Test Discussion Episode 41: Early End Game

CC bounties was one I really was wondering about. Tested Abra and Zoom solo, doable, but took a while and required me going battle tank. Not that they SHOULD 100% be solo, but when you are going to need to do them for 56 days straight to knock out 500, solo/duo is the best option as getting a group together might be a PITA. Now, I'd guess that some builds will be more forgiving, as will some people's skill level, but as this is supposedly to help out the 'new' players, you are likely going to see them struggle to get this kind of thing done.

5K reapers is still just a 'get 8 people together and mow them down for 2 hours'. Not much change there. It was my experience that the adds were much more forgiving than the bosses, which is likely by design, but day in and day out might be tough after a while.

Trigons Prison clamped. still very easy and very fun

Oh dang! I hope prestige is raised, if not to full then maybe 200? but wow 1 seems like an oversight.

Ok cool, I think a lot of us misunderstood the example. And I know I posed a lot of highly math-y questions, but this is a very different animal from previous testing iterations. Normally we have a flow from the last episode into the test episode, so a "feel" for our power level has already been established. With this episode we have very little go on, and as you can see many of us are confused as to what to report in terms of both bugs and useful feedback numbers.

Thanks for staying in the trenches with us.

Attempted to run Throne of the dead elite. Everyone in my group was over leveled and I in particular had max arts, augments, and skill points. We were clamped down to 137 cr and the enemies were 146 and ares was 147. I was the main tank while the other one was killing essence and even with max augments and arts I was getting demolished like it was end game content by ares and the adds. I feel like if you are over leveled you should be at the cr of the enemies in elite.

The bounties in metropolis and gotham are still the same difficulty as they are on live. There doesn't seem to be any clamping in those worlds and hopefully it stays that way (still grinding that feat)

It doesn't really help newer players when they are queued into instances where higher CR players are steamrolling through mechanics and trivializing the content to the point where new guys are catapulted to endgame without even having the opportunity to learn mechanics, work on their skills, become better at the game so they are in a better position to do the endgame content. The whole idea of making stats matter, shouldn't be about making stats overkill to the point where old content is triviliazed and requires no effort, but rather creating incentives for players to improve stats so they can benefit from them more in content as they are leveling and not just in the endgame content. Stats do still matter very much, in fact they probably matter even more now that factors like SP, allies and artifacts improve the abilities of your character beyond your base stats while clamped which means endgame players are rewarded for putting a bit more work into their characters. I don't think this inherently contradicts the idea of stats matter at all, if anything its creating more of a stats matter, but you can't just cheese everything with stats kind of atmosphere and thats fine because I think there is long term value to this kind of strategy.

I don't see why having to put at least a little bit of effort into content that has infinite rewards is an issue, the decision to stat clamp people is very healthy for the game and helps bridge the disparity between new and veteran players so when the veterans queue into the older content, the experience isn't ruined for the new players who may still need an almost endgame experience to learn as they level. It is also significantly less boring for the players that don't like steamrolling through everything and want to have a bit of fun like the old times, which will probably help with the queue times. Running through old content and 1 shotting everything isn't for everyone, and we can already do that on the gorillas in Little Bohemia, but when people reach level 30 and have a wealth of content to gradually ease them into the endgame as opposed to learning very little from the leveling process and being plunged into the deep end.

This update is a disaster, no need to explain.

you completely stripped off game progression (i mean, go in 8 years old content and destroy everything)

and don't say this is for new players, to force them to play and grow in the intended way,

because in the meantime you're continuing to sell the skip to cr, allowing them to skip the 80% of the game...

Excuse me, WHAT!? Elites will get harder when they stop being end game?? In what way does that make sense? Going from being max level running an elite to being lower level than the adds makes no sense.

Why should the work you put into raising your character's CR be completely negated in elite of all places?

a Throne elite was ran on test server last night. as long as you follow the mechanics and your team knows what they're doing you'll be ok. don't attack the essence of war and don't attack when the volatile shade spawns. easy peasy

Yeah, thats why I just tested with Zoom/Abra in CC. I kind of guess they'd need to leave those 2 zones unclamped (which would be good) as the range of required CRs for the open world would be too wide with leveling missions and a few open world missions all happening there (like the Hand of Fate raids and the Intergang and WOL1 alerts), however I thought they said the OW areas would be clamped too.

So I guess 71 days for 500 (7 a day) still works....just a bit longer.

I ran a few old solos, I was scaled down, but it seems to be alright. I mean I take more damage as expected, but I do about the same damage as before. I didn't try soloing any raids as from what I am reading here is not possible anymore. Didn't try duos and alerts yet, either. But planning to.

Will try to record a bunch of Missions....
Here is the Scarlett Speedster Mission.
Overall the Misison went fine.
Game frozen and crashed during the Mirror Master fight.... so that is why you see a cut just before the fight.

Oh I've got all the feats from there dude. I was just referring to new players and making friends with them and them asking to help out with these kinda feats through the whole game (not just CC neither) but those bounties can't be replayed, so I just used as an example of the grind that hardly anybody would want to go back and help out every day.

Here's a sampling of Solos that I ran. I chose the ones that I remember that when they first came out Live was an actual challenge. I am pretty sure you will agree with that sentiment when you see my list.

I have rated my experience comparing to that original experience as a 10. As the rating goes lower, it is easier in my opinion. My ratings start at 5. If I die during the instance or have to put up a shield or drink a soder or anytime my health goes down to 25%, I will add a point. If the Boss's biggest hit remains a danger that cannot be ignored, I will add a point. If I beat my time on Live as I remember I subtract a point. I think I explain why I add or subtract per instance.

Obviously, none of this instance should reach a 10 for an end-level, fully artifact-equipped, full augmented toon. I think a nice 7 rating is fine as it is; with an 8 needs some tweaking. I hope this helps. I will move on to duos.

artifacts at 200 base mods at 40.0; no augments

ICEBERG LOUNGE
run time 7:30
cr 192 npc 194

Fairly easy run, nothing compared to when it first came out in live.
health did go down to 30% on Penguin fight by a exploding penguin but shields and soder unused.
content difficulty level 6;

ATLANTIS ROYAL PALACE
cr 256
run time 4:56

Nowhere near being killed so I'll start with a 5
beat my time that I remember on live minus a point
boss difficulty is easier than expected minus a point. (I really should subtract 2, as the boss died so quickly I never got to experience his damage mechanics every time he changed weapons. )
content difficulty level 3


SCARLETT SPEEDSTER
cr 256
run time 10:15

Actually, equipping shields and soder to keep alive. Plus point
Almost dying by staying too long in mirror masters and Red death's vortexes. Plus point
Still not the same difficulty when I fought this live at the top of its CR.
Run time is longer since the first map is just huge. The boss fight still went by very quick.
The danger of the vortexes existed only because I was hurrying up on damage and was willing to stay in the AoE to finish the fight quicker. The fact that there is a mechanic retained that can kill player, I feel is good.
content difficulty level 7

LEXCORP TOWER
cr 256
run time 7:05
Easier than it was on live. Fairly the same as it is on live now. The biggest hits of the bosses still exist and dangerous; so don't ignore that.
The Lobo fight lasted longer than I expected and with his damage dealer intact, I'll add a point.
If anyone wants to know how stat clamping feels on live right now this is the closest it will get; for this I'll add a point.
content difficulty level 7

I have a few questions for you on the Elite Throne.
Do you remember your group roles? Any healers or trolls? How many DPS?
Were the Ads easier to kill or did they pose a challenge to the group? I am assuming that attacking the shade spawns did cause massive damage? maybe kill a few players?
Did you feel that the bosses were easy to kill?
At any point did you feel that you needed to be careful?

i'll go bullet point for the answers

• we ran the old setup, 1 heal 1 troll 1 tank and res dps. 2 tanks for ares and the essence
• ads were still easy to kill, what wiped us was the firm reminder on how that specific shade mechanic worked. dont dps while the green pool is around him
• Bosses were still fairly easy to take down, just so long as you were paying attention to what you were doing.
• Yes, no clutch moments but you still want to be aware of surroundings and what's going on

I have rated my experience comparing to that original experience as a 10. As the rating goes lower, it is easier in my opinion. My ratings start at 5. If I die during the instance or have to put up a shield or drink a soder or anytime my health goes down to 25%, I will add a point. If the Boss's biggest hit remains a danger that cannot be ignored, I will add a point. If I beat my time on Live as I remember I subtract a point. I think I explain why I add or subtract per instance.

Obviously, none of this instance should reach a 10 for an end-level, fully artifact-equipped, full augmented toon. I think a nice 7 rating is fine as it is; with an 8 needs some tweaking. I hope this helps.

I hope to do more later. I wanted to pick the duos that I remembered as hard but getting a partner on test ended up too long. And my last duo ended up needing a second run. BTW, with 25 people on server, could not get the Omnibus to pop anything for 2 minutes. It seems everyone may just be grouping up.

BATSCPE DUO
runtime 13:52
2 dps
Most of the fight was easy. The first boss fight easier than I remember, the second fight was slight harder and the boss damage is decent; plus one.
The last boss is actually a challenge. Had to drink a soder to keep alive, plus point.
Realized I was getting more damage and losing health, almost died and used a supply drop as my soder stillon cooldown and equipped shield for protection plus point.
This is while I was avoiding all the AoEs during the fight.
I didn't manage to look at my partners health if he was experiencing the same as I was too busy.
Run time is affected by not being able to shut off cutscene and a larger map.
The last boss fight, i feel, needs to be tweaked. I had to adapt my fighting to be more protective.

Content difficulty level: 8 (i'm leaning more towards a high 8 with that last boss)

OLD GOTHAM SUBWAY DUO

run time: irrelevant
2 dps
My partner wasn't helping on the ads. I cleared the ads by myself due to the large number of ads my health was dipping low but no soders were taken.
Since I was the only one fighting it took longer, plus a lot of ads in the first room but do-able with little challenge. minus point

The boss fights didn't require paying attention to, just a straight quick burn minus point.

I am Amending the boss fights comment. They all died so quickly in my opinion and at the last boss fight I observed my partner and his actions kinda makes me suspicious. I have no proof, his damage wasn't excessive.

I decided to log into my second account and que up the same instance knowing I can clear the ads by myself. I closed the second account as soon as I got in because I know it will introduce a lag that intensifies in my gameplay.

The boss fights did take longer by myself, the damage is marginal and easily ignored.
The lag worsened, so starting from the second boss, I am unable to do a good rotation up to the point I was unable to do any weapon mastery and just dumped powers and unable to do an orbital strike due to extreme lag; and yet I still managed to finish the instance. The minus point remains.
The fact that I can easily solo the duo i even with extreme lag is a minus point.
If I get a partner I might re-run again for a more valid experience with the Boss fights.

Content difficulty level: 2

Seriously, This is a test server. Why are freakin' speed hackers even in here? What's the point? Yeesh!!

The Demon's Pit

Atomic Tank (me) and a DPS could not get passed Deranged Flash. The waves of enemies in the beginning were easy to beat but once Flash appeared, it didn't matter.

My stats as an atomic tank in non clamp stats are

CR 339

Health: 199648
Power: 88238
Defense: 146808
Might: 72099
Dom: 28992

Superpower Focus, 150 skill points into Might and Power. Generator Mods Health, Might and Dom 40.0

Arts:
1. Solar Amplifer rank 200
2. Dilustel rank 200
3. Everyman rank 199

Stats Clamp while in the duo

CR 137

Health: 19801
Power: 9400
Defense: 15895
Might: 7120
Dom: 2779 (+104)

Same arts, rank and Focus spec along with same skill points.

The DPS could barely last 5 seconds. Deranged Flash hit me for 1.4k each hit of his Flash Fist Barrage. His range attack did 1.5k damage, his melee attack did 2383 and his Cartwheel kick did 5.8k damage. While I was able to survive a little longer than my dps duo partner, Deranged Flash health didn't even budge lol It turns out my duo partner didn't have any arts equipped. So I took off mine and made no difference lol

Thank you. That seems like a fairly average difficulty run. But not close to what it was when it was first introduced. I would have worried if you had said that it was almost like back then.