Ultimate Omnibus Adventure - A Quest in Search of An Outlier [Videos]

TL;DR - more in-game messaging could help, but I wish the devs would help emphasize the "Multiplayer" aspect of an MMORPG more and teach people how to use the chatbox or at least play cooperatively.

I know I can carry any 7 noobs through any Omnibus raid as long as they can follow directions. And only a minority of runs require that amount of carrying, the majority will be pretty smooth. 15-20 minutes is reasonable for a raid to me. It's not stat clamp, it's players who can't read or aren't actually trying to clear instances that makes Omnibus difficult.


I haven't read every post, but here's my list of actually hard Omnibus content (~0% chance of passing if you queue into it). I usually queue as Healer/DPS, but run on Tank and Troll as well.

1. Spindrift Station

And here's the list of content that can be really hard to pass, but not necessarily.

1. God of Monsters
2. Monsters of Metal
3. New Genesis Now
4. Happiness Home
5. Halls of Hades
6. Blackest Night
7. Into the Dark Multiverse
8. Paradox Wave? / Ultimate Soldier?

This is all I can think of ATM. The difference between the first and second lists is that it is very difficult to explain the mechanics for the first list, while it is only somewhat difficult to explain the mechanics for the second list.

I've hardly run Spindrift Station, but I'm pretty sure that more than most people, who've completed it 0 times. There is too much teamwork and coordination required to run it, you need like 6 people in voice (or 6 people who've run it before, which never happens). People will have no idea what the bombs do on 1B and just can't adapt to it, and it would probably take 10 minutes alone to explain how 2B works. I think it's a cool raid, but in Omnibus, there's almost no way it can be done.

For the raids in the second list, the mechanics are simple to explain and follow, but people need to actually read chat.

1. GoM 2B. Tank needs to move away from the Phoenix.
2. MoM. This takes more explaining and must be done for each boss, but not too much more. You can carry a lot of these fights alone, though it does take more work

Let me pick up the Sunblade. Stand behind ice / make Giants charge icicles.

Turn into a Spore and press you first power on Poison Ivy every 5 seconds. [I usually do MC myself, or...] Turn into a green twink and press your first power on anyone who's mind controlled.

Follow me, and press your first power when you can no longer move. Ignore the boss, kill the Dark Robins.

3. NGN 1B. Block when he spins. LB: Stay in the center and don't move from there.
4. HH LB. Kill Stompa first. Always kill the shield drone. Then kill Superman. [A bit of a burn check here, need at least one competent DPS]
5. Halls of Hades. Don't be near the Forge Spirit. Let me pick up everything.
6. BN LB. This one is on the level of Spindrift Station for explaining but I feel like it's a lot easier to understand for people.
7. DM. Kind of like MoM in terms of explaining.

Don't touch the cards. Three people come into the portal.

Tank at the door. When he walks into the center, hide behind a rock.

Kill the Spirits. Do not Interact with a Dark Knight. Kill any Dark Knights you see. Stand around the middle and spam Interact.

8. PW / US. Close tunnels / portals.

Every other raid is pretty much just run through it, mechanics don't matter enough. Maybe A&B. Maybe JLD FoA. Maybe Atlantis Throne LB.

Honestly, I don't think Omnibus is difficult. What I think makes it difficult is the fact that people don't know how to read chat. I don't mind spending a few minutes teaching noobs, or answering questions from them, but it's quite literally unplayable when they don't communicate and just blindly go through everything. Sure the raids and the game itself could give more messaging, but honestly that just takes away a lot of the experience of playing through an MMO if everything's handed to you that easily. If new players could learn to use their chat box and follow directions, then Omnibus would be a lot easier. I don't care if you have no idea what you're doing or how bad you are, but I definitely do care if you won't work with the other 7 people in the run and either refuse or are incapable of communicating at all.

As to whether stat-clamp actually makes a difference... I don't think so. Sure you're nerfed and you can't oneshot everything, but even just from a game design standpoint, it doesn't make sense that you can get pretty decent rewards for doing something that's way below your difficulty level. The game shouldn't give you free stuff. For me, I'm playing to enjoy the game. It's not really playing if I instantly blow through everything in the entire instance.

Sorry for the long post / semi-rant.

Unrelated - can other raids be made to pop more in Omnibus? KCT, BBS, BD, PB, UM, and so on.... Scale SM rewards to average completion times if you have to.

Good list. I'd probably throw in Clocktower (Black Canary/Huntress have to be KOed within the same timeframe, monitor room mechanics and final fight with Oraclebot will possibly wipe whole group) and Phoenix Cannon (still a lot of disconnects, emblem room, Lady Blackhawk can really grief with tornadoes). Possible by blind cueing? Sure but I've personally seen groups in Omnibus fail on CT and PC repeatedly also. Not alt or random que friendly raids.

People outside the puzzle room
- make sure you're inserting oxygen when it gets low as indicated by the colored bar

People inside the puzzle room
- press each cog 3 times exactly
- place every pipe piece
- press the main pipe cog when it appears
- press the final terminal
- avoid the crabs.

Pretty basic - can actually be explained in chat, the issue isn't explaining it, it's people actually having the smarts to read the instructions or heaven forbid figure out the puzzle like we all did when it was new

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I snipped out a few comments you made that I think really drive home the things we've been talking about in league lately and that help determine whether content "feels" harder than it maybe should.

• We laugh at people who complain about hybrid/battle/"fake" roles - if they get the job done, they did their role. If they didn't get the job done, then complain.
  • Same goes for "requiring" certain artifact/ally/augment setups.
  • Everyone has to start somewhere y'all, you don't need all 200 level artifacts to complete any raid in this game. Speaking from experience
  • To be fair...the game never helps a player determine how to build effectively - for damage or support roles. What powers to use? What artifacts? What skills? Augments? Why? Where's the in-game equations/information?
• The new tells are futuristically advanced compared to base game. Kudos dev team for the floor tells and messaging in more recent content. Still not perfect, but night and day better.
• I think you're the first person outside of league I've heard mention the voiceover tells. We were fighting about that in league not too long ago because someone had all their in-game sound turned off and were missing tells.
  • To be fair, what if you have an auditory disability? I'm not sure if those voice tells get put into subtitles/chat messages, but they should.

Agreed entirely battle roles are perfectly fine when they get the job done, when they fail that needs to be pointed out because the player needs to either adjust their balance or at worse accept a more pure role is required certainly if the content is new. I always have pure build on an armory for when that very need arises and I'm continually playing with my battle build in terms of where I want its effectiveness.

My battle build generally however is developed with the likes of survival mode in mind, if it can resist survival mode it can resist absolutely every level of EEG, without doubt, so much so, I could actually probably increase my damage output stats in EEG even further than I actually do, because its built that way.

I also agree entirely about artifacts and what's not, the game really does need to do a little bit more to assist new players with building these, I think its fair to say some artifacts are obviously just more powerful than others and although I think a tutorial would be useful it's unfortunately not going to be able to tell a player "you really should level the transformation card" as an example.

Realistically though you only really need three 'good' max level artifacts to really perform in the game, but what you don't want to be doing is wallowing around with 80 or 120 rank artifacts. I do that with my alts and the performance difference between my alts and my main couldn't be more pronounced as a result, which really does demonstrate the impact these more horizontal progression elements make to your character.

With respect to the voice tells, I've never actually checked whether they're subtitled, I assume they possibly are, but you raise a point, generally speaking too, I actually do play with my voice/sound off at times, but when content is new I'll usually run through with it on until I note the visual cues for something, or if there are no visual cues I'll leave sound on for that instance specifically.

LOL @ Random new guy

I agree with everything you said except this, and I've seen other people throw this around - "you have to have x @ 200". I feel the same way about Artifacts as I've always felt about SP in this game. They're a crutch. You don't need anything at 200 to complete content in this game. Again, speaking from experience. Our league came back to the game last summer, the vast majority of us had no idea what artifacts were. Most of us didn't spend a cent on marketplace stuff to level. I still don't have 3 artifacts on my main at 200. I understand people see us as an outlier. We're probably part of why Elite content has pick-up limits. It's my jam to go pick up the tank in the middle of a pewpfest.

Will content take longer without artifacts? Yes. Will it require the group to be more aware of their roles and the mechanics of the content? Yes. "Need" vs "Want". You "want" 3 good max level artifacts, but you don't "need" them. We even did through round 30 SM and we're not all rocking 200s. But, y'know, I did get accused of being an elitist b*tch back in the day, so...grain of salt.

I completely agree with you. I also think Proxy having several 200 level artifacts with the ability to tactical swap and 700+ skill points skews the purpose of this thread a bit. Most players I run into when I run Omnibus have maybe a few artifacts at 160 and 300-400 skill points. The players who have 700+ skill points and full 200 artifacts really stand out on the rare occasions I run into them because they make the content a cakewalk in most cases.

Like you, my wife and I returned last summer after a 3–4 year break. We both have been playing catchup and are nearing 400 skill points with 160 level artifacts. Together, we can beat most content. When I solo queue, I can generally get most groups through if there is at least one more experienced player to help out. If I'm the only one with experience, I have to pass along what I know, and sometimes that still isn't enough to get over the hump.

On many levels I agree with what you're saying. I don't think you "have to have the artifacts" at 200 either, and in fact there's a few in game where doing so doesn't really add any tangible benefit, take solar amplifier as an example, at 200 all you're gaining is empowered channeling and extra health.

I suppose if you were running Tetrahedron in DPS role you might obtain benefit from that, but most DPS aren't doing that, they're leaving Tetra to a buff controller.

I don't actually disagree with you, but would put some level of caveat on the point that a players experience will often also partially offset the lack of artifact, with that experience, a player that lacks that experience won't so easily get away with it. We could term an artifact a crutch and in some respects I think they are, but at the same time, they're also just simply a core piece of a players progress, we could argue that numerous aspects of progress are crutches on face value.

The reason I generally recommend players get their artifacts to maximum level is because the impact they provide cannot be understated, especially to in EEG, and although we both agree here that they aren't "needed" less experienced players will often misinterpret the context in which we're discussing this point and then think they just outright shouldn't be leveled

But I don't disagree with what you've said.

I would agree with you, partially, if my tac swapping was done out of necessity, but it isn't, it's done because I feel like it.

I could run the EEG content without swapping at all and the impact would be marginally different.

Swapping the artifacts and gear doesn't change the end result other than achieving marginal improvements my tac swapping is also purposefully kept casual so as to not be unachievable by the casual player, it's also the only type of tac swapping I defend when people complain about that issue more widely.

What I am realistically doing as demonstrated in these videos is using what I've leveled to its intended potential.

I refute any allegation at all that this skews the purpose of this thread, it doesn't at all, what we're looking for here are outlier instances that are impossible irrespective of progress, if I can't complete the instance, even with my progress, then there's an issue, and that is what we are looking for.

Everyone accepts that someone with less progress is going to have a worse experience, but that doesn't actually prove the content is imbalanced, that just highlights the very thing I'm speaking about when I stress how important your progress is.

Artifacts, Allies, Augments, SP, Generator Mods.

It should be noted as well that SP is a marathon not a sprint you are going to have to target those in a methodical manner, even when running EEG and some you just ultimately aren't going to get in random group encounters you will have to target those feats more specifically through LFG, friends or league mates and that's just the way it has always been.

I respectfully disagree with the highlighted portion. How can we expect people to progress if they are unable to complete content while trying to progress?

When you have less progress, content, can be completed, it just takes longer and requires even greater mechanic compliance; that's always the case, is it not?

Also focus on content that doesn't cause you to struggle and come back to the content where you do struggle later.

Unless you or someone else maxed out in the group is able to solo the mechanics, which is why I still argue you skew what the majority of players experience.

No, you're suggesting that players aren't able to complete mechanics themselves, but instead must rely on others? How did you think players completed this content when it was new?

You are inferring what I am suggesting, but while my implications may match what you infer, what I actually suggest is quite different.


Players completed the content when it was new by learning within leagues, from people who frequent the forums, by watching videos, and from friends who passed along what the mechanics were. That is less common today with the plethora of content, and I think it points to the biggest issue with Omnibus; you and others are glossing over that issue. I agree with others who have said the same thing: early end game should have a place to read what mechanics to expect. If players want to learn on their own without reading it, they should form groups to do so and experience it as it was originally released, but the average player should have access to mechanics through a summary in the game before queuing.

Many MMOs provide a summary of what to expect from older content before going in. Newer players, or returning players, should not have to spend hours upon hours watching YouTube videos to learn content they missed. Most players are not going to put in that amount of effort nor time, and I would argue they should not be expected to. I did that when the game had a handful of episodes. To do so today feels overwhelming with the amount of content I missed from 2017-2021. I keep up with the current episodes as expected, but there are a lot of gaps in my knowledge that make it difficult when running the content I missed.

I can only imagine how much more overwhelming it is for someone starting out, learning the content from 2011-2022 while being called stupid or an idiot for not knowing the mechanics. More frustrating is that even when I come across veterans, I see contradicting explanations of what mechanics exist and strategies to deal with them with some that work and others that don't depending on the group makeup. Then there are all the egos involved with players who will talk down to other players for explaining what to do, players who act like they know everything while they ignore mechanics and cause the group to wipe, etc.

If the game provided a summary of how to handle each boss fight and any puzzles in between, it would reduce at least some of the Omnibus frustrations.

I want to first and foremost acknowledge an appreciation for the fact, it's harder to learn things when the content is older, not because the content itself is hard to learn but moreso to acknowledge your point that when there's less players doing the content there's less players to learn from. There are things the developers could do to improve this like providing better more meaningful rewards to veterans in EEG.

With that being said however, I think expecting their to be a tutorial in game for literally every instance is unrealistic on your part because it's simply never going to happen and numerous MMO's I don't doubt some might, but numerous also don't offer that sort of experience, so you work with what you've got.

Right or Wrong, Youtube offers a wealth of information on these instances and you can usually find the answers you need without watching content for hours, nevertheless that just inevitably the position you find yourself stuck in given the content is aged. I would argue counter to you on that point that researching the content where they're finding something difficulty is rather, exactly, what is expected of them.

I think for all new players any game like this with multiple features and systems and years of content is going to be overwhelming at first and that's why you get those that hang and those that quit.

The ones that hang are the ones that ask questions, network, make friends, and in fact actually do watch content on Youtube to learn.

I do agree with you that the game could have at least some better tutorials, it could obviously have a lot of better messaging in older content I've said as much in my feedback, but you're never going to get something as likely comprehensive as you hope.

Again I'm not discounting what you're saying, I'm just trying to be realistic about it

There are other factors that make research difficult. I have found some videos with voiceovers to guide through the content. For every one of those, I've found dozens that are just music or people dropping F bombs left and right with no real substance. Add on that many of the instances have acronyms that players use in place of the full name, and it can sometimes be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

I also don't like learning from videos what I can read. Back when I started playing, there were written walkthroughs everywhere for the content available. I occasionally find tidbits on the forums, but there are very few actual guides anymore. I may be better off just asking on here for help with specific bosses and putting together my own guides that maybe I can share in the walkthrough area of the forums (does that still exist?). I'm sure I'm not the only person here who would rather read a guide over watching a video.

You are not. That's why I include a mechanical breakdown in the video description for everything I post.

I would love it if that were the case. It seems to me that most of the Omnis I get into have at least one player clamped up at CR so they aren't doing much. There was one where I was the only person that was above the CR for the content and ended up doing more damage than the other three combined, and that was as Quantum DPS (126 SP and only one art is over 100 I think). Only one of the players used an Ally. If any of them had artifacts, they weren't obvious (but then mine aren't either - Trans/Strat/Solar). I didn't mind it as they were trying, Tank was pulling adds and the healer was doing whatever it is that water does.

Now there are times where it is obvious that people have more SP and leveled arts than I do as I am burning my *** off in rotation and still come up third on DPS in a 4-man, but not severely behind. And that's fine too. I've only been back in the game since earlier this year and I don't need to chase scoreboard, as long as I can see I'm actively contributing and not half or less of someone else's dps.

To be fair, the videos do imply that stat-clamp isn't the cause of the issues, just that it made already present issues more pronounced because it was no longer possible (or at least no longer trivial) for overleveled tanks and healers to drown out intended combat mechanics.

I would agree with you, if it was a simple matter to have more than one build. My stance has always been, if the devs wish to give me a second armory and ~17 extra gear slots I will gladly make a second one, but even then it would be a choice between building for uncapped healing (for normal mode endgame content - I know I'm not good enough for elite) and building for uncapped dps (ditto). Having a build explicitly for clamped content is the privilege of the few.

The bigger issue is not building artifacts and augments at all. Allies are a less obvious one.

To be fair, in the case of race cars you have 3 different top speeds to contend with just on straights, and it's always a compromise between them. You have the top speed when driving round in clean air. Then you have the one when stuck about 100 yards behind another car - at this distance you're being buffeted from all the displaced air from the car in front which is both increasing drag on the straight and reducing stability in the corners. Finally you have the top speed when you're much closer to the car in front, and occupying the near vacuum that the above air was displaced from - this is the fastest state of a race car, provided its gear-ratios are long enough to get the wheels to spin fast enough. But increased gear-ratios also mean slower acceleration, so in circumstances where your car is still getting up to speed - like coming out of a corner - this will actually make you slower. Not to mention, it's only the fastest state on a straight - in a corner the car won't have as much downforce as it would otherwise so won't be able to maintain its grip at high speed so well (and trying will shorten the tyre life considerably) - this is mitigated by taking a different line through the corner to the car you're following, but higher wings helps too - though also comes at the expense of top speed in clean air.

Actually your example might be more on the nose than I thought on first reading.

I can certainly agree with that.

I still don't know where to get white mods for I think it's the foot socket. (Also, are white equipment mods from base dispensers included in free to play now, because that's an important consideration when it comes to random groups? I know it's been refined a bit but I can't remember the details.) And one of the other white slots (I think the face-mod) drops randomly in I want to say Long Live the Legion - good luck expecting a newbie to know that.

And that's not getting started on blue generator mods.

(Also, on the subject on generator mods, after 'Bases & League Halls', 'Gotham & Metropolis' and 'Urgent Warfronts', what's left for the fourth teleport mod? And, also as an example of poor communication, nothing in-game tells you that you have to buy the teleporter separately - you do not know how much time I spent looking around the Watchtower trying to find a non-existent teleport hub. To be fair, it's not like it has a shortage of teleporters.)

And I, after years of gameplay, only discovered the Bottled City Soder from a video in the guides section a couple of weeks ago - when it comes to places where I expect to find mildly superior non-consuming recovery items, Booster Gold and his vending machine are places I would never have thought to look.

And mixed augments sounds like they don't understand how stats work rather than how augments work, unless you mean the episode-specific augments in which case I agree with them - most of the benefits come from having 1 equipped after all, and they're a pain to level, so one from the current episode and one from the last one (occasionally subbed for a different one in specific content) makes sense to me (though still for the right role of course).

As for roles, absolutely agree. It's part of why I hate the fact that the level 10 version of Area 51 was removed (along with the other levelling versions of tier 1 alerts). That was where I learnt how to heal in group content, and they were designed for people who were still figuring things out (and I don't mean artifacts, augments etc. because at those levels they're non-existent - I mean things like how their skills work in group-play and what their ranges are). My desire not to let everyone down meant that I poured over the skill descriptions - and sure my loadout had to change as I unlocked more skills (and again when I unlocked the group-heal buffing artifacts) but it gave me somewhere to try things and meant I didn't reach level 30 and hit the Doomsday raid with no clue what I needed to be doing.

You can get lucky with Omni runs too of course. Yesterday I had a DM omni-run without a single wipe. The card game went to round 5, but we still made it.

The problem with this is that the only way to heal an npc is with aoes or effects with an aoe splash - it's the only reason I keep such a move on my loadout, but in group content the priority heal, group heal and channelled heal are usually more useful (and shield, but that's often true in soloing too).

That might work on the custom queue screen, but where would it fit on the omnibus screen - you don't queue for a raid, you queue for all raids.

My own artifacts are between 120 and 170odd… Anyway, people get high level ones by uh, starting with low level ones and levelling them up, and if not in omni content - intended to be doable by a team of people who've hit level 30 but aren't endgame - then where?

When it's people with rank 19 artifacts I can agree (because that's not 'in the process of levelling', it's ignoring - you should really clear the first gate before level 30), but rank 80 - 120 should be more than reasonable for omni. In fact, I'll say it should be reasonable for normal mode endgame as well - it's CR that should be gating that.

But yeah, the most important thing with artifacts is in picking the right ones, which, again, yeah, I can see how that might be confusing.