Test Discussion Episode 30: The Visitor (2-Player Operation)

This is the feedback thread for the Earth 3: The Visitor 2-player operation. There are two versions of this duo:

• One found in the Events tab in the On Duty menu for any character level 10 or higher.
• Another in the 2 Player tab of the On Duty menu for end-game characters.

Please reply with your feedback and be sure let us know which version you played.
Thanks!
Quixotic

Bug Report
What are the rewards for The Visitor supposed to be?


The description says "Marked Bills". I thought it was supposed to be Ultrabucks?

Feedback
At the start of the Visitor, can the next set of objectives activate immediately after Professor Weaver's cog is activated? I timed her speech at 20 seconds. That's a long time to wait around. If we're going to be running this everyday, I'd just like to activate her cog and start working on objectives while she goes through her speech.

I ran the regular (non-clamped) version of the duo on the villain side and received no bonus chest at the end.

Feedback
The cut-scenes in Luthor's office are nice, but is there anyway a "skip" option can be added for the Justice League portion? That particular portion of the cutscene takes over 90 seconds to play. By the time you've played the duo 20+ times, you'll have the entire scene memorized and just want to move on to the next portion of the instance.

There are several minutes of downtime in this duo just due to all the cut-scenes and dialog. I appreciate all the effort/expense that went into creating the cut-scenes, but I'm just thinking of the long-term grind here. I'm currently timing this at:
20 seconds for Doctor Weaver
60 seconds for Lex's speech before the Alexander Luthor fight
90+ seconds for the Justice League portion after the Alexander Luthor fight
55 seconds for the Mayor Gordon portion on Earth 3.

On a good day, this will be a 10 minute duo with almost half of the runtime being consumed by cut-scenes.

Feedback
I'm wondering if the Earth 3 portion of The Visitor should have a "containment bubble" similar to what Smallville does in that duo. You are free to explore the entire map, but there is nothing going on outside of a few cop NPCs. The entire city seems deserted.

Question
Is the feat description correct for the first bullet? I counted eight rocks when I started the fight.

Bug Report
Earth 3 is a weird place. The allied NPCs like to fight while standing on top of each other:


There were several groups like that on my last run.

Bug Report
I did a few duo runs tonight and saw some very strange behavior on the LexCorp Lieutenant while playing the End-Game version.

1. Does countering the Lieutenant at the wrong time break his special attack?


Jump to 10 seconds. Immediately after countering him, he started doing a long duration Full Auto skull attack. This was the only run where I saw him behave that way. His Full Auto attack was able to destroy a rock with a sufficient number of hits. He only used his normal rock shattering attack once on the very last rock. The rest of the time in that run, he was using Skull Full Auto almost full time.


2. Two odd things happen in this video:


First, I drop combat for some reason at 10 seconds.

Second, the Lieutenant has a dreadful sense of aim sometimes. He targeted my partner and blew up the wrong rock.

Bug Report
In the Alexander Luthor fight, why is a purple flame aura applied to Alexander Luthor, Lex Luthor, and Superman in the following cut-scene?


Jump to 9 seconds to see the flame aura. This is the only run where I saw it happen. It sounded like the NPCs were being attacked in the background by the turrets while the cut-scene played out.

This happened in the End-game version.

I agree with Penryn's feedback here. The cut-scenes and story as a whole in the Duo is really good. Some of your finest work, in fact. The Duo alone is more entertaining than anything in Episode 29 (in my opinion). But after the shine wears off, these cutscenes are going to become a pain.

If skipping isn't an option, perhaps to preserve the story telling, you could maybe unlock us from the cutscene after the main part/s have been delivered and open the teleporter to the next area. That way, you've got the option of watching the interaction between the NPCs or you can move on and get started on the next area. Maybe even not draw attention to the teleporter until the dialogue has finished, but still allow us to enter it.

Um the cut scenes in this duo are a little much. I wish u guys could please find a middle ground with these. Yes players do want story. But multiple cut scenes 2-3 mins long are not needed imo to create a decent story. If these long cut scenes are going to continue in the future a skip option is badly needed.

Sometimes the cut scenes end up being just as long as the time players are actually fighting in the instance. Pennryn already pointed this out half the duo is cut scenes. That should never happen. Please think about this when creating future content. Thanks.

Suggestions
1. In Smallville, immediately spawn the mission objectives after you activate Professor Weaver's cog. It is really weird and a time-waster having everything suddenly spawn out of thin air after her speech finishes.

2. Setup a "containment bubble" in Earth 3 Gotham to prevent players from flying off to explore an empty map. I had one run yesterday where my partner didn't participate at all in the Earth 3 section because they were busy exploring the ocean sections in South Earth 3 Gotham.

3. Allow us to skip the Justice League cutscene in Luthor's office.

Opinion/Feedback on 1st Boss Mechanic

I think that in the end game version of the duo, the skull attack needs to be more powerful. It's too weak at the moment and you aren't encouraged to participate in the mechanic at all.

To test out just how powerful it is, I let the STAR Labs Lieutenant hit me with it, but it only did 17k+ damage which took me down to about 25% health:



Prior to this screenshot, I was at about 95% health.

This was only the second time he did his skull attack in the entire, fight, too and I intentionally stopped damaging him for the sake of testing how strong the attack was. Given my CR is under the 207 needed to enter the content and Quantol's is 3 CR above the entry level, this fight's interesting mechanic is almost completely avoidable right out of the gate.

I think you should make the attack a 1 shot and maybe display a "TAKE COVER!" red warning message on screen as the skull appears. The arena we're given to fight in isn't densely populated with props. The only props featured under the dome are the rocks, so it won't be confusing when the message appears on screen. Given the amount of time you get to get to safety, making it a 1 shot won't be problematic.

When Penryn's bugs for this fight are fixed, I think these suggestions will make the quality of this boss fight better than it currently is.

I'd have to disagree. Having the attack be a one shot could potentially ruin the entire fight if one member doesn't take cover in time. There will be nothing to protect you when trying to resurrect your fallen ally, unless you have a personal shield (and let's face it, most people run duos as a DPS and don't carry personal shields), which could lead to having to redo the entire fight.

While we were in that fight he took about 70-75% of my health too at CR210. I do agree you need to be punished if you try to avoid the mechanic, but I think instant death is too much punishment.

I agree. A player could not get behind the rock for a # of reasons and the result is death? In a duo? Plus it will be pretty tough for your duo partner to revive because they will get all the aggro. Imo losing 75% of your health if getting hit by the attack is fine.

Plus isnt there a feat for destroying the rocks? If they are all gone and the boss does the attack how would players take cover and avoid it?

There is a feat for destroying all(?) of the rocks. It actually takes a while to get the boss to do that many skull attacks. One thing you can do to speed up the process is position multiple rocks between you and the boss. His attack will take all the rocks that are between you and him.

As for enhanced damage, there are two options at the moment:

1. Use Amazonian Deflection. That will completely absorb the damage from the attack leaving the player unscathed.
2. Run out of range of the attack and receive 0 damage. His skull attack has limited range on it.

The feat might be destroy 6 rocks. Not 100% sure.

I did it last night by destroying 8 rocks. It would be nice to get clarification on the wording of the feat.

I don't think the skull attack needs to be buffed further. His normal skull does 23900 damage to me on average. His "Full Auto" skull can quickly kill a player from full health.

Oh, I didn't realise there was a feat. Fair enough, then, maybe one shots aren't the best idea.

Perhaps doing the attack more frequently would be a better suggestion. As I said, when I took the screenshot, at that point he'd only done the attack once and he was almost dead. He would have been dead if I didn't stop damaging to see how powerful the skull attack was.

Considering it's not a 1 shot, you don't have to duck for cover and a soder will undo any potential threat the boss has, the mechanic may as well not exist in it's current form.