Gratz. Just for comparison - did people down vCR+3 as quickly on the PTS? No offence, but being able to down a trial the first evening on the highest difficulty does not really give me any hope regarding that trial...

Were you switching sets for each encounter? The trial shouldn't be balanced around the use of addons that speed things up.

Last boss challenging sounds good
How was server performance? Still everything desynced, skills not going off, etc. etc.?

Letho2469 wrote: »

Last boss challenging sounds good
How was server performance? Still everything desynced, skills not going off, etc. etc.?

performance is worse on pts than it on live, we all had constant 400+ ping the entire raid night

How did you not get the Down with the Ship achievement but you got the Vanquisher achievement?

From what I see, probably the first two bosses need to be adjusted a bit before it hits live. The HMs seem to be very easy

Very impressive that you've managed to get the HM clear so quickly.

Can you say anything about the HM mechanics of the bosses?

MaddPowered wrote: »

however the 35 minute speed run might be a little too long.

Before Sunspire, the precedent set by older trials was that speed run is relative accessible. Sunspire broke that precedent and I believe that was--and still is--a mistake.

For groups that see titles and achievements as too easy, score competition has always been the open-ended area beyond those things in which they could play. Let's keep it that way and not repeat the mistake that was made with Sunspire.

Sunspire speed run time was balanced around PC performance and addons, while and xBox team proved that it is possible, you must admit that their time was nowhere near the time that PC crowd gets. Also you have to go there with a very specific group composition that automatically eliminates all stamina.
Currently most score pushing groups play magicka on the console because switching skills and gear is not that important. We don't have "boss setup" or "trash setup", so all this should be taken into account while designing time challenges.

Stillian wrote: »

rather than some side-thing that you just get naturally during progress.

So? That's not a bad thing.

The important thing here is consistency. There had been an established standard, in trials and dungeons, for what speedrun means, and yes, it just meant that you're at the point where you have reasonably clean runs where you're not losing time to wipes. Which, yes, has traditionally been relatively easier than the ultimate achievements. But that's fine. There should be an even spectrum of difficulties covered by achievements, so that groups of all skill levels have intermediate goals that they can work towards, from just clearing it on vet all the way to the trifecta.

When you say something like, "actually an achievement", that means different things to different people, depending on their skill level. For the people who just scrape by with the vet clear of a dungeon, yea, speedrun actually is an achievement for them, because it means they are starting to get cleaner and more consistent. For people who shoot for trifectas, no, it's not much of an achievement, but that applies to a lot of other things as well (and it's still more than just a clear). One person's easy achievement is another's hard achievement, which is why there should be a spread of easy, intermediate, and hard achievements instead of every achievement being hard.

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

Some things to keep in mind:

- This is PTS, we will make adjustments
- Yandir and Vrol are intentionally easier, even in Hard Mode, in order for us to see more of the Trial. They will be adjusted.
- This is PTS, there were bugs we will be fixing.

Thanks for all your hard work testing. If you record or stream your trial runs on PTS, please let us know/send us the videos.

Thanks!

Moral of the story: Never challenge Finn. He always wins.

DjMuscleboy02 wrote: »

Saying that the trial seems long for 35 minutes is pretty accurate imo. Day 1 boss times added up to ~16 min or so. Meaning they'll be ~10-12 optimally. Leaving so much time for trash that has extremely low hp. I think a 30 minute speed run time is more than reasonable as groups will be completely this, as is, in 25 minutes or less relatively easily. All that assumes no changes, which will almost certainly come. So, I think 35 minutes is reasonable if there are considerable changes to the first two boss fights or even trash coming.

MaddPowered wrote: »

Letho2469 wrote: »

Gratz. Just for comparison - did people down vCR+3 as quickly on the PTS? No offence, but being able to down a trial the first evening on the highest difficulty does not really give me any hope regarding that trial...

IIRC, it took people a week or so on PTS to clear hard mode. When sunspire was on PTS it took a few days. The first two bosses are really easy IMO, and the last boss was very challenging.

It wasn't cleared until the week before release when they made significant changes to execute and minibosses did not respawn in execute. Then it was cleared by most top teams in their next run with relative ease.

I hope there isn't a change as extreme as this, it went from no one being able to clear to a Gryphon Heart in a week iirc.

Finn's statement makes it clear that the first two bosses were kept easy because they wanted more feedback on the final boss. So in all probably there will be adjustments for first two bosses. Even then I think 35 min will be a comfortable time for most ok groups, which is actually a good thing