Praetoria - A hard fight.

As I was playing last night several times it felt as though when the mobs were designed, the dev's forgot we'd be fighting them at the TO/DO level.

Oddly enough building a few low level generic IO's has helped in some situations.

Based on my experiences so far:

While I agree the fights are generally more challenging, there's not as many significantly-difficult challenges as there are for heroes. So far I feel I've been debuffed more, but controlled less (a fair compromise), and mobs are often one level higher (which I am fine with, actually) than I usually see hero or villain-side.

That's about it, as near as I can tell so far. I have very rarely fought more than 3 mobs in a spawn, most frequently 2 mobs, or 1LT and 1min. Rest is available after 3 fights or so, and I don't feel like it needs to be immediate. I've only had to run out of a mission twice in about 4 days of play, so far. The ambushes have so far been well-timed, but I can see how some people might have a problem is they aren't adapting to them. The only peeve I have is that some missions you apparently _have_ to solo to complete, which I am not sure how that will work out once I start grouping in earnest.

Actually, the only other peeve I have is knowing where to find contacts, if they aren't fed to me. I lucked into Ricochet, I believe her name is, only after someone else already had her, and once I went to her, I suddenly had her. I have no idea how I am supposed to know about her beforehand, or how many other contacts I am missing simply because I don't know they exist. But I digress.

On topic, I like that it's a bit tougher. I feel that a lot of veterans have gotten--how to delicately put this?--mamby pamby.

No good game is supposed to be a cakewalk. No one promised that you'll never get defeated. I think that a lot of people have gotten so used to waltzing through every mission without ever getting defeated (unless deliberately pursuing a badge) that when they do get defeated, they assume that it's some kind of design flaw with the game.

I had a mission last night in which ten waves--ten waves!--of ambushes came at me, one after another. I was burning through inspirations left and right, taking a knee and sometimes having to cut the rest time short to keep from getting killed, using every trick in my book to last just one... more... wave... And I made it! It was an awesome feeling. It wasn't the number of enemies that I had piled up at my feet that made it that way, either. During the days of "burn tankers," you could stand there and defeat a thousand people at the same time without actually doing anything. The sense of accomplishment came from knowing that I successfully pulled off something genuinely hard.

Granted, sometimes I get defeated. A few times, I've waved the dead chicken at my monitor and said, "Are you KIDDING me!!?" I don't want all missions to be like that. Fortunately, all of them aren't. Some of them are really easy. The "find x and get out within two minutes" mission was awesome, too. No complicated thinking about it, just run like hell.

All in all, I really like the new missions, easy, hard, and everything in between.

I agree with Tony. I've been playing almost excusively on my scrapper, so learning to play as a squishy Corrupter (albeit an awesome one) is a new experience for me and it has been difficult. However, that difficulty has sort of driven me to try harder, and work for my mission complete. Thank god, (as I put it) that at least "I have a cavalry to call in times of need".

I don't know about hard. I've died once on my stalker - I stubbornly refused to buy inspirations before the mission(laziness).

Then I died once on my kin/energy brute due to a team wipe involving clockwork with -def beams. Which is kryptonite for a /energy brute anyway.

My dominator hasn't died yet. And that's about it.

When starting a new toon I immediately turn the difficulty to +1 anyway. And that equates to +2s in the normal game. No difficulty settings in Praetoria that I have seen so it's been nice and smooth for the most part.

If you're a vet player and find these missions hard...then I have no idea what to say other than...use inspirations and play a bit smarter.

While I have no issue with overall difficulty, there are probably a few missions that could be tweaked a little, especially when it comes to mob placement or the timing of some ambushes. There's been a few times when I've been mobbed by 9 Syndicate Sword Adepts. I don't care how many inspirations you chug or what kind of AT you are, 9 Sword Adepts will down you in seconds unless you happen to have Ethereal Shift handy.

Stuff like this is sooo not fun:



I helped out a newbie with a mission involving killing Maxine under 5 mins (before reinforcements showed up). That mission involved finding a NPC in the middle of a Praetorian lab map (chock full of Syndicate) and then facing off against a Lt accompanied by a Syndicate. The newbie was extremely frustrated and her level 8 dom could not get past the first large room before dying. By the time, I joined her, reinforcements had of course already arrived.

Yeah my only complaint on that issue is that there was a contact that I guess falls under the Hidden Contacts list, that you apparently have to go to, in order to get. I clicked all my inactive contacts a few times (there were like 4 at the time) and none of them gave me her. I leveled up once, still no dice. Then some person had me join her for a duo, and she went to the contact, and I clicked the contact too, and now I had her. I just don't know why she wasn't introduced to me from a previous, existing contact, now that I completed all solo missions. I didn't' even have to do anything to get her. Just click on her.

Regarding the issue of the screenshot above, it looks like the player engaged all the mobs, instead of just pulling one of them. Even if you have no vet powers or ranged attacks, you have a ranged minor damage attack depending on what origin you have, that can be used to pull. I don't believe this is vet-level knowledge, personally. There's no way you are going to pull 9 adepts (or anything similar) in a room unless you just jump right in.

Pulling is a basic MMORPG skill, in my opinion. Even if you pull multiple groups, when you come back to pull one, you're not going to pull all the groups. You will pull the one and those linked to it, if the pulled mob is close enough, or in sight.

I've not had too much of a hard time yet in Praetoria with my praetorian, but then I'm only level 12 and on a brute (haven't tried other AT).

I am trying Maria's arc on my Ill/TA though, and good GRAVY was fighting resistance something else (+0/x2). Nothing but a web of targeting drones (at least I think that's what they were) and mobs that all become invisible every five seconds. It was like fighting a mission filled with Illusionists. Thankfully PA could see them better and a lit OSA doesn't care. Fighting Nightstar at the end was the easiest part of the mission.

And one tip mission I was taken out by Malta (while reading text). Came back from the hospital to find a pack of about 40 of them. Nothing a few deceives couldn't take care of, but probably a bit of overkill.

It must be the vet in me but my Energy/Energy Blaster hasn't had any issues yet. I've even wanted to crank it up for solo bosses.

I never team.

Granted, I learned years ago how to utilize KB to be a very effective mitigation tool. I also use my vetspec at 20 to get stamina, thus allowing me to play up to that point without sacrificing useful powers for the pre-reqs.
I'm sure having build up from level 4 has helped as well! Not to mention sands and staff and wand...

So far the only time I've had trouble was underground with the Ghouls, these things are like Snyder zombies, bum rushing from all directions. I love it.

That said, looking past my experience level, I think new players may feel somewhat outgunned. Even more so for that new player that doesn't know any better and tries to solo a FF defender or other support based toon. Though, I've only seen 1 actual new player this week...