Praetoria - A hard fight.

I like the ambushes.

I just ran the Investigate Pharmatox mission - the one with 8 waves of Syndicate ambushes in a row. Running a lvl 9 Dual Pistols/Mental Blaster I took them all down, and it felt great.

My playstyle feels like its on a different level in Praetoria. I'm making more use of positioning (thank you, tier 1 immobilise) and hover blasting and switching back and forth from target to target than I ever have. I love that this is the only MMO I can think of where you can fight your way through eight consecutive ambushes before your level is into double figures, and I love that the GR mission design actually recognises that you are super powered, even in the early levels.

Clearly it's not to everyone's preference, but personally I'm loving it. I just hope that when the devs turn their attention to the incarnate content they deliver something that challenges IO'd 50s as much as GR is challenging the lowbies.

Given that every Praetorian Toon has a major mission they have to solo, it doesn't surprise me the support toons have more attacks at low levels than buffs.

I still don't understand whay they didn't put that difficulty slider in.

I mean look what's happening. Some player complain it's too hard. Other are fine with it.
And what we have now is a long discussion if people just can't play the game properly or if it's broken or whatever.

There is absolutely no need for this.

I just don't get Paragon Studios on this one. Guys you already have a working solution in CoH/CoV that is working perfectly fine. Use it and this will stop! Easy!

Except then they'd have an even harder time when it came to balancing the starting groups. This way they get to continue to use us as playtesters in order to dial in the precise diff. level they hoped to achieve.

Once they do they'll turn on Analysts because they'll be comfortable in the knowledge that the mobs are balanced enough to not get really broken with the myriad of options we now have on the sliders.

Just my opinion though. Still waiting for confirmation.


As an aside. Am I the only one who's really, really glad the temp power raptor packs and jump jets aren't avail in Praetoria? It's so refreshing to see everyone actually out and about instead of simply zooming straight to any door. Reminds me of the good ol days.

The lack of difficulty adjustment in Praetoria is problematic, but adding difficulty adjustment would also be problematic. Right now, by playing through every mission of every contact along a single path, a soloing character tends to enter the level range of the next contact group just as they finish the prior group, and hits 20 right around the time they finish their last set of contacts. I'm pretty sure this is deliberately calibrated. Adjusting difficulty down would mean less XP per arc, and soloing characters would end up forced to either street-sweep, take additional missions from the other path in their faction (which they may be trying to avoid), or hunt down contacts of the opposite faction.

Whether difficulty adjustment is more important than XP calibration is a matter of opinion, of course, but it's an exaggeration to say that there is no reason not to have difficulty adjustment in Praetoria.

Level 18 archery/ta corrupter vs James Noble (Elite Boss).

(Running low on inspirations - used most in the previous mission fighting yellow con ghouls.)

Entangling Arrow = useless.
Ice Arrow = useless.
Glue Arrow = at least it slows him down.
Poison Gas Arrow = ineffective? Doesn't seem to do anything to him.

Blazing Arrow, Aimed Shot, and Snap Shot (3 damage, 1 accuracy, 1 endurance reduction, except for Snap Shot which is 1 of each) = ooh, that tickles.

(Note: not using wand/staff or axe/sands.)

So, James chased my corrupter (soon drained of endurance) around the room for five or so minutes before I just gave up and took the DEFEAT. Hospital. Hello, Nurse, I'd like to fill this prescription for mass quantities of purples, reds, and greens. Thanks!

Run back to mission.

Pop four reds and three purples. Attack! Pew! Pew! Pew!

Mission Complete!

It IS a City of Inspirations.

Seer 1381 SOLO ****** mission to free the seers is absolutely ****** crap. I do NOT find exiting the mission, resting, entering, killing one of the 8 PDD dickwads that ALL gang up on me at the same time, exiting the mission, and repeating to be fun at all. It's rubbish.

Sort it out.

Eco.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

Incidentally, after hitting 12 and getting DOs and Aim, my Praetorian blaster's life improved exponentially. Actually having the damage and accuracy to drop dangerous enemies before they drop me helps a ton. It's also the level range where I'd really be starting to fight enemies that could actually hurt me in Paragon, so for the moment, things are much less frustrating.

I haven't really had a terrible time. Individually the enemies seem no tougher than vahz, circle of thorn, clockwork, and hellions in the same level ranges hero-side. But I am constantly surprised at the periodic mega-spawn or ambush. They seemed designed to kill. But then I think a lot of the newer content even outside Praetoria is the same - looking at you COT City Hall ambushes from hell in Posi's new TF. I figure it is in response to all the "game is too easy" posts we get a lot of around here - thanks guys.

Yesterday I ran across a perfect example. A single spawn of Destroyers in a dead-end area with 8 even-con minions. Eight? Solo? My experience teaming in Praetoria would be that adding 1 person to the team would either - double the size to 16 or turn all 8 into lieutenants, perhaps one would be a boss. Sheesh, I feel like I'm teaming red-side where the same scaling seems to exist.

Luckily I leveled fighting the next set of 3 lieutenants () and while pumped from the leveling I ran back and killed all 8 now blue minions pretty handily, but I was frankly going to leave them behind rather than try to fight them since the mission didn't require a defeat all.

Later in the same arc I came across a big office map room with 4 4-man spawns (2 of them with lieutenants) so close together that I couldn't pull one without getting them all. Of course, I've seen the same thing hero-side, especially vs Vahz, but it is more rare I think.

Do encounters seem harder? Sometimes and then it seems overwhelming. Is it relagated to Praetoria? Not necessarily. Is it a foretelling of things to come? Hard to say but all signs point to yes.

BTW - Don't want to leave the wrong impression. I love the new content, the stories, the new enemies, everything about it. But I think some of the spawn points in the new maps could be looked at to prevent stacking and the ambushes toned down just a wee bit.

I lived through Bobcat's "Crazy 88" style ambush when she sends you to "Find Shen." First time I did it, I ran, ran ran. I had never seen so many Syndicate. Then it turns out some of them you can oneshot, but it was till astounding.

It's perfect for a Katana/SR scrapper.

I love the stories, but I have come across way too many 'Solo only' missions that are Solo in some universe that isn't mine. At level 12, I'm not equipped to handle a spawn of 3 TEST Leaders (3 Lieutenants that do massive damage to me!) and 3x or more of their Minion followers. When did a spawn that size become 'one of those ho hum things any old lowbie can do by themselves'?

I am loving the stories of Praetoria, but I have never been so bloody furiously angry and very unhappy and NOT HAVING FUN in this game before, over anything. And this is repeatedly, mission after mission, that I feel this way.