A Taskforce With REAL Challenges

I'd like to propose a Taskforce with several serious challenges for those who claim to not be challenged enough by the game itself.

As for the storyline/plot/enemies? I don't really know. Let's just say they're +2 - +4.

Mission 1: A typical mission, but within the mission itself, Healing powers are reduced by 1/2, and players cannot be resurrected via other players. Enemies, however, have powers like Unchain Essence (but enemy-esque versions.) This would give sets that rely on Healing/DP a run for their money. In addition: Inherents do not work on this map. I realize that some ATs rely on inherents more than others; sorry. You're SOL. This isn't meant to provide an equal challenge to EVERY Archetype/Powerset combination.

Mission 2: The entire team is separated! 8 different, small maps that require the player to solo their way through; a nightmare for a team depending on their Healer/Buffer. If a player is defeated at this mission, they will not be able to go on. Period. They either have the option to quit the Taskforce as an individual or the team restarts entirely.

Mission 3: Toggles do not work. At all. Friendly healing does damage to allies and enemies within radius. This mission works as a counter for the toggle-heavy sets. Does it favor certain powersets? Yes; that's part of the challenge.

Mission 4: Healing and Damage are completely reversed; this includes Health's passive regen, which will be converted into DoT (your default regen is not considered in this, however.) You have your team to help you, but you're going to need some help from those Healers/Buffers. In addition, pets/henchmen do not work in this mission! Any pets/henchmen immediately become hostile towards their summoner!

Mission 5: Your team is infected with a Supervirus! This ability randomly cancels out powers for a short period of time; including toggles, which it can drop if cancelling them out. In addition; every 60 seconds, the Supervirus will cause your character to vomit and thus drop all toggles. There are temporary cures for this Supervirus; at the back of the map. In addition, this map doesn't allow for resurrection. Think you can time your plays just right to do everything in a minute?

Mission 6: You and your team are at a state of Confusion; you are able to target both friends and enemies and affect them equally. This will ensure that players pay attention to their AoEs and think carefully about their next move. This mission follows Mission 4's rule on pets and hostility.

Mission 7: This mission has a 30:00 timer. The team suffers no default penalties aside from not being able to resurrect via ally, nor step back INTO the mission upon defeat. The team is grouped up and droves of enemies are thrown at them. From 30-25, it's minions. 25-20, it's lieutenants, 20-10, bosses, 10-5, elite bosses, 5-0 Arch-villains with a 1-0 minute addition of a Supervillain (similar to Reichsman or Lord of Winter-- their own category.)

Once you complete this: Congratulations; you're now ready to play Dragonforce on Expert!

I KNOW that the community can give me some improvements/tweaking on this idea to make it more gruesome. I'd really like to hear it.

MORE gruesome? You´re really a Masochist, no? LOL

Anyway, this sounds crazy, but fun... For some. If you´re serious I´m not sure if many players out there would find this fun enough to spend their game time on them tough. You pretty much killed tanks (and most of the defense powersets actually) with the "no toggles", and MM without pets many would consider useless too... "Heal0rz" are only useful in a couple of the mishes, making at least the chance of other buffs shine (only the solo mish ignore them).
I believe this would be fun for some (few) and a living nightmare for others (most, including me), so I don´t see something like this being implemented any time soon...

That sounds like more fail then....
....
I think it actually BROKE my Failometer. It just sounds disgusting, and I know I for one would never touch it with anything other than an Orbital Railcannon, and thats only to light the match...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

This idea is a strong contender for the stupidest post I've read today.

I don't know what you've been smoking but I suggest you stop it before it does more damage, mmmmmmkay.

Yeah, I'm going to have to agree that this sounds horrible.

You've got whole missions where you're basically making it so that whole ATs won't want to play through them.

Mission 4 and 6 means that no Mastermind will ever want to play it, and probably most Controllers, too.

Mission 5 is just going to get Melee characters killed, so you've lost them, too.

Mission 2 is going to be tough to impossible for team-oriented characters to do. So you've lost a lot of Defenders, probably.

Mission 6 means that you're going to have next to no debuffs, or any AoEs being used, making this mission just tedious, not challenging.


Then you've got the fail mission that is Mission 1. No inherents? For some ATs, that's not a problem. However, many ATs don't have an actual "inherent" power. It's just a baken in effect of the power, that can't be turned off. Criticals, Gauntlet, Containment, Scourge, etc. These are all part of the power, not a true inherent that can be turned off. So, some ATs would lose their inherents, while others would work fine. That's not a challenge, it's only unfair.

I'd play it, this TF sounds righteous.

I actually like the concept of Mission 2, but make it into 2 separate instances. Both doors are in the same zone, one requires you to kill a boss who is behind several security doors. The other has several clickies that will open the doors. Before the boss is a side path that allows you to teleport your other team members to that point in the map.

Or make it optional, where running one door allows you to weaken the AV in the other door via clickie, but you have to click it every minute.

The key is to allow the team to select who goes where, making the travel between the two minimal, and providing a reason for players not to ignore one of the paths.

I like this idea--not because I actually want to PLAY this TF, but because it would shut up the whiny, petulant voices that keep saying "I just min/maxed my (insert your AT here), and now the game is too easy! They should nerf (insert your AT here)!" Be careful what you wish for, nerfherders. They want a challenge, I say give them one they'll never forget.

I'm not sure if it is a good idea to present challenges by imposing handicap on players or changing the rules of the game. I think it's interesting. It might be ok if the suggestions are not that extreme. It would be better if you can beat players when they are at their best, not when they are in a bad shape.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sigium Mission 2: The entire team is separated! 8 different, small maps that require the player to solo their way through; a nightmare for a team depending on their Healer/Buffer. If a player is defeated at this mission, they will not be able to go on. Period. They either have the option to quit the Taskforce as an individual or the team restarts entirely. Mission 7: This mission has a 30:00 timer. The team suffers no default penalties aside from not being able to resurrect via ally, nor step back INTO the mission upon defeat. The team is grouped up and droves of enemies are thrown at them. From 30-25, it's minions. 25-20, it's lieutenants, 20-10, bosses, 10-5, elite bosses, 5-0 Arch-villains with a 1-0 minute addition of a Supervillain (similar to Reichsman or Lord of Winter-- their own category.)

I think these two missions are not bad.

Most of the challenges in game are just one tough mob at the end, or putting together a few of such mobs. However, I enjoy the following challenges more:
1. Sewer trial
2. The original hero respec trial, maybe the waves should be even more intense
3. "Stop 30 Fir Bolg entering door" mission in Croatoa. It would be fun if the incoming waves of Fir Bolg are a lot more intense.

Creatively difficult missions would be great fun. Arbitrary nerfs to toons in a SF are boring.

How about no. NO sound good? Yeah, I think I'm going to go with "no" on this one. It sounds distinctly un-fun (especially the "If you get defeated, you cannot go on, quit the TF." See, funny thing, I *like* playing with my friends. Tell me I can't because my (generally squishy) character ate an ambush's alpha, and you'd better believe I'll tell you where you can stuff your TF. Telling me I can't use my pets as a MM, I'll just wait by the door - oooooh, fun. Telling me we need a "healer," I'll tell you you've got bad design.

Just no. There's a difference between "Challenging" and "Needlessly irritating for the sake of being irritating." This suggestion accomplished the second, not the first.

See my Guides and Tutorials

A big no from me as well. This idea fails on every level.

I think Calash and Twilight Snow have the right idea. While some of those ideas needlessly punish some powersets and ATs, some of those missions are salvageable into unique challenges. Perhaps it would be better to split them into individual trials instead of a whole TF/SF. Also, it would be better to use the standard jail room rather than completely locking people out of the map.

Yeah, one or two of those challenges might be nice, but handicapping the players in each mission and essentially turning the whole thing into a "Master" challenge (except less forgivable) isn't a good idea.

Heck, even forcing the team to split up and then having to deal with constant threats within the same instance might be nice. I imagine maybe 3 glowies that have to be clicked at once, and they each have a 1 minute timer. While the timer is counting down, you get ambushed and the other player(s) have to defend their allies who're working on the glowies. Mind you, if you get "hit", then everyone has to start over again, and that would trigger another wave of ambushes to be defended against. Such a TF would then require at least 6 players (or 3-5 if one has a LOT of defense to avoid attacks!)

Also, instead of not allowing people to rez, have more TFs use a "prison" map. It's already a feature within the game, it should be used more.

Maybe more huge mobs. In the 5th column TFs, there are quite a few times where you come up against far more enemies than a single player can agro. These require a bit more strategy to get through unscathed.

As for Avs, instead of just making them hugely resistant bags of HP, allow them to have (one or two) auto hit attacks that ignore who they're agro'd to. Maybe not enough damage to kill a player in one shot, but enough of a distraction to make the team scramble to keep itself alive. Give them 100 foot full circle AoEs so no one is completely safe.

And you want a mega challenge? The tech already exists for AI to somewhat duplicate player powers (MA)... -iF- this could be done on the fly, along with copying the player's image, perhaps have the team fight themselves! Or rather, AI-controlled versions of themselves, anyway (threw that last part in to avoid any confusion with forced PvP).

=)

I like the idea of having more challenging content, and content with a wider variety of challenges. Also, I think it is best if the challenges are story and foe specific.

One way I'd like to see this appear in the game would be in alternate options for the lower task forces. You could do, for instance, Posi's Dam TF (the original), his Lost TF, or his Frostfire TF. Each one (A, B, or C) would give different merits, based on the usual formula, but all would give the same Positron's Ally badge.

The idea here is that players could select a TF that would be appropriately challenging for their team, the general challenge level indicated by the number of merits (assuming that challenging = longer play).

I keep rereading the OP trying to find some way to salvage... *something* from it.

- "Supervirus" - well, as a debuff, we have one. See Dr. Vahz/Wasting disease. Having it as part of a TF (on one or more players) for a mission isn't a big deal. If it fits the story, sure.

- Having the team split, I wouldn't argue with. Not necessarily on separate maps, though - I'm not even sure that can be done. In addition, I wouldn't *mind* being able to start off in a jail. Heck, I wanted that for AE, since it would fit one of the arcs I put out there.

- Not allowing a rez / not allowing you to re-enter a mission / "Defeat and you're done" are all... just bad ideas. Really.

- Confuse... as a map wide effect? No thanks. Limited to certain mobs I'm fine with. Even a "Confuse field" (say, a generator putting out a World of Confusion style field that you have to defeat somehow - somehow other than direct conflict, since you can't mark the generator as "hostile" if you're near it) might be interesting. (Hmm... or targetable via AOE, or by having a Mind/ in there with you, re-confusing you since you'd con hostile... still, alternate solutions to make it interesting.)

- Toggles don't work. I don't like the way you've that as a mechanic, quite frankly... but something like "they've usurped Ouroboros, you've been sent back and don't remember how to use certain powers - find your way back here" could work. It would also be consistent throughout the map.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Difficulty by giving enemies hit bonuses, damage bonuses, defense bonuses, having enemies move around instead of standing in place waiting to get jumped, etc: good.

Difficulty by making your powers not work, having certain enemy abilities go through your powers, by enemies getting such a large hit bonus that it will go through whatever defense you have, etc: dumb. That includes your proposed taskforce: dumb.

Hami; I'll give him his autohit lameness in order to reduce server lag due to players using fewer powers. Mag 100 stuns and such are still pushing it though.

Well the Mag 100 mez effects are to encourage teamwork. And think of it this way: What's the point of giving an AV a stun power if it's not going to affect its target (ie, the tank)?