Tip mission difficulty
By
Aquila_NA,
Posted on: 2010-08-27 05:15 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
Mmm...
I tend to agree there are some kind of mob creation issues with tips. I had set my difficulty to -1/x0 /No Bosses/No AVs for my Emp/Psi Defender to Solo through. My build is more directed for group support, so I knew I was in for long tedious shooting-fests with minions and lts.
There is a mission where I am supposed to steal some weapons and defeat a Crey leader; I done it with my Shield/Electric tanker and was hard pressed to get more than 4 Crey tanks to pull together for a mass grave in the entire area with same settings; but when I went in with my defender, OMG! The very entrance it had 8 Crey tanks, a mix of LTs, Minions and "bosses". Needless to say I was very angry at this. Come on! My melee which is built for that could not get a foruth as many mobs, and my pathetic Defender with ultra nurfed damage and no protections get that kind of a load? Come-On!!!! I was able with my Defender to defeat all 8 Crey Tanks at a time, I do build good Defenders, my 4-6 billion build paid off on this one, but it was a long and needless battle.
I can see a problem with the ambushes, since they are likely pre-wired; but not sure its a problem onto itself.
Hugs
Stormy
I ran the villain tip this morning where you take advantage of Boco's portal to the etheral plane. It spawned a bunch of ambushes very quickly as well (10 seconds apart sounds about right). Luckily on my stalker I was able to stand behind a wall and defeat them one after the other as they arrived but I can believe it would be a problem for support AT's, especially since they were personal ambushes (hide wasn't working).
The spawns themselves seemed fine in that mission - all minions and lieutenants until the final boss. However a previous mission spawned a lot of them. One particularly memorable spawn was a +1 Wailer queen with two +1 DE devoured bosses (red-con). Again, I was on my stalker so it wasn't a big deal and I AM set to allow bosses so I didn't think too much of it, but that would have been a frightening encounter with any support AT or even my dom if it is truly ignoring the boss setting.
Edit: That stalker is set for +0/x1 allow bosses but not AV's while running tips
Mmmm...
Is it me, or a case of "switcheroo" going on here as well?
I was doing a TIP and had to take on the Carnival of Shadows, they are tough, but my Emp/Psi Defender needed the tip...
I was set to Defender standard, -1/x1/No and No.
I must admit, this time I encountered no boses, but did I not?
I find myself fighting Illusionist Masters posing as LTs, yet they had the full power sets of a a normal Illusionist Master which frankly are bosses. I feel kinda like someone is pulling a fast one on me or something, its kinda annoying to be forced to fight a mis-labeled boss and received the goodies of a LT, kinda adding insult over injury.
I do confess, this is a no big deal at all when I play my melee alts, their resistance to the spam Status effect attacks is a given, something my Defender (by developer design) is made to be absolutely vulnerable to.
Also I have encountered LTs that are frankly much tougher than the "normal" LT I encounter on the streets, I know my blaster can kill an equal level LT with her snipe enhanced with aim and build-up in a single shot; that does not happen within TIP missions. I am not sure, this is a problem for high damage alts, but for low damage ATs such as Defenders can be, it is.
Hugs
Stormy
Sounds like a mild borking of the normal "No bosses" code: When the game rolls a boss (or there's one set to appear in a mission), it downgrades them to a Lt version of the same type - less HP, resistance, defenses, but other than that IDENTICAL to the boss.
Now, in a mission, if the mission is written to generate a hostage-spawn including a boss of a particular type (Master Illusionist, say), then with "No Bosses", you're guaranteed to get the Lt MI.
Outdoors, though... that's a little weird.
The true point, though, is that a -1/x1/No/No character shouldn't ever get a Boss rolled by the spawn generator, so except for unique spawns, you should not be coming across Lt-rank Bosses.
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; Techbot_Alpha: Also, what Shadowe said. It seems he is still somewhat wise 
; Bull Throttle: Shadowe was unwise in this instance...; Rock_Powerfist: in this instance Shadowe is wise.; Techbot_Alpha: Shadowe is very wise *nods*; Zortel: *Quotable line about Shadowe being wise goes here.* Also the reverse is happening.. Set at +0 x1 No Longbow nullifiers
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I've done the "Save Black Panther 952" twice, and won't do it again. After the second time I /bug'd it, and even stated in the bug report that because of this problem I will Dismiss that tip every time I receive it in the future. Had this been any group but Malta it probably wouldn't have been so bad, but on my last attempt I had 5 sappers pretty much making it impossible to do anything.
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huh? i ran all my tip missions to get to vigilante, then to get to villain, all solo at -1, by just super speed or super jump to the mission objective, and got them all done in just a few minutes each.|
Originally Posted by Tatmia
I've been running tip missions almost exclusively since launch date. I'm finding issues similar to what some players are experiencing in Praetoria. I'm trying to determine if these issues are with the missions themselves or with something less apparent.
1) "No Bosses" settings not being respected. I thought this was based upon enemy factions as I was only experiencing it with Malta and DE. I first noticed this with my controller and I figured that I had not noticed this with other characters because they were able to handle two or three bosses in a group. However, last night my DE missions on my scrapper did not have any bosses. I'm hoping to get the same mission on a scrapper and that controller this weekend so that I can determine if it has something to do with the level of the enemies, group size, etc. 2) "Save Black Panther 952" This mission spawns ambushes right on top of each other. My third time running it now, the waves come one right after another (it almost looks like a 30 second timer, I hope to time it next time). Even if your character is dead, you'll see text along the line of "you've put up a good fight, but now it's time to put you down" and another wave appears. I watched 5 waves pile on top of each other two days ago. Has anyone run this mission and not experienced these waves? Again, I'm wondering if it's a bug with the mission, or something more subtle and difficult to pinpoint. Edit - kindly, the mission reset in the short time that I was typing this. So, I was able to time the waves on "Save Black Panther", they are every 10 seconds for a total of 5 waves in less than a minute. I'm currently set at -1/3+, no bosses. |
difficulty? i say its its super easy.
I've noticed all the same things Tatmia.
I had to turn down my difficulty to -1x1 in order to stop getting DE bosses, and I absolutely HATE that black panther mission.
The ambushes are much too fast and the sappers(very difficult for a peacebringer who only specced into form powers) guarantee my death. The ambushes notice me as soon as I reenter from the hospital as well, no matter where on the map they are.
I'm also not fond of how common carnies and their master illusionists are. Those phantasms and decoy phantasms should disappear when the master illusionist goes down, like player pets, but they don't.
I'm just very very glad I haven't had a rescue with a malta ambush after me. That would fail the mission with a sapper sealing my fate.
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Except that the goal of the "Save Black Panther 952!" mission is to kill the malta leader who spawns in the last ambush. You are forced to face the insanity.|
Originally Posted by roodawg
huh? i ran all my tip missions to get to vigilante, then to get to villain, all solo at -1, by just super speed or super jump to the mission objective, and got them all done in just a few minutes each.
difficulty? i say its its super easy. |
It's definitely not fun at all. I hope to never ever get it again and will dismiss it and spend an hour searching for another tip if I have to.
I'm also tempted to ditch a couple other tip missions because of certain messes, like Master Illusionists and their literal army of pets that don't die with them.
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ya if i would have gotten a mish i couldnt complete, i would have dismissed it too and got another, i wouldnt come to the forums to cry about it like the OP!|
Originally Posted by T_Immortalus
Except that the goal of the "Save Black Panther 952!" mission is to kill the malta leader who spawns in the last ambush. You are forced to face the insanity.
It's definitely not fun at all. I hope to never ever get it again and will dismiss it and spend an hour searching for another tip if I have to. I'm also tempted to ditch a couple other tip missions because of certain messes, like Master Illusionists and their literal army of pets that don't die with them. |
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It's a pretty fun mission in a team, really, if only for the chaos and insanity. I concur it's not much fun solo though.
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Originally Posted by T_Immortalus
Except that the goal of the "Save Black Panther 952!" mission is to kill the malta leader who spawns in the last ambush. You are forced to face the insanity.
It's definitely not fun at all. I hope to never ever get it again and will dismiss it and spend an hour searching for another tip if I have to. I'm also tempted to ditch a couple other tip missions because of certain messes, like Master Illusionists and their literal army of pets that don't die with them. |
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I've had occasional problems with Bosses showing up in Tip missions set to "No Bosses.". I try to bug them when they appear, but I haven't found any pattern behind it yet.|
Originally Posted by Tatmia
I've been running tip missions almost exclusively since launch date. I'm finding issues similar to what some players are experiencing in Praetoria. I'm trying to determine if these issues are with the missions themselves or with something less apparent.
1) "No Bosses" settings not being respected. I thought this was based upon enemy factions as I was only experiencing it with Malta and DE. I first noticed this with my controller and I figured that I had not noticed this with other characters because they were able to handle two or three bosses in a group. However, last night my DE missions on my scrapper did not have any bosses. I'm hoping to get the same mission on a scrapper and that controller this weekend so that I can determine if it has something to do with the level of the enemies, group size, etc. |
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2) "Save Black Panther 952" This mission spawns ambushes right on top of each other. My third time running it now, the waves come one right after another (it almost looks like a 30 second timer, I hope to time it next time). Even if your character is dead, you'll see text along the line of "you've put up a good fight, but now it's time to put you down" and another wave appears. I watched 5 waves pile on top of each other two days ago. Has anyone run this mission and not experienced these waves? Again, I'm wondering if it's a bug with the mission, or something more subtle and difficult to pinpoint. Edit - kindly, the mission reset in the short time that I was typing this. So, I was able to time the waves on "Save Black Panther", they are every 10 seconds for a total of 5 waves in less than a minute. I'm currently set at -1/3+, no bosses. |
On another note, though, I think the biggest problem with the difficult of the Tip missions has to do with the frequency with which we fight enemies with "our" power sets. Between our mysterious duplicates and the Rogues Gallery (Blast Furnace, the Silent Blade et al), we fight a lot of people with devastating attacks and/or god-mode powers. It's gotten to be really annoying for me.
-D
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Half the game would be filled with unfun horrible missions then if everybody just said "whatever" and moved on without alerting anyone to an issue.|
Originally Posted by roodawg
ya if i would have gotten a mish i couldnt complete, i would have dismissed it too and got another, i wouldnt come to the forums to cry about it like the OP!
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If you don't care about the game enough to complain about it's problems then the game will become a piece of crap that you won't care about at all.
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1) Now that you mention it, I have noticed one syndicate mission where two ambushes spawn immediately after exiting an elevator when they should be more spread out than 10 seconds.|
Originally Posted by Darkonne
This problem seems to be pretty widespread: successive ambushes will spawn one after the other very rapidly. It happens all the time in Praetoria, and it's happened every time I've tried to save Black Panther. Given that every wave seems to have a Sapper in it, it's a serious impediment to the playability of that mission.
On another note, though, I think the biggest problem with the difficult of the Tip missions has to do with the frequency with which we fight enemies with "our" power sets. Between our mysterious duplicates and the Rogues Gallery (Blast Furnace, the Silent Blade et al), we fight a lot of people with devastating attacks and/or god-mode powers. It's gotten to be really annoying for me. -D |
I believe it was the one where you are after Octavian, but I'm not sure.
2) I tend to not have an issue with them copying my power sets because they usually get the suboptimal powers and aren't as well buffed/enhanced. I do have an issue with some like my PB where they get the energy form or intangible or whatever power and seem to freeze up. It makes them hard to talk to and finish the mission like when tryign to clear my name after facing Silent Blade.
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Yeah, I think the spawning is borked. It's not consistently bad but, when it's bad, it's REALLY bad. I was doing that mission (solo) and the first ambush had a Sapper. Okay, that's reasonable. The second ambush had a Sapper. That's a little annoying. The third ambush was TWO SAPPERS. All we need next is a mission where every spawn is all Sappers. |
Originally Posted by Ssyrie
I've done the "Save Black Panther 952" twice, and won't do it again. After the second time I /bug'd it, and even stated in the bug report that because of this problem I will Dismiss that tip every time I receive it in the future. Had this been any group but Malta it probably wouldn't have been so bad, but on my last attempt I had 5 sappers pretty much making it impossible to do anything.
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I don't know about specific tip missions, but I'm still wondering why my character that runs radios/contact missions with ease at -1/8 is getting annihilated at -1/4. I barely am able to get my Lightning Rod activated before I'm eating dirt.
Seems to me teh difficulty in Tips is majorly borked.
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Well, all sappers wouldn't be as bad. They're not so hard when it's just their powers affectign you. Yes, they drain, but they don't do much damage.|
Originally Posted by Ironblade
Yeah, I think the spawning is borked. It's not consistently bad but, when it's bad, it's REALLY bad. I was doing that mission (solo) and the first ambush had a Sapper. Okay, that's reasonable. The second ambush had a Sapper. That's a little annoying. The third ambush was TWO SAPPERS. All we need next is a mission where every spawn is all Sappers.
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They're aggravating alone and infuriating when they have friends.
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I've run into the "multiple sapper" fast-spawning ambushes a few times, too. They're not what I would call a fun time with my Willpower types. In fact, they're a royal pain in the rump.|
Originally Posted by Ironblade
Yeah, I think the spawning is borked. It's not consistently bad but, when it's bad, it's REALLY bad. I was doing that mission (solo) and the first ambush had a Sapper. Okay, that's reasonable. The second ambush had a Sapper. That's a little annoying. The third ambush was TWO SAPPERS. All we need next is a mission where every spawn is all Sappers.
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NPCs ambushes that are character rather than location targeted also seem to be holding aggro in odd ways. Typically when you exit the map (Either via the door or a trip to the hospital-) they'll have lost interest in you when you re-enter. Not all of the ambushes in the tip missions are doing that.
So far, Shock Treatment in the "Really Bizarre Rumors" mission has been the most consistantly bad about it. I've been testing it with my KinMelee Stalker every time the mission comes up and so far, Shocky has never failed to maintain aggro on her. As soon as I re-enter the map after leaving, she'll come right back at me, even if I've given her enough time to reset to her ambush starting point. Other ambush groups and individual NPCs have behaved similarly, though not as consistantly.
At this point, I'm wondering if that's actually a bug in Shock Treatment's case, or if for that particular NPC it's working exactly as intended. She's a bit of a monster for those of us who live and die by our toggles, and that just makes her even worse. 0_o
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Reading NPC dialog from that mission makes me think it is WAI:|
Originally Posted by Ironblade
Yeah, I think the spawning is borked. It's not consistently bad but, when it's bad, it's REALLY bad. I was doing that mission (solo) and the first ambush had a Sapper. Okay, that's reasonable. The second ambush had a Sapper. That's a little annoying. The third ambush was TWO SAPPERS. All we need next is a mission where every spawn is all Sappers.
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09-04-2010 22:43:28 [NPC] Operation Engineer: We've breached the base! Move! 09-04-2010 22:43:29 [NPC] Operation Engineer: We've found some resistance, alert the rest of the teams! Bring the Sappers! 09-04-2010 22:43:47 [NPC] Operation Engineer: Charlie Team has arrived! 09-04-2010 22:44:06 [NPC] Sapper: Move move move! 09-04-2010 22:44:25 [NPC] Operation Engineer: We've got multiple MHIs! Identified as Hellmeister and Frostfire! 09-04-2010 22:44:44 [NPC] Operation Engineer: Hit them with everything! EVERYTHING! 09-04-2010 22:45:03 [NPC] Sapper: Initial team is down, I repeat, the initial team is down! 09-04-2010 22:45:23 [NPC] Sapper: Blackhawk 5-X is nearly here, put down Hellmeister! 09-04-2010 22:45:42 [NPC] Sapper: Overwhelm them! 09-04-2010 22:46:01 [NPC] Operation Engineer: Set them up for Agent Blackhawk! 09-04-2010 22:46:20 [NPC] Blackhawk 5-X: Hellmeister, you've put up a good fight. But now it's time to put you down! 09-04-2010 22:46:26 [NPC] Blackhawk 5-X: Do you think Malta is afraid of you, Hellmeister? Malta fears no one! 09-04-2010 22:46:30 [NPC] Blackhawk 5-X: We don't take traitors lightly. Especially not ones within our higher ranks. 09-04-2010 22:46:33 [NPC] Blackhawk 5-X: You helping him will only lead to more destruction! Your kind never considers that! 09-04-2010 22:46:35 [NPC] Blackhawk 5-X: I won't be beaten here by someone like you! 09-04-2010 22:46:39 [NPC] Blackhawk 5-X: No...!
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Well then hopefully the devs are keeping track on which tip missions get abandoned. That way if they see this mission getting dropped more than all other tip missions combined, they'll do something about it.
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Originally Posted by NordBlast
Reading NPC dialog from that mission makes me think it is WAI:
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I just got this mish on my soft capped BS/Shield scrapper. Dif set to 0/1 and in about 30 seconds I had about 15 Malta on me, in 60 seconds I'd faceplanted thanks to FOUR sappers (that I SAW; there could well have been more) and I didn't even count how many other mobs. In fact, I saw at least two more ambush spawns charge in while I was face down before I used the base rez.|
Originally Posted by Ssyrie
Well then hopefully the devs are keeping track on which tip missions get abandoned. That way if they see this mission getting dropped more than all other tip missions combined, they'll do something about it.
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This is a character who normally cruises through +2/8 missions of pretty much anything including the occasional Arachnos or Malta mission. After all, typically I only have to deal with, at most, one sapper per Malta spawn and my 45% def is more than up to the task. Four of them at once however and they're entirely too likely to get lucky and when the end bottomed out so did I almost instantly.
It's a broken mission where my best solo character has massive problems on a mission set to the base difficulty level. I wouldn't even consider trying this on my squishy characters, it would be completely pointless.
COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
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Why wouldn't you use Frostfire as a meatshield? He hits them pretty hard. I've done this mission multiple times on my bane without any problems. Well, YMMV.
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Originally Posted by Call Me Awesome
I just got this mish on my soft capped BS/Shield scrapper. Dif set to 0/1 and in about 30 seconds I had about 15 Malta on me, in 60 seconds I'd faceplanted thanks to FOUR sappers (that I SAW; there could well have been more) and I didn't even count how many other mobs. In fact, I saw at least two more ambush spawns charge in while I was face down before I used the base rez.
This is a character who normally cruises through +2/8 missions of pretty much anything including the occasional Arachnos or Malta mission. After all, typically I only have to deal with, at most, one sapper per Malta spawn and my 45% def is more than up to the task. Four of them at once however and they're entirely too likely to get lucky and when the end bottomed out so did I almost instantly. It's a broken mission where my best solo character has massive problems on a mission set to the base difficulty level. I wouldn't even consider trying this on my squishy characters, it would be completely pointless. |
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At that setting, I am... sort of. The DE Devoured spawn as Lieutenants, with Lieutenant hit points and all, but they have Boss class (at least) magnitude of resistance to controls. Normally, that scales down, too.|
Originally Posted by Shadowe
The true point, though, is that a -1/x1/No/No character shouldn't ever get a Boss rolled by the spawn generator, so except for unique spawns, you should not be coming across Lt-rank Bosses.
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The other thing that someone brought up somewhere, and that I've confirmed as being odd from the combat logs, is that these DE Devoureds tend to have much greater chance to hit than they should. something on the order of 75% or so, which is EB/AV territory. I'm wondering if they maybe were supposed to be EBs initially, then got scaled back, but not quite all the way to normal Boss.
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I had the exact same thing happen on that mission. Five ambushes and each one had a Sapper in it. I will credit my SoA Crab's resolve, and my pets, when i came back from the hospital only 3 Malta were left to defeat and not one was a Sapper but I have dismissed that same tip mission twice since.. NO WAY I want to deal with that mess again.
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Originally Posted by Ssyrie
I've done the "Save Black Panther 952" twice, and won't do it again. After the second time I /bug'd it, and even stated in the bug report that because of this problem I will Dismiss that tip every time I receive it in the future. Had this been any group but Malta it probably wouldn't have been so bad, but on my last attempt I had 5 sappers pretty much making it impossible to do anything.
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I've been running tip missions almost exclusively since launch date. I'm finding issues similar to what some players are experiencing in Praetoria. I'm trying to determine if these issues are with the missions themselves or with something less apparent.
1) "No Bosses" settings not being respected. I thought this was based upon enemy factions as I was only experiencing it with Malta and DE. I first noticed this with my controller and I figured that I had not noticed this with other characters because they were able to handle two or three bosses in a group. However, last night my DE missions on my scrapper did not have any bosses.
I'm hoping to get the same mission on a scrapper and that controller this weekend so that I can determine if it has something to do with the level of the enemies, group size, etc.
2) "Save Black Panther 952" This mission spawns ambushes right on top of each other. My third time running it now, the waves come one right after another (it almost looks like a 30 second timer, I hope to time it next time). Even if your character is dead, you'll see text along the line of "you've put up a good fight, but now it's time to put you down" and another wave appears. I watched 5 waves pile on top of each other two days ago.
Has anyone run this mission and not experienced these waves? Again, I'm wondering if it's a bug with the mission, or something more subtle and difficult to pinpoint.
Edit - kindly, the mission reset in the short time that I was typing this. So, I was able to time the waves on "Save Black Panther", they are every 10 seconds for a total of 5 waves in less than a minute. I'm currently set at -1/3+, no bosses.
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