What would you do to make Keyes fun?

Remmet · 08-25-2011 09:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Supernumiphone

Supposedly it was to encourage people to form up, re-buff, and rejoin the fray en masse. I have never seen that happen in practice. Not once.

Neither have I. In fact, if you just get there as you're getting the "Door will be open in 10 seconds" message, it can be AWFULLY tempting to skip the insp vendor just so you don't miss the door. Seems counterproductive to me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex

The hospital timer is there so that you can't instantly rejoin the event.

Why would that be an issue? You still have to run from the hospital to wherever the action is (which can be a godawful slog if you're during the sabotage phase of the Lambda).

UberGuy · 08-25-2011 09:51 PM

I have hated "respawn gates" in every FPS game that ever had them. I dislike them here. I actually really think the devs thought people would need to rebuff and buy inspirations and stuff - that the pause would help instead of hurt. Like everyone else, I have never seen the delay in getting back into the action help anyone. I have never seen people gather up in the hospital. They just gather up outside, or, much more often, don't bother to regroup at all. If like 1-3 people die such that they're in the hospital at the same time (which is normal unless the whole trial is going to hell), they aren't going to "group together" in any useful way. Even if they tried, there's no guarantee that they are ATs with powersets for whom that's even helpful. Everyone just charges back to the main group.

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Snow Globe · 08-26-2011 01:12 AM

Added the following to the original post:

Okay, yes, there is a counter for the obliteration beam. It gets lost in the interface. I'll revise this request to "there should be a solid (not fuzzy) area for the obliteration beam." There should be an ground to ceiling beam effect showing where the beam is targeting. The Obliteration beam SHOULD NEVER FIRE when Anti-Matter stops time. Antimatter SHOULD NOT STOP TIME when the hold portion of the Obliteration beam's target is being displayed, but not at the "hold" portion (the "run away" bit).

Disintegration beam SHOULD NEVER FIRE when people are being held by the Obliteration beam OR when Anti-Matter stops time.

Alpha and Beta Entanglements should be removed entirely.

Terminals in the power cell phases: Should have a clear aura when they are "locked". Not floating text, a clearly visible aura.

The hospital door timer on the trials. That is simply a failed experiment. It has never done what it was supposed to do: keep players together during the trial.

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TrueMetal · 08-26-2011 02:11 AM

1. I like Keyes. Best trial so far.

2. I'd change something about the whole dragging Keyes around to the terminals. That's kinda tedious and doesn't make a lot of sense to me either.

3. Don't change the damage from the pulse. I like the mechanic. It forces you to stay on the ball and keep an eye on the timer so you can heal/disengage in time instead of just blindly charging in and mopping up the map without thought.

4. Something may be done about the Timestop and the obliteration beam hitting at the same time. It's a ***** when you try to get the badges, and nothing much you can do about it.

Edit: Though not Keyes specific, I'll add my voice to the people advocating the removal of the hospital timers. Never saw the point of it.

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TrueMetal · 08-26-2011 02:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Remmet

Neither have I. In fact, if you just get there as you're getting the "Door will be open in 10 seconds" message, it can be AWFULLY tempting to skip the insp vendor just so you don't miss the door. Seems counterproductive to me.

Exactly. If I have to choose between refilling my supply of greens/purples and being stuck for another 30 seconds or going now with an empty inspiration tray, I'm going now. Nobody likes being left out of the fight.

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TrueMetal · 08-26-2011 02:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snow Globe

Alpha and Beta Entanglements should be removed entirely.

Why? I've never actually seen it be a major problem to someone. All it does is 'force' people to spread out. Something I kinda like. Anything that encourages people to deviate from the standard, stationary 'tank and spank' AV 'tactics' is a plus in my book. It's why I LOVE the Keyes and Apex end battles.

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Garielle · 08-26-2011 02:46 AM

There IS actually a purpose I can see to the hospital timer. Let's say you're having a particularly bad run. People are dropping, hitting the hospital, and running back out. The timer ensures that if the situation is REALLY bad, you at least aren't charging out one at a time, and getting picked off and sent back. Admittedly, this is something that, yes, players should be able to figure out and coordinate on their own, but hey... you know as well as I do, not everyone on a team is all that bright.

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Bad_Influence · 08-26-2011 03:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garielle

There IS actually a purpose I can see to the hospital timer. Let's say you're having a particularly bad run. People are dropping, hitting the hospital, and running back out. The timer ensures that if the situation is REALLY bad, you at least aren't charging out one at a time, and getting picked off and sent back. Admittedly, this is something that, yes, players should be able to figure out and coordinate on their own, but hey... you know as well as I do, not everyone on a team is all that bright.

Never one time seen this work like that. It is particularly brainless on Lambda, where the players are split onto two different maps. You have no real choice but to charge out one at a time, and God help you if you don't have Invisibility - my Fire/kin doesn't, and eventually he just waited inside the facility near the elevators for the exit 'port. I hate debt-farming.

The hospital timer is another thing placed specifically to frustrate players, and for that reason I dislike it. During that 30 seconds my team is getting further and further away; eventually they get too far away to be able to reach. Unless I have Invis.... and most of my people do, but just saying.

As for someone else's comment about shields not helping much on Keyes, my Tank certainly found them useful. He died a lot less than the alt who ran the other Keyes, he was still hurting but it wasn't faceplant, faceplant, faceplant. Ugh.

Techbot Alpha · 08-26-2011 03:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snow Globe

Added the following to the original post:

Okay, yes, there is a counter for the obliteration beam. It gets lost in the interface. I'll revise this request to "there should be a solid (not fuzzy) area for the obliteration beam." There should be an ground to ceiling beam effect showing where the beam is targeting. The Obliteration beam SHOULD NEVER FIRE when Anti-Matter stops time. Antimatter SHOULD NOT STOP TIME when the hold portion of the Obliteration beam's target is being displayed, but not at the "hold" portion (the "run away" bit).

Disintegration beam SHOULD NEVER FIRE when people are being held by the Obliteration beam OR when Anti-Matter stops time.

Alpha and Beta Entanglements should be removed entirely.

Terminals in the power cell phases: Should have a clear aura when they are "locked". Not floating text, a clearly visible aura.

The hospital door timer on the trials. That is simply a failed experiment. It has never done what it was supposed to do: keep players together during the trial.

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rsclark · 08-26-2011 05:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by UberGuy

I figure something is wrong if I have to use more than 5. I'm often the person with the grenades, so I actually do have a sense of how many are used.

Acid and grenades are used differently. Not using many grenades means you kill him quickly. Not using many acids means that everyone on the league can handle surplus aggro.

How many of each of those that you need are very different questions.

And it's an important difference. Killing him slowly vs quickly can mean you have a better chance of failure, but everyone still gets a try at it. Letting more adds run wild when some people on the league can't handle it is less fun for those players even if the rest of the group can handle killing Marauder on their own. What is fun for more people doesn't translate directly to what is more likely to generate success.

UberGuy · 08-26-2011 07:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garielle

There IS actually a purpose I can see to the hospital timer. Let's say you're having a particularly bad run. People are dropping, hitting the hospital, and running back out. The timer ensures that if the situation is REALLY bad, you at least aren't charging out one at a time, and getting picked off and sent back. Admittedly, this is something that, yes, players should be able to figure out and coordinate on their own, but hey... you know as well as I do, not everyone on a team is all that bright.

I've never seen it achieve that. Ever. Even on really horrible, failing trials where everyone was dying a lot.

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UberGuy · 08-26-2011 07:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rsclark

Acid and grenades are used differently. Not using many grenades means you kill him quickly. Not using many acids means that everyone on the league can handle surplus aggro.

How many of each of those that you need are very different questions.

I was pretty sure we were talking about grenades. I don't know of anyone who refers to acids as "grenades", so ... I'm not sure what led to the above.

I prefer to see all the acids used, at least once 30 IDF have been defeated.* I don't try to gauge how many acids we need to use based on how the league is performing - I want as many used as possible. In practice sometimes people don't use as many of them as I'd like, and that can definitely make a Lambda harder. However, that doesn't happen a lot on Lambdas I attend (whether I lead them or not).

* When I lead, I ask the league to wait without using any acids for about 90 seconds so IDF can collect. Then we buff up, run in, and AoE the hell out of them. That usually gets us 20-30 IDF defeats right off the bat. I ask for acids to be used after about 25 IDF defeats. This approach is a bad plan if you lack sufficient numbers of Judgements or other strong AoEs and/or don't have enough level-shifts in the league - that can lead to unrecoverable failure if you let too many IDF collect. I have only experienced this particular failure once.

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Liquid · 08-26-2011 08:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TrueMetal

Why? I've never actually seen it be a major problem to someone. All it does is 'force' people to spread out. Something I kinda like. Anything that encourages people to deviate from the standard, stationary 'tank and spank' AV 'tactics' is a plus in my book. It's why I LOVE the Keyes and Apex end battles.

While I'm not advocating removing Entanglements (they're not difficult to deal with, and I think it's an interesting addition to the fight), "forcing" people to spread out is a straight-up penalty for playing a melee character.

I'm not a fan of tank and spank either, but melee characters in this game are designed around it. If you can't be standing next to the target, DPS goes down dramatically (or stops entirely if they don't have a ranged attack), and some defensive sets even lose a significant chunk of their survivability. But more importantly, these new gimmicks that require moving away from the target force melee-only characters to sit out of the fight until the gimmick is finished. Ranged characters just step away and keep contributing with their ranged powers.

Whenever they use these gimmicks, there needs to be something else that melee characters can do during them--something important so that they don't feel like they're not contributing to the fight. Apex at least has the floating swords. Keyes has nothing. I love the general feel of the final fight with Anti-Matter, but playing melee in it isn't very fun.

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UberGuy · 08-26-2011 09:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Liquid

Whenever they use these gimmicks, there needs to be something else that melee characters can do during them--something important so that they don't feel like they're not contributing to the fight. Apex at least has the floating swords. Keyes has nothing. I love the general feel of the final fight with Anti-Matter, but playing melee in it isn't very fun.

There are two problems with this in Keyes, IMO. One is, as you mention, the total lack of any other target. If you get sequestration warnings in the BAF, you can usually fight reinforcements. If Marauder is about to Nova Fist, you only have to back away for a few seconds.

The other problem is that the fight already has plenty of stuff that makes you want to move around, and moving around in this case often means moving away from AM. He has his atomic blast you want to move away from (Nova Fist like ability), plus the Obliteration beam (kind of a cross between BM's nanite strikes and sequestration). The blast is clearly centered on AM, so the whole point is to move away. The Obliteration beam is going to target someone in the fight, and if there are a lot of melees clustered around him, or even melee-centric support powersets like Kinetics - the Obliteration beam is likely to overlap AM's position, again forcing melee to move away. Now on top of this, odds are melee are going to need to move away from one another to avoid entanglement - clearly at odds with the notion of collecting on AM to beat on him in melee range.

So that's at least three things a melee has to react to, all of which frequently mean you have to disengage in melee. All a ranged attacker has to do is reposition and resume fire.

Again, my objection to the end fight comes down to the AV having too many gimmicky toys. There are other ways to challenge the players than to stack all these toys on a single critter. If I had to disengage the AV because something else was there to fight, that would keep me in the game. "Go stand over there until this threat passes" isn't very enjoyable.

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Eva Destruction · 08-26-2011 09:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TrueMetal

Why? I've never actually seen it be a major problem to someone. All it does is 'force' people to spread out. Something I kinda like. Anything that encourages people to deviate from the standard, stationary 'tank and spank' AV 'tactics' is a plus in my book. It's why I LOVE the Keyes and Apex end battles.

Except it doesn't force people to spread out. People just ignore it. Given the choice between ignoring it and moving away on my Scrapper with no ranged attacks, guess what I'm going to do. Since ignoring it has yet to get me killed, I'm going to continue ignoring it, as does pretty much everyone else from what I've seen. So why have it at all, if people keep ignoring it?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bad_Influence

As for someone else's comment about shields not helping much on Keyes, my Tank certainly found them useful. He died a lot less than the alt who ran the other Keyes, he was still hurting but it wasn't faceplant, faceplant, faceplant. Ugh.

Well yeah, they help against the enemies, but not against the pulse. Your complaint was specifically that the pulse is unfair to squishies with no shields. My point is that it penalizes everyone equally.

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Lazarillo · 08-26-2011 11:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Liquid

Whenever they use these gimmicks, there needs to be something else that melee characters can do during them--something important so that they don't feel like they're not contributing to the fight. Apex at least has the floating swords. Keyes has nothing. I love the general feel of the final fight with Anti-Matter, but playing melee in it isn't very fun.

I wonder if they could change it so that Anti-Matter's recharge stations could be damaged before he starts using them? Maybe make it so they couldn't be outright destroyed beforehand, but brought down to 1 HP, or the like, so that he at least gets some power from them, but this way, melee fighters could divide and conquer to keep Anti-Matter from healing himself back as much.

Snow Globe · 08-26-2011 11:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TrueMetal

Why? I've never actually seen it be a major problem to someone. All it does is 'force' people to spread out. Something I kinda like. Anything that encourages people to deviate from the standard, stationary 'tank and spank' AV 'tactics' is a plus in my book. It's why I LOVE the Keyes and Apex end battles.

The entanglements "purpose" is already been taken care of by the obliteration beam. They don't serve the purpose you, or apparently the developers, think it does. People ignore the entanglements entirely. Antimatter is a ranged attacker, which is already a detriment to melee characters.

What Entanglements should have been:

After fighting through the reactors the players pick up a charge (positive/alpha or negative/beta).
During the final fight Anti-Matter can control HIS charge to be Alpha or Beta.
- If he has an Alpha charge those close to him with an Alpha charge are debuffed/damaged while those with a Beta charge are BUFFED/have their Regen increased.
- If he has an Beta charge those those close to him with a Beta charge are debuffed/damaged while those with an Alpha charge are BUFFED/have their Regen increased.

That would be nearly the same effect you are describing (forcing players to shift) but a far more interesting mechanic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garielle

There IS actually a purpose I can see to the hospital timer. Let's say you're having a particularly bad run. People are dropping, hitting the hospital, and running back out. The timer ensures that if the situation is REALLY bad, you at least aren't charging out one at a time, and getting picked off and sent back. Admittedly, this is something that, yes, players should be able to figure out and coordinate on their own, but hey... you know as well as I do, not everyone on a team is all that bright.

Some players have been dealing with the hospital door lock for almost a full year at this point (3rd week September 2010).

For BAF the rez point used to be where you zoned in. Except that you were frozen/held for the timer length, and the endless stream of adds jumped the wall to kill helpless players.

It was then changed to a protected zone, but players were still held for the 30 seconds.

Then it was moved to a locked door while players could start toggles and go to the insp vendor.

The problem is that instead of forcing players to assemble together, what it does is prompt players to get out of the hospital as fast as they can so that they aren't stuck for when the league tries to regroup. Only the adds build up so fast that some of those regrouping are killed off and it just cascades. The other issue is that if there are a dozen or more players at the door, you might not be able to click the door fast enough and get caught for another cycle.

Any way you go about it, the hospital doors don't serve the purpose that claim to provide players. On the other hand, it DOES serve the developer's purpose: it prevents a zerg rush of players vs the critters.

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Necrotech_Master · 08-26-2011 11:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eva Destruction

Except it doesn't force people to spread out. People just ignore it. Given the choice between ignoring it and moving away on my Scrapper with no ranged attacks, guess what I'm going to do. Since ignoring it has yet to get me killed, I'm going to continue ignoring it, as does pretty much everyone else from what I've seen. So why have it at all, if people keep ignoring it?

i usually do this as well, the debuffs/DoT from entanglement is so minimal it would take a whole league worth of poeple to do noticeable amounts, the most entanglement debuffs ive ever had at once was 3 maybe 4 and since the one melee toon i ran keyes on has ageless for debuff resistance, it did basically nothing

i only advocate removing entanglements not because its too gimmicky or whatnot, but because its pointless and does essentially nothing except add screen clutter (popups on scrren shouting entanglement shift and a timer till next entanglement shift is just so much extra clutter)

Snow Globe · 08-26-2011 11:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Necrotech_Master

i only advocate removing entanglements not because its too gimmicky or whatnot, but because its pointless and does essentially nothing except add screen clutter (popups on scrren shouting entanglement shift and a timer till next entanglement shift is just so much extra clutter)

It also adds to Anti-Matter's "Mary Sue" status.

Yes, he is using a Tier 4 Omega power.

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Necrotech_Master · 08-26-2011 11:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snow Globe

It also adds to Anti-Matter's "Mary Sue" status.

Yes, he is using a Tier 4 Omega power.

the only thing i find wrong with that is it says your frozen in place (which it clearly doesnt lol)

Snow Globe · 08-26-2011 11:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Necrotech_Master

the only thing i find wrong with that is it says your frozen in place (which it clearly doesnt lol)

Yeah. However, it would be impossible to get Avoids the Green Stuff badge though.

But seriously, just how much evidence do we need that Anti-Matter is a Mary Sue? The amount of gimmicks in this trial is bordering on the ludicrous. It is like they took a dozen pages out of Grimtooth's Dungeon and tried to get as many deathtraps in the trial.

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Arcanaville · 08-26-2011 11:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garielle

There IS actually a purpose I can see to the hospital timer. Let's say you're having a particularly bad run. People are dropping, hitting the hospital, and running back out. The timer ensures that if the situation is REALLY bad, you at least aren't charging out one at a time, and getting picked off and sent back. Admittedly, this is something that, yes, players should be able to figure out and coordinate on their own, but hey... you know as well as I do, not everyone on a team is all that bright.

That definitely makes sense in Lambda. It only sometimes makes sense in BAF. I'm not sure it ever makes sense in Keyes. About the only thing the hospital timer encourages in Keyes that I think is useful is it encourages players to say "well, since I have to wait anyway, maybe I should buy some of those green things that are saving everyone else's life since there's a store for them right over there."

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Arcanaville · 08-26-2011 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snow Globe

It also adds to Anti-Matter's "Mary Sue"

Its hard for me to give Antimatter Mary Sue status when the dude a) nearly always loses and b) is someone we actually have to sort of protect during the trial to prevent from failing.

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Lazarillo · 08-26-2011 11:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

About the only thing the hospital timer encourages in Keyes that I think is useful is it encourages players to say "well, since I have to wait anyway, maybe I should buy some of those green things that are saving everyone else's life since there's a store for them right over there."

Depends on the timing. Sometimes it might work the way you described. The rest of the time, it encourages players to completely ignore buyi--crap! The door! Gotta get out before it locks!

enderbean · 08-26-2011 12:02 PM

Personally I HATE the door timer on all of the trials. I don't think it has a purpose beyond annoying those stuck behind it. And the fact that you earn no ixp while in the hospital only makes me hate it more.

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