Undocumented changes to Veteran Imperial City Prison

code65536 · March 2016

According to the patch notes, this is all that had changed in the ICP dungeon:

Imperial City Prison
Ibomez the Flesh Sculptor
Blight Bomb can now be dodged or reflected. Note that reflecting the projectile back to the boss will do reduced damage.

The initial damage from the impact of Blight Bomb can now be mitigated by blocking.

But there are some substantial changes that we noticed today when doing the gold key pledge.

Ibomez the Flesh Sculptor now goes to the center pool, gaining damage immunity, at certain health percentages instead of at fixed time intervals.
Ibomez's health has been decreased ever so slightly (from 2.8M to 2.7M).
Other changes that I can't quite put my finger on that makes the mechanics feel somewhat easier.

In short, it's now impossible to straight-burn this boss. The straight-burn method involved ignoring the atronachs (or at least killing just the first two) and killing the boss before he goes to the pool a second time.

You now have to do the mechanics (unless you want to let the atros spawn and just AoE them down, but that's rather inefficient), but we found the mechanics method of the fight to be a little easier than before. Not sure if that's because there were other, harder-to-pinpoint changes, or it just feels easier because it's been forever since we did the fight with actual mechanics.

If the mechanics are a bit easier, then these changes will make vICP a bit easier for groups that lack the DPS for a straight burn. On the other hand, for groups that are used to straight burning, this fight just became longer, more annoying, and more difficult.

Anyway, I am a bit disappointed that this alteration of the boss mechanics was not listed in the patch notes. Especially since this is a much bigger change than the minor change that was listed in the patch notes. @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Finn could we please get some clarification/documentation on these changes? On the whole, I think that it's good you've stopped people from DPSing past mechanics (even though a part of me is annoyed that an already long and tedious dungeon just became a bit more so); I just wish that this was documented and not something that we had to discover on pledge day.

ZOS_GinaBruno · March 2016

Apologies, there were a few additional changes to the Flesh Sculptor in patch 2.3.5. We'll add these to the original patch notes for future reference, but they are as follows:

Ibomez the Flesh Sculptor
- Inmates will now only appear when The Flesh Sculptor runs to the center and channels his summoning spell.
- The Flesh Sculptor is now completely immune to damage while channeling the summon spell.
- Removed the 45 second cooldown on The Flesh Sculptor's summoning spell.
  - The summoning spell is now performed exactly 3 times during the encounter, and is triggered by specific health values remaining on The Flesh Sculptor.
  - The total amount of inmates eager to be used in The Flesh Sculptor's stew has not changed, so expect to see a few more inmates being summoned when the time comes.

Eejit1331 · March 2016

@ZOS_GinaBruno

That is worrisome news. The console players have a terrible synergy system (hitting X and O at the same time) and a difficult targeting system making that method extremely difficult. There is a world of difference on the ps4 vs the pc for that particular fight. Please have QA try that fight to ensure that there is not an unfair disadvantage to ps4 players.

Bfish22090 · March 2016

THIS IS AMAZING NEWS
best change to VICP to date.

Gilliamtherogue · March 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2or5fmvDbU

ZoS saw this video and thought, "How dare players who have completed this dungeon 200+ times make a joke out of our content, we must make this fight last longer than Lord Warden himself!"

code65536 · March 2016

@ZOS_GinaBruno Thank you very much for confirming our observations.

@Eejit1331 I wouldn't worry about this change. On the whole, I think that this fight has just become a lot easier and a lot more accessible (even if longer and a bit more tedious for groups used to straight-burning).

With this change, the strategy should be:

DPS the boss.
When the initial (unavoidable) atronach spawns, stop DPS on the boss and kill the atronach.
Resume DPS on the boss and push him to his first pool phase.
All four players are now on grenade duty to kill the prisoners.
When the boss leaves the pool phase, tank stops grenades and taunts boss. DPS, continue to use grenades to kill off any remaining prisoners that are left over, and then kill any atronachs that have spawned.
DPS the boss at your leisure. Repeat steps 3-6.

This is now a fight where too much DPS will actually make things more hectic and difficult. The most important thing is to not push the boss too hard in the initial DPS phase. He goes to the summoning pool at around 70% health. Make sure the first atronach is killed before the boss is pushed to the first summoning pool phase.

That way, when he's at the pool, the entire team is free to roam around doing grenades. Yes, the grenade mechanic is clunky. Yes, I hate that aiming mechanism. But with all four of you doing the grenades (made possible by making sure that no atronachs are up when the boss enters the spawning pool phase), it's actually pretty easy to get all the prisoners now.

Once the boss leaves the pool, there will still be prisoners around (they stop spawning, but the previously-spawned prisoners are still en route to the pool), so be sure to mop those up (along with any atros that might have spawned) before resuming DPS on the boss.

In contrast, with too much DPS, the fight was much more chaotic. On our first few runs, we pushed the boss to the 70% summoning phase before the first atronach had fully formed. This meant that during the summoning phase, we had to deal with the grenades and killing that first atronach. Since we weren't very good with the grenades and since we were trying to also kill the atronach, we missed a lot of prisoners and got even more atronach spawns. Initially, we didn't even notice that prisoners were spawning only during the summoning phase (the change that I couldn't quite put my finger on in my original post) because it was a detail that was hard to notice in the chaos of dealing with multiple atro spawns and too much DPS pushing the boss into the next pool phase before everything had been mopped up.

So take things slow. This is not a DPS race, and too much DPS can actually make this fight messier. As long as you make sure that all atros are dead before the boss enters each summoning pool phase, it's pretty easy now with all four people on grenade duty to get all the prisoners--you can now easily do this fight with that first unavoidable atro being the only one to spawn.

PS: @ZOS_Finn have you considered adding a new achievement to vICP for preventing the spawns of any atros beyond the first unavoidable one? With these changes to the boss mechanics, this would be a pretty fun and reasonably accessible achievement.

Drazorious · March 2016

code65536 wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno
PS: @ZOS_Finn have you considered adding a new achievement to vICP for preventing the spawns of any atros beyond the fist unavoidable one? With these changes to the boss mechanics, this would be a pretty fun and reasonably accessible achievement.

I'm totally for this

DHale · March 2016

Or like most ppl just won't do the dungeon. If I wanted to work for 2 hours like most pug groups to get a gold key and 20 undaunted points or fly through spindle clutch and the regular pledge in half the time for a gold and silver key and 30 undaunted I think you can just keep your sculpting to yourself.

code65536 · March 2016

DHale wrote: »

Or like most ppl just won't do the dungeon. If I wanted to work for 2 hours like most pug groups to get a gold key and 20 undaunted points or fly through spindle clutch and the regular pledge in half the time for a gold and silver key and 30 undaunted I think you can just keep your sculpting to yourself.

Um. Please read the thread. These changes are good for PUGs. For the average player, this fight just became a hell of a lot easier. It's only for those people with enough DPS who are used to straight-burning the boss that the fight has become a little longer/harder, but for those people, this fight was never an issue in the first place.

Eejit1331 · March 2016

Unless you are using a ps4 remote and loadout it is hard to describe the frustration of activating and aiming the bombs. PC players haven't tried this on ps4 and ps4 players haven't tried the updated changes so only time can tell. All I can confirm at this point is that synergies and aiming is much easier on pc as I have both systems.

CP5 · March 2016

I'm glad this fight isn't just a pure dps burn. Pace yourselves, learn how the fight works, do things other than your max deeps rotations, all sounds good and makes things more interesting. I would honestly like to see more fights based around things like this and less around "ok, lets see how much damage we can regurgitate before the boss can do anything."

Nifty2g · March 2016

code65536 wrote: »

DHale wrote: »

Or like most ppl just won't do the dungeon. If I wanted to work for 2 hours like most pug groups to get a gold key and 20 undaunted points or fly through spindle clutch and the regular pledge in half the time for a gold and silver key and 30 undaunted I think you can just keep your sculpting to yourself.

Um. Please read the thread. These changes are good for PUGs. For the average player, this fight just became a hell of a lot easier. It's only for those people with enough DPS who are used to straight-burning the boss that the fight has become a little longer/harder, but for those people, this fight was never an issue in the first place.

I was in the original group where we first started doing this about 3 days after the release

which would be this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qSrkb8n9YY

and then it turned into this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrY9WPftUNU

and now I'll upload my latest video of that fight and edit it in here, but no, it's still incredibly easy, it just summons a hell of a lot of Atronachs, how it is now though, is still faster than the first time we ever did this.

BUT I now have videos on the Flesh Abomination and we're going to start a new trend and see if zos change that fight too

AdamBourke · March 2016

Eejit1331 wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno

That is worrisome news. The console players have a terrible synergy system (hitting X and O at the same time) and a difficult targeting system making that method extremely difficult. There is a world of difference on the ps4 vs the pc for that particular fight. Please have QA try that fight to ensure that there is not an unfair disadvantage to ps4 players.

While I agree that synergies ARE much easier on PC, it isn't exactly unfair for PS4 players, as we are not competing with PC players, we are just competing against each other. And it's going to be just as hard for you as it is for me!

If only Zenimax would release a Dualshock Extension with a big red synergy button...

code65536 · March 2016

Are console players able to change the bindings so that you can press a different button for synergies? The default button synergy button [X] on the PC is actually very awkward to press, and I had to remap it to something that didn't require as much finger acrobatics.

kadar · March 2016

Eejit1331 wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno

That is worrisome news. The console players have a terrible synergy system (hitting X and O at the same time) and a difficult targeting system making that method extremely difficult. There is a world of difference on the ps4 vs the pc for that particular fight. Please have QA try that fight to ensure that there is not an unfair disadvantage to ps4 players.

The default option on PC is also awkward, and the synergy system itself is already finicky, so don't feel like you're alone there.

daemonios · March 2016

code65536 wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno Thank you very much for confirming our observations.

@Eejit1331 I wouldn't worry about this change. On the whole, I think that this fight has just become a lot easier and a lot more accessible (even if longer and a bit more tedious for groups used to straight-burning).

With this change, the strategy should be:
DPS the boss.

When the initial (unavoidable) atronach spawns, stop DPS on the boss and kill the atronach.

Resume DPS on the boss and push him to his first pool phase.

All four players are now on grenade duty to kill the prisoners.

When the boss leaves the pool phase, tank stops grenades and taunts boss. DPS, continue to use grenades to kill off any remaining prisoners that are left over, and then kill any atronachs that have spawned.

DPS the boss at your leisure. Repeat steps 3-6.

This is now a fight where too much DPS will actually make things more hectic and difficult. The most important thing is to not push the boss too hard in the initial DPS phase. He goes to the summoning pool at around 70% health. Make sure the first atronach is killed before the boss is pushed to the first summoning pool phase.

That way, when he's at the pool, the entire team is free to roam around doing grenades. Yes, the grenade mechanic is clunky. Yes, I hate that aiming mechanism. But with all four of you doing the grenades (made possible by making sure that no atronachs are up when the boss enters the spawning pool phase), it's actually pretty easy to get all the prisoners now.

Once the boss leaves the pool, there will still be prisoners around (they stop spawning, but the previously-spawned prisoners are still en route to the pool), so be sure to mop those up (along with any atros that might have spawned) before resuming DPS on the boss.

In contrast, with too much DPS, the fight was much more chaotic. On our first few runs, we pushed the boss to the 70% summoning phase before the first atronach had fully formed. This meant that during the summoning phase, we had to deal with the grenades and killing that first atronach. Since we weren't very good with the grenades and since we were trying to also kill the atronach, we missed a lot of prisoners and got even more atronach spawns. Initially, we didn't even notice that prisoners were spawning only during the summoning phase (the change that I couldn't quite put my finger on in my original post) because it was a detail that was hard to notice in the chaos of dealing with multiple atro spawns and too much DPS pushing the boss into the next pool phase before everything had been mopped up.

So take things slow. This is not a DPS race, and too much DPS can actually make this fight messier. As long as you make sure that all atros are dead before the boss enters each summoning pool phase, it's pretty easy now with all four people on grenade duty to get all the prisoners--you can now easily do this fight with that first unavoidable atro being the only one to spawn.

PS: @ZOS_Finn have you considered adding a new achievement to vICP for preventing the spawns of any atros beyond the first unavoidable one? With these changes to the boss mechanics, this would be a pretty fun and reasonably accessible achievement.

Or, you know, ignore the zombies and proxy-det the living daylight out of all the atros while the boss is channelling

code65536 · March 2016

daemonios wrote: »

Or, you know, ignore the zombies and proxy-det the living daylight out of all the atros while the boss is channelling

You can do that, and that's what we did on one of our runs. But it's so chaotic. And very magicka-intensive. It's viable, but highly inefficient.

daemonios · March 2016

code65536 wrote: »

daemonios wrote: »

Or, you know, ignore the zombies and proxy-det the living daylight out of all the atros while the boss is channelling

You can do that, and that's what we did on one of our runs. But it's so chaotic. And very magicka-intensive. It's viable, but highly inefficient.

I was only half joking. This is actually how I've done it since the change. With everyone contributing some AoE, the atros die quite quickly so that when the boss returns there aren't any or just a couple left which we deal with during the next boss shield phase.

M_TeK_9 · March 2016

Eejit1331 wrote: »

Unless you are using a ps4 remote and loadout it is hard to describe the frustration of activating and aiming the bombs. PC players haven't tried this on ps4 and ps4 players haven't tried the updated changes so only time can tell. All I can confirm at this point is that synergies and aiming is much easier on pc as I have both systems.

Yea I've never played PC and I can tell you first hand that synergies are brutally unresponsive. Sometimes you have to smash both buttons up to 6 times it feels like. And at first the AOE cursor for the bombs has sketchy movement speeds and is a pain in the ass, but you quickly learn to take your time with them and it;s easy. I'm kind of excited to play it this way actually.

M_TeK_9 · March 2016

AdamBourke wrote: »

Eejit1331 wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno

That is worrisome news. The console players have a terrible synergy system (hitting X and O at the same time) and a difficult targeting system making that method extremely difficult. There is a world of difference on the ps4 vs the pc for that particular fight. Please have QA try that fight to ensure that there is not an unfair disadvantage to ps4 players.

While I agree that synergies ARE much easier on PC, it isn't exactly unfair for PS4 players, as we are not competing with PC players, we are just competing against each other. And it's going to be just as hard for you as it is for me!

If only Zenimax would release a Dualshock Extension with a big red synergy button...

We're not competing at all to be honest. I wish every dungeon had its own leaderboard