I get a lot of questions about the quarterly Mayhem events in Entropia Universe. As most of you know I generally don’t suggest new players competing. Today I want to share how I took 8th in the recent Defense competition. I also want to give you some more information about why Mayhem is generally a bad idea.
Why I Discourage Competing In Mayhem
Generally I tell people to have fun but not to bother competing in the quarterly Mayhem events. There are a few simple reasons for this:
- Lack of available prizes
- Cheating
- Lack of proper weapons
- Interference with game play
Lack Of Available Prizes
When Mayhem first started there were prizes per competition. Then MindArk moved all prizes to the Mayhem Token Trader. There were some GREAT prizes. Ultra high efficiency items. The kind of items that most players dream of owning.
The majority of those prizes have long been claimed. Of the prizes left to be claimed they are trash compared to the stuff that people already got. To make matters worse you may need 2x Placement Tokens but you may need 100,000 Mayhem Tokens!
I have almost a dozen Placement Tokens but I still need to almost double my regular token count in order to get one of the sub par prizes.
Cheating
I knew early on that people were cheating at Mayhem. The scores would come out and I would almost always get 2nd or 3rd place and the person who beat me was a no name avatar that no one had ever heard of. And they didn’t beat me by a little; they beat me badly. And I was beating everyone else badly.
As most of you know it came out a while back that people were using a pet to increase their reload speed far past anything that should have been possible. It’s also no secret that many of these “winners” were alt accounts designed for no reason but to keep Mayhem tokens out of the hands of other players.
In my opinion this is completely unacceptable. Those players were allowed to cheat the system to get the best gear available. Much more should have been done to stop it or rectify the situation.
Lack Of Proper Weapons
There is a lack of weapons that are proper for use in Mayhem. You need a weapon at the DPS limit for your category that’s also tier 9/10. Usually these weapons are UL and extremely expensive. Some categories just don’t have an ideal weapon at all. This puts the majority of players at a massive disadvantage from the start.
I’ve actually started using high tier L weapons for my Mayhem runs. Yes this has resulted in me getting 22nd place for Annihilation the past few Mayhems. But it has also kept my cost extremely low and a higher DPS UL weapon would have barely got me into the top 10 without a high score kill (which I didn’t get anyway).
Interference With Other Game Play
My biggest problem with Mayhem is the skill caps have always limited my game play. This has always been very annoying. Constantly chipping out is very problematic. Now ESI prices are going through the roof. Chipping out simply no longer makes sense.
I finally threw my hands up and stopped worrying about profession levels. There were months I didn’t even play just because Mayhem was coming up. Now I play how I want when I want. If Mayhem rolls around and I’m in cat 3 cool. Maybe I end up in cat 6. I won’t spend months doing nothing just because of Mayhem anymore.
Easter Mayhem Defense
Every Mayhem there is a secondary event. Some of these events are easier than others. Each secondary event takes actual skill at the game. My favorite is the Easter Mayhem Defense competition.
The idea is simple: center of the arena there is a robot interceptor. Protect it from ever waves of creatures. Each wave is stronger than the one before it.
This is one of my favorite events because after every 5th and 10th round you’re rewarded with a Mayhem token or a token and a strongbox. That makes it easy for low level players to farm a few tokens with very little cost.
The Easy Strategy
Winning the Defense event is kind of straight forward. You know that the mobs will get stronger with each wave. So simply be able to do more damage the longer you’re in there.
I usually start with a weapon below the DPS limit. The first few rounds I can stand my ground pretty easy. As the mobs get stronger and harder to kill I move to a higher DPS weapon with damage enhancers. Toward the end of my run when the mobs are REALLY strong I move to a weapon with DPS near the catagory limit running full damage enhancers.
Even a category DPS limit weapon with 10 damage enhancers isn’t enough. No matter how many buffs you have or how fast you shoot you just won’t be able to hurt them anymore. At this point I don’t even try to take them down; I just make them chase me.
Remember the goal is to keep the interceptor safe. I have to avoid dying but if they are chasing me they are not destroying the interceptor! This works for a while but eventually you will die and then it’s over.
How People Score 2 Hour Times
I have no idea. I was lucky to be able to last about 1 hour 9 minutes. Some players can score a 2 hour + time which is absolute insanity to me. How they manage to pull it off I’ve never figured out. But if you can do it more power to you!
Final Thoughts
If you’re just getting started then Mayhem really isn’t something you want to take too seriously. Have some fun with it and check out the secondary events. Next Easter remember that the defense event gives you the opportunity to farm boxes and tokens fairly cheaply and efficiently.
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