Dev Notes, March 10 2017

[Citan]

Gazluk Keep

Building Gazluk Keep -- the new group dungeon in Gazluk -- took a lot more time to finish than we originally anticipated. A big chunk of the extra time was spent on basic optimization. This is a big dungeon with a lot of enemies, but still the dungeon had much worse framerate than we expected. We don't do a lot of client-side optimization during alpha, so I was pretty rusty at it, and there were new Unity tools to learn how to use, too. All in all, we learned a lot about how to optimize large-scale dungeons -- which should speed up work on the next big dungeon.

But despite that work, there are still framerate problems in Gazluk Keep. That's due to the large number of humanoid monsters in there -- namely, all the orcs! Currently, orcs use the same armor system as players do, so they're very expensive to render -- much more expensive than simple monsters like the giant worgs or spiders. Optimizing the humanoid-rendering system (including monsters like orcs, but also players) is definitely on our to-do list, but some other things have to happen first, so it'll be a few months before we get the framerate higher in there.


Group Size and Loot

We're still gathering feedback on the new dungeon, but one change is clearly needed soon: we need to lock down group sizes and looting rights. Right now, we're incentivizing everyone to group up into clumps of as many players as possible. That doesn't just sap the challenge from the dungeon, it's also just a lot more boring.

I mentioned recently that we were waiting on this change until the new GUI was done, but I've changed my mind -- I'm implementing it now and it will be in the next snapshot build. (The GUI display will be rudimentary, but good enough for now.)

Here's how it will work:

Hunting groups will be capped at six players instead of 10.
When fighting elite and boss monsters, only the first group that attacks it will be able to loot it.
The monster will become "locked" to the first attacker's group, with a little lock icon visible to other players and groups to let them know.
Each member of the locked group will get their own share of treasure, just as they do now, but no one outside that group will be able to loot the corpse.
This applies to elites and bosses only! Looting rights for other monsters will continue as they are now.
This only affects loot. Things like XP, combat wisdom, and curse removal remain as they are now.


That's it. It's actually a pretty small change, all told. It doesn't change other game mechanics, because right now I'm mostly concerned about the proliferation of loot.

This change is really important for group dungeons like Labyrinth and Gazluk Keep, but I'm also eager to see how this affects druid events. Right now, it seems that druids group up into mega-groups, sometimes with over a dozen people killing the same hapless monster, even when it would be much faster to split up. If druids start grouping in more sensibly-sized groups, several of the events will become much faster -- possibly too fast, it's hard to tell. That's information I need before adding the next batch of druid events.

We'll take it slowly and see the ramifications of this change, then make other changes as necessary. We’ll be watching our metrics, of course, but -- as always! -- we will need your feedback.


Coming Soon: Bard

The Bard skill is on deck and tentatively scheduled for the next snapshot!

The bard is a group support skill. Bards can provide great support in duos and small groups, but they really shine in groups of five or six, where their group-wide buffs have the most impact. Bard pairs well with Mentalism in that way, and in fact the two skills were designed to work well together. But there are lots of other possible skill pairings.

In order to use Bard abilities, you must have either a lute or a battle-horn equipped. (Or both!) Bard abilities include some very powerful short-term buffs, a couple of healing abilities, and a mesmerize ability. But bards also get some special types of abilities as well: Songs and Blasts.

You need a lute to use the bard's Song abilities. The lute is equipped in the main hand -- a change from the current snapshot, where lutes are off-hand items. There are three songs, each with different effects, but you can only play one at a time. Once you start playing a song, it will keep playing automatically until you move or play another song (or manually toggle the song off). While you play a song, you can't move -- since that ends the song -- but you can use other bard abilities, or perform attacks with your off-hand weapon. For instance, Bard+Archery seems like it'll be an interesting combination.

Blast abilities, on the other hand, use a battle horn. The battle horn (which sounds like a real-world shofar or similar animal-horn instrument) is equipped in the off-hand slot. There are three Blast abilities, all of which are attacks. Wielding a battle horn plus a melee weapon lets you create a "front-line" bard, such as Bard+Sword.

What happens to the existing music system? Nothing. The existing lute and horn instruments, such as the "Basic Lute", will technically work for bards' abilities, but bards will eventually want more specialized instruments with bard-specific buffs.

There are lots of other little details that are still being worked out. For instance, unlocking the bard skill is a bit tricky ... but I'll talk about that in the next dev note, since I'm still working out the exact details.


Bard Music

The bard's music has required some extra technical care. If you ever played classic EverQuest, you may remember their bards as being silent -- they strum their lutes but no sound comes out. Since EverQuest had combat music playing in the background all the time, a bard's music would just be cacophonous.

But in Project: Gorgon, we only use combat music sparingly, mainly for bosses. So I asked Conor Brace, our amazing music guy, to make it possible for bardic songs to play alongside the combat music. He cooked up variants of each bard song to accompany the different combat-music tracks.

Here the bard is playing the Song of Resurgence, and then combat with a boss begins. Take a listen. (http://oldforum.projectgorgon.com/specialmedia/BardTeaser.mp3)


Client Crashes

There's been an increase in client crashes recently. The odd thing is that the crashes don't seem to have started at the same time as a game update. Due to delays, the second-to-latest snapshot was live for a month, and the crashes seemed to start about two weeks after it was live. Normally when this happens it's due to a bad video driver, but in this case I don't think so. It may be some other OS change, like a DirectX change or something else.

I haven't been able to reproduce the crash here, but players have sent in crash logs that show the game is running out of video memory. That suggests there's a video-memory leak. The newest client snapshot does use a bit more video memory than the previous one, so the crashes may be slightly more frequent, but there's something else wrong in there.

We don't actually manage video memory directly -- it's entirely done by the Unity game engine. So the fix for this will have to come from a Unity engine update. In fact, it's been a while since we upgraded our Unity version, so the fix may have already happened. In the next snapshot, we're upgrading from Unity 5.4.4 to Unity 5.5.2. That's many months' worth of fixes and improvements, and hopefully it will address the underlying problem. If not, we'll contact Unity and get them looking at it.

These sorts of crashes have come and gone several times during the game's development. It's just an aspect of developing for Windows: all the drivers and devices keep changing, and it takes a while to sort the problems out. But they do get sorted out!

In the short term, if you're crashing a lot and you have a low-end video card (or a laptop without a dedicated video card), there is something you can do to improve things. From within the game, open the Options window, click Graphics, then Advanced Overrides. Override the "Texture Memory Restriction" to 2 or 3. Then restart the client. This override will make the game textures blurrier (the higher the number, the blurrier they'll get), but they will take up a lot less video memory!

(Speaking of blurry textures, if you ever wanted to see what the game might look like on an N64 console, set that texture memory restriction to 6.)


Next Snapshot

We are aiming to have the next snapshot out in about a week, maybe a week and a half, depending on how things go. In addition to the group changes and the bard skill, we’re working on a visual upgrade to Serbule. I think you'll like the new Serbule ... but I'll talk about that next week when I have some screenshots to show off!

[rastaah]

I don't know if we are supposed to respond but just want to say "WOW"! Amazing and impressed <3 (I am low level so should point out that my input is not really going to matter on the dungeon changes lol, just realized that!) I love the bard thing!

[FURY]

because right now I'm mostly concerned about the proliferation of loot.


This is something that I noticed a bit lately, the influx of new players, new areas, new levels, these all brought lots of activity into the game and was thinking about starting a thinking about starting a thread on how this is affecting the in-game loot economy. Most notable is that there seems, to me, to be a accumulating over-saturation of higher quality/tier items so much that players are Transmuting them mid dungeon run because they are running out of inv room from so many items vs being selective. I may still make a thread to see what others think.



Coming Soon: Bard

The Bard skill is on deck and tentatively scheduled for the next snapshot!

Quite excited to see this. This was one of the promised kickstarter stretch goals(the 40k one to be exact) and am quite happy to see this coming out to play for us so soon.

These next few incoming weeks look to be a roller-coaster with these changes. Better buckle up people! The alpha train is coming.

[Easylivin]

I understand the reason for reducing the group size and setting the loot to the first group etc. but this is going to get rid of guild runs of any dungeon. We setup a weekly lab guild run, not so we could zerg, but so we could join forces and do something together in the game besides guild quests. Some folks I dont see all week until that lab run. Now that will be gone. It would be nice to have something that would let larger groups of players have fun together.

A "workaround" for the smaller groups is to coordinate pulls and have the 2 groups alternate. Not that I'm looking for a way to break/abuse the game dynamics but simply looking for a way to have fun with 10-15 guild members once a week, and pointing out a potential flaw.

[Animal[801]]

Groups of 6 will ruin GK runs. GK is far too difficult for 6 with the current number of players forming groups there. Do you really want us ALL to have to be archer/druid? 10 was fine, but having a second group able to loot was stupid. PLEASE reconsider 6.

Also, while I agree loot was too frequent with the original patch, the loot now is pathetically bad and makes me want to quit GK altogether. Bosses are dropping blues and reds if lucky, and the GENERIC MODS are out of control.

[Easylivin]

;2612']Groups of 6 will ruin Mant runs and GK runs. GK is far too difficult for 6 with the current number of players forming groups there. Do you really want us ALL to have to be archer/druid? 10 was fine, but having a second group able to loot was stupid. PLEASE reconsider 6.
I can't say I saw any groups give GK a "fair attempt" to determine balance. Everyone went in with their full 60 yellow gear and multiple groups and slaughtered most things.


Thursday-ish last week I went through 1st floor GK with a single group of 6 players, everyone had their best gear. We wiped a 1-2 times but it is possible to make it through the first floor with 6 players in a group.

[Khaylara]

I like the announced changes overall, I know most don't. However as it was already mentioned you'd have to reroll Gaz Keep to how it was before patch (the mobs are a bit too tough for 6 even with OP gear).Also not happy to forcing us into being archer either we want that or not. For now in a group of 6- 3 have to be archer druid and 3 sword mentalism and that's excluding people who don't want to play those classes. I'm inclined to suggest reconsidering the amount of spawns, their HP and their "clustering". Otherwise we have to use an archer as tank basically and have spare archers for damage and hook shots.

[drivendawn]

Oh well, no knife wielding support bard for me.:( Still looks cool and I will check it out to see how it pairs with psychology. I am also eager to see the other changes as well such as the graphical upgrade and how 6 man groups and new looting rules will effect the game.

[Yertle]

I'm still young here, but it kind of seems like the proposed group/boss changes are like instancing but without the separate instances. The caps make it seem less 'realistic', I think it could be better if the Boss could recognize how many are within a certain distance or attacking and call on more minions/backup for a more even match.

[Tsugumori]

Bard on the horizon, I can see it now.

[Niph]

. New group size and loot rules
I like the change to the group size, but the loot rule, not so much. I think there is a difficulty in term of game design now: if you want the easy dungeon to be for 3 people, and the hard ones for 6, the small group may have a much easier life than the full one. When 3 in group, you can add a 4th and not worry too much about it. But if you have a group of 5, will you start moving now or wait for a 6th that may never show up?

Right now, there is in my opinion a significant difference in viability between a group of 5 and one of 6. I would go to Gazluk Keep second floor with 6, but with only 5 it sounds much harder. Of course, the dungeon can be balanced again to be easier, but my point really is that with a group of 6 no 7th character can follow you until the group has a spot for them. They only get trash loot, and that's assuming all non-elite trash are left open for them to loot.

So rather that keeping anyone else from looting elite mobs your group just killed, I would put a timer on it. And as time goes on, more and more people would be able to loot. This way, if 7 people play together (6 in a group, 1 outside), they can share the loot eventually, but if 12 play together it slows down everyone so much that it's no longer the most rewarding way to play the game.

This is assuming there won't be ways to add people to a group already deep inside a dungeon, and help them catch up fast. Something like a "summon to group" ability, that we don't have in the game yet.

. Bard
I'm surprised by the move restriction on songs. Why does a move stop the song? For one thing I don't understand the motivation. And there are lots of good reasons to move all the time: short abilities range, mobs in PG tends to push or pull you all the time, fights are short so everyone moves up constantly. I doesn't seem practical to me, and I don't understand why it is needed.

. Skills in group
This is to respond to several comments about how archers are required, and that if you're not archer/druid or sword/mentalist you're useless (ok, no useless of course, just... not perfect!)
First of all archers aren't the only ones that can pull infiltrators, spiders can too and I believe (but haven't tested) that pig could pull other mobs around infiltrators.
Second of all, anyone can be an archer for a pull, all you need is level 7 in the skill, a bow and some beginner's arrows. True, you only have one effective skill for the rest of the fight, but admit it, most of us have a main skill and a secondary that we can drop for a fight. On one occurrence, our archer had been chain pulled by several infiltrators and was lying dead far ahead. I just loaded archery, used that level 7 hookshot on the entire group of mobs in front of us until they were all killed one by one, and then reloaded my main build. No big deal.
Moral of the story: with some preparation a group without "archer" can do perfectly fine. Second moral: since they are excellent DPS anyway, bring all archers you can get. :)

[Silvonis]

A quick word to those comments who are suggesting that there is a ‘required’ skillset in order to be successful in Gazluk Keep: that is not necessarily a fair assessment as there are multiple viable skillsets that would be beneficial to a group progressing through the Keep. There will, of course, be certain skillsets that are more advantageous in certain areas of the game but the group composition does play a major role and just because a certain skillset is perceived as more advantageous does not mean it can’t be done or we are forcing you to use that skillset. Gazluk Keep is intended to be a difficult dungeon and should be a step up in difficulty. It should be to the advantage of the party to arrange a group composition and work through strategy to make progress. Simply looking to zerg with a giant group was never the intention of any dungeon or progressive content.

All that said, if you feel things are unbalanced in certain areas (Gazluk Keep is freshly implemented, so imbalance is expected) then try and provide us specific examples of your critique but remember – this is intended to be a hard dungeon and group composition and strategy matters! If you can record your groups progression through areas and point out specifics that would be fantastic feedback. You can use a free program like OBS and capture your adventure and upload it to YouTube and send us the link along with your detailed feedback (ie group composition, areas of concern,etc.).

[Aedorn]

I'm not sure where the 'required' portion came in for sword/mentalism and archery/druid. From my recollection I was the only to mention it, and said it was optimal.

Optimal != Required

Also, it seems there's a misunderstanding of why it's optimal. It's not about the hook shot - that is a bonus of it, not a need for it. That bonus can be completely eliminated by placing strategic blocks around sparingly.

Now, why is it optimal? It's that the split of skills between those 4 the group will never be at a disadvantage, and it's the highest trash clearing damage you can get (in Gazluk Keep, not in general) due to innate resistances throughout. Which mitigates the respawn issue. Notice I said trash and not boss. Everything tends to average out in longer fights, so bosses you can be vastly different and still average about the same. Trash clearing is about upfront burst damage and clearing quickly, and that clears the quickest here due to the resistances throughout.

Can you do it with other groups? Absolutely, never said otherwise. Will your group composition that doesn't have this very specific set (3 and 3), be as fast as one that does? No. Should it stop you from doing something different? No, don't be crazy.

I only mentioned it because it's the first dungeon that one setup is actually more optimal than another.

[Khaylara]

Detailing what I meant, hope I can translate my thoughts better this time. It's an older problem which will get worse when a group is limited to 6. Again, I like the lower group size and the loot lock. Please remember I said that:P

Now the thing is archers are horribly OP atm, it's not only about hook shot. It's the need for dps only (and some heals). There is no need already for tank or utility builds. Example cause Silvonis asked-Khaylara is fire+staff atm. Fire is inefficient in GK and staff...3 archers in group and I don't even have time to reach the mob and it's dead. My purpose as a tank/cc is gone. Why would I play that build when I can do archer+psych again and demolish everything. I reported the OP aspect already on Archery+Psychology and Archery+Mentalism. Since the balance is nonexistent, all you need is a group of 6 archers with druid or ment as secondary and you literally have no need for any other build.

The problem I see is pretty obvious really if you check the logs for the groups that are most successful in GK (hence my sword+ment and archery comment). I don't see a place there for AH, necromancy, UA, staff...honestly if you have only 6 slots in a group what would you take? Bunch of dps builds who wipe everything within seconds or you'll take the painful way with a bunch of staff, ice magic etc players? i believe that the lack of need for tanking or utility (or even dedicated healer) will force us to "clone" few successful builds and we continue the vicious cycle of zergs.

Bottom line is right now all that's needed in a group is raw dps (archery being the most OP skill atm, crits of 10k+ are really insane). That will become more obvious when the group size is smaller. I think that needs to be worked on so hybrid utility, tanks or healer builds are needed aswell.
My suggestions
-reconsider the +140 crit mods on archery, ment and psychology (more bluntly put nerf those mods and before anyone starts to flame, I have all the 3 skills i want nerfed)
-lower either the difficulty of the elites or the size of the groups they spawn in.
-introduce more "must have" abilities (like the knockbacks in Lab), mobs become vulnerable only if stunned/knocked back/asked about their mothers or whatever else. Please look at the overall picture: increase the mobs stats...what does that translate into in term of group members? You guessed...dps.

!Aedorn...Aws I'm guessing? I can't tell who it is but if so, yes, I believe you made that comment and it's accurate. And archery+psych/ment/druid is not OP only in GK, it applies to most mobs. Since I tried those myself I can say there's no comparison. Fire is supposed to be higher dps than archery and it's not. Strangely fire doesn't even work too well on frozen land mobs (you'd think the opposite would be true...). Someone who plays archer mentioned a 16 k crit today and I believe him, i saw him almost 1 shotting an elite in GK. That's not balance and there's no need for like my UA+ment build there for example...the only point for it would be the massive damage i do with mentalism. Again, dps and more dps. I am quite curious to try GK with a group of 6 with no archer or just one archer. I have a feeling that's gonna be a short adventure xD


I am curious what others think, people who play hammer, staff, shield, animals, AH, necromancy etc, do you see any need (actual need not "let's tag along with guildies") for your builds at level 70 in a group of 6?



I realize most disagree with what I said, my point is groups should not need only DPS players. And atm that's the situation, made worse by increasing elites's stats and by (in the near future) reducing the group size.

[Citan]

Yes, we'll be making a few balance changes for the next update, including changing how archery crits work. The existing archery mods were designed for the short-term because (at the time) you couldn't get most of the anatomy skills past about 30-ish, realistically, so the crit mods needed to stack to very high numbers to make the relatively-rare critical hits worthwhile. But that's not the case now, so the mods need to work differently.

We're also going to revise monsters and spawn rates in Gazluk based on feedback. I'm completely confident we will eventually have a fun play experience for six-group teams. It will take some iterations, that's all. Right now the orcs in GK are a bit too samey, mainly because all orcs in the game have the same damage-resistances. (Damage-resistance is by "species", so all snails have the same, all worgs, etc.) But I'm going to break that rule for GK and give some orcs different resistance types. I'm going to change the spawn rate and patterns as well. Then we'll see how that feels and get more feedback.

In the short term what I could really use feedback on is the various bosses -- which are hardest, which are easiest, and why? What needs to be done to make them work better? I have some decent feedback on the hallway elites, but not much on the bosses.

Also, just a note on "trash monsters" -- there are some trash monsters, but Elites are never trash. They drop top-tier equipment and have a chance for top-rarity mods. Even if the only thing your group can do in GK is kill elite monsters, you will still accumulate great loot and wealth, and that's by design. I know rewards are always perceived relative to other rewards, but elites are NOT trash in my book!

[Khaylara]

By "trash" I think people mean the non-elites, the trainees etc. I appreciate you got my point, I can run that dungeon np (admittedly I don't have the patience for a full run, it's a bit linear atm because every time I ran it it was with at least 15 people) but the (smaller) groups need ....I don't want to call it meta but that's the general idea. Otherwise everyone who's level 70 ends up playing the same 2-3 optimal builds and you end up with no data on anything else+we get bored.


On archery+psych/ment- I started experimenting with that after the halloween event last year when i decided to switch back to archery/psych. Iirc it's possible to apply 4 archery mods for 140 crit each+2 psych/ment mods on top of those (I tried for more but apparently the psych/ment mods have only 2 possible slots). I haven't unlocked them to 70 but at 60+ I had 600+ crit. I think that translates into 700+ at level cap, it's awfully high.

[Easylivin]

Detailing what I meant, hope I can translate my thoughts better this time. It's an older problem which will get worse when a group is limited to 6. Again, I like the lower group size and the loot lock. Please remember I said that:P

Now the thing is archers are horribly OP atm, it's not only about hook shot. It's the need for dps only (and some heals). There is no need already for tank or utility builds. Example cause Silvonis asked-Khaylara is fire+staff atm. Fire is inefficient in GK and staff...3 archers in group and I don't even have time to reach the mob and it's dead. My purpose as a tank/cc is gone. Why would I play that build when I can do archer+psych again and demolish everything. I reported the OP aspect already on Archery+Psychology and Archery+Mentalism. Since the balance is nonexistent, all you need is a group of 6 archers with druid or ment as secondary and you literally have no need for any other build.

The problem I see is pretty obvious really if you check the logs for the groups that are most successful in GK (hence my sword+ment and archery comment). I don't see a place there for AH, necromancy, UA, staff...honestly if you have only 6 slots in a group what would you take? Bunch of dps builds who wipe everything within seconds or you'll take the painful way with a bunch of staff, ice magic etc players? i believe that the lack of need for tanking or utility (or even dedicated healer) will force us to "clone" few successful builds and we continue the vicious cycle of zergs.

Bottom line is right now all that's needed in a group is raw dps (archery being the most OP skill atm, crits of 10k+ are really insane). That will become more obvious when the group size is smaller. I think that needs to be worked on so hybrid utility, tanks or healer builds are needed aswell.
My suggestions
-reconsider the +140 crit mods on archery, ment and psychology (more bluntly put nerf those mods and before anyone starts to flame, I have all the 3 skills i want nerfed)
-lower either the difficulty of the elites or the size of the groups they spawn in.
-introduce more "must have" abilities (like the knockbacks in Lab), mobs become vulnerable only if stunned/knocked back/asked about their mothers or whatever else. Please look at the overall picture: increase the mobs stats...what does that translate into in term of group members? You guessed...dps.

!Aedorn...Aws I'm guessing? I can't tell who it is but if so, yes, I believe you made that comment and it's accurate. And archery+psych/ment/druid is not OP only in GK, it applies to most mobs. Since I tried those myself I can say there's no comparison. Fire is supposed to be higher dps than archery and it's not. Strangely fire doesn't even work too well on frozen land mobs (you'd think the opposite would be true...). Someone who plays archer mentioned a 16 k crit today and I believe him, i saw him almost 1 shotting an elite in GK. That's not balance and there's no need for like my UA+ment build there for example...the only point for it would be the massive damage i do with mentalism. Again, dps and more dps. I am quite curious to try GK with a group of 6 with no archer or just one archer. I have a feeling that's gonna be a short adventure xD


I am curious what others think, people who play hammer, staff, shield, animals, AH, necromancy etc, do you see any need (actual need not "let's tag along with guildies") for your builds at level 70 in a group of 6?



I realize most disagree with what I said, my point is groups should not need only DPS players. And atm that's the situation, made worse by increasing elites's stats and by (in the near future) reducing the group size.Lets be clear about the OP builds as we aren't able to single skill anymore. I run archery/druid and have never crit that high. The issue with archery/ment or archery/psyc is the extra 300% CRIT damage. 700% is a bit much.
With archery/druid I do slightly better than average for dps, much better than previous builds but I never always get the kill. If I'm lucky I'll get the kill using 2-3 powerful attacks then I'm out of power for 2-3 mobs. Then I can maybe get the kill.

[Easylivin]

Yes, we'll be making a few balance changes for the next update, including changing how archery crits work. The existing archery mods were designed for the short-term because (at the time) you couldn't get most of the anatomy skills past about 30-ish, realistically, so the crit mods needed to stack to very high numbers to make the relatively-rare critical hits worthwhile. But that's not the case now, so the mods need to work differently.

We're also going to revise monsters and spawn rates in Gazluk based on feedback. I'm completely confident we will eventually have a fun play experience for six-group teams. It will take some iterations, that's all. Right now the orcs in GK are a bit too samey, mainly because all orcs in the game have the same damage-resistances. (Damage-resistance is by "species", so all snails have the same, all worgs, etc.) But I'm going to break that rule for GK and give some orcs different resistance types. I'm going to change the spawn rate and patterns as well. Then we'll see how that feels and get more feedback.

In the short term what I could really use feedback on is the various bosses -- which are hardest, which are easiest, and why? What needs to be done to make them work better? I have some decent feedback on the hallway elites, but not much on the bosses.

Also, just a note on "trash monsters" -- there are some trash monsters, but Elites are never trash. They drop top-tier equipment and have a chance for top-rarity mods. Even if the only thing your group can do in GK is kill elite monsters, you will still accumulate great loot and wealth, and that's by design. I know rewards are always perceived relative to other rewards, but elites are NOT trash in my book!With a 6 person group in good 60-70 gear... Most difficult is the healer suit dude, he lives for a long time even with the crystals gone.. Then golem, I use all my abilities and have about 10 seconds of CD before I can do attack again, but then the golem dies soon after I can attack. Dog is the easiest on the first floor, too easy maybe. 2nd floor I haven't given a "fair shot" with 6 players so I can give the feedback you need.

[Sheawanna]

We're also going to revise monsters and spawn rates in Gazluk based on feedback. I'm completely confident we will eventually have a fun play experience for six-group teams. It will take some iterations, that's all. Right now the orcs in GK are a bit too samey, mainly because all orcs in the game have the same damage-resistances. (Damage-resistance is by "species", so all snails have the same, all worgs, etc.) But I'm going to break that rule for GK and give some orcs different resistance types. I'm going to change the spawn rate and patterns as well. Then we'll see how that feels and get more feedback.


This here will make all the difference IMHO making more classes viable .

[ShieldBreaker]

Citan shouldn't the orcs be able to use their own battle cries. If they had a bunch of different ones, they could really mix up their resistances and chances of being hit. If each type of orc had one that buffed all their nearby allies, then maybe a more balanced group would be needed to take them down. A ranged evade could really slow down an all archer group. So you don't have to break the rule about Damage-resistance is by "species". Probably difficult but I think if one member of an orc group got hooked shot in sight of the group, they would start buffing themselves for range evade or maybe a pull protection. Of course the different groups all have different armor so could bend the rule by following what they types should be wearing as armor.

[Crissa]

What is the time out on the elite lockout?

Does it apply to all the newbie dungeons? Will we have players just sitting around waiting in the wings to get the boss, hoping someone doesn't run past and lock it again?

[Hoxard]

I am curious what others think, people who play hammer, staff, shield, animals, AH, necromancy etc, do you see any need (actual need not "let's tag along with guildies") for your builds at level 70 in a group of 6?


Not at all, not as a deer nor as a wolf. On the rare occasions that I can get into melee range before the target dies, I do such pitiful damage I feel like I shouldn't have even bothered. Sometimes I can get kill credit for non-elites if I have fast enough reflexes and blow all my big spells, and sometimes I can actually hit the boss with all of my attacks before he dies. I don't even feel like I belong in the dungeons at all. It's like playing with people twice my level.
The only worthwhile things I bring to the table come from mentalism and first aid. Choosing to play as an animal is a selfish choice, when I could easily leave animal form and play a significantly more useful skill instead. I already feel bad about showing up to dungeons undergeared. Doing it in a suboptimal spec just feels rude.

[Hood]

Yea as cow/unarmed I feel similar to how hoxard feels about being melee. It has been hard for me to do enough dmg or use enough skills to gain aggro.tanking is just being an add magnet right now-- I get the mobs no one has started killing, and ofc the elites if they live long enough for me to get their attention. I tend to walk past non elites in order to pull elites.

Citan, my feedback is a nerf to those crit mods, a sidebar crossbow hookshot ability, and one usable by animal forms as well.

Maybe that's too much to ask from a game design standpoint.

Sent from the mobile client - Forum Talker

[Khaylara]

I feel the same about the melee skillsets I use, that's why I put the question out there. I remember it used to be like that in wolf form, you feel like you can't contribute to the group. In dungeons I tend to use almost exclusively ranged, high damage abilities from the skillsets I have. Sometimes I just leave a group or don't go because it feels like leeching and I'd rather leave a slot for someone who does more damage (even though my char is in max enchanted lvl 70 gear I can't get close range to mobs cause I aggro too many or my utility skills aren't needed so technically I'm leeching off the group's damage).

I'm not sure "feels" are viable feedback lol but how it is for me in GK...Wait back till an archer pulls, shoot a ranged skill (if I have time), loot. Rinse and repeat. I'm thinking in a 6 people group (as opposed to a 27 people mob) it won't be much room for "leeching" and it will be some room for group strategy and group roles.
I'm really excited about the tweaks Citan mentioned he was gonna make.

[Easylivin]

I feel the same about the melee skillsets I use, that's why I put the question out there. I remember it used to be like that in wolf form, you feel like you can't contribute to the group. In dungeons I tend to use almost exclusively ranged, high damage abilities from the skillsets I have. Sometimes I just leave a group or don't go because it feels like leeching and I'd rather leave a slot for someone who does more damage (even though my char is in max enchanted lvl 70 gear I can't get close range to mobs cause I aggro too many or my utility skills aren't needed so technically I'm leeching off the group's damage).

I'm not sure "feels" are viable feedback lol but how it is for me in GK...Wait back till an archer pulls, shoot a ranged skill (if I have time), loot. Rinse and repeat. I'm thinking in a 6 people group (as opposed to a 27 people mob) it won't be much room for "leeching" and it will be some room for group strategy and group roles.
I'm really excited about the tweaks Citan mentioned he was gonna make.

Is this an issue with GK or in general? "needing" an archer was never an brought up in lab or any other dungeon.


I was UA at first but I never felt like I contributed to groups. I didnt do reasonable damage but I could stun, which was ok I guess. Then I switched to archery and felt like at least i could do average damage at the time and could use both my hands.

[Hoxard]

I think another thing that would really help would be to space out the spawns more. Currently the safest strategy is to pull the monsters one by one as you make your way down the hallway, because the mob density is too high to safely pull more than one. This is why hookshot is so highly valued, and a big part of why ranged is so much stronger than melee. During each pull, there's a significant period of time where the ranged attackers can attack, but the melees have to stand back and wait otherwise they'll bodypull a whole pack of mobs.
If mobs were spawned in tighter clusters, with more space between them and less patrolling(on an aside, synchronized patrols would be awesome), it would increase dungeon difficulty, increase the importance of tanking, healing and support abilities, even out the gap between melee and ranged somewhat, require more strategy, and allow the variation between individual mobs to show more clearly and have more impact. It would also alleviate issues with pack respawns, because there will be more space to work with and less of a chance of being directly in the middle of a respawning pack.
I think clustered spawns would be particularly beneficial for strategic diversity. Each group would need to assess what mobs they could easily handle and what mobs were more of a threat, and there would be more need for coordination on trickier pulls. It would make giving feedback regarding balance significantly easier, both in regards to dungeon difficulty and player strength. It might also help with the whole "Spam CC on it til it dies" issue, since there would be a need to spread out CC.

[Khaylara]

Is this an issue with GK or in general? "needing" an archer was never an brought up in lab or any other dungeon.


I was UA at first but I never felt like I contributed to groups. I didnt do reasonable damage but I could stun, which was ok I guess. Then I switched to archery and felt like at least i could do average damage at the time and could use both my hands.


There are archers in the groups you run with, 2-3 usually:) If you check autopsies sometimes you'll see the amount of damage nim does for example compared to the rest of us. It's just the OP class of the moment, that's all.

"I was UA at first but I never felt like I contributed to groups" This is the part that needs rethinking imo (and Citan said he would). A group should be viable with diverse builds in it not with just high dps ( it doesn't matter if the high dps is fire, archery, ice or whatever else happens to be OP at a certain time)

[poulter]

Potential spoilers contained in text – do not read if you haven’t run Gazluk Keep already



Some observations and comments on experiences in Gazluk Keep (GK)
These are my personal comments, yours may be different, so please share and discuss. That is part of the beauty and value of diversity

Summary /TLDR:
Excellent dungeon and very impressive work
A challenge with 6 experienced, and coordinated people, but doable. Expect to wipe about 2 times /full run
All specifications and builds are viable, but some are more effective (i.e. ranged)
Prepare for GK: Bring resurrections and healing spells – resurrect during combat
Be disciplined – use pullers and don’t rush in. GK will ‘bite you hard’ if you don’t
Might be just slightly too difficult for a starting level 60+ group at present

Concerns:
Dungeon feels a bit linear – most groups have a set route they run every time
Inconsistent calling of monsters (Adds) for help: The same monster groups can overwhelm a party on one run, but not on another. Mechanic seems inconsistent
Six people group limit may make it very difficult for a starting level 60 to 70 group to complete. Suspect this is by design, but people need to be aware that it is by design and is expected to be a step-up in difficulty

First impressions: An excellent piece of work that will keep testers (and later on, players) entertained for a long time. It is a step-up in difficulty over Lab and if you don’t treat GK with respect, or adequately prepare for it, then you will wipe – often and hard.

Group composition:
All builds and specifications are viable, but some are more effective and efficient i.e. ranged builds.
The key is in preparation:
Make sure very one has 2 resurrections (you will need then for a group size of 6)
Use stuns and rage reduction spells frequently (especially on bosses)

Group sizes:
4 or less people: Wait for more people. The elites will wipe you repeatedly
5 or less people: You can clear the elites & some of the bosses on level 1, but it is hard
6 to 7 people: Doable and challenging. Expect to wipe 2 or 3 times during a run with most people’s resurrections on permanent cool down
8 plus people: Gets easier with more people, but less challenging. Don’t do it, if you want a challenge

Group tactics (Elites):
Initially, Lab tactics were utilized i.e. a body puller (‘tank’ /survival spec) who grabbed a monster’s (mob) attention and brought the mob to the group – this proved to be too dangerous in GK due to the number and grouping of mobs, resulting in many deaths /wipes
Modified to a puller followed by an archer’s hook shot to put distance between mob being attacked and others

Current tactic is to use an archer to pull with hook shot and then a second archer to hook shot the mob into the main tester /player group. This reduces the number of deaths and places the mob directly on top of the melee so that they can engage
Note: Hook shot seems to have line of sight issues and succeeds only about 60% of the time

Group tactics (Bosses):
Once the boss attacks /defenses are known they are all downable by a group of 6. Some are easy (e.g. barghest), some are difficult (e.g. golem – sorry, can’t remember the actual name)
By adapting to the difficult bosses (e.g. using a dedicated healer on golem plus rage reducing spells, they are manageable, but still challenging with a group of 6)

The key to downing bosses is:
Have resurrections available and using them during combat (on golem boss expect to 1 or 2 deaths)
Use rage reduction and stuns- straight off cool down
Ensure all players use their healing spells as required
Use 1 player with a dedicated healer spec plus a battle chemistry golem casting healing mist etc.

Personal experiences:
I have run GK with groups of 4 to 14 people. 4 is very hard (& demotivating), 14 is easy (& boring), 6 to 7 people is fun and challenging
The key to succeeding is preparation and discipline no matter what group size is used.

Specifications used:
I currently carry 4 sets of gear in GK and swap between them as circumstances require

Archer /Druid (Pask with augmented gear) - most group utility and combined damage Recommended – though archer with mentalism or psychology are also viable

Archer /Battle Chemistry (BC) (mixture of Pask and pink gear) – used for healing golem
Support /specialist build. Suggest every group considers a BC with healing golem

Mentalism /Druid (crafted gear) – Healing build. Really useful on GK level 2 and with the more difficult bosses. Tend to swap to this build from Archer /Druid as and when required

Fire /BC (crafted pink gear)- Viable, not a top DPS specification compared to archer, but does decent damage. I had most fun with this build.

A bit about me:
I run a toon named ‘Aws’ and like to mix and match builds, skills and tactics with the object of finding new ways to ‘beat’ the game engine and identifying wrinkles /ways of approaching challenges that the developers never thought of.
The challenge for me is in the journey, not the destination i.e. downing a boss the first time with a revised build /approach is great, but I have little interest in doing it the same way dozens of times.

[Khaylara]

Small reminder- we wiped yesterday repeatedly in 8 ppl group:) And some are really OP in the way that they're older players with above average gear. Citan said once (when 50 was cap level i think) that some players were effectively level 80 due to their gear and so many maxed skills.

Something about drops that I wanted to mention but I've waited to see what other people get to compare. Most yellow drops seem to be mostly one skill. At least mine were. Some have 3 skill requirements (mostly the Flaming Swords which have sword on top of the other 2 skills modded). I frequently get unsuitable weapon types i.e. mostly shields, orbs, flasks and bows for UA+mentalism, I haven't got any half decent cestus or claw. Also on the drops-skills that I don't use, too often compared to before the GK update. Drops with skills that I have never used like Spider, Animal Handling etc. I know that active skills are not 100 % determining the drops mods but most drops I get are either 1 skill or with skills I don't have.
I reported this ingame and I've seen others linking yellow drops with these issues.

[poulter]

About half my gold /yellow drops are 'non-relevant' i.e a skill that I am not using (I seem to get quite a few animal skills) during the run or a shield/ orb etc. when using archery. On average, I get around 6 golds drop /full run. though it can be very peaky

[Easylivin]

Small reminder- we wiped yesterday repeatedly in 8 ppl group:) And some are really OP in the way that they're older players with above average gear. Citan said once (when 50 was cap level i think) that some players were effectively level 80 due to their gear and so many maxed skills.


where did you wipe? I think the 2nd floor NE is not for a group of 6 lvl 70s. maybe 3 lvl 125s.

[Khaylara]

We had partial wipes few times that run but it was admittedly more fun than zerging with 2 groups. I do have the same doubts about a 6 people group being able to fully run that dungeon, even if they're really good and geared players. Maybe if the mobs get tweaked a lot.

[Lord Dreamo]

That music clip was awesome and downright brilliant!!

[Andelas]

Firstly, the key-drop rate on the manticores is low, and these are elites that only spawn once per hour, so i can see a problem for people wanting keys for Labyrinth. Secondly, guilds will often arrange runs through dungeons for larger groups and a maximum group size of 6 will limit these runs. Thirdly, i think there will be complaints when high levels blast past low level groups in the early dungeons and leave them locked out of the bosses.

I completely agree that zergs are boring and trivialise otherwise challenging dungeons and also that archers are currently OP.

[nimto]

The only realy bad thing is the fast respawn rate with a group of 6 people we arent fast enough to avoid them from dropping on our heads.
a 8 person group can handle it in full lvl 70 legendary gear but a 6 person group will most likely die.
reversing it to the old difficulty will fix the problem and makes it possible to enjoy the dungeon with a 6 player group.
Pls look at what is cosing the fps to drop to around 10 fps even with a i7 nvidia 980 gtx 16 gig ram, everybody seems to have this problem no matter what computer they are using.
Overal i like the brightness and the dungeon.

[poulter]

Further feedback on GK:

6 vs 7 man groups:
Note: Most of the members of these groups were experienced players with level 70 skills and a mixture of level 70 /60 high end gear. Everyone had run GK multiple times before. 4 of the 6 /7 took part in each run

6 people: Challenging run. Difficult with several wipes. Had to focus all the time
7 people: Challenging, but almost felt it was a ‘farming’ run

The differences between 6 or 7 people in the group was highly noticeable
Note: Even for this group, equipped with current top-level gear, GK was no pushover

Bosses:
Whether with 6 or 7 people, they were downable. Major difference was it took longer with 6 people

Elites:
Using pull and hook tactics, no real issues if people stayed back and didn’t rush in
Major issues were encountered with rapid re-spawn rate and multiple packs of elites suddenly aggroing from other rooms (for no apparent reason)

Inconsistent elite pack behavior:
As previously posted, packs can behave differently on runs – sometimes they (seem to) respawn quicker or attack without (apparent) cause – guess some orcs have better hearing?
e.g. one area (by the tavern) that on an earlier run had been cleared without incident in a group of 4, resulted in 4 consecutive party wipes with a party of 6. We had double spawns and circa 3 packs of elites attacking us – on each attempt. We ran the same area next day in a group of 6 with no issues

AOE behavior: Raised as a bug
Relating to the inconsistent pack behavior at the tavern, on one occasion it was noticed by several players that Heavy Multi-shot (archery) shot through walls plus hit non-engaged elites. This was unexpected as previous testing suggested that AOE only affected already aggroed monsters



Feedback: GK - A tale of ‘Hack and Slash’ with a ‘Monty-Haul’ reward system

Accessing GK:
Unless you can fly into the keep, getting through the multiple monsters roaming outside it is a pain. There are too many for most single players to survive their onslaughts.
The problem can be avoided by assembling as a group outside GK and clearing the orcs
Suggestion: Reduce the number of orcs who patrol /attack outside GK

Screen loading times (entering and leaving GK):
Since last patch, these have significantly lengthened (for me at least). On leaving GK (e.g. to help clear orcs outside), it is not uncommon to be at half-health and under attack from 6 orcs before the screen clears and you can act
Suggestion: Remove /reduce the number of orcs by the GK entrance

Frame rates:
These are very poor - some times as low as 10, but more often around 20. Could it be caused by the amount of items people leave lying around due to the large amount of loot drops and available inventory space?
Suggestion: Optimise GK code /reduce number of drops

Chest keys:
1 key /chest: Most people had an over-abundance of keys
3 keys /chest: Most people are short on keys and unable to open all the chests /run
Suggestion: Set to 2 keys /chest and review

Loot drops:
It feels that loot drops in GK are too random in relation to skills used and skills dropped-items have, e.g. archer /druid can receive deer /druid etc.
It is recognized that by design skill drops have a small % of being random, but in GK, non-applicable skill drops seem to be common, rather than rare

The impact of this is made worse by the number of single skill set combined with Generic drops that are received
Suggestion: Review code and reduce the occurrence of non-relevant skill drops

Loot quantity /disposal:
Currently, GK is a loot-fest where you get so many drops, that you spend a large amount of time managing your inventory and phloging. Several players (including myself) only pick-up pinks and golds now – due to there being so many drops
Suggestion: Review amount of loot dropping. Reduce /change?

Vendors: Spoiler
Although, there appears to be an embryonic vendor in GK, it is not active now. The nearest vendor is half a map away (& doesn’t pay full value?)
Currently, people suicide in the start area in GK, enter the light, sell to vendors in Serbule, teleport back to Gazluk, re-enter GK – rinse and repeat. The amount of loot drops makes this worthwhile and presumably has a knock-on effect on the economy
Suggestion: Add a black-market vendor e/g/ 'shady orc' to Entry area

Augmentation:
Current skill limits result in < 20% of augmentation attempts being successful i.e. your new level 70 gear is very difficult and expensive to augment. If your current level 60 gear is max. crafted and augmented, the level 70 gear gets left in the bank
Suggestion: Raise skill levels cap by 10

Crafting max. level 70 gear
Without Vervadium (i.e. a Lab. run), you cannot craft several level 70 recipes (e.g. tailoring and leatherwork)
Suggestion: Give each GK boss a chance to drop Vervadium

Comparing Lab to GK: My personal comments
It may be nostalgia, but I prefer Lab to GK – despite having run Lab dozens of times and for many months
Lab has variability, a start and an end (loot the chests on the way to killing Asterion and then Claudia). It is unforgiving, but rewarding. It has stood the test of time

GK by comparison feels linear, repetitive and mechanical – with no natural ending (i.e. story line). The loot rewards are greater in quantity, but it feels like an old-style Hack & Slash dungeon (with excessive loot i.e. ‘Monty-haul). Technically, it is ‘better’ than Lab, but after doing many runs, it feels emotionally unrewarding.
I can run Lab 2 or 3 times /day and enjoy each run. GK, I go for the loot and mechanically kill monsters – at the end of several hours, my enjoyment level is way below that of a Lab run.
Suggestion: Raise Lab to level 70 difficulty or Add ‘immersion’ content into GK

[Khaylara]

"Chest keys:
1 key /chest: Most people had an over-abundance of keys
3 keys /chest: Most people are short on keys and unable to open all the chests /run
Suggestion: Set to 2 keys /chest and review

Loot drops:
It feels that loot drops in GK are too random in relation to skills used and skills dropped-items have, e.g. archer /druid can receive deer /druid etc.
It is recognized that by design skill drops have a small % of being random, but in GK, non-applicable skill drops seem to be common, rather than rare

The impact of this is made worse by the number of single skill set combined with Generic drops that are received
Suggestion: Review code and reduce the occurrence of non-relevant skill drops"

This is noticeable even for someone who doesn't run GK as much as Aws. Out of an average of 4-6 yellow drops per run only 1 or none are actually usable for me. Also most of the weapons are unsuitable (i.e. lots of shields for unarmed and archery players)

"Loot quantity /disposal:
Currently, GK is a loot-fest where you get so many drops, that you spend a large amount of time managing your inventory and phloging. Several players (including myself) only pick-up pinks and golds now – due to there being so many drops
Suggestion: Review amount of loot dropping. Reduce /change?

Vendors: Spoiler
Although, there appears to be an embryonic vendor in GK, it is not active now. The nearest vendor is half a map away (& doesn’t pay full value?)
Currently, people suicide in the start area in GK, enter the light, sell to vendors in Serbule, teleport back to Gazluk, re-enter GK – rinse and repeat. The amount of loot drops makes this worthwhile and presumably has a knock-on effect on the economy
Suggestion: Add a black-market vendor e/g/ 'shady orc' to Entry area

Augmentation:
Current skill limits result in < 20% of augmentation attempts being successful i.e. your new level 70 gear is very difficult and expensive to augment. If your current level 60 gear is max. crafted and augmented, the level 70 gear gets left in the bank
Suggestion: Raise skill levels cap by 10"

These are related issues for me. I actually take longer than others when we have phlog breaks for one simple reason-I actually pick up the green and blues too and have to sift through them and keep duplicates. It sounds stupid but I keep them for augments extraction because I have more chances to extract an augment out of a green or blue. I keep duplicates in case the extraction fails (which is very often).

There are 2 problems here actually, one is the cap level for augmentation. Since we already have the necessary abilities, allow us to gain exp in order to raise augmentation to at least 60 to lower the chance of failure.
The second problem is the generic mods. Since rolling skill specific mods into generics -in order to isolate and extract the mod you want- is currently impossible, my suggestion is looking into it and maybe re-implement that feature, it was really useful.
It is frustrating having to carry around a load of greens or blues and ending up with either no augment or with the wrong one.

[Aedorn]

Loot drops:
It feels that loot drops in GK are too random in relation to skills used and skills dropped-items have, e.g. archer /druid can receive deer /druid etc.
It is recognized that by design skill drops have a small % of being random, but in GK, non-applicable skill drops seem to be common, rather than rare
...
Loot quantity /disposal:
Currently, GK is a loot-fest where you get so many drops, that you spend a large amount of time managing your inventory and phloging. Several players (including myself) only pick-up pinks and golds now – due to there being so many drops
Suggestion: Review amount of loot dropping. Reduce /change?


I'm hesitant to suggest changing the amount, because what's happening now is the amount of usable items is very low. This is very much luck of the draw right now, where some people have managed to get quite a bit of what they wanted, and others (myself included) have spent nearly every single day in there and still only have 2-3 pieces that are kind of 'okay', but still not quite there.

If the argument is because we can empty vendors of money faster now - that is simply not true. It was very much doable before, and in some cases in shorter amounts of time (due to the Mant/Pask/Lab rotation and how easy it was.) Doing is solely via Gazluk Keep drops is much often slower, because of the required effort (in time and people.)

As for inventory management, my suggestion is GUI related (I know, no changes until the new GUI.) That is - add an option to decompose or distill the item when you loot it instead. Still allow for the old way of doing things, but give the option right up front. Make it instant at time of loot, because it's not really a moment of thinking whether you will want it later or not. (Unpopular opinion incoming: Kind of sounds like a VIP feature to me, too, as similar options we're given in other games.)



Comparing Lab to GK: My personal comments
It may be nostalgia, but I prefer Lab to GK – despite having run Lab dozens of times and for many months
Lab has variability, a start and an end (loot the chests on the way to killing Asterion and then Claudia). It is unforgiving, but rewarding. It has stood the test of time

GK by comparison feels linear, repetitive and mechanical – with no natural ending (i.e. story line). The loot rewards are greater in quantity, but it feels like an old-style Hack & Slash dungeon (with excessive loot i.e. ‘Monty-haul). Technically, it is ‘better’ than Lab, but after doing many runs, it feels emotionally unrewarding.
I can run Lab 2 or 3 times /day and enjoy each run. GK, I go for the loot and mechanically kill monsters – at the end of several hours, my enjoyment level is way below that of a Lab run.
Suggestion: Raise Lab to level 70 difficulty or Add ‘immersion’ content into GK

I hate Lab. It was a necessary evil, but I truly hated it. World of WarCraft made the beginning to end dungeon run popular, and I hated it coming from EQ. There are more 'immersive' elements in GK than Lab by far. I know that Lab wasn't meant to be run that way, but by the time I got to it that's how it was always done. That being said, there are problems with it that may make it less fun for some people so let's talk about that:

1) It's not meant to be run beginning to end. Trying to get that through to people is an uphill battle when they've been doing Lab for so long because that very much is beginning to end. All the dungeons prior to Lab are not treated this way - you don't run crypt beginning to end, or Kur Tower, or the Goblin Dungeon, or ... etc, etc. Lab you do, and you would continue to do so because it was the 'end game' for so long. Now GK is the end game and so the natural reaction is to do it the same way as you've been doing it, but it wasn't meant for that. Hell, Lab wasn't meant for it either but for some reason that became the standard because there's no good reason to sit anywhere inside and farm for awhile. GK there *could* be plenty of reasons to sit and farm for awhile. Which is great, because when the level cap goes up even further, it's going to make a lot more sense.

Right now, that aspect doesn't make sense to people because there's no reminder that this is barely more than "half way" to max (assuming 125.)

2) GK feels more like EverQuest (1, never played 2) did, where you would take a group in, find a spot, and sit awhile. The problem is that groups don't want to do that, because there's no incentive to actually do it. You can't farm bosses, because of the 3 hour loot limit. You *could* farm Snowblood Misery armor on the 2nd floor north side, but nobody wants to do that either except a select few. Which is sad, because for the actual armor stat, it's the best you can get in some slots. Yes, yes, you can farm that outside GK, too, but good luck with that. I've been doing it for weeks and gotten jack all to show for it.

That said, there's no incentive to sit awhile and stay, because what most people want drops from generally everywhere else (in the dungeon, you can get the same items at the beginning that you could at the 'end' for the most part.) You could argue for necromancer and cabalist stuff, but I haven't seen a single person actually wanting any of that specifically. Boss items, yes (the gargoyle boss ring comes to mind), everything else.. not really.

3) While bosses may drop some unique items, they don't drop them in the rarity that's worth the effort. Most groups only do the bosses because they drop 4 items on average. Speaking of bosses - they're just regular mobs. They aren't interesting, to be honest, because the one thing that is different is: they resist/are immune to some things, and they tend to disable abilities (golem more than the rest.) The reward feels in line with how hard they are. Why does the healing boss take longer? Because people keep pulling him out of the room (seriously, keep him in the middle and one blizzard will take out all the crystals.) Why does the golem take longer? Because he disables abilities more. The rest are about the same. And probably why there's not much feedback on bosses - they feel fine.

4) Respawns suck. It's the system, itself, and I can't stress this enough. Every X minutes things respawn. Let's say X is 10, and you kill 20 things in the past 10 minutes to clear the way. Well, 10 minutes comes around and all that respawns. Have fun with that as a small group. If you're trying to progress further in, this alone can make it so tedious that it begins to feel more like work, and less like fun. Most people haven't seen this in lower areas because they don't take as long to clear out. It's only a problem when you start reaching a certain threshold of time to clear - which you can reach it quite often in GK.

All that said, if I had to rate these in number of importance, the reality is that #4 (http://forum.projectgorgon.com/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=4) is the most critical, hurtful, and detrimental to small groups. The rest can be kind of slogged through, but you can't do anything about how the respawn system works.

[Caustic]

Hunting groups will be capped at six players instead of 10.
When fighting elite and boss monsters, only the first group that attacks it will be able to loot it.
The monster will become "locked" to the first attacker's group, with a little lock icon visible to other players and groups to let them know.
Each member of the locked group will get their own share of treasure, just as they do now, but no one outside that group will be able to loot the corpse.

Really disappointed to see this. I see this as a backwards step to the community. People will just go with the same 6 people. Turn at dungeon and group X is there, give up and log off as nothing to do. No more, any one want to come to Dungeon HTJGY, all are welcome.

Oh look my friend has logged on, hmm we already have 6 people, I will just boot that person so I can get my friend in.

Helping our guild? Nope cant afford to carry people. Oh wait thats people that are great friends but not optimised. So not friendly.

Sad day. I am happy to see what it is like but we will see on how it effects attitudes. I love this game for being unique and interesting.

[SassySusie]

I can see this turning into a pissing contest honestly. The first group that will be classified as getting the kill so to speak will always be the puller. And if not then it will be others hitting to early and causing too many mobs coming in at the same time causing many party wipes.

But with that being said I will hate to see this implemented because of how many guild members that will get left behind. When we do guild events we try to include as many that want to come along. But I will def be giving feedback when this is implemented :)

[Crissa]

I'm confused on how pulling is supposed to work, with the way most abilities are in fact broad-cast and that respawns are likely to land on you.

I kinda preferred the older dungeons where you pounced the mobs rather than hoping they path to you. Not that I have a level 70 character, but...

[poulter]

Further testing notes

As we had never run GK with a full tank /survival build, we tried it out yesterday.

First cow tank: Group size 6
Experienced Lab tank – able to run and complete Lab (to Claudia) with very few issues. Full gold set
First time in GK, no prior knowledge of the monster tactics, no guidance from those who had i.e. we were trying to emulate a novice group's first experience in GK

Outcome: Multiple wipes, deaths almost every pull, massive frustration – and we were only in the first room and main corridor
Summary: Not possible to do GK with body pulls

Second cow tank: Group size 7
Very experienced cow tank with top-end gear and able to solo some GK monsters
Much experience in GK i.e. emulating an experienced group

Outcome: Less wipes, but still multiple deaths – just not as many
Summary: As above, not viable. We did make it off the main corridor though

Main issue was the monster archers using hook shot and doing massive damage i.e. using the same tactics as the group use

We then reverted to using archer hook pulls Group size 8 / 9
Outcome: Cleared level 1 with very few issues – until the tavern /kitchen area
Summary: The only viable GK clearance method discovered to date requires 1 or 2 archers to be in the party

Tavern /kitchen area:
This area is more difficult to clear than a boss. It contains a mini-boss, multiple elites and many non-elites. The main issues are the archers who hook a puller into them causing all monsters in the area to agro. With a group size of 6, a wipe is highly likely. Also, many of the monsters that agro are initially outside of hook range
This area is on the way to the level 2 stairs, so has to be cleared t get there

Outcome: Wiped twice, cleared it on the third attempt – even with using double hooks
Summary: Currently, it is a race between opposing archers of who gets the first hook shot in.
If the monsters do, then with a party of 6, expect to wipe – noting that you have to get the first hook about 12 times in succession (and hook shot 'fails' about 40% of the time)

[Easylivin]

Summary: The only viable GK clearance method discovered to date requires 1 or 2 archers to be in the party


or 1-2 spiders

[Tsugumori]

Have wolves or druids up front using aggro range reduction?

I haven't run GK yet so I can't comment but it might help for scouting.

[poulter]

Further testing
Formed a group of 3 to test ability to pull and kill elites

Party: 3 people
All level 70 skills and in level 70 gold gear (most items with augs) i.e. current end-game gear
Sword /BC Golem healing
Archer /BC with hook. Golem healing
Archer /Druid AOE build with hook. Druid using 4 healing spells (2 AOE)

Tactics:
Double pull by the archers. 120+ elites pulled and killed on level 1 (primarily first room and main corridor)
Managed to clear way to 1 chest and loot it
Single elite Easily killed. No druid healing needed
Double elite No monster archers – easily killed. Occasional druid healing required
Monster archers – hard. All druid healing used
Triple elite Sometimes a wipe, but doable on occasion (depending on number of monster archers). All healing spells used
Four + elites Wipe

Summary:
Successful run – slower than with 6 people (naturally), but was easier to control when DPS started.
Key lesson learnt: Don’t start DPS on hooked monster until second hook – it ensures it is outside agro range of others

Quite a few deaths, especially in first room
Main corridor was much easier to clear
Only real issue was from respawns which, when it happened, was an automatic wipe

Suggestions:
Give other classes ability (with same range?) to hook shot monsters e.g. via crossbow skill i.e. reduce the need for archers in a group
Limit first room to only one monster archer
Review how spawns occur and how frequently
Differentiate treasure /loot drops – currently, all areas seem to drop similar loot (for non-set gear) i.e. any place is as good as any other to farm loot. I am thinking here of consumables, pictures, etc. not gear drops. Gear drops being the same means groups will fan-out across the map and not congregate in one area i.e. it is beneficial.

[Citan]

A status update: I'm still deep in the debugging stage of both the new bard and the new Serbule revamp. I'm going to push the Serbule revamp out to the update after this one, and focus on the bard, since that's closest to completion. I want to get the other changes (such as group size changes etc.) out the door before the weekend if at all possible.

The bard skill has a lot of new tech in its abilities and gear mods, some of which will find its way into other skills in time. I've also fixed some long-standing low-priority animation bugs. These bugs didn't affect game play, and were a little too hard to fix quickly, so they've been postponed for a long time. But they bug the crap out of me, so when I was working on the bard's animation features, I spent a few days to fix them. That includes bugs like:

Your character stays in their combat pose even after combat ends (until you move)
When you watch other players fight, you don't see them in a combat pose


and some others like that. There's also a bunch of optimizations that I'm hoping will help client performance. So there's lots of good stuff in here, just gotta wrap things up!

Since this is all bug-fixing time it's very hard to predict when it'll be ready, but I'm pushing hard to be done in time for weekend play.

[Sasho]

It would be nice to have something that would let larger groups of players have fun together.

I think there should be 2 different kinds of groups then. The one they suggested for doing bosses/elites, but another group that can have up to 20 people. The mob-group would work the same as groups of 9 do now, except that when an elite dies only 2-3 players of the group here that "bling" sound, that way they know they've been chosen to loot that mob.

[DanielSnimi]

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