PTS Update 33 - Feedback Thread for Shipwright’s Regret

ZOS_GinaBruno

This is the official feedback thread for Shipwright’s Regret. 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 or find anything interesting? Just curious…
• Do you have any other general feedback?

umagon

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for Shipwright’s Regret. 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 or find anything interesting? Just curious…
• Do you have any other general feedback?

It was fun.
It felt a bit easier. I think the first boss is a bit too easy in veteran
Veteran.
The last boss, the fight mechanic required a lot of moving around.
Max level nightblade tank.
We didn’t find any secrets.
I liked the over all look of the dungeon.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for Shipwright’s Regret. 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 or find anything interesting? Just curious…
• Do you have any other general feedback?

• Yes.
• Normal was fine, haven’t tried Vet yet.
• Normal.
• Final boss with the waves was interesting and I think will be more so when I learn the mechanics a little better. From a storytelling standpoint, I also felt sorry for the electrical secret boss and was glad he got some peace when we put him down.
• Magsorc healer, CP 1300+. Vicious Death/Kagrenac’s Hope/Master Resto staff/Earthgore head and shoulder.
• We found three secret minibosses. If there’s a ‘final’ secret boss like Coral Aerie we didn’t find it.
• Feedback: maybe it was just because we didn’t know exactly where we were going until we got there, but the secret electrical boss was rather convoluted to get to. I also got very strong Halloween vibes (especially from the logger boss!) and if you lot don’t do double drops or something for this dungeon next Witches’ Festival I for one will be very disappointed!

Soulshine

This is the official feedback thread for Shipwright’s Regret. 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 or find anything interesting? Just curious…
Do you have any other general feedback?

- Yes it was quite fun, with good atmosphere to the whole place.
- Run on vet only, did not do normal. Vet was pretty easy tbh, did not feel particularly challenging but had fun mechanics.
- Attempted HM on first boss only. It crashed on all four of us twice at the exact same time, once we got to execute phase. Will be going back for more HM testing.
- Last boss was pretty fun with interesting mechanic
- used copied char from NA not the template char

code65536

Note: The following is just the initial day 1 impression that I got. I'll write more later, once I've had a chance to spend more time with it.

Did you enjoy this new dungeon?

No.

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

Vet HM of both of the new dungeons make the vet HM of every existing dungeon feel like a leisurely stroll through the park.

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?

Cleared first two bosses on vet HM, attempted the final boss HM before finally giving up and clearing the final boss on vet non-HM.


Boss 1:
I think this is the best boss. We were very surprised by the difficulty of this boss. Today's dungeons are the 5th and 6th dungeons to follow the 3-bosses-with-HM model, and with the previous four dungeons that preceded this, the first boss on HM was merely a formality. The most difficult one we had prior to this was Dread Cellar, where we wiped three or so times on the first boss HM. In contrast, we wiped a dozen times here.

That said, I think that the difficulty is fair because it is rooted mostly in mechanics. Once you figure out what's going on and develop a strategy, it's not too bad. In particular, I think the AoE causing a chain reaction if it hits a target is an interesting touch. I can see the double-bomb mechanic being problematic with groups that aren't in voice comms.

But for a first boss, the difficulty was pretty surprising. Yes, I know, it's HM, but it's nevertheless a sharp departure from precedent, and I think it will exclude too many players for whom previous 3-boss HMs were challenging but possible. (well, that's a criticism for this entire DLC).


Boss 2:
This is a classic "throw crap at players" fight. The first thing that makes this fight feel difficult is just how busy it is. There is so much going on and so many effects on the ground, and everyone is moving all the time, to avoid AoEs, to pull the boss out of the immunity pool, etc.

The second is the sheer amount of damage: in particular, the Arkasis-style health-scaled DoT applied by the lurcher. It's particularly irksome when people have that DoT at the same time we're forced to split up to deal with the room-wide cone mechanic.

Overall, the boss isn't mechanically-difficult, which makes the difficulty seem "artificial". Just throw chaos and a heapful of incoming damage at the players and watch them miserably slog through it.

I particularly dislike that immunity pool mechanic. The boss isn't exactly quick to move when I try to move it, and as soon as I move it out of a pool, it drops another at its feet. It's a frustrating mechanic, and I'm not sure what exactly it adds to the fight, except just one more little thing to worry about.


Boss 3:
Why the [insert your favorite expletive here] does the boss's light attack deal so much [more expletives] damage? I am literally being 1-shot by light attacks. Bar swap at the wrong time: I'm dead. Need to drop block so that I can move more quickly to reposition in a fight with ever-changing ground conditions: I'm dead. The last time I fought a boss who could 1-shot tanks with a light attack, it was the final execute phase of Falgravn HM. Except that's a trial. And only during a relatively static and well-controlled phase of the encounter. Here, it happens throughout the encounter, which is itself chaotic, with a lot more moving pieces and with ground conditions that the player has no control over.

Similar to the second boss, the difficulty doesn't lie with interesting mechanics, but with there being a ton of incoming damage (particularly on the tank) and a ton of chaos. Try keeping an eye out of spouts when the floor is a noisy splattering of green globs (that render on top of the spouts) while also watching out for any hulks that might be charging in your direction. It's difficult--very difficult--but it is by no means a satisfying or enjoyable form of difficulty, unlike the first boss.

One more thing: I want to get back to the point of control that I alluded to earlier. With the slime pools appearing randomly, with the boss and hulks charging all over the place and not really being all that responsive to a tank's attempts to position them, it feels like we have no agency over this fight. We're more like puppets, constantly reacting to what's going on, and the game is just hoping that we slip up--eat an unblocked light attack, not notice the hulk charging in from behind you, graze a spout as you tiptoe around the mass of ground AoEs during execute, etc.--as we do this. And, no, this kind of difficulty is neither fun nor satisfying. This encounter and the second boss of Coral are by far the worst culprits in this DLC.

And please, can we get Za'ji to shut up?!?! He keeps talking and talking and talking. And for what? To announce that he's "helping"? Bah, his attacks do a negligible amount of damage. And even if that wasn't the case, we don't care what the hell he's doing. There's absolutely no need for him to pollute our ears with his distracting prattling. It's hard enough already to concentrate in this excessively busy fight without him shouting useless drivel every few seconds.


Overall:
Were there too many people who complained about Dread Cellar or Stone Garden HM being too easy? Because it feels like this DLC kicks everything up to 11, and I'm not sure why. And no, I don't think this is healthy.

GrumpyKlam

Did you enjoy this new dungeon?

We very much enjoyed the new dungeons.

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

The non-hm's are on the easier / medium side (ie: icereach / unhallowed grave)

However, the first HM boss is probably one of the hardest bosses (mechanically) we've had in a while and it feels good.

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?

Veteran, we did around 8-10 tries on the first boss on HM and managed to get to 20 %. We will 100 % go back when we have more time.

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

The first boss on HM had to be my favorite boss. It felt like the beads in Cloudrest when someone missed the dodge (chain reaction). The only grievance I have is that the circle around the player during the attro phases could be a bit smaller for melee dps

What level and build was the character you used?

Magplar (1700) Kinras / Bashei / Kilt / 1 slimecraw

Did you happen to notice or find anything interesting? Just curious…

Yes, we did the secrets bosses.

Do you have any other general feedback?

EDIT: We also all crashed at the same time on the first boss

Boss 1 HM: - make the circle around the player a bit smaller during the attro phases for melee dps
Boss 2 non-hm : does nothing (?!), the only thing we noticed is she dropped a pool under her which makes her invincible. We'll have to test HM to see what happens
Boss 3 non-hm: very easy overall. We'll have to test HM to see what happens

I guess the overall feedback I would give for this dungeon is that there is a HUGE GAP between veteran non-hm and veteran hm (at least on the first boss).

AJTC5000

This is my DAY 1 feedback! Ran in the same group as @code65536 above. Will edit/post more thoughts once we've had some more time in there.

Did you enjoy this new dungeon?
The new dungeon experience quickly wore off after repeated wipes on HMs of all three bosses.

How did the difficulty compare to existing dungeons on Normal and Veteran versions?
These Hard Modes are HARD. Like, holy moly. Some of the bosses become easier once the mechanics are figured out, but some remain difficult despite the knowledge gained (more below).

Did you complete Normal, Veteran, or both?
We attempted Veteran Hard Modes of all three bosses, clearing the first two bosses, and then clearing the final boss on Veteran after repeated wipes on Hard Mode.

Boss 1 - Foreman Braddigan
Boss 1 is an interesting one, and is unusually strong for a first boss, even just amongst the first bosses of the Waking Flame and Flames of Oblivion DLCs. The closest that comes to it is probably the Scorion Broodlord, with the difference being that the Purgator gives you a very strong damage buff and a blanket rez in a pinch, and that the entire fight there can be controlled by the player's pace, slowing down DPS on the boss to kill the Xivilai etc. This boss on the other hand moves the fight at his own pace, and this can lead to a lot of moments where recovery isn't possible.

Despite this, I think this boss is one of the only ones in this DLC where once you've figured out the mechanics properly, the fight becomes a lot easier:

• We managed to devise strategies for how to best deal with the ghosts by stacking them - at one point I was helping to single target my fellow DPS' ghost so he could use his higher DPS to then kill the rest of them quicker.
• We learned that you can easily dodge through the ricochet AoE in order to minimise contact (please, please don't change this).
• We learned the first bomb mechanic targets the person farthest away and thus were able to control who got it - however, it's still unknown to me what controls the second bomb during execute.

A couple of changes I would suggest for this boss:

• Having four Flame-Shapers in execute seems a little much, after having just one at any given point throughout the entire fight. We did start killing the Flame-Shapers before killing the second colossus, which seemed to help, but I'm still unsure as to whether they will respawn up to four again. Two would be a nice amount.
• The second bomb is a cool shake-up to the mechanic, but I feel it's a little much, and will probably be a sticking point for most groups who aren't co-ordinated in voice chat.

Boss 2 - Nazaray
A common trend I started to notice throughout the six bosses in this DLC is that while there are some interesting mechanics, the fights as a whole become messy, long, chaotic and noisy due to the sheer amount of mechanical overlap. This becomes very apparent on Nazaray. Let me list the mechanics we discovered:

• Nazaray's signature mechanic of summoning four wolves that slowly build up a room-spanning wipe AoE. This on it's own is fine and we managed to clear it pretty consistently once we figured out what to do.
• Locust Rain, an area denial mechanic which forces you to avoid falling blobs of slime.
• Body-Snatcher Wasps, two adds that don't really do much damage, but have a stun which can be particularly deadly if they're still alive during the wolf mechanic.
• Stranglers - annoyances again really, but again with more stuns.
• At certain health percentages Nazaray summons a lurcher. Not only does the lurcher have a huge amount of health, and an area-denial conal attack, but it applies a mandatory health-scaled DoT on to all the players, which makes the healer's life increasingly difficult when the DPS are off trying to kill all of the distractions in the arena.
• After the first lurcher spawns, Nazaray will turn blue and start dropping even more ground DoTs, which not only provide even more area denial, but also make her immune when she steps inside of them. Why does she drop them so often if she moves so slowly?
• Finally, the set-path roaming tornadoes that Nazaray spawns in her blue-phase, which is just even more area denial.

All of these mechanics on their own are pretty easy to deal with, but once they're all put together at once, the fight just becomes miserable. I think this fight needs re-examining to see what exactly it wants the players to do. Do you want them to sit and beat on a bullet-sponge Lurcher for five minutes? Sure. Do you want to make them dance around the room avoiding the copious amounts of area denial? Okay, that's fine. But the need to have both of these is my key problem with this encounter so far.

If this fight isn't gonna change much, my short-term solution would just be to remove Nazaray's blue-phase immunity pools, and perhaps tone down the damage from the Lurcher's DoT.

Boss 3 - Captain Numirril
Oh boy, this boss. I've had the added benefit of both trying this on Hard Mode and clearing it on regular Veteran, and the difference between the two is almost laughable.

To re-iterate @code65536 's statements above, having the boss' light attack one-shot the tank just isn't it chief. I don't know who designed it but I'd invite them to come and try tanking it themselves! And no hate to Za'ji's voice actor but seriously, his lines are just extra noise that provides nothing in the way of utility to help during the encounter. I legitimately tried to see if he was part of a mechanic of some kind, but to my knowledge, no, he just stands on the pillar, throwing his 100 damage knives and crowing about it constantly. At least Eveli could call out the salamander spawns in Black Drake Villa.

Just a couple of general points about this fight as honestly, it's so chaotic that there aren't even really mechanics to deal with, it's just a lot of incoming damage that you have to try and manage.

• The bile/slime blobs need to be better designed so they don't obscure the water spouts. Difficulty through obscurity is not fun. Maybe have them be 50% transparent?
• Why the need for two Drowned Hulks in execute? Not satisfied with doubling their health from regular Veteran, you doubled the amount of enemies as well? Please pick one and not both. Also, you've made use of targetting sigils/telegraphs in the other dungeon - could you not add one to the Hulk's charge as well?
• The Drowned Corpses being interruptible in regular Veteran is really useful, especially with how fast the bile/slime swarms the field, and I think it would be great to have them be interruptible in Hard Mode as well. If not, the damage from the bile/slime should be decreased, as the slowing effect is enough to kill a player given everything else going on.

Which was your favourite boss of this dungeon, and why?
Boss 1 - see above.

What level and build was the character you used?
Magicka Templar, copied straight from the Live server with no PTS changes.

Bahsei's Mania - Kinras' Wrath - Death Dealer's Fate

Boss 1 forced me to switch to a ranged build, but I was comfortable with melee on boss 2. While it's do-able on boss 3 I wouldn't recommend melee due to the amount of running around you have to do.

Did you happen to notice or find anything interesting? Just curious ...
The secret bosses themselves were okay, a couple of interesting mechanics (the frantic teleporting of the lightning guy surprised us). However, I feel the secret buffs in this dungeon are very weak compared to previous dungeons, where on previous farm runs we would actively seek out the damage done buffs to help us get through the dungeon faster (see Black Drake Villa and The Dread Cellar). The buffs in Shipwright's Regret just ... don't really help?

Did you have any other general feedback?
I've yet to do a lore run of this place, and I'm excited to do so. However, the setting feels a little disjointed compared to Coral Aerie, where you would switch between the Yaghra and the Ascendant Order on the regular. This one starts with undead ... then goes into nature ... and then Maormer?? They don't really connect as much as I would have liked - with no cohesion between the boss fights, it almost felt like three mini-dungeons put together.

Overall though, I feel Bosses 2 and 3 HM definitely need looking at, with some minor changes to Boss 1 HM to make it more appropriate for a first boss encounter. The disparity between Veteran and Veteran Hard Mode, at least on the last boss, is huge.

DerpyBossGamer

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for Shipwright’s Regret. 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 or find anything interesting? Just curious…
• Do you have any other general feedback?

I enjoyed it the dungeon.
I did the dungeon on veteran difficulty and attempted the first boss hard mode but decided against it because of time constraints. I plan on completing the hard mode sometime soon. It felt relatively easy compared to some existing dungeons, but definitely harder than several of the earlier dlc dungeons. However, I felt like it didn’t detract from the dungeon mostly because the atmosphere is so great. It might get boring after repetition, however.
My favorite boss was the first secret boss. I was actually very surprised by the fact that it had mechanics, which might bias my opinion of it. It was overall an easy fight but not unenjoyable.
I was playing Bahsei Kinras magblade dps. I realized midway through my run of the Coral Aerie dungeon that I didn’t have duel wield leveled on my character, but ignored it (I’ve only used inferno on my magblade thus far).
I found the first and last secret.
My entire group hard crashed at the exact same time when attempting the first boss hard mode. This is the leading contributor to why we didn’t do hardmode, because otherwise the first boss’s hardmode seems very easy. Also, the second boss is able to be easily burned, as we didn’t even try to burn it and it still died with only doing it’s immunity mechanic once.

RemanCyrodiil_I

-

SeaUnicorn

Did HMs up to last boss, got to 30% on last boss or so.
Foreman HM:
Visually looks good, not super game changing, but still cool.
Mechanics are great in terms of how you perform them - good balance of positioning, smart targeting, bust healing.
Healer job - actually present, wow, I need to heal a dungeon for like 3rd time in my life.
Groot HM:
Visually fight is amazing, fresh looking, changing colors on her are awesome. Take my money I need blue Groot poly now.
Mechanics are mixed bag: pet mechanic is awesome, fresh, requires planning. Ground AOEs throughout the fight are nuisance instead of challenge. You just constantly on the move and distracted by them rather than panning on how to deal with them.
Healer job - dynamic and fun, can do a nice hybrid - help to kill pets, then burst through the lurcher DOT. Plan your HOTs after 50% and stuff like that. Very cool.
Capt. Aquaman HM
Visually I have mixed feelings. Excited about water mechs, they look cool. Confused about perfectly circular poisons, they look suspiciously unnatural. Visual from Oaxiltso poisons could be reused there, it looks more like the ESO visual style.
Mechanics are annoying to be honest. Hulks are annoyingly slow so you cant stack them on corpses that produce poisons. Poisons everywhere so your movement is hindered. And then tank gets incinerated by insane amount of incoming damage form the main boss.
Healer job - you just basically pray that tank does not die. It's not fun dynamic healing challenge it's more of a boring old school pocket heal x person type of job.

Overall visually cool looking, mostly fun fights, last boss needs some adjustments. Nice to see smarter healer challenges for 1st and 2nd boss.

I was on a warden healer CP 2000+ with a generic Major Courage+ Major Slayer Resto/Destro setup.

code65536

After spending more time in Shipwright's Regret and clearing HM, I think I've mellowed a bit in my views about this dungeon.

Boss 1:
I like this boss and think it's fine. It's actually kinda easy, once you've done it a couple of times, and that's mostly a reflection of how the difficulty of this boss is mechanics-based. That having been said, there is a bit of a learning curve, and it is definitely the hardest first boss HM we've seen to date.

Boss 2:
I suppose this boss isn't that bad. It feels a bit less chaotic once you've done it a bit. But again, it has a learning curve and is more complicated than any previous dungeon's second boss HM.

Boss 3:
We finally cleared this boss, after I decided to stack health on my tank. I race-changed from Breton to Imperial, reallocated attribute points, and changed my gear, so that I had 57.4K health on the final boss (this is after the 10% health buff from the optional side boss; in previous attempts, I had 46.7K health with the buff). And amazingly, it helps when the tank is not getting 1-shot by bar-swapping light attacks!

We cleared, and all it took was stacking 10K more health on the tank.

That having been said, I absolutely hate that this was the solution. Light attacks should not be doing anywhere close to that amount of damage, and this needs to be adjusted before it goes live.

https://youtu.be/gTNj6bpT6FA

Hailan

code65536 wrote: »

After spending more time in Shipwright's Regret and clearing HM, I think I've mellowed a bit in my views about this dungeon.

Boss 1:
I like this boss and think it's fine. It's actually kinda easy, once you've done it a couple of times, and that's mostly a reflection of how the difficulty of this boss is mechanics-based. That having been said, there is a bit of a learning curve, and it is definitely the hardest first boss HM we've seen to date.

Boss 2:
I suppose this boss isn't that bad. It feels a bit less chaotic once you've done it a bit. But again, it has a learning curve and is more complicated than any previous dungeon's second boss HM.

Boss 3:
We finally cleared this boss, after I decided to stack health on my tank. I race-changed from Breton to Imperial, reallocated attribute points, and changed my gear, so that I had 57.4K health on the final boss (this is after the 10% health buff from the optional side boss; in previous attempts, I had 46.7K health with the buff). And amazingly, it helps when the tank is not getting 1-shot by bar-swapping light attacks!

We cleared, and all it took was stacking 10K more health on the tank.

That having been said, I absolutely hate that this was the solution. Light attacks should not be doing anywhere close to that amount of damage, and this needs to be adjusted before it goes live.

https://youtu.be/gTNj6bpT6FA

I gotta disagree hard on this. The dungeons are by no means to hard. Vet hardmode is supposed to be turned up to 11 other wise there’s no point in calling it hardmode. That being said once you learn mechs for any boss and have some practice it’s not to hard to complete. I’d say these dungeons can go live as they are and people will clear the trifectas. I did both hard modes no buffs from side bosses and was able to clear with relative ease without our tank stacking so much hp in buff sets. I would hate to see these dungeons get any kind of nerf because that’ll make clearing hard mode and the trifectas that much more rewarding.

Hailan

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for Shipwright’s Regret. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

• Did you enjoy this new dungeon?
  I think the new dungeons both are amazing and so fun to do.
• How did the difficulty compare to existing dungeons on Normal and Veteran versions?
  The difficulty is just right. It actually feels like hard mode when you activate the banners and doesn't feel like a walk in the park compared to other dungeons.
• Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?
  I completed both on hard mode without any secret buffs from special side bosses.
• Which was your favorite boss in this dungeon, and why?
  My favorite is the first boss. Having a bomb mechanic where only 2 can be in the circle plus having a mechanic that can nuke the group if they touch it really makes players have to pay attention to mechanics.
• What level and build was the character you used?
  I did them on my main character which is a magicka nightblade at 1913 cp
• Did you happen to notice or find anything interesting? Just curious…
  The mechanics are amazing and so well done i had so much fun doing hard mechanics for once in a dungeon ( coming form someone who's done every 4man trifecta 5+ times)
• Do you have any other general feedback?
  Shipwright Regret needs to be fixed it seems to be causing groups to crash hard from the server and makes progressing and testing this content rather difficult. I've experienced this on the first and second bosses and have known of others experiencing this on the final boss as well.

All in all these dungeons are incredible and so much fun to play and i hope they go live with the same level of difficulty.

Hailan

The biggest complaint i do want to make is that the titles are not very good. These dungeons are a challenge and i think the titles should be bad ass for those who clear the trifecta or hard mode. Titles is all we get as rewards in end game pve and the titles for hard content should be badass Privateer and Coral Caretaker are just not it they are rather lame for the difficulty that is these dungeons. Please try to find a better title for these trifectas.

code65536

Hailan wrote: »

The dungeons are by no means to hard.

My point of comparison is with how previous dungeons felt during their first week on PTS. And I doubt you'll find anyone who will say that earlier dungeons weren't easier. So to say that these dungeons are fine difficulty-wise is to say that the previous dungeon HMs were too easy. And I could see an argument there: as I noted, all of the previous first boss HMs were just formalities. But then again, maybe the whole point of a first boss is to be such a formality?

Hailan wrote: »

Vet hardmode is supposed to be turned up to 11 other wise there’s no point in calling it hardmode.

On our clear of Shipwright, we had no deaths on the first boss, two on the second boss (we had someone new with us who didn't know where to stand for the cone mechanic), and three on the last boss (avoidable minor mishaps). If Shipwright were to go live as-is, we could probably get the trifecta on the first day.

And I've gotten the previous four dungeon trifectas on the first day of their live release. Were they easy? For a serial trifectalist, yes. But I think that's fine. I absolutely do not think that it's a good idea to balance hard mode clears for the kind of player who goes for serial trifectas, because that will exclude too many people. It was a bad idea for Rockgrove, and it's a bad idea here. It's why I go into these PTS feedback threads asking myself, "What would it be like to coach a couple of decent (but not endgame) players through this content?"

Hailan

code65536 wrote: »

Hailan wrote: »

The dungeons are by no means to hard.

My point of comparison is with how previous dungeons felt during their first week on PTS. And I doubt you'll find anyone who will say that earlier dungeons weren't easier. So to say that these dungeons are fine difficulty-wise is to say that the previous dungeon HMs were too easy. And I could see an argument there: as I noted, all of the previous first boss HMs were just formalities. But then again, maybe the whole point of a first boss is to be such a formality?

Hailan wrote: »

Vet hardmode is supposed to be turned up to 11 other wise there’s no point in calling it hardmode.

On our clear of Shipwright, we had no deaths on the first boss, two on the second boss (we had someone new with us who didn't know where to stand for the cone mechanic), and three on the last boss (avoidable minor mishaps). If Shipwright were to go live as-is, we could probably get the trifecta on the first day.

And I've gotten the previous four dungeon trifectas on the first day of their live release. Were they easy? Yes. But I think that's fine. I absolutely do not think that it's a good idea to balance hard mode clears for the kind of player who goes for serial trifectas, because that will exclude too many people. It was a bad idea for Rockgrove, and it's a bad idea here. It's why I go into these PTS feedback threads asking myself, "What would it be like to coach a couple of decent (but not endgame) players through this content?"

Having trifectas be easy is not fine. This is what we chase after in end game. Progging a hard mode isnt a bad thing. I also disagree and think Rockgrove is an incredible trial and a ton of fun I love how difficult it is. You compare Rockgrove to Kyne's Aegis when it launched and vKA is an absolute joke of a trial. Hard content is something that should be in the game and if the game is gonna refer to a boss as vet hard mode then it should be hard to clear. Most of the content in the game isn't very hard, and even something like Godslayer isn't what it once was and is much much easier to get in today's game from the adjustments that have been made in there. I do not think this should be nerfed but bugs should be fixed. The amount of damage going out is manageable and not impossible or even that incredibly hard to deal with. If it takes groups days to get their clear or even weeks that's fine its HARD MODE it's supposed to be challenging. Making easy content is fine but leave that in vet and normal. Let hard mode be hard. Last year's dungeons were not challenging and rather disappointing to a lot of players I know. Especially The Cauldron and Black Drake Villa. They just weren't fun after clearing those trifectas multiple times the day they launched. You don't have to go after many trifectas to enjoy hard content but most of the content in eso just simply isnt challenging and the end game player base is suffering because of it. Theres only so many times you can farm the 2 hard trifectas in the game before you're bored out of your mind.

I don't see how making easy content is healthy for this games end game community. It's boring and we need new mechs that are hard and these dungeons offer just that.

CyberOnEso

Did you enjoy this new dungeon?
Yeah! It was really enjoyable, challenging but accessible

How did the difficulty compare to existing dungeons on Normal and Veteran versions?
Vet HM was similar to other dungeons introduced recently, easier than stone garden, harder than blake drake villa

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

Which was your favorite boss in this dungeon, and why?
The first boss, the ghost, was exceptional boss design. Entirely mechanics driven encounter, beautiful!

The double soul bomb required coordination, the roll dodgable 4 circle's kept people on their toes. The casters required people to keep focus. The abominations did not take too long to kill and kept the fight interesting.


What level and build was the character you used?
DK Tank - Turning Tide, Olorime, Magma Incarnta
Templar Healer - Worm, Stone- Talker, Symphony
Warden DD - Bahsei, Tzovgin, Kilt
DK DD - Bahsei, Tzovgin, Kilt

Did you happen to notice or find anything interesting? Just curious…
Yeah, the secrets were fun and the stories they told were dark and interesting. Especially the first woman in the cave, jesus.

Do you have any other general feedback?
Really great boss design overall.

First boss is perfect (Except for a crash that occured once when the boss did his AoE heavy)

Second boss is good, but is there any reason to kill the lurchers? They put the dot on people anyway and there is always one alive. The wolf mechanic is interesting but it's annoying how she seems in no rush to cast it when she hits the health %, making it difficult to know when the phase will start. This is likely because the 'rain' spell is a chain of 4 spells which increase in size. Maybe these could be split up into 4 individual spells so the fight is a bit more responsive?

Third boss was a bit of a pushover, our tank survived like a champ. The health of the flesh abominations can make the fight a bit of a slog but it was fine. We cleared this boss with fewer wipes than we cleared the first two.

There also seems to be fewer trash mobs in these two dungeons than usual, which I think is great. The bosses are always the highlight.

Troodon80

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

• Did you enjoy this new dungeon?

Yes, it was really interesting. Nice design, theme, and interesting mechanics overall.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

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

I'm honestly unsure where I would place this in terms of difficulty. Second boss seems like it's the hardest overall. Survivability on last boss was fine, but I'm not a fan of it being a perma-block fight where light attacks do 50k+ damage. I could probably stack health, but that wasn't actually an issue.

We had a seven minute fight where we were just runnnig around looking at mechanics and taking screenshots. I died a couple times as tank due to sustain, but as our healer said: "I completely neglected you." My next attempt on this will be using at least one block cost (also because of the bashing required by Turning Tide draining stamina) and a little more attention in terms of sustain.

I think this is definitely easier than Stone Garden in the first week of PTS.

In case anyone else wants to know what the Soaked and Drenched status is:

10 stacks of Soaked applies Drenched:

After you get Drenched, you can start getting stacks of Soaked again starting at 1 and going up to 10, with both debuffs stacking with each other. Hint: try to avoid water as much as possible, including the boss's wide conal cleave.

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?

I think second boss was the most interesting because it took us the longest to work out. First boss is probably the favourite, though. Having everyone dodge AoEs and coordinate Soul Bomb in execute was a fun challenge.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

• What level and build was the character you used?

Max CP template, Nord DK tank. Used same stats as on Live, but went with Turning Tide (just to try it out), Olorime, and Magma Incarnate.

Swapped out attributes for second boss to lower my health due to (more) health scaling DoTs (not a fan), specifically from the Agonising Bramble DoT. With buffs from side bosses, I ended up with ~42k health on last boss and just over 30k stamina.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

• Did you happen to notice or find anything interesting? Just curious…

None of the secrets were particularly "secret" when you have a ghost that (literally) points you in the direction of a trapdoor. However, the fights were interesting and the stories were interesting. I don't know if you're actually going for "secret" bosses rather than simply "optional" bosses. If they're supposed to be secret, something similar to Black Drake Villa or Unhallowed Grave would be better. If simply optional, they're fine.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

• Do you have any other general feedback?

I think the only other more general feedback I have for this is... if you're going to insist on having health scaling DoTs, please get rid of the 50k light attacks (and that assumes you are not Drenched) from bosses in the same dungeons. If the idea is to have tanks be health stacking meat shields, then reduce the scaling on the DoT for second boss.

Apparently some of the other members of the group had heard about the hard hitting light attacks, but knowing that I wanted a blind run, and they wanted a giggle, I wasn't told. I taunted and instantly got cut down. WIpe #1. I think we only had three or four wipes overall until we worked out all the mechanics and worked out a strategy (including taking screenshots of certain things). Whoever put in 50k light attacks on that boss: I know you're laughing and I hope you step on a LEGO. Overall, last boss was a pushover compare to the previous two. We're talking HoF level pushover on last boss compared to triplets. Large health pool and high damage light attacks, but overall nothing serious.

Edited to add: on first boss, there is a potential exploit in the left wall where there is an outcropping which can block the AoEs if the boss is facing the right way. This means the tank can have the boss to the left wall and the group can just move into the indent in order to avoid the boss's multi-directional AoE mechanic entirely.

code65536

Troodon80 wrote: »

I think this is definitely easier than Stone Garden in the first week of PTS.

For the final boss, I agree. The problem with the final boss of Shipwright is that there aren't really any mechanics to do. The biggest struggle is to keep the tank alive. I was stubborn and refused to add more health and instead tried to be careful about when to drop block, but it's just too easy to slip up, and things just unravel when the tank dies.

But once I finally relented and went with more health, surviving became much easier, and consequently, the fight became much easier. We cleared on the second pull after I gave up on trying to do it with 46K. There just isn't anything mechanically challenging about the last boss.

And looking back, I think a lot of my frustration with this dungeon (which colored the views that I expressed earlier in this thread) is the result of me being stubborn about the health, and once I got past that, it is not nearly as bad as my first impression.

To contrast this with Stone Garden, the first week of Arkasis HM was mechanically challenging (the DoT was still purgeable at this point, so survival wasn't too bad), since the husk phases were like vHoF triplets with enrage tethers and taunt swaps, and everyone needed to work together.

But, of course, Arkasis HM was ruined late in the PTS right before launch. By removing the CC immunity from the husks, it became possible to lock them down with a chain of CCs, which led to people quickly adopting a stack-and-burn approach that completely bypassed all of the HM tether and taunt swap mechanics. This was not possible before the final week of PTS because the husks could not be chain-stunned. Instead, ZOS replaced that mechanical difficulty with dumb high-incoming-damage difficulty by removing the ability to purge the health-scaled DoT. Right now, Arkasis HM is a hollow shadow of its original form: the mechanical difficulty can be bypassed, and all that's left is the health-scaled DoT that everyone loves to hate.

Right now, Shipwright's final boss HM resembles the gutted live version of Arkasis HM in that it has no meaningful mechanics, and the thing that makes it hard is the incoming damage on the tank. But at least Arkasis's incoming damage is fair: it's a challenge for the healer. Shipwright's incoming damage is... just designed force the tank to run at least 50K health?

For the dungeon as a whole, though, while the final boss doesn't offer much (once you look past the ridiculous light attacks), the first two bosses are much more substantial. The first two bosses of all of the previous dungeons were pushovers. I still worry a bit about how much that will drive away the kind of player who might have been encouraged to try the early boss HMs with the assumption that they'd be more accessible than the final boss HM. But, on the other hand, I can see that it's nice that the first two bosses aren't just formalities to get over with before the main event.

Troodon80

code65536 wrote: »

Troodon80 wrote: »

I think this is definitely easier than Stone Garden in the first week of PTS.

But once I finally relented and went with more health, surviving became much easier, and consequently, the fight became easier. We cleared on the second pull after I gave up on trying to do it with 46K. There just isn't anything mechanically challenging about the last boss.

And looking back, I think a lot of my frustration with this dungeon (which I had strongly expressed earlier in this thread) is the result of me being stubborn about the health, and once I got past that, it is not nearly as bad as my first impression.

Health wasn't nearly that much of an issue for me. I deliberately lowered it for second boss, which is why I'm not a fan of saying "Hey, we have 50k light attacks that you need to perma-block" so people go high health, but then they have undodgeable health scaling DoTs. Pick one or the other, in my opinion.

code65536 wrote: »

Shipwright's incoming damage is... just designed force the tank to run at least 50K health?

And this is also my kind of thought process and how I see others looking at it. You either want people to be health stacking tanks or you want them to be low health so they can mitigate the DoT. I'm not buying attribute respec scrolls mid-dungeon.

As I said, I was at 42k health and 30k stamina with the various side boss buffs. Without the added benefit of the buffs, I'm sitting on around 37k health. After respeccing, I went from 30 points in health and the rest split, to having 60 points into stamina and 4 points in health (so I could be just over 40k on back bar staff). Healer wasn't really focusing on me either with heals or sustain and was instead working to clear out adds to help with the goo problem. I used Magma Shell whenever I thought it would benefit me to do so while learning and took advantage of the boss rushing at someone else in order to heavy attack. As also said in my previous post, I, as the tank, had time to open my character menu and look at the text for the debuff and take a screenshot, so I wasn't really feeling any sort of impending doom during the fight and there was plenty of time for me to recover resources during the fight.

That said, again, given that our healer wasn't really giving me any attention (I got a total of 1 healing combustion), I think last boss can probably be mostly done with three DDs and some self-heals so far as the tank is concerned (Master's front bar, Vigour, Dragon Blood, Igneous Shield, maybe Burning Embers is an option for a HoT now, though I doubt it, Scythe, Polar Wind, etc.), at least from what we managed.

Again, for reference purposes, this was my incoming damage:

Strike was the single highest incoming damage ability from anything in that fight. In my opinon, boss light attack damage needs to be massively reduced by more than half and Bilepool needs to be increased by maybe 25-40%. Right now, Bilepool serves only as a minor inconvenience to snare people (doesn't prevent roll dodging, so it's largely meaningless).

My health, on the other hand, didn't really go below 50% unless I made a mistake, took extra debuff stacks (I'm a fan of this mechanic; it's like vulnerability stacks in FFXIV when you eat a mechanic), or stood in the spouts (Oblivion style mechanic damage -- again with the health scaling stuff).



I do agree that having the first two bosses might be off-putting compared to what other dungeons are like, though nice that they're not mere formalities, but at the same time I think the last boss is a huge anti-climax. There are various ways to make this fight more interesting, including potentially using the Soaked/Drenched as a way to increase DPS at the cost of survivability -- something Cyber (who posted above) said during a call while doing the dungeon.

Troodon80

Also, in addition to the feedback above, I'd like to make mention that most if not all of the death recap hints are generic "Try using potions if you're low on health," and "When faced with multiple enemies, try using petrify [blah blah] to even the odds." Very unhelpful. Applies to both dungeons.

AJTC5000

Troodon80 wrote: »

Also, in addition to the feedback above, I'd like to make mention that most if not all of the death recap hints are generic "Try using potions if you're low on health," and "When faced with multiple enemies, try using petrify [blah blah] to even the odds." Very unhelpful. Applies to both dungeons.

As far as I recall these are the ones I remember seeing in the death recap so far:

• Lightning damage during Maligalig's whirlpool phase
• Varallion's Sea Orb
• The slaughterfish on Varallion (lol)
• Soaked stacks on Numirril

I think this list is short because most of the more obvious mechanics, such as the Foreman's bomb, are telegraphed well, and/or the devs want to keep some of the design hidden for the player to work out trial-by-fire style? Also, just due to the fact that some of the encounters are simply a crap-load of damage with no real mechanics (see Sarydil or Numirril). However, the generic recap hints are certainly unhelpful and I'd much prefer if they were at least removed, if not replaced with hints relevant to the encounter. Some possible suggestions (and forgive me if these are in the game currently and I've just not seen them, lol):

• Foreman's ricochet AoE
• Nazaray's wolf mechanic
• Maligalig's lightning storm donut AoE
• The bulwark's reflect mechanic (I appreciate there is a mini-boss tutorial just before Sarydil to show the player what it is, but it still took some time to work out, especially with how it currently operates)
• Varallion's Mind Link and Mind Sever

Troodon80

AJTC5000 wrote: »

• Lightning damage during Maligalig's whirlpool phase
• Varallion's Sea Orb
• The slaughterfish on Varallion (lol)
• Soaked stacks on Numirril

Soaked shows as a character status effect anyway (I showed an image above in the spoiler tag, along with Drenched), so even if it didn't show a death recap hint it wouldn't be the worst. I recall seeing a death recap hint for Maligalig and we (the group) enabled the in-game buff tracker to see how many stacks we had. As tank, I would drop back into the water at 6-7 and the group would follow at 7-8, allowing me time to get the mobs taunted on the next platform. This hint was useful in figuring out the mechanic. If I recall, the Slaughterfish was a generic slaughterfish recap (which you can see in the overworld).

I didn't get to see the Sea Orb recap.

AJTC5000 wrote: »

• The bulwark's reflect mechanic (I appreciate there is a mini-boss tutorial just before Sarydil to show the player what it is, but it still took some time to work out, especially with how it currently operates)

I suggested to my group when we did this that the retaliation was likely some sort of reflect, but we didn't really figure out what sort of reflect (e.g. only direct damage, DoTs, AoE, all damage?), so we just waited it out.

AJTC5000 wrote: »

• Varallion's Mind Link and Mind Sever

Mind Sever and Mind Link didn't have one, and honestly seemed a little weird (should be posted in the other topic, but haven't gotten around to this yet). I understand the mechanic as when one person dies, both die, or if it gets severed by someone else stepping into the beam all three people will die. But a couple times someone would die to seemingly nothing (despite not severing the link and not dying to anything but Mind Sever) and then we'd have a discussion about how the mechanic works again. We turned on the in-game buff tracker for the first boss and worked out that it's a 25 second DoT/debuff. We also weren't sure if it's entirely random as I got this link with someone (usually the next closest person to me) as the tank a lot. In the end, we simply made the assumption that Mind Sever kills you if you drop below a certain threshold.

code65536

Troodon80 wrote: »

But a couple times someone would die to seemingly nothing (despite not severing the link and not dying to anything but Mind Sever).

So I think that the confusing thing here is that Mind Sever will always appear on the death recaps for both players, regardless of how the link was broken.

I use LGM for death recaps (with the history set to 8 damage events instead of the default 5, which is a bit too low), so it's easy to see exactly what damage (and healing) preceded each death, and there were cases where someone clearly died to other damage (e.g., eating a sea orb after having taken a few seconds worth of unhealed DoTs), but Sever still showed up in their death recap, even though they had already been killed at that point and their death was the cause of the Sever.

Using LGM to look at the healing and damage that each player took prior to an unexpected Sever, I don't recall ever encountering an idiopathic Sever--I think we were able to explain each one to our satisfaction.

(Yea, yea, I know, this probably should be in the other thread. Oh well.)

Troodon80

code65536 wrote: »

Using LGM to look at the healing and damage that each player took prior to an unexpected Sever, I don't recall ever encountering an idiopathic Sever--I think we were able to explain each one to our satisfaction.

(Yea, yea, I know, this probably should be in the other thread. Oh well.)

I tried that, and Advanced Death Recap. Some of the deaths just don't seem to have an answer. Here's one from logs, for example.

This is mine. One I died, the DD died to Mind Sever.

I tried various addons and using Logs and some of the deaths I can't explain. No one else interrupted the beam. That was one question we constantly asked. Maybe you can make some more sense out of it.

themaddaedra

I believe people have given some legit feedback regarding pacing and mechanics up above. Tho there is one thing i want to point out: What's with the trend of bosses telling us about the mechanics? That's quite lame and kinda ruins immersion. Like Foreman Bradiggan saying: Stick together you fools, this is a team effort! Why is the boss telling people how to deal with his mechanics? That trend's been going on with DLC dungeons recently, and i'd like to see it dropped at some point.

Not sure if that can be applied to Ascending Tide after this point, as i don't know the production details with voice acting and whatsoever. But at least in the future, i'd be very happy if i wasn't feeling like being spoon-fed by the bosses in dungeons.


I would also like to say that tho, lines in general look a lot better in Ascending Tide compared to previous few dungeon DLC.I still have PTSD from Arkasis the Mad Alchemist saying i love combustion ha ha ha.

Troodon80

Having done this dungeon again with the hard modes, I wanted to update the feedback from my previous post. We decided to do this dungeon without bothering with the side boss buffs.

First boss went fine. I honestly don't think there's anything to touch here. First boss can occasionally do a Soul Ball at the start of the fight despite doing light attack + taunt. Similar can happen when Foreman Braddigan re-enters combat after a Colossus phase. A small grace period where the tank can retaunt would be nice, but not needed.

Second boss. The hard DPS check on killing the dogs is interesting, but there were times when it just didn't go in our favour. Outside of the dog phase, the boss dropping the circles and gaining immunity seemed weird. Despite being well out of a circle, it would still be immune. Might be PTS or desync or maybe the immunity is just timed? But overall the fight isn't difficult. How we did this fight was to keep DDs in the middle, safe from the circling AoEs, and as tank I would kite/bait the blue circles in a line in front of them. This meant HoTs were always where they needed to be and DDs had to use as little brainpower as possible. When phase started, I would simply call "phase," and we would split tank+DD exit and healer+DD going to entrance.

Side note: Pay as little attention to the lurcher as possible, as one spawns almost immediately after the first. If you want people to kill this, then ideally have some sort of cooldown on when the next can spawn or perhaps ramping damage on the bramble (rather than health scaling), otherwise it's easier to simply focus main boss. It's just a tank-healer heavy fight with a DPS check. The lower your overall health is, the easier this fight becomes as a tank; which was double served by not doing side bosses for buffs.

Last boss. This time, since we had no side boss buffs for things like health, I was down quite a bit from 43k-ish front bar and 41k back bar to 37k front bar. The fight is, in my opinion, doable even with this little health as long as block is kept up. As previously stated, I decided I would go with a block cost enchantment. This helped massively throughout the fight. Healer gave a little bit more attention and sustain was not an issue at all. However, I dodged certain things like incoming waves or Spouts and instantly got hit by his light attack coming out of dodge. Going to assume PTS lag here. Again, though, not a big fan of perma-block fights. Blocking and dodging should be for heavy attacks. 50k light attacks are absurd, also considering they happen so frequently. Optionally, healer could run Guard. Though there's a lot going on in the fight with hulks later which makes running Guard not feasible.

AJTC5000

Troodon80 wrote: »

Having done this dungeon again with the hard modes, I wanted to update the feedback from my previous post. We decided to do this dungeon without bothering with the side boss buffs.

First boss went fine. I honestly don't think there's anything to touch here. First boss can occasionally do a Soul Ball at the start of the fight despite doing light attack + taunt. Similar can happen when Foreman Braddigan re-enters combat after a Colossus phase. A small grace period where the tank can retaunt would be nice, but not needed.

Second boss. The hard DPS check on killing the dogs is interesting, but there were times when it just didn't go in our favour. Outside of the dog phase, the boss dropping the circles and gaining immunity seemed weird. Despite being well out of a circle, it would still be immune. Might be PTS or desync or maybe the immunity is just timed? But overall the fight isn't difficult. How we did this fight was to keep DDs in the middle, safe from the circling AoEs, and as tank I would kite/bait the blue circles in a line in front of them. This meant HoTs were always where they needed to be and DDs had to use as little brainpower as possible. When phase started, I would simply call "phase," and we would split tank+DD exit and healer+DD going to entrance.

Side note: Pay as little attention to the lurcher as possible, as one spawns almost immediately after the first. If you want people to kill this, then ideally have some sort of cooldown on when the next can spawn or perhaps ramping damage on the bramble (rather than health scaling), otherwise it's easier to simply focus main boss. It's just a tank-healer heavy fight with a DPS check. The lower your overall health is, the easier this fight becomes as a tank; which was double served by not doing side bosses for buffs.

Last boss. This time, since we had no side boss buffs for things like health, I was down quite a bit from 43k-ish front bar and 41k back bar to 37k front bar. The fight is, in my opinion, doable even with this little health as long as block is kept up. As previously stated, I decided I would go with a block cost enchantment. This helped massively throughout the fight. Healer gave a little bit more attention and sustain was not an issue at all. However, I dodged certain things like incoming waves or Spouts and instantly got hit by his light attack coming out of dodge. Going to assume PTS lag here. Again, though, not a big fan of perma-block fights. Blocking and dodging should be for heavy attacks. 50k light attacks are absurd, also considering they happen so frequently. Optionally, healer could run Guard. Though there's a lot going on in the fight with hulks later which makes running Guard not feasible.

Something I mentioned in my original post were that the secret buffs in Shipwright's, at least from a damage-dealer's point of view, are very lackluster. Two of them are based on a portion of missing health, but this is a DLC dungeon, where everything is basically a one-shot . . . For things like motif farming once they come out on Live, I could feasibly see our group just ignoring the buffs entirely in favour of speedier runs. I think the flat damage resist that the Alchemical Globules in Coral Aerie give you are a much better way of doing it.

That being said, I'm no tank and I've no idea if the health buff that the secret bosses grant is worthwhile (though I suppose if stacking max health for the last boss is the comfortable strategy, maybe it is - but I think tanks would be able to build to this without needing the buff, right?).

AJTC5000

themaddaedra wrote: »

I believe people have given some legit feedback regarding pacing and mechanics up above. Tho there is one thing i want to point out: What's with the trend of bosses telling us about the mechanics? That's quite lame and kinda ruins immersion. Like Foreman Bradiggan saying: Stick together you fools, this is a team effort! Why is the boss telling people how to deal with his mechanics? That trend's been going on with DLC dungeons recently, and i'd like to see it dropped at some point.

Not sure if that can be applied to Ascending Tide after this point, as i don't know the production details with voice acting and whatsoever. But at least in the future, i'd be very happy if i wasn't feeling like being spoon-fed by the bosses in dungeons.


I would also like to say that tho, lines in general look a lot better in Ascending Tide compared to previous few dungeon DLC.I still have PTSD from Arkasis the Mad Alchemist saying i love combustion ha ha ha.

I actually appreciate the bosses sharing some information via their voice lines, as sometimes their mechanics can become visually obscured, and it's nice to have an audio cue so I don't have to be always watching the boss and/or their surrounding area. Especially on a fight like Numirril for example, where he can swarm the arena in moments with big AoEs, it's nice to be able to go "Oh, he said bile, that means he's doing the big bile attack." This isn't always the case though, for example with Maligalig and Nazaray, who don't speak at all.

I also feel that even with this information we can still interpret the mechanics wrong at first - Varallion's mind link for example, he says "You are tethered to the same fate!" and we initially assumed it would behave like Gamyne Bendu, the complete opposite of what we were supposed to be doing.

All in all, even if the voice lines might be too frequent, they at least do it in a fun way that really adds to the characters of the bosses. Like you said, Arkasis was legendary.

themaddaedra

AJTC5000 wrote: »

themaddaedra wrote: »

I believe people have given some legit feedback regarding pacing and mechanics up above. Tho there is one thing i want to point out: What's with the trend of bosses telling us about the mechanics? That's quite lame and kinda ruins immersion. Like Foreman Bradiggan saying: Stick together you fools, this is a team effort! Why is the boss telling people how to deal with his mechanics? That trend's been going on with DLC dungeons recently, and i'd like to see it dropped at some point.

Not sure if that can be applied to Ascending Tide after this point, as i don't know the production details with voice acting and whatsoever. But at least in the future, i'd be very happy if i wasn't feeling like being spoon-fed by the bosses in dungeons.


I would also like to say that tho, lines in general look a lot better in Ascending Tide compared to previous few dungeon DLC.I still have PTSD from Arkasis the Mad Alchemist saying i love combustion ha ha ha.

I actually appreciate the bosses sharing some information via their voice lines, as sometimes their mechanics can become visually obscured, and it's nice to have an audio cue so I don't have to be always watching the boss and/or their surrounding area. Especially on a fight like Numirril for example, where he can swarm the arena in moments with big AoEs, it's nice to be able to go "Oh, he said bile, that means he's doing the big bile attack." This isn't always the case though, for example with Maligalig and Nazaray, who don't speak at all.

I also feel that even with this information we can still interpret the mechanics wrong at first - Varallion's mind link for example, he says "You are tethered to the same fate!" and we initially assumed it would behave like Gamyne Bendu, the complete opposite of what we were supposed to be doing.

All in all, even if the voice lines might be too frequent, they at least do it in a fun way that really adds to the characters of the bosses. Like you said, Arkasis was legendary.

I don't even remotely think they are being done in a fun way tbh, i think it's just bad writing. I am not opposing the idea of having visual and/or vocal clues to whatever mechanic is coming, but it shouldn't be the boss straight up saying stick together you fools! It's just lame imo.

Because i do know that they have been able to do it in super cool ways in the past. Examples? Here are some:

"Dancers in the dark, come forth!" Rakkhat, summoning dancers.

"Enough! This ends now." Rakkhat, starting lunar phase.

"These reanimations are trivial. Can you keep up?" Orryn the Black, summoning crystals.

"Watch how the puppets dance. I'll teach you the steps soon enough." Orryn the Black, summoning ghost wall.

"Prince of Pestilence! Make them pay!" Zaan the Scalecaller, starting poison breath (there are 3 or 4 more incredibly good lines regarding this mechanic).

"I've lost my voice, but my fire remains!" Zaan the Scalecaller, starting fire mechanic.


The list can go on and on and on tbh. My point is, they have started to do this in a rather lame way is all.

code65536

themaddaedra wrote: »

I don't even remotely think they are being done in a fun way tbh, i think it's just bad writing. I am not opposing the idea of having visual and/or vocal clues to whatever mechanic is coming, but it shouldn't be the boss straight up saying stick together you fools! It's just lame imo.

It's really only relevant for teaching someone the first time they encounter the mechanic; once you know what to do, you kind of tune the boss out.

And in this specific case, I think it's fine that they're a bit explicit in telling people what to do, because people's natural instincts are to get away from a strange AoE, not run into it. So having something more explicit for this particular mechanic seems reasonable to me.

Similarly, Velidreth tells people exactly what to do for her spikes: "Don't move a muscle!" People's instincts are to move (run out of AoEs, kiting mechanics, etc.), and it's rare to have people stand perfectly still instead, so some explicit instruction there again seems reasonable. (That said, judging from my experience running Cradle with PUGs, most players disregard that simple instruction, which I suspect is why years later ZOS added the visual telegraph of covering the entire floor in red except for a tiny green circle where the player is standing.)