Dev Discussion Episode 40: Queens' Row Penitentiary (Duo)

Yea I have no idea what that video was trying to show us, outside of a boss fight the adds barely lasted the cooldown of your severe punishment because you are running with a near 600sp Electric prec with shuriken storm and flurry shot and circuit breaker and your infuriate. Also just breaking your gear like that I don't think you understand that you are still receiving the defense passive as your current cr rather than your "broken" cr, which is why despite being 269 cr levels below you aren't one shot each time the heatwave weapon taps are hitting for 2-5k and his flamethrower ticks are only 15k.

It's the same concept of a group wanting to redo FoS or the Batcaves at old CR do you think they would just break their Max CR gear and walk in or go to the vendor and rebuy the T2 gear?

I love the difficulty of this instance and feel that it's a great way to introduce players to the ideas of Elite content. I don't think this was meant as a sincere challenge to Elite/SM level players, but rather as a reward for them, and an entry point for others. As someone who is often teaching aspects of the game, this instance has been like *perfect*.

The Waves/Turrets room is super great for tank practice, or DPS tuning. And the final boss fight is a work of art when considered as a teaching tool for Elite. The ways you can use, or ignore positioning to manipulate the fight, the constant threat of Plastic Man, the highly directional flamethrower mixed with the "chasing fire" -- which perfectly prepares you for the Circe Curse on the Elite Alert -- come together in a way that is simply magnificent for showing off different mechanics used across various Elites throughout the game.

Yes, it fall short as a challenge to elite veteran players, but liiiike it's a duo -- that's ok. For us there are the feats and other Elite content. I really enjoyed the challenge of Extended Parole Elite though, and felt the atom-bot kept it interesting.

In my own experience if both players are top end DPS you can ignore everything but the atom bot. We easily got elite Damage Control and Nice n Toasty feats. I think it likely comes down to playstyle of DPS involved, as my partner and I were both adept at full range, and well suited to that playstyle. If you're more reliant on mid-range or melee, it's going to be a much harder instance. For example, I don't think I could beat it with a pair of melee DPS, I'm just not that good.

For a fairly easy run with 2 DPS fill your SC bars before going in, add a shield to your loadout, and consider Personal Dampening Field for your utility belt. One must of course still be aware of skulls, atom-bots, and plastic man, but it's very doable as a burn fest, if that's what you prefer.

My most challenging run so far has been healing a melee DPS. That was fun and felt difficult as well.

"Jackhammer Earth DPS", and "Mental Range Precision" (me).

I did a lot of pickups in that fight. Just remember to turn the fire suppression system on, it helps, and no one's burn is so good they don't need to move outta the AOE. Which is why "pickups"... Think it was like try 15 before they came around to the idea that "burning adds in the hallway isn't the same thing as fighting the boss".

Well you sound well suited! But Jackhammer, not so much. And yes you definitely need to move out of the fire, but if the DPS is fast enough you do not need the critical heat consoles, as I said I got the Nice n Toasty feat quite easily with 2 DPS. If you have to keep doing pickups though... yeah.

And like, please don't take this the wrong way. I know you are a dedicated and skilled DPS, no hate here. Just sounds like you needed a partner that is more of a peer.

like I said, *i* did a lot of pickups

I give up is the third time I write this, I hate my phone.
I will resume the resume. I prefer HL sheild(Boss) and Sonic cry(adds).
Content is made taking on consideration 3 artifacts(stats + mechanics).
Manacles is op please nerf, I will up vote.
Cr is low - > avoid damage - >kite
Full Broken DPS Spec - > Changed what I could

Regardless, my sugestion to this elite was to add the stunning drones for the most memorable parts of the run.
I don't aggree with your point of view, elite difficulty bar should be flat all across the board.
An Elite alert should be as hard as raid and this DLC has proven just that, I bet more people hit critical level on Elite raids then beaten this Alert.
The difficulty should be there the only big difference is the amount of coordination required.
Regardless, the gear grind if you want to grind gear because stuff is hard, I highly recommend normal mode, let some else enjoy the fun of a good challenge.

I'm always ready for another dps to carry me<3 Broken defense and hp of a mostly dps inst mutch.
Im pretty old on DC, I join when Batlle for Earth DLC was release so I did run thoose raids at the time, I even know the ultra secret pathing of the fos2 crystal. I still miss some of them and I would be happy to run them again if they were bumped.

Still, I just think this elite duo is lacking and being able to complete it with so many handicaps proves my point. It would be so much more exciting if the stun drones were added to the most iconic parts of this Duo, currently there is no threat.

Imagine pulling the adds as the tank and you get stunned, the dps need for 1 sec to stop burnning the adds and then lunges the bot.(I think you got the ideia)

Me and friend , we group up together, then at amazo boss fight. The bot stunned someone then amazo would stunned the other person. But players would be stunned at same time . So none of us unable to use breakout and powers. It seem like amazo would take the abilities of the dronebot and use it also against players.

Hello TLantern,

Just letting you know that during the Amazo fight (elite version) when you lose your abilities to lunge the bot and are finally returned your abilities back it doesn't return your current weapon attacks back. It leaves you in a no weapon/brawl type of form and the only way to correct it is to reequip your weapon each time. For a weapon user this is pretty frustrating as this can happen more than once during the fight. If possible can this be looked into and corrected please, it would be very much appreciated. Thank you.

Sincerely: Brav

Turrets, Cyborg and Batman during the fight are marked as enemy icon (red) on minimap.

Love this duo! Love the option of doing a higher level difficulty in pairs, love having a duo to do again, love the challenges presented. Please keep bringing this kind of creativity to the game. This is such an enjoyable addition. Plus getting to do elite content in duos and alerts is a lot of fun. In terms of critiques...Amazo stuns are boring and annoying and take away from the enjoyment. Maybe change up the animation to something more unique? Balls of yarn for giant Teekl, Sea Monster munches on you, Zoom is making you dizzy with speedy things, and somewhere I remember being put inside a bottled dome. Fun effects take away from the annoyance.

I also find it annoying. The message comes up a few seconds before the bot even arrives and then a few more before it exerts it's stun...meaning you do have the tendency to look for it and attempt to lunge it right away. Sure after a few runs you start building in a 3-4 second wait before you bother, but it could be better timed as to at least when the bot has arrived....if not after it does it's move.

I think my biggest gripe on the run is the fact that the Atom-Bot takes almost no breather. If you end up soloing because your partner dies and cannot be picked up or burns his 1 rally, it's going to be a very slow burn only getting incidental damage off healing moves or things like grim/robot which will continue working while you are stunned. Unless you are down to a sliver, better to wipe and just restart the fight. I've finished it solo on a tank toon, but again...we were close to done with Amazo when my partner dropped.

It would be nice if after a set time(like 60 sec or so), the bot would drop it's stun, then re-apply...you'd still have to survive, and it should only drop for a few seconds, but every min or so...whatever, you could at least get a real shot in and plink away at him to finish up.

Not that anyone should be looking to solo it from jump, but it would be nice if the only 'fixes' for losing a partner weren't to wipe and restart or a 20 min slog through healing moves and nickle and dime hits off those moves...or via a pet.

I have a question about the turret room and the wave of ads. Is there a set amount of ads each time? It feels as though it differs and really drags on the duo because we are stuck there defeating ads upon ads upon ads.

The set number can vary slightly but if I remember correctly there are about 5 sets of adds.

I’m sorry but you claim it’s easy and say you outlined it by saying you had broken gear and you had mixed gear. But the only reason you beat it was because you had someone carry you. And on top of being carried you also had a loadout designed entirely on survival. Even when you were stunned your friend broke you out immediately. That’s a very poor example.

If you really want to say it’s easy than go do that with randoms or solo it.

And just to be clear, I actually soloed the elite duo as a 322 HL. That doesn’t mean I think it’s easy. I died a lot learning the mechanics and it took me a while to learn how to solo it but by doing that I learned how to help others I carry through it. So because it’s easy for ME does it mean it’s an easy instance? No. The difficultly is fine the way it is.

And another thing. You want there to be 2 drones? What kind of suggestion is that? The drones perma stun you if you get caught. Have 2 drones and get both players stunned means it’s an automatic wipe. It’s just a terrible idea.

I will keep my previous statement, I think this elite duo is to easy.
As you just said its pretty feasable to solo this elite duo. Elite should be all about perfect coordination which barely happens in this duo.
I dont think u should just get 2 dps in here and rekt the floor.
Adding more stunning drones to me seems a great way to artificially increase the dificulty of this duo, obviously removing the hard stun from the drones would be welcomed, hard stunning is abit 2 much.

You didn't truly complete it with any handicaps, the other person carried you, there's a difference.

Your test is disingenuous because you're not truly replicating an instance involving characters and builds that would present a real genuine struggle.

What is with this sort of testing honestly?

All you've really proven is that an adequately geared and experienced player can solo this elite duo when equipped with gear, knowledge and a sufficient enough distraction in their partner to provide the window to carry, what is it with testers as well entirely discounting their experience as a factor in their perception to the extent they're unable to consider the experience from any other perspective?

Find an absolute noob and see if they can carry you in the same way.

Also it's absurd to suggest a duo, alert and raid be on parity the instances are building blocks, you start in a duo and move up to raiding as part of natural progression, this was even the building blocks in the much loved origin crisis content.

The elite duo is fine it is sufficiently challenging enough to be a starting point for elite players or moreso newer elite players.

If you're an elite player and you were looking in the duo for some sort of pinnacle of challenge then you were definitely looking in the wrong place and that's how it should be.

Again. You were carried in that run you posted. You can’t say it’s so easy you could do it at below 100 cr but have a dps carrying you. The dps was killing the adds before they get to you. During the boss fight he is doing at the work while you’re off on the sides lung lung and stuff.

And for the record. That’s exactly how the duo is supposed to go. Burn adds and do mechanics on bosses. You both could’ve been max CR and the run wouldve went the same. However if you were both at minimum cr that run would’ve been harder.

And on top of that. I soloed it knowing the mechanics fully and making full work of them. The first boss is simple to solo once you know how to do it. As for the second boss. Soloing it isn’t so easy. If you think it’s so easy why don’t you solo it record it and prove it’s so easy instead of recording yourself getting carried. And do it as a dps (no tank gear). Since I already know you would’ve just went in as a tank and just healed all the damage to say it’s so easy anyone can do it

Besides a troll in elite, is there a way to get rid of the huge defense buff on the 1st boss?