Yellow Dawn II: The Revenge of Bad Mission Design
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-04-05 17:40 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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You don't "become stronger" by being forced to pick a different AT because the one you're playing on has been marginalized by content that ignores that AT's abilities entirely and completely marginalizes the AT's utility.
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Originally Posted by Gemini_2099
Good post.
Let me add, that, this is what end game is about. Tearing down your AT so you can have the urge to become stronger. |
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In theory, it should push you to chase the new incarnate powers, and grind it out to make your AT strong again.
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Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
You don't "become stronger" by being forced to pick a different AT because the one you're playing on has been marginalized by content that ignores that AT's abilities entirely and completely marginalizes the AT's utility.
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8 man PUG yesterday and we had Marauder down to 33% health or so when time expired.|
Originally Posted by AkuTenshiiZero
Yep.
So how exactly did Marauder's personal legion get past playtesting? Because I hate to break it to you but there is no way that an average 8-man, randomly-selected PUG can deal with this. Call me bitter, but the content after GR has gone from bad to worse. Stacking spawns on top of stacking spawns. I remember when things like this were considdered a bug! |
Tough? Yes. Doable? Also, yes.
The key is the acid temp powers - all you can get. And then work the courtyard spawn of more acid as needed. The learning curve on getting everyone to understand the requirements will be ongoing for a little while.
(note: Try doing it with no level shifted league members. Now that is brutal.)
(And note: completing the trial without ever using any acid is a requirement for the MoLambda. ouch.)
City of Heroes was my first MMO, & my favorite computer game.
R.I.P.
Chyll - Bydand - Violynce - Enyrgos - Rylle - Nephryte - Solyd - Fettyr - Hyposhock - Styrling - Beryllos - Rosyc
Horryd - Myriam - Dysquiet - Ghyr
Vanysh - Eldrytch
Inflyct - Mysron - Orphyn - Dysmay - Reapyr - - Wyldeman - Hydeous
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Yes, because getting one shotted or killed within 5 seconds is sooooo logical and easy to work around. Yes, right, sorry, I should kneel before your eternal wisdom shouldn't I?
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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.
Never mind. Clearly this is different than all the other things that were declared impossible, too hard, or badly designed. Never mind that when all those things were released they were different than the previous too hard/badly designed thing too. Carry on with the doomrage. Don't try and figure out the new tactics that will work with the new stuff, because we should be able to use the exact same tactics for everything. Anything else is bad design. Silly me for not seeing how incredibly logical that is. |
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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There's a new LFG tool that creates random PUGs specifically for these trials. Isn't that a strong suggestion that such teams should be able to handle them?
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Originally Posted by AkuTenshiiZero
I hate to break it to you but there is no way that an average 8-man, randomly-selected PUG can deal with this.
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...
New Webcomic -- Genocide Man
Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass slaughter can be hilarious.
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Yes it is a mixed message being sent out. Reality is it requires massive amount of teamwork, coordination, and leadership with a preformed group.
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Originally Posted by RemusShepherd
There's a new LFG tool that creates random PUGs specifically for these trials. Isn't that a strong suggestion that such teams should be able to handle them?
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I am one for five in this raid. The important thing to remind everyone at the beginning is not to expect a victory. Instead remind them at this point the raid is more about earning I XP and threads and learning. People are less likely to get discouraged.
"I accidently killed Synapse, do we need to restart the mission?" - The Oldest One on Lord Recluses Strike Force
I was only able to run the Lambda Trial for the first time fairly late last night, and our rather large League completed it fairly easily. My Stalker (a Tier 3 Alpha, multi-purple-set build) was defeated only once, against Marauder. We had two Masterminds on the team, and obviously their pet casualties were horrific, but they were still effective, I thought. Of course, several people in the League had already run the Trial several times, and the League Leader is very experienced at leading TFs and Trials. Having a viable strategy and executing it is pretty obviously critical to success.
I don't think this is a bad mission design (and I'm pretty sure I'd feel the same way if we'd failed). I'm not quite ready to state that absolutely, because I'd like to see if alternate strategies work, if a smaller League can pull it off without being all powergamers playing ideal ATs, and so forth. But I found the Trial to be enjoyable, if like so much of our new endgame content, paced so fast as to make roleplay pretty much impossible.
Want a bad mission design? Just look at Apex Mission 2 (and yes, I've completed it, several times). It's a badly designed mission not because it's impossible to complete, but because it's grossly unbalanced in terms of what ATs can do well in it. Because even well-suited ATs are defeated over and over again (nothing makes you feel "super" like being faceplanted repeatedly). Because those flying swords are one of the most profoundly retarded things ever seen in a game.
And - most importantly (and objectively) - because so many of your defeats are essentially random occurrences you have no effective way to prevent. Characters with long, rooted animations are frequently defeated by orbital nanite strikes they have no way to avoid. If you start the attack and at the same time the orbital strike warning displays, on the longer animations, you can't get out of range before the strike hits. A relatively squishy AT will not survive that. Getting defeated because you didn't play your character well enough is fine. Unavoidable random chance defeats? Bad mission design.
"And in this moment, I will not run.
It is my place to stand.
We few shall carry hope
Within our bloodied hands."
The hardest part of these trials is other players. Every single failure I've had so far can be attributed to people not listening to directions.
As soon as people stop with the lone-wolf, "I can handle this myself" attitude pervasive in the rest of PvE, these trials will become easy, and even trivial once we get the additional level shifts.
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I ran Lambda with an 8-man PuG and we got Marauder down to 20% life before we ran out of time. It is possible to do both.
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Originally Posted by Schismatrix
In a sense i agree with you. That is to say that both statements are true, but currently they are not true at the same time.
You can do it with an 8 man team or you can do it with a random PuG, but until more people become familiar with the tactics needed to succeed it's silly to expect to do it with both at once. |
Liberty Server (@enderbean)
Arcs on Live
#1460 Hometown Rivalry
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Just to set things straight, the intent of my post isn't to tell it like it is.|
Originally Posted by brophog02
It is nice to have a redname tell it like it is.
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I want to advise patience for those who may have already "figured it out" and the willingness to listen to those to whom the content is new and still a mystery.
As an anecdotal note, like many of you out there, I've played many MMO's over the years, CoH definitely being one of my favorites, and the PVE experience has always been pretty top notch in this game. The new trials are, IMHO, no exception to this, and simply require time to learn and adjust from us as players in concert with an adequate response to feedback after it's had time to settle in from us as developers (egregious bugs aside obviously).
Andy Belford
Community Manager
Paragon Studios
Heavy Commanders. A *Insert AT that is NOT a Tanker/Scrapper/Brute here*'s worst nightmare.
That is all.
*Actually, no it's not*
I can deal with everything else. Augurs, War Walkers even Commanders and heck, Marauder even (On his own, un-enraged, I imagine he'd be easy.) But Heavy Commander's? My grave has been dug and i'm already in it, they're just stamping on it.
There's no feasible way for me to beat them when i'm being chain KB'd for huge amounts of damage. My only defence is to throw a Smoke Grenade, nom a purple and hope to god that they don't hit me.
Perhaps, when the portals have been closed, reinforcements stop showing up full-stop? Or maybe he summons things other than bosses exclusively. Though I did see a Lieutenant once, when the stars were correctly aligned ..
As I said to some groupies last night "So, to win once, we must fail 25 times?"
Exaggeration, but meh >_>
I was doing some playthroughs of City of Heroes. Now they will serve as memories of a better time ...
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The thing with Pugs is that they are, well, random. You can end up with the best players in the game just as easily as the worst.
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Originally Posted by enderbean
I ran Lambda with an 8-man PuG and we got Marauder down to 20% life before we ran out of time. It is possible to do both.
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"Men strunt �r strunt och snus �r snus
om ock i gyllne dosor.
Och rosor i ett sprucket krus
�r st�ndigt alltid rosor."
Failed my first Lamba today on a PuG. Having experienced it and, now I actually now what to do next time, I'm fairly certain PuGs will routinely ace it within the next 2 weeks. It really isn't all that hard. Especially once people start gathering up extra incarnate powers and level shifts.
@True Metal
Co-leader of Callous Crew SG. Based on Union server.
Yeah, Heavy Commanders seem more than a little broken, with their screen obscuring missiles that seem to be on a, what, 3 second recharge?
The Augars are also horrible, for me, because of Terrorise. Oh look, frozen in place for a good lon- dead.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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Sorry for the brief sidetrack but LRSF does not belong on this list as when it first came out not even the devs who designed it could successfully beat it. LRSF is unique in that it actually had an official stance of too hard to beat when it first came out.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Wow, it's been live for one day and people are already declaring it to be too hard and an example of bad design.
Reminds me very much of: ITF STF LRSF Kahn Barracuda Hamidon Ship Raids Apex Tin Mage Did I miss any? |
Back to the topic at hand. While i haven't run Lambda yet I have run BAF several times. BAF can quickly become overwhelming because of the constant Boss reinforcements, and I really see no point in having the towers there.
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Intent or not, that's exactly what it was.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
Just to set things straight, the intent of my post isn't to tell it like it is.
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Is it me or is gettin' hot in here? 
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It really isn't that hard. It's different, certainly. It some bit of teamwork, certainly. And it takes a lot of perseverance to overcome the fact you don't yet have the incarnate powers.|
Originally Posted by TrueMetal
Failed my first Lamba today on a PuG. Having experienced it and, now I actually now what to do next time, I'm fairly certain PuGs will routinely ace it within the next 2 weeks. It really isn't all that hard. Especially once people start gathering up extra incarnate powers and level shifts.
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But mostly, it takes a positive attitude and a willingness to overcome the inevitable deaths.
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There is no such thing as learn to play, everything has to be easy. I want instant gratification out of this game. I'm paying money so the devs have to give ME what I want. |
Originally Posted by Commander
Doable on beta. It's called "learning how to play" rather than be "spoonfed the same gruel" year after year.
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Virtue: @Santorican
Dark/Shield Build Thread
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I already solo'd the Lambda Sector with Murcielago |
Originally Posted by Zombie Man
It's ITF all over again. Which people are now bragging their duoing and soloing.
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Virtue: @Santorican
Dark/Shield Build Thread
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Patience!? Who has that anymore? |
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Being patient is the most important thing - I ran 7 Trials today, 4 Lambda, 3 BAF, and I'm 0 from 7
 I found it was a good idea to get people to check their Incarnate window so they could see the progress they were making on the new slots, so they wouldn't feel they weren't getting anywhere. I also tried to emphasize that the main thing was to learn how the Trials worked - I think it's more important to work out what to do before you work on actually winning them - like let people see how the prisoners escape, or where the blind spot is to fight the AVs out of the way of the turrets, or the size of the Lambda Sector interrior maps, and how the acid grenades work to stop the reinforcements. Getting people comfortable with what they're doing will help coordination, and it'll also help spread the knowledge to other first time Trial runners. |
Virtue: @Santorican
Dark/Shield Build Thread
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If you want to preach L2P and kill dragons then go this way.---------------->
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Originally Posted by Santorican
There is no such thing as learn to play, everything has to be easy. I want instant gratification out of this game. I'm paying money so the devs have to give ME what I want.
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Yes, well I think have at least. |
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Do you all have a better idea of how the Trials work now?
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I've learned that most of what I've learned over the past few years (what are we at now, almost seven?) that is CoH specific is mostly not applicable, my character's powersets are for the most part irrelevant after the extra buffs the enemy has received in addition to the level modifiers, the build and set bonuses I have spent time and effort planning, buying, respeccing, and slotting barley make a significant difference in my characters' ability to survive and contribute.
Essentially, I am playing a different game and all my past efforts are null. All that matters is practice for two specific encounters, and building up rewards from those two specific encounters so that I can be as effective as the character was with just SOs in normal content.
Yes, Hami has a lot of rules changed involved in order to make it difficult for a large group of people. Hami was also designed so that each AT could take advantage of what makes them special.
Tanks aren't penalized for holding aggro well and a little support from certain buffers types working together goes a long way of making their job easier.
Controllers and Dominators are given a task that they are well suited for, that they are needed for, and not now told the opposite, that their controls are useless against important targets that they would otherwise excel at containing.
Every buff or debuff set can contribute meaningfully against Hami, with the buffs the enemys now have a lot of buffing sets are fairly useless and with the level difference our debuffers won't be nearly as beneficial as they need to be without the level bonuses.
Maybe Recluses's Strike force was harder when it was launched, and it certainly had the same issues with level difference. It did not have stacking ambushes that were crazy powerful until you've done the SF multiple times. It did not have a timer; your team could stand back, regroup, and say "What did we do wrong? What can we try now? How do we make this team work?"
With the stacking ambushes and the timer before you fail you do not have time to stand back and think, you need everyone to already know how to adapt.
The locking hospital doors seem to only make the issue worse when things are going poorly as a good portion of your people are trying to get back out to help the rest of the team that are getting killed outside. People are not going to regroup so easily. We see this whenever things go poorly at a Hami Raid or a ship raid, even when someone is yelling for people to regroup they are going to see people still engaging the enemy and rejoin.
Because everyone will be able to duo or solo BAF or Lambda. You just have it all figured out.
-Gate
@Generator
Mostly Pinnacle, with scattered alts on Liberty, Freedom, and Justice.
I had a great time playing with you!