Resistance in Maria Jenkins missions are Broken
All Resistance members, Minion and upwards, all have the Mind-washed Confusion effect from the BAF iTrial.
As if that wasn't bugged enough, where the hell do these guys get off having stealth that they can attack you from without revealing themselves? NO other mob in the game does that! That's not a challenge, that's 'have a power with +Perc or tons of yellows or get ready for an exercise in frustration'. Just gives me another reason to hate iTrials; they break bloody normal content too! |
I distinctly remember getting affected by it in non-BAF missions before.
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All Resistance members, Minion and upwards, all have the Mind-washed Confusion effect from the BAF iTrial.
As if that wasn't bugged enough, where the hell do these guys get off having stealth that they can attack you from without revealing themselves? NO other mob in the game does that! That's not a challenge, that's 'have a power with +Perc or tons of yellows or get ready for an exercise in frustration'. Just gives me another reason to hate iTrials; they break bloody normal content too! |
I've been hearing that high-level Primal DE have higher ToHit values like their Praetorian counterparts...
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I don't think anyone knows why.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
They've been like this since day one of i18, well before the trials started showing up with them. And yes, it's damn annoying. But sadly, it seems they're meant to work this way; it has nothing to do with bleeding from the Incarnate raids.
Ok, so a character without any +Perception and any Confuse protection (which I was amazed to find an Invul Tanker DOESN'T have) is basically going to get taken to town by these guys, even on +0 x1 simply because they cannot see them long enough to do reliable damage!
Sure, I didn't because an Invul tank at level 47 is still redonkulously tough, but this is taking the cake! This is WORSE than KoA and Malta levels of annoying. I mean, really? EVERY minion having cloaking field and targetting drone? That's not even cloaking field, because I DAMN well know my Deviced Blaster can't get that level of stealth even with Smoke Grenade! These guys were shooting at me and not coming out of stealth. I could see the blasts, and the damage, but not them. Even the ever annoying Night Widows can't do that, even with smoke grenade; they hit you, and you can see them again.
I call serious shenanigans if this is, for some brain dead and derptarded reason, supposed to be working as intended.
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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I call serious shenanigans if this is, for some brain dead and derptarded reason, supposed to be working as intended.
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I am not a fan either, but there it is.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
All Resistance members, Minion and upwards, all have the Mind-washed Confusion effect from the BAF iTrial.
As if that wasn't bugged enough, where the hell do these guys get off having stealth that they can attack you from without revealing themselves? NO other mob in the game does that! That's not a challenge, that's 'have a power with +Perc or tons of yellows or get ready for an exercise in frustration'. |
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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That missions always annoys me. They need to fix it.
Wow so YES it has been a while since I portal jockeyed a toon of mine but just last week i decided to take out my newly minted /time MM who by the way just snooze fests steamrolls at x8 diff without batting an eye.
Was I shocked by the constant defeats I got handed to me b/c of these stupid *** mobs. At first I thought ok I was being too cocky and if u just control pets and actually use powers the steamrolling will ensue. NOPE I cant even see the god damn mobs they just blink in and out and whittle me down.
I then took another character and the same thing happened. I thought I had a bugged game since I cleary(having gotten portal jockey on several characters already) remember these missions to be cake.
Again its this whole ignorance to back checking is what really infuriates me with this game. I love this game alot and I do like how inventive the devs are but MAN the levels of ADD they have when focusing on new content then completely ignoring old promises just plain SUCKS. Sorry I know I am ranting but it just boils my blood how they release such a WELL BALANCED fun and active set like time manipulation and DO NOTHING for the one dimensional OUTDATED might as well DELETE this damn powerset called FORCE FIELD!!! whats gonna happen in 1 or 2 years down the line when more powersets are created that will just hand pick the best of other powersets, tone them down a TAD and then release such a set out there to basically mock what the previous powersets cannot do b/c they are focused on one or two things only.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
So many possible responses, but I think I'm just going to point out that inspirations continue to be cheap and plentiful.
And that difficulty at any setting other than +0/x1 is not a balance consideration.
And that Illusionists have been attacking from phased for their entire existence.
And that Tactics includes both perception bonuses and confuse protection.
And that the developers have never, ever indicated, in word or in deed, that there is any toy that they will not take back from you if they think it would make for an interesting challenge.
And that the intrinsically binary nature of such effects as mez, stealth, perception, and many others is indeed a design issue with City of Heroes, and this has also been true from the start.
But mostly, that inspirations are cheap and plentiful and, unlike IOs, they are considered fair game for balancing standard content.
(If I were to make a complaint about the Resistance pulsing stealth and confuse auras, it wouldn't be about how impossibly difficult they are, but how uninteresting a problem they present. When the problem is stealth, the solution is colored yellow, and when the problem is mez, the solution is colored pastel purple. Be surprised by it once, then purchase the right consumables for a trivial fee and return to play as normal. But that problem is at a deeper level, and is not a faction design issue.)
@SPTrashcan
Avatar by Toxic_Shia
Why MA ratings should be changed from stars to "like" or "dislike"
A better algorithm for ordering MA arcs
I always interpreted the high-level Resistance members to be the "Uh... We didn't actually plan for this level... Throw in all powers, we'll figure it out later!" approach to critter balancing. They only show up in, what? One mission? Two? I can clearly see someone contemplating designing brand new resistance members for just than and thinking "**** it, do whatever we have on hand." I don't know if they're borrowed from somewhere or they've just been given half of Devices, but these are cobbled together with no eye towards balance, just so long as there's something to fight.
Remember what the Praetorians were BEFORE the update? Night Star and Siege had minions that basically had 3/4 of Energy Blast and half of Energy Manipulation. Their actual minion-class enemies had Power Burst, for crap's sake. When the decision was made to create the Praetorians back in, what? I1? It seems like time crunch demanded that each of the Praetorian counterparts to the Surviving Eight get exactly ONE minion, ONE lieutenant and ONE boss because they had eight (well, seven, Tyrant used Marauder's goons) villain groups to design. So what you had is model-swapped enemies with powers drawn pretty much directly from existing powersets with very little regard to critter difficulty.
That's what I'm seeing here. At some point it was decided that we had to fight the Resistance in the 40-50 level range, it turned out that there were no resistance members prepared for this range so they either pulled some straight off a Trial or just pulled existing models and gave them ALL three extra powers. The 40-50 Resistance quite literally feel like an 11th hour addition to the game, and they play like one, too. They're just like the 10-20 Resistance if they had more powers from Devices.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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So many possible responses, but I think I'm just going to point out that inspirations continue to be cheap and plentiful.
And that difficulty at any setting other than +0/x1 is not a balance consideration. And that Illusionists have been attacking from phased for their entire existence. And that Tactics includes both perception bonuses and confuse protection. And that the developers have never, ever indicated, in word or in deed, that there is any toy that they will not take back from you if they think it would make for an interesting challenge. And that the intrinsically binary nature of such effects as mez, stealth, perception, and many others is indeed a design issue with City of Heroes, and this has also been true from the start. But mostly, that inspirations are cheap and plentiful and, unlike IOs, they are considered fair game for balancing standard content. (If I were to make a complaint about the Resistance pulsing stealth and confuse auras, it wouldn't be about how impossibly difficult they are, but how uninteresting a problem they present. When the problem is stealth, the solution is colored yellow, and when the problem is mez, the solution is colored pastel purple. Be surprised by it once, then purchase the right consumables for a trivial fee and return to play as normal. But that problem is at a deeper level, and is not a faction design issue.) |
For some reason I will never understand, some people think that they shouldn't have to use inspirations to get through some of the hardest parts of the game, even though that is exactly what the devs intended them for. People would rather blame the game for being too hard than blame themselves for being too stupid.
So many possible responses, but I think I'm just going to point out that inspirations continue to be cheap and plentiful.
And that difficulty at any setting other than +0/x1 is not a balance consideration. And that Illusionists have been attacking from phased for their entire existence. And that Tactics includes both perception bonuses and confuse protection. And that the developers have never, ever indicated, in word or in deed, that there is any toy that they will not take back from you if they think it would make for an interesting challenge. And that the intrinsically binary nature of such effects as mez, stealth, perception, and many others is indeed a design issue with City of Heroes, and this has also been true from the start. But mostly, that inspirations are cheap and plentiful and, unlike IOs, they are considered fair game for balancing standard content. (If I were to make a complaint about the Resistance pulsing stealth and confuse auras, it wouldn't be about how impossibly difficult they are, but how uninteresting a problem they present. When the problem is stealth, the solution is colored yellow, and when the problem is mez, the solution is colored pastel purple. Be surprised by it once, then purchase the right consumables for a trivial fee and return to play as normal. But that problem is at a deeper level, and is not a faction design issue.) |
I should note that my main is a katana/SR scrapper with tactics, so for him, the mission is actually pretty easy because he can see through their stealth and it's next to impossible to confuse him.
I say it isn't right on behalf of other players and because the Mindwash aura doesn't make sense: is this supposed to imply that our characters have failed the BAF trial BEFORE THE TRIAL WAS EVEN RELEASED? Or has the entire Resistance already been subjected by level 50?
If this is not the case, they need to consider at least removing mindwash aura, and for god's sakes, do something about the insane defense bonuses their supposedly unreliable stealth gives or lower the stealth level.
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Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Actually, this is not true, not in the general case. There was a point where they did not do this except for what appeared to be timing reasons, such as activating an attack that completed animating after they phased. I very much noticed when this changed, as it made fighting them on characters lacking mez protection significantly harder, because they could mez my characters at times when my characters could do nothing proactive to the Illusionists to prevent it.
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@SPTrashcan
Avatar by Toxic_Shia
Why MA ratings should be changed from stars to "like" or "dislike"
A better algorithm for ordering MA arcs
i think the resistance were designed this way and then they just copy/pasted them for use in the BA (since GR was released at least 6-8 months prior to i20)
they are quite challenging if you are not used to praetorian mobs (since from my experience ALL praetorian mobs are a bit overpowered compared to enemies of the same lvl)
![](http://i.imgur.com/90o12.jpg?1)
I do not think it weakens my overall argument, since my point was that the developers will have enemies cheat, and the change was in the direction of enemies cheating more.
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On topic, I do think, that while it's obvious that the devs can do whatever they want, there's some value in making mobs that are more difficult follow one of two conventions.
- The difficulty should be gradual to some degree, so that there is not a sudden step change in difficulty. (Some kinds of step change be hard to avoid on a case-by-case basis , however, if a mob group uses damage types to which a character lacks protection, or if they can cause cascade defense failure, etc.) This way you feel like you're building towards something.
- Step changes in difficulty that affect broad swaths of characters should be explained. This is the source of my complaint with these particular critters. They are particularly bad-*** against a large segment of characters when, in lore terms, they aren't even that special. That cheapens the sense of challenge, for me. Vanguard are a decent example of something that a lot of people found startlingly hard to win against, but it at least made some sense in the lore - these are people that arguably have the best gear and training in the whole world.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
So many possible responses, but I think I'm just going to point out that inspirations continue to be cheap and plentiful.
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And that difficulty at any setting other than +0/x1 is not a balance consideration.
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And that Illusionists have been attacking from phased for their entire existence.
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And that Tactics includes both perception bonuses and confuse protection.
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And that the developers have never, ever indicated, in word or in deed, that there is any toy that they will not take back from you if they think it would make for an interesting challenge.
|
And that the intrinsically binary nature of such effects as mez, stealth, perception, and many others is indeed a design issue with City of Heroes, and this has also been true from the start.
|
But mostly, that inspirations are cheap and plentiful and, unlike IOs, they are considered fair game for balancing standard content.
(If I were to make a complaint about the Resistance pulsing stealth and confuse auras, it wouldn't be about how impossibly difficult they are, but how uninteresting a problem they present. When the problem is stealth, the solution is colored yellow, and when the problem is mez, the solution is colored pastel purple. Be surprised by it once, then purchase the right consumables for a trivial fee and return to play as normal. But that problem is at a deeper level, and is not a faction design issue.) |
My big problem with this mission is I can avoid the widespread issue of binary mezzes by just not making characters without some form of ranged defense or mez protection. I can deal with perception problems in normal content; Night Widows are the only things that regularly do it, and if I see ten in a day, that's a rough day, but not impossible to deal with. The 40+ Resistance are an entire faction of Night Widows that don't even need to hit you to go invisible, and if they turn up in any more 50 content (and with Praetoria kind of being a thing these days, I assume we'll eventually see more of them) it'll be a lot more genuinely unfun encounters cropping up.
Just a clarification...
I noticed the "Staying stelathed when attacking" back when they first came out (which was long before any trials were even hinted at) and what I found out was that they do come out of stealth when they attack, BUT they have a "Placate" ability they use as well (if you look up at the effects on you, you can find it and then right click and look at the info on it to see the exact nature of the ability).
I remember doing that mission and "Just use yellows" was not the answer. We did use yellows but kept dying, and then going to hospital and stocking back up on more yellows, then they'd run out and we'd die again... So I guess yellows were the answer... but really?
I honestly don't remember: is this mission a defeat-all?
@SPTrashcan
Avatar by Toxic_Shia
Why MA ratings should be changed from stars to "like" or "dislike"
A better algorithm for ordering MA arcs
So many possible responses, but I think I'm just going to point out that inspirations continue to be cheap and plentiful.
And that difficulty at any setting other than +0/x1 is not a balance consideration. And that Illusionists have been attacking from phased for their entire existence. And that Tactics includes both perception bonuses and confuse protection. And that the developers have never, ever indicated, in word or in deed, that there is any toy that they will not take back from you if they think it would make for an interesting challenge. And that the intrinsically binary nature of such effects as mez, stealth, perception, and many others is indeed a design issue with City of Heroes, and this has also been true from the start. But mostly, that inspirations are cheap and plentiful and, unlike IOs, they are considered fair game for balancing standard content. (If I were to make a complaint about the Resistance pulsing stealth and confuse auras, it wouldn't be about how impossibly difficult they are, but how uninteresting a problem they present. When the problem is stealth, the solution is colored yellow, and when the problem is mez, the solution is colored pastel purple. Be surprised by it once, then purchase the right consumables for a trivial fee and return to play as normal. But that problem is at a deeper level, and is not a faction design issue.) |
1) This WAS on +0 x1
2) Illusionists phasing is not the same in any way as mobs attacking from stealth and STAYING totally stealthed. No other mob in game does that.
3) Tactics is not, nor should be, a necessary part of every build. My Tanker, for one, has Tough, Wave and the Energy Mastery pool. He literally does not have room for Tactics.
4) It's not an interesting challenge. It's a case of 'Get these inspirations in bulk or face an incredibly frustrating mission. Because we say so.' That is NOT good design, whatever way you wrap it up, nor is balance by frustration or inconvenience.
Yes, I could have gone and stocked up on only BFs and yellows. But then they would run out, and it would still be just as frustrating.
"Go and get insps!" is not a valid crutch for poor mob design.
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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All Resistance members, Minion and upwards, all have the Mind-washed Confusion effect from the BAF iTrial.
As if that wasn't bugged enough, where the hell do these guys get off having stealth that they can attack you from without revealing themselves? NO other mob in the game does that! That's not a challenge, that's 'have a power with +Perc or tons of yellows or get ready for an exercise in frustration'.
Just gives me another reason to hate iTrials; they break bloody normal content too!