Tarikoss Strike Force
By
Blue Rabbit,
Posted on: 2010-02-14 21:13 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Tarikoss used to be lower. It was also redside Katie prior to Merits being included in the game...sadly, it got hit badly by the change in reward implementation.
Tarikoss isn't too bad though. You can ghost a few of the missions and move briskly. Still, I do agree that there is a vast disparity in Merit/rewards between both sides. The Devs haven't really found a solution though, outside of having villains go blue in Going Rogue.
Questions about the game, either side? /t @Neuronia or @Neuronium, with your queries!
168760: A Death in the Gish. 3 missions, 1-14. Easy to solo.
Infinity Villains
Champion, Pinnacle, Virtue Heroes
Used to speed run it with a stalker w/tp and a /rad corr.Of course this was back in a the day when rewards meant something.
The reason villain content is lower rewards, merit-wise, is due to a few factors:
* More streamlined, therefore faster to complete on average
* Redside team synergy
* Lower population means speed runs weigh more, and on some SFs like the RSF, most of the teams that do it are speedrunners because in a lot of ways the RSF is an all-or-nothing SF
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"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
You forgot:
*Devs hate villans.
In the Arena of Logic, I fight unarmed.
With a stalker who had teleport other and some practice, we got to the point where we could do that one in around 20 minutes back in the day. It's probably my fault that it's set so low now. Sorry.
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And mine. And Nivra's. And...
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Originally Posted by Camper
With a stalker who had teleport other and some practice, we got to the point where we could do that one in around 20 minutes back in the day. It's probably my fault that it's set so low now. Sorry.
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@Roderick
Yeah yeah... 15 minute strike forces an' all that.
But 5 missions and 2 AV-class critters for 13 vs 3 missions with an EB for 14?
I'm just sayin'
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That's because the average completion time for the latter is slightly longer. Now we just need to get people to start speedrunning it and the reward will be adjusted.|
Originally Posted by Golden_Avariel
Yeah yeah... 15 minute strike forces an' all that.
But 5 missions and 2 AV-class critters for 13 vs 3 missions with an EB for 14? I'm just sayin' |
i'd argue that completion time should not be the sole metric, but that's not my call to make.
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
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Just pad the villain content with more missions, hunts and defeat-alls. Problem solved.
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Originally Posted by Neuronia
Tarikoss used to be lower. It was also redside Katie prior to Merits being included in the game...sadly, it got hit badly by the change in reward implementation.
Tarikoss isn't too bad though. You can ghost a few of the missions and move briskly. Still, I do agree that there is a vast disparity in Merit/rewards between both sides. The Devs haven't really found a solution though, outside of having villains go blue in Going Rogue. |
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
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You are a horrible person.|
Originally Posted by Schismatrix
Just pad the villain content with more missions, hunts and defeat-alls. Problem solved.
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I always universally liked the 'normal' Strike Forces over the 'normal' Task Forces. The fact that they're more streamlined is one thing. As far as I'm aware, the old Task Forces were made with the idea in mind that they should be done in multiple runs, and when red-side came, the devs realised from data-mining that people just do these in one long run, anyway and made the new Strike Forces accordingly.
Then there's also the fact that the Strike Forces all tend to be more varied, with more maps and enemy groups, sometimes even including unique maps and enemies you don't see otherwise.
Meanwhile, well, let's look at Synapse, Citadel, Sister Psyche and Manticore. Synapse? Clockwork. Sister Psyche? Freakshow. Manticore? Crey. Hell, Citadel is literally the same mission repeated until you run into a random AV. At least the other Task Forces use different maps to break the monotony.
I personally had the fortune of remaining blissfully ignorant of IO sets, and as a result Merit Rewards are also meaningless to me. To those that love twinking their builds I'm sure Merit Rewards are a boon, but personally I only ever do story arcs and Task/Strike Forces because I feel like doing it. I don't mean to imply that Merit Rewards shouldn't be there, just that I personally never cared about them so I can't really say how appropriate they are.
Well, except for the fact that most people try to skip as many mobs as possible in the LRSF, but I always suspected that has more to do with everyone already being 50 and not being able to get XP than the Merit Rewards attached to the end. I am very much the anti-speedrunner and love to take my time on Strike Forces.
P.S.: You're not a horrible person, I'm just kidding.
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Bingo
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Originally Posted by Schismatrix
i'd argue that completion time should not be the sole metric, but that's not my call to make.
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How long did the SF take you?
How long did the CoH arc take you?
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Sayin' what?|
Originally Posted by Golden_Avariel
Yeah yeah... 15 minute strike forces an' all that.
But 5 missions and 2 AV-class critters for 13 vs 3 missions with an EB for 14? I'm just sayin' |
The merit reward is based on mean completion time. Period.
There could be 10 AV's. If people can complete it in 10 minutes, it's worth 3 merits.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
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A little over an hour of the SF. Hard to know with the arc since I did it in very short sessions over the course of the weekend, mostly solo, and wasn't particularly in a hurry. Probably around 2 hours, maybe less, which corresponds with what arcs are supposed to get.|
Originally Posted by Clouded
How long did the SF take you?
How long did the CoH arc take you? |
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Originally Posted by Ironblade
Sayin' what?
The merit reward is based on mean completion time. Period. There could be 10 AV's. If people can complete it in 10 minutes, it's worth 3 merits. |
That and I thought it was a funny comparison.
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Yea, that random recipe that was crap 7/10 times meant something alright ...|
Originally Posted by The_Larker
Used to speed run it with a stalker w/tp and a /rad corr.Of course this was back in a the day when rewards meant something.
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You had to walk uphill through the snow to get it too! Barefooted!
@True Metal
Co-leader of Callous Crew SG. Based on Union server.
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Yea, then finally all those 'Devs hate villains' whiners wont complain anymore! right? right?
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Originally Posted by Schismatrix
Just pad the villain content with more missions, hunts and defeat-alls. Problem solved.
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@True Metal
Co-leader of Callous Crew SG. Based on Union server.
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How about 13 merits for all the people in the team vs. 14 merits for arc owner?|
Originally Posted by Golden_Avariel
Yeah yeah... 15 minute strike forces an' all that.
But 5 missions and 2 AV-class critters for 13 vs 3 missions with an EB for 14? I'm just sayin' |
I'm just sayin'.
Try not to compare apples to oranges. And yes, I do think villains got the short end of the stick merit wise. But that's because there are far less SF than TF and the villain ones are, thankfully, streamlined.
Positron's, Synapse's, Quarterfield's, Citadel's and Manticore's TF are horrid, horrid experiences that make me personally want to bang my head against a wall with the boredom they induce or go do something livelier like watch paint dry.
Rabbits & Hares:Blue (Mind/Emp Controller)Maroon (Rad/Thermal Corruptor)and one of each AT all at 50
MA Arcs: Apples of Contention - 3184; Zen & Relaxation - 35392; Tears of Leviathan - 121733 | All posts are rated "R" for "R-r-rrrrr, baby!"|Now, and this is very important... do you want a hug? COH Faces @Blue Rabbit
Hmm... I had hoped this had died. This is turning embarrassing for me. Well...
I've earned plenty of merits in teams where everyone was cooperating on the same contact and got the same rewards - in fact that is SOP for us.
But even if that wasn't true I'm still not comparing apples and oranges... merits are merits and it doesn't matter how you earn them. I was under the impression that they came faster in TF/SF's than arcs but I don't believe that anymore, at least for me, because of the way the devs rate them vs the way people run each differently vs the way I've experienced them so far.
And while I do feel villains seem to come up short merits-per-level-wise, that was not my intended point here. This was not a "devs hate villains" thread. I could just have easily used a villain arc for comparison. It was purely random chance that I did that particular arc the day after the Cap SF.
In the end it was just a personal epiphany that effort <> reward and I found that sort of amusing and counter-intuitive for a game.
But I yield and there's no need to rag on me further. It's all fair and there is nothing amusing or sad about it and I'll never mention merits here on the forums again.
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Another factor is that TFs/SFs are intended to give more 'merits per minute' than arcs. They use a different factor to calculate the merits based on the mean completion time.|
Originally Posted by Golden_Avariel
I'm just pointing out an instance where using completion time as the sole metric seems glaringly out of whack to me. I would guess that is mainly because TF/SF's are done in super-speed mode and arcs aren't - so the 24/hour and 8/hour rates do not necessarily mean merits come faster in one over the other. I find that interesting.
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Some are certainly weird. Synapse mentioned the possibility of specific adjustments for some of them.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
This was my first strikeforce and I did it only recently, but I was amazed at how much fun it was and how good the writing was. Much better than any TF I have played (have played only about 6 of them), except maybe the ITF.
Great fun!
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Agreed! I had a lot of fun both times but especially the first time with my SG when no one had done it and we explored every nook and cranny. We were all 17-18th level and most dinged at least 20 by the end. A great challenge and great fun.
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Originally Posted by Drugfree Boy
This was my first strikeforce and I did it only recently, but I was amazed at how much fun it was and how good the writing was. Much better than any TF I have played (have played only about 6 of them), except maybe the ITF.
Great fun! |
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Flashback, and everybody gets merits on either - with no diminished returns on the story arcs, only the task/strike forces. And several of the hero story arcs can be speedrun as well, for better than a one merit/minute rate.|
Originally Posted by Blue Rabbit
How about 13 merits for all the people in the team vs. 14 merits for arc owner?
I'm just sayin'. Try not to compare apples to oranges. And yes, I do think villains got the short end of the stick merit wise. But that's because there are far less SF than TF and the villain ones are, thankfully, streamlined. Positron's, Synapse's, Quarterfield's, Citadel's and Manticore's TF are horrid, horrid experiences that make me personally want to bang my head against a wall with the boredom they induce or go do something livelier like watch paint dry. |
Just sayin'.
And as for the experiences... Citadel and Manticore can be kindof fun if you try to see how fast you can complete them, since then it turns into a race. Posi and Synapse are still boring, but at roughly 2 hrs, give or take, not a complete waste of time for the merits, and the Dr Qs I've been on were actually kindof fun despite the number of missions - and they only took around 3-4 hrs, which puts them at a slightly better merit/time ratio than Posi or Synapse.
If you run the Task Forces the same way people ran the Strike Forces - that got the rewards for them cut to roughly half of that of a Task Force of similar length (counting time, not number of missions) - then most of them are roughly an hour or less. That gives you much better than the expected merit per hour rate that the rewards were supposed to be set for.
If you run the Tarikoss without speed running it, you're not going to finish in the "median" time that the reward is based on (which is 39 minutes). The second mission alone, with all the obnoxious CoT spectrals and Ruin Mages in overlapping spawns, will take care of that. The Longbow mission can, too, if the person who gets the tech doesn't listen and tries to fight off all of the ambush waves (what are there, 6? 8?) rather than just hitting a few Lucks and running straight to the computer. And I'm willing to bet that the "median" time that they based the reward off of was from people softloading the map for 1 person, before the changes that prevented you from being able to do so - which hasn't been accounted for in the reward, either. If I were setting a value for it, it'd probably be around that of the ITF - both are capable of being speedrun very quickly, and still capable of taking a while if you get stuck on a particular mission.
Edit to add: yes, I'm also one of the people you can blame for the low reward due to speedrunning this - I know that it's possible to finish in under 30 mins (I would've soloed it in under 20 with the softloading if I wasn't waiting for people to log on a couple of times). But those aren't exactly your "typical" team, and shouldn't be viewed as such when determining the reward. The ITF has been finished in 20 minutes as well, but it's not worth 10 merits...
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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.
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Yea, things like that are usually the most fun part about this game. Doing a new TF/SF for the first time, with my brothers and some (ex-)SG mates is always great.
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Originally Posted by Golden_Avariel
Agreed! I had a lot of fun both times but especially the first time with my SG when no one had done it and we explored every nook and cranny. We were all 17-18th level and most dinged at least 20 by the end. A great challenge and great fun.
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@True Metal
Co-leader of Callous Crew SG. Based on Union server.
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If the fun of a TF comes from being done with them as soon as possible, I'm not sure "fun" was ever meant to be part of the equation.|
Originally Posted by Siolfir
And as for the experiences... Citadel and Manticore can be kindof fun if you try to see how fast you can complete them, since then it turns into a race.
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I will never be able to accept the Citadel TF as an actual TF. In no way can a TF that repeats the same mission over and over and explains it as "explore this Council base. Now this one. Now that one" be called quality. It's a single step up from AE farms.
Did one of these today with my Stalker and had a lot of fun (thanks to Blaze Rocker on Protector). 5 missions, one defeat all, a hero and an AV in the last mission. My only disappointment was the same as the last time I ran it... 13 merits.
This evening I started and ended a story arc blue-side - A Hand of Iron. 8 missions but only 3 of them are doors none of which are defeat-alls. 14 merits.
That's just not right.