Hamidon listed in 1up's "13 Dumnass boss battles"
By
Aggelakis,
Posted on: 2010-05-28 22:16 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Rikti Mothership raid > Hamidon raid any time.
Why?
Mosh pit > square dance.
That's why.
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Your my sir, are wicked.
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Originally Posted by Godpants
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Why? Mosh pit > square dance. That's why. |
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The original version of the Hami raid was extremely subject to griefing. Originally, Hamidon was up all the time, except for a period right after he'd been taken down. This made the 'Heart of the Hamidon' badge more difficult to get, as it was basically suicide to get to except right after a Hami raid had completed, than it is now, where the bowl is empty unless people have worked to spawn him, and you can just walk up and get the badge.|
Originally Posted by FunstuffofDoom
They do note that new!Hami is significantly better than old Hami. He mentions that there a problem with people leeching HOs off the raids. Was he just throwing more fodder on the fire, or was that an actual problem?
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The basic process was to have a tank taunt Hamidon with an empath keeping them alive, while one or more Illusion trollers/fenders dropped Phantom Army onto Hami to help keep him distracted, then a mass of characters roamed the goo in a pack, healers spamming heals, taking out the mitos one by one. Then everyone who didn't have a hold left the goo while the rest spammed single-target holds until Hami stopped attacking the taunt tank. Then, while the holds kept going, everyone threw attacks at Hami until he died.
Now for the griefing part. On his death, Hami spawned a 'Hamidon Bud' -- basically, a micro-Hami -- one for each character in the zone, and killing the Hamidon Bud got you an HO. You can immediately see where the AoE Blasters could steal HOs from the defenders and controllers, and sometimes the tanks. If you couldn't kill a bud fast enough, you got squat for your time, which could be up to two hours.
This was changed so that anyone who'd done damage to Hamidon got an HO, which resulted in people hanging out waiting for the damage phase to start, then zone in and take one shot at Hami to get their HO, avoiding all of the defeats and debt the rest of us got while whacking the mitos. The population of the Hive would often go from 60-80 to the (then) 240-character max once the damage phase started, from all the people coming in to leech an HO. (And, not incidentally, creating an amazing amount of lag.)
In the major revision to the mechanics of taking Hamidon down, the zone capacity of the Hive was reduced to 60, preventing the mass influx of people seeking to get an HO on the cheap, and changed the mechanism of taking him down to not require groups larger than the zone capacity.
"But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses."
-- Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers
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That's.... is 'incredi-douchey' a word? And if not, can I make it one?
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Originally Posted by srmalloy
The original version of the Hami raid was extremely subject to griefing. Originally, Hamidon was up all the time, except for a period right after he'd been taken down. This made the 'Heart of the Hamidon' badge more difficult to get, as it was basically suicide to get to except right after a Hami raid had completed, than it is now, where the bowl is empty unless people have worked to spawn him, and you can just walk up and get the badge.
The basic process was to have a tank taunt Hamidon with an empath keeping them alive, while one or more Illusion trollers/fenders dropped Phantom Army onto Hami to help keep him distracted, then a mass of characters roamed the goo in a pack, healers spamming heals, taking out the mitos one by one. Then everyone who didn't have a hold left the goo while the rest spammed single-target holds until Hami stopped attacking the taunt tank. Then, while the holds kept going, everyone threw attacks at Hami until he died. Now for the griefing part. On his death, Hami spawned a 'Hamidon Bud' -- basically, a micro-Hami -- one for each character in the zone, and killing the Hamidon Bud got you an HO. You can immediately see where the AoE Blasters could steal HOs from the defenders and controllers, and sometimes the tanks. If you couldn't kill a bud fast enough, you got squat for your time, which could be up to two hours. This was changed so that anyone who'd done damage to Hamidon got an HO, which resulted in people hanging out waiting for the damage phase to start, then zone in and take one shot at Hami to get their HO, avoiding all of the defeats and debt the rest of us got while whacking the mitos. The population of the Hive would often go from 60-80 to the (then) 240-character max once the damage phase started, from all the people coming in to leech an HO. (And, not incidentally, creating an amazing amount of lag.) In the major revision to the mechanics of taking Hamidon down, the zone capacity of the Hive was reduced to 60, preventing the mass influx of people seeking to get an HO on the cheap, and changed the mechanism of taking him down to not require groups larger than the zone capacity. |
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People still do it. On Freedom tonight, we started the raid with 25 people. On the third bloom, the zone magically became full, and I could see about 10 people standing outside the goo just waiting for the mitos to go down so they could move in for free merits.
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Originally Posted by srmalloy
In the major revision to the mechanics of taking Hamidon down, the zone capacity of the Hive was reduced to 60, preventing the mass influx of people seeking to get an HO on the cheap, and changed the mechanism of taking him down to not require groups larger than the zone capacity.
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Just a technicality, the cap was reduced to 50, not 60.
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Originally Posted by srmalloy
In the major revision to the mechanics of taking Hamidon down, the zone capacity of the Hive was reduced to 60, preventing the mass influx of people seeking to get an HO on the cheap, and changed the mechanism of taking him down to not require groups larger than the zone capacity.
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Originally Posted by Dispari
I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.
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Actually, what you describe is LEECHING.|
Originally Posted by srmalloy
Now for the griefing part.
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Griefing would be when a tank would walk into the group of controllers and taunt Hami, thus wiping the entire group.
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Or people would train GMs on the attack group.
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Originally Posted by Ironblade
Actually, what you describe is LEECHING.
Griefing would be when a tank would walk into the group of controllers and taunt Hami, thus wiping the entire group. |
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Originally Posted by Dispari
I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.
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If the "banter" at a Hamidon raid is the best part, then the event is a lot more depressing than even I thought.
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Originally Posted by Zikar
Most of the fun about Hamidon raids is the banter in broadcast.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Hamidon is a really lame encounter. I've not done the "new" one where you DON'T have 150 leeches show up to steal credit for the hours of boooooooring preceding hamidon raid, and don't really have much desire to. Oh, and d-bags could grief the raid by causing a yellow dawn or just training GMs into the jello to try to wipe your raid. And i seem to remember HO's used to be stronger than they are now, back in year 1. Maybe that was just me remembering how the game was before ED, though.
Jack didn't want endgame. Hamidon is the outcome of Jack's distaste for endgame.
Please use RWZ rikti raid as your basis instead of dull, lousy encounter where you beat on a big blob of jello and most people have no clue what they're doing besides staying in the heal bubble the emps rocking the aura provide while the main targ picks out mitos and a few /Regens or whatever that are tanking Hamidon's core. RWZ raid = everyone moving, everyone having fun, not BORING BORING BORING BORING BORING thank god it's finally dead LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAG. Weakened Hamidon is the only FUN hamidon, and that's because it doesn't take hours and you get the help of the Rikti zerg to melt that big gelatinous cube.
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It's not really helpful to dismiss the new and fun Hamidon redesigned encounter just because the old one was poorly designed. Especially without having even tried it.| Hamidon is a really lame encounter. I've not done the "new" one |
The RWZ Mothership raid is much more akin to old Hami raids, with the less-structured free-for-all zerg aspect, and participation limited by the normal higher zone limits. Those who want a more old-Hami experience should do the RWZ raid. New Hami is very different and a lot of fun in its own way.
New Hami requires more strategy, coordination and cooperation among the raiders. It still has a few minor problems, but is significantly more enjoyable than the original. With practice, raiders can get the time down to well under 30 mins. (and well-practiced groups can make it easier to do than a STF)
I'm hopeful that the devs will alter it again (as they said they would over time) as it's becoming rather easy to do now. I know many servers and populations haven't experienced it yet, but those that have are pretty good at doing it. We've even looked at alternate 'fun' ways to mess around with it.
"When heroes fail, the Angels will save you."
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HAMIDON NUKE RAID GUIDE
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Well, I lead Hamidon raids every weekend, and I think it's a lame encounter too. I like the community aspect of it, but beating a giant blob of jello is not how I imagined the hardest encounter in the game.|
Originally Posted by Sandolphan
It's not really helpful to dismiss the new and fun Hamidon redesigned encounter just because the old one was poorly designed. Especially without having even tried it.
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Leading Hamidon is good for people who like to lead teams. It's the ultimate in team coordination: you need everybody to be in the ball and know their role. If the Hamidon raid leader screws up, the whole raid tends to go bad really, really quickly. Last week, I accidentally hit the "EVERYBODY GO IN!" macro instead of the "TANKS GO IN, EVERYBODY ELSE WAIT" macro. We didn't ALL die by miracle; we had really good tanks on the mitos and lots of rezzers, but for a minute there I thought "oh <bleep!>, I just got everybody killed".
Hamidon is a good encounter for community reasons, and for those who enjoy leading a huge team together. But is it fun? Meh. For sheer fun, I like the chaos of the Rikti War Zone. The Cathedral of Pain was live for a very short time, and I still found it more fun than Hamidon. Hamidon has good mechanics, but the enemy itself is really, really uninteresting.
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This is what 3700 heroes in a single zone looks like.
Thanks to @EnsonsDeath for the GVE code that made me VIP again!
Personally I didn't mind the final boss fight in ME2. Visually it was stunning but I have to admit that the fight wasn't as tough as I expected. Getting to the boss certainly was though.
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I fired a mini-nuke at it. It only needed a couple more hits after that. |
Originally Posted by Tal_N
Personally I didn't mind the final boss fight in ME2. Visually it was stunning but I have to admit that the fight wasn't as tough as I expected. Getting to the boss certainly was though.
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I kinda like the old arcade game feel, including glowing targetable parts, that encounter gives off. I always suspected/assumed bioware made it like that on purpose.
@True Metal
Co-leader of Callous Crew SG. Based on Union server.
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Unless you had phase shift. Original phase shift was unaffected by hami blasts and was a perma toggle if you wanted to leave it on all the time.
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Originally Posted by srmalloy
This made the 'Heart of the Hamidon' badge more difficult to get, as it was basically suicide to get to except right after a Hami raid had completed, than it is now, where the bowl is empty unless people have worked to spawn him, and you can just walk up and get the badge.
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He didn't say he hadn't tried it. He said that he hasn't done one that's been free of Last Minute Leeches.|
Originally Posted by Sandolphan
It's not really helpful to dismiss the new and fun Hamidon redesigned encounter just because the old one was poorly designed. Especially without having even tried it.
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| I've not done the "new" one where you DON'T have 150 leeches show up to steal credit for the hours of boooooooring preceding hamidon raid |
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| New Hami requires more strategy, coordination and cooperation among the raiders. It still has a few minor problems, but is significantly more enjoyable than the original. With practice, raiders can get the time down to well under 30 mins. (and well-practiced groups can make it easier to do than a STF) |
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Here in the EU, and I am sure in the US too, the 'old' raids were more about the server community getting together. (these were the days before any global channels). Well, until the raid farmers got in there.
A good time to catch up with friends who were now playing alts.
Enduring the rubbish jokes in the broadcast channel and generally having... what's that word again? Oh yes - FUN!
Granted, something did need to be done to change the raid, but sledgehammer to crack a peanut comes to mind.
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Enduring rubbish jokes and having fun are mutually exclusive. I might have actually enjoyed the old Hamidon, tedium and all, if it weren't for the "community banter."
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Originally Posted by Mr ?
Enduring the rubbish jokes in the broadcast channel and generally having... what's that word again? Oh yes - FUN!
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Yellow dawn YEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
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You forgot to mention that we'd have to come in to work Saturday while making us move down to the storage room, and grabbing our red stapler Lumbergh.|
Originally Posted by Rick Astley
Yellow dawn YEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
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Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Well I am a huge fan of this game so I say this with care. But, I would have put just about every AV and GM fight in City of Heroes collectively on the list of dumb boss fights. This game has a lot going for it but boss encounters are not one of them.
AVs are basically balls of HP with exactly four weaknesses (-Regen, -Damage, -Resistance, and incredibly stupid AI). The recipe never changes, so if your character specializes in -Recharge, -Endurance, -ToHit, Knockback/down/up, et al you basically completely fail while characters with abilities AVs don't resist wipe the floor and can even solo. Things are really bad when a team of 8 can struggle to reproduce what a single character could do if it has the "magic" ingredients. The fact that every single AV has the exact same vulnerabilites tips the scale to the point that AVs are less of a boss fight than the "you did bring a Phoenix Down, didn't you?" type of thing the linked article talks about.
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Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
Well I am a huge fan of this game so I say this with care. But, I would have put just about every AV and GM fight in City of Heroes collectively on the list of dumb boss fights. This game has a lot going for it but boss encounters are not one of them.
AVs are basically balls of HP with exactly four weaknesses (-Regen, -Damage, -Resistance, and incredibly stupid AI). The recipe never changes, so if your character specializes in -Recharge, -Endurance, -ToHit, Knockback/down/up, et al you basically completely fail while characters with abilities AVs don't resist wipe the floor and can even solo. Things are really bad when a team of 8 can struggle to reproduce what a single character could do if it has the "magic" ingredients. The fact that every single AV has the exact same vulnerabilites tips the scale to the point that AVs are less of a boss fight than the "you did bring a Phoenix Down, didn't you?" type of thing the linked article talks about. |
There are a few AVs with wrinkles than that, Protean for example is a step in the right direction in terms of making AVs more than a big bag of XP. A few AVs now are like that, the end of the STF for example, Reichsman and Nosferatau also come to mind.
i17 was a real positive step IMO in terms of redefining how missions, contacts and AVs could work in the future (about time too).
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WOLVERINES!|
Rick Astley is no strange to love: Yellow dawn YEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! |
Dec out.
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Are you French? The jokes are what it's all about!|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Enduring rubbish jokes and having fun are mutually exclusive. I might have actually enjoyed the old Hamidon, tedium and all, if it weren't for the "community banter."
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Some people just don't know how to have fun and so they gotta rain on everyone's parade.
While I like and respect Sharkey, he quit playing CoH around Issue 6. Things have changed so much since then that I don't really think he can be considered an expert anymore.
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