March 4, 2017 Update - Discussion

[srand]

Patch notes over here (http://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?290-Patch-Notes-March-4-2017&p=2334#post2334). Discussion below! We are especially interested in your feedback on Gazluk Keep.

(And remember, please report ALL bugs you see through the in-game report tool - under the big ! icon on the top of the right-hand sidebar. You can discuss them here, of course, but reporting them in-game makes it MUCH easier for us to track them and get them fixed!)

[Ragefire1629]

Just logged in, but so far LOVE the larger bows. Also love the improved model / texturing, including the giant bat :D

[drivendawn]

Nice additions, I am looking forward to the graphics update. I am guessing this will be done to some of the other areas as well?

[Hood]

Due to laptop fan issues I can't manage to do much ingame right now. What I have tested, however, is creating new lvl 70 cow gear. Everything seems to be populating well on the craftables I've made (leatherworking). I do like the cow treasure effects in place right now, but they don't really sync well with the new combat system integrated in the Fall. I.e. boosting core/nice/epic attack dmg. I realize this just hasn't been done yet, and that's okay. It'll come.

I think something needs to be done about yellow glowy crystals though. While crafting today, if Awatu hadn't helped me for 20 minutes, my character would still be in a life-death loop. I have some in storage and I have to transfer them all to my inventory when I want to split them. It ends with me needing help from someone every time due to my lag. I can't drop the crystals before I die, and I can't store them in smaller stacks.

[Khaylara]

-My loading time are now extremely long, when i launch the game my screen stays white for minutes.
-I don't particularly like serbule's new look but since it's part of another update i'll wait for that one to comment.
-The new dungeon is really nice, better designed than Lab i thought, really exciting (thought I haven't been there for more than 2 hours). There's a lot of new content via drops there. I noticed a lot of alchemy, cooking and sidebar abilities scrolls along with orcish language scrolls and books. Looking forward to become fluent in orcish.
-Many of the drops are now single skill (I bugged it ingame but I thought I should mention here too).
-What Hood said about yellow crystals, maybe make them stack in max 10 or something. It would be bad for our storage space but better for our sanity.


Although this update is more for the 70s players I think the new dungeon is really good.

[Niph]

I like Gazluk Keep, and I think the balance is in the right ballpark. I little bit too easy perhaps.

We have been able to clear the two floors completely with a group of 10 (in less than 3h, I think), and we have been able to clear to one of the bosses (cannotrememberthename The Intransigent) but unable to kill it with a group of 4 (only one try, but I think doable with high-end gear).

The most dangerous trash mobs seem to be inflitrators, refraction spiders, and observers. The rest can be handled without much trouble.

I liked the wall traps and other little tricks. We need more of these. In fact, dungeons would probably be more interesting with pits, traps, secret passages elevators, etc.

From the hardcore player perspective, it is clear that in the current state of the game being hardcore only has downsides now. The best gear is no longer Great Winter Court, and the exit is not safe. As soon as I have a decent set of the trooper armor, I'm going to turn hardcore off.

I didn't see too many bugs, perhaps a few minor graphic glitches here and there. The FPS in general is pretty low and there seem to be a memory leak issue that makes you lag over time, but of course it's hard to provide evidence.

[Aedorn]

I will, first, echo what Niph said. There's very little reason to be hardcore now unless you like to torture yourself (and everyone around you, too.) You can level past 50 and 60 fast enough for that level of HC gear to not matter. I know plenty of other people complain about HC gear even dropping in the first place if they are not, so maybe now would be a good time to consider alternative bonuses for HC not gear related? Though I really do like HC exclusive items, and those complaints are really laughable to me, but maybe an alternative would be okay.

As for the dungeon, I wish I could test it as you intended, but it's very difficult to get a group that small unless it's all there is online. The groups tend to naturally snowball into larger parties, and eventually multiple groups. Everything has been inclusive to this point, so it's difficult to become exclusive. I know it was mentioned that there are limitations in the works and I look forward to those so it's not so hard to start.

There is one thing that's apparent, and that has to do with how difficult it becomes, even for large groups, to recover from being spawned on top of. Things don't respawn in the order they were killed, but rather in waves. So there's no 'warning' of a place starting to respawn, it just happens and if you're in that immediate area ... well, you're now fighting 1 to 50+ things at once you weren't planning to. This is true even while solo. Plenty of circumstance where you can be mowing through enemies left and right at your intended level, and still be killed because of the respawn swarm.

Finally, something I've been noticing is the loot being generated has been greatly biased towards single skill items. Plenty of X-only items (so Battle Chemistry only, Staff only, Shield only - or worse, shield+crossbow or archery+crossbow, and so on) or X-only + Endurance items. I know some of those mods were put in as a fallback so we wouldn't get legacy items, but right now it's almost as if (at least in terms of legendary/yellow specifically) the fallback mode is getting a second skill on it.

[Spiritfingers]

-My loading time are now extremely long, when i launch the game my screen stays white for minutes.
-I don't particularly like serbule's new look but since it's part of another update i'll wait for that one to comment.
-The new dungeon is really nice, better designed than Lab i thought, really exciting (thought I haven't been there for more than 2 hours). There's a lot of new content via drops there. I noticed a lot of alchemy, cooking and sidebar abilities scrolls along with orcish language scrolls and books. Looking forward to become fluent in orcish.
-Many of the drops are now single skill (I bugged it ingame but I thought I should mention here too).
-What Hood said about yellow crystals, maybe make them stack in max 10 or something. It would be bad for our storage space but better for our sanity.


Although this update is more for the 70s players I think the new dungeon is really good.

I was curios what changed about Serbule. I have been in Sun Vale since the update hit. Is the only thing added new rooftops?

[Khaylara]

I was curios what changed about Serbule. I have been in Sun Vale since the update hit. Is the only thing added new rooftops?

It looks different and I experience minor graphic glitches. The lighting seems different, the colors more saturated...it's an atmosphere thing, it looks less shabby.

[cratoh]

( off update topic - Please do not put a cap on yellow crystal stack size, keep it as it is thanks. Please instead make it possible to break and split stacks in the storage. )

Gazluk dungeon seems very nice. I like the design, and I never realised orcs were so.. clean! The recipes are a nice idea. Not too overpowered but enough that you would want to get them if you are a min/maxer. Language is a nice idea as well, although I was finding it quite hard to get to level 8 for the books. I like the fact there are plenty of language gated POI in the zone, and I like the fact that there are items to pick up like the staff in the weapon rack. You mentioned that there would be more corridors than normal in a building but they work fine, and do what they are intended to do, which is separate player groups, and add size. I like that the alchemy potions add to the hype for orc race, I know I'll be making plenty of those fot he exp bonus when the time comes! I like the water breath/speed potion, nice upgrade to the previous 2 water potions. I'm intrigued by the almonds, honeys and pears - where did those orcs get them? Is there going to be a hothouse area in the keep, or maybe there is and i just haven't seen it yet. It would figure, seeing as it is really cold out there.

Some massive, glaring issues though - they are exactly the same as the issues discussed elsewhere about group size, looting and risk vs reward. It's just another loot pinata. Facerolling in a giant gang through a well designed dungeon ignoring any sort of tactics or game play.

10 people in a group geared up well, 10 in the 2nd group, and a few stragglers in the 3rd, 1 elite mob giving loot to maybe 25 people. I really cannot fathom it, it's insane for item swamping, for inflation. It makes getting a piece of loot a real pain in the arse rather than something decent. Bags get filled so quickly for everyone that flow of dungeon gets slowed down as people have to stop to sort inventory so many times and phlog. It's fun for a bit, but really it is just massive rewards for zero risk. I'm sure I am not alone in preferring the chance of some really really nice loot over oodles of phlog-fodder.

Literally no risk. No item decay. No exp loss from dying. Only cost is a bit of food. People are wearing storage gear to fight in. I filled 150 slots maybe 5 times over in one short session. Came away with loads of prisms and phlog, books, learned all the meditation skills, all the flower arranging recipes, all the cooking recipes and a set of 2 great armour pieces, learned all the battle cries. Also got about 8 yellow pieces from rings to necks to armour. Made in the region of 60k in a couple of hours.

Just like Lab there is simply far too much loot and far too many people in a group - just because that's what people are like. Can't blame us - if an easy, fun way of doing a dungeon is offered, people will do it for the jollies, a couple of times but then they will do it cos there is nothing else to do, but they won't enjoy it because secretly they will know they didn't earn anything.

To make dungeons and group content more fun, more rewarding and have a longer shelf life I recommend the following:

Make Max group size 5 or 6 people. Any more than this and its just a mess of spell effects, people standing inside people, not being able to really enjoy tactical play, its a face roll.

Make encounters lock to group. This would in one step pretty much eliminate the dungeon-roll mega group thing. Also, there is no way to even prevent someone leeching currently if you are wanting to just play in a small group, and have some focused play. At least consider adding a command to allow people to lock a group.

Implement need/greed/pass roll in group. Make people think about what they are wanting to roll, make them feel happy when they get that piece drop!

Rein in the amount of loot dropped. Non named elite monsters should drop one piece of loot only. One piece!! Then the group of 5 or 6 should roll on who gets it. You have a smart-loot system that sets mods to the people who fight so hopefully it wouldn't be too difficult to make it so. This would also help with mega groups. Why be part of a mega group if there is only one piece of loot dropping? Why not make your own group and go down a different area and get a better chance at a reward. This would however, give people the option to still make massive groups if they wanted for specific dungeon goals such as killing boss mobs for quest updates or so on.

Get rid of chests in dungeons. Why are they even there? The mobs drop plenty of loot already without another source of inflation. Only way to keep them in game really is if you add keys to bosses, and then have chests solely in boss rooms.


I know that P:G has been like this for a very long time, and I know it is what people are used to. It is Alpha though, and 'nothing is set in stone' is the watch phrase. I really think that if people are honest, the current elite looting system is adding too much equipment to the game and making gearing up too easy, and the current unlimited group size causes many issues.

I do like large group play - but please, save it for raid content. make it so that 5 is group/20 raid or 6/24. Design a zone that drops really superb loot in the same formats I've laid out above and make it for a large group. so it is tough to do, scaled up in difficulty to cater for 20 or 24 people.

Anyway, thank you for the dungeon, I hope it will keep people busy.

[ShieldBreaker]

srand about video how do you want to get it and more importantly, what size in MB do you want?

[Tagamogi]

Non named elite monsters should drop one piece of loot only. One piece!! Then the group of 5 or 6 should roll on who gets it.
No, thank you. Been there, done that, much prefer Gorgon's system. I also like the chests in dungeons.
That being said, some incentives to form smaller groups instead of a giant zerg might be nice, I'm just not sure what form they should take.

Going back to the latest patch:

I like the changes to Serbule - it fuzzily looks prettier to me now. I'm definitely curious what the final look will be.

I haven't been to the new dungeon, so I don't really have anything too useful to add. I'm curious if there's going to be a way to learn Orcish outside a group dungeon? I really liked learning Goblinese, and I'd love to pick up Orcish, too.

The mods on looted gear seem odd to me as well. I didn't notice anything too out-of-line from drops I got in the Gazluk snail cave for bc/knife, but I played Anagoge on a spider/mentalism alt, and had generic mod loot outnumber loot with actual skill mods about 3:1.

[Sasho]

"Do like large group play - but please, save it for raid content. make it so that 5 is group/20 raid or 6/24. Design a zone that drops really superb loot in the same formats I've laid out above and make it for a large group. so it is tough to do, scaled up in difficulty to cater for 20 or 24 people."


I like this type of set-up. Make a difference between a GROUP and a RAID. If there's a group of 6, per se, then everyone (and only those) in the group that kills the mob can have access to loot the elite. If multiple groups are fighting together, than only the one that gets the kill claims the loot for their group.

Then have RAIDS, a different design of groups, that can be up to 20 people. This set-up is designed to give shared experience, notoriety, and kill credit (in the cases of killing a boss to remove a curse) to everyone in the RAID. Perhaps when a mob dies only 2 random people can loot any killed elite/non-elite mob, except for bosses. This could be indicated by those two characters hearing the "ding" when a mob dies so they know when to check bodies.

Just a suggestion to incentivize smaller hunting groups.

If devs also wanna be huge jerks, they could just program the bosses the read the number of players around them, and increase them in difficulty respectively. Don't know what circumstances would determine this or how it would work, but it would sure incentivize the group to dismiss leeches who do nothing but loot the whole time while everyone else works.

[Crissa]

No, thank you. Been there, done that, much prefer Gorgon's system. I also like the chests in dungeons.
Gotta say, I agree. The gear I get is mostly not useful, so why would I want it to drop less often?

[Silvonis]

srand about video how do you want to get it and more importantly, what size in MB do you want?

The best way would probably be to upload the video to YouTube and set it to unlisted/private if you don't want it to be a public video. That way you can send us a link instead of the actual video file(s).

[Niph]

I'm curious if there's going to be a way to learn Orcish outside a group dungeon? I really liked learning Goblinese, and I'd love to pick up Orcish, too.

Orcs outside drop level 0 orcish pages, iirc.

[Tagamogi]

Orcs outside drop level 0 orcish pages, iirc.
Ah, thank you! Obviously, I need to do more exploring in Gazluk!

[Hood]

Offering feedback again now. My opinion might be different from others, but it's really good to hear different opinions.

The design changes in Serbule have dramatically changed my opinion of the city. I always thought it was a very dark and drab and dirty looking place. It made Gorgon feel very....Diablo. That ambience didn't mesh well with Gorgon, in my opinion. My graphics settings are set very, very low, but what I've seen in Serbule now is a much more vibrant and bright choice of wood texture on all the buildings. It's beautiful in comparison!

Keep it up, Sandra. I am excited about the rest of the changes you have in mind for our favorite hangout place!

Sent from the mobile client - Forum Talker

[Yaksnot]

Feedback on GK,

-Difficulty I have been in on smaller groups and so far it always snowballs into a bigger group. for the smaller groups its actually quiet fun and feels like the right amount of difficulty. I say this because this is supposed to be a dungeon for people leveling that dont have maxed out gears ect. Top level players right now are all min-maxxing gears which is I feel something that players will not do until max level. so the difficulty is really hard to gauge at this point.

-Loot key drops, and chests. Right now there seems to be way too much loot. Key drops too high and the chests are just more loot to add to the already huge glut your getting in a run. that being said, if players are doing this as a leveling dungeon, I think it would still seem like a bit much. doing one food buff run in here gets me about 15 keys, and no idea how many items because we have to stop to phlog or DE the items.

-Language and recipes: yay and well done!

-Requested video: one guy tried already and we ended up getting rolled into a massive group so will try to run again with 6 only later this week

-LOS and Calls for help, there are a couple places in the dungeon where you will litterally pull down the house on your head for no apparent reason, the mobs are coming from around the walls? or something. cant quiet nail down exactly what is going on but have been in a few 5+ minute fights where adds just keep coming and coming and coming. Does not feel like it is what is intended

-look and feel: I really like the layout, great job on both the dungeon and the new armor and weapons. I think everyone who isnt bow or sword is jealous..especially of those amazing looking swords!

-Final thoughts: it is a fun place, loot feels slightly too high, key drop rate feels definitely too high, and I know the design was for a group or two to run around in here, and it IS a big place, but I dont understand what is to keep players from forming up together and rolling around in a massive group.

Yak

[cratoh]

-Final thoughts: it is a fun place, loot feels slightly too high, key drop rate feels definitely too high, and I know the design was for a group or two to run around in here, and it IS a big place, but I dont understand what is to keep players from forming up together and rolling around in a massive group.

Yak

Max group size 5 or 6; encounter locking; no loot outside group.


Further Requests:

1. Would it be possible to have an area in the start of the dungeon, say an extra room, corridor and second room that are suitable for solo players. Just for something to do when waiting for a group to form, or party member to arrive etc.

2. Please could you put a vendor there? It's a long way from any where.

[Corakhan]

Will the Serbule revamp include changes in the scale of buildings too?

[Niph]

-LOS and Calls for help, there are a couple places in the dungeon where you will litterally pull down the house on your head for no apparent reason, the mobs are coming from around the walls? or something. cant quiet nail down exactly what is going on but have been in a few 5+ minute fights where adds just keep coming and coming and coming. Does not feel like it is what is intended

This is because, when you (or your pet) attack a mob directly, it calls for help through walls and corners. If you just get near and there is a wall or corner between you and the mob, it won't see you. There is also a difference between Gazluk Keep vs Lab: in GK mobs have a higher aggro range compared to Lab mobs, with the exception of giant beetles. Therefore, if you are used to Lab groups, and attack a mob at an intersection or near the gate to a room, odds are you will pull more. And if you attack them too, you attract more and more of them until you have everything that in range of your nuke + aggro range on you...

[srand]

Hotfix notes (http://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?290-Patch-Notes-March-4-2017&p=2522&viewfull=1#post2522) are up!

As it mentions in the notes, we've made some basic tweaks to Gazluk Keep and we'll continue to fine-tune the dungeon based on your feedback. The feedback posted here has been really helpful so far! (But you can send in-game suggestions and feedback also, if you prefer.)

[Hoxard]

In regards to the mushroom blocking off access to the Scion of Norala, is this going to be fixed before the full moon?

[cr00cy]

Well, i didn only oen run of ne wdungeon (not full since my game crashed in middle) but it seemed a bit too easy so strenghtenign mobs is good idea.

Unfortunetly since yesterday i cnat play becasue of terribel fps and constant crashes :(

[srand]

In regards to the mushroom blocking off access to the Scion of Norala, is this going to be fixed before the full moon?

We can't get a full client update out that fast, so unfortunately no. :/ We're looking at what we can do to ameliorate that situation.

[Hoxard]

Oh well, guess that's one less token this month. Guess we'll just have no choice but to give in to lunacy and riot. Or whatever it is lunatic wolves do.

[Aedorn]

Done some small runs of Gazluk Keep finally, both before and after the hotfix. The two biggest pain points:

1) Respawns. I mentioned this before, but the way respawning works currently is hurtful. Spend 5 minutes clearing things out, and 1 second later they all respawn right on top because it came in a giant wave. It's almost as if there's one system that is clearing corpses, in which it will clear corpses at X minutes, and another system that looks for entities that no longer exist and should and then recreates them every X minutes. Then, every now and again, both of those happen so close together that what you literally just killed respawns immediately.

The increase to health pool exasperates the issue, and so a small group will clear less before this can occur. Combined with the increased range for enemy help calls, it can make for what would normally be doable a complete coin flip depending on a respawn occurring in the middle of a fight.

2) Enemy archers (Infiltrator). So let's say a group goes in without an archer for hookshot. All of the sudden pulling safely becomes a much bigger problem, and the challenge of it goes up considerably. The problem is due to the enemy archers having hookshot for themselves, which if you have a chain of archers they can (and do) hookshot multiple times. This is where 3 enemies can instantly become 10, 20, 30, or more. I have literally been pulled down an entire hallway length by chain hookshots, and I think it was the fastest travel I've ever done between two points! This is where having some spaced out ranged obstacles would be helpful - where enemies can see a player, and aggro on to them, but not actually shoot them. Not a lot, but definitely some spread out as break points that you can use as a "just in case I get hooked, I will only be able to go so far before the chain stops."

Finally, the most interesting thing about this dungeon is that there's a current optimal group setup that is far and away better than anything else. That's 3 sword/mentalism, 3 archer/druid. This wasn't true for Labs, and certainly never mattered for anything below that. Not to say you can't be other things, because that would just not be true, it's just that there is a combination which is far superior. This is because it includes a substantial amount of front-loaded burst damage that can clear trash fast, it includes healing, and several damage types of which nothing has immunity to all of at one time, along with supplemented power regeneration increases which makes it very effective for all current boss fights. It also includes just the right amount of AoE damage needed for clearing waves of non-elites, or even smaller groups of elites quickly.

[Yertle]

ameliorate

Nice word usage! +20 Lore!