In the game City
of Heroes, players can team up for special missions known as Task
Force, where 4-8 players run through an elaborate storyline / series
of missions all the way up a Villains chain of command to the Archvillain of
that dastardly group.
The advantages of a Task Force are that you rack up incredible amounts of experience and influence: Experience to getting the next Level, Influence needed to buy enhancements and inspirations. You also win enhancements along the way, and if you defeat the Archvillain, you win a Single Origin enhancement (very expensive!) well above the average level of the villains you've faced.
The disadvantages are that the TF can take about four to six hours, maybe half a day; and that people can drop out of a Task Force but cannot be brought in once it starts. A poorly built team could have troubles even getting past the first mission. While early on, very few Task Forces had been successful, as players' abilities improved, Task Force survival and success improved.
This is from the early days, after I had run a Task Force with Blue Arc Anom on Synapse. Finding out there was an earlier one with Positron in Steel Canyon, I decided to run that TF and write about the experience. At the time, Vectura was a Level 14 Force Field Defender, and in the best position to run it.
TASK FORCE Name unknown out of Steel Canyon - FIRST ATTEMPT
Our Task
Force started in Kings Row, in the sewers, hunting Vahz zombies. I highlighted
the players names on the image for better recognition, even though some of the
characters are hard to see. Da-Punisher was still heading in at this point,
so he'll be noted in the next shot. Mirae was team leader; Sparton a key healer;
Innoruk, Da-Punisher, urface and Daemon Night the tankers; Boom Bot the blaster.
My job: keep the bubbles fresh...
Action shots
can be cool, but sometimes, especially because of the bubbles, you can't really
see what's going on. An Eidilon, tough-mutha zombies, is just coming around
that corner...
Here you can see three
of the tankers (urface, Innoruk, and Da-Punisher) finish off another Eid. This
was actually the toughest part of the task force, this first round: simply because
there were two Eids at each battle site and people got killed left and right.
I died three times on this stage of the TF. Sheesh.
Here, we're goofing off,
waiting at the tram for Mirae to check in for the next mission. The tram is
so poorly lit, my attempts to adjust the image to be viewable is as best laughable.
Sorry guys...
The next stage of the Task Force went against the Circle of Thorns, with Mages
all over the place. Those Ruin Mages, I swear, the quakes they cause can give
you a headache... Hover comes in real handy in those situations...
Now the lighting
in this train station wasn't so bad...we were about to go off to Mission number
3, which turned out to be Clockwork, and relatively easy Clocks at that...despite
the Princes we faced.
This photo came from stop
number 4 on the Task Force tour. Sadly, by this point we had lost Innoruk, and
then Sparton and Mirae about two minutes after that. urface also dropped, halving
our team. With only four members left, with only one with healing powers (me),
we warily checked the next mission. At least three of us did: Da-Punisher ran
off to Galaxy City and hid there. As team leader, I kicked him off before we
racked any points that he could leech. So Daemon Night, Boom Bot and I walked
into a room full of Vahz, with Eids all over the place...
And died. It wasn't pretty. For some reason, I never take photos of my characters getting killed. Ah well...at this point, we called it a day...
So the Task Force ended, like so many others. Too many high-level people dropped, not enough healers stayed on, and the remaining characters didn't have the firepower to last it out. I did rack up to half the level in xp, and got truckloads of Influence for shopping, but still...didn't get it finished...
TASK FORCE Tunguska - FOURTH ATTEMPT
There were three more tries at the Steel Canyon Task Force. The second and third times failed because, again, too many people dropped out. I myself had to drop out of the third one because of Real Life issues... Finally, on the fourth attempt, I made sure I was clear of all things to do Saturday afternoon, and I had gotten Vectura up to level 16 on her own, and as a higher level could better survive the ordeal.
This
was our group...Blasto the Team Leader...Medbot Ice the Controller (with better
healing powers Thank God)...Stridor the Scrapper...Might the Tanker...Gunner02
the Blaster and obligitory raw cadet out of Cleveland going around showing photos
of his girlfriend...Dude, didn't you see those WWII movies?!?!
This was
the farthest yet gone into the Task Force...actual caves!
Added another photo, to increase the imagry saturation of this
page...
Half the team had leveled (gone up in terms of powers and abilities) by this
point in the map (chasing after more Clockwork), so do you see that bright light
coming out of Might's feet? Yup. He went and got Superspeed. Have you ever seen
a Tanker with Superspeed? Yeah, thought not. Most Tankers get Superjump or Teleport...at
least from my experience...
See Summon Master? He had actually started in the Task Force...only to drop
out due to connection problems. I had thought if you were off a Task Force you
couldn't come back, but I found out that's only if you ACTIVELY click on the
Quit Taskforce button...if you logoff/lose connection, you immediately get back
in when you logon. Hmm. Anyway by this time Blasto had departed for points unknown,
leaving Stridor as Leader...
This is hard to see, but we're in the sewers FINALLY going after more zombies.
For a Task Force devoted to hunting down Vahz, we had actually spent a lot of
time hunting Clocks and Circle of Thorns. This was about...oh, two more missions
left in the Task Force. Oh, and I had ended up as Team Leader (Stridor logged
off briefly). Summon Master was gone for good, and Might had to pick up his
wife at work (also he had laundry to do, kids to get at the pool, warring factions
in some obscure Asian potentate to pacify, stuff like that).
Does this look like a mission from Skyway? There's the Clockwork on the right.
This hallway is what you see in the higher level maps. And yet, you see those
zombies on the left? This was one odd Task Force. By the end, our enemies were
hodgepodge, an ecletic (sp) mix of Vahz, Clock and Circle. Sorta like the Greatest
Hits album of Levels 5-18... This was, I believe, the last stop. Our final mission...and
WE SURVIVED...
Fresh air! Breath free, Vectura, you survived! And there's no freaking way I'm
doing this again. You know why? SIX BLEEPING HOURS OF IT, THAT'S WHY! It's no
wonder few people finish it...Damn!...
UPDATE (12/5/05): There'd been calls over the months to the Game Devs about improving certain TFs, among them Positron given the prolonged travel times, door missions spread over so many zones, etc. With Issue 6, the Game Devs did affect one minor change: the contacts can now be called 1/3 into the TF rather than 2/3 of the way. It means we don't have to rush back to Positron after every door mission past the first two (we can get his phone to Call very early), and it does go a long way toward speeding up game time.
Suggestions for game play of Positron Task Force:
1) Team size is flexible, three is the minimum.
However, having at least one AT among the five primary ATs would make for an
effective team on this TF.
2) Make sure all teammates have a travel power. Given this TF opens at 10, while
a travel power isn't available until 14, players without travel powers can slow
up the TF (Defenders and Controllers with Kinetics as a powerset should have
Siphon Speed by Level 10, so that's not an issue).
2a) If there's players without a travel power, make sure there's someone with
Recall Friend plus travel power so that person can TP teammates to the door
missions.
3) Plan ahead. This is still a long TF given the number of door missions and
the distances between the many zones you play. Expect at least 4 hours to run
this TF.
4) Petition the Game Devs to have them redo this TF. There's no AV or Monster
at the end, and no sense of accomplishing the goal of the TF (saving a dam that
we never see/visit).
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