Survivor: Rumours & Expectations

[RimBlock]

The second item you can craft in the safe houses in the second area.  Either that or wait for somone else to get an extraction going and join them (as I did first time).

 

[quinch1199]

The second item you can craft in the safe houses in the second area.  Either that or wait for somone else to get an extraction going and join them (as I did first time).

You mean the thing that calls the thing?

Yup, I got to that then realised I didn't have enough parts to craft it but knowing the maps are identical as live anyway getting the materials isn't that difficult I'm sure. 

I know I have to start fresh next time I log in (it doesn't save mid "instance") but feel i've already learnt most of what I need to complete it well under 2hrs but also realising that the mode is just a vehicle to gain loot by a different method?

 

[RimBlock]

Sure but it is a loot game.

Well the first time was clearly a fluke as all other times I have died horribly.

First spawn was over near Warrengate.  All other spawns were over above Lincoln Tunnel.  Seems some areas are better than others.  The blocks over by Warrengate allowed a lot of exploring inside.

The revive with medkit is also of limited value.  Once down, if they are still firing and you revive you more or less have under one bar of health by the time the revive animation plays out.  Maybe a 5 second immunity on revive should be applied (2-3 of ot taken by the animation).

 

[quinch1199]

I only got a chance for one run last night, spawn SE of Lincoln Tunnel. I just mainly made an effort to avoid contact with mobs, moved from bolt-hole to bolt-hole but there was so much loot under the Lincoln tunnel expressway that I had to clear mobs there. 

I'm tempted to head over to the BoO and see what's what...I'm sure someone already has though. Hardest part for me was not freezing to death whilst trying to work out how to access the crashed choppers. 

 

[quinch1199]

Sure but it is a loot game.

Well the first time was clearly a fluke as all other times I have died horribly.

First spawn was over near Warrengate.  All other spawns were over above Lincoln Tunnel.  Seems some areas are better than others.  The blocks over by Warrengate allowed a lot of exploring inside.

The revive with medkit is also of limited value.  Once down, if they are still firing and you revive you more or less have under one bar of health by the time the revive animation plays out.  Maybe a 5 second immunity on revive should be applied (2-3 of ot taken by the animation).

Oh! you died... so I'm guessing the quote from the patch notes: "WHEN YOU DIE ==> GAME OVER!" ... only refers to the Survival mission and does NOT translate to the main game? 

i.e. you don't lose your uber-level-30-geared-up character from the game and its not "perma-death", but when you die in Survival you're just ported back to the HUB/Terminal.

 

[DeadSockPuppet]

I think this is how Rogues bring up their friends for ultimate gang bang right?

I've done some 8-man rogue hunting in the DZ and this is how we did it.  I think it will all depend on how the matchmaking for Survival works as to whether or not this works. 

I know I have to start fresh next time I log in (it doesn't save mid "instance") but feel i've already learnt most of what I need to complete it well under 2hrs but also realising that the mode is just a vehicle to gain loot by a different method?

From what I'm reading, 2hrs seems to be a respectable time for a Survival run, at least in the beginning.  That being said, I give it a short bit of time before groups start shaving chunks of time off of that. 

 

[RimBlock]

Oh! you died... so I'm guessing the quote from the patch notes: "WHEN YOU DIE ==> GAME OVER!" ... only refers to the Survival mission and does NOT translate to the main game? 

i.e. you don't lose your uber-level-30-geared-up character from the game and its not "perma-death", but when you die in Survival you're just ported back to the HUB/Terminal.

Yep, you die and can hold out or just quit the Survivor part and get transported back to The Hub.

I had 3 attempts yesterday.  

1. Started by Warrengate, cleared loot from the apartments there, avoided groups, ran over to by times square, jumped the fence, looted and heard a chopper being called, ran for it & helped kill the Hunter, extracted.
   
2. Started over by Lincoln Tunnel, ran in to the middle of two groups of bad guys and died.
   
3. Started by a east side bus garage, avoided groups, got loot and a green M259 which was ok, found a green M4 variant, ran in to a group of LMB at the Times Square final battle area, killed 2, got flanked and died.
   

So can you loot the choppers and if so how then if it was difficult to work out ?.

The recessed train tracks by the Subway Station safehouse are ok for loot also and lead in to some tunnels.  The road bridges give shelter as well and there are one or two fire barrels.  Some rioters and Cleaners are walking around but are not to hard to deal with.

I suspect this will also get a bit boring fairly quickly as someone will just map all the loot containers and people will just have a route to the stuff as soon as they spawn in so no exploring needed.  I think they should randomise which loot containers are active for each session so even with a map there is no guarantee the containers you are going for will be active.

 

[DeadSockPuppet]

I suspect this will also get a bit boring fairly quickly as someone will just map all the loot containers and people will just have a route to the stuff as soon as they spawn in so no exploring needed.  I think they should randomise which loot containers are active for each session so even with a map there is no guarantee the containers you are going for will be active.

I'm hoping that they're watching this carefully with the PTS and will consider going RNGesus with the locations of loots and various helpful elements. 

 

[quinch1199]

From what I'm reading, 2hrs seems to be a respectable time for a Survival run, at least in the beginning.  That being said, I give it a short bit of time before groups start shaving chunks of time off of that. 

Apparently not for "loot whore" me!! lol! I was having FAR too much fun outside the DZ and only left myself under 4mins to extract in the end last night...haha! 

so unfair, I genuinely want to just play the survivor part pretty much all the time. 

Started by Warrengate, cleared loot from the apartments there, avoided groups, ran over to by times square, jumped the fence, looted and heard a chopper being called, ran for it & helped kill the Hunter, extracted.

Pretty much our run last night except I was so busy enjoying the survival part of it we only managed to extract with less than 3mins on the clock once I got sat in the chopper... oh yeah...then the game locked as the animations got out of sync, I sat in the chopper then I rose up through the roof of it (still in a seated position) and then flew through the Manhattan skyscrapers without the need of a helicopter at all...screen went black (i.e. pre loading screen, still had my name top right), audio locked and when I restarted I didn't have any loot. 

That's what testing is for! 

 

[quinch1199]

So can you loot the choppers and if so how then if it was difficult to work out ?.

Chopper crash sites have a greater concentration of loot containers that's all but generally speaking unless you make it there first there's no point trying for them. Best loot caches as you say are generally under overpasses, in tunnels (though oddly the subways don't seem to have loads), apartments obviously (clothing) and rooftops. So far it seems players are ignoring many of the rooftops.

I've also noted that the optimal group size is two. Two gives you enough fire power to over come mobs and you can rotate loot between two people more evenly. 

End mob is still SO VERY HARD to kill though...the Ai they use is really good, they act like players (in a suspiciously good way)

 

[quinch1199]

So can you loot the choppers and if so how then if it was difficult to work out ?

Oh didn't answer second half of that ... some of the chopper crash locations are...annoying. One is on top of a 12 story building....how you get up there to find the loot dropped I couldn't work out but wasted loads of time trying.  Most are ground though so, not an issue. 

I am aware though that I need more info and experience in gameplay in this DLC. I'm getting to the DZ with about 30mins left but as I never venture in there in live gameplay finding what I need is really difficult and I'm seriously undergunned at the end. 

 

[quinch1199]

Dumb ass question .. mainly because my game crashed last night.

Loot extraction in Survival? Is any DZ loot you get extracted "clean" with you when you leave or do you have to extract separately?

 

[RimBlock]

DZ loot is extracted clean.  Just gets added to your inventory cache space or overflows in to your stash under Survivor cache.

I ran twice last night.  First was hard to find any loot that had not been looted already.  Bits and pieces here and there but the loot seemed a lot more sparse then usual.  Died in the underground with veteran Cleaners (two packs) roasting me.  No point in reviving as they were constantly flaming and shooting me until I was fully dead.

Second run was much better and I was just quite unlucky (and a bit over cocky).  Managed to get a good set of materials, found 3x purple gear items, had an AR.  Didn't find many sets of food and the painkillers etc were vary scarce. I finally went in to the DZ with maybe 20 mins left.  Got to the safe house, converted all my mats up to gold and got a gold G36.  Went out looking for Div tech and fought a few mobs.  Got attacked outside a safehouse and then found out I had no ammo left for the G36 (monitor your ammo all the way in the game as there are no ammo caches that I have found).  Luckily the last mob dropped a purple Aug so I could take them out and then built a gold M60 (different ammo pool).  

For those who may not be aware, the div tech has been moved around but there is one place marked on the map where you will find it.  It is random per game and for each player.  Mine was right up in DZ6 whilst I was around DZ3  :31_neutral_face: .  Now with 12 minutes left on the clock I started working my way up.  I came on to a street and saw a couple of vet cleaners so decided to engage and get a bit more loot (still also needed some gold weapon mats for the flare gun).  Well there was an elite with them and after I started to engage, they also started to fight another mob of Rikers (2x vet and 1x elite).  I managed to kill them all (well they helped in trying to kill each other too) and then a heavy gunner appeared.  Now feeling a bit cocky with my gold 163 LMG and fairly good kit I decide to take him on.  I am firing away and wearing him down and playing ring -a-ring of roses around a car with him when I suddently get it from another side.  I look around and there is a second heavy MG coming after me  :51_scream: .  I decide to bug out but could not get away from two sets of LMG fire and went down.  So close but yet so far away.

I then moved on to the missions in WT5.  The MG5 is pretty nice and I also got a G36 at GS256.  None of the talents on either weapon are active but both were really good.  On hard mode Madison EC had vet and elite enemies to fight.  I joined someone else running a MG5 and sniper and we carved our way through it fairly easily.  I tried Lincoln Tunnel on Challenge with two other randoms but on protecting the floodgate waves the animations seemed to go at double speed and then my PC crashed. 

I would not mind pairing up with others in Survivor but have had no interest expressed by others I have run in to, not that I really asked myself, and being in this area of the world there are so many other languages around here that communication is often difficult.

 

[quinch1199]

@RimBlock 

Pity we’re on such different time zones. So far we’re having great success working in a team of two and my “spider-sense” seems to sniff out enough loot to get us to the DZ with 20-30mins left (we were first in last night).

Only issue we’re having is final extraction as the Hunters are using Defib far more than physically possible for a player Agent! Its DEFIB-DEFIB-DEFIB … come-on! I’m happy with them being strong, intelligent, skilled up etc but at least make their skills have a cooldown!! To get one down to a slither of health only for him to Defib twice within a few seconds… *Sigh*

So, so far, we’re walking through Survival & DZ fine and I really wish there wasn’t such a restrictive timer on it purely because I want to experience those parts for longer. I WANT TO PLAY THAT PART MORE!!

Having failed to extract still fully it’s a good job you get rewards for just taking part! Lol!

And MG5 is definitely on my shopping list when this goes live.

 

[RimBlock]

Well we do have an 8hr time difference but there is some overlap at the weekends.  I'll shoot you a pm a bit later.  Would be good to pair up.

 

[Oh. daesu]

t seem just like yesterday I was saving my  PCs for 1.4. now back at it.  

 

[DeadSockPuppet]

Only issue we’re having is final extraction as the Hunters are using Defib far more than physically possible for a player Agent! Its DEFIB-DEFIB-DEFIB … come-on! I’m happy with them being strong, intelligent, skilled up etc but at least make their skills have a cooldown!! To get one down to a slither of health only for him to Defib twice within a few seconds… *Sigh*

Hunters are the guys from the pics with all the agent watches, right?  If so, I'm guessing Massive made them OP because they're supposed to be like the boss of all bosses.  That being said, sounds like they could be toned down a bit.

 

[quinch1199]

Well we do have an 8hr time difference but there is some overlap at the weekends.  I'll shoot you a pm a bit later.  Would be good to pair up.

These guys ... the Ai on them is simply astounding! 

I'm still suspicious that they're not actually being human controlled... they move and act .. just ... that ... good. I don't mean "Joe Average" either, I mean really good player level. They're fast, tough, vicious (if you're down they will beat you to death!). 

If they are Ai then ... bloody hell ... Massive have done an outstanding job and i really mean that. Currently the only "OP" bit is the skill refresh rate for them, other than that they're tough as nails but that's a good thing!

This is only 0.5 of the PTS so changes over the next week or so clearly, we will see. 

 

[RimBlock]

Seems like Survival will be disabled on the PTS for a few days after the next update as... well, no-one is testing anything else out  :5_smiley:  (well not many anyway).  

Challenging and hard missions were pretty easy.  People were more or less just walking through them so they could probably do with a bit of adjustment in the difficulty level.

So I managed to extract on my second try last night.

Started off, got some mats, explored for a bit, created a green M4 and LMG and then came across two dead guys who had loads of stuff.  Some of the stuff was doubled up (2x same kneepads with same stats etc) and lots of weapons.  I have no idea where they got all that stuff.  Would guess they were running all over the pace and super farming from all the known loot spots or there is a bug / exploit they know of.  AFAIK there should not be any duplicate gear.  I am presuming that if you are in a team and open a loot box you do not get the same item for each team member but only one person gets the loot.  If both get the same loot if teamed up then that could explain it. 

I moved on and was able to craft the mask, went in to the DZ and ran straight for the safe house.  Crafted a gold G36 (had been using a M249 previously so low ammo) and ran for the known div tech location but found I had to go through a hazard zone which needs the advanced mask :31_neutral_face: .  Fought off some AI and went back to the safe house when I heard a chopper was inbound.  Checked the map and found it was on the garage rooftop extraction site in the lower portion of the DZ.  I was above the big ground level extraction area in the middle so just ran for it.

Dodging bad guys I quickly made my way up towards the landing zone and climbed up a rope to find 3 other players sniping across the road at the extraction site.  There were 3 hunters running all over the garage roof doing a good job of not getting killed.  I joined their group and dropped a turret whist taking pot shots with the G36 when I could as there was a small angle for all 4 of us to try and squeeze in to in order to shoot them.

Two Hunters went down (they seemed to be restricted to the garage rooftop) and two of our team went down the rope to cross the road to the garage.  I followed  and went up the scaffold and noticed the other two had vanished.  Popping up above the lower roof level I took some shots but a sniper shot across the road kill the last Hunter and I jumped up and grabbed the loot  :10_wink: .  I then ran for the chopper which had landed, diverted for another dead players loot and then heard about limited time remaining and just rushed to get on the chopper.

I made it first in, the other three came up with 10 seconds to go.  Two others got in but then the doors started closing on the last guy.  He ran around to the other side but to no avail.  The chopper lifted off without him and we could only watch as he was left shrinking int he distance alone on that garage roof waving his marksman rifle at us.

I had a deep pang of guilt considering he probably killed off the last hunter and then I looked in my full pack and smiled.  Oh what a day, what a lovely day  :5_smiley: . 

 

[Oh. daesu]

Seems like Survival will be disabled on the PTS for a few days after the next update as... well, no-one is testing anything else out  :5_smiley:  (well not many anyway).  

well that sux. feeling guilty now. but i'll get to it. just more creds and caches...