Why are normies faster/more co-ordinated than 'supers'?

Discussion in 'Gotham City (General Gameplay)' started by Reinheld, Jul 20, 2020.

  1. Reinheld Devil's Advocate

    Not really much of a rant....I don't expect anything to change....just had a bad set of runs this weekend....so I feel the need to vent.

    So I had bad luck this week with 10 of the 12 toons I run the daily "4 day" Black Canary mission on ending up being for the Huntress/Catwoman. Meaning a LOT of grabbing gears as I compete with the rioters zealots. And while this is not news to anyone who's been playing BOP, I'm about tired of seeing me 1/2 way through working the cog when a zealot can come up and complete his opening of the drop capsules before I can complete my capture. Hey, I'm fine with us both having the same timer, like when you are competing with an opposing faction when grabbing the cogs, but we are likely evenly matched...both being 'super' and all, then it's just a race to see who can make the grab first. But these Zealots are just normal people...they should not be able to match my innate speed and agility(much less beat it)...I mean for pete's sake some of my toons are super speed and can get beat out by Johnny Public who just decided today he was going to enter a life of crime. I'm not even adding in the fact that most of the time I'll lay down an AOE, and will have a pet and/or a grim up harrassing them but yet they can still work the gear effectively. And yes, I know you can work the armored cars or carry the boxes for the mob/cops, but as the Luthor case drops are potentially 10 points each, it's the most effective....unless a rioter or opposing faction can beat you to the punch.

    This weekend was the most I've found myself yelling at the screen in this game in years....these cheating Zealots!

    Ugh...I'll just keep hoping for a mostly 'Ivy' week next week I guess.

    Vent over....let the tiny violin playing begin.
    • Like x 3
  2. HurricaneErrl Dedicated Player

    Yeah I hear ya. I dont even bother with those anymore. I just breeze through the trucks instead. Seems a lot quicker than hitting a bunch of cogs and you dont have to compete with the opposing faction.
    • Like x 2
  3. Schimaera Devoted Player

    I understand your confusion as to why the zealots are faster than you, my question is, why are you not just knocking them out right away? Three supply drops are all you need and they drop like super fast.... It's super easy using single target only (also because they get interrupted when you hit them) and AoE is even quicker....
    • Like x 3
  4. DoctorP2 Well-Known Player

    I hear you and sympathize. On my earth and water toons, it's easy to KO the adds before moving to open the weapon drops. On my light toon, not so much. It seems like they can blow the boxes up in just a second or two if they're not interrupted.

    Two other annoying things about the dailies: (1) when you're standing right next to one of the dropped weapon boxes and facing it, hitting the activation button turns you around 180 degrees to handcuff one of the adds that's farther away. (2) when you activate one of Harley's boxes or drop back into "normal" mode after capturing the requisite number of animals, your perspective turns 90 degrees away from where you were facing.
    • Like x 6
  5. Irvynnge Loyal Player

    trucks. trucks all the way. you know the other good thing about the trucks? nobody from the other side can pinch your grabs. easy peasy lemon squeezy.
    • Like x 5
  6. Irvynnge Loyal Player

    oh, mate! don't! same thing in Thanagar with the Lanterns! arrrggghhh!!!!
    • Like x 2
  7. Reinheld Devil's Advocate

    Ah, good question. The reason for that is the opposing forces. I go after the canisters as soon as possible if someone is around. Also some of the toons I'm running on are less than optimal(i.e. lowbie farming toons), so knocking all 4 zealots out sometimes takes a min, so again...more time for someone to come in and grab the canisters. But good observation. On the higher end toons I'm running on knocking out the zealots is pretty fast, so yeah...I'll take them down first. The fact remains, that if I grab a canister at the same time as, or slightly before a zealot....they should not be finished before I am...well if there is any justice in the world.
    • Like x 1
  8. Reinheld Devil's Advocate

    I get where you are coming from, but as I run through a lot of these, I tend to want to drop of the spawn point and grab the first available ones, which trucks are off to either side of lex tower....not downsairs from spawn. There are 4 drop circle points within 1 block of spawn. Also it takes 4 trucks I think (7 per truck?) and ideally would take 3 drop circles. I try to go for the best return on investment if possible...which unfortunately sometimes I'm not aware it's a bad investment till it's a bad investment. Hey, sometimes it works out with no one around and my AOE does it'ts job and i'm out in 2 drops + 3 canisters and 1 knockout.... Also Easie Peasy when it works that way.

    I'll have to time trucks vs drops and see how it pans out. It always seems like trucks are more time on avg.
    • Like x 2
  9. WilderMidnight Steadfast Player

    i don't have this much as a problem as I knock the ads out first and then turn the barrels. getting everything without losing a barrel is like the only challenge there is to the BoP dailies.

    whats irritating to me is when the three barrels serve as megashields with no attacks landing some ads. kind of like the stair rails in Arkham.
    • Like x 1
  10. Dominic Blue Dedicated Player

    That's why I have absolutely no guilt dropping any orbitals or using pets on em. They're obviously jacked on pheromone juice which makes them somehow quicker and stronger than me lol. Also it seems every time I do the heavy lifting some other random player from the opposite faction will swoop in and get the cogs. Yay. After getting the 100 Zealot feat on that toon I prefer to get jewel trucks instead. Which by the way if we're surprised how normal citizens can beat us to Lex weapon drops how about suspending your disbelief even more. How the heck does Nome Security have trucks that are completely Metahuman proof? Try hitting these things with your weapons and powers. Won't even dent. Any thiefs beside the armored truck are literally covered and safe. You can splash damage towards the trucks all day and no thief will be hit by AOE. Where's the material made from these trucks when we need cover in Raids? Even Lex and Darkseid don't got this mysterious strong at metal that Nome obviously does. Metropolis is weird man.
  11. Highplains Sailor Well-Known Player

    Yes, this drove me nuts in Cursed Gotham when I would be destroying one of those big green zit pods. Hit 'activate' when facing the pod and you turn to interact with a fallen demon. I would have to go out of my way to ensure when I interacted I wasn't anywhere near a fallen demon, and even then it didn't always work.

    Or go to use a power on a nearby opponent and you end up hitting something halfway across the map.

    In BOP what I usually do for the Lex Zealots is pop a shield right when the boxes show up and it usually lets me get two, if not all three. Sometimes I'll use an AoE knock-down type power as well.
  12. Irvynnge Loyal Player

    fair enough. I'm not that bothered about time. I'm more interested in being left alone to get on with my stuff. again, the main bonus for the trucks, for me, is that if anyone does come along & get involved, they're not pinching my numbers. too too many times that happens with the drop circles.
  13. Reinheld Devil's Advocate

    Ok, well if we are listing the 'turn around to the wrong frigging thing' annoyance too....the rifts down in Metal 1 are just about more annoying. "Oh, get lucky enough to get a quad split rift...right next to a group of knocked out inmates? Grab that rift circle....no....that's an inmate, how about that rift circle? No that's an inmate. 3rd one? No...that's an inmate. So sorry...rift's expired, move along now"
  14. Miserable Dedicated Player

    My first piece of advice is to get one of the canisters as soon as it appears. If you're standing in the middle of the LexCorp logos where the canisters appear and are ready to hold circle on one as soon as they appear, you will always get that one and will be free before any of the adds have a chance to grab either of the other two.

    At that point, you've got one down, two to go. The best thing to do now is defeat the 4 adds and then grab the two remaining characters. It does not matter if there are other players around because you still get credit for the canisters they grab. If anything, they help you finish the encounter faster.

    So with this approach, you are never competing with an add for a canister and you should always get full credit for the encounter. Please try it out and let me know if there are any problems with it that I may have overlooked. Good luck!
  15. Reinheld Devil's Advocate

    Yes...I know how to do it, thanks. I do these 30-50 times a week(depending on who I draw from Black Canary), so yes, that is the method I'd prefer to use (save when i'm in a runoff with the opposing faction). The title had nothing to do with the fact that I'm unaware of how to do it, just that the fact that when an add and I get to one at the same time...or the add gets there even after me...they win the run off. Doesn't make much sense they they are faster than us...us being supers and all. Should be even at best, in which case I'd hit anyone who got their hands on it before me. It's the guys who sidle up and make the grab while you are already on the cog....and get beat that are the frustrating ones.

    And as I said before this normally is only an issue for my lower farmers or toons with powers I don't really use all that well (yeah, that's on me). If I'm on a toon with Fire, Sorc, Ice, mental or nature its not much of an issue even on the lowbies....Hard light and Atomic...not so much. On the lowbies the 'kill 4 after 1 canister' technique sometimes doesn't work out cause the canisters are 100% shielding and 1 or 2 zealots can get a canister while i'm beating on the other 2 or 3.

    Techniques aside...the normies should not be 2x as fast as us...that's all.

    And you are incorrect. If the other players are of the opposing force (villain/hero) you do NOT get credit for their grabs. This has been a complaint since day one of BOP, and BTW...not my complaint. I'm perfectly fine with a run off against a villain/hero as we are on the same timer...I just need to lay hands on the canister/zealot first...not so against the zealots...they are faster.
  16. Schimaera Devoted Player

    Just use Lightweight + Chains the whole time. They die in seconds and getting knocked around by LW. Enough time to finish them off.
  17. Schimaera Devoted Player


    Quick info: Allied players activating stuff counts for you as well. Might as well just let them do their stuff. Takes a few seconds off your daily routine.
    Also, you need 27 of them so it's 2x full encounter and 1x at least two supplies and any combination of Zealots (1) and Supplies (2) that equal 3.
    If a villain is near you, just don't start and don't bother rushing to a villain doing the supplies. Yeah you can grief them (nice character by the by ^^) but in the end, you too now need four total encounters. Waste of time. Big time ^^

    tl;dr: Any toon can k.o. four sealots in less than 20 seconds, even my CR49 boosted toon can do it. Go for the adds, knock them out asap, then get the supplies first. If you are fast and smashing your activate button (for me, it's faster when I go left mouse+right mouse) you actually aren't locked in the animation and can activate a second canister right away. If a villain steals less than or equal to 3 points it's still okay to carry on. I do my daily three supply patches in like four minutes.
  18. Reinheld Devil's Advocate

    Thanks for the tips. But, as I've said before, the post was not about how to get the job done, it was about the fact that normal people should not be able to work a cog faster than a 'super'. Any technique or tips aside, that fact remains....they are faster than us....hence the post. Yes, there are many ways to 'beat' them to it, but if you do not beat them to it (or eliminate them) or barely beat them to it...they will finish the cog before you every time.

    I'd guess it's a simple setting. User cog timer=1.1 seconds, NPC cog timer=.8 seconds. Somewhere in the game code, it's there. Just change it so they are both equal as they are between hero/villain players. Timers can be changed, look at the summer seasonal we just finished. Used to have to press and hold the cogs in there....this year (maybe last) it became a quick press. Just saying ....NPC shouldn't be faster than supers.
    • Like x 1
  19. Miserable Dedicated Player


    You're right, I was thinking of allied players when I said that. If an opposite-faction player comes to grab a canister while you're still fighting, there's not much you can do.

    I didn't realize when I replied that your issue was more of a conceptual one in that regular humans shouldn't be faster than us super-powered humans.

    Also, what do you mean by 100% shielding? With only two canisters left, you should be able to position yourself in such a way that you can easily interrupt any add trying to get either one of the canisters.
  20. Reinheld Devil's Advocate

    Depends on where you are standing and they are coming in to the canister on. If they are directly behind one, they will likely take no damage, even from some AOEs. Yes, you can move, but the point was to get in and get out...If I pop a shield (as I do) and get the 1st canister before they even show up, I should be able to get the 2nd canister done before even having to hit any of the adds...cause they can't get it done before I can....but that's not true...they can start while i'm almost 1/2 way done and still beat me to the finish.

    But yes....conceptual. Their timers are faster than ours....that should not be. Equal? Maybe, but I'd argue that someone who has the ability to super speed up the side of a building, or grapple across the city and scale the sides of buildings or ceilings, or fly around in circles at supersonic speed should maybe have reflexes better suited to activate a canister before Mr and Mrs Normal Citizen.

    And as I said in the OP, this was just venting. I don't really expect anything to change. I drew a lot of Huntress/Catwoman missions this week, so I saw it a lot over the weekend and it had me irked mainly on principal.