The pinch point after the tree needs a redesign. Nothing major but it’s so stupid and has seen many missions failed where it’s really no fault of the players.
The section before you drop down (where 2 of the 3 bridges collapses) is just the width of 1 person, with no handrails on much of it and somewhat unbelievably has 2 enemy spawn doors just at the pinch before you drop down.
What happens is:
the area gets instantly flooded with enemies very fast
Players get stuck on the tiny gantry sandwiched in a horde
Every single playthough a netter is guaranteed to spawn behind the horde and shoots through the incredible mass and the player has nowhere to dodge…either off a ledge or not at all.
Flamers and bombers then carpet the area immediately from miles away and enemies are seemingly invulnerable to their fire for some reason.
Mission fails unless you have an ogryn to push through the crown on the 0.7m wide handrailess walkway
It’s just such a frustrating and unfair bit of the map after you’ve basically done the whole mission. Failing on that bit feels really really nasty.
My suggestion is simply to deactivate those 2 enemy doors.
Increase the spawns in the following section if you want but don’t shoot the players with trappers and flamers through a dense horde on a miniscule walkway at the very end of the mission. It’s really unsporting. Allow the players at least a tiny bit of time to drop down away from that nasty bottleneck.
If players were to retreat to defeat the horde first then it doesn’t really work as a strategy as the spawns just constantly increase from then on.
Allow the players into an area that actually permits combat.
Yesterday I barely managed to evacuate. Me and another player who was using the quit-and-rejoin exploit got out. The other two didn’t make it, including one of the guys who had actually rescued me from captivity earlier during the evacuation stage
And there are always so many enemies that I have never seen a team just push through them in a methodical way. In every match I’ve played, it has always turned into a panicked, chaotic retreat — and it often ended in a mission failure
I actually quite like the panic that is induced in the last section but ONLY AFTER that terrible pinch point.
I think it is designed that way - so you see enemies pouring in from the sides and you have to run for the exit….which is cool but it starts too early. It should trigger once the players have dropped from the wall. At least there is space to fight thereafter!
But yeah losing a mission on that gantry pinchpoint bit is just rage-quit inducing as it is so unfair.
Yeah that spot is a bit evil, and I love that finale the most out of all of them. The real finale is the final gauntlet there. But that part is just a little unfair, things spawning right there is so ass if you don’t have the horde clear required.
Would be fine if the door wasn’t positioned right where it was. Put it on the other end of the walkway and it’s fine
I always loved this part of the mission…
Even I could say that this is the only part I like of this mission.
But my feeling is that this part was harder (and more fun) by the past. I remember to have written several times “run run run”. Now, I don’t…
The extraction is so smooth that now we take even time to come back to liberate players…
If they change this, I would like to ask them that they caliber again the difficulty of this part of the mission. It should be a real difficult extraction!
Oh I have failed so many missions on that foodbridge, both with randos and gaming buddies
There is a special place in Hell for whoever signed off on “allow players to get pushed off maps”. One of my “favorite” moments is when I slide next to an edge and a silent hound zoomes by, magically pushing me off the map.
OP is right about this part… it is heavily crowded if you’re not fast enough.
But the following is smoother than before… I am always astonished, because I bought the game at release, when we take the time to go back and deliver someone that died in this part
At beginning, we would have NEVER done that.
Now, it feels normal.
and if they move the door, there’s still a need to see enemies here…
Don’t get me wrong, I love the bit after the footbridge once you have dropped down, and weirdly I love the tree section now too (I used to hate it), but that footbridge needs to change. It needs to let players drop down before absolutely swarming them. It’s just not a fun section if there is high enemy density.
I want change for the end of Mercantile, the end arena event is very long and boring and clear all enemies part is still bugs sometimes and it takes even longer to finish. It happened yesterday in auric.
All enemies should pour at once, time for opening and waiting extraction shortened, no more clearing.
