on this board before, only on the EU board before the merger with the US forums, so be gentle... nah, get stuck in
This idea is for a revamp rather than a new zone - one inspired by player comments and interactions with the Devs on this thread. This post is mainly focused on a detailed co-op revamp of the Hamidon Raid(s), to be more in line with how fun the Rikti Mothership Raids are, but I think this could be rolled in with a minor Eden revamp as well to make that zone more worthwhile too (I haven't detailed the Eden zone revamp or Eden Trial revamp in more than broad strokes as it is outside the scope of what I need this post to do, and there's enough text here to wade through as it is).
For the Hamidon raid revamp I will be borrowing heavily from the Mothership Raid design, so bear in mind that is intentional. This is more of a blending of ideas than an original idea (do those even exist anymore?). Basically I want the Hamidon Raid to have that same feeling of fighting overwhelming numbers of tough enemies (lots of L54 lieut/boss/EB-level DE), with progressive goals/rewards, and also be easier to run on less populated servers - and be fun!
ZONE REVAMP:
This part is probably nothing you haven't heard before - I'd make Eden more popular by revamping it RWZ-style into a co-op zone, adding at least 4 contacts with story arcs giving the history of Hamidon and the Devouring Earth in a more progressive, focused and exciting way than existing content does. I would also have a repeatable contact with outdoor and indoor missions set in Eden. The contacts would be present at a small outdoor outpost with a trainer, hospital and vendors, etc.
These new NPCs at the Eden outpost could be from Hero Corps (who are under-represented in-game), working with Crey Biotech scientists, perhaps under contract to the US Government (or perhaps just for Paragon City's mayor). This alliance with Crey would show that Hero Corps has less scruples than Freedom Corps and will work with anyone and hire almost any superpowered individual (even villains) if the price is right and a contract needs completing. Hero Corps is somewhat slanted towards heroes, but Crey more towards villains, and we know there is a prior connection between both parties from the Disciple history badge - so I think this would work as a neutral-ish combined group for both heroes and villains to work for. Both factions exist in the shades of grey between the hero and villain groups like Freedom Corps and Arachnos who are at the more definite ends of the good/evil spectrum.
I don't think this zone revamp would need a huge art overhaul with lots of new art assets like RWZ had - existing art assets could be used for everything except the outpost and the NPCs - so it might be closer to The Hollows revamp than RWZ in that respect, though I wouldn't mess with spawn sizes too much. Though I'd be tempted to scale Eden's spawns from L30-ish at the Founders' Falls end to L54 at the opposite end by The Hive (again somewhat like RWZ spawns scaling from the Vanguard end to the Mothership end).
The Eden Trial could also be revamped (so long since I've done it, I won't make detailed suggestions for that - I'm sure others have) - preferably into a L35-50 co-op TF (same level range as the ITF and the old LGTF), but keep the chance of failure like old-style Trials have.
Having some fresh Dev-created content to do at L30-40 on both sides would be a big boon, but I think having extra content available at endgame is also very much appreciated by a lot of players.
REWARDS:
Stealing from an existing system that works, I would add Hamidon Merits to the game - a 10% chance of awarding 1/2/3/4 for Minion/Lieut/Boss/EB Devouring Earth (with more for AVs/Monsters/GMs/Mitos/Hami-buds/Hamidon), with all DE on the Hamidon Raid being a guaranteed Hami-Merit drop (like with Vanguard Merits on Mothership Raids). To earn these you would need to earn a badge available at L30+ from the introductory Eden arc (much like with Vanguard Merits in RWZ).
Taking part in a whole Hamidon raid might get you 250-350 Hami-Merits (roughly the number of Vanguard Merits I get on Mothership Raids). Post-revamp perhaps the Eden Trial would award around 100 Hamidon Merits (or Reward Merits if you preferred), and the STF/LRSF would give either their usual Reward Merits or 250 Hamidon Merits at the player's choice.
Random rolls for Hamidon Origin enhancements (HOs) would cost 250 Hami-Merits from the vendor at the Eden outpost. Specific HOs would cost more, e.g. Microfilament HO = 500; Golgi / Ribosome HO = 750; Membranes / Nucleolus HO = 1,000, etc.
For lower level players, especially ones doing the Eden Trial, I would have L40 Crystal Titan Origin enhancements (CTOs) available on vendors as well, with CTO random rolls for 100 Hami-Merits, up to 500 Hami-Merits for the most desirable specific CTOs.
As HOs and CTOs are much less desirable now (with the possible exception of things like Membranes and Enzymes for certain powers), what with set IOs in existence and specifically purples, I might be tempted to adjust the percentage boosts on all HOs to be equivalent to a +3 (i.e. L53) HO and make CTOs equivalent to an even level HO. Then I would change CTOs to not expire at -4 to your level, so that they would be more akin to IOs in longevity of usefulness.
I'd guess that most players would still save Hami-Merits up for L50 HOs anyway, but having a choice of CTOs to spend Hami-Merits on at L40 would still be nice, otherwise players earning Hami-Merits from L30+ wouldn't be able to buy any special enhancements until L47.
There could also be a few DE-themed temp powers for 50-100 Hami-Merits (Hamidon creature disguise toggles, Hamidon creature pets, etc.), but no costume pieces available for Hami-Merits. Maybe there could be DE-themed custom weapons and a costume piece/set awarded with a badge for defeating Hamidon once (ITF-style), but beyond that I wouldn't go overboard on costume rewards here (more new art assets required = revamp far less likely to happen, and it's unlikely enough as it is with the devs focused on GR and new zones).
RAID DESIGN:
There are a number of phases to the raid:
MONSTER PHASE
I would keep Devouring Earth Monsters as the Hamidon-spawning method - once one Monster in The Hive is defeated start a timer until they all respawn (like Rikti Pylons do) - once a dozen or so Monsters are defeated spawn Hamidon and his Mitochondria (6 of each colour, same as now).
MITOCHONDRIA PHASE Mitochondria would be less annoying than they are now with only minor attacks, as their purpose would be more to do with directly buffing/protecting Hamidon. The Mitos would each have a point-blank area of effect (PBAE) toggle buff (or a very short duration PBAE buff that was click-refreshed often with no self-stacking) that overlapped on each other and Hamidon like some crazy Venn diagram with Hamidon in the intersection of all the circles.
Each Mito would provide a different type of protective PBAE buff: Yellow Mito = +defence (all) Blue Mito = +resist (all) Green Mito = +regeneration
At the start of this phase each Mito would be buffing 2 other mitos of its own type, plus itself, plus 3 each of the other Mito types - so each Mito would have 3 buffs of each type*, with all 18 buffs affecting Hamidon. On top of their base regen/resists/defence this would make Mitos reasonably solid at the start of the phase (pitched somewhere between an EB and an AV in difficulty), but once you had taken a few Mitos down, the Mitos adjacent to them would drop in difficulty as they'd lost some of the overlapping buffs (down to EB difficulty).
Hamidon himself (itself?) would be made completely invulnerable by all of the buffs at the start of this phase. The more Mitos you defeated eventually Hamidon would become vulnerable - depending how many debuffs you had of a certain type, Hamidon might become vulnerable sooner to your specific raid.
(Sorry for lacking numbers - I'm not sure what quantity to set for the buffs and base resists/defence/regeneration in order to make the raid possible but also no pushover - it would probably need lots of testing/tweaking)
Now defeating a Mito would spawn a Devouring Earth ambush on the raid, scaled in size according to how many people were near Hami. This would be in addition to random ambushes. So you'd have to defeat Mitos under continual ambush pressure and would have to decide between either carefully defeating the big ambush after each Mito kill (potentially taking longer on the raid and running the timer close), or gamble and take out loads of Mitos quickly (spawning lots of ambushes), hoping you could survive long enough to take down Hamidon (easier for buff-heavy raids, perhaps).
Mitos would also be controllable (perhaps a 30 magnitude base, plus buffs as below) with hard controls suppressing their buff. A control-heavy raid could lock down a few of the mitos to make Hamidon more vulnerable without spawning the extra ambushes that defeating those Mitos would bring, or to make other Mitos easier to take down (controls being useful at a GM fight/raid? Imagine that!). In addition to their primary protective effect the Mitos' PBAE buffs would add mez protection so controlling Mitos would become easier once nearby Mitos had been defeated or hard-controlled - to add extra strategy each Mito would provide protection against a different type of hard control (the ones that would shut off their PBAE-buffs):
Yellow Mito = +10mag hold protection Blue Mito = +10mag stun/disorient protection Green Mito = +10mag sleep & intangible protection
Probably best to make Mitos immune to Confuse though, as it might make the raid too easy if the players were Mito-buffed
Mitos would award a reasonable amount of Hami-Merits, 10 perhaps.
HAMIDON PHASE
Once Hamidon was vulnerable to the raid the players could either attack him, or continue wiping out Mitos to make Hamidon even easier to defeat, bearing in mind that the extra ambushes would slow the raid down further, perhaps making it impossible to complete if they were too slow or suffered a wipe. If you took out all of Hamidon's Mitos he would be as easy to defeat as any average GM-level foe in terms of toughness, but the more Mitos left up the tougher Hamidon would be. I would envisage him being almost completely invulnerable with at least 3 Mitos up of each type unless the raid force was packing an awful lot of buffs/debuffs.
Hamidon would do decent damage with a hold effect, so that having at least one Tanker/Brute/Mastermind tanking him would be desirable (not sure about PA... as much as I love Illu/, the PAs can really trivialise things). To make multiple tanks stack better Hami could have a chance to shed much of the taunt aggro built up on him from the player at the top of his aggro/threat list, making multiple taunters useful.
Once defeated Hamidon would give more Hamidon Merits than anything else among the Devouring Earth mobs (50 perhaps).
HAMIDON BUD PHASE
After Hamidon's defeat lots of fast-moving Hami-buds would spawn and try to flee in all directions. These would be easily controllable (to give control classes another job to do) and would not be too tough to defeat (EB-difficulty). Defeating Hami-buds would again spawn DE ambushes scaled to the raid size.
Hami-buds could be worth maybe 10 Hami-Merits each as a post-Hami bonus.
JURASSIK DYNAMIC EVENT
As a random dynamic event, to make the raid more unpredictable, for each minute of the raid there would be an increasing chance of Jurassik appearing to defend/avenge Hamidon. If he had not appeared by the time Hamidon was defeated he would immediately spawn and attack the raid.
In this situation Jurassik could be worth perhaps 20 Hami-Merits.
TIME LIMIT
The time limit before Hamidon despawns and the DE Monsters respawn could be gauged to be tight for an average raid that tried to take out every Mito plus Hamidon and his Hami-buds plus Jurassik, maybe allowing time for one total wipe if the raid re-assembled swiftly.
RAID WIPE RECOVERY
I would advocate having some respawn location inside the Hive, near zone-in - maybe at a Hero Corps + Crey outpost (something temporary-looking, like some tents surrounded by sandbags with Crey guards walking perimeter) - to allow defeated players to return fairly swiftly, without needing to traverse the full length of Eden and undergo a zone-transition (with the possibility of being locked out of the raid if zone caps were necessary).
STRATEGIES
As mentioned a control-heavy raid could lock down some of the Mitos instead of defeating them and a buff-heavy raid might kill Mitos a few at a time, triggering several ambushes and not worry too much about the danger they presented while the DE were AE'd down by Blasters/Corruptors etc. Raids with lots of +ToHit buffs and/or -Def debuffs might be able to ignore some of the +Def buffing yellow Mitos, raids with lots of +Damage and/or -Res debuffs might be able to skip defeating some of the +Res buffing blue Mitos, and raids with lots of damage dealers and/or -Regen debuffs might be able to leave up some of the -Regen buffing green Mitos, to save time.
Of course if players just wanted to take the simple-but-long option, which would probably be the most rewarding in terms of Hamidon Merits, then they could defeat all of the Mitos, handle the ambushes spawned by them, and then mow down Hamidon and his Hami-buds, dealing with Jurassik whenever he appeared. I could see this being popular for larger raids and as mentioned there would be time for it as long as the raid didn't have multiple wipes.
I could also see a strategy where having one tanking group on Hami, one group of single-target damage dealers (and maybe a group of controllers/dominators) on the Mitos, with everyone else (especially area damage dealers) handling the ambushes as they came in.
This gives a few variants, but allows the raid to be done in quite a vanilla/straightforward way if that is what the raid wants.
CLOSING WORDS:
Sure, these changes to the Hamidon Raid do make it more akin to the Mothership Raid in style, but I think there are enough quirks to make it interesting. I do maintain that I10's RWZ revamp was one of the best issues this game has ever had - if something just works then I don't think there's any shame in using it again to fix underused old content.
Lore-wise this design also makes Hamidon seem more like some kind of mastermind-type villain that needs protecting by his hordes of Devouring Earth creatures, and is much more dependent on his Mitos in some kind of symbiotic relationship, rather than just a powerful monster in his own right - I think that suits his appearance as a big jelly-blob too. Also, somewhat like fighting a mastermind in bodyguard mode, the more of Hamidon's pets (i.e. Mitos) you defeated, the easier the main mastermind would be to defeat, which I think would be a nice progressive feeling for a raid, as you could feel that you were making progress as a group (much like the gradual journey to the centre of the Mothership on Rikti Raids).
Also lore-wise Hamidon and his Devouring Earth are a global threat at least as serious as the Rikti, so I have no qualms about heros and villains teaming up to fight them, even if they have to work for organisations that are somewhat outside of their usual remit.
* Not sure if this works out exactly - I can't draw it at the moment to see if it works as I surmise, because I've injured my main hand. I think it should work though, maybe adjusting a few mito positions.
Posted
You had me at RWZ revamp and story arcs for the zone, I must say. Then again, RWZ revamps for any zone get thumbs up from me.
It's been a while since I last posted any zone suggestion threads on this board - well, technically I've never posted on this board before, only on the EU board before the merger with the US forums, so be gentle... nah, get stuck in
This idea is for a revamp rather than a new zone - one inspired by player comments and interactions with the Devs on this thread. This post is mainly focused on a detailed co-op revamp of the Hamidon Raid(s), to be more in line with how fun the Rikti Mothership Raids are, but I think this could be rolled in with a minor Eden revamp as well to make that zone more worthwhile too (I haven't detailed the Eden zone revamp or Eden Trial revamp in more than broad strokes as it is outside the scope of what I need this post to do, and there's enough text here to wade through as it is).
For the Hamidon raid revamp I will be borrowing heavily from the Mothership Raid design, so bear in mind that is intentional. This is more of a blending of ideas than an original idea (do those even exist anymore?). Basically I want the Hamidon Raid to have that same feeling of fighting overwhelming numbers of tough enemies (lots of L54 lieut/boss/EB-level DE), with progressive goals/rewards, and also be easier to run on less populated servers - and be fun!
ZONE REVAMP:
This part is probably nothing you haven't heard before - I'd make Eden more popular by revamping it RWZ-style into a co-op zone, adding at least 4 contacts with story arcs giving the history of Hamidon and the Devouring Earth in a more progressive, focused and exciting way than existing content does. I would also have a repeatable contact with outdoor and indoor missions set in Eden. The contacts would be present at a small outdoor outpost with a trainer, hospital and vendors, etc.
These new NPCs at the Eden outpost could be from Hero Corps (who are under-represented in-game), working with Crey Biotech scientists, perhaps under contract to the US Government (or perhaps just for Paragon City's mayor). This alliance with Crey would show that Hero Corps has less scruples than Freedom Corps and will work with anyone and hire almost any superpowered individual (even villains) if the price is right and a contract needs completing. Hero Corps is somewhat slanted towards heroes, but Crey more towards villains, and we know there is a prior connection between both parties from the Disciple history badge - so I think this would work as a neutral-ish combined group for both heroes and villains to work for. Both factions exist in the shades of grey between the hero and villain groups like Freedom Corps and Arachnos who are at the more definite ends of the good/evil spectrum.
I don't think this zone revamp would need a huge art overhaul with lots of new art assets like RWZ had - existing art assets could be used for everything except the outpost and the NPCs - so it might be closer to The Hollows revamp than RWZ in that respect, though I wouldn't mess with spawn sizes too much. Though I'd be tempted to scale Eden's spawns from L30-ish at the Founders' Falls end to L54 at the opposite end by The Hive (again somewhat like RWZ spawns scaling from the Vanguard end to the Mothership end).
The Eden Trial could also be revamped (so long since I've done it, I won't make detailed suggestions for that - I'm sure others have) - preferably into a L35-50 co-op TF (same level range as the ITF and the old LGTF), but keep the chance of failure like old-style Trials have.
Having some fresh Dev-created content to do at L30-40 on both sides would be a big boon, but I think having extra content available at endgame is also very much appreciated by a lot of players.
REWARDS:
Stealing from an existing system that works, I would add Hamidon Merits to the game - a 10% chance of awarding 1/2/3/4 for Minion/Lieut/Boss/EB Devouring Earth (with more for AVs/Monsters/GMs/Mitos/Hami-buds/Hamidon), with all DE on the Hamidon Raid being a guaranteed Hami-Merit drop (like with Vanguard Merits on Mothership Raids). To earn these you would need to earn a badge available at L30+ from the introductory Eden arc (much like with Vanguard Merits in RWZ).
Taking part in a whole Hamidon raid might get you 250-350 Hami-Merits (roughly the number of Vanguard Merits I get on Mothership Raids). Post-revamp perhaps the Eden Trial would award around 100 Hamidon Merits (or Reward Merits if you preferred), and the STF/LRSF would give either their usual Reward Merits or 250 Hamidon Merits at the player's choice.
Random rolls for Hamidon Origin enhancements (HOs) would cost 250 Hami-Merits from the vendor at the Eden outpost. Specific HOs would cost more, e.g. Microfilament HO = 500; Golgi / Ribosome HO = 750; Membranes / Nucleolus HO = 1,000, etc.
For lower level players, especially ones doing the Eden Trial, I would have L40 Crystal Titan Origin enhancements (CTOs) available on vendors as well, with CTO random rolls for 100 Hami-Merits, up to 500 Hami-Merits for the most desirable specific CTOs.
As HOs and CTOs are much less desirable now (with the possible exception of things like Membranes and Enzymes for certain powers), what with set IOs in existence and specifically purples, I might be tempted to adjust the percentage boosts on all HOs to be equivalent to a +3 (i.e. L53) HO and make CTOs equivalent to an even level HO. Then I would change CTOs to not expire at -4 to your level, so that they would be more akin to IOs in longevity of usefulness.
I'd guess that most players would still save Hami-Merits up for L50 HOs anyway, but having a choice of CTOs to spend Hami-Merits on at L40 would still be nice, otherwise players earning Hami-Merits from L30+ wouldn't be able to buy any special enhancements until L47.
There could also be a few DE-themed temp powers for 50-100 Hami-Merits (Hamidon creature disguise toggles, Hamidon creature pets, etc.), but no costume pieces available for Hami-Merits. Maybe there could be DE-themed custom weapons and a costume piece/set awarded with a badge for defeating Hamidon once (ITF-style), but beyond that I wouldn't go overboard on costume rewards here (more new art assets required = revamp far less likely to happen, and it's unlikely enough as it is with the devs focused on GR and new zones).
RAID DESIGN:
There are a number of phases to the raid:
MONSTER PHASE
I would keep Devouring Earth Monsters as the Hamidon-spawning method - once one Monster in The Hive is defeated start a timer until they all respawn (like Rikti Pylons do) - once a dozen or so Monsters are defeated spawn Hamidon and his Mitochondria (6 of each colour, same as now).
MITOCHONDRIA PHASE
Mitochondria would be less annoying than they are now with only minor attacks, as their purpose would be more to do with directly buffing/protecting Hamidon. The Mitos would each have a point-blank area of effect (PBAE) toggle buff (or a very short duration PBAE buff that was click-refreshed often with no self-stacking) that overlapped on each other and Hamidon like some crazy Venn diagram with Hamidon in the intersection of all the circles.
Each Mito would provide a different type of protective PBAE buff:
Yellow Mito = +defence (all)
Blue Mito = +resist (all)
Green Mito = +regeneration
At the start of this phase each Mito would be buffing 2 other mitos of its own type, plus itself, plus 3 each of the other Mito types - so each Mito would have 3 buffs of each type*, with all 18 buffs affecting Hamidon. On top of their base regen/resists/defence this would make Mitos reasonably solid at the start of the phase (pitched somewhere between an EB and an AV in difficulty), but once you had taken a few Mitos down, the Mitos adjacent to them would drop in difficulty as they'd lost some of the overlapping buffs (down to EB difficulty).
Hamidon himself (itself?) would be made completely invulnerable by all of the buffs at the start of this phase. The more Mitos you defeated eventually Hamidon would become vulnerable - depending how many debuffs you had of a certain type, Hamidon might become vulnerable sooner to your specific raid.
(Sorry for lacking numbers - I'm not sure what quantity to set for the buffs and base resists/defence/regeneration in order to make the raid possible but also no pushover - it would probably need lots of testing/tweaking)
Now defeating a Mito would spawn a Devouring Earth ambush on the raid, scaled in size according to how many people were near Hami. This would be in addition to random ambushes. So you'd have to defeat Mitos under continual ambush pressure and would have to decide between either carefully defeating the big ambush after each Mito kill (potentially taking longer on the raid and running the timer close), or gamble and take out loads of Mitos quickly (spawning lots of ambushes), hoping you could survive long enough to take down Hamidon (easier for buff-heavy raids, perhaps).
Mitos would also be controllable (perhaps a 30 magnitude base, plus buffs as below) with hard controls suppressing their buff. A control-heavy raid could lock down a few of the mitos to make Hamidon more vulnerable without spawning the extra ambushes that defeating those Mitos would bring, or to make other Mitos easier to take down (controls being useful at a GM fight/raid? Imagine that!). In addition to their primary protective effect the Mitos' PBAE buffs would add mez protection so controlling Mitos would become easier once nearby Mitos had been defeated or hard-controlled - to add extra strategy each Mito would provide protection against a different type of hard control (the ones that would shut off their PBAE-buffs):
Yellow Mito = +10mag hold protection
Blue Mito = +10mag stun/disorient protection
Green Mito = +10mag sleep & intangible protection
Probably best to make Mitos immune to Confuse though, as it might make the raid too easy if the players were Mito-buffed
Mitos would award a reasonable amount of Hami-Merits, 10 perhaps.
HAMIDON PHASE
Once Hamidon was vulnerable to the raid the players could either attack him, or continue wiping out Mitos to make Hamidon even easier to defeat, bearing in mind that the extra ambushes would slow the raid down further, perhaps making it impossible to complete if they were too slow or suffered a wipe. If you took out all of Hamidon's Mitos he would be as easy to defeat as any average GM-level foe in terms of toughness, but the more Mitos left up the tougher Hamidon would be. I would envisage him being almost completely invulnerable with at least 3 Mitos up of each type unless the raid force was packing an awful lot of buffs/debuffs.
Hamidon would do decent damage with a hold effect, so that having at least one Tanker/Brute/Mastermind tanking him would be desirable (not sure about PA... as much as I love Illu/, the PAs can really trivialise things). To make multiple tanks stack better Hami could have a chance to shed much of the taunt aggro built up on him from the player at the top of his aggro/threat list, making multiple taunters useful.
Once defeated Hamidon would give more Hamidon Merits than anything else among the Devouring Earth mobs (50 perhaps).
HAMIDON BUD PHASE
After Hamidon's defeat lots of fast-moving Hami-buds would spawn and try to flee in all directions. These would be easily controllable (to give control classes another job to do) and would not be too tough to defeat (EB-difficulty). Defeating Hami-buds would again spawn DE ambushes scaled to the raid size.
Hami-buds could be worth maybe 10 Hami-Merits each as a post-Hami bonus.
JURASSIK DYNAMIC EVENT
As a random dynamic event, to make the raid more unpredictable, for each minute of the raid there would be an increasing chance of Jurassik appearing to defend/avenge Hamidon. If he had not appeared by the time Hamidon was defeated he would immediately spawn and attack the raid.
In this situation Jurassik could be worth perhaps 20 Hami-Merits.
TIME LIMIT
The time limit before Hamidon despawns and the DE Monsters respawn could be gauged to be tight for an average raid that tried to take out every Mito plus Hamidon and his Hami-buds plus Jurassik, maybe allowing time for one total wipe if the raid re-assembled swiftly.
RAID WIPE RECOVERY
I would advocate having some respawn location inside the Hive, near zone-in - maybe at a Hero Corps + Crey outpost (something temporary-looking, like some tents surrounded by sandbags with Crey guards walking perimeter) - to allow defeated players to return fairly swiftly, without needing to traverse the full length of Eden and undergo a zone-transition (with the possibility of being locked out of the raid if zone caps were necessary).
STRATEGIES
As mentioned a control-heavy raid could lock down some of the Mitos instead of defeating them and a buff-heavy raid might kill Mitos a few at a time, triggering several ambushes and not worry too much about the danger they presented while the DE were AE'd down by Blasters/Corruptors etc. Raids with lots of +ToHit buffs and/or -Def debuffs might be able to ignore some of the +Def buffing yellow Mitos, raids with lots of +Damage and/or -Res debuffs might be able to skip defeating some of the +Res buffing blue Mitos, and raids with lots of damage dealers and/or -Regen debuffs might be able to leave up some of the -Regen buffing green Mitos, to save time.
Of course if players just wanted to take the simple-but-long option, which would probably be the most rewarding in terms of Hamidon Merits, then they could defeat all of the Mitos, handle the ambushes spawned by them, and then mow down Hamidon and his Hami-buds, dealing with Jurassik whenever he appeared. I could see this being popular for larger raids and as mentioned there would be time for it as long as the raid didn't have multiple wipes.
I could also see a strategy where having one tanking group on Hami, one group of single-target damage dealers (and maybe a group of controllers/dominators) on the Mitos, with everyone else (especially area damage dealers) handling the ambushes as they came in.
This gives a few variants, but allows the raid to be done in quite a vanilla/straightforward way if that is what the raid wants.
CLOSING WORDS:
Sure, these changes to the Hamidon Raid do make it more akin to the Mothership Raid in style, but I think there are enough quirks to make it interesting. I do maintain that I10's RWZ revamp was one of the best issues this game has ever had - if something just works then I don't think there's any shame in using it again to fix underused old content.
Lore-wise this design also makes Hamidon seem more like some kind of mastermind-type villain that needs protecting by his hordes of Devouring Earth creatures, and is much more dependent on his Mitos in some kind of symbiotic relationship, rather than just a powerful monster in his own right - I think that suits his appearance as a big jelly-blob too. Also, somewhat like fighting a mastermind in bodyguard mode, the more of Hamidon's pets (i.e. Mitos) you defeated, the easier the main mastermind would be to defeat, which I think would be a nice progressive feeling for a raid, as you could feel that you were making progress as a group (much like the gradual journey to the centre of the Mothership on Rikti Raids).
Also lore-wise Hamidon and his Devouring Earth are a global threat at least as serious as the Rikti, so I have no qualms about heros and villains teaming up to fight them, even if they have to work for organisations that are somewhat outside of their usual remit.
I do love the chaos of big brawls (despite the lag, the Mothership Raid is still incredibly fun) so maybe I am biased, but beating on one target at a time is just too EverQuest/WoW-ish for my tastes anymore. Multi-mob fights have always been CoH's major signature difference to the old style fantasy MMORPGs. Vive la différence! I think all raids here should embrace it and do what CoH does best.
* Not sure if this works out exactly - I can't draw it at the moment to see if it works as I surmise, because I've injured my main hand. I think it should work though, maybe adjusting a few mito positions.