PTS Update 30 - Feedback Thread for Rockgrove Trial

ZOS_GinaBruno

This is the official feedback thread for Rockgrove 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?

Grumble_and_Grunt

Did you enjoy this Trial Overall?

Yes, overall really fun trial especially first and last boss - 2nd boss was a bit underwhelming however. Trash mobs were fun too.

What level and build was the characer you used?

Max level CP3600 Necro Healer

Did you complete Normal or Veteran?

Veteran

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

Not too hard, excited to see the HM versions, comparable to vSS non HM on live.

Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?

Not really, curious if there is a tell for the correct non shade boss on last boss.

Did you complete the trial?

Yes with 10 members and when one member interacted with the sigil stone, we were all booted to character screen, and the achievements and collectible were removed from our characters.

Did you have any companions with you?

Yes, but they were pretty useless in all honesty. They would bait out mechanics all the time and even in trash they would not move despite there being no enemies left around them and would be stuck. Felt more of a hinderance to have in the group than not - Would doubt their effectiveness in trials or dungeons - I know not intended to be on same level as a player, but pretty sure be more useful to go without right now, at least as a DD role companion.

Do you have any other general feedback?

Trial is fun, look forward to the challenge of HM, the difficulty for non HM feels like it is in a good place. One funny thing, the Flesh Atronarch mobs on 2nd Boss have interesting walking animations, in that they would pirouette around the arena. Also the 2nd boss felt very lackluster for the first 50%.

The flesh atronarchs also felt like they spawned in very frequently, resulting in having to stop DPS on boss to prevent being overwhelmed (not sure if there is a better way to do it) but made the first 40% feel very repetitive and slow and a tad boring.

CyberOnEso

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?
Yes, it was a lot of fun!

What level and build was the character you used?
Team of template characters.

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

How did the difficulty compare to existing Trials on Normal and Veteran versions?
Trash was "probably" the hardest trash introduced. Which is good!!

Vet seemed about as hard as Sunspire.

Last boss was cleared 2x on vet first try. It didn't feel like we needed to understand the mechanics to easily beat the fight. Hopefully, HM introduces the challenge.

Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?
Yes, the Prime Meteor on the second boss is really poorly telegraphed. We had no idea it spawned, as during the last 25% of the fight everyone is looking at the boss. So we were just confused as to what was wiping us at first. Eventually we just out DPS'd the mechanic and killed the boss without even seeing the meteor.

Did you complete the Trial?
Yes, 2 times so far

Did you have any companions with you?
At first yes, but we just removed them as they got in the way and were constantly dead.

Do you have any other general feedback?
I cannot wait to see Vet HM.

The speedrun seems like it may be tight, which may be good as long as it's clearable.

tmbrinks

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?

What we were able to see seemed alright. We hard crashed (instance crashed) as a whole group while trying to loot the first boss the first time we cleared it. Then we hard crashed (instance crashed) on a trash pull before the 2nd boss and decided not to restart from there.

What level and build was the character you used?

CP2100 Templar. Half the group was on template characters. Other half was on their NA main characters.

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?

Doing Veteran, didn't complete as we kept getting instance crashed.

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

Boss (the one we saw) seems like it was comparable to vSS and vKA (HM) bosses.
Trash is a step up from previous trials (although as mechanics are learned I'm sure it'll be easier) Only other trash pull similar to it seems to be last pull in Kynes Aegis

Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?

Empowering Circle under the mini-boss spawn on first boss is completely drowned out if somebody is wearing Encratis (and probably Kinra's as well)

Did you complete the Trial?

No, instance crashed multiple times.

Did you have any companions with you?

No.

Do you have any other general feedback?

This feels the most "incomplete" a trial has been on the PTS in my years of testing on it. I understand that there are certainly extenuating circumstances. I'm hoping that things get massively cleaned up for weeks 2 or 3 on the PTS. However, if that doesn't happen, I would strongly encourage delaying the release until things are improved, as the performance we had would make it untenable and unplayable upon release.

Jaimeh

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?

Yes, very much, alhtough game performance on the PTS was very bad.

What level and build was the character you used?

It was a 1700CP magicka nightblade character DPS

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?

Veteran mode

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

The bosses felt comparable to KA, the base pop, especially after the second boss were a bit overtuned.

Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?

We didn't figure out all of the mechanics, the ones that gave us trouble were the poison in the first boss, and the harvester shades in the last boss.

Did you complete the Trial?

Yes

Did you have any companions with you?

We only had 10 people, so we brought in a companion at the beginning, but it kept dying, also the name looked like a player name, and confused players who went to ressurect, so we removed the companion after the first boss.

Do you have any other general feedback?

1) We all had terrible performance, most of us had 300-500ms lag, and frames dropped to <10 friequently. This made it frankly impossible to play at times, the game was very choppy and slow. We had to keep restarting the PTS, but performance deteriorated pretty fast.

2) The whole group crashed after we completed the trial. We were kicked to the character select screen, and we came back we were out of the trial, and our achievements, body markings, and titles from the trial were removed, so we couldn't check the markings out.

3) On the first boss, the pools that are clean should be indicated more prominently, on low settings at least it's very difficult to tell them apart from when they are poisoned.

4) On the second boss, the flesh atronachs get confused with taunt, and are caught in a weird back-and-forth ballet move for a bit

5) The trash mobs after the second boss are a bit overtuned, although once groups get more familiar and develop strategies, it will become easier, I suppose. On first glimpse, we had to kill them in waves, because we kept wiping.

6) The aesthetics of the last boss are amazing. I didn't like the rest of the trial so much in this regard, but the last boss is one of the most epic things I've seen in the game. I think though the trial has a lot of empty/dead space, and could have been more compact.

7) The two stairwells on the last boss could have been shorter, (or the fire intervals more spread), and the orange visuals on the last stage could have been a different shade and intensity, because they are too intrusive, and also similar with the proc from encratis (and kinras, but who's gonna be playing stam anyway ), so they overlap.

That's all I can think of right now, looking forward to running it again!

MaddPowered

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?
I guess, aesthetically it is cool
What level and build was the character you used?
cp 3600 magblade
Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?
veteran, cleared many times
How did the difficulty compare to existing Trials on Normal and Veteran versions?
Currently, it feels about the same difficulty as veteran sunspire, trash was kind of hard until we figured out how to properly do it.
Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?
No, everything was very obvious, we 1 shot almost everything.
Did you complete the Trial?
Yes
Did you have any companions with you?
No, companions tbh do not seem like they are remotely viable.
Do you have any other general feedback?
Mainly just waiting for veteran hard mode to come out, which i am praying adds some sort of difficulty + extends the time of the raid, because as it is right now, if we no deathed non hm with clean pulls we can do a 14 minute run. The last boss, atleast for non hard mode is a 2 minute fight, we can out dps every single mechanic, i personally feel like 59m HP is not enough for that boss. The trash, as it is right now is in a good spot, i guess, it isn't too hard when people figure out how to do it.
But for a non hard mode trial, i think that how it is currently is good enough and pick up groups can clear it with ease.
here is hoping hard mode is challenging !

MemeDankExtra

Did you enjoy this Trial Overall?

Overall I'd give it around a 7/10 for base veteran, hope HM adds some interesting mechanics

What level and build was the character you used?

Template Magsorc

Did you complete Normal or Veteran?

A few runs on veteran

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

It feels a bit easier than other non HM trials imo

Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?

Trash: The Soulweaver's shield/shield popping mechanic wasn't immediately obvious, but we figured it out quick enough. Everything else was pretty apparent.
First boss: It's obvious what things do without being overly simple for non HM, I'm pretty pleased with this one.
Second boss: The Death Touch mechanic is not at all clear, definitely wouldn't have figured it out without the death recap hint.
Third boss: Minor complaint: There wasn't really any indication that we noticed that not killing the fossils would wipe us. Very surprising when we all died.
Major complaint: There isn't any noticeable telegraph for the Deadstar Burst and Deadstar Blast attacks. You just die sometimes.

Did you complete the trial?

Yes

Did you have any companions with you?

On our first run we only had 11 people, so I set up a companion real quick just to see how well it did. Unfortunately it was worse than useless, as it would spend the entire fight on the floor, and during the brief periods it was alive it would often stand out of group and keep adds too far away to chain or it would bait mechanics in unhelpful ways. It was specced for healing, and its healing looks very low in logs, but that might just be because it was always dead. 0/10 would not recommend.

Do you have any other general feedback?
The aesthetics and general look of the trial are very nice. The mechanics are worse than Kyne's, better than Sunspire, at least in terms of how interesting they are. I'm hoping the HMs actually add interesting mechanics instead of just ramping health/damage/number of adds.

Princess_Ciri

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?

Yeah it was fun, I liked how it went from Argonian to Oblivion themes, and the mechanics on the first boss are pretty fun.

What level and build was the character you used?

cp3600 Templar. I healed one run in Roaring Opportunist + Jorvulds and the other runs I did I was in as a DD. I tried running the new trial set Bahsei's Mania but it wasn't very good at all so I then swapped to Medusa/Mother's Sorrow with the new mythic kilt.

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?

Veteran, a few times

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

None of the bosses were too difficult when you did the mechanics (it just made things slower), the only hard part I think was the trash initially but once we figured out how to survive their mechanics we found it much easier too.

I would compare it to veteran Sanctum Ophidia or Maw of Lorkaj in terms of difficulty. If your group is disorganised or low on dps it's probably pretty hard but if you have an organised group with high dps you can burn through any mechanics and have a pretty easy time.

Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?

We had trouble on the last boss, there was some ability that seemed to be applied by the boss called Deadstar Burst. We saw the boss' hands glow and some ability go to the floor but then it seemed to go invisible and kill people in random locations. Maybe it's something we need to still figure out but it felt like it was bugged or it's just not clear enough because we couldn't even see it on us half the time and there was no combat tips on avoiding it in the death recap.

At first the trash mechanics (roll dodging the fire DoT) and the mage soul bomb thingy that you have to block caused us some issues because we didn't know how to survive them, but by the end everyone (besides some with lag) could dodge roll the fire DoT and we didn't have deaths on trash anymore. So I don't think it's too hard, HOWEVER it will probably cause pugs to wipe.

Did you complete the Trial?

Yes multiple times and we got the speed run even on a 0 vitality run with some group members disconnecting or going AFK sometimes.

Did you have any companions with you?

So on my first run through the trial we missed 2 DDs so we got two people who had companions to use theirs. The companions were so useless after a while we just removed them. They died to basic mechanics, didn't even do any damage (one just stood there.... watching....) and on the ESO group UI they appear like dead players, so people were tricked into ressing them LOL.

They were really useless, I would prefer to not have them and be 2 players down. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti7PrpgtEJM as u can see....

Do you have any other general feedback?

At the moment it's possible to skip pretty much all mechanics with high dps which for vet I suppose is fine, but if the difficulty of hard mode is not increased a lot, I think the trial will be too easy. I feel like I wish some of the fights had more to do, they felt quite 'stack and burn' which again is fine for regular vet and normal because not every group will have the DPS to skip mechanics but I hope that the hard modes introduce some interesting new features of the fight and aren't just the same fight but the boss has 100 million more health.

I thought the first boss was the most fun out of all of them.

Zybelle

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall? yes

What level and build was the character you used?
I used cp3600 template characters: mag DK zen, warden healer spc hollow and necro healer roaring jorvuld.

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?
Only Veteran multiple time. Normal trial doesn't allow to see mechanics and I wanted to discover and understand mechanics of bosses and trash.

How did the difficulty compare to existing Trials on Normal and Veteran versions?
I would compare it to Sunspire except for last boss. Strong trash fight requesting the tanks and dps to coordinate. Last boss is easier than second boss , maybe this will not be the case in HM.

Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?
As it is first week we had to find a way to handle a lot of mechanics like boss charging a player, Adds huge explosion in trash, ....This is very good as I expected new mechanics in this trial. Can't wait for HM to see if what we understood about mechanics will allow us to survive these mechanics when they will really be more damaging.

Did you complete the Trial?
yes, multiple time.

Did you have any companions with you?
We tested companions but they were dying or pulling things we don't want to pull! Better play with 11 players than have a companion in group. And I'm really happy with that as I wouldn't like a companion to replace a player in a trial.

Do you have any other general feedback?
We add a bug on last boss, when we rezzed a dead player he got stuck in "joining encounter screen".
I would appreciate to know in advance when you'll introduce HM as we need time to plan our raid accordingly.

Razorruk

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?

Yes, a nice varied theme. Good fun - last boss arena definitely has untapped potential - hopefully the HM brings more interesting mechanics

What level and build was the character you used?

L50 CP3600 DPS

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?

Vet

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

Similar to vSS, except for last boss (currently too easy on non-HM)

Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?

Trash was interesting until strats were established - feels in a good place, comparable to vKA (except last trash before 3rd boss - easier than the equivalent last pull in vKA).

Did you complete the Trial?

Yes

Did you have any companions with you?

No

Do you have any other general feedback?

HMs please

itza372

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?
The trial has been enjoyable so far between the mixed up theme (argonian/daedric) and rather unique challenges.

What level and build was the character you used?

• Level: our group has made use of both characters transferred from the live servers ranging from CP 1200 to 1800 and template characters created at CP 3600.
• Build: our players constantly evaluate the group-wide benefits provided by the sets and skills each player could use through testing, therefore providing complete feedback on builds would be far out of scope with respect to providing feedback on this content. Suffice it to say we have not found reasons to make use of any set outside of the current performance-based group composition meta after having been through the Veteran version and part of the Veteran Hardmode version of the boss fights.

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?
Our group has never attempted/completed Normal, completed Veteran multiple times achieving some high vitality speedruns and completed the Oaxiltso Hardmode.

How did the difficulty compare to existing Trials on Normal and Veteran versions?
We are unable to provide feedback about the Normal version of the trial. The Veteran version has proven to be more challenging than existing trials across the board, however due to the known and evident PTS lag from the perspective of EU-based players as we are, it is very hard if not impossible to pass judgement on exactly how difficult the Veteran version will end up being compared to live content.
It is too early in our testing for any sensible comparative feedback to be provided about the Hardmodes.

Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?
None of the mechanics present in the Veteran version posed a significant challenge towards completing the trial quickly and without many deaths.
We have had some trouble with a specific set of circumstances pertaining to the Oaxiltso Hardmode fight that I will proceed to describe below to the best of my knowledge and ability.
Throughout the fight, Oaxiltso will periodically cast an ability called "Noxious Sludge" that will apply a long-lasting periodically damaging debuff called "Noxious Sludge" to 2 pseudo-random group members. Four particular zones (visually distinct from the rest of the arena, looking like small ponds filled with water) placed at the corners of the boss fight arena allow players affected by this debuff to enter said zones, thereby removing the debuff. Whenever one of these zones is used this way, it will become temporarily unusable for further cleansing of the debuff, returning to its normal, usable state after a few tens of seconds.
According to our testing, the "Noxious Sludge" debuff deals periodic damage that cannot be survived for its full duration nor indefinitely by any player regardless of their build, meaning that in order for every player to survive the fight as we assume should be possible, every time this debuff is applied to anyone they have to get rid of it through running into one of the pools.
Throughout the fight Oaxiltso will also cause some additional enemies called "Havocrel Annihilator" to spawn, and in turn these additional foes will swiftly (before they can be conceivably stopped anyhow) proceed to use an unknown ability that will cause one of the pools to become permanently unusable.
These additional enemies will be caused to spawn 4 times during the fight, and each enemy will use the aforementioned ability on one random pool each time: in particular, the 3rd Havocrel Annihilator will be spawned by Oaxiltso when the latter is at around 50% of his max health, which - considering the information above - implies that sometime soon after Oaxiltso is brought to 50% of his max health (slightly less than 70 million hit points) the corresponding Havocrel Annihilator will cast his ability on the 3rd out of 4 pools thereby only leaving one pool for the group to use in order to cleanse the "Noxious Sludge" debuff.
Performing a ~70 million hit points burst fight-closer on Oaxiltso before one of the next 2 players affected by the "Noxious Sludge" debuff eventually dies because they are unable to cleanse due to a lack of usable pools as well as survive the debuff for long enough, has been found to be impossible by us especially due to the semi-mobile nature of the fight, given the boss will become inevitably and pseudo-unpredictably highly mobile throughout any given fight session thereby significantly reducing the group's boss damage potential.
We have spent a handful of hours attempting in every conceivable way to revert the process by which the pools become unusable due to the Havocrel Annihilators casting their relevant ability, to no avail: the only solution we have been able to adopt in order to finish the fight (kill Oaxiltso) has been to let those affected by the "Noxious Sludge" debuff who were not able to cleanse it - due to the lack of usable pools - eventually die after trying to survive as best they could, and be resurrected.
We have been wondering whether this way for the fight to play out is even entirely intended, therefore we thought it appropriate to provide you with the detailed feedback above.

Did you complete the Trial?
We have completed the trial multiple times in its Veteran version.

Did you have any companions with you?
We did not have companions with us because we have found them to be severely underperforming across the board compared to human players, both in terms of damage/survival and general utility. We have had a chance to see a companion in action within Rockgrove very briefly and we concluded it could not tell there was a line of sight barrier between it and the target it was unsuccessfully (and rather stubbornly!) attempting to damage for a solid minute.

Do you have any other general feedback?
Doubling bosses' maximum health just because Hardmode is activated does not make the fights more interesting or challenging, it just makes the fights more tedious (also see vKA Falgravn Hardmode).
If you don't want us to burn through bosses/mechanics because we can squeeze an insane amount of DPS out of the game's balance, then make bosses disappear mid-fight and introduce new intermediate challenges that have to be completed through teamplay without the bosses being present in order to proceed into the fight: phases/mechanics where DPS matters less and organization, coordination, movement, quick thinking matter more.

Personally I would gladly pay to see a new and improved "Lunar Phase"-like mechanic (teamplay centric far unlike vSS's or vKA's intermediate, boss-less phases) straight out of vMoL's Rakkhat coming up in the middle of any boss fight within newer content and forcing the group to have a strategy in place where everyone and exactly what everyone does matters.

By all means this is just "general feedback" as I understand it, I can appreciate the high end portion of ESO in its current state without different concepts of "challenge" getting introduced and I am aware that "provide feedback" does not mean "tell us how to make our game", I just wouldn't want anyone reading this to think that I and many others believe for a second increases to the fight's main foe's health are in any way directly proportional to how interesting or challenging that fight is.

actosh

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?

Yes, on Veteran Mode it is Fun and my Groupf found it okay, nothing to complain rly.
With HM activated it is a real challenge and a lot of fun to figure out some way´s to reduce the Killtimes and get a good working strategy.

What level and build was the character you used?

Week1+2: We used Template Chars since we usually play on Pc EU.
Week3 (HM): We used mostly our own EU Characters

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?

Week 1+2 several Veteran Clears. Have not tested Normal.

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

Veteran felt like Sunspire, just with more Mechanics added ^^.

Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?

No not really.
Took us a moment to figure stuff out and develop a easy to play strategy.

Did you complete the Trial?

Yes, but only several Veteran clears so far. Working on 1st Boss HM and 30% was the best we had so far.
Need to note that we try to play a Strategy with 2 pools still useable so we can use that way of playing for no death attempts.

Did you have any companions with you?
We tested them when we lacked 1 player for 2 days, but they are just dead weight and have no real impact and we decided to just go with 11 players. Companions also suck in Overworld Content, so why would we bother to use them in Trials?!

Do you have any other general feedback?
Yes, it is nice to have a Trial that is hard and Challenging. There is almost no Room for Error so u gotta get the Game of Your life to get the Trifecta. Endgame Com has asked/begged for a Harder Trial and here it is.
For Boss 1 i can only say pls leave him as he is.

ajkb78

I'm kind of bored of trials with only 3 bosses now. Yes individual hard modes are nice, but I miss content like Halls of Fabrication with 5 bosses. Even the Craglorn trials had 4 bosses (admittedly Hel Ra only half the group fights the two middle bosses). I'm hoping next year's trial might be a proper full length trial again.

And I'm also hoping we get some more juicy content in the autumn patch: Vateshran Hollows was nice last year, and we've had Asylum Sanctorium and Blackrose Prison in previous Q4 releases. But Southern Elsweyr was a huge disappointment with no new arena or mini-trial, please don't give us another Southern Elsweyr again this year.

IrishOphidia

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?

Yes, until the HMs were unlocked.

What level and build was the character you used?

Capped mDK.

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?

Veteran

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

I mean, as far as difficulty it’s not a huge change from recent trials outside of broken mechanics and things that simply don’t make a lot of sense.

Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?

Yes, first boss HM pools are unmanageable to say the least. It’s unrealistic to lock them all in execute and expect people to live through the poison DoT. Second boss HM is simply chaotic with very little direction. Kiss of Death 1-shots and having multiple mechanics where people have to use Mist Form in order to survive the damage is ridiculous. Sure it’s completable, but just messy and lacks any real structure.

Did you complete the Trial?

Yes.

Did you have any companions with you?

No because they really had no use and aren’t very efficient.

Do you have any other general feedback?

I know there’s a good number of people who were severely disappointed in the HM versions of the fights. Personally I liked the concept, but they were just poorly made as far as mechanics. Also, please stop recycling mechanics from other content. First boss… come on, really? It’s basically Runes of Mazzatun even with the blitzing and the cleansing.

HappyDan

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall? It's not bad, new content is always appriciated.
What level and build was the character you used? template 3600 cp necro tank
Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)? Just Vet, and first boss hm (2nd boss hm stuck on 36% and will continue on live)
How did the difficulty compare to existing Trials on Normal and Veteran versions? First boss is nice (except for the cleanse mechanic basically making this trial deathless almost impossible.
Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with? Yes 2nd boss is insanely difficult, while we got to stage we can do the boss till 50% pretty comfortably the difficulty is really really high like way more than it should be. I understand HM's should be hard but gatekeeping everyone but maybe 5 or so groups is really rough.
Did you complete the Trial? Yes
Did you have any companions with you? No
Do you have any other general feedback? I would really hope you would rethink 1st boss, it's not hard but deathless is really sketchy and borderline impossible, for 2nd It's a bit to difficult, make curse do less damage, spawn less goliaths and make the fire thingies that come from portal do less damage.