Test Discussion Episode 31: 'Central City Deluge' Open World

Hey heroes and villains,

We have updated the open world to go along with the new and updated content of Episode 31. Most of the story beats and content found in this zone are the same but new content has been added and access unlocked somewhat differently.

• The Giant Starro boss is back and now respawns very quickly so everyone can take a swing at him whenever they want.
• A new defeat X amount of Starro weekly mission has been added.
• All weekly missions can now be reset and replayed via replay badges.
• A new Feat collection has been added for Starro spores. Just be careful collecting them, in Central City Deluge sometimes spores collect you.
• The daily repeatable missions unlock for new characters by doing the Story Solo Mission. After this, they have the same progression as before.
• Certain annoying behavior from last year has been cleaned up. Less frequent adds popping up at the hatcheries (after you try securing them), less basepop, etc. We will be keeping an eye on other suggestions to improve your experience here.
• Make sure you look up.

Please leave your feedback and bug reports here for all open world content that does not pertain specifically to the Story Solo Mission.

Can you reduce the range for aggro on the starro adds like they are with the adds in E3 Gotham please? The small area crawling with adds makes it a little difficult to maneuver without drawing unwanted attention.

Feedback
I'm getting the impression that the weekly Starro Conqueror bounty wasn't tuned correctly. It can be soloed relatively easily:

Just a bit of feedback from what i have played thus far
1) The Solo Seems Perfect Not too hard but not Overly easy. Nice that we MUST do Mechanics in last room to advance.
2) The Small Starro's that we must go around and collect for the Up to 100 Feat Needs More Spawn points, And Re-spawn Faster.
Once this goes live that feat COULD become near impossible to complete with Everyone in there.

Potential Bug: Slow Respawn on the Starro Controlled Iconics
I'm having trouble finding the Starro Controlled Iconics. I've found 1 so far, but I can't find any of the others. Is anyone else encountering this too? Last year they seemed to respawn really quickly.

I haven't found any lol.

- Briefing (gotta get the name) on the Fire escape close to Hero Quest Hub has no audio
- Starro Bounty needs Health increased. 3 CR224s can down him fairly quickly. Respawn rate seems to be about in 5 min intervals so maybe thats why the bounty has low health but going Live like it is folks wont get a chance in the fight itself

I too was just wondering about this, not finding any

Feedback
On the Applied Science 4 man, the spawn for the Electricity Test Protocol needs to be reviewed. The Starros that spawn there are significantly more difficult than others and can tear a group apart pretty quickly.

why is the equipment vendor only selling base items and no gear? I'm cr 224 and I can only see base items.

Are you sure you’re not being damaged by the Electricity from the test? Doesn’t the electricity heal and buff them too?

I agree with this. I've soloed the bounty without so much as using a Soder cola. That's at CR227, too. I feel like this should be made harder, considering that was it's intended purpose last year.

It's current strength doesn't justify it being a weekly bounty.

Alternatively, I'd support this being made into a Daily bounty, whilst the Starro controlled iconics is converted into an 8 player weekly bounty.

I think this may be intended. I'm sure there's an audio queue which talks about how electricity empowers them. I seem to recall this being the case last year.

Like always, they want you to test at or near entry CR first. Then sometime next week everything that costs Atlantean crowns will be added, and you can test at max CR. You don't want the episode to go live with things to hard in the event versions or for every CR on the end game versions. That is, except for the elite version, you should need to gear up at least a bit for that.

I enjoyed the new solo challenge .... The mechanics at the end make it very interesting. Hey maybe since anyone above level 10 can do this and learn about following instructions to complete a mission we MAY have a little less confusion on other content like trying to defeat Klarion during the holiday event... Put another way..please god no matter how much they start moaning when this goes live do NOT change that final battle

I like the new defeat 329 weekly mission and was pleased to discover that anything affected by Starro in the zone counts toward that total not just Starros. One complaint last year was that there literally was no where for a non flyer to go to get back to the contacts after completing a daily mission without battling your way there. NOW? Heck battle your way back and knock off more defeats toward the weekly! I'm sure like most other newer content with these missions teams will form and that weekly will get knocled out in no time but I managed 175 defeats on NO team last night just doing the daily content.. Very possible to just take a few days and complete the weekly with no team at all.

I'll mirror what I saw in a previous post here.. I joined a STARRO battle and while there were around 6 of us (not sure exactly since I just jumped in and helped so I was not on any team) but it did seem like the Giant Starro went down really fast. Heck I didn't even take much damage. I don't think it needs to be increased to a point where it takes half an hour to defeat the thing but come on? Johnny Quick is more of a challenge with a 5-6 man team including a healer on Earth 3. Shouldn't we at least have to work a little harder for 8 marks and 8 crowns?

Okay back on test NOW and i noticed this last night and am having the same issue today... Where are the Fallen Star bounties? I can not find any of them. YES I know there is only 1 out at a time but i also have a pretty good idea from last year where they spawn.. or spawned?

I looked all over the map last night and again SEVERAL times today and have not seen 1. At one point while I was busy with other missions last night I did see one post in shout from a guy looking for help to defeat Kid Flash. Is the spawn rate messed up and needs to be looked at?

Oh yeah UPDATE on the GIANT STARRO battle... He does seem to respawn quickly which should help with the whole race around from phase to phase issue we had last year. just hang out for about 4-5 minutes in your zone he will be back. Now back to the real issue... I watched three players defeat him twice so far today. Last year I KNOW we had 8 or more players attacking tht thing and a pile of us had to REZ and run back to help finish him off. AGAIN.. not asking for his health rate to increase to the point where you need an air strike and a nuke to defeat him but Solomon Grundy, The Gentleman Ghost et all in the war torn Village are more of a challenge now.

Okay so I decided to time the Giant Starro. Five minutes between spawns not bad at all I also decided to grab the missions and attack him again ... again a couple issues.... 1.... took under a minute for about 8 of us to defeat him with no deaths and along with me I didn't even see anyone using Utility belt pets of hear an orbital strike go off. Now anyone that knows me from the forums knows I have no real issue with easier bounties that don't take forever to defeat but THAT is way too easy.

Part two.... Ummm never got my reward for defeating the big guy and cant even TRY again to see if it was a fluke because the console won't allow me to click on it and use replays to try the mission again?

Oh Dang I forgot this one. SO Mera won't talk to me at all today and I have no access to the solo challenge? Is this a daily thing or not? I cant recall exactly when I did it yesterday maybe it was after midnight and just has not reset yet? BUT if reset on the test is the same as live..shouldn't that have reset and be available as of 4AM PST?

Did you get in a group for threat below to unlock the Atlantean Temple party of the solo? That's the only thing I can think of.

Nothing i did last night required a group at all and when I logged on today the FIRST thing I did was head up to chat with Mera and can not even click on her.

The Briefing on the Fire escape with no audio is called the Hope of Spindrift