Marcus Coles Personal Story Mission...

....is this bugged? Every time I attempt to run it and get out fight Arachnos and start using Cole's powers I get Mapserved...Especially when I use the AoE powers....I have attempted to complete that mission at least 6 times now, so it is a repeatable issue.

I have rebooted my computer and defragged the game itself. No other missions I have run locks up like this mission does currently.

I was still able to get the badge associated with the mission by auto completing it, still I am interested in the story aspect of it....

Anyone else have this issue?

It's a HUGE pain in the butt, but don't use the AoEs - stick to single target attacks. The AoEs generate way more lag, and are more likely to mapserve you.

It is also somehow, I think, based on location. IE, I've been able to use AoE powers outside of the big city square...but even single target powers can trigger the bed-crapping if you're inside the plaza.

I've never been able to finish the mission. :/

i think the map is just inefficiently coded, we had the same issues in the ITF in the lag valley until after 4-5 issues of code optimizations that it is finally pretty much lag free for the most part

I was wondering if dropping graphics setting to something like "stick figure" quality (you get my meaning) would do it. I don't have the best card out there. Actually it's the one Posi suggested way back to get "just" enough of the ultra effects.

Has anybody tried that?

I'll try it after I get back this evening.

Everything in the mission works fine for me. Even on my craptastic old computer, I can use any powers I want any where on the map and I experience no lag whatsoever.

It's immediately after I've clicked the button that, randomly, the game simply up and DCs with a LCtM. There is more going on here than just "lol graphics."

Even if you pull a single critter outside the entire plaza and kill it with tiny punches of Cole's least powerful power while facing away from the center of the arena, the server momentarily craps up. I can stand there and /em boombox while everything else (animations, auras, effects) plays happily and naturally, and five to ten seconds later the hovering mob will drop to the ground.

I can even dance with Cole's footstomp, just so long as I don't damage anything. I wonder if any of his other attacks don't require targets, and execute normally if not used against a mob?

It's not a graphics issue, it's a networking issue.

Everytime in that mission you kill something you get a MASSIVE influx of data incoming, it's almost as if the code for keeping track of how many are killed (for the dialog popups) is going like this:
You kill #1, server echos back #1 is dead
You kill #2, server echos back #1 is dead, #2 is dead

etc etc, so by the time you've killed #100 you're getting massive amounts of info from the server.

Behold the netgraph in the bottom right

So far as I know, the only workaround is to use only single target attacks, and even that doesn't work (for whatever reason) for some folks. It worked for me, thankfully. But if that doesn't work for some folks, I think auto-completing is the only other available workaround, barring waiting for a patch that fixes the problem.

Hi,

just to nod in agreement with Spatch.

As a badging player I tried a dozen times and got dced each and every one of them using all the powers available.

I then read the badge forum section, and went off to try the mad and tedious single strike powers only method.

First attempt and using only the two single target powers, Laser Beam Eyes and duh ????, was a complete success. Not one flicker of a mapserve.

Took about 15 minutes to do them one by one and completed normally with the badge award Just like the old street sweeping for defeat X/Y badges.

Madness and tedious most certainly, but for a badge....bring it on!

Cheers