Elite Daily missions seem 'unbalanced'

[Traderjill]

I tried looking for a thread to bump but couldn't find one that had my specific complaint/concern (please feel free to point me to one if you're aware).

I recently returned to game and started doing some of the daily missions on a newly rolled character. My issue is with the elites that are assigned.

As a 220 char, I was/am able to pull an elite mission that only requires me to kill a single prisoner mob. On a bad day (meaning the mob was killed before I got there), the entire process from pulling the mission to killing the mob to turning in the mission to the 2 NPC's takes all of about 15-20min.. and that's max time.

I was really shocked to find that on my level 150 char, the only elite daily mission was to kill every named boss mob in Inner Sanctum. This started with the first floor portal mob and concluded with killing all of the bosses on the 3rd floor including Hezak. I'm no gimp.. and please be aware that I was able to dual log my 220 MP and solo all of these mobs while teamed with my lowbie but.. seriously? What team of 6 level 150's are killing Hezak these days?

Why are lower levels subject to a much more difficult (comparatively) elite daily mission experience than 220's? I think someone needs to rethink the elites.. they don't make sense.

And while you're at it.. now that my NT is level 181 her elite daily options are:
- Smuggler's Den (killing mobs and then Mantis queen)
- Hollow Island Champions
- Mercs

Again, since you can't do these missions in a raid environment, Funcom is saying that a team of 6 170+ folks can pull off these raids. Even if that may be the case (I know someone is going to say its no problem if they're twinked).. that is really exceptional in comparison to the Elite options available to a 220. Hollow Island requires you to farm the Poo and it is a LONG raid. The Merc camp requires you to spawn Ota and again, the mercs themselves are no small measure. The 'easy' option of Smuggler's Den quite often results in you getting to the last part and the mantis queen not being up or getting OD'd by someone else that was camping there for non-quest related reasons.

[Ichu]

bump, the lower elite dailys are definitely not on the same difficulty scale as the 220 ones.
This has stopped me from doing the lower elites, not because I can't, but rather because it is far to annoying to even bother when it would be faster to get an inf team in the middle of the night when noone is doing inf than it would be for me to log alts to help lowbies do these elites.

[blingoutyourdead]

I had the same complaint when I got that ridiculous mish that requires you to clean out Smuggler's Den, as a REGULAR daily, two days out of every three, on my TL4 MA. This is when nominally the regular dailies are SOLO missions. The TL4/5 dailies have been completely sideways since they released this whole system; like they just threw a bunch of random stuff in there at the last second and dumped it in game w/o any thought. Too bad really, since these are exactly the levels that are most painful to work your way through, if you don't want to just flush 150m on kite hill.

Unfortunately FC has shown no signs at all that they give a crap about ever fixing these for the mid levels. If anything they've only gotten worse in the last couple patches, while the TL7 missions remain, as they were advertised, fairly quick and simple for most toons to get done each day.

The cynical take would be that this is "working as intended," where the intent is to make the "level packs" (coming soon to an ITEMSHOP near you!) seem like a good deal. Since those will give you a cash money route to 199, it seems like FC has made the TL4/5 dailies ignorantly painful on purpose, in exactly the level range that they plan to milk for their own paid power leveling service.

[Luziciona]

I agree - bumpetibump and then some.

There's only one "half-decent" Elite mission for 190ish toons, and that is Mantiss cave, killing Guardians/Breeders/Queen, but that too is way more time and effort than just one prisoner.

[Warhead]

I can already see the high level elites being "adjusted" and the lower level ones left as they are.

[Lazy]

the smuggler's den elite is pretty easy aside from queen...

[Doomflower]

i'd like to see mini-xp-rewards after every stage of these elite missions, not only at the end.
so you can leave out hezak or mantis queen and still get decent xp from the daily mission.
iirc the lower elite dailies such as totw and foremans have these mini-rewards in between.

[enakur]

i'd like to see mini-xp-rewards after every stage of these elite missions, not only at the end.
so you can leave out hezak or mantis queen and still get decent xp from the daily mission.
iirc the lower elite dailies such as totw and foremans have these mini-rewards in between.

Apperently you have'n;t done them.

At each stage in smugglers you get a mini daily reward. at queen you get that x3.

in IS you get a reward for the floor clearance. which is mildly said over te top.


Bump for more elite daily;s.

[Doomflower]

ok, for smugglers you're right,checked the logs and there is a reward. (other char than the logs below of course)
but for inner sanctum there was only a reward after hezak died, as i did the mission:

first/second floor:
["#0000000040000002#","Vicinity","",1290290579]All team members can loot these remains.
["#0000000040000001#","System","",1290290580]A too high level player in your team prevents you from receiving any experience.
["#0000000040000001#","System","",1290290580]Mission accomplished.
["#0000000040000001#","System","",1290290580]For you to receive the full reward from this quest, you can not be grouped with players above level 211 while solving the quest or when handing in the quest result.
["#0000000040000001#","System","",1290290580]You got a new mission.

third floor:
["#0000000040000002#","Vicinity","",1290291162]All team members can loot these remains.
["#0000000040000001#","System","",1290291162]A too high level player in your team prevents you from receiving any experience.
["#0000000040000001#","System","",1290291163]Mission accomplished.
["#0000000040000001#","System","",1290291163]For you to receive the full reward from this quest, you can not be grouped with players above level 211 while solving the quest or when handing in the quest result.
["#0000000040000001#","System","",1290291163]You got a new mission.

hezak:
["#0000000040000001#","System","",1290291383]A too high level player in your team prevents you from receiving any experience.
["#0000000040000002#","Vicinity","",1290291383]All team members can loot these remains.
["#000000004200000b#","Me got XP","",1290291383]You received 7366139 xp.
["#0000000040000001#","System","",1290291383]New Level: 154!
["#0000000040000001#","System","",1290291383]718647 xp was gained as a side bonus!
["#0000000040000001#","System","",1290291383]Side tokens collected: 776.
["#0000000040000001#","System","",1290291383]You've received an item as mission reward!
["#0000000040000001#","System","",1290291383]Mission accomplished.
["#0000000040000001#","System","",1290291383]For you to receive the full reward from this quest, you can not be grouped with players above level 214 while solving the quest or when handing in the quest result.
["#0000000040000001#","System","",1290291383]You got a new mission.

so, if there is a reward, its not the typical "item-reward".

as an example where it has worked: den loot controller daily:

["#0000000040000002#","Vicinity","",1281609372]All team members can loot these remains.
["#000000004200000b#","Me got XP","",1281609372]You received 1079674 xp.
["#0000000040000001#","System","",1281609372]92434 xp was gained as a side bonus!
["#0000000040000001#","System","",1281609372]You've received an item as mission reward!
["#0000000040000001#","System","",1281609372]Mission accomplished.
["#0000000040000001#","System","",1281609372]For you to receive the full reward from this quest, you can not be grouped with players above level 193 while solving the quest or when handing in the quest result.
["#0000000040000001#","System","",1281609372]You got a new mission.

[Weltall]

Yeah either the TL7 prisoner daily is too easy, or the lower TL elite mishes are too hard

[lainbr]

Yeah either the TL7 prisoner daily is too easy, or the lower TL elite mishes are too hard

Its both. Tl7 Prisoner daily need a bump and lower Tl elites need a nerf >.<

[blingoutyourdead]

I can already see the high level elites being "adjusted" and the lower level ones left as they are.

Unfortunately this is probably exactly what will happen. Cause if it ain't broken, FC just isn't done with it yet.

[blingoutyourdead]

Its both. Tl7 Prisoner daily need a bump

No, it doesn't. If you think content is too easy, just drag a pocket trader around to keep you drained all the time, slap on your noob isle weapon, and do them in a medsuit. Considering that you're nominally expected to start doing prisoners at 200, they're borderline impossible for most support toons and non-twinks, even in teams. Reasonably geared 220s can solo them easily, but that's as it should be; if they're easy at that point, then they're just working as intended. On 220 toons with support-level DD, they take a barely annoying amount of time to kill, but they're still fairly well balanced for effort / reward as they are.

[Traderjill]

I may have worded my concern incorrectly but the sentiment is that an elite daily mission is something that should be accomplishable by a team of people at that level (if a KILL is a required). For the Inner Sanctum daily you have to kill 8 bosses in IS. You do not get an update if you are in a raid interface so this is something that must be done by a max of 6 people. Funcom should give 140-160's a daily elite that requires a team of 140-160's to complete.. not something that requires a couple 220's to join in for assistance.

The elite daily for TL7 is something that can be accomplished by a team of TL7's. If you're at the low end of the TL7 range you may need to bring in 2-4 people to kill a prisoner. If you're at the high end (220) you can probably solo most if not all of them. The same applies to the dust brigade instance TL7 daily (can't remember what the 3rd option is at TL7). It is accomplishable by a team of up to 6 people. This is working as I would hope is intended.

[drainbamage]

No, it doesn't. If you think content is too easy, just drag a pocket trader around to keep you drained all the time, slap on your noob isle weapon, and do them in a medsuit. Considering that you're nominally expected to start doing prisoners at 200, they're borderline impossible for most support toons and non-twinks, even in teams. Reasonably geared 220s can solo them easily, but that's as it should be; if they're easy at that point, then they're just working as intended. On 220 toons with support-level DD, they take a barely annoying amount of time to kill, but they're still fairly well balanced for effort / reward as they are.

Especially since a 220 would only be doing it for research, which is an obnoxious grind already.

[Mastablasta]

That does sound sort of off the scale, having TL5 be "clean out IS" O.o

I don't really get the beef with Smuggler's Den though. It's like somehow that's the worst thing ever introduced to AO. I had a rather nice time going there teaming with random folks, apart from some rather long spawns, the couple times I went with my soldier before losing interest in alts again.

[Gridpain]

Bump

I ve dont "elite" dailies when leveling my fixer and killing mantis at TL4 is doable, killing stuff in the smuggler's area at high TL4 is doable. But IS bosses at 150+ is just completly insane.
Even a full team of 150 will have issue at 2nd floor, not even talking about 3rd...

[xxaaaxx]

Most of the "hate" is from the boring nature of the place (killing all those mantises gets tedious very fast imo, and most have bitter memories of when they used to send you there for regular dailys 6 days out of every 7), 20 minute spawn times on the regular mobs (ridiculous for quest mobs) and the Queen, which is still 75 minutes iirc. Thank goodness you can delete that step and still have the xp from the previous parts...

The IS elite...yeah they just screwed that one up, no idea what they were thinking. The elites before and after that make sense and are doable either solo or with a team (TOTW at TL2, Foremans at low TL3, COH at mid-high TL3 sans the Cerubin part, lowbie mantises at TL4, Smuggler mobs at mid-high TL4). IS just looks like they threw it in there in order for low TL5s to have an elite, without realizing that even a team of 150s would be nothing but a blood stain on the walls vs Hezak. Unless your org regularly does IS and you can tag along to have them complete it for you (not exactly completing a daily yourself but better than nothing), it's easier to just pretend elites don't exist until 175 (190?) when it switches back to Smug Den.

As much as some are sick of Smugglers Den, easiest fix would be to take that high-tl4 elite and split it in two -- lower lvl wardens/rookies/pilots etc for tl4, higher lvl brutes/thugs/veterans etc. for low tl5, and change it to 'kill 5 of each' insteand of 3.

[lainbr]

No, it doesn't. If you think content is too easy, just drag a pocket trader around to keep you drained all the time, slap on your noob isle weapon, and do them in a medsuit. Considering that you're nominally expected to start doing prisoners at 200, they're borderline impossible for most support toons and non-twinks, even in teams. Reasonably geared 220s can solo them easily, but that's as it should be; if they're easy at that point, then they're just working as intended. On 220 toons with support-level DD, they take a barely annoying amount of time to kill, but they're still fairly well balanced for effort / reward as they are.

If you have problems killing a prisoner, you are killing the wrong one. If you didn't noticed, there are some that kits around 1.5k AND have no tricks. Soloed him on a 218 gimp enfo w/o using coon or br.

[zorxer]

the smugglers den whilst being a rather easy mission is really annoying, especially if you run into ppl who are waiting for the spawn of queen as well and after you've asked them to join/wait a few extra minutes to get on the same step, just ignore you and force you to wait another 1hour 20mins or so...

inner sanctum i couldn't be bothered with, that was just utter crap and impossible to do <159

the tl7 elites aren't great but i don't see a point in making prisoners harder, if anything adjust the other ones for example dreadloch mission should give you a random dread boss to kill (perhaps with the option to choose which one in similar fashion to prisoner, even though it may not be intended) but also allow you to spawn the said boss yourself while you have the mission running ...and there isnt one already spawned