Iconic Anomaly: The Hunt

Some enemy attacks use the normal weapon animations but not the counter mechanics and it's intended so that lunge thing may be intended. can't say for sure in this case, just pointing out sometimes this seems intended.

Also just a tip for people, i hear a lot of "bane is too hard" complaints. if you see venom canisters you know it's bane if you don't kill santo. So if you find bane too hard to want to do regularly you can just kill santo when you see the canisters

Yeah, it doesn't happen all the time, but sometimes his counter mechanics gets out of sync. I was being block broken when I was block breaking. I was getting block punished, when I was blocking. Bane's difficulty is just right, but you can't do anything about the counter mechanics if you can't... counter them.

I experienced the same issue a few times here and then. I can smash a barrel on Santo's head and throughout the combat my health and power did not replenish itself when the aura was in effect.

Two other things.

1) The goon using his cell can block when he is still on the line. Might be animation lag but I have mates telling me they experienced the same issue.

2) Johnny Blowtorch's pit of flames can burn you even when you roll out before you see the fire animation. It might again be animation lag but it looks more like the damage is applied before the animation, hence the burns before the actual flames appear.

I'm no spring chicken but I managed to get all the feats on the 2nd day of playing both Huntress and Bizarro solos. On the first tries I whined and thought that it was too hard. But I persisted and allowed myself to die many times simply to see how the ai generally responded within each area and picked up on their routine. Now I don't use the healing barrels at all until the final boss where the accumulated barrels give me an edge. Honestly its not that hard.

If you can conserve the 2 other heal barrels till the end (where you will have 3 in the room), you can simply outlast Bane. What I try to do is try to grab and smash a barrel on whoever is the end boss so that I can keep spamming powers/clips away. With 3 heal barrels, you can even out regen Kill Croc

Generally don't be too defensive when fighting the end boss as they will punish you for it. There are times that even as I am seeing the colors fade on my screen, I managed to pull a win simply because I keep attacking back.

To everyone saying "its too hard" you obviously just need to step your skills up because it is fairly easy. I also want to say this was cool idea. Keep up the good work

Have to agree with CandiFLoss, too much trouble to actually be enjoyable. I got through, but experienced all of the above almost. Healing barrel, soda and trinket are a joke. None of the above begins to compensate for the rifle damage and - like mentioned - I sure wish my rifle user's rifle functioned that well. As also mentioned, I started receiving damage from fire BEFORE the boss actually raised the weapon and it shot. This is a blatant thing, it's not at all like the devs wouldn't have noticed this during testing. How can one avoid the shot if you cannot see it? The npcs don't have this problem because the game requests the player toon's status and location and doesn't have to 'react'.

But for me, none of that is the true rub. I have maximum toon slots and play all of them. I like my toons as they are and many qualify for this level. It irritates me no end that I spend literally months crafting a character, only to be told by developer ego that I can't play my own toon. I don't play legendary characters because I have no interest; none, zip, doodah. Now I find I'm FORCED by someone's ego to do so, and with two that I personally find to be the most lame.

The reason I started playing DCU was the lead on that I could craft a hero/villain and play it. I don't like being forced to play someone else's idea of what is fun and frankly, I'm letting my sub lag after it's year is up. This isn't what I purchased.

This isn't a bug or glitch, but I think if this is supposed to be a 'stealth'-like mission, at least for the switch room, than I propose that you make it so if they end up looking at you or you run to close to make a noise behind them, that it should trigger their senses into catching you.

I have the stealth feat for the switches done, and wanted to make this a quicker instance, so I tested the 'stealth' by walking behind them after they take maybe 4-5 steps forward, not looking at me, and I end up getting caught. Even hiding behind the pillar by the second switch at the end of the room, the first guy would catch you without being in his line of sight.

It's more of a suggestion that would make it stealthier, but in no way am I requesting this to be 'needed' in. I have no problems with this instance at all, it's more of an annoyance to be caught behind pillars or when you actually try to be stealthy~

The instance will reset from the start if you alert the guards 3 times. That said, that shouldn't be happening with Cassamento (or the final boss) and is probably just a bug. If you raise any alerts by the time you get to Johnny Blowtorch, he has backup minions with him. If you haven't raised any alarms he'll be by himself down there.

The feat will kick in only after completing the entire instance (no alarms) and downing the last boss.

Cassamento's first weapon upgrade is cryo rounds, and he'll attempt to freeze you with a close range ice version of rifle's flame thrower move. Not sure what he uses after that but it isn't a huge upgrade, so if you need time to breath while he runs to the gun rack, don't fret if he makes the upgrade and you couldn't stop him in time (unless going for the feat).


Regardless, between the way the PS3 has to handle the code and the server latency issues, there is too much of a delay in gameplay for combat to be as reactive as the current system is demanding it to be. On top of that there are still obvious flaws with the system, such as the broken vulnerability windows to counters. If they are a result of latency issues, it's clearly not something that works and has to go. The blue god mode immunities only further complicated the issue.


System needs to be reworked and I recommend the following in order to simplify the system and keep it balanced with the latency issues.


* Get rid of ALL damage that occurs during a counter mechanic. If you blockbreak somebody or lunge a target and interrupt their attack, get rid of the extra damage. The stagger animations are enough, and it's up to the player and AI to deal out damage during the stagger process instead of granting damages based on the counter alone.

* Increase the speed of breakout's animation time. The penalty is a loss of power, and they already nerfed the speed at which power is returned. Whether you are using a breakout trinket or using the breakout ability, the animation time is a hitch that, coupled with the server delays, works against the player. The AI do not use breakout animations all the time and can activate it instantly (unless that's another animation delay). Player breakout animations could be replaced with something faster, like acro's kickout animation when they are knocked down onto the ground, possibly repulsing targets within very close proximity only.

* Blocking any tap attacks successively should not initiate a knockdown for the attacker, and only heavy combo hits (holds) should initiate the knockdown. The turtle system needs to go away. Having people stop in the middle of combat to block so they can fish for counters is stupid. Seeing the AI do the same is equally stupid. I also feel that using a power on a blocking enemy should not initiate a knockdown either, the power should still connect but do significantly less damage (as it's being blocked). Control effects needs to follow the blocking resistance rule (blocking targets are supposed to gain +1000 control resistance). Thus a player that is blocking is doing so entirely defensively and cannot be used as an attack itself. Skillful blocking can open up an enemy to a stagger, in which the player then will be responsible for following up with attacks or a quick escape if needed.

* Remove the cooldown time on blocking. After the above change it will not be needed, as blocking can no longer be used as an attack counter (no damage associated with a successful block counter), players can return to using it to immediately mitigate incoming damage, which is something that never should have been jeopardized in the first place.

* Remove the cooldown time on rolling. Offer no invulnerability time on rolls, no immunities, but remove the prone to interrupt feature. Rolling can be a requirement for positional purposes. Battles are fluid and players need to remain able to position freely. There are also restrictions on the camera in some instances, as well as in narrow hallways and the like. When you gotta move you gotta move, and having an odd delay has lead to many cheap player deaths.

* Change the input requirements for rolling. Instead of having to hold block and then move your character in the direction you want to roll, change it so that you simply have to tap block twice while moving in the desired direction to roll. Yeah, this is the mechanic from Activisions X-Men Legends and Marvel Ultimate Alliance system, but you know what? It worked better and was much more responsive.

* Allow the roll to be used as a breakout option. Currently breakout requires block taps to work. Using the above roll tweak, by breaking out and holding a movement direction, you'll breakout and immediately roll. Rolling breakout can be penalized by halving the breakout immunity time from what it would normally be when standing still.

* Rework the attack patterns for any AI enemies that use the same weapons players have access to. IE: Currently there are several AI bosses that use brawling, MA, handblasters, and so forth. They do not, however, use the same combos. This makes it harder for people to read their attacks as they are attempting to come to grips with the mandatory PVP mechanics but now have to face unique combat mechanics. The lexcorp heavy assault bot, for example, uses a two range tap, hold combo that sends him right into meteor blast without charged shot coming into effect. This means the reaction time to such is nearly impossible to read and a player will eat damage no matter what. They can't block that damage, they'll take extra damage because of the block-counter mechanics in effect, and then take follow up damage while staggered. They have zero time to read and counter with a lunge. The exceptions are character specific attacks, like Croc using MA but instead of using heavy shuriken (Croc + shurikens = what? ), he uses shout that functions as a conal block breaker, just like the shuriken storm. Those can stay.

* Fix lunge timing. The attack has to take place when the hit connects, not half a second afterward.

* Fix the broken vulnerability windows for blocking/lunging counters. The timing has been off and people have raised hell about it repeatedly. These windows may have only been added to support the flawed pvp mechanics to ensure somebody was able to get counters in to speed up 1 vs 1 fights, but this often has resulted in the wrong person being awarded for skillful play. The god mode blue immunity only added to this problem.

* Kindly remind everybody that escape powers have existed in their movement mode trees.

* Add a supercharge slot to every loadout that works independently of their powers. This will ensure that everybody has access to a supercharge, including the escape supers. For the PS3 this can be as simple as holding L2 & R2 to bring up a third tray with four options, 1 of which can be a supercharge the and the other 3 could be for any future planned additions or new functions down the line, or even use the other 3 slots for other powers or even weapons, so players could swap weapons without having to navigate a laggy (PS3) UI to do so. PS3 users currently have to keep weapons in the top inventory row, as due to the lag on the machine it would take too much time otherwise to pop open the menu, scroll around and then equip the weapon you need. (10-15 seconds in areas where dozens of animations are playing, especially raids)



That, imo, should do it. That should bring the system closer to what it was originally while still improving on some of the flaws of the original design, while still keeping some of the additions from the new design.

Something I've noticed since the EUPC restart is that the instance is not dropping any loot, not even after beating the boss at the end. The Mark of Reality is still awarded but nothing else. This is also true for the Bizarro instance although I didn't play through that one (one of my league members did to confirm the same experience). I do not believe, based on the change notes for the update, that this is an intended thing and as a result, I'd posted already in the Arkham Asylum section because this issue can be and has been replicated.

Again, I want to make clear that this has only started happening since the EUPC restart (I play on EUPC, USPC, and USPS3). So far, I have not seen this behavior on the US side (which hasn't had the restart update applied as of this writing).

No loot on EUPS3 either. Only marks

Tested it as well on EUPC. No loot drops!

None on USPS3 either.

Nor USPC

I'm not having issues getting a counter on Bane. My issues are that he does a melee combo that hits for a large amount of damage through your block before he is countered and he does a ground pound that has an insane range on it. I'm not asking for him to hit me for 1 through my block but it would be nice if he couldn't hit me for 150-350 a hit through it. Also I'm not saying the range shouldn't be large for the ground pound but when I'm all the way across the room I shouldn't be getting hit. Blocking through the ground pound move deals approx. the same damage as the melee combo too.

If Bane was countered on the first move of the melee combo it would make this fight tremendously less frustrating, also there should be a way to avoid the ground pound.

Upon playing today on usps3 there was no loot dropping

I played before server reset and got loot. It must have happened when the server restarted at 7:00 AM EDT.

There were four of us in a chat channel doing solos right before reset as well, and we had no trouble getting loot.

"everyone"??? WRONG. You might be able to say that if you knew every detail about every player, and it turned out you were right, but you clearly don't, ...and aren't.
This game has combat mechanics that aren't found in any other mmo I've ever played. -mechanics which can be very difficult for people with certain disabilities. So when I see somebody just pop into a thread to say "L2P", or "step your skills up", it gets me kind of irate at the ignorance.

Bravo.

Also, at no point does the game itself teach clipping. A small percentage of players will smash buttons and watch numbers enough to realize what happened. A much larger number will get told by other players, via forums or game chat. But a huge number, especially those who never PvP, simply don't know it's a thing because the game doesn't tell you.

Now this was OK back when all content was doable and only scoreboard chasers cared about maximizing. But to design content that assumes everyone uses clipping, without actually explaining at any time? That's bad design.

What kind of disabilities are you refering to? (Mental?)

No offense to anyone intended but I know a guy who only has one hand who plays and he beats these with no problems.
Unless someone is blind I don't understand what dissability would stop someone from figureing out and useing the game mechanics to complete this solo content.

Clipping helps but isn't required to beat any content.