What exactly are we doing here, Devs?

personally, i see nothing wrong with the archers. i think they are a reasonable challenge. i like them the way they are.

perhaps tho, a few high level scenes where the archers dont attack in groups of 10 tho would be nice?

 

All the people who didn't go Taming early are going, 'Holy **** how did you get that much XP ?'

All the people who went Taming early are like 'Slacker!'

 

In every cloned zone. In every bandits uniform. I see significant gaps held together with "stand-in" content. I am not being critical, it is all over at the moment. They have done an excellent job in using the stand-in content to allow players to explore each zone instead of placing a construction sign on 3/4's of the world saying "No Entrance under construction".

That is how I view the current situation and the developers have done a great job in areas I find most frustrating in new launches; Areas I am denied entrance to, unusable crafting systems upon launch and server stability.

 

Totally agree. My thoughts are that this issue probably stems from a lack of play testing. Persistent state makes QA unappealing, perhaps the Dev's could provide players with an incentive by allowing profit from QA to be migrated to live.
Also providing more detail on exactly what has been done would help player to know exactly what they should be testing. Gold balancing / drop reduction does not even appear to be mentioned in the patch notes.

 

Well, as expected this thread is having a really difficult time staying on topic...it is being derailed mostly by the usual suspects rushing to the defense of Portalarium with rather mindless and random points, when in fact really no defense is needed.
Let me make a last attempt to focus this thread on the topic I am concerned with..

FACTS:
1) Currently we have NO RAID UI
2) Currently we have no mechanics or incentives in place to support a RAID of players
3) Currently we often times cannot even get our 16-24 player group into the same scene to begin with (instancing gone wild!)
4) Currently we have no real incentive to raid the current raid content (Anyone ever try to divide 6gp, 24 ways?)
5) IF you manage to get more than 1 group in the same scene working together, 1 group tends to be more DPS heavy and that group ends up getting 80% or more of the loot and XP while the other groups are left with little or nothing at all.

QUESTIONS BASED OFF OF THE FACTS:
1) WHY do we currently we have a MULTITUDE of 90+ RAID content?
2) WHY is there more RAID content than high level single group content?
3) When high level players manage to find a high end scene to either solo or sigle group run, why does it then get converted to RAID content??
4) Why is there not MORE single player/single group content available for higher level players?
5) Why is development time being wasted on RAID content when there is not a clear progression path to get to that raid content?

 

I am sorry if you do not like my try at providing you with what I believe to be the answers to your questions. Repeating your questions does not make other peoples views go away. I honestly believe what I posted was true and it is a factor of size of the team, technical bottlenecks (the one programmer they need to fix A needs to work on B-G first), and human nature.

Those are the reasons you have unfinished content, RAID content without being able to join multiple groups, and a significant number of high level raid content areas (story driven and interesting to design).

Shrug.... Trying to be constructive

 

Do we actually know for certain what Alcedes claims is Raid content is actually intended to be raid content? It's not just way out of balance?

 

I can see what you mean, but i dont agree with you. It would take (hopefully) less than 5 minutes to make the stand-in areas, fill the gap, just by changing a number or two. But we will see in the future who is right.

 

What you are really saying is, the team has a really really bad planning?

 

A very valid question. And very possible. Sadly, there is no way to really know. We have to go based off of current player capabilities.
For example, Sanctus Spine, Wave 7 or 8. You are absolutely bushwhacked by about 10-12 level 90+ "Ancient" Kobolds, all with 2,100-3,500 HP, all spamming 200 damage crits, all at once...And they keep coming at you. Wave after wave.

Currently, that is more than 8 people can manage. So good question. Is that out of balance? Or is it raid content?

Currently, it is raid content. 8 players cannot manage that kind of wave. Now whether or not it was MEANT to be raid content remains to be seen.

That is just one example. Currently there are several areas where the mobs attack in such numbers that a single group is simply powerless. Try the Lich Room in the Rise. 10 archers attack you all at once, spamming 150-200 damage crits. And they respawn jsut about as fast as you can kill them. Another area where you clearly need 12+ people.

Venture deep enough into the Brit sewers and you will find another room filled with level 90+ archers and mages(10-12).

Over and over again, you find areas that require an army of players. And of course, there are no mechanics to test. No Raid mechanics. No incentive. No point.

So how exactly do you play test this mess?

 

So you're focusing on the idea that we have no Raid UI, yet you don't even know if what they gave us is what they consider raid content.

You don't really play test that solo. If it's too hard, it's too hard. You come in here and you give positive feedback about it. Maybe try to get a group of people to go deal with it and see how it works. Perhaps the intention was to see how many people it might take to finish an area so they can better plan in the future.

I'm kind of tired of repeating that things aren't balanced, but that's what people need to hear. It does no good to claim that things are broken... they are. This game isn't near done.

Maybe Port does want things to be more difficult, but perhaps the scale is just off. I'm fine with dungeons suddenly getting tougher. We don't need an even progression in every dungeon, and sometimes it's designed that the entrance to a hard area is buried inside an easier area.

A common game design idea is to force players, after having them shift into the middle parts of character progression, BACK into something they may have done when they were starting out. It's a great way to give the player a feeling of accomplishment and contrast how things used to be to the present.

 

The 3 things i cited have all been play tested with 8 man groups of level 75-85 players. This is why i used them as examples.

It was a bloodbath.

However, i assume you are a high level character to be speaking with such knowledge. if you would like, i can put together a group and bring you along to play test it with us.

 

Good point about the 10 archer thing. I personally never participated in a medieval war nor am a a war history buff, but from what I gather archers didn't just hang out in groups alone. Usually they were behind the front lines of soldiers or protected by some sort of barriers that prevented them from being in danger of direct assault. They were very dangerous that way.

However I suspect they would singnal a retreat if the enemy soldiers broke through the defenses because I woukd imagine that say 10 archers would get killed pretty fast in melee combat by expert soldiers in close quarter combat.

Not saying that player character archers should be made to be wimps but these dangerous npc archers ought to be scared as hell of the sword, bludgeon, and pole arm people if they get in range of their weapos.

 

Heh. I've never been much of a raider, so my judgement isn't worth much.

I trust you that it was overpowering. I don't doubt that at all. My only comment was to report it and move on, not writing about how broken it is and wondering how they expect you to do it when it's clear that they still have work to do.

 

my concern is that raid level content is getting more attention than it should while level 70-90, 1-8 man party content is being neglected entirely. And in some cases, it is removed entirely and replaced with more 90+ raid content!

 

That's a bit of hyperbole. 1-8 isn't being neglected entirely. We also don't know their intentions for (as you call it) Raid style situations. Perhaps they just over did it and never had the chance to walk it back. Perhaps they are collecting data. Every time you and your buddies went in to try it out, Portalarium has recorded data of character levels and what kind of results you got. They can use this to tune things later on not just there but all over.

 

Perhaps you are right. Could you kindly point me and "my buddies" towards a level 70-90 scene that is both rewarding and worthwhile while potentially being fun with a party of 1-8?
And by rewarding, i mean more rewarding than say, Deep Ravenswood, which is clearly level 20-50 content

 

I don't know what you are expecting. The game's not done. There isn't much more to say.

 

Need to see whole game window or sorry but I call bubtkus.

 

sure. you are welcome to call it as you wish. im ok with that. in fact, i prefer it.

but hey, i will humor you. why not?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b09gqfej02vbnqe/whole_window.PNG?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hdrxy3z255j0a1j/Sol_New_Phoenix.png?dl=0