PTS Update 29 - Feedback Thread for Black Drake Villa

ZOS_GinaBruno

This is the official feedback thread for Black Drake Villa. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

• Did you enjoy this new dungeon?
• How did the difficulty compare to existing dungeons on Normal and Veteran versions?
• Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?
• Which was your favorite boss in this dungeon, and why?
• What level and build was the character you used?
• Did you happen to notice anything interesting? Just curious…
• Do you have any other general feedback?

ninibini

Did you enjoy this new dungeon?
Yes.

How did the difficulty compare to existing dungeons on Normal and Veteran versions?
It felt fine. It's recoverable.

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

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

Last boss and and the surprise after that.

What level and build was the character you used?
CP 1600+ healer

Did you happen to notice anything interesting? Just curious…

Yes, found 4 interesting things, the first three felt underwhelming, but 4th one turned out to be a nice challenge.
there should be an achievement for it, like there was for Unhallowed Grave.

Do you have any other general feedback?
Nicely designed last boss fight. Much more engaging than the other dungeon.
On the first attempt we had the group getting kicked to character screen on the last boss fight.

CyberOnEso

Did you enjoy this new dungeon? Yes, it was probably my favorite dungeon you've added thus far.

How did the difficulty compare to existing dungeons on Normal and Veteran versions? Considering I believe penetration is currently bugged on the PTS we found the bosses a bit too easy. Especially the last boss (the fire dude).

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

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

Jack Frost (the final secret boss) That fight was AMAZING.
The fact that you only have 5 wipes to kill him makes it a really intense experience.

I really liked the execute mechanic, that made the fight really intense with having to spread meteors over a tiny space.
I love the fact that this secret boss can be challenging because it is so secret, so you don't need to worry about players failing to complete it.

What level and build was the character you used? 810 Templates
DK tank
Templar healer
MagDK
MagDen

Did you happen to notice anything interesting? Just curious… Yes

The secrets were top-notch, the final secret was amazing and was the highlight of our evening

I love the fact that these secrets are actually secret, I think you did a good job with the avatar fragments, the fact that they don't despawn makes it possible to go back and ensure that everyone has all 30.

I also like that defeating the final secret boss gives you a nice reward, being able to get more chests the following time you go through the dungeon is awesome!

Troodon80

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Did you enjoy this new dungeon?

Yes! A really fun dungeon. It's really nice to see the hard modes individually again. While trying to avoid spoilers, I've answered the rest of the questions below.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

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

They seemed relatively easy compared to some other DLC dungeons (the only other one you can compare this to is Stone Garden). Our group cleared all three hard modes after a few wipes on each. Some really interesting mechanics on each boss, though I did get vibes of reused content. Galchobhar from Bloodroot Forge, even down to some of the achievements. Understandable given the amount of content, some has to repeat. Still very good fights, though. Very enjoyable.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?

Veteran hard mode.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

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

The last boss. Without spoiling anything. That was an amazing and intense fight. I think the difficulty of this one is perfect as-is. Please don't change this fight (bear in mind, I don't know if this fight is even available on Normal). Second preference would have to be the third boss. Though one issue with the last boss is that it has aggro going in to the second phase. By the time your tank can get there to taunt, given the sheer distance you have to cover, he's attacking people. Should force a de-aggro or something on this, allowing the tank the chance to get in there.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

What level and build was the character you used?

The group I was in is an EU guild group, so we used 810 templates. I was a Nord DK tank, mimicking my main on Live. I was using Yolnahkriin, Powerful Assault, and Bloodspawn on all but the very last boss, where I swapped to Yolnahkriin and Ebon for group survivability. Also considered Bani.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Did you happen to notice anything interesting? Just curious…

Yes. And I'm somewhat glad there was no allusion to it in the ZOS streams. People who are explorative might find this curiosity. And I also like that there isn't an achievement to spoil this amazing little surprise.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Do you have any other general feedback?

The only other feedback I have aside from what I listed above is the AoE visuals from the Salamanders's buff circle can obscure the actual small fire AoEs on the first boss. The damage also ticks very high on the Standard and happens instantly before the AoE has properly been displayed. I don't know if this is just EU-to-PTS lag or not (it probably is). I consider this to be the much more engaging dungeon, with everything there is to find.

code65536

Did you enjoy this new dungeon?

This was a delightful dungeon. It's comparable in enjoyment with my other favorite dungeons: Frostvault, Maarselok, and Stone Garden.

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

We only attempted HM, and it definitely felt easier than the HMs of Frostvault, Maarselok, or Stone Garden during their first weeks on PTS. That said, as the tank, I do appreciate not feeling like I'm shouldering so much of the difficulty. The difficulty of Unhallowed and Stone Garden, for example, seemed to hinge on whether or not the tank can survive, whereas the DDs didn't have as much to worry about.

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

Final boss on HM. I think it's just a really well-designed fight. There's a nice introduction to all the mechanics in the first segment in the open. And then the breaking of the wall and changing of setting was a bit of delightful surprise.

I love that the fight had that moment where everything just "clicked", where you figure out the strategy for it, and when you execute that strategy, you're rewarded with a fight that goes relatively smoothly. Contrast this with a fight that I don't like--Lady Thorn HM--where there's no strategy, and it's all about reflexes and grinding down a massive amount of health. There's no feeling of "solving" the fight with Lady Thorn like there is here.

Finally, I like that the fight is recoverable, particularly if we use that, um, bonus mechanic. Yes, recoverability makes the fight easier to clear, but I frankly don't care about that. For dungeon enthusiasts like me, clearing a fight isn't important. Mastering a fight--i.e., doing a fight cleanly and deathlessly--is. And recoverability doesn't take away from mastering a fight.

What recoverability does is that it makes the fight less frustrating. I'm going to do another Castle Thorn comparison: As I wrote in the feedback thread for Castle Thorn, so much of the difficulty of Lady Thorn is in the final 20% swarm phase, where the difficulty is all about the ease of making a mistake and the inability to recover from those mistakes. And if a mistake leads to a wipe, it's a grindy slog through a massive health pool to get back to that point. And that fight is just frustrating and not fun. Whereas here, we can practice and try things out without the frustration of constantly wiping as we figure things out.

So... great job and thanks.

What level and build was the character you used?

NB tank at around CP1700, wearing Yolnahkriin/War Machine

Did you happen to notice anything interesting? Just curious…

These were pleasant surprises. I had mentioned the following to Seiffer during my stream of our Thursday afternoon run:

1. On our first run through on Wednesday night, we had no idea that there were secret areas until we got to the second one, and decided to investigate what the glowing light was for. Of course, we had no idea that was the second one--we thought that it was the first. It wasn't until we reached the end and were wondering why we had only found two side areas instead of the usual three that we decided to retrace our steps, at which point we found the first. So the first secret isn't as discoverable, but I think that's fine: people can find the second and third and wonder like we did if there's more.
2. Having to collect every last wisp to activate the fourth encounter is pretty frustrating. We did two sweeps through the dungeon to find the last wisps that we were missing. Maybe consider a buffer of a few wisps?
3. We wiped three times on the final secret boss before killing it, which was more than we wiped on the actual final boss of the dungeon. That said, the difficulty is not really comparable, since the secret boss isn't mechanically challenging: it's a "brute force" difficulty where everything just hits so hard. That DoT on the tank felt as bad as Arakasis's burning sensation. So while it made us sweat (or not, since it was all ice magic), it wasn't particularly interesting.
4. Compared to the bonus features of March, Unhallowed, and Stone Garden, the bonus feature here is so much better. These are proper secrets hidden behind puzzles. And it was a genuine delight to discover everything.
5. I'm a bit on the fence about the lack of an achievement. On one hand, it felt like an achievement to unlock and defeat the secret boss. On the other hand, it was nice to not be spoiled by the existence of an achievement (that said, I usually don't look at achievements until I've killed everything anyway).

Do you have any other general feedback?

As @ninibini mentioned in her post here, she and I ran into issues with the server instance crashing, where the entire group got booted to character select, suffered a bit of a rollback, and lost the dungeon instance. This happened to us twice (the first time on Wednesday night, when we exploring the dungeon out of combat and the second time was Thursday morning, during the final boss fight). We didn't not encounter this problem with Cauldron.

Aliyavana

Please add an achievement for the secret bosses

CyberOnEso

Aliyavana wrote: »

Please add an achievement for the secret bosses

I personally much prefer that the secrets to this dungeon are actually secret.
You do get an actual permanent reward for completing the secrets.

If they could make a secret achievement that only shows after you have done it then by all means. But I like the fact that these secrets are actually secret.

code65536

CyberOnEso wrote: »

I personally much prefer that the secrets to this dungeon are actually secret.

I'm sure there will be plenty of guides and videos out by the time the dungeon is released on Live. And the people who avoid those kinds of spoilers for a blind Live experience are unlikely to peek at the achievements. Personally, I don't look at the achievements for a dungeon during a blind first run.

CyberOnEso wrote: »

You do get an actual permanent reward for completing the secrets.

Um, what do you get? I don't recall seeing anything special in the loot, and I didn't see any notifications about a collectible being unlocked.

CyberOnEso

Code65536 wrote: »

Um, what do you get? I don't recall seeing anything special in the loot, and I didn't see any notifications about a collectible being unlocked.

You get this...

It's a new tool (momento) that when you use it grants you and your group vision of all the secrets in the dungeon (And temporarily transforms you into jack frost). And it unlocks new ice chests that spawn throughout the dungeon.

code65536

@ZOS_Seiffer Is the Relic of the Sentinel supposed to be a guaranteed loot item? If so, then it's bugged because none of us got it during our run.

@CyberOnEso Thanks for that tip. I didn't know about the tool (and I guess that makes the argument for the achievement moot, though it also makes the argument against the achievement moot too, since people who browse through their collectibles would notice it and spoil the secret).

I popped onto PTS, and I don't have it collected.


The description text says that it's acquired by "looting it from one of his treasure chests". But I didn't see it in any of the three chests that spawned. I even have the video of me opening all three chests...
https://youtu.be/IgG73iYcQr0

Koston57

The dungeon was amazing and the hidden boss was a delight, the fight and the execute phase are amazing, and the fact that it's a very challenging boss hidden behind an optional secret is great.

The reward (unless misunderstood) feels a bit underwhelming however, afaik that tool you receive only grants you some additional chests when you run the dungeon again ? (which don't seem to contain much loot)

Great dungeon nontheless

Contraptions

Did you enjoy this new dungeon?

It was good.

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

I think the difficulty is in a good spot for normal at least. Harder-ish than base game dungeons, without any of the first week PTS insanity usually seen. This feedback is based on 6.3.0 version of the dungeon.

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?

Normal. Friends and guild quit so had to solo this.

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

No favourites honestly, all 3 bosses were kinda same ish. Not great, not terrible. If I had to pick the most intense fight it would be with the 2nd boss Captain Something.

Trash mobs

The amount of trash mobs in this dungeon feels adequate. Their damage and health seem mostly fair as well, although I was using a CP 1600 ish character so my experience might not be fully representative or applicable towards the difficulty the average player might experience. The large fire guys fought later on hit hard but are marked as elite and have longer telegraphs for their heavy attacks so I think that's fair. Even so, there were no outwardly unfair or "one shot" attacks on normal at least, so I did like that.

I am not sure what the fire aura around the salamander even does. Is it supposed to grant a shield to its allies or something?

The human fire mage cultists fought do have some pretty bursty combos with their meteors or teleport spell. One of their spells, the teleport maybe, stuns and has pretty much no telegraph.

The Minotaur

A pretty straightforward fight that alternates between ranged and melee phases based on health percentage. Totems, adds etc. are telegraphed well by the NPC voice lines and seem fair. When the boss throws its weapon I'm not sure what the significance of it lying there with fire around it is, I assume it's something for vet or HM maybe. Damage of its attacks were not too high on normal, although I think the damage from the totem ramps up a bit fast.

The only complaint I have about the fight is Eveli. I don't see why she needs to comment about shooting the boss with her special arrows given she doesn't even seem to deal damage or do anything to the boss in general. It's honestly distracting.

Captain Something

Definitely the most intense fight out of the three. Boss hits hard and fast and is fond of using her heavy attack often, adds it summons also hit pretty hard as well. Both the archer clone and the fire wolves have pretty painful basic attacks, and the archer's snipe is also pretty hard hitting. The phases where she hides in the bubble and summons the air atro were welcome breaks from the constant damage.

Only complaint is regarding her knife throw attack, which I feel should be interruptible or at least given more time to avoid. It's not particularly hard hitting but it feels like more unavoidable damage in a fight already full of unavoidable damage. Why even have a red cone indicator if the attack fires almost instantly anyway?

On HM her teleport channeled explosion seems to be a one shot. Please add a line to the circle showing its maximum size.

Pyroturge Something

I do like how the geyser mechanic is introduced before his arena as a tutorial of sorts. I would actually recommend you block the main stairs/paths in the garden area before, forcing players to learn to use the geysers to circumvent the obstacles. Currently, it is entirely possible to ignore them and thus miss seeing how the geysers work.

Summon flaming ghosts - DOT from the ghost's attack is pretty high.

The attack where the entire area/ the entire ring (in the second phase) is covered with fire and the boss's ring is a safe zone feels insufficiently telegraphed. There is no persistent red AOE to show the danger zones, and lacking that, no visual effects to properly convey the danger adequately. Visually, there is fire coming out of the dragon head statues around the arena, but it's such a thin wispy stream of flame that it's almost invisible. The ground doesn't even burn or anything. In addition, the "safe zone" during that phase is a ring of fire around the boss when earlier during the ghost phase, the same ring is marked as red and unsafe. I suggest putting a green "safe zone" telegraph and adding a large persistent red ring/rectangle telegraph during that phase to make it clear to players what is going on.

His sword phase heavy attack seems to be able to be cast from range, seems bugged. Also looks silly when he swings at air and flames magically appear behind you during the heavy attack.

What level and build was the character you used?

CP 1600 ish mag sorc

Did you happen to notice anything interesting? Just curious…

Yes, I found the pads and levers, although as a solo player I couldn't activate them. I know there's some hidden enemies thanks to the memento in the collections and I'm guessing this is related to that.

Do you have any other general feedback?

I would like to commend the dungeon team this time for considering the general player base when designing the newer dungeons. The current two dungeons definitely feel more accessible and straightforward overall compared to the Dragon Bones - Scalebreaker era dungeons, a trend of easing content that I feel started with Harrowstorm. And I personally like that. There are no pinning style mechanics that stop solo players, and no gimmicks or invuln phases on bosses to waste the player's time. I can't comment since I didn't get to do it, but I hope there aren't any one shots on vet and the HM isn't too insane this time.

My greater concern is regarding previous DLC dungeons. There is a huge combat overhaul occurring this patch with the complete change to the CP system. Based on feedback from others, there has been significant DPS loss across the board (and maybe healing and survivability reductions as well). Currently, there have been significant adjustments to the mechanics of certain infamous bosses in the previous DLC dungeons, which is a good start. However, I hope more sweeping and holistic adjustments in two areas can be done before the patch releases. One would be to address the health/damage of enemies in dungeons and trials. There has been gradual content creep over the years to match the undeniable power creep that occurred as powerful new sets are released. Hence, health and damage of enemies has gone up considerably over time. Compare Molag Kena's health on HM to Lady Thorn's for example, or the difficulty of early DLC HMs to the recent ones. I personally don't believe that suddenly making fights take much longer to complete makes them engaging or interesting, especially for vets who have run most of the content many times already. Damage from enemies should also be rebalanced to be fair to tanks as well, especially since roll dodge is now more expensive for heavy armour making blocking and direct mitigation necessary.

The second area is adjustments to bosses with time based mechanics. Looking at the bosses that were adjusted this patch, such as Vault Protector, Keeper, Mylene etc. the main issue is that their significant mechanics were time based, meaning that lower damage groups were penalized more by being forced to undergo more rounds of the mechanic, which could be overwhelming. In my experience there are other similar bosses like King Narilmor's clone summons, Dark Orb's adds, Cancroid's strangler summons etc. that need rebalancing. Tying significant mechanics to occur at fixed boss health percentages is my suggestion.

CyberOnEso

code65536 wrote: »

@CyberOnEso Thanks for that tip. I didn't know about the tool (and I guess that makes the argument for the achievement moot, though it also makes the argument against the achievement moot too, since people who browse through their collectibles would notice it and spoil the secret).

It seems ZOS wants to keep this secret a secret, given today's patch. Which I think is a good idea. Obviously, it will be spoiled with day 0 youtube videos but I like how they are trying to keep it a more secretive part of the dungeon.

Kiyakotari

Did you enjoy this new dungeon?
Yes! This dungeon was really fun, mostly because of the extra content. Eveli Sharp-Arrow is annoying.

How did the difficulty compare to existing dungeons on Normal and Veteran versions?
Not bad. We were only doing normal, so can't comment on veteran at this time.

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?
Neither! Captain Geminus bugged out and we weren't able to complete the dungeon. We got stuck at that fight. We'll take another run at it later.

Which was your favorite boss in this dungeon, and why?
Since we didn't see all the bosses, I don't think I can answer this accurately.

What level and build was the character you used?
I ran this on a level 810 template Necromancer, using a bit of a hybrid setup for heals with some DPS. I was with my partner (running Templar tank/DPS hybrid), and we were 2-teaming the dungeon on normal. We usually do this with new DLC dungeons when they hit PTS, as we enjoy the process of figuring out the mechanics without having seen or heard any information on what to expect.

Did you happen to notice anything interesting? Just curious…

Yeah! I loved that! Puts this up there with Unhallowed Grave in my favorite dungeons list. It's a shame we were only able to look for two. We're going to try again later and see if Captain Geminus has unbugged. Speaking of...

Do you have any other general feedback?
Yes. Captain Geminus bugged out at the second shield phase. She went into her shield, we killed the adds, and then she just would not come out. We wandered around trying different things to try to get her out, but they didn't work, so we wiped and tried again. She was still bugged. We did use the Ice Avatar synergy during that phase right before she bugged, to see what it did, so we aren't sure if the glitch was caused by that or just something that happened on its own. We're really looking forward to finishing this dungeon, so hopefully the bug isn't common.