A Few Weekend Experiences from A Veteran High EGO Player
Just a few Experiences from the Weekend during my limited play sessions - take from them what you will - I believe the devs could find particularly interesting tidbits.
1. Volge Siege/Incursion Silliness
I begin an Incursion as soon as I login Saturday night. (It has Volge roadside Emergencies so I prep my loadout with Bio VOT Blaster and my Fire EMC Service Rifle with Flashbang grenades.) I drive to the first yellow indicator and the Threat Level is at 2 with a single other player there – I immediately begin one-shot killing everything. The Threat Level jumps to 6 as another player arrives but still the Volge drop like flies for me. The other arkhunters can’t even get a kill in. Then the Threat Level shoots to 10, for absolutely no reason I can discern, and the fun begins.
Now the two other players are doing all they can to just not die as I whittle down and kill Volge after Volge pretty much by myself. When the 2 Ark Viscera arrive I steady myself for a 1 on 2 encounter…then the Viscera start doing something funny. As soon as I get their shield down and start working on the Health – they immediately regain full shield and health. (They haven’t gone to their range after pushing me back and this happened, I am aware of this issue so I work in a circle – no direct backward movement and never to the edge of the yellow circle.) After 3 or 4 times of a Viscera doing this I was worn down enough to join my comrades in an extraction – or should I say a double extraction for as I spawn, completely frozen, a Threat Level 10 Itsy-Bitsy-Fire-Guy kills me in place.
Eventually I am able to return to the very same Emergency to kill the infinite health/shield respawning Viscera. I steel myself for the next encounter; but what do I find? With the same two players with me I am back to one-shot killing everything, save the Ark Viscera, whose God Mode appears to have worn off, but still require a good pounding to put down. I get to the final Siege of the Incursion and it is a Volge Siege at the Quarry – dun, dun, dun – I have 140K score at this point.
We start with about 50 or 60 purple dots, by Wave 6 there are more purple crosses on the map than purple dots. I retreat to the periphery to hold out for the last 7 minutes with my 132K score and pesky Volge Bombers everywhere. Then I begin to watch the little purple crosses blinking out one by one – I prepare myself for my turn as my console hard freezes; over 90 minutes worth of Incursion for ZERO rewards. Remember, this is my first attempt at doing anything for this play session – how unsatisfying. I also soon come to find out that my EGO Level gains during this time are nullified as well – as it seems the game only allots those points when an instance is over.
2. Contract Site Craziness
So I restart my console and figure I’ll go hit up the Daily Contracts. I arrive at the Murder Island contract where an EGO 1000 or so player is attempting to finish it at Threat Level 2. I dismount my Roller midair and land on the Island as the Threat Level jumps to 8 and the poor low EGO player dives into the water for cover; my Roller crushes a Raider as he spawns. (I am sure had this been an 80’s action flick it would have made for a wicked entrance.)
I am able to slowly work down each of the raiders and am almost clear to save the citizens. I check on my low EGO colleague and I watch as he swims laps around the fracas. The last few enemies are back down to Threat Level 2 and I one shot them into history. As the rewards screen pops up I get 4 keys for a 24K score and the other guy? A zero score with zero kills, no progression for him save 10 rep… (Ahhh, unintentional griefing at work – who could’ve seen this coming?)
3. Incursion Sieges and the Shard Blender
I get to another Siege at the end of an Incursion – this one is at Kenn Farms. I am having zero difficulty with killing the hordes on the emergencies leading up to the Incursion; every other emergency has seeming Threat Level 0 enemies, though the screen shows Threat Level 10. Also a curious thing begins to happen. I watch as not just the enemies but other players begin to appear and disappear on my map. They aren’t being killed simply pulling a Houdini every few seconds. I realize what is going on when I get to the Kenn Farm Siege and watch purple dot after purple dot blink into existence. The shards are mixing on the lead up to the Siege – this leads to the disappearing enemies as some are in my shard and others in the “blending” shards. Whether this is intentional or not – who knows.
I get further confirmation of this when at another Incursion that ends at an Afflicted Siege at the Diablo Refinery. As we finish the last Emergency the Incursion Siege indicator lights up on the map and a large group of Arkhunters races to Diablo. When I arrive, however, I find that the Siege is missing – replaced by the standard conflict site for Diablo. My Incursion score is still on my screen and the indicator is still there but no Siege. Dismayed I turn around and leave the site to see if it will reset – I return to Stage 2 of the Afflicted Siege in progress. This exact scenario happened three times over the course of the weekend.
So how ARE those patches coming?
