R55 map Encounter Feedback

Was making my way from Soltown to Grunvald to find our new hooded "friends" and ran into a skeleton along the road. Ok, cool... I had read there were some updates to work with, so here we go. I have two current main things based on previous feedback in the "Wishlist" forum post:

1. The Boss Warning text. Nice and big in the middle of the screen like other quest narrations. That works. While I would still love to hear a Roar across the scene, this works for the purpose.

2. The main camps (In the Plains Road it is the ruins for the Ebon Cultists and the same physical spot without the ruins for the Bandits) of enemies still recycle and respawn after a given timeframe. In theory, once you defeat the upper tier creatures, the scene should be finished. Mobs outside of the camp and Resources do not respawn.

 

I've had this happen to me a few times. Somewhat annoying when you want to harvest things and you're not finished when they respawn.

 

More feedback:

3. Reagent bags and Roasted Pigs work! However, Reagents from Reagent bags from Encounters do NOT stack with harvested or purchased reagents because they are tagged as No Value. Given that you don;t exactly get an amazing amount from the bags, making them the normal reagents with value would be better overall.

4. I'm MUCH happier with the staggered spawning of the higher level creatures instead of all at once. With the Liches and Atavists specifically, it gives a chance to off them one at a time or to isolate them more easily.

Overall, I'm really enjoying with how they are being fleshed out.

 

On the other hand, it's really great for getting a ton of experience over and over again.

 

This. It was one of the first things I noticed with the delayed spawning, that the liches in skeleton encounters don't all spawn at the same instant.

 

Wut reagents at 0 value ??? Can they be stolen or looted on corpse (when you die in pvp)?
If they are at 0 value, they cant be stolen or lost on body (like the addon store/pledge stuff); Can someone confirm this ?

 

That's a good point.

 

General encounter feedback, skeletons: Its fine. Its a lot easier,

Spoiler

the separate spawns of the 3 Liches per wave as opposed to all 3 x Liches together makes it hugely less challenging,

but I assume that is the point?

The main reason for my feedback, is I haven't seen the various wandering travellers in these scenes for a while, namely

Spoiler

the Naturalist, Monk and Bounty Hunter

. Are they still spawning in these encounters, but at a reduced rate, am I just a victim of some recent bizarre RNG? or is it bugged?

 

Agreed. I don't know that I saw them all in R54. I can't remember now if it was R53 or R54 that the new encounters started, but the new layout of undead and bandits all over the map means that they can get killed before you even know they're there. In other words, you've cleared the "main" mobs, but there can still be trash mobs all over the scene. One time I heard the dying screams of one, another time I ran across the dead body of one.

 

The quest givers still spawn.

Yes, they exist as valueless "No Trade" in Reagent Bags found in the camps on the ground (usually by the sitting stools in the bandit camp). You get about 5 or 6 per bag so it would take running a ridiculous number of Encounters to gain enough to use in PvP if they are no-loot anyway.

 

I think the idea was to have "emergency" reagents. But unless there's a way you can control which ones get used first, it won't be very useful. I have enough problems with the game picking a 100/100 ingot mold over a 15/83 ingot mold when smelting.

 

And here we are...

Area: Plains Road Encounter (RandomEncounter_Plains01_Road/Undead) Loc: (-32.5, 31.9, 41.2) DBG: UmFuZG9tRW5jb3VudGVyX1BsYWluczAxX1JvYWR8VW5kZWFkfCgtMzIuNDc1LCAzMS44NTYsIDQxLjE3Mil8KDAsIC0wLjgxMSwgMCwgMC41ODQpfDgxOC42NDA0fDE3Ljg0OTQ5fDkuNDQ2ODQy

@Sannio this is why players aren't seeing the NPCs that appear after encounters.

 

This is because you left a straggler enemy.

 

Does he have any good loot?

 

Before R54 there were no straggler aggro enemies on those encounters outside of the ones you had to kill for the NPC to spawn. In particular, skeleton encounter added undead that are barely visible lumps on the ground until you walk up to them, where before it had no mobs at all outside of the "ruins" area. These now aggro the NPCs when they appear. Then when you finish the last wave, the NPC spawns halfway across the map and is killed before you can even see him walking around. Lumps on the ground are much harder to see than walking NPCs.

1 gold, just like most passive NPCs. That's just enough to keep the NPC from immediately despawning on death.

 

Forest Road Bandit Encounter random (open) loot chest:



Not sure if this is intentional or not... I've seen on there a few times (the bedroll is always there now), and to my recollection, always open/empty.

 

Thanks for your awesome work on the Encounters, @Sannio ! I know some people aren't that much of a fan of them, but I find them a great mini/micro quest portion of the game, good for evenings when I don't have the time to devote to larger quests due to other engagements.

I can't wait to see what more may be in store in the future, both in improving the current ones and adding in more down the road.

Edit to Add: Just finished a Skeleton Forest Road Encounter, cleared out the Cultists and Liches first, harvested reagents around the shrine, then made my way around the perimeter ending back at the shrine and no respawn. Looks like the patch works!