Maw of Lorkhaj - Upcoming PTS Changes

ZOS_Finn

Hey Folks,

First of all, thanks to all the streamers and people providing feedback in this thread. It looks like most people are having a good time within Maw of Lorkhaj and appreciate the normal version's difficulty as well as the challenge of Veteran.

That said, we are making some changes to Maw in the next PTS patch in order to facilitate more testing within the Veteran difficulty and in response to some feedback regarding the Normal difficulty. We figured it was a good time to give you insight into what is coming up. Note: This does not necessarily represent the final balance we will have when the Trial goes live.

Both Difficulties:

• You can now use Mounts in the outdoor sections of Maw of Lorkhaj
• Added Bent Cats to the Dark Behind the World to show what happens when Khajiit are seduced by the Bent Dance.

Normal Difficulty:

• Increased Rakkhat's total health at levels VR1 through VR16.
• Failing to find and kill all six Void Callers during Rakkhat's Void Phase now results in all group members being consumed by the void instead of just three random players. This now mirrors how the mechanic operates in the Veteran difficulty.

Veteran Difficulty:

• The first gate encounter will now correctly spawn monsters in a timely manner.
• The Rage of S'Kinrai and Will of Vashai will now take significantly increased damage when stunned by Lunar Tempest or Shadow Tempest.
• The stun which effects Rage of S'Kinrai and Will of Vashai from Lunar or Shadow Tempest now lasts 10 seconds.
• Rage of S'Kinrai and Will of Vashai will no longer spawn quite as often.
• Rage of S'Kinrai and Will have Vashai have had their health reduced.
• You should no longer immediately be affected by Infernal Fusion when accepting the Shadow Aspect buff after dying during a previous attempt's Conversion.

These changes should still provide players with a decent challenge for the Vashai and S'Kinrai, in particular, but allow a greater number of players to progress past this point to see the rest of the Trial and provide us valuable testing feedback on Veteran Difficulty - they aren't reflective of final balance for when the Trial goes live. They should be going up to PTS in the next patch.

Again, thanks for the great feedback so far and keep it coming. We are excited to see feedback on these changes as well as the first attempts at Rakkhat, the Fang of Lorkhaj on Veteran Difficulty and even Hard Mode... if you dare.”

JLN

no more nerfs pls or revert it when it goes on live,
next time just open the door from the boss so ppl can get past it (like the first boss)

Xantaria

You could have just opened the door instead of completely destroying the great challenge. This boss is cake now.

GeertKarel

well.. either way they want to see if other groups book progress in completing the second boss.

Komma

He said they made it easier for testing. Doubt it stays like that.

ZOS_Finn

For the guilds and groups that have gotten the bosses down to ~30%, we do believe this will decrease the difficulty in order to be able to beat it. For those that perhaps not have gotten the bosses down that far, these changes allow those players to fight an engaging boss encounter that should prove to be challenging.

This will not be on PTS until next week and we will be making adjustments before live. There are a lot of factors we are testing when we make changes such as these which would not be visible if we just opened the door. We look forward to seeing the contrasts between the two encounters once these changes make their way to PTS as well as the Rakkhat attempts.

deleted008293

ZOS have you ever considered giving some rewards to players that test stuff on PTS? PTS servers seems too deserted even for a 4 man group dungeon! Making a 12 man group for some trials its mostly impossible.

ginoboehm

well a nerf nobody asked for. You realize this is the only thing that provides any kind of challenge for good guilds? you made normal mode for people just wanting to experience the story don't make everything so casual please. if this trial is beaten soon after live drops not only by one but by multible guilds you will experience another painful loss of more progressive oriented players

blackcom90

Edit: SORRY. WHILE I WAS WRITING MY COMMENT I DIN?T SEE THE OTHER REPLY OF THE ZOS: zos pls, i beg you, don't let me down this time.
ps. the part on the marketing it's true btw

@Woeler i apologize, but the next time avoid the "stupid" tag... it made me hot and bothered.


For once we had a content truly hard and challenging that could live up the passion of the pve endgame players and you took it away.
Now it's coming out bdo with a strong and better than yours pvp setup and your marketing team, instead of consolidating the pve base, nerf it.
It's not a smart move
why don't you focus a little more on the pve endgame? why you don't make contents that last more than a week?
Your only concurrence would be wow (but you are already taking the player from wow and gw2) and ffo (that it's an asian mmo).
Instead on giving us a nerfed endgame every time, give us a 12 boss trial that reset once a week and make us throw up black blood. At least it should last more than a couples week.


[Edited to remove inappropriate comment]

Takllin

People gotta calm down, this was a change to help them get some testing results on the PTS, and not what is going to be shipped live...how many more times does Finn need to tell you all that?

ZOS_GinaBruno

Just to make sure we're all on the same page, we purposely reduced the difficulty so we can get feedback on the entire Trial. This isn't a nerf that will be going to the Live megaservers - it's just for PTS (a test server). We plan for Veteran Maw of Lorkhaj to be extremely difficult. It's so difficult, currently, that we can't get enough feedback on the second and third bosses. This will allow us to get feedback and bug reports for those two in particular without just opening the doors and letting you walk through. Please don't twist Mike's words around.

Zakor

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

Note: This does not necessarily represent the final balance we will have when the Trial goes live.

How about you guys calm down already. It's the PTS, so its for testing not to give you guys a challenge. If they think they dont get enough results on specific content they should find a way to get more information. If not everyone will flame ZOS for not getting that content testet on PTS as soon as any bugs or problems arise. Now you flame them for getting that content tested.
If they don't change this on live feel free to flame as much as you think you have to but flaming ZOS for getting the content tested on the damn testserver is just ridiculus.

Edit: Gina was faster

Woeler

blackcom90 wrote: »

For once we had a content truly hard and challenging that could live up the passion of the pve endgame players and you took it away.

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

they aren't reflective of final balance for when the Trial goes live.

[Edited to remove flaming commentary]

blackcom90

When you play from the beta and still see

Woeler wrote: »

blackcom90 wrote: »

For once we had a content truly hard and challenging that could live up the passion of the pve endgame players and you took it away.

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

they aren't reflective of final balance for when the Trial goes live.

sorry, but when you play from he beta and the zos keep doing stupid errors your patience go down the drain with so little... plus thwy didn't say that this change will not go live, but that we need more feedback on the latter post of the trial so they nerfed it. If they choose to do so the nerf could be kept for the live. And i hope they will really avoid it or for this game it's another step to the grave.


[Edited to remove quote]

Takllin

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Just to make sure we're all on the same page, we purposely reduced the difficulty so we can get feedback on the entire Trial. This isn't a nerf that will be going to the Live megaservers - it's just for PTS (a test server). We plan for Veteran Maw of Lorkhaj to be extremely difficult. It's so difficult, currently, that we can't get enough feedback on the second and third bosses. This will allow us to get feedback and bug reports for those two in particular without just opening the doors and letting you walk through. Please don't twist Mike's words around.

blackcom90 wrote: »

When you play from the beta and still see

Woeler wrote: »

blackcom90 wrote: »

I think @Alcast will send a bomb to zos after this... For once we had a content truly hard and challenging that could live up the passion of the pve endgame players and you took it away.

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

they aren't reflective of final balance for when the Trial goes live.

I know reading is a difficult skill to master though.

sorry, but when you play from he beta and the zos keep doing stupid errors your patience go down the drain with so little... plus thwy didn't say that this change will not go live, but that we need more feedback on the latter post of the trial so they nerfed it. If they choose to do so the nerf could be kept for the live. And i hope they will really avoid it or for this game it's another step to the grave.

Played since beta, but your wrong.

blackcom90

Zakor wrote: »

blackcom90 wrote: »

When you play from the beta and still see

Woeler wrote: »

blackcom90 wrote: »

I think @Alcast will send a bomb to zos after this... For once we had a content truly hard and challenging that could live up the passion of the pve endgame players and you took it away.

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

they aren't reflective of final balance for when the Trial goes live.

I know reading is a difficult skill to master though.

sorry, but when you play from he beta and the zos keep doing stupid errors your patience go down the drain with so little... plus thwy didn't say that this change will not go live, but that we need more feedback on the latter post of the trial so they nerfed it. If they choose to do so the nerf could be kept for the live. And i hope they will really avoid it or for this game it's another step to the grave.

They did, the third time now. Start reading ZOS posts carefully...

sorry. when i wrote the first comment wasn't clearly stated that the change would not be in live. now i'll focus on take the love from woeler. He love me so much.

But you have to admit that even now the pve endgame it's under valued from the zos. Especially the trials aspect.

blackcom90

Takllin wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Just to make sure we're all on the same page, we purposely reduced the difficulty so we can get feedback on the entire Trial. This isn't a nerf that will be going to the Live megaservers - it's just for PTS (a test server). We plan for Veteran Maw of Lorkhaj to be extremely difficult. It's so difficult, currently, that we can't get enough feedback on the second and third bosses. This will allow us to get feedback and bug reports for those two in particular without just opening the doors and letting you walk through. Please don't twist Mike's words around.

blackcom90 wrote: »

When you play from the beta and still see

Woeler wrote: »

blackcom90 wrote: »

I think @Alcast will send a bomb to zos after this... For once we had a content truly hard and challenging that could live up the passion of the pve endgame players and you took it away.

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

they aren't reflective of final balance for when the Trial goes live.

I know reading is a difficult skill to master though.

sorry, but when you play from he beta and the zos keep doing stupid errors your patience go down the drain with so little... plus thwy didn't say that this change will not go live, but that we need more feedback on the latter post of the trial so they nerfed it. If they choose to do so the nerf could be kept for the live. And i hope they will really avoid it or for this game it's another step to the grave.

Played since beta, but your wrong.

yep. this time i'm wrong. i admit it. next time i'll wait more than 5 minutes to have another zos employee give more information about the original post. sorry

timidobserver

Good decision as long as it is reverted for live. We do need to test the last boss.

Saturn

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Just to make sure we're all on the same page, we purposely reduced the difficulty so we can get feedback on the entire Trial. This isn't a nerf that will be going to the Live megaservers - it's just for PTS (a test server). We plan for Veteran Maw of Lorkhaj to be extremely difficult. It's so difficult, currently, that we can't get enough feedback on the second and third bosses. This will allow us to get feedback and bug reports for those two in particular without just opening the doors and letting you walk through. Please don't twist Mike's words around.

[snip]

You and several others have stated multiple times that you are intentionally making it easier on PTS to test ALL the fights has apparently been ignored by a few people in this thread.

[edited for flamming comment]

blackcom90

sorry for my rant @ZOS_GinaBruno and @ZOS_Finn... next time i lose it i'll offer you a beer ok?

Joy_Division

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Just to make sure we're all on the same page, we purposely reduced the difficulty so we can get feedback on the entire Trial. This isn't a nerf that will be going to the Live megaservers - it's just for PTS (a test server). We plan for Veteran Maw of Lorkhaj to be extremely difficult. It's so difficult, currently, that we can't get enough feedback on the second and third bosses. This will allow us to get feedback and bug reports for those two in particular without just opening the doors and letting you walk through. Please don't twist Mike's words around.

I get it, but I've heard too often, "We weren't planning on making X permanent, but we like how it plays out of the PTS so we're going to put it on Live."

hedna123b14_ESO

ginoboehm wrote: »

well a nerf nobody asked for. You realize this is the only thing that provides any kind of challenge for good guilds? you made normal mode for people just wanting to experience the story don't make everything so casual please. if this trial is beaten soon after live drops not only by one but by multible guilds you will experience another painful loss of more progressive oriented players

Im not sure if you are trolling, or just dont understand the point of the PTS. The point of the PTS is to test things...if noone can get past the second boss, how can they test the last boss? As for as just "opening the door" most people wont go through it (we did not when we were facing the first boss) until they beat that boss. So you wont have a lot of people testing the last boss. These changes allow people to progress to the final boss and get attempts on him in...Im sure if they see it as too easy they will revert the changes come live...

Xantaria

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

For the guilds and groups that have gotten the bosses down to ~30%, we do believe this will decrease the difficulty in order to be able to beat it. For those that perhaps not have gotten the bosses down that far, these changes allow those players to fight an engaging boss encounter that should prove to be challenging.

This will not be on PTS until next week and we will be making adjustments before live. There are a lot of factors we are testing when we make changes such as these which would not be visible if we just opened the door. We look forward to seeing the contrasts between the two encounters once these changes make their way to PTS as well as the Rakkhat attempts.

@ZOS_Finn we've gotten it to 30 with TEMPLATE characters. We really wanted to have a chance on this boss at full power.

ZOS_CoriJ

Guys I've had to remove a handful of reaction commentary and posts that were getting out of hand. We welcome disagreement and constructive commentary regarding changes we make, but please keep them in the realm of debate and out of violation of the forum rules.
This includes unsulting commentary from player to player. Please be respectful.

Xjcon

Lol. No one was completing it. Best guilds in the world tried beating the second boss and couldnt. I'm guessing many don't understand why the PTS is in place. It's not meant to be where you freely brush up on a fight so you can own it on live. It's meant to be a place to see how things (all of the dlc)work and check to make sure it's going to run smooth. The amount of hate generated over this thread escalated quick by people who didn't read the entire thing obvioisly.

Xantaria

Xjcon wrote: »

Lol. No one was completing it. Best guilds in the world tried beating the second boss and couldnt. I'm guessing many don't understand why the PTS is in place. It's not meant to be where you freely brush up on a fight so you can own it on live. It's meant to be a place to see how things (all of the dlc)work and check to make sure it's going to run smooth. The amount of hate generated over this thread escalated quick by people who didn't read the entire thing obvioisly.

Thing is, we are really competitive and really into challenging stuff. Beating this boss with 300 CP on templates was our challenge. This will be taken from us soon. If they wanted us to test last boss they could have always opened the door and told us to do so. We would have done that.

rosy_ariete

Xantaria wrote: »

Thing is, we are really competitive and really into challenging stuff. Beating this boss with 300 CP on templates was our challenge. This will be taken from us soon. If they wanted us to test last boss they could have always opened the door and told us to do so. We would have done that.

Amen!!

code65536

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

Failing to find and kill all six Void Callers during Rakkhat's Void Phase now results in all group members being consumed by the void instead of just three random players. This now mirrors how the mechanic operates in the Veteran difficulty.

Wow, so that's how it's supposed to work in vet. I'm not sure how I feel about it being an all-or-nothing mechanic, though. We've had a number of runs on normal where the Void Caller team would get 5 out of the 6 and then spend a long time trying to find the last one that they overlooked. Have you considered scaling this punishment mechanism, at least on normal mode? E.g., each remaining Void Caller will result in two members being consumed, so that if they are all ignored, it will still result in a full wipe, but if the team is able to kill all but one, the consequences would be correspondingly less.

Takllin

Xantaria wrote: »

Xjcon wrote: »

Lol. No one was completing it. Best guilds in the world tried beating the second boss and couldnt. I'm guessing many don't understand why the PTS is in place. It's not meant to be where you freely brush up on a fight so you can own it on live. It's meant to be a place to see how things (all of the dlc)work and check to make sure it's going to run smooth. The amount of hate generated over this thread escalated quick by people who didn't read the entire thing obvioisly.

Thing is, we are really competitive and really into challenging stuff. Beating this boss with 300 CP on templates was our challenge. This will be taken from us soon. If they wanted us to test last boss they could have always opened the door and told us to do so. We would have done that.

Except Finn told you exactly why they couldn't just do that...or they would have.

Mujuro

Xantaria wrote: »

Xjcon wrote: »

Lol. No one was completing it. Best guilds in the world tried beating the second boss and couldnt. I'm guessing many don't understand why the PTS is in place. It's not meant to be where you freely brush up on a fight so you can own it on live. It's meant to be a place to see how things (all of the dlc)work and check to make sure it's going to run smooth. The amount of hate generated over this thread escalated quick by people who didn't read the entire thing obvioisly.

Thing is, we are really competitive and really into challenging stuff. Beating this boss with 300 CP on templates was our challenge. This will be taken from us soon. If they wanted us to test last boss they could have always opened the door and told us to do so. We would have done that.

So what's stopping you from overcoming your stated challenge? From what I am reading, this won't happen until next week at the earliest, which gives you several days.

Nifty2g

There is far too much ego stroking going on in here. @Xantaria they understand that you guys like the challenge, but they have a deadline on the PTS before it goes Live, they need to make adjustments where necessary, right now they can't do that, there was probably an internal deadline for certain guilds to get to certain spots before reaching a certain date and that deadline was not met so they need to lower the difficulty so they can see if the trial is working as intended in certain areas.

Zenimax seem to have taken a different route from what it used to be, they listened to our feedback and they are barely adjusting or nerfing content. I tried my hardest to get parts of Maelstrom Arena changed around but had no success. I highly doubt this trial will be getting nerfed.

Remember guys, it's not just 12 people testing the trial, there are a lot more other players testing it too. There is also a pretty casual guild on the NA server stuck on the 2nd boss as well.

I'm just saying what Zenimax most likely won't say but I think it's fairly obvious