PTS Update 21 - Feedback Thread for Frostvault

eso_nya · February 2019

Moloch1514 wrote: »

Based on ESO Live, the normal version is too hard. Jess and Gina keep wiping, so this will be too hard for most pug groups.

For me it was a great showcase on how off the difficulty/balance in those is.

There is a team sitting in the same room using voicecoms (but not spoiling mechanics, okay).

The tank was overgeared for the content (and using hp-bubble immortality), by the looks of it could have slowly ransacked everything to death by himself w/o ever being in danger of dropping below 50% hp.

The dds kept dying nonstop without knowing why. (Except when the tank tricked them into dying from nonobvious mechanics.) -> "mechanics" r not obvious, telegraphing is off/bad/late. one of em was using relenquen, so defo not "newbies".

The healer was more busy with rezzing and tryharding to keep the dds alive than mmo standard "healing the tank". Like in the avanlanche fight. tank is over there in a corner doing whatever, while the rest of the grp throws bodies at the mage until it drops dead. replacing the healer with a magplar dd in kagrenacs will improve teamperformance.

Over all, the fights looked like going in w/ healtank and 3x50k dps, the bosses would go down in less than 30 secs and most of the mechanics wouldnt happen.
Going in w/ a pug group (is minimum requirement for normal still level 10?), no voicecoms, 3 fakeroles (the ppl who pick a random role and r neither a tank, nor a healer, nor a damage dealer) would make it impossible to complete.

This was normal mode, right?

btw, why was there no onscreen failcounter this time?

For me, i'll maybe ask my one and only friend to try a two person "listen to the story" run with me. And than never go there again.

Dracane · February 2019

I can just say, I found this Dungeon very player friendly. No cheesy mechanics and no endless trashmob passages. Many passages were illuminated by the sun and gave me a feeling of harmony.

Quite on the contrary to depths of malatar. That one was just depressing at times, which comes from a combination of some trashmobs that put alot of pressure on me and the overall style of the dungeon.

crjs1 · February 2019

The increase in difficulty for DLC dungeons even in normal is depressing, especially with the one shots and mechanics. I’m glad ZOS seem to be indicating that difficulty will be reduced in subsequent patches because the first PTS patch has not done much to help normal. This would be impossible to PUG at the moment.

dowinterfor6 · February 2019

Some further feedback as a tank:
Overall my group did two nights worth of vFV HM, the second night we got to 36%. Since I've already left feedback on my first night, here's the second nights feedback.
I came on a DK tank, and our group ran 3 dps 1 tank. We had a magplar in group, but CMX showed that I did 70-80% of my own healing. The fight was infinitely easier to solo tank on a DK than a sorc, mainly due to helping hands passive and igneous shields being much stronger than empowered ward, even though spamming shields is the logical solution to the ~75% defile. Tank class variety is already low, and this dungeon further exacerbates the problem. If we decide to go in again I may consider trying another class to confirm my suspicions.

Artim_X · February 2019

So far I've done this dungeon 3 times on normal (did not know anyone in the groups). Once as a pure DPS and twice as a frost staff tank DPS. As far as I can tell this dungeon has no unfair mechanics when set to normal. Sure some things will catch you off guard the first time around, but once you learn from your mistakes subsequent runs become significantly easier (unlike normal Moon Hunter Keep, which is always a challenge when no one else knows the mechanics).

forumsmurf · February 2019

Did you enjoy this new dungeon?

It was pretty enjoyable. Appropriate duration for a 4 man DLC dungeon (Not ridiculously long like MoS).

How did the difficulty compare to existing dungeons on Normal and Veteran versions?

HM is on the level of release Scalecaller Peak. Never did anything else.

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?

Completed HM.

Which was your favorite boss in this dungeon, and why?

Final boss is actually pretty fun. There's *** mechanics (such as the sphere projectile causing explosions that knock everyone in a radius away) but it is overall an enjoyable fight.

What level and build was the character you used?

Template Wrathstone maxed out character.

Do you have any other general feedback?

My feedback will be from a dpser's perspective. My tank's only comment is that there needs to be dedicated knockback if he is to run without a healer because he can't sustain Wings. My healer's comment are that a healer isn't really needed here because all they do is Javelin and throw Orbs/Shards for resources on the tank, their heals are somewhat insignificant because of the defile and you can't purge any of the debuffs.

The final boss seems pretty difficult as any Mag class with insufficient stamina or a lack of inbuilt Major Expedition. There is a lot of roll dodging and sometimes sprinting to make up for positional errors. The exception is DKs who can use their Wings to reflect the Spheres off the platform and use Magma to make up for mistakes. Aside from that, it's clear that the fight was designed with the intention of using knockbacks to knock the spheres off the platform as there is an entire achievement dictating that. As such, skills like Javelin/Flame Reach/Draining Shot are used. I didn't like that so I used Wings instead. The fight is very unforgiving, there is close to 0 windows for recovery if somebody dies.

Skeever phase is easy to learn and once familiar with, can be completed with 90% success rate barring extremely unfortunate circumstances.

Ironically the hardest phase is from 65-35% because of how much damage the spinning blades do when they have been coated with fire. They also have a ridiculous range, being able to hit you from the other side of the platform. You're basically forced to burn stam if it gets coated with fire. Thankfully they're gone at 35% and replaced with a mechanic similar to Cloudrest's portal cones that knock you back if you get hit (but if you roll dodge at the right time, even if you roll into it, you're fine).

Overall I rate the dungeon 8.5/10. I hope the intending difficulty rebalancing doesn't end up making this a joke.

Aliyavana · February 2019

glad to see the troll stun attacks being nerfed in normal, now to see if its soloable tomorrow.

Aliyavana · February 2019

Anyone see if the troll stun was nerfed enough to make it soloable in normal? Cant log into pts rn

profundidob16_ESO · February 2019

Aliyavana wrote: »

Anyone see if the troll stun was nerfed enough to make it soloable in normal? Cant log into pts rn

a friend of mine soloed the entire instance (including end boss) last night on normal. Took around 1h45min since he had to spec extremely tanky just to be able to handle the incoming dmge and that kills dps in favor of respecting tactics and surviving.

Took forever but yes, it's possible now and a confirmed completion of the dungeon

Aliyavana · February 2019

There is literal later model factotum body parts in the frostvault dungeon. Factotums are of sotha sil's design and this is completely unlore friendly to be in this dwemer dungeon. This was near Warlord Tzogvin https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Factotum

Also this clockwork sphere just before the last boss is another asset reuse that is ingame specifically refered to as clockwork

Aliyavana · February 2019

profundidob16_ESO wrote: »

Aliyavana wrote: »

Anyone see if the troll stun was nerfed enough to make it soloable in normal? Cant log into pts rn

a friend of mine soloed the entire instance (including end boss) last night on normal. Took around 1h45min since he had to spec extremely tanky just to be able to handle the incoming dmge and that kills dps in favor of respecting tactics and surviving.

Took forever but yes, it's possible now and a confirmed completion of the dungeon

tried on a dps build, didn't end too well

profundidob16_ESO · February 2019

looks like it's working as intended then

profundidob16_ESO · February 2019

update for our test just now of 4.3.4: We just 3-manned veteran Frostvault non-hm with 3 very xp players that had practised alot and completed in 4.3.0/4.3.1 before.

1 superdps, 1 superhealer, 1 tank all min-maxed more or less for this stuff.

I did feel the nerfs to the different fights since 4.3.1 but they remain fun and challenging somehow due to the mechanics. The whole dungeon feels actually more enjoyable like this somehow and more fluid if people know mechanics already.

We wiped a few times on tzogvin with his nasty icy stuff that keeps a random factor of adds and tether happening during ice aoe winds phase. THAT can be particularly hard tbh

We managed to 1-shot Vault protector with I believe only 1 death and a lucky rezz.

Especially Stonekeeper was alot more fun somehow due to it being shorter now (we did non-hm). I love the fact that it's now reduced to 1 training skeevaton phase at start and 1 real phase in the middle. The fight feels alot more dynamic and fun but remains challenging. Also 1-shot here.

It personally feels to me that this dungeon is ready to go live and will be alot more appealing to the masses than in 4.3.0 or 4.3.1.

gj devs

code65536 · February 2019

Some thoughts on the final PTS patch...

Reducing the number of skeevaton phases

I regard the removal of the second skeevaton phase as a pacing change rather than a difficulty nerf. I've often compared HM skeevaton to the final boss of vMA. Clearing it for the first time was a brutal exercise in frustration that made you hate the game, but second and subsequent clears become markedly easier and genuinely enjoyable. Any group that can reliably clear one skeevaton phase should have no difficulty whatsoever clearing two skeevaton phases--once we had gotten comfortable with HM skeevaton, we felt that it was actually a nice breather--a welcome reprieve from the hectic topside action.

In any case, we think it's a good change overall. The old design had broken up the pacing of the fight too much and dragged things out, particularly in non-HM where the skeevaton phase offered no challenge and would quickly become stale after the novelty wore off (HM skeevaton is more replayable and fun--once you've endured the initial pain of learning it).

Adjustments to HM skeevaton

There's really no reason for an Assault skeevaton to do anything other than a mine+ball combo. Nobody used Lightning Chassis initially because it was worthlessly weak--and now that you've buffed it, we still don't use it because... why bother? We also found that we're running skeevaton phases without ever needing to use the Assault ultimates. Part of this is probably just practice (we did spend way too many hours there during the first week of PTS), part of it is the buffs to the mine skill, and maybe a small part is the nerf to the spider spawns (it didn't really feel like there were significantly fewer spiders, though).

One of our group members commented that he felt that the mine had become "OP" after the buffs, and while I tend to agree, our perspectives are those of people who had become pretty comfortable with HM skeevaton, and if this change means that the learning curve for HM skeevaton isn't quite so steep, then it's a good change.

Overall thoughts

The revamp this patch feels mostly like a sideways adjustment in difficulty rather than an up or down one (it's a bit easier overall). Some things were nerfed, some were buffed. There is a better progression of difficulty as you get deeper into the fight, the pacing seems much better, and the topside action seems more frenetic in the final burn phase.

Overall, I really like this fight now. Thanks for listening to everyone's feedback, and I'm looking forward to it hitting Live!

TheRimOfTheSky · April 2021

some of the Coldsnap Tribe members (ie Coldsnap Frostbiter) use Goblin models instead of Riekr/Riekling models, is that intentional?