Just ran my first Synapse yesterday
By
Agent White,
Posted on: 2012-07-12 24:40 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
"It's 4:30 and this is due at 5:00"
defeat all clockwork in the warehouse
<copy/paste>
defeat all clockwork in the warehouse
<copy/paste>
defeat all clockwork in the warehouse
"cool, I'm done"
Quote:
"You can't turn this in, it's got too many warehouses" |
Originally Posted by dugfromthearth
"It's 4:30 and this is due at 5:00"
defeat all clockwork in the warehouse <copy/paste> defeat all clockwork in the warehouse <copy/paste> defeat all clockwork in the warehouse "cool, I'm done" |
"Oh, okay"
<hastily scribbles out warehouse, adds 'station' in the middle two>
"Perfect!"
I think it could easily be split into two parts like the Positron TF was:
Part 1 involves keeping the Clockwork from siphoning Paragon City's power supply, thus preventing a city-wide blackout.
Part 2 involves hunting down and defeating the Clockwork King.
to 
TO THE END!Villains are those who dedicate their lives to causing mayhem. Villians are people from the planet Villia!
Yeah, I agree there. Put the 'Clockword Lord' as the villain of Part 1, then part 2 is the hunt for the king.
I wouldn't mind -one- kill all, two maaaybe (like, 1 per part) but that's the limit.
I was actually quite fortunate in that the whole team aside from myself were water blast ATs so the mass amount of AoE helped clear the maps. We managed to do it in an hour and 44 minutes, but I understand on more ST oriented teams it can go up to 3 hours. Yuck.
I want to know why the Clockwork Task Force awards you the Abomination Gladiator Badge.
Quote:
I wouldn't be opposed to this. |
Originally Posted by cursedsorcerer
I think it could easily be split into two parts like the Positron TF was:
Part 1 involves keeping the Clockwork from siphoning Paragon City's power supply, thus preventing a city-wide blackout. Part 2 involves hunting down and defeating the Clockwork King. |
Leader of The LEGION/Fallen LEGION on the Liberty server!
SSBB FC: 2062-8881-3944
MKW FC: 4167-4891-5991
Quote:
I was on a team back in November with my Beam/Energy Blaster running the synapse TF. It took us 5 hours and 51 minutes. We started with 7 people, ended the night with 5 people. It was an absolutely brutal TF that night. Anything that could be stacked against us was.. low area damage, only two damage ATs both of which were single target focused, larger number of lowbie characters verses exemplared characters, players argoing multiple groups resulting in multiple team wipes, scores of new players making typical noobie mistakes(tank kept forgetting to toggle shields, not knowing how to trade or merge insp things of that nature).|
Originally Posted by Agent White
I was actually quite fortunate in that the whole team aside from myself were water blast ATs so the mass amount of AoE helped clear the maps. We managed to do it in an hour and 44 minutes, but I understand on more ST oriented teams it can go up to 3 hours. Yuck.
|
I would be six kinds of happy to see Synapse reworked and updated to reflect the current moral ambiguity that is the Clockwork King as well as something that uses Blue Steel as the two absolutely hate each other.
Quote:
A bit of lampshading, maybe? |
Originally Posted by GuyPerfect
I want to know why the Clockwork Task Force awards you the Abomination Gladiator Badge.
|
I think they should completely re-work the tf, splitting it in two with Babbage being the boss of the first half, and the King staying as he is. They would probably have to downgrade Babbage to a monster class and set him in an outdoors instance, though.
Quote:
When writing the early content, the devs seemed to equate time sink with challenge and/or fun. "This Task Force has you playing for three hours straight. So it's three times as much fun as this arc people knock off in an hour." "Yeah, but I'm writing task forces in the Shadow Shard. These are so long, the players will LOVE IT." Among the identifying characteristics of this old content are:|
Originally Posted by Agent White
So I've heard all the horror stories. The grueling slog. Etc. Someone happened to be open for one and I'd eventually like to start earning that nice shiny accolade for my heroes, several of whom are missing just Synapse or usually Synapse and Manticore.
Now I don't want to say it's bad design, because that would imply that I assume it was designed. But yeah. If it weren't for the constant repitition of kill alls it would be an ok lil task force. What a shame the kill alls take up over half of the damn thing. And back when the big zone revamp panel was being discussed I remember distinctly one of the devs saying they didn't want to do a story arc centering on the clockwork because the story was tied up in this TF. Yeah that's great. For the team leader. For the other 7 of us it's just 'run, do this, kill all, kill all, kill all, run run run kill kill kill". No story. Just, oh hey, giant monster. and then the clockwork king. It's so bad it's a joke. So yeah. Revamp Synapse. Add in a fancy cut scene or something. Do what was done with Positron and Penny Yin, because those are actually pretty fun now. |
Do this. Now do it again. Now again. Now again.
Defeat All. You're only looking for info in one file cabinet, but kill all the foes.
Today's arc/tf will take you all over Paragon city. Won't that be fun?
And of course lacks capabilities added to the game later like cut scenes, talk to someone in game, etc.
The issue where Striga was introduced seems to be where the change happened. Not completely, four meaningless repeat missions but they were small missions, a few more hunts and kill alls that needed, but it's where the change started to happen.
And it's not just the task forces - there are some arcs that have really good stories but so burdened down with the lousy design standards that they don't get played. Freakalympics was a fun story, some cool aspects but locked up in the timesink mentality. There was another arc with a time traveling Nazi. Love the stories, hate the arcs.
What I'd love to see the developers do is update one old arc and one old task force per issue or every other issue. Even if there's no time for a complete rewrite with cool cut scenes and such, just do a little blue-pencil works. "We've got four identical missions in a row. Delete three of them. This is a defeat all with no story reason to do so, just defeat the boss and get the glowie." That sort of stuff.
My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
The world beware! I've started a blog
GadgetMania Under Attack: The Digg Lockout
My personal theory is that if it's longer than 7-10 missions, and it's NOT a task force, it's too long.
I agree with GadgetDon that it'd be great to see one old arc PER SIDE updated per issue, one old TF maybe every other issue (since they can be a bit more intensive) or maybe leapfrog the TFs - first issue villain TF, second issue hero TF, third issue villain TF, etc.
Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
Dark_Respite's Farewell Video: "One Last Day"
THE COURSE OF SUPERHERO ROMANCE CONTINUES!
Book I: A Tale of Nerd Flirting! ~*~ Book II: Courtship and Crime Fighting - Chap Nine live!
MA Arcs - 3430: Hell Hath No Fury / 3515: Positron Gets Some / 6600: Dyne of the Times / 351572: For All the Wrong Reasons
378944: Too Clever by Half / 459581: Kill or Cure / 551680: Clerical Errors (NEW!)
THE COURSE OF SUPERHERO ROMANCE CONTINUES!
Book I: A Tale of Nerd Flirting! ~*~ Book II: Courtship and Crime Fighting - Chap Nine live!
MA Arcs - 3430: Hell Hath No Fury / 3515: Positron Gets Some / 6600: Dyne of the Times / 351572: For All the Wrong Reasons
378944: Too Clever by Half / 459581: Kill or Cure / 551680: Clerical Errors (NEW!)
"It's 4:55 and this is due at 5:00...."I don't disagree with any of the complaints about Synapse here, but it's not alone, and I still say Citadel is lazier and more monotonous.
Defeat all Council in base
<copy/paste>
Defeat all Council in base
<copy/paste>
Defeat all Council in base
<copy/paste>
Defeat all Council in base
<copy/paste>
Defeat all Council in base
<copy/paste>
Defeat all Council in base
"Cool, I'm done."
"You can't turn this in, it's just six copies of literally the same mission, on literally the same map. Two in a row are at the same door, fifteen seconds apart, and you've got something in here about them having time to re-paint the entire complex in-between."
"What if I add a forgettable, generic AV to the last one?"
"Now come on, we both know you'll need to do better than -- holy monkeys, it's five o'clock! Alright, go ahead and publish it. I've got somewhere to be. See ya Monday!"
FUN FACT: That burst of light when you level up is actually the effectiveness escaping from your enhancements all at once.
council doesn't drain END
but really I think they should do them in level order. That way by the time players get to the sucky ones they already like the game
I like the part where you punch the robot.
So I've heard all the horror stories. The grueling slog. Etc. Someone happened to be open for one and I'd eventually like to start earning that nice shiny accolade for my heroes, several of whom are missing just Synapse or usually Synapse and Manticore.
Now I don't want to say it's bad design, because that would imply that I assume it was designed.
But yeah. If it weren't for the constant repitition of kill alls it would be an ok lil task force. What a shame the kill alls take up over half of the damn thing.
And back when the big zone revamp panel was being discussed I remember distinctly one of the devs saying they didn't want to do a story arc centering on the clockwork because the story was tied up in this TF. Yeah that's great. For the team leader. For the other 7 of us it's just 'run, do this, kill all, kill all, kill all, run run run kill kill kill". No story. Just, oh hey, giant monster. and then the clockwork king. It's so bad it's a joke.
So yeah. Revamp Synapse. Add in a fancy cut scene or something. Do what was done with Positron and Penny Yin, because those are actually pretty fun now.