I think "Jouney to Perfection" missions should be altered somehow

[Tr00th]

I emailed Arcen about this and they suggested I bring it up for discussion here. Basically, I feel like these missions have more to do with luck than they do with skill.

If anyone's unfamiliar with this variety of mission, it involves exploring a large random area without a minimap. If you take any damage at all, you immediately fail the mission. But enemies also die very easily (always in one hit for me).

Some things I should note first: I first encountered this mission in an outdoor area in an abandoned town. There was about an hour left on it when I found it, and I spent the entire hour attempting it, and failing every time. Also, I use a widescreen (16:10) monitor, not 4:3, so my vertical sight is more limited than people who might be using such a monitor. Though I'm pretty sure most people have gone widescreen now.

The biggest problem is that whenever I have to descend a distance greater than my screen's height, I have no way of knowing if an enemy is below me, ready to instantly kill me. This problem is exacerbated by ice espers and explosive espers, who fire very fast projectiles, and are able to see the player while they're still off-screen. It is further exacerbated by the fact that espers will commonly end up hovering right up against a wall where I plan to drop down.

Descending slowly, placing wooden platforms was my first instinct, but this proved to be a bad idea, because then an ice or explosive esper would hit me from below before I could possibly have time to react.
Descending quickly to avoid projectiles was an equally bad idea, because if an esper happened to be DIRECTLY below me, I'd just land on it and fail the mission.
So the best tactic is generally to just take a leap of faith off the edge of the platform as far as I can go. I'd often land in a cluster of enemies, but the odds are just as good if not better than dropping down right along the edge of a cliff.

Eventually I tried to think outside the box, using Transmogrify into Bat scrolls, and that entropy spell that homes in on enemies. But these tactics are either implicitly or explicitly forbidden by the game. If I missed any obvious highly-useful tactics, please let me know.

I came up with a few ideas to make the mission more fair, and I think that even just one of them would have a great impact, but maybe other people have their own ideas.

-Alter which enemies are allowed to spawn in such a mission (at least removing ice and explosive espers)
-Add some mechanic that allows players to look farther below the screen (like holding the down key for a few seconds, as in lots of old platformers)
-Reduce enemies' awareness of the player, as in the stealth assassination missions
-Make it so that the player can touch certain enemies without failing the mission
-Make enemies' accuracy with projectiles less than perfect, at least in this scenario
-Somehow alter the land-generation mechanics so that players don't have to frequently take blind leaps off of high ledges
-Allow the player to get hit more than once before failing the mission (perhaps 3 times or so)
-Include the map in the upper-left corner of the screen, showing enemies' locations, but not necessarily the location of the goal

This would help to make the mission feel more like an actual test of skill than a massive test of luck. But again, I've only encountered the outdoor Abandoned Town variety of this mission, so maybe it plays out some way that's actually doable in other locations.

What do you think about all this?

[Wanderer]

Eventually I tried to think outside the box, using Transmogrify into Bat scrolls, and that entropy spell that homes in on enemies. But these tactics are either implicitly or explicitly forbidden by the game. If I missed any obvious highly-useful tactics, please let me know.

Nah, all the easy mode methods were turned off for this mission.  It's meant to be a difficult combat exercise.  That said, you're correct, the new espers make it incredibly painful.  Not that lightning and water were MUCH easier.  However, you neglected shields, which can help if you've got decent reaction times.

I came up with a few ideas to make the mission more fair, and I think that even just one of them would have a great impact, but maybe other people have their own ideas.

Hm, these are decent ideas, I'll offer my personal opinions one by one. 

-Alter which enemies are allowed to spawn in such a mission (at least removing ice and explosive espers)

I'm not sure this would be necessary, however, limiting their range to 'need to be on-screen before shooting' would be helpful during this mission.  I too am widescreen and you're right, that can be very frustrating. 

-Add some mechanic that allows players to look farther below the screen (like holding the down key for a few seconds, as in lots of old platformers)

I'd like this mechanic regardless of JtP missions or not.  Up/Down would be just as nice as left/right, which already exists.

-Reduce enemies' awareness of the player, as in the stealth assassination missions

This is actually covered by a body enchant you can choose to use.  Due to the duplicative nature and the implied cost of  switching (which is your light source, usually) this seems like a poor choice of option.

-Make it so that the player can touch certain enemies without failing the mission

With the volume of espers currently, that might be a bit much.  Particularly since one of the problems is them shooting you.   Slow drops are my usual method of dealing with 'falling onto enemies'.  Not that it helps all the time.

-Make enemies' accuracy with projectiles less than perfect, at least in this scenario

Now this has some merit.  With the general idea that at shorter ranges their accuracy vs. your hitbox won't have much of a difference but when they're sniping you it might actually give you warning they're there.  I'm not sure just how Imperial Stormtrooper you'd have to make them though to make it effective enough.

-Somehow alter the land-generation mechanics so that players don't have to frequently take blind leaps off of high ledges

Considering this is the 'combat' quest, and Lava Escape is the platforming one, that makes some sense to me.  Make it more gauntlet then standard world generation.

-Allow the player to get hit more than once before failing the mission (perhaps 3 times or so)

That seems anti-thetical to the purpose of the mission... a Journey to Perfection.   I'd have to say I'm against that one.  Though I personally wouldn't mind a little give on the falling damage, still... it's against the idea.  Oh well.

-Include the map in the upper-left corner of the screen, showing enemies' locations, but not necessarily the location of the goal

In this case I'd do the opposite.  Show a map showing the terrain, but not the critters.  Since this is the 'perfect combat' mission, you should never know where the enemies are.  Considering only bosses show up on the mini-map, this really doesn't make much difference from the normal mini-map since there are no bosses in JtP.  I'd have to say I'm against this one as well.  Though every now and then I'd like to be able to drop a cherry and see how long it took to hear it go splat, and terrain maps would make sense to me.

[khadgar]

Here are my best tips for Journey to perfection missions, if you want to beat them consistently:

• Shields shields shields! Air earth fire water it doesn't matter, get a shield. It gives you a buffer for when you're about to drop off a cliff, or go up a slope, so in case you don't have time to dodge a projectile you don't instantly lose.
• Miniature spell: you lose in 1 hit anyway, might as well make yourself a smaller target right?
• Don't try them in a region which has a lot of enemies with ranged attacks unless you have a shield. So, abanadoned town, I'm looking at you. Skekebot junkyards are a bit better, and so are grasslands and lava flats.
• Use projectile speed enchants to ensure your shots shoot as far as possible. The farther away you can hit a bad guy, the better.
• Instead of jumping down or slowly descending using a crate stack, try using a featherfall enchant. If you're afraid of falling on top of enemies, drop 3 or 4 crates first, then jump exactly where you dropped the crates. You'll land on a crate pile instead of an enemy (assuming you chose an area without all projectile shooty guys)
• Invest in summon rhino and/or summon dire butterfly. These will help you clear the way far ahead of where you can see and shoot, especially the butterfly.
• Double jump enchant is a good alternative to featherfall. It helps you get up around the weird cliffs in those missions.

And a few more things I don't personally use, but might help. You talked about a way to scroll the screen up or down: there is! Check your options menu, it's called something like "Mouse Cursor Dynamically Moves Camera". It lets you scroll up and down a bit using your mouse. I don't use it, because it makes me queasy, but it can be useful. Also, if you can get a good enchant that reduces mana cost by a lot, and also upgrade your mana regen a few times, you can have a shield that doesn't drain your mana. That is probably the best thing you can do on these missions. It will still die when it takes too much damage, but once it does, you just put it right back up, because it wasn't taking any mana!

I hope these tips help you conquer this mission type!

[Tr00th]

Thanks for the suggestions. The Miniature spell is one I'd used already, but it didn't seem to make a world of difference when I had to take those leaps of faith. Haven't tried out the shield spells yet, so I guess I'll have to see how they work. I briefly tried using a featherfall enchant, but it was a very weak one that didn't really make much of a difference. I found myself much better off using the one that prevents fall damage. That was just indispensable to me, since you can still get hurt on a very long fall when equipping featherfall.

Edit: I might be using the wrong name here. When I say "featherfall" I meant something that makes me fall more slowly.

Also, just tonight I played a JtP mission in an indoor area, in a skelebot scrapyard. This one definitely felt a lot more fair. It was still challenging, but it didn't make me feel like there was nothing I could do to help myself. The only unfair-feeling deaths were when a skelebot would drop from above, right onto my head for some reason. But those were rare flukes, not at all my primary cause of death.

Of course, what made a huge difference was the fact that I didn't have to make any leaps of faith below the screen. I started near the bottom of a large room, and had to work my way up to the top. It's a much more manageable layout than the expansive outdoor areas where (I assume) I'm supposed to move from the far left part of the screen to the far right.

And yes, I was actually able to complete the mission this time, and it didn't take me anywhere near an hour.

[khadgar]

Glad to hear. And yes, I meant the enchant that removes fall damage, whatever it is called. Making a leap of faith is always risky, but as long as you've cleared what is below you with a rhino, or have a shield on before you jump, you should land just fine.

The cave variant of this mission is much easier than the outdoor one, because there are no leaps of faith.

[dis astranagant]

Instead you have enemies making leaps of faith on you 

[mrhanman]

I made a few suggestions in a Mantis post Here.  I like these missions, but they can be a bit frustrating.