A Taskforce With REAL Challenges

Statesman's TF not hard enough? Hehe, or did I just get on bad teams : P

Arcanaville has spoken.
This does just seem like a massive dose of 'Looking for Pain.' It doesn't look challenging. That would be a Master Of run. This just looks Not Fun.

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.

Hi:

I tend to agree in spirit with Sigium in the concept of having more challenging TFs is truly needed. But I disagree with the process Sigium proposes. I do not like TFs were the concept of challenge is restricted to specific ATs; for instance once the Romans roar in ITF the controllers have been rendered powerless, thus yeah the "team" is challenged for there is no longer control available to assist in the defeat of the mob group, but it was 100% achieved at the controller's expense, and I truly oppose this practice. Imagine a mob group, after one of them yells, and the entire room with all mobs are immune to melee attacks, and their melee attacks ignore damage resistance; I bet that would be challenging, but grossly unfair to the melee types.

Frankly I want to see challenge that affects all ATs evenly, not just the support classes from the use of excessive status effect spamming for instance.

Making TFs more challenging, actually will be very difficult, because we have a lot of very capable and experienced players, essentially how you challenge a master player?

Lately I been paying closer attention on how our developers have been historically and lately addressing the concept of challenge, and in some instances I am far from impressed. For one I prefer if AVs follow AT rules as a whole. For instance I believe its totally inappropriate for Positron, a Rad Defender, to be empowered with the Scrapper ability of Moment of Glory, that is simply wrong, since Defenders have no ability to resist status effects, should non-melee based AVs be weaker in this department? I am not saying no resistances at all like players have to endure, but perhaps half as strong as the melee types?

When I look at classic AVs to modern AVs there is a huge difference on performance, which leads me to believe their should be a huge variety or differences in rewards for defeating them. For instance take Countess Crey, or any of the Praetorian AVs from Maria Jenkin's thread and compare them to the signature heroes you face at the end of Lord Recluse SF, or good ole Reichman. There is a significant difference, yet the reward is not there to account for such dramatic difference. Yet one might want to agree, by having "over the top" AVs challenge has been increased. Sadly in TFs like LRSF the challenge is really over-burdened by the support class, whose defenses are dependent on their powers that are in great part ineffective against AVs, now imagine 8 AVs at a time, attacking all over the place, sure it strains the Melee, but it really goes much harder on the "squoshies". Once more leading to the un-even challenging I mentioned earlier. Sadly it is easy to pick on the classes that have by design been made extremely vulnerable.

One would think puzzle solving to be a good challenge, and it is, but only the first time. So scrap that one.

I had suggested before, the mission maps, door entry locations, boss or glowy placement is fixed for TFs; making them excessively predictable. Why not use abilities as offered in AE where boss and object placement is random, map type is random, and truly randomize mission entrance, and perhaps even zone entrance. While it may not do much for increase challenge, it does something against the boredom of sheer repetitiveness and predictability.

I would look at missions whose failure has no repercussions, would suggest that should be changed. Say if you fail, you get two more clear all missions to make up for the failure, or something along those lines. Once more this suggestion, does little for increasing challenge in a significant manner.

Because of the nature of ATs and the designed vulnerabilites mainly on the support caste, having missions were players have to divide is not a good idea, for it may result in added team composition requirements, like two tanks, two healer/buffers, etc.

The thought above is also another consideration, we want more challenging TFs, but on the other hand, we do not want to force custom AT and build mixes so the TF can be completed, we want to make sure while its more challenging the average PUG could complete it. Now this consideration makes the effort to add challenge quite a bit tougher.

A thought of challenge that comes into mind, is "time", where you are not so much competing against the mobs themselves, but against yourself. If you complete the TF in less time you get a bonus in merits awarded, which I know contradicts the "longer and dumber" you approach a TF the more merits worth will become. Of course this suggestion comes with baggage of its own, such as all those other players complaining on the other players who can blow through the TF quickly, and stress even more the now 3 way conflict between players who do TFs for the merits, versus those who do it for the badges, versus those who do it to level. three different goals which often results with interplayer conflicts.

The more I think of it, the harder it is for me to think of a way to come-up with fair ways to add complexity to TF/SFs.

Hugs

Stormy