Harrowstorms are an unfun step backwards: a couple months later

Wing

follow up to the original thread.

the good:

-additional wayshrines, happy to see how fast and easy it seems to be to slap some additional wayshrines into the zone and how much of an improvement it made, it was clear the north coast needed them, areas still seem barren of convenient travel compared to previous zones, i even give the Elsweyr DLC's a bit of a break because the dragon mechanic had them move between a couple world boss point so some were inevitably going to be closer then others (the SE dragon is in the middle of nowhere) but i dont get being stingy on shrines in the first place.

still, wont detract too far, added wayshrines solved a pain point, thank you.

-1 per day, boy that certainly makes it less of a pain doesn't it.

the bad:

-1 per day, this felt a bit like a "we cannot fix that these are un fun gameplay wise, but we can at least just not make you have to interact with it"

-loot, this event and all the various bonus loot is the first time since the drop of the expansion that harrowstorms have felt worth it to do, sadly the majority of the awards only come from the daily turn in, so its still not through interaction with the storms themselves but rather the daily quest that have rewards. storms are still not worth interacting with if you want any kind of loot from them outside of the daily turn in.

-the gameplay of the storms themselves.

*they are still probably the worst group / world event we have seen implemented from a gameplay perspective*

i had to highlight that point.

now, vvardenfell didnt have any, so pass there, so we are comparing them to dragons and geysers. geysers have probably been the best implementation of the system:
-the are conveniently placed for the most part.
-they scale based on players around, you can solo a geyser pretty quick
-they reward relevant loot, even if its kind of forced in the alchemy mats

dragons were obviously new tech, but were cool, but they have their issues:
-the icon displaying relevant info at the look of a map? genius! is it in combat? is it below 50% hp? the icon changes to reflect this info, once again, genius.
-separate boss and add phases that dont overlap, dragon takes off, flies around, summons some adds, clear to see.
-dragons have direction attacks, as well as visual and audio queues, that combined with the 1v1 design of the fight allow you to actually figure out the tells of the various wing, tail, breath weapon, etc. attacks. it feels very cool to actually learn the tells of when its about to sweep its tail and dodge out of that attack / stun.

downside is lack of solo dragons, outside of events and launch, dragons are not worth trying to fight, should have done better future proofing.


and now we get to storms, and their gameplay.
-their inconvenient placing has mostly been solved, but this was a thing.
-they reward nothing of relevance or worth, and only the daily turn in has a chance at being slightly worth doing.
-the fight itself.

i really want to curse in exclamation at this point, but it would be censored.

these fights are the most terrible designed group / world fights we have ever had:
-they in no way whatsoever scale, no future proofing for when people move on.
-too many mechanics going on at the same time. kill the adds, kill the mini bosses running around, kill the spirits, kill the tentacles, get out of ALL THE RED.
-SO MUCH RED (insert your aoe color here) huge aoe, small aoe, aoe that moves, aoe that is spammed, aoe that does 10k a pop in super rapid succession.

*on topic of the shrikes silly damage spam, this feels like a bug, it reminds me of the southern elsweyr monk world boss whos disciples spam kill everyone with aoe's, that also feels like a bug that was just never fixed, because no other world boss in any DLC was or is that lethal, until these shrikes. they rapid spam various aoe's (some small bobms that rain, other large sized that follow you) and they hit for 5k-10k per tick at a super rapid pace, im sure everyone is aware of just how common it is for these to just wipe everyone around and everyone just self rez''s looking at everyone else for a few seconds.
and its impossible to distinguish between all the aoe which ones are going to do okay damage, that you can move out of or roll out of, and wich ones are going to spam 10k until your dead.

as someone who DM's this feels like a mechanic to just kill people for the sake of killing people, to instil a sense of difficulty by going "YOUR DEAD! LOOK ITS SCARY AND HARD!" . . .that just BS*

-difficulty scales in reverse, if you have an omegazerg at the storm you can zerg the pikes down, if you have only a few people not only is it just as hard as before, but it gets HARDER the fewer people you show up with, as more and more bosses and adds spawn as you fail to kill it in time, it literally has inverse scaling.

*exasperated sigh*

i still cannot believe such a poorly designed and un fun group mechanic not only got made but was the centerpiece to the "scary gothic" expansion, i can only hope that the design team learns from this, as its really not *that* hard to make a small checklist of encounter design points to make sure you hit.

the only fix being limiting the daily from 3 to 1 felt like an utter surrender and admittance that these are terrible and we should just not do them, like "yeah its not fun, here, just do one and go do something else."

hope the next iteration is better, here ill start the checklist for you.
-convenient placement, preferably close to shrines.
-scaling based on players, for future proofing and enjoyable encounters regardless of solo or zerg.
-decent rewards and loot (at launch) that remains relevant, with daily's *supplementing* the rewards, and not *being* the rewards. (alchemy mats, purple jewelry for decon mats, xp, etc.)
-clear directions and enemy attacks, insta kill / heavy damage mechanics should have readable mechanics and have reasonable responses.
-less spam (enemy and attack)
-map icon showing interaction / progress.

etc. this really is not that hard.

anyway, GL on the next one.

Magdalina

Wing wrote: »

these fights are the most terrible designed group / world fights we have ever had:
-they in no way whatsoever scale, no future proofing for when people move on.
-too many mechanics going on at the same time. kill the adds, kill the mini bosses running around, kill the spirits, kill the tentacles, get out of ALL THE RED.
-SO MUCH RED (insert your aoe color here) huge aoe, small aoe, aoe that moves, aoe that is spammed, aoe that does 10k a pop in super rapid succession.

*on topic of the shrikes silly damage spam, this feels like a bug, it reminds me of the southern elsweyr monk world boss whos disciples spam kill everyone with aoe's, that also feels like a bug that was just never fixed, because no other world boss in any DLC was or is that lethal, until these shrikes. they rapid spam various aoe's (some small bobms that rain, other large sized that follow you) and they hit for 5k-10k per tick at a super rapid pace, im sure everyone is aware of just how common it is for these to just wipe everyone around and everyone just self rez''s looking at everyone else for a few seconds.
and its impossible to distinguish between all the aoe which ones are going to do okay damage, that you can move out of or roll out of, and wich ones are going to spam 10k until your dead.

as someone who DM's this feels like a mechanic to just kill people for the sake of killing people, to instil a sense of difficulty by going "YOUR DEAD! LOOK ITS SCARY AND HARD!" . . .that just BS*

Unfortunately I cannot comment much on HS because I've only really been doing them during this event, and due to sheer number of people present there during the event it's very hard to tell most mechanics. I'll give them a more thorough look later.

I will say though that most of things you find OMG HARD 2 DEADLY SHOULDN'T BE are probably some mechanics unfollowed though. Harrowstorms only spawn fat minibosses if you don't kill the spirits. Shrikes...they do hit hard and while I'm struggling to tell the mechs with so many people, they probably do have some sort of tell as well (for starters, don't be in their way for one of their deadly attacks).

Far as the Southern Elsweyr WB, he's in no way bugged and is actually my favourite boss in the whole game because he has mechanics you have to figure out. He's perfectly soloable for most builds if and only if you follow the mechs. Amusingly, bringing more people in can actually get you wiped much faster if they don't follow the rules of the game. His ads go into fire circle stage when they hit 50%, at whih point ANY damage done withint the fire circle (this includes damage to the ad itself, along with the damage to any other ad or boss inside the circle) will trigger their deadly "Fire Hands" attack spam or whatever (which does scale with damage dealed - if they just have a leftover Burning effect on them it's one thing, but if you're full on dps-ing them, yeah, rip). You can easily stop them doing the fire circle by CC'ing them, after which you can kill them just fine (they will do fire circle again if you don't kill them though). I spent several hours to figure this out and boy, was it fun. Just because you didn't figure out the mechanics, it doesn't mean something is broken, you know

The issue with HS might (again, I'm struggling to see clear mechanis tells with the amount of people currently) be the same - you don't know the mechanics tells and aren't following them like you should. Imo, dragons are more fun but I'll reserve final judgement til I explore them with less people around.

Edit: oh yeah. About rewards. Can definitely agree on that, Harrowstorms on their one look and sounds cool, but they're absolutely and completely unrewarding. So much that it's laughable really. Dragons were 10000000 times better in that regard. Geysers also kinda sucked, but geysers were easy and quick enough to solo (altho in my experience they don't really scale, only thing that scales is the amolunt of trash you get before the main boss, and trash doesn't matter anyway. Still, their bosses are easy enough compared to dragons or HS).

Gythral

RED on RED
makes seeing most thing impossible

Ratinira

Magdalina wrote: »

The issue with HS might (again, I'm struggling to see clear mechanis tells with the amount of people currently) be the same - you don't know the mechanics tells and aren't following them like you should.

To do all the mechanics you need a big group of people all of whom knows the mechanics and arrive there all together at the start of HS. It may be possible during events like that.
But outside of event HS will be abandoned again very soon. And several random passerbys cannot fullfill a "kill spirits at all 3 pikes at once". Even during event with a lot of players there are always 2-3 minibosses running around.

Luke_Flamesword

I don't like when there is so much going on and couple AOEs just appeared at your position so you practically randomly one-shoted. With dragons I can avoid death just by being aware, but at HS I can't do nothing - if I have bad luck I just die and can't do anything about it. It's definetely not fun gameplay.

Also I don't get it, why there is no hs icon on map (with two phases - second after slaying pikes) - it's frustrating to run into hs just to be couple seconds too late. And biggest issue with this is in Blackreach where constantly everyone sits in Nighstone, waiting even one hour, when Miners hs is active and literally no one is going there. I and some other people trying to "educate" people in zone chat about this, but this is just pointless... people just sits in nihgtstone and whining that is broken beacuse hs is not spawning. Give us at least new wayshrine at miners!

Magdalina

Luke_Flamesword wrote: »

I don't like when there is so much going on and couple AOEs just appeared at your position so you practically randomly one-shoted. With dragons I can avoid death just by being aware, but at HS I can't do nothing - if I have bad luck I just die and can't do anything about it. It's definetely not fun gameplay.

Also I don't get it, why there is no hs icon on map (with two phases - second after slaying pikes) - it's frustrating to run into hs just to be couple seconds too late. And biggest issue with this is in Blackreach where constantly everyone sits in Nighstone, waiting even one hour, when Miners hs is active and literally no one is going there. I and some other people trying to "educate" people in zone chat about this, but this is just pointless... people just sits in nihgtstone and whining that is broken beacuse hs is not spawning. Give us at least new wayshrine at miners!

There is. The HS with spikes up have a red stone charging in the middle, and a red laser-like line going from it into the sky. The HS which have the main boss up no longer have it, they just have dark funnel going into the ground It's not exactly map icon but given you see them from afar, it gets the job done. I rather like this subtlety actually.

AcadianPaladin

I try all content in the game to give it a fair shot. I continue to enjoy the stuff I like and ignore the stuff I don't enjoy. Dragons and Harrowstorms are both on my ignore list. In the case of Harrowstorms, my reasoning is largely as outlined in the opening post. Too much going on to have any situational awareness at all so the fight boils down to scrambling while trying to take down posts, random one shots and how big the group of players trying to play herd ball is. Not fun >> ignore.

BlueRaven

I still don’t understand why people are not killing the ghosts. Often I am at a HS running back and forth just targeting ghosts because no one else is doing it.

At one I saw six people dpsing a pike and still ghosts got through. Just drop some aoes people!

Anyway I agree with the OP, HS’s are poorly designed. It really feels like a big step backward.

WhisperLFE

I don't mind the idea of the harrowstorms, but agree there's too much going on (particularly with all the adds spawning) to be able to realistically respond to all of it. And I'd thought they'd reduced the frequency of the spirit spawns, but it seems after the last maintenance to have gone back to previous levels. Still manageable, but kind of a pain.

I agree, the Shrike AoE's dmg is ridiculous. It's hard enough to even seen the red circle to begin with because of all the other AoE circles, but there have been multiple times when the circle seemingly doesn't even show up until I've taken a tick or two of dmg...which is annoying, because 2 or 3 ticks usually kills you.

As for Ri'Atarahshi in Elsweyr, the damage there is just about knowing the mechanics (e.g., avoid AoE and reflective damage). He's very manageable with 2 or 3 people if everyone pays attention, knows how to handle the fight, and doesn't just run in spamming AoEs on his adds (or anywhere else). I actually think it's a great example of creating a challenging World Boss that feels like a World Boss.

Luke_Flamesword

There is. The HS with spikes up have a red stone charging in the middle, and a red laser-like line going from it into the sky. The HS which have the main boss up no longer have it, they just have dark funnel going into the ground It's not exactly map icon but given you see them from afar, it gets the job done. I rather like this subtlety actually.

Thank you for information - I must admit that I never thought about it, but when you mention it, it looks kinda obvious

pauld1_ESO

I rather do another thousand dragon boss fights than one Harrowstorm. The whole expansion is just lackluster and meh.

Varana

Two points from the original post seem particularly important to me:

a) Scaling. Even now, a HS can get quickly out of hand if there's just some guy barging in. Sure, maybe they should not have done that, but it will happen. And it will happen all the time once the event is over - because there might not be more than two or three players even interested in doing the storm. (Because point b further down.)
Elsweyr dragons are mostly abandoned, esp. in the further spots in the North, because almost no one can or will solo them, and even small groups will struggle and may wipe after tickling the dragon down to 46% over ten minutes.
The same will happen to HS. In fact, they anti-scale - they get progressively harder the longer a small group is trying to fight them.

b) Rewards. Even if there is a storm active, there is very little incentive to go there. If for some reason I come across a dragon or geyser fight, I'll go there and take part, because I get things out of it.
If there's a HS active, I have no reason to do so. Before the event, I did the Greymoor quests, so wandered around quite a bit - and I just ignored active storms.
The rewards for HS are simply terribad.
I get more useful stuff out of the small mini-anchor rifts that open up in the original zones, than from a Harrowstorm. Why the heck should I bother with the thing for three piles of Ash???

Also, the missing map indicator is an astonishing step backwards. There was that beautiful and useful thing and everyone liked it, and then you just don't use it any more? Why?
Yes, the storm itself shows its progress in some way. (Is seeing that from far away dependent on graphics settings, by the way?) But that is not a substitute for the map icons.

Lord-Otto

The Shrike's AoEs are also highly inconsistent. I got killed so many times by red circles while I was standing nowhere close to them, it's ridiculous.
And the sites in Blackreach are a nightmare to get to, placed far away from the shrines with large terrain obstacles inbetween.

Ratinira

For me there are two reasons to do content: it is fun to do and it is rewarding.
If it is not fun reward should stimulate to do it.
HS is neither fun nor rewarding. Pile of junk and edict? Most of the time reward is not worth coming there...

spartaxoxo

the icon displaying relevant info at the look of a map? genius! is it in combat? is it below 50% hp? the icon changes to reflect this info, once again, genius.

I didn't know that, cool!

spartaxoxo

What ultra sucks is that Harrowstorms are also the source of Vampire furnishings. Those are very nice and due to the absolute pain it is to get them even during even, very expensive. And they are probably gonna dry up entirely after it's over due to storms being unreasonably difficult

BoraxFlux

EDIT: dang, got distracted and fumbled. please negate.

RaddlemanNumber7

I used the event to get the achievement for clearing all ten sites on all my characters. My plan is never to do another Harrowstorm in Western Skyrim ever again. They are just that much of a pain. No fun at all.

SickleCider

I agree about the loot and the map icons. I still love hunting dragons, because the loot is generous and I don't have to spam zone chat asking where the next one is. (They're also really well designed fights, even if they can be a little buggy, and perhaps their health should scale with the number of players present so that they're manageable with smaller groups and don't get deleted in seconds by a zerg.)

My biggest problem with Harrowstorms is the Shrikes. They're overtuned, especially compared to the other mini bosses. They're also... Buggy. Really buggy. I routinely get ticked down by the multiple AOE attack (Release the Abyss or something?) while being nowhere near the circles. That attack at least has a telegraph, though. I still don't know what Carrion Swarm looks like. Legend says an AOE follows you or something but I've yet to actually see it. The Shrike looks at me and I die.

Integral1900

They’re okay game play wise, I take a certain evil entertainment in watching the squishy little 11K health brigade get atomised where as my 30 K health solo build can shrug off a lot of it… That is except for the seemingly endless parade of untelegraphed one shots. And I do mean untelegraphed, I recorded fights when I’ve been hit by anywhere between 30K and 90K damage and at no point was there a red circle under me.

As far as loot goes they are categorically not worth the effort. A bit of ash, some mushrooms, and some vendor junk which altogether might come to 600 gold is not worth the effort. I do enough of these things to turn all the markers white, and I will do these events but other than that I have no use for these things beyond random destruction

On a side note at maximum champion points the XP you get from these things is useless as well and I certainly wouldn’t recommend grinding them as there are vastly easier ways to acuminate experience points if your lower level.

Over all gorgeous with great visuals but we all know that outside of events these things are completely deserted except for the occasional player frantically spamming for help in chat and getting nowhere. They should’ve had some kind of scaling to allow them to be cleared on your own, six months down the line doing these will be impossible because they will simply be no one to help you do then. Next chapter comes out will killed them stone dead

Hurbster

So do people reckon there will be a bunch more to do in the Markath dlc?

Cloudtrader

The major problem with the Harrowstorms, to my mind, is that the mechanics of how they work are just not intuitive AT ALL. The ghosts getting to the pikes is what causes the bosses to spawn, but people don't seem to know that.

It wasn't fun, but I did a HS with 4 people once. Have a Templar control the ghosts at two pikes with their knockback, running back and forth between the two while the others kill the 1st pike and make sure the ghosts never get to it with AOE. That way, those stupid bosses never spawn at all.

newtinmpls

Wing wrote: »

-difficulty scales in reverse, if you have an omegazerg at the storm you can zerg the pikes down, if you have only a few people not only is it just as hard as before, but it gets HARDER the fewer people you show up with, as more and more bosses and adds spawn as you fail to kill it in time, it literally has inverse scaling.

Good to hear someone else mention this - I thought "it can't be that crazy, can it?"

newtinmpls

Cloudtrader wrote: »

The major problem with the Harrowstorms, to my mind, is that the mechanics of how they work are just not intuitive AT ALL. The ghosts getting to the pikes is what causes the bosses to spawn, but people don't seem to know that..

Wait... what???


How in the heck did you even figure that out??

Thechuckage

Wing wrote: »

follow up to the original thread.


-difficulty scales in reverse, if you have an omegazerg at the storm you can zerg the pikes down, if you have only a few people not only is it just as hard as before, but it gets HARDER the fewer people you show up with, as more and more bosses and adds spawn as you fail to kill it in time, it literally has inverse scaling.

*exasperated sigh*

The problem is not so much inverse scaling, its that the mechanics are set to a timer. Which is why the omegazerg can burn it. Kill pikes off fast enough, no adds - profit. But solo player? Soon as the timer hits, new adds which then can quickly spiral into defeat as the adds can't be cleared off faster than they are spawned in.

And the timer mechanic is everywhere in the game. BC2 and CoA2 are prime examples. Daedroth spawns? Timer. Islands getting blown up? Timer. The reason so many game mechanics get ignored? Burn it down before the timer can go off.

But maybe, just maybe if it was based off something else. Maybe the boss changes tactics when health gets below a percentage. Gets a shield that has to be burned off. Goes supernova if you burst em too hard.

Instead its just the mechanic of "beat the clock"

RaddlemanNumber7

Hurbster wrote: »

So do people reckon there will be a bunch more to do in the Markath dlc?

There are four Harrowstorm sites, and a daily quest to clear one site. An achievement for clearing all 4 sites, and another for doing 30 dailies.

Same ***, different day

Vulsahdaal

newtinmpls wrote: »

Cloudtrader wrote: »

The major problem with the Harrowstorms, to my mind, is that the mechanics of how they work are just not intuitive AT ALL. The ghosts getting to the pikes is what causes the bosses to spawn, but people don't seem to know that..

Wait... what???


How in the heck did you even figure that out??

@newtinmpls

Not sure how it was figured out, but this is the standard belief that most people go by. It gets talked about here-

**the ghost explanation starts at 2:00 into video**

Also its believed the ghosts heal the pike as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYkscCQimd4

I cant say for sure if true or not, but it seems reasonable enough. Enough to the point where I pay special attention to wipe out ghosts before they reach the pike.

Of course doing this while attacking the pike and also keeping an eye out for shrike because yeah, that is seriously overpowered. Ive been hit with 35k almost instantly and never saw it coming (and believe me, I was definitely watching lol).

newtinmpls

Thanks @Vulsahdaal I appreciate the info!!

virtus753

newtinmpls wrote: »

Cloudtrader wrote: »

The major problem with the Harrowstorms, to my mind, is that the mechanics of how they work are just not intuitive AT ALL. The ghosts getting to the pikes is what causes the bosses to spawn, but people don't seem to know that..

Wait... what???


How in the heck did you even figure that out??

The witch’s voice also clearly says that the reliquary is “almost filled,” indicating that something is filling it up. Makes sense that the ghosts fill it up.

doomette

The Shrike AoE indicator is really inconsistent, or maybe nonexistent, so that’s obnoxious. The fighter pilot vampire is a bit annoying when you have a slow 2H.
And nothing is more irritating than when most people are fighting the spawns and ignoring the pikes/ghosts. Luckily with the event more people are getting the hang of it, but man, in the beginning those things took soooo long.
I wish the rewards were a bit better, they should at least be as good as the dragon drops. Getting a satchel and it only having a pardon edict? Rude. Though the new furnishing patterns does make them more worth it.


I think the multi-armed boss that spawns the death jello is well done. The noises it makes are awesomely creepy. The overall visuals are nifty, though red upon red upon red does make it difficult to see indicators, even with my AoE indicator color is more fuschia.

LadyNalcarya

spartaxoxo wrote: »

What ultra sucks is that Harrowstorms are also the source of Vampire furnishings. Those are very nice and due to the absolute pain it is to get them even during even, very expensive. And they are probably gonna dry up entirely after it's over due to storms being unreasonably difficult

This.
Dragons can also be pretty difficult when there's only a few people, but at least dragon ingredients and Elsweyr recipes are obtainable through other ways, such as containers and Dragonhold chest. Vile coagulant, on the other hand, only drops from harrowstorms, and its drop chance is not even 100%. It's just unreasonable.
And like the others have said, harrowstorm mechanics are too punishing for small groups of players, especially since most of them don't understand how these mechanics work in the first place. Harrowstorm rewards barely cover repair bills for an average player, so why would they even bother?