A fight against incredibly strong enemies that most ATs won't be able to beat on their own.
By
AkuTenshiiZero,
Posted on: 2012-06-13 22:41 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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That's something that's been miffing me off a lot lately, especially in Dark Astoria. I tend to play at x2, as well, just because I enjoy fighting about five enemies at a time. And when the mission scripts actually let the game spawn that many... Surprise surprise! It's a lot of fun. Trouble is the game DOESN'T respect its spawning rules in Dark Astoria and keeps tossing what feels like x3 or x4 spawns at me when set at x2. So I went ahead and changed my difficulty settings to x1 to see what would happen. Sure enough the simple basic, appropriate spawns dropped down to three white minions, as is the case with x1. However, the "custom" spawns ALSO dropped down to x1, down from x4. Wait, what?|
Originally Posted by AkuTenshiiZero
I play on at least 2x players. I know my limits. But the level of my difficulty is inconsequential, because 2x in NW is much harder that 2x in any pre-GR, non-TF content. EBs are not something that you throw in every three missions. Even Bosses are not designed to be used like f***ing Zerglings. If I want the game to be harder, I'll make that decision. I run 2x because I like to have 5-6-man spawns with 1-2 LTs each, and it's worked out fine for years. Now running on 2x gets me multiple Bosses and EBs at once.
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Let me lay this down on you. At x2, a special spawn will consist of a boss, two lieutenants and four minions. At x1, that same spawn will consist of a boss and a minion. Why? Why is it that I can move my difficulty slider just one notch and have my actual difficulty jump down four? What is the point of difficulty settings if the game routinely and commonly ignores them and difficulty fluctuates between them so wildly it's next to impossible to strike a balanced medium? Why must difficulty be SO inconsistent that you can never set it so it's fun all the time?
I don't want to fight difficult fights, so you'd think the answer would be to just drop my difficulty, right? Well, I also don't want to fight trivially easy, pointless fight, so the answer SHOULD be that I put my difficult somewhere in the middle between too easy and too hard. Wrong! No, see, no matter where I put my difficulty slider, a mission will always spawn enemies that are FAR too easy to be interesting enemies that are far too hard for me to enjoy the fight, and only occasionally spawn anything in-between when the stars align.
Once upon a time I asked for an option to disable "level drift" in the enemies I fight, such that all of them will show up at the level of the mission. I had my intelligence and skill questioned over this. I still want this, however, because what I want is consistent difficulty. I want to walk into a mission and face a string of enemies who are all just that good balance between too hard and too easy where they're exciting to fight. OF COURSE the development team can't guess where that balance point is for me. That's why they gave us difficulty settings, to find that balance for ourselves. And I found mine - it's +0x2. And then I walked into Dark Astoria and they took this away from me by making the enemies in my missions set at x2 range anywhere from x1 to x4, and in a couple of very irritating missions, go all the way up to x8. By myself. Well, by myself and NPCs who are of no real help after the first couple of fights.
I fought like a devil in that Cimeroran mission the first time I ran it, because I refused NPC help. I must have died 20 times easy, I took over two hours, but I beat it. Sheepishly, when I ran it the second time, I figured that I'd just take the help of NPCs, give up most of my reward but I'd at least make the mission fair and thus more fun to fight. Wrong! ... Wait, where'd Lex Luthor go? Anyway, no, that didn't happen, because I gave up my reward, my NPCs aggroed three spawns at once since I have no control over and then died, and I was left running my mission alone anyway. After resetting the mission for the third time, I managed to keep half of them alive until after the boss spawns, then they died to that CHARMING spawn with an elite boss, two bosses, four lieutenants and eleventy billion minions. And then I had to beat another one of those by myself, and then the aforementioned Romulus spawn, too.
I know it's an AFFRONT to certain people I have on ignore that I could play the game and have fun without being frustrated to my PANCAKE core. I know that the mere suggestion of making the game easier so that maybe I can actually enjoy it causes the monocles of some among us to pop out of their eye sockets as they choke on their tea, but that doesn't change what I want - I want a game which I can enjoy without being frustrated, and I want a difficulty setting that lets me do that. For quite a few missions in I22 and I23 content, such a difficulty setting does not exist, because difficulty settings no longer mean Jack Emmert. Content will routinely exceed its difficulty setting by multiple times, making me question why I'm even allowed to pick difficulty to begin with.
We have a difficulty setting system for a reason. Please respect it. If you HAVE to violate it, then please save it for only very rare special occasions.
*edit*
If you want a challenge, I can respect this. Set your difficulty to be challenging. But please don't try to set mine to be as challenging as yours. There's no need for this.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
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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We're apparently talking about changing things to address complaints and how that might adversely affect your difficulty. The game didn't used to be able to downgrade them from AVs, either, until it got *changed* somewhere along the way.
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
1) Since the game isn't able to do that, I don't see your point.
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Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
In regards to the Night Ward Arcs, I've only had difficulty with the last mission on Wards arc and the Magican's Arc on the only toon I've run them on so far. In regards to the Magican's Arc...I didn't get past the second mission and quit the arc out of frustration, but I'll get to the reasons for that in a bit. First, some info on my main and playstyle.
My main (and badger) is a MA/Regen/Darkness Scrapper, though her build is probably not the best as I don't think in a min/max way (All IOs, with a few IO sets for regen, recovery and damage/accuracy. I am starting to rethink that 'stratergy'...). That said, I'm a bit of a whimp, as I keep my difficulty at -1/0x with no bosses or AVs (I play to win and have fun, not to be challenged) and I am some what terrified of EBs when they show up. Fortunately/Unfortunately, I discovered Shivans/HVAS and have been relying on them when I encounter EBs in missions (especially if I am exemplared down to where I cannot use incarnate abilities), as I prefer to solo and be able to read mission text without 'teammates' getting impatient.
Now, I try not to spoil myself on missions too much when doing storyarcs for badges; I just go to wiki to see whether or not the mobs I will be fighting will have EB/AVs and read the story bits themselves in game. So I knew when to have a Shivan/HVAS on stand by. The problem with those however is that you can't really control them (same with helper NPCs). Now, what does the Magician Arc have?
Taunting mobs.
Don't get me wrong, taunting mobs have their place, if use sparingly and in the right place/time. Unfortunately, the first mission in this arc throws buckets loads of those things at you. Yes, you have tons of NPC helpers, along with three NPC tag-a-longs (which were only Lts due to the 'no bosses' setting). Now, I am partly at fault here as I did rush through the map a bit (patience seem to be lacking for me that day), but I ended up with no helpers left as I approached the 'castle' itself and found myself facing a whole freaking battalion of Eternal Guards (the taunting mobs). I ended up having to do the same thing I did to the EB-infested DA Cimerora mission: fly above them and use my ranged AOE Darkness mastery abilities to chip down their numbers until I could land and take them out with my primaries without being 'forced' switched targets every other second.
Then came Malaise...in triplicate...as Bosses (wait...I thought I had this set to 'no bosses'?), with the add on of another mob (Hive of Angish I think) that can taunt, which kept respawning. I only managed to win by managing to single pull one of the Malaises away from the 'pack', beating that one down, then pulling the other two (and avoiding arggoing any more Hives of Angish). Needless to say, after that mission my frustration level was already fairly up there: the second mission ended up being the last straw for that day.
First, the map was very dark and it was hard to tell where you were supposed to go: I ended up using [Reveal] so I knew the path. When I reached the portal to where the mission objective was: I wasn't expecting to get jumped by a number of minions and an EB almost right off (I was expecting some distance between us and them). Taken off guard, both my helpers were cut down quickly, followed by me. OK, Shivan time then. I revive myself and I had a enough time to rebuff and summon the shivan before I was beset again.
Wait...why isn't my Shivan attacking the EB? Oh look...an Eternal guard or two had taunted it. FUUUUUU! I don't really remember what happened next...only that I died again and thought 'F- this...' and quit the mission.
That said, I know I made some mistakes in those two missions, so I know what to do to better prepare myself next time I want to attempt that storyarc again (like, take the time to wipe out all the Eternal guards before summoning a heavy...maybe throw a nuke at them). I'm not demanding that helper NPCs/pets not be tauntable either.
Yes, I know about my inspirations and I do use them, but only sparingly (usually only when I am up against something nasty). I see them as a 'oh sh-' button to use only when really needed and I lot of times I forget they are even there to begin with. In other words, I don't like being 'dependant' on them (yeah, says the person addicted to throwing a Shivan/HVAS at every EB she meets: "Hi, my name is Asri, and I am addicted to using Shivans/HVAS...").
I know I need to improve my character's build...and learn how to smack EBs around without using temps. That's on me. However...I do agree with Sam on the whackiness of the difficulty slider: the Malaise fight in that one mission is a prime example. Malaise should not have been Boss level when I had my difficulty set to 'no Bosses', especially since the NPC tag-a-longs obeyed that setting by spawning as Lts. Consistancy here please!
That...and please tone down the number of Eternal Guards in the first mission...please? I dread to think how that mission would be if I didn't have any AoEs....
And to anyone that says 'you are not 'required' to do that content', remember what I said at toward the begining: the character I was doing the arc with is my badge toon. Trust me, I won't even touch that arc with any other character, but on my badge toon, it is pretty much required if since I want that badge.
(I apologize for the length...this ended up being a lot longer than I intended....)
Server: Guardian Globial: @Asri1
Asri - lv 50 MA/Regen/Darkness Scrapper, Incarnate, Badge toon.
Tiny Spider - lv 37 SoA, Crab
Street Cleaner - lv 30 Staff/Willpower Scrapper
Golden Moonlight - lv 11 Beast/Storm Control Mastermind
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It actually didn't take very long. The groups filled with minions and lieutenants I just rushed in and mashed (Dream Doctor and the Cimerorans were more than enough to slaughter those). The bosses were what I simply pulled.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I don't know. How many hours was the mission intended to take?
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| I'm starting to notice something of a pattern here. The people who trounce around "learn to play" seem to often be the ones not knowing how to play, if going by their advise is any indication. "Did you try fighting what's probably a couple hundred enemies one by one?" No, I did not, because that would have taken all damn day. |
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For the last eight years, I've been listening to people beat their chests about how good they are because they: 1. Pull and 2. Use inspirations |
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| No, my mistake wasn't not pulling or not doing whatever other "Use Tic Tacs!" cliché you can come up with. My mistake was trusting the difficulty system to be worth a crap in Incarnate gameplay, and I trusted mission design to be reasonable. And it's not. I was under the impression that bringing help would, you know, help. It didn't. It slashed my reward down to a third and the end result was a mission which was neither quicker nor easier to run than it would have been had I not had help. No, the solution was to simply disable bosses, politely tell Sister Solaris to please go to hell and run it by myself. It would have been faster, more rewarding and far more satisfying, to say nothing of considerably easier and much less annoying. |
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P.S. For the record, I did try pulling enemies, and it's impossible. |
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| The only - read ONLY - ranged attack I have is the Nemesis Staff, |
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| and the moment I'd fire that at a spawn, Imperious would bumrush ahead and engage that spawn in whole where they sat. Maybe I don't have the mad skillz to pull with overzelous NPCs around, but in my experiences, that has simply never worked. Whenever I've tried using it, usually my NPC companions instead rush ahead and aggro two separate spawns. |
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| But, hey, I guess you're better at controlling uncontrollable NPCs than I am. I'd love to hear your expert advise on how to stop them from chasing after runaway critters that run to another spawn, or how to get them to not attack enemies in the adjacent spawn, or how to get them to hold fire until a an enemy is far enough away from its spawn to not aggro them. |
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*edit* And you know what the real kicker is? I still beat that mission, fair and square. I just did not enjoy a single minute of the experience. I guess I can just listen to your advise and learn to play a horribly boring version of what is an otherwise much more exciting game. |
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I have to ask what the point of this post is? Is it an attempt at bragging, at "being right", or what?|
Originally Posted by Scythus
It actually didn't take very long. The groups filled with minions and lieutenants I just rushed in and mashed (Dream Doctor and the Cimerorans were more than enough to slaughter those). The bosses were what I simply pulled.
No it wouldn't. I did it under an hour. It's because they work, often in conjunction sometimes. I'm sorry you had such difficulty, but it still sounds to me that you were doing something wrong. No it isn't. I did very well with pulling enemies. Maybe you were just standing too close. Whose fault is that? APPs exist for a reason. Or, as I suggested, maybe you were standing too close. Well, I know from my experience that I didn't have Imperious bumrushing the groups of Cyclopses and Minotaurs. In fact, I found him to be much more reserved. It was Dream Doctor that was the twitchy one. I found it rather enjoyable, I actually had to think about my tactics for once. |
I can't be an attempt at help, as every point you've said their has already been said, you're just adding "well you were doing it wrong" to the end of them.
Regardless, you seem to have completely missed the point.
Great, you're able to complete that mission without difficulty, you obviously have a reasonable skill level at the game.
Not everyone has a skill level as high as yours however and, as such, those people would like an option to turn the difficulty of those missions down in a meaningful way.
No recollection of your fabulous exploits will suddenly change that.
Main Hero: Mazey - level 50 + 1 fire/fire/fire blaster.
Main Villain: Chained Bot - level 50 + 1 Robot/FF Mastermind.
BattleEngine - "And the prize for the most level headed response ever goes to Mazey"
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It's actually an attempt to get him to look back, compare with my experience, and possibly consider what it was that he might have been doing differently.
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Originally Posted by Mazey
I have to ask what the point of this post is? Is it an attempt at bragging, at "being right", or what?
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Or he was just unlucky. I was pulling them with my Blaster from Boost Range distances and sometimes I'd get one, sometimes I'd get three, and sometimes the whole group would come running. Given that just one of them was potentially dangerous, I had to do a lot of fleeing... often super jumping up mountainsides to get out of range because they'd stay on me across the whole stage otherwise. It was a lengthy, tedious process. And despite all my caution and inspirations I still faceplanted against Romulus' group.
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Originally Posted by Scythus
No it isn't. I did very well with pulling enemies. Maybe you were just standing too close.
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Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
Well that's frankly why you should steer clear of mirrors and black cats. I can understand three responding to the pull, it happened to me with a few of the Minotaur/Cyclops groups, but the whole kitten kaboodle? If that really happened, the RNG must really hate you.
Yep. It happened to me three times from max range fighting the groups between the bridge and Romulus. Mostly I was getting groups of three. A few times I got lucky and pulled one of them. And a couple of times I got brave and popped a purple or two, hit PBU and jumped in to PBAoE sap + Judgement + electric ball thingy + Nuke + run away making Curly woo-woo-woo noises. I mainly did that last because I was getting bored.
But yeah, the RNG hates me. If I have my Defense monitor up, it's because I can't believe I'm getting hit so much through Defense buffs and I want to make sure there aren't any Debuffs and it is, in fact, that the RNG just hates me.
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
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Please tell us more about tackling challenges on your brute/scrapper.
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
It is - you can choose not to play story arcs. Which, your selective memory seems to forget, have ALWAYS featured strong opponents (AVs initially). Why do you think you get reward merits for arcs and not for newspaper missions? Higher difficulty = higher rewards.
But difficulty "free to choose" works both ways - I want to be free to choose difficulty settings other than piss-easy. Removing EBs, NPC helpers, ambush spawns, and they other added complexities that you whine about, would take that away. |
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And?|
Originally Posted by Scythus
It's actually an attempt to get him to look back, compare with my experience, and possibly consider what it was that he might have been doing differently.
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That's still completely beside the point.
Even if, magically, your experience makes everyone who reads it a 100% better player and they never make a mistake ever again, what about all the people who don't read it?
The discussion at hand is not "I suck, recount how great you are in the hopes I improve." its "Could we have more consistent difficulty settings please?"
As for pulling the entire group each time, I has very little to do with luck. As pointed out, his only ranged attack was the Nemesis Staff, which has knockback, and any attack with knockback (or, I believe, any kind of control effect) is significantly more likely to pull the entire group than an attack without that effect.
Main Hero: Mazey - level 50 + 1 fire/fire/fire blaster.
Main Villain: Chained Bot - level 50 + 1 Robot/FF Mastermind.
BattleEngine - "And the prize for the most level headed response ever goes to Mazey"
I like my story arcs to be as tough as I can make em, I try to immerse myself as if I was within a comic when I play them, and when it comes to main Heroes within a comic none are easily taken down within 1 minute of a fight.
For me I have to have them set to AV just so I know my villain has accomplished a worthy achievement, having the main Hero set to EB or below is just a waste of a battle for me and makes my accomplishment of completing the story arc seem worthless to me, having said that I understand people not wanting to go to the extreme and just want to crash through the arcs so I got no problem with the Devs making things easier for others, as long as it dosen't interfere with the way I play.
Too many 50's to list here's a few you may know.
Slazenger, Area51, Area53, Area54, Erruption, Mind Plague, Thresher, Sheath, Broadside, Debt
I feel like I should stress that I'm not looking to breeze through all the content without any sort of challenge, I just don't want the challenge to be "beat down big sacks of HP while you spam inspirations to become unkillable."
An actual challenge would be nice, not a pair of elite bosses that can two/three-shot squishy ATs.
Also, if you're someone who mains a brute or a scrapper, could you possibly refrain from talking about how easy you find the game?
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My Hero main is a Warshade, does it belong in that list |
Originally Posted by ResidentBaka
Also, if you're someone who mains a brute or a scrapper, could you possibly refrain from talking about how easy you find the game? |
Too many 50's to list here's a few you may know.
Slazenger, Area51, Area53, Area54, Erruption, Mind Plague, Thresher, Sheath, Broadside, Debt
Well it's better than a Peacebringer, at least.
I noticed some mention large spawns as being a problem, but for some AT's especially my hero main Warshade, I rely on large spawns to make my job easier, an Av battle where he is the only one in a room is alot harder for me without having minions about to use, so large spawn are not necessarily a bad thing thing all the time.
Too many 50's to list here's a few you may know.
Slazenger, Area51, Area53, Area54, Erruption, Mind Plague, Thresher, Sheath, Broadside, Debt
The only time large spawns were a problem for me were on two occasions:
1) Running Sister Solaris' final mission without NPC help. That was my fault for being dumb.
2) Night Ward's mission to assault Bedlam with a group of Black Knight allies. This was a problem because my difficulty setting made my allies Lts. and thus they were destroyed before they even reached the mansion.
Since I was unaware that enabling bosses would make my allies bosses as well, I assumed this was just extremely poor mission design.
And honestly, it is poor mission design. If they can make enemy bosses spawn by default (which they should not) then they can make allies spawn as bosses by default.
The real problem I had with Night Ward was the overuse of Elite Bosses in place of actual fun content. A fight that squishy ATs can't win without massively liberal use of inspirations and kiting is poor design.
So to rephrase your request, you want them to never force you to fight anything tougher than a lieutenant. That'd be just about the only way to ensure that squishies were guaranteed to win the fight without even kiting at all. Maybe they didn't get the memo that the only fun content is that which you can blow away in three attacks?
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The "run away" AI has gotten me killed more than anything else. It's very frustrating when I use a ton of inspirations/buffs in order to survive a tough fight and then the AV decides to run all over the map. By the time they stand still long enough for me to fight them again they've regenerated a good amount and my buffs have all worn off.|
Originally Posted by ResidentBaka
I used my inspirations, but as soon as I got one of the EBs low on health they took to the sky.
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Granted it's apparently a good tactic for the AV, but that doesn't make it any less annoying. And it seems especially silly when I chase an AV for 5 minutes straight and then they just stop, turn around, and 2-shot me like they just realized they shouldn't be afraid of me afterall.
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Ummm, you CAN'T use any Incarnate powers in the Night Ward arcs, the missions only let you be at a max of 39 IIRC.|
Originally Posted by Gunbunny
Sure you can do them with incarnates and tricked out IO monsters. But try again with a level 30 will you and just SO's?
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And I soloed them on my Troller who is IOed... but a very large portion of his IOs were not functional during the arc due to the level they were slotted and missing powers in which they were slotted. So... yeah.
Challenge accepted? And surmounted?
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The following options are available to be customized at any Notoriety contact:|
Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
So to rephrase your request, you want them to never force you to fight anything tougher than a lieutenant. That'd be just about the only way to ensure that squishies were guaranteed to win the fight without even kiting at all. Maybe they didn't get the memo that the only fun content is that which you can blow away in three attacks?
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I want to change the level I fight I want to change the number of heroes to which I'm equivalent I want to fight bosses even when solo I don't want to fight bosses when soloing I would like to fight Arch-villains at their full strength, not as Elite Bosses I don't want to fight Arch-villains at their full strength, I'd rather fight them as Elite Bosses |
See, the point of turning bosses on or off is so that you can have or not have bosses. If it doesn't work then there is no option anymore. See, much like PANCAKE everything else the devs forgot about Notoriety settings. So I guess now "Freedom" means "Play it the way we say to". I'm not sure if there are any forced AV fights yet, but I would not be surprised in the least if there were.
The off-beat space pirate...Capt. Stormrider (50+3 Elec/Storm Science Corruptor)
The mysterious Djinn...Emerald Dervish (50+1 DB/DA Magic Stalker)
The psychotic inventor...Dollmaster (50 Bot/FF Tech Mastermind)
Virtue Forever.
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I dunno, how many times must they stick their hand in hot water before they realize "ow hot water!" ?|
Originally Posted by Mazey
Even if, magically, your experience makes everyone who reads it a 100% better player and they never make a mistake ever again, what about all the people who don't read it?
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Trial and error/change up your "tactics"
learn to play <- this applies a lot, but people choose to be offended and get overly defensive.
If the classic run in and smash doesn't work, guess what? you rethink your strategy just a bit, or if you weakened the mob enough, just wash, rinse, repeat.
Once again, this game is not hard
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| As for pulling the entire group each time, I has very little to do with luck. As pointed out, his only ranged attack was the Nemesis Staff, which has knockback, and any attack with knockback (or, I believe, any kind of control effect) is significantly more likely to pull the entire group than an attack without that effect. |
and it's not like Nemesis Staff is short range attack, if Imperious is Leeroying the mobs after you use it...YOU'RE TOO CLOSE. When you pull a enemy, you don't stand there like a bump on a log, you move backwards, especially when you have NPC allies.
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Originally Posted by Mazey
The discussion at hand is not "I suck, recount how great you are in the hopes I improve." its "Could we have more consistent difficulty settings please?" |
Consistent difficulty is a valid argument, but Scythus's reply to Sam was valid as well.
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Oh, I just wanted to hear you say it!
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Originally Posted by AkuTenshiiZero
The important part is highlighted. I hope it's clear enough for you, I couldn't find a "flashing neon lights" option to make it really stand out.
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The game is not hard for you.|
Originally Posted by Mr. DJ
Once again, this game is not hard
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Nor is it hard for me. I have had no problems soloing Sister Solaris's last mission, without the helpers, on any AT I've tried so far.
But, there are people who aren't you and who aren't me.
Some of those people are not as competent at the game as you are, and never will be.
Constantly telling them "lrn2play" in various forms is more likely to make them quit than magically get better.
They aren't new players who've yet to learn the game, they're veteran players who might simply have lesser reaction times than others. Reciting the same tactics they've heard a hundred times before is in absolutely no way helpful.
Main Hero: Mazey - level 50 + 1 fire/fire/fire blaster.
Main Villain: Chained Bot - level 50 + 1 Robot/FF Mastermind.
BattleEngine - "And the prize for the most level headed response ever goes to Mazey"
I'm running my Staff/SR Scrapper through Night Ward atm...she's died a few times at +1/x2 settings with minimal IO slotting (a few LotG+ and the Scrapper ATO set).
These guys are rather tough, and annoying, but that's about it.