Underground sucks

[Big Grumper]

No clue where else to post this right now in my fit of wave 15 blue screen rage, FIX FALCON LOST

We all share your pain, buddy. If it's not one of the incursions it's the DZ or getting stuck in your environment in Underground. 

Suck it up, buttercup. ??

 

[ProphetReborn]

As much as I can understand people's frustrations with the game, the loot part I still don't get. If you do a two phase mission with three directives on hard you get guaranteed a 240 piece of gear now. I think they either changed it from 214 because of all the complaining or there is a chance for it, and that's all I'm getting right now. Plus, you can literally get any piece of set gear down there. I have gotten random pieces of everything there, not just the firecrest and blind as some have stated.

Show me any other place outside the dark zone where you can run a mission against mobs that easy and get gear like that. HVT is a very small maybe, it can drop anything but it does mostly drop lone star. 

If you want to be guaranteed better gear then run harder content. Try a challenging two phase mission with all directives on and get yourself guaranteed at least two 240 pieces. If they changed it you might even get 268 pieces. Or run the dark zone, which can be hit or miss. 

It's all about the RNG, so you have to run things consistently at times to see the numbers go in your favor. With the sheer amount of different items and armor, along the varying amount of talents, I am amazed that people are surprised when it takes a while to get a god rolled weapon or piece of armor. Random loot is exactly that, and while it can be frustrating it does require some effort. 

 

[ProphetReborn]

One thing to add on here, I'm not sure if this is the case or not, but I just ran hard mode a couple of times and got 214 set gear. I know last night I got 240 gear two or three times, but now that I think about it we did have all five directives active. I'm wondering if it scales the loot up automatically if you go in with all the directives. That was actually pretty fun. It was a challenge, but the healing station can counteract the health loss anyway. Just requires people sticking together and working as a team. 

 

[RimBlock]

More directives allow for a higher chance of the next tier gear along with more phases from what they have said.

I recorded some Underground experiences over the weekend and I think it shows the difficulties Massive are facing with balance int he PvE environment quite well.  I will see if I can get them up in a reasonable state in a week or so.

Matchmaking.

• Started matchmaking.
  
• Joined a group.
  
• Mission started without directives.
  
• Someone complained at no directives and left the group.
  
• matchmaking to fill the gap.
  
• 5 minutes later the group disbanded as no other people could be found.
  

Going in with a very good team.

• 3 phase Heroic will all but mad skills directives on.
  
• Completed in under 60 minutes.
  
• Not much of a real challenge.
  

Going in with a random high level unmatched party.

• 2 phase heroic, all skills on apart from Mad Skills and Sickness.
  
• Completed in 60 minutes.
  
• A real challenge with parts running, dodging shotgunners chasing and reviving at the same time.
  

I need to confirm the times but the fact is, with a good well tuned group, without any really communication on our part, we did a 3 phase heroic in the same amount of time an good random group did a 2 phase.

Here is the thing though... I preferred the last run with the unmatched party.  We all went down a number of times and we all supported each other and we completed maybe 2 our of 3 runs but it felt dangerous, as if we had to think and move carefully.  There was a real risk of us loosing but we worked together and won through most of the time.

The challenge Massive now have is to provide that experience for all levels of groups and without scaling based on more than just a set challenge (AI levels, counts) and GS to rate players, I just don't see how they can do it.

I also ran Clear Sky with the very good team yesterday and we cleared it in under 14 minutes.  The second part just felt so fast it was unreal.  I have that on video as well.  Lots of editing to do it seems .