Hi
the new Escape map: the blight has random doors that open or not
this is randomness, this is a step in the right direction, linear levels with some randomness and replayability
random enemies and objectives and weapns would be good too
keep it up! 
I did not try to master it yet, just did 4 runs to unlock mutators and get to know to map layout.
On that basis i can assume it will be the easiest hive just after the clock. It has not got the ability to master it within minutes, so getting cards still will be easier on clock.
Pretty cool hive, lots of drones.
Not a fan of them seemingly wanting people to frag dupe, but oh well I suppose.
I like the shortness of it, good cards run indeed. Potentially better than clock with a strong crew.
Yeah I assume that’s their way of saying they can’t patch the frag duping all the new maps usually require it.
I see it in the same light as JD/Kait/Jack/baird in horde.
Sure that’s the easy way to just get it done, but if you go without- you are met with a very challenging fun-to-overcome experience. I like this dichotomy
I was able to solo it on lahni ( on master ), with some finesse, and I found that extremely fun. (after running it with a group using frags on mic, which for social reasons was fun in its own right- to be clear, we still had to play a bit outside the frags. Just a lot easier than my solo run on lahni)
But aren’t you get less cards from one run? There is one chapter less than on clock so possibly you get 2 cards less.
PS. I did not had a chance to test it, if I’m not able to get to one of the ammo rooms because of those switching doors, is there a chance that cog tag appears in the locked out room?
it’s great but there should be random enemies too. ONe of the hives had random enemies…why go one step forward two steps back?
shielded scions are so annoying hate them
So, after having played this hive several times with varying results on Elite and Insane… here’s what I think.
The randomly opening/closing doors, I don’t find them great. TC claims it’s all about adaptability to beat this hive, but when the doors lock you off from the supply rooms with a Boomshot or Torque Bow or explosive ammo, and you are not going to use the frag duplication glitch… what will you do? There’s far too many Drones and the dumb execution rules are not helping it either. Having incompetent or low level teammates in it is not helpful either.
Not to mention the shielded Scions. The Mulcher near the beginning is not that bad as it can be lured around to give teammates shots at it, or if the other path is open, you can face less Drones and a Dropshot Scion instead. But the next encounter… it’s absurd. Close range encounter, lots of Hammerburst Drones, some Grenadiers and Scions, and if you move up too far you’ll attract the aggro of the nearby Poppers in one of the next hallways as well. All the while the venom is probably pushing up on you making for a lot of pressure in a choke point heavily advantaging the enemies where you would ideally want a lot of time to push through. Which, to say the least, isn’t fun.
It’s gotten to a point where if the door to the right is open and you can avoid that fight, 99% of players will for sure, more so because all you then have to contest with for access to frags, another Boomshot and explosive ammo boxes is a couple of Poppers coming at you when you go there.
The ending… well, I find there’s too many Grenadiers but at that point you should have enough explosives to fend them off well enough anyway, so can’t say much on it.
But overall? Not finding this hive fun. Too many Drones although not on Last Stand levels of ridiculous, and the randomness supposed to bring variability and different enemy encounters on every run through feels sorely lacking and/or not well designed when it locks you off from weapons you may want to be capable of passing through certain areas without them being excessively difficult.
Oh, and the pod spawns really need to be improved in it. At one point I was completely locked off from them when they(teammates) had died to Popper explosions, due to the way the doors had opened, and because the pods had spawned way too far from where I actually was. Which basically left me to solo the hive to the end while all they could do was watch.
Yes, this hive is not what they acclaimed it to be, it is not random. Doors are opening and closing in predictable manner, enemy loadout is almost the same(only changing enemies are grenadiers and snipers) and map can lock you out from some of the cog tags.
After couple of runs you have no problem to rush it, the problem is that hitting 1% is too random to get. On my master run we found only 2 tags, rest was locked out (we made on other run 120th position on leaderboard thou, probably due to small ammount of people that tried to master it), hive is pretty much hard and does not forgive you any mistakes.
Also I have noticed that popper can down you through most of covers on that hive.
I knew this would be predictable without actually playing it.
The most ridicolous thing is that they would make it fully random if they would put more doors, sometimes I get feeling that some of these doors shares the open/close setting, I mean if one door is opened, related one is opened. But still there is one way that is always opened it differs only with how tiles you have to go around (mostly the first doors on right are opened and the next one are always opened).
They didn’t say the enemies would be fully randomized, or at least have some randomization(Forever did a better job of that but was still predictable) for its enemies even if the path was always the same, but it would’ve been better if it did. Even then, right now, the only encounters that change are the small ones rather than the three or four main big fights in the hive, two of which can be avoided depending on which doors are opened or closed, and as you said, in those it’s only the Grenadiers that switch out with Snipers. Always Hammerburst Drones, and Mulcher/Dropshot Scions regardless for the rest.
And the doors heavily favor the right path being open at the start, which is also the more difficult one because of the high number of Hammerburst Drones and the shielded Mulcher that will appear there. When then the left is almost completely or completely locked off(which it, in 90% of cases, seems to be), and the doors are arranged in such a way that you cannot even get to a supply room at all or at least not without triggering the spawn of the Scion and its Drone escort, you’re in for a not so great time because without frag duping you’ll have a minimal amount of frags and no other explosives to go around. Even if you then manage to get past there you’re very unlikely to get past the Dropshot Scions with the Grenadiers and HB Drones unless the path branching off to the right isn’t locked off so you can bypass that pain - it’s not a fun encounter - completely.
So yeah… next hive please. Currently not playing this one. But I gave it more of a chance than “Chase after rifle Drones with an Overkill or Gnasher” The Link which I almost completely avoided.
The link was ery easy hive to run, I had to rerun it 3 times to get to 1% leaderboard (also dropped one card in favor of epic score boost). Anyway, the blight favors using grenade duplication. It’s a step backward wheb you compare it to the line hive. The Blight looks like they haven’t got any better ideas to show us, so they just flooded us with enemies.
The Line was one of the best hives they’ve made to this day. Quite fun to play, be it solo or with other players(reminds me, I hate that everyone just never seems to go into Past Hive matchmaking any longer and instead only plays the featured hive no matter how bad it is - Custom isn’t much better with 90% Clock runs or Surge speedrunning most days). I had the “pleasure” of beating it on Inconceivable solo with Mac(More Health off) and still finding it decently fun to play. Ran it once with Score Boost skills which only got me a 2% placement, though. Works quite well on Insane with Lizzie too, even without the Silverback(Torque Bow and Dropshot headshot ftw).
But The Blight? In Oscar’s voice, “Boooring”. Just a downgrade in every aspect. As for The Link, while it may be easy, I found to just be not fun to play and just annoying. Maybe did it once or twice then stopped with it.
Here’s to hoping the last Operation 2 hive is any good. This one’s just a disappointment.
So despite this hive being super easy nowadays, do people honestly not know what to do with this map? It’s genuinely shameful. I even named my lobby “master no idiots please” yet here they [the idiots] are! Jesus wept. Bloody charlatan chancers.
Got someone on the friends list who runs this hive like it’s a drill as Demo. Could’ve brought in even a low lvl if I wanted, and I did, for one of the runs. Six quick, easy runs, well except for a couple of screw ups due to misjudging the explosive range of the poppers, which seems overly ridiculous in this hive, almost to the point of being bugged.
To be fair, it’s not really obvious and the first few times I ran it I did it the “hard way” also. But, when you get someone who doesn’t get it, and sees the other two finish without him, then continues to do the same thing and not taking your lead, then there’s no excuse.
I’ve even tried messaging things like “follow me” or “stay together” but no luck. People are just so stupid. Absolutely clueless. I had a Tactician who didn’t pick up the Boomshot nor any Frags despite me and the other team mate picking it up and dropping it at their bloody feet! How they got to level 19 is a mystery to me.
Honestly possibly the easiest Hive I have run so far. Ran with a tactition a good few times and was later joined by a nomad. Fairly easy to avoid enemies provided you know the routes lol.
They changed it so you can just open and close whatever doors you want right? This is the one with all the poppers and the munchers/drops at helipad