PTS Update 42 - Feedback Thread for Lucent Citadel Trial

ZOS_GinaBruno · April 2024

This is the official feedback thread for Lucent Citadel Trial. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?
What level and build was the character you used?
Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?
How did the difficulty compare to existing Trials on Normal and Veteran versions?
Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?
Did you complete the Trial?
Did you have any companions with you?
Do you have any other general feedback?

Reginald_leBlem · April 2024

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?
Yes

What level and build was the character you used?
My usual CP 2000 character from NA

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?
Attempted veteran

How did the difficulty compare to existing Trials on Normal and Veteran versions?
Felt comparable to vDSR overall.

Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?
Yes

Did you complete the Trial?
No

Did you have any companions with you?
No

Do you have any other general feedback?
The ramping difficulty of the last fight felt out of place with the rest of the trial. Previous fights were more about mechanics, last fight obviously has mechanics but it became a dps check at the end. The 2 runs I was in were unable to complete the trial. In my opinion, the atros ramping health ramps too much-- the amount of health each atro increases by should be decreased, or it should have a cap.

HatchetHaro · April 2024

The arena for the Orphic Shattered Shard fight is far too symmetrical, making it extremely easy to become disoriented within the arena. With the strategy of assigning one player to one mirror each (which I suspect will be the fastest and most reliable strategy for this fight, but I will have to see the hardmode to confirm), this symmetry and disorientation is a detriment, necessitating the use of addon solutions like Elm's Markers to offset the disorientation.

Please consider adding additional (and highly visible) elements to the ground and/or walls of the arena that will help us distinguish between the four cardinal directions so we can locate and keep track of each individual mirror easier.

T_agg · April 2024

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?
Yes

What level and build was the character you used?
cp 3600 and multiple healer roles

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?
both and have one hard mode done at the moment

How did the difficulty compare to existing Trials on Normal and Veteran versions?
I'd say its similar to veteran sanitys edge maybe?

Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?
not really, last boss/encounter is very similar to destiny 2's raid last wish encounter, queens walk.

Did you complete the Trial?
Yes

Did you have any companions with you?
no just group members

Do you have any other general feedback?
Uh I'd say the title Luminous should be used for the trifecta or the trifecta plus extra achievements. Unstoppable and crystal sharp are ok ish but could be used for veteran and normal clears, arcane stabilizer could be the regular veteran title as it doesn't have the nice ring as luminous does. Luminous is super cool and would make me want to get the trifecta even more if that were the title for it instead. Unshattered also is really cool for the hardmode i like that one.

pklemming · April 2024

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?
Yes

What level and build was the character you used?
StamArc 3600CP, with a similar build to my main on live.

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?
Vet

How did the difficulty compare to existing Trials on Normal and Veteran versions?
Different. I would not say it is harder. Like any trial, it is getting used to the mechanics. I actually think the HM may be a little easy, if anything, from what I have seen, heard and read.

Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?
The mirrors were kind of unforgiving, but the dot was handleable once we got used to it. Lots and lots of death on the ball phase, but, again, learning curve, not really difficult.

Did you complete the Trial?
Ran out of trial time on the last run with the knot section. Was a blind run and we nearly got it on the first run.

Did you have any companions with you?
No.

Do you have any other general feedback?
None, really. it was very fun with a lot of new mechanics. The only real downpoint, are the sets given, but that is nothing to do with the completion. Also, apparently, you are locking housing items behind content, which never goes well as the crossover between housing people and trial people is not awful high, leaving housing people a little resentful. Kyne's Aegis was a classic example of this.

Additionally, the timing for the trifecta may be a little tight, considering the duration of the final phase.

pklemming · April 2024

HatchetHaro wrote: »

The arena for the Orphic Shattered Shard fight is far too symmetrical, making it extremely easy to become disoriented within the arena. With the strategy of assigning one player to one mirror each (which I suspect will be the fastest and most reliable strategy for this fight, but I will have to see the hardmode to confirm), this symmetry and disorientation is a detriment, necessitating the use of addon solutions like Elm's Markers to offset the disorientation.

Please consider adding additional (and highly visible) elements to the ground and/or walls of the arena that will help us distinguish between the four cardinal directions so we can locate and keep track of each individual mirror easier.

We actually used Elm's markers for this, though that is very valid for those not using addons.

HatchetHaro · April 2024

pklemming wrote: »

HatchetHaro wrote: »

The arena for the Orphic Shattered Shard fight is far too symmetrical, making it extremely easy to become disoriented within the arena. With the strategy of assigning one player to one mirror each (which I suspect will be the fastest and most reliable strategy for this fight, but I will have to see the hardmode to confirm), this symmetry and disorientation is a detriment, necessitating the use of addon solutions like Elm's Markers to offset the disorientation.

Please consider adding additional (and highly visible) elements to the ground and/or walls of the arena that will help us distinguish between the four cardinal directions so we can locate and keep track of each individual mirror easier.

We actually used Elm's markers for this, though that is very valid for those not using addons.

The existence (and now-widespread usage) of Elm's Markers and similar functionality from other addons is a symptom of an encounter design problem, the most egregious example of which can be found in Dreadsail Reef, on the Taleria fight (I can not imagine being able to do that fight on hardmode without the clock number markers).

Previous trials either have fights that are easy to locate positions in (Lokkestiiz, using external diagrams to mark positions in relation to grass and rocks that are easy to see) or don't require positional precision (Z'maja, where the symmetry of the arena doesn't matter).

Some people dislike using these custom markers (the functionality of which is provided by Ody Support Icons) because they are, effectively, a method of completely bypassing the 3D marker API restriction in place while the player is in a dungeon or trial; in other words, to them it feels like cheating/exploiting. Personally, I find it a genius application of mathematics, and I will happily use these markers as long as these fights necessitate them.

acastanza_ESO · April 2024

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?
Very much so, I think its probably the best trial to date. Clearly a lot of hard work was put into both the visuals and mechanic design and it game out great. I love both the split fight and the mirror room fight, they're great. My one criticism is that in the split fight the dark side is just "on the other side" of the mirror, it would've been much cooler if they were actually *inside* the mirror.
What level and build was the character you used?
CP3600 standard Azureblight Arcanist
Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?\
Veteran
How did the difficulty compare to existing Trials on Normal and Veteran versions?
I think that it is generally easier than vDSR/vSE provided the group has some way to mark or identify mirrors
Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?
Only the pre-nerf growing atros
Did you complete the Trial?
Yes
Did you have any companions with you?
No
Do you have any other general feedback?
Having now done the Arcane knot fight both with (10.0.0) and without (10.0.1) the growing atros I think the nerf is too much. The arcane knot fight is now much too easy and the lack of a ramping mechanic really robs the fight of the urgency it had before where it really felt like you were scrambling to escape as fast as you could. That said, the pre-nerf 10.0.0 atros were definitely to growing too much too quickly. I hope you can find some middle ground, perhaps reintroducing this mechanic but in a way that is less punishing than it was before (maybe limit how often the atros can grow, and reduce how much they grow by) but still have some semblance of it in the fight since its an important element of the fight's feel. We went from progging the clear on 10.0.0, to easily 11 manning it on 10.0.1

K_G · April 2024

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?
Absolutely, it's tied with Rockgrove for favorite. Love the new mechanics and how old ones are incorporated in.

What level and build was the character you used?
3600CP stamplar and necro tank

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?
Completed first two bosses on vet (dps) and HM (tank).

How did the difficulty compare to existing Trials on Normal and Veteran versions?
Much easier than the last 3 trials. My main core one shot boss 2 hard mode last night and it was our second raid night. I'm hoping they ramp up the difficulty of hard mode quite a bit - first boss doesn't feel like a hard mode at all. There's too few mechanics and tanks don't take much damage (the amount of adds for the healer to stack seems fine cause they did not look like they were having fun with the damage), although scorpion side is difficult on sustain, that can easily be fixed by block enchants. It feels like a fight both tanks could spec to off dps. Outside of the mirrors and knowing when to pick up the knot, it doesn't seem like DPS have many mechanics they need to be responsible for, which seems lacking compared to the last few trials.

Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?
Mirrors need to be recognizable/unique in some way or be marked somehow. A glowing unique symbol on the ground or something would be difficult enough to keep track of but doesn't require an addon. I have no envy for console players on 2nd boss without an addon that does markers. Additionally, it would be nice to see the devs go back to some of the previous trial fights and add stuff that can be used as markers in some way (rocks, symbols, colors, etc) but that's a separate issue.

The crystal atros on last boss hurt quite a bit and their jump scare port mechanic will never not freak me out, but they had an appropriate amount of difficulty for hard mode. Just need both tanks to build tanky rather than one tanky and one split for tank and healing/dps, as I was trying to do initially as OT. I also enjoy the punishing mechanic of people dying by spawning more atros, it's not unrecoverable, but it is difficult to manage.

Did you complete the Trial?
No, we got to last boss hm after it was buffed.

Did you have any companions with you?
Absolutely not. I've never raided with companions, but with all the ground AOEs, this does not seem like a trial you could use them in.

Do you have any other general feedback?
The timing on the trifecta seems very generous, unless both boss 1 and 2 get buffed quite a bit.

I'm also a little disappointed how every class that isn't Arcanist for dps just does not perform as well, by a significant margin. My main core is now swapping to all Arc dds and I am swapping off stamplar in my other core, and that kind of kills the 'play-as-you-want' play style that ZOS keeps saying they want to maintain.

Additionally, the sets they added are in complete contrast to how the fights are - purely AOE and lots and lots of moving around when the sets are ST and stand still. I would think they would want the new sets to compliment the new trial?

also crystal sharp and arcane stabilizer are not good titles >.>

Reginald_leBlem · April 2024

This weeks veteran LC felt much better balanced all the way around. My team had to work at it enough for it to feel rewarding when we cleared, but not so much we got frustrated or discouraged (unlike with the pre-nerfed atros...)

The only thing that concerns me is the movement puzzle-- a couple of people REALLY struggle with it as it makes them feel seasick/nauseous. I have no idea if some sort of bypass can be added that still requires the majority of the group to pass, like a portal that only opens after x number of people interact? Just some sort of failsafe.

code65536 · April 2024

pklemming wrote: »

We actually used Elm's markers for this.

Well, that's a problem. People shouldn't have to rely on addons for that sort of thing. Especially since the addon in question is drawing things on the ground in a bypass of the restrictions that prevent the use of the 3D rendering APIs in dungeons and trials.

Reginald_leBlem · April 2024

code65536 wrote: »

pklemming wrote: »

We actually used Elm's markers for this.

Well, that's a problem. People shouldn't have to rely on addons for that sort of thing. Especially since the addon in question is drawing things on the ground in a bypass of the restrictions that prevent the use of the 3D rendering APIs in dungeons and trials.

I definitely didn't ask someone to make elms markers for first boss to label the pads after people got disoriented and ran to the wrong one several times.

code65536 · April 2024

Reginald_leBlem wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

pklemming wrote: »

We actually used Elm's markers for this.

Well, that's a problem. People shouldn't have to rely on addons for that sort of thing. Especially since the addon in question is drawing things on the ground in a bypass of the restrictions that prevent the use of the 3D rendering APIs in dungeons and trials.

I definitely didn't ask someone to make elms markers for first boss to label the pads after people got disoriented and ran to the wrong one several times.

In some of the runs that I've been in, people like to call which pad it is. It's "middle pad" or "entrance pad". But, with the exception of the middle pad, I disregard the pad call. Instead of thinking, "ok, I'm on the light side, so entrance is to my right if I'm facing the mirror", it's much easier (and faster) to just look through the mirror to see which pad is outlined. There doesn't need to be callouts (except perhaps "pad mechanic" to alert people that they need to look), because the visual cues are, I think, well-done and quite adequate.

HatchetHaro · April 2024

The ghost-light portion of the trial feels a little incomplete at the moment.

Due to either ping (mine is ~250ms) or network replication issues, I always fall a short distance before the flight capability actually engages, which puts me at a disadvantage compared to other players
The player model turns into a tiny little wisp that is incredibly difficult to see in third-person, making it especially challenging to tell the 3D position of the player model and therefore prone to missing the stamina restore orbs (which are also the exact same colour of the wisp)
Whether or not the stamina restore triggers or not appears to be fairly inconsistent

K_G · May 2024

I take back a lot of the praise I originally had. The balance team is focusing on buffing very strange parts of the last fight that were already an appropriate difficulty instead of looking at the first fight + the easier parts of the second and last fights. This is all regarding the hardmode fights.

First boss. Still very easy. This isn't a bad thing necessarily, but the lack of damage done would ideally be made up with challenging mechanics. No part of the fight is challenging, which I guess, if you consider the trial as a whole, is a blessing.

Third boss. I'm not even sure where to start with this week's changes. Increasing the damage of the glass eye's gaze is a choice, I guess. It's not a great change, but it can be handled well enough, but I don't think anyone would mind if they were tuned down a bit. The amount of damage the damage dealers take from the knot as its fracturing is weirdly high - it leads to a lot of premature deaths which buff the crystal atros to unclearable levels. I do still like the idea of buffing the atros with each subsequent spawn, BUT on hardmode the scaling mechanic did not get adjusted with the new knot timer and there really should be a limit in damage given the length of the fight. I should not be casting bound aegis on a sorc tank, with max resistances and flare front bar, and getting oneshot by the atro by the end of the encounter (10 minutes in).

Changing the timer on the arcane knot is a completely random change to me - I don't recall seeing anyone say they thought a minute per person was too long? The pacing of the fight feels very awkward now and this is something that shouldn't have been changed. It feels like the balance team is watching the top one or two teams in the game and balancing the fight around them, rather than an average endgame team. My groups' damage hovers around half a mil per second on last fight, the mechanics feel balanced around a team doing 800-1mil per second.

The extra wiggle room in respawn time for the crystals is a nice change and doesn't make the fights that much easier.

Taking the portal in the lobby after killing second boss places the character at the start of the jumping puzzle.

Treeshka · May 2024

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?
Yes and it has its uniqueness in it.

What level and build was the character you used?
Raid and Scribing ready Arcanist healer. A lot of support sets were in the mix. Including shield providing sets. Mainly used three scribing ability as well just to give more shields. Class Script of Arcanist was also used in some of these abilities.

Did you complete Normal or Veteran?
I have completed Veteran difficulty and first two bosses in hard mode. Currently progressing last hard mode.

How did the difficulty compare to existing Trials on Normal and Veteran versions?
Can not compare the normal version, but veteran difficulty is pretty much straight forward for any experienced raider. Maybe some trash fight encounters will cause issues if damage is low or healing is not enough, but people will get used to it easily.

In my opinion once community gets a hold of the mechanics, clearing this raid will be pretty easy with group finder. It is far easier than Dreadsail Reef and on par with Sanity's Edge for veteran. I think Bahsei encounter in Rockgrove will remain harder than this new raid for group finder raids.

Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?

First Boss Hardmode: Since i played healer my job was to taunt the smaller adds and bring them to the group. After swapping sides taunted adds somewhat follows the previous group through the mirror, and come back after a while. In my opinion this should not happen and those small adds should remain in place so they can be killed easier.
Second Boss Hardmode: The circular room is too symmetrical and identifying which mirror i am assigned to is a bit hard due to that. But with time i will get used to directions in the compass probably.

Did you complete the Trial?
Yes in veteran and veteran hard mode for first two bosses.

Did you have any companions with you?
No.

Do you have any other general feedback?
Speaking of hard mode difficulty. First two bosses are way too easy compared to last encounter. In my opinion some of the difficulty should be moved towards the first boss and a bit to second boss.
Looking at last boss it requires immense amount of coordination for any group who wants a trifecta or even clear. Almost everything is a soft damage check since you will get a Crystal Atronach once every 45 seconds maybe 50 seconds.
Also this is the only hard mode in the game that you can throw a trifecta without dying. Maybe somewhere in the encounter there should be a thing that allow one or two person to clear their cooldown for Arcane Knot.