JtP: I must be missing something.

[Yiab]

Journey to Perfection missions with anti-air homing missiles are killing me every time, and practice doesn't seem to be helping. I beat one outdoor JtP mission and now no matter where I find one it has homing missiles. I've tried using my level 4 fire shield to absorb the damage, and I inevitably either miss starting it by a tenth of a second and get hit by a bat or something, or it winds up running out in the middle of a firestorm. I think I must be missing something here, what am I supposed to do about these homing missiles?
(For those of you unfamiliar with the homing missiles, the launchers haven't been damaged by anything I've thrown at them and the missiles themselves explode in a giant fireball when shot down in flight).

[Penumbra]

They are there to discourage use of "ride the lightning" double jump spell. The missiles will only fire at you if you use it. Double or triple jump enchants are safe, just not the flight spells.

[mrhanman]

Just don't use Ride the Lightning.  That's what triggers the homing missiles.  Other than that, there is a thread from yesterday or the day before that give some pointers to help complete the missions.  I was having trouble, too, but the guys helped me out.  The biggest help was a stealth enchant.  I can't remember what they're called in game exactly, but if you've been playing for any length of time, you should have run up on one.

[LintMan]

Journey to Perfection missions with anti-air homing missiles are killing me every time, and practice doesn't seem to be helping. I beat one outdoor JtP mission and now no matter where I find one it has homing missiles. I've tried using my level 4 fire shield to absorb the damage, and I inevitably either miss starting it by a tenth of a second and get hit by a bat or something, or it winds up running out in the middle of a firestorm. I think I must be missing something here, what am I supposed to do about these homing missiles?
(For those of you unfamiliar with the homing missiles, the launchers haven't been damaged by anything I've thrown at them and the missiles themselves explode in a giant fireball when shot down in flight).

I'm not sure why RtL is penalized, but double/triple jumps and teleport are OK.  But in any case, I found it was far too easy to accidentally activate RtL and get failed when I wasn't trying to use RtL at all, so what I started doing was dropping the RtL spellgem outside the mission area before I started it.

I was initially worried about losing it that way (and actually did, one time), but you can always get another one for free back at the settlement. 

[lunarknight64]

Using the bat form will also cause the missles to fire
that being said, I still find bat the best way to complete outdoor perfect missions
but cloak of shadows always helps

[Yiab]

Yeah, I use RtL as a standard part of walking around these days (I don't have any double or triple jump enchants yet) and it sounds like that's what I was missing - I didn't notice that's what triggered the missiles. Thanks for the help.

[Misery]

Ye gods, I HATE these missions.

It's gotten to the point where I will absolutely refuse to do ANY of them ever.   EVER.   I mean, seriously, these are terrible. 

I can list a whole LEGION of problems with these.


First:   Why in the hell are the maps disabled?!?!?  These are next to impossible regardless.   Having no map simply makes it take FOREVER in addition to being impossible.

Second:  I'm stuck with a controller for this game.  I *cannot* use a mouse/keyboard combo (physical problem.  No way to fix.).  The controller is a hideous nightmare device that I am reeeaaaalllllll close to dropping it out in the middle of the street and then running over it with the car.   It's THAT bad.   Right stick aim?   Hahahaha NO.   Just aiming in a straight line is impossible with the ridiculous thing;  the analog sticks are the worst I've ever seen, and are completely useless.   So I HAVE to use targeting to fire, or only fire straight left or right.   This of course means..... usually have to use targeting.     But...... yeah.   I can sorta only target foes I can see, which brings me to:

Third: ALL ranged enemies, and I mean *all* of them (except the robot dwarf things), have an effective attack range that allows them to hit me from WELL outside of my vision range.  I'm using an ancient and godawful monitor (most of my PC-related parts are horrid.  This is because the PC itself ISNT horrid and cost way, way too much....) and I cant see very far in any direction.  1280 x 1024 is as high as this worthless heap goes.   In a mission where you cannot get hit even ONE SINGLE TIME, this is a problem.   The idea is that I have to evade lightning-fast attacks (exploding espers and ice espers fire VERY fast projectiles......) from completely invisible enemies that could literally fire from absolutely any direction, and unless they're horizontal to me, I cannot simply fire off the screen and hope to hit something.   All of this in a maze-like building with very restricted movement due to all of the walls.

Fourth:  Even if I COULD use tactics like that, it'd make these missions take an unholy amount of time.   The lack of a damn map means I have no idea where I need to go, or how far I've come.   Since I have to move at the speed of a brick in sludge, due to INSTANT DEATH if I dont, it means very..... very..... very slow exploration, which could end at any second due to the aforementioned invisible foes.   And the slightest, TINIEST mistake and POW you're back to start, and hey, all the monsters regenerated!

Fifth:  Most utility spells are useless here.   Something like that fire snake that lights up your map, or that entropy-based seeker spell would help here.   But they dont do anything in these.

Sixth:  Character specializations created with upgrade stones have NO effect here, beyond maybe making your shield spell almost last longer kinda maybe.  If .5 seconds longer counts.

Seventh:  It seems you HAVE to use the shield spells to get through this, and even then, the enemies can still find a way to get you.  And even when it's WORKING, it means stopping every 3 seconds to wait for recharge.  And then more of the brick-slow exploring, and then recharge....


Seriously, right now, there isnt any concievable reason for me to do ANY of this type of mission.   The rewards are NOT worth it.   
This makes the fact that the game keeps waving them at me all the more annoying.    Fortunately the other missions in the game seem well designed (even the wind-shelter ones now, thanks to the devs for THAT change...), but THIS type is...... bad.

[Mánagarmr]

Ragey much? Isn't this one of the "challenge"-type missions that are sort of semi-optional? Kind of like the old Anachronisms and Lava-escape missions?

[Terraziel]

Second:  I'm stuck with a controller for this game.  I *cannot* use a mouse/keyboard combo (physical problem.  No way to fix.).  The controller is a hideous nightmare device that I am reeeaaaalllllll close to dropping it out in the middle of the street and then running over it with the car.   It's THAT bad.   Right stick aim?   Hahahaha NO.   Just aiming in a straight line is impossible with the ridiculous thing;  the analog sticks are the worst I've ever seen, and are completely useless.   So I HAVE to use targeting to fire, or only fire straight left or right.   This of course means..... usually have to use targeting.     But...... yeah.   I can sorta only target foes I can see, which brings me to:

Surely these complaints apply to using the gamepad controls in the entire game? I mean they seemed pretty awful when I plugged a 360 controller in to see if they worked at all. I sort of put that down to not configuring it properly, but if they are that bad complain till they get fixed then take another shot at the rest of the game.

[tigersfan]

Ragey much? Isn't this one of the "challenge"-type missions that are sort of semi-optional? Kind of like the old Anachronisms and Lava-escape missions?

Yep. There is never a need to do these missions if you don't like them.

[Professor Paul1290]

These missions are supposed to be pretty hard and they're supposed to be hard. They're optional, you're not really required to do them.

They're probably not worth the resources, but I usually end up doing these because I like them believe it or not.

I like putting on a cloaking enchant of some kind then try to see if I can get through killing as few enemies as possible. 

[eRe4s3r]

I am sorry but this argumentation is wrong. Mission types are game CONTENT and not dynamic difficulty, that means each mission has to be player friendly and that means has to be FUN to play. If 3 hardcore player like the mission that makes 97 other gamers who hate it (I do too)

Also given that those 3 missions type represent like 40% of the entire mission content of the game, maybe instead of talking down the issue there should be put some effort into making these missions fun for a great many players, and not for very few players.

To start with, difficulty setting should influence mission difficulty. If a mission type is nearly impossible on "easy" then it's broken, and not a challenge or feature.

[Bluddy]

I am sorry but this argumentation is wrong. Mission types are game CONTENT and not dynamic difficulty, that means each mission has to be player friendly and that means has to be FUN to play. If 3 hardcore player like the mission that makes 97 other gamers who hate it (I do too)

Also given that those 3 missions type represent like 40% of the entire mission content of the game, maybe instead of talking down the issue there should be put some effort into making these missions fun for a great many players, and not for very few players.

To start with, difficulty setting should influence mission difficulty. If a mission type is nearly impossible on "easy" then it's broken, and not a challenge or feature.

I agree. Suppose I invent a mission type: race against a ghost record of yourself. You beat the mission if you're fast enough to beat your previous record. Some people (perfectionists and masochists) will like this, but most will hate it. Why? Because it's boring and repetitive, and has no interesting goals.

Every mission is really a mini-game, and just like you try to make games dynamic and interesting and appeal to as many people as possible while retaining their challenge, you need to approach missions the same way. In my opinion, when a mission only appeals to a handful of people, it's missing its goal. Because a handful of people can always fill in the mission with their imagination and somehow make it work on some level, but a lot of people will like the mission only if the gameplay is solid and if it really has the right components that make it enjoyable to the human brain.

[tigersfan]

I am sorry but this argumentation is wrong. Mission types are game CONTENT and not dynamic difficulty, that means each mission has to be player friendly and that means has to be FUN to play. If 3 hardcore player like the mission that makes 97 other gamers who hate it (I do too)

Also given that those 3 missions type represent like 40% of the entire mission content of the game, maybe instead of talking down the issue there should be put some effort into making these missions fun for a great many players, and not for very few players.

To start with, difficulty setting should influence mission difficulty. If a mission type is nearly impossible on "easy" then it's broken, and not a challenge or feature.

I completely disagree.

For starters, where did 40% come from? I just counted, there are at least 10 different mission types in the game currently so JtP can't possibly be 40% of the available mission types. Am I missing something?

That said, if we try to make every mission fun for all players, then we're going to end up with a whole bunch of missions that all look pretty much the same. Not all things are going to be fun for all players. Personally, I HATE the lava escape missions, they aren't fun for me, and no amount of tweaking or changing will make them fun. But, that doesn't mean Chris should try. They are fun for some, they are completely optional, so why worry?

If there is no way to make the mission fun for players like me, why should we take it away from players who DO find it fun?

[keith.lamothe]

That said, if we try to make every mission fun for all players, then we're going to end up with a whole bunch of missions that all look pretty much the same.

That was my reaction as well.  If we can't have missions that some (or even most, but not pushing it too far) players don't like, then meaningful gameplay variety goes out the window.  Seriously, if that's a requirement, then we may as well stop adding mission types.

It is possible to help make it clearer to folks that they don't have to play missions they don't want to play, and we've done a bit of that already since 1.0.  The change to how mission types are picked while seeding is particularly significant in that respect.