Alternate mission objectives - bah

Today I was doing a mission redside where I had to prevent an elite boss from escaping. His name was Agent Crimson for those who know this mission. This is the last mission in a short arc.

I fight my way through on my brute, clearing everything, and then find him. I get him to half health and he starts running. I am dogging his heels the entire time, and I hit him about 7 or 8 times on his way out. Nothing I hit him with made him turn and fight, he just kept running. He gets to the exit as I hit him yet again, and then he leaves and I get a mission failed, and a reward of 2 merits.

Wow. Call it bitterness if you want, but I found this a thoroughly unfun ending to what was an otherwise enjoyable arc. Being an elite boss, he had a lot of health. I'm not sure how a soloer is supposed to complete this. Perhaps those villains with lockdown powers would've had an easier time, but even my knockdown powers did not knock him down when they hit.

I've never been one to enjoy any type of quest (in any video game) where not dying/giving up can still result in failure. At least the escort quests in this game only have the escort recaptured and still able to be re-freed, as compared to other games. I also tend to simply select and then ignore any timed missions. Sometimes I just do another quest or even log off once the timer starts.

Anyway, give me quests where I can hammer away at them repeatedly until I get it right over some of these alternative type missions, or perhaps the missions could offer multiple goals to succeed, instead of just one.

Forgive me if I sound too rantish, but this last mission left a bad taste in my mouth.

The Don't Let Crimson Escape mission is one of the few (is it the only?) missions where you have to catch a bolting EB. I've finished it on teams, but it's tough. You need to stack immobs (like... alot!) and even then he'll break out of it pretty quick.

I enjoy the mission because it's a real challenge in a game that has few. I do think it could be tweaked to make Crimson a) not so fast, and b) a little less uber-resistant to immobs/slows.

The lovely one with the Arachnoid is annoying, its got the regen levels of an AV even as a boss :-/

Luckily "stop escaping EB" missions are very rare. Don't let that one get you too down, he gets away from almost everyone.

Yeah, he got away from me, and I was angry about it, but that passed. But that's a rare mission objective. Generally speaking, I like it when they mix stuff up. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but having the same objectives over and over is boring.

For example, Croatoa mission arcs. You get the "stop 40 fir bolg from escaping" which many many people loathe... first, because the mission objective wording can confuse people encountering it for the first time, and second because guarding the exit makes for a long, boring mission.

Contrast that with the mission where you guard the fairy ring from red caps while the mystics complete a spell. Similar in concept, but most people like that. You have a 15 minute timer, which is just long enough without being too long, and you have a hill road to guard which hems the enemy in, making it easier to accomplish. Enemy ambushes spawn regularly so you're not bored waiting for them to show up.

I think the Crimson one is mostly a failed attempt at a different kind of mission, but I'm glad they tried to do something different. And it's good for those who like a challenge. It's a bit like that PI mission that you have 9 minutes to complete -- early on I was told it was a mission that you were intended to fail, that it was impossible to pull off, but if you have people with stealth or superspeed prepared for it you can do it. I've completed it several times, solo and teamed. And when you do manage to pull it off, you feel like you've actually accomplished something.

that crimson mish is very annoying, there are also a couple RWZ mishs that might need to be redesigned too

one of the mishs from serpent drummer to rescue the hostages and such (the general guy, the rikti, and like 6 other hostages, and kill a boss group), the annoying part of this is the general guy and the rikti guy are both extremely squishy (the general guy is weaker than fusionette and about as good at aggroing enemies), the 2nd annoying thing about the mish is that the boss group you have to kill, on lower diff isnt too bad, but on higher diff, the mob can be up to 7 fake nem and 1 LT in the boss mob and last time i ran that mish, the general guy literally got 1 shot when he got too close to the mob (as well as couple poeple on my team due to the fake nem staff being a target AoE), if either the general or the rikti guy dies, then you fail the mish

the other annoying RWZ mish is the first mish from gaussian when you have to escape with the nemesis LT (if he dies you fail), and after you get him, one of the ambush mobs that spawn (doesnt hunt you down though) is another one of those mobs that have like 8 fake nemesis in the mob

in one of gaussians later mishs, when you have to rescue deitreich, her guard mob also usually has 6+ fake nem in it too (on higher diff)

spawning 6-8 bosses in a single mob for x6-x8 setting is not fun, especially when they are all fake nem and all throwing up dispersion bubbles when aggro'd, and if you die while fighting them, they will then bubble each other too, further increasing their defense, PLUS to make it worse is when there is LT rank enemies in or near the mob to give them MORE defense from vengeance

Unfortunately, not every mission is intended to be solo-able, but here's a tip for dealing with suicidal escorts, such as General Aarons, if other victims remain to be rescued or if there are other objectives. Lead the hostage to the mission entrance, then ditch him by using stealth or super speed. The hostage should stay safe by the door.

Hope this helps.

I stacked up on reds and opened the vending machine of whoop *** on him. Only way i found to defeat him on my characters was to use ones which have knockup powers since it buys me valuable time to keep inflicting damage on him.

I like those objectives though personally. Makes a nice change

Bah. Wimps. I want there to be MORE missions that you could fail as they are the ones that are the most challenging. Yeah, Crimson's could be toned down a little bit, but then perhaps that's what is really desired by the devs: Crimson is supposed to get away.

I've soloed him with my Mercs/TA MM and my Bots/Dark MM... everyone else, I fight for a while, he gets away, and I salve my pride by bellowing after him, "YEAH, RUN YOU COWARDLY F***ER, THAT'S WHAT LONGBOW DO BEST!"

Kid you not, though, the second time I yelled that after him, HE ACTUALLY STOPPED. I don't know if he got hung up on something in the sewers or what, but it was like he stopped and looked at me and went, "You did NOT just say that." I caught up to him and whaled on him some more, but he still got away.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

As long as I have a reasonable chance of stopping/beating him (IE, chase from one end of a cave to another,) I don't have a problem with those, even if I fail.

There is one (or two?) though that I've had in an office - where all they have to do is reach the elevator 50' or so away. THAT is irritating. (As are Capo hunts in Oakes where they duck right back in the door they just left. That's not part of a mission, though.)

See my Guides and Tutorials

It is Crimson, you know.

Biff and Crimson are two missions you're guaranteed to fail if you can't KD or spam some kind of slow/immob. If I run into them the best bet is just to Mission Drop to successfully complete the mission. I think the mission writer intended you to fail them.

Stopping 40 Fir Bolg is bad in a group, because if one big gang gets past you oh man that's half your counter. But it's a cool mission because you don't have to stand there, you can be proactive and attack the Fir Bolg spawns while keeping an eye for drive-by pumpkins. The final arc of Croatoa where you have to guard the henge for 15 minutes is far worse imo. But I also hate the TV reactor room for being a "sit on your thumbs for x minutes waiting for spawns" objective. They suck. I always save the mission drop option for that mission to round off Croatoa.

For what it's worth, I never had much trouble with Crimson in that mission. Of course, I'm also not too proud to binge on red inspirations.

The fleeing Arachnoid, on the other hand, is annoying because, as someone has mentioned, he's got some good regen going, and he's got a lot of immob resistance. I actually failed this my first time and out of sheer spite I decided to bring some friends back in time to beat him up for real.

I failed the mission? SCREW THE TIMELINE I BEAT HIM. Is my official stance on this, anyway.

I did that mission in ten seconds by two-shotting him with my ridiculously over-slotted Assassin's Strike and a bagful of reds.