The update notes are here: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/show...tember-10-2020
Discussion is in this thread! But please remember to report any bugs through the in-game reporting system so we can track them.
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The update notes are here: https://forum.projectgorgon.com/show...tember-10-2020
Discussion is in this thread! But please remember to report any bugs through the in-game reporting system so we can track them.
Trying to follow the candle making logically, the first recipe states filthy animal fat and the description says "fat from a smallish animal".
Having killed many smallish animals and many not so smallish, I have no fat to show for it. Is there a way to make it clearer or is the drop rate supposed to be so low?
Hogan’s Basement:
This dungeon was great. A lot of times with retroactive dungeon releases, I find myself envious and thinking “I would have loved this when I was a new player” Although it’s short, I enjoyed the puzzle, and admittedly it took me over an hour to figure out how to get Rubgab’s chest, and I was rewarded with a yellow, 2 purples, and a red. It felt WORTH the effort, and the experience was executed in a non-exploitable way due to the cool-downs of how the puzzle is solved.
Visually the dungeon felt in theme. The claustrophobic heights and small rooms work in a solo/puzzle style dungeon. I felt a little frustrated (partly at myself for trying to rush through, and partly from the dungeon being over-crowded due to its initial release) But once again. The reward balanced expectations, and although It doesn’t have a lot of repeat value to a max level player, I once again find myself wishing this was around for my first level 30 adventures.
Goblin Dungeon Changes:
I am glad that time and consideration was given to the Goblin Dungeon. The new “Eltibule underground” template is good, and worked well in Hogan’s Basement, however the claustrophobic feeling did not translate as well to a bigger, group oriented dungeon. The first thing I noticed was how short the ceiling is. I tend to play with the camera zoomed 75% to 100% out, and close to a 90 degree angle. The previous goblin dungeon worked great for my play-style with its high ceilings, and wide hallways. With the new dungeon, the low arches every few meters caused some silly zoom in-zoom out effects that persisted throughout the top and bottom floors. I found myself struggling to find a camera angle for combat on the stairs that let me see where mobs were coming from. The boss room of the crystal boss felt un-finished.
Let me add, that the visual of walking into the new fog room looked amazing. High ceilings, a wide open view of an epic room to have an epic battle in. The previous room was good, but this was a great improvement.
I understand there is a fine line to walk with sizing in this world. Comically big rooms are hard to decorate, and hard to establish consistency across the zones & dungeons. The previous goblin dungeon had that feeling of being too big, and the new dungeon falls in line with a more grounded ratio across Alharth.
One of my favorite dungeons in the game is the Serbule Sewers. Specifically the part with the slimes and dinos. It’s a very small dungeon but it still stands out as my favorite dungeon for scaling. It does not feel like a large space, and the “culvert” part of the dungeon offers a lower camera angle without feeling too zoomed in.
As the dungeon stands now, I think its an improvement. I don’t think it’s critical, but my suggestions for improvement would be higher, smoother ceilings, and wider halls. I look forward to seeing it fully decorated!
Wintertide:
The long awaited level 80 dungeon. Let me start with my favorite part of the new dungeon:
The Loot:
Without going into every specific piece. I feel this was the biggest success of the patch. There was, of course, most of the same drops from the existing level 80 content, but the new gear is exciting enough to want to farm multiple pieces for multiple builds. The x-bow, the knife, the set bonuses, the base stats of the new set items, the new potions and racial items, the new crafting recipes. These feel like an advancement from level 70 gear, and open up the door to more combos, more unique opportunities, and alternate builds.
I felt like I got a lot of treasure in the 4 hours I spent with my group. I got maybe 4 yellows, and if it helps with what you had in mind for drop rates, I was not able to get a single upgrade to my build within the new items I decided I wanted. This lets me know it will take some time to farm for what I want, and I’m glad to have reason to spend time in the new dungeon.
The Monsters:
I was very glad to see new monsters in the dungeons. [redacted]’s creations were my favorite addition. It was fun to be swarmed by these weaker mobs. My least favorite were the darkness fairies, even though they had all the loot I wanted. They felt like they were hitting too hard. The group I was with could easily be described as “over-powered” and if any of us got hit with a ranged stun, it was a guaranteed death. The rest of the monsters, however, maybe seemed too easy. Perhaps a balancing solution would be more quantity or more HP, not more damage coming from them.
I noticed that some mobs had reduced call for help range. It brought strategy to the dungeon, especially with the darkness fairies, which I’m sure in time will evolve into “The Best Practiced Strategy”
The dungeon’s variety felt similar to Fae Realm’s elements with the different themes for different areas. I was hoping for new monster assets, especially for a boss. Zuke is one of the most iconic bosses in the game. The necromancer’s leading up to him, the epic new boss battle music, and of course his sprite and combat animations. I understand half of that comes at a monetary cost. The new dungeon felt missing that level of epicness from the monsters.
In the group I was in, we had one boss that was a challenge, and the only challenge. They were immune to everything except 3 elements. We were still able to overcome them on the first attempt, and It was an enjoyable experience.
The Map:
It’s hard to give an in depth review of a dungeon that I’ve only spent an afternoon in, so I’m going to limit my feedback to only first impressions, and I plan to revisit this after I spent more time with different players in Wintertide.
As higher level dungeons advance in this game, I’m glad that added challenges come with it. High level players should be used to overcoming environments, and varying resistances of mobs. This dungeon had every one in my group saying “I’m useless in this section” which led to opportunities for everyone to be the DPS hero.
The atmosphere of the space-ship like map feels a little out of place in a fantasy based MMO. This is once again a first impression. I entered the dungeon with my Fae character, and really enjoyed the added lore, dialogue, and indoor flight. It gives a new sense of how big this world can be. I think if this style of map is limited to this one dungeon, it might remain to feel a little out of place.
Thank you for creating another dungeon without too painful of a chest system. Labs and GK both have chest gimmicks that add a lot more planning to just going on a dungeon run. Most of the Labs runs I’ve been on lately don’t even ask. We just run to Asterion and Claudia. I’m excited to test out the new dailies, and changes to Labs. With GK, the amount of keys in the group usually determines which way the dungeon run is going to go, and usually ends up with 1 or 2 members not getting to accomplish what they wanted to.
With Wintertide, the variety of keys needed is the variable, but all of them can be farmed until the group gets all the chests in one area, then can move on to the next. It harbors sharing in the group, and gives purpose to dungeon runs. I felt the loot from the chests was decent, but once again, I didn’t get any of my dream pieces checked off in one day.
Summary:
I enjoyed the release of Wintertide. I think my favorite updates are those with new new maps, and we got 3 new areas to explore. For the most part, this caps out the level 80 experience, and caps out Fae Realm, which is bitter sweet to me.
When GK came out, It wasn’t long before I felt I was ready to move forward to level 80 content. Then some time later we got Fae Realm, and with it came avenues to craft, and farm for your level 80 build. This was different than GK, as most of us were still rocking 60 gear when GK came out. Going into the dungeon with gear already in place perhaps took away some of the struggle for established players. New players reaching 80 for the first time will have an entirely different experience, and realistically, this is tailored more towards them than to players in my shoes.
As it stands, I feel like I would rather see more level 80 content than moving straight to 90. I guess that means I want to spend more time exploring the Fae Realm than past zones, so kudos on that.
Thanks again for pushing to get this update out.
Hogan Keep Dungeon:
Hogan Keep dungeon was fun, I liked hunt for keys, I liked how it looked. Fact its multi-floor dungeon can make it a bit confusing to naivgate for some people, I personally didn't had any problems. I wont speak about difficutly, since I don't have any build for that level. I think named mobs could use some better drops.
I'm not sure if nerfing AH pets was warranted. Quick check of my stable showed that bears(Ice, Polar, Tundra, Graz, The Magnifier, Grottofang, all around lv 70) lost about 100 armor and 150-200 health. Thats not small amount, efpecially considerign that Bears are 'tanks' of AH, and they dmage, and specially skilsl ar enot as powerfull as other pets. Those nerfs hurts them the most, since other pets usually are not ment to hold aggro. I dunno, I'll try them out and see, but I really don't like this change.
Spoiler:
AH changes—
I’m on the fence about it. I think it’s the right call though, especially if there is more HP/Armor to be had with genetics. Most players can make an AH build while totally disregarding any of the +Hp/armor mods. My big concern is unnatural wrath, which if you get 2 of the trauma dot mods could really be dangerous. But I think I said it was dangerous before the HP change!
Winter Tide—
With the combat changes it’s hard to really gauge how hard everything is. Preparation wise, I went in with darkness potions and my UA build has 1 of the darkness mods, I meditated for fire and just had the other thick armor potions, mitigation potions + I went into the zone with a piggy, skins. Just the whole 9-yards, the group probably could have handled level 95 content.
First impression, I was concerned WT was going to be a snooze fest until the initial overcrowding of ~4 groups in the middle area fixed itself. Size wise, it feels like the first floor of GK. The Ensigns are clearly the hardest mobs, and I think that’s good. The rage attacks from 2 ensigns can be described as nuclear levels of damage. A modded Barrage being an AoE nice attack + generic helm rage-debuff is really strong now, and puts them in their place. The elemental damage of the zone make it difficult to choose between going in with cold, darkness, or fire meditation buffs, which is a plus.
I think the area with the bears is clearly the easiest, and a group of 3 people can start off there as they recruit more players. I recall no easy starting area being the biggest complaint of GK when it first came out, and it looks like that feedback was applied here.
There was a good balance of NPC resists, in 1 area cold was a dud, in the other fire was a dud. Vs one boss my group had no real significant DPS unless we used debuffs, this meant the fight was slow but we won.
The highest floor with aberrations could use a higher density of monsters though. Even without other people, I felt it could have just used more. This could be a good place for some type of quick-reset ring-event that just spits out monsters when they hit a device. Or maybe the opposite of a swarm of monsters until you turn something off, like in the goblin dungeon with the crystals.
I still need to test the overall combat changes with elites. I think it’s good to shift the player’s mindset away from the thinking of, “the only tank combos possible have perfect 2 tanking skills, with max enchanted yellows and a healer similarly geared” to something more reasonable and approachable, and I think that is what the goal was with the elite changes.
I'm still working my way through the new stuff, but I just wanted to second the above comment that the ceiling height in the Hogan's Keep and revamped Goblin dungeons does feel very low. I like to play zoomed out a fair bit, to avoid motion fatigue, and maneuvering in these tight spaces does make me a bit dizzy.
One other thing I noticed - there seem to be random slowdowns now where the FPS will drop as low as 20 (usually more like 30-40). These are accompanied by grainy graphics and motion blur. I'm not sure if this is a bug per se, as it could just be my older hardware, but I never had an issue before last night's patch and I haven't changed the graphics settings. For some reason also, these slowdowns seem to happen only in certain areas - Serbule and Rahu have them severely, but Eltibule, Kur, Red Wing Casino, and the dungeons don't.
I'm a bit confused about the filthy animal fat required for candle making. All I know for sure is that it comes from butchering. Is it only small animals? And are some zones more plentiful than others?
I'm undecided about the elite damage changes. My gut reaction was that it's unnecessary, but maybe GK is intended to be as "easy" as you appear to be making it for a group of 80's now. At the same time, WT felt reasonable damage-wise.
My only fear about animal fat is that you are going to create a huge surplus of stomachs. Butchering was a dead skill. There was almost no reason to butcher a mob instead of skin it if you didn't have an immediate use for the meat. Hopefully this changes that equation a little bit - we really don't know what the fat supply is going to be like in a few months. So I'll hold off on judgment.
On player speed changes... Your game, your rules. That said, I don't feel like it's fair to put me (and others) in a position to make a new speed/run set that will be trashed as soon as you get mounts working. I understand you don't intend the game to be played by running around in the long term, but it's a matter of fact that they're the correct and only way to traverse the game world right now.
I really love a lot of things about wintertide. I've only done 2 runs so far but I intend to do a lot more in the future. Dungeon spoilers ahead:
I miss the run speed switching. I understand it's necessary to pave the way for mounts and it was probably too op for surveying, but it's something that's going to take a while to get used to, especially in dungeons where I would switch to bc and pop a haste concoction, then switch back all the time. Now runs without a bc or druid in the group are going to feel really sluggish. It is nice that you can fly in wintertide though, even though it doesn't benefit me directly.
Why nerf ah now when u can nerf it when full update for ah comes,what is point,its still weaker than other combat skills,it keeps getting nerfed for those 5 ppl playing with ah.
strange after update everywhere in-game i have worse or Much more Worse FPS than before (sometimes it go down to 3-7 at zone when usually was 40-60) and loading time when changing zones are 3-5 time longer
I'm going to mostly speak to candle making since it's what I've spent the most energy on, though I'll say I love the new goblin/hogan's look and fully second PC's take on the lvl 40 dungeon. I plan to take one of my alts through on an appropriately leveled build b/c it was fun even zooming through with the launch chaos.
On candle making - Marking the whole thing as spoiler for those who want to naturally uncover some of candle making's nuances.
Another topic I wanted to address is the continued creep of dailies and I am torn on the matter. On the one hand I like that it breathes new life into dungeons that it could be hard to find a group for. In this case we will likely see a rejuvenation of labs which is nice and winter nexus and DC were hard to find runs for prior to casino dailies. On the other hand I think they create a bit of an issue in that they are limited time events in a game that does not use the notion of instanced dungeon groups. I tend to avoid the Casino Dailies because I feel that they are very business oriented. PUGs form to quickly rush the dungeon to get some loot, but mostly focus on the quest objectives. Even in Wolf Cave I find most groups ignore one of the chests that is hardly out of the way and just quickly move through. I think you kind of have to keep this cadence though because there's always the risk another group will creep up behind you and you want to move quickly to keep everyone's flow going. For the aurest quests I would prefer to see something along the lines of Fae Realm dailies where you can pick up multiple "daily" quests and do them at your convenience, but if you already have the one offered active you cannot take it twice. I think this would still create renewed interest in areas like Labs, but it would also create breathing room for players to go at a slower pace and do the dungeon when they want. I would love to have an easier time finding groups that aren't looking to rush through a dungeon, but want to slowly explore it and I think the idea of a daily that has to be done today with anyone on the server interested competing for resources takes a little bit of the soul out of it. With Agrashab elite dailies on the other hand groups tend to bounce from elite group to elite group seeing if anyone in the group has the quest - it feels slower and more communicative and I'm sure that's in part because it aligns with current end game content/loot. I haven't done an aurest mission yet so I cannot say for sure, but conceptually dailies give me pause.
I am one of these few people that stick with AH throughout. AH in dungeons is risky, some say useless, as its pathing can cause major unwanted pulling. I therefor regard AH mostly as a skill for solo players. Losing 40% health on your pets in solo play is a big deal. Granted, with my gear and max level i can still do what i did altho in some situations more slowly, but i certainly cant do more than i did before this patch. And i think solo play should be an important part of this game.
I have a feeling with more and more dailies and high end dungeons that are group oriented, and events that are often group oriented as well, solo play could use some love.
Love the new craft skill, more crafting always ftw.
Pitty that we cannot butcher stringa's anymore, they were my favorite source of stomachs.
A rant of sorts, as I tried to do the new Hogan's Dungeon without spoilers, talk to the guy at the door need candles and he talks about Gorvessa. So off I go to Gorvessa raise favour to learn candle making then am forced to ask in Help, "where is her candle station" as I can't find it. Told its in the dungeon and I said that is shit putting the table required to make an entry item inside a gate. Was told you don't craft the entry items they are drops from higher level zones. So I rant again. why require an item from a zone 2 or 3 levels higher to enter a dungeon?
In short, please don't gateway content with items that are not obtainable at the level intended for the content. Also please include in Gorvessa's conversation something, hint or otherwise, about locations of the tables.
PS world boss feedback, why put in boss curses that aren't cureable in normal content for those who fail on bosses towards the end of an event, although maybe not a problem if George ever gets balanced so he can be killed outside of US primetime.
Sugestion for new daily:
Make it Seasonal like 2 month and after that make NPC disappears for 4 month (to earn money?) and back after those so we have those extra daily available 2 month each half year
I see your point, but in this case it's really not so bad. The item in question is worthless vendor trash that you can find off of used tabs or buy from players with little effort, i should think.Quote:
Originally Posted by Silkt
Thanks for the feedback, please keep it coming! A couple bits of info to add:
- RE: new framerate problems in low-density areas: I'm not really sure where that would be coming from. We didn't have graphics changes in the last update, at least, not intentionally. We'll be looking for a culprit.
- RE: debuffing monsters' vulnerability: the way it works now is just a limitation of the implementation and will eventually be a true multiplicative. In other words, if you make a monster take 20% more Fire damage, and they normally take 0% fire damage, 0%+20%=0%. Doesn't work that way yet (in all cases), but it will.
- RE: new bosses: they ARE actually easier than the final boss of Gazluk Keep. I was worried I set the bar too high there in terms of how much damage I expect a group of 6 people to be able to generate. And really, it's just hard to figure out where the difficulty point should be, so this time around I decided to err on the easier end. But if most people think they're pushovers, I'll probably bump them up a notch in the next update.
Also, the captain encounter is supposed to be a forced-multi-pull encounter: if you aggro any of those three elites, you should always get all of them. New tech, and obviously not working out well enough yet, but I'll do some more work to fix that also.
I also agree this case isn't so bad but I don't like the design decision, the other hiccup is players trying to lock up the market, only 2 player vendors have the item, which used tab value is 10 councils, one has listed for 1500 councils, the other with most stock has them listed for 4500.Quote:
Originally Posted by alleryn
I'm not sure if this is an engine limitation and even as someone who loves 90's style textures, the new dungeon and goblin dungeon are very bland. I like the textures, but it is monotonously repetitive. Much of this is to do with the lighting or lack there of, but it needs something else. Maybe some mossy, leafy or mouldy textures. Just something to break up the grey. They were both enjoyable to play through though.
The new dungeon is fairly low level and classed as solo yet is gated behind drops from higher level content. Seems an odd decision.
I have a couple more thoughts on the issue. The more i think about it, the more i actually kind of like this design (may be an unpopular opinion):Quote:
Originally Posted by Silkt
1. The price gouging can only last so long. The quest is gated behind just 3 of the quest item, and you only need to unlock it once. The item has no other real uses other than a once a year (winter holiday) quest. Now that people are aware of the increased value, they'll pick them up when they find them instead of tossing them. Supply will go up since ppl are picking them up, demand will go down as ppl finish the quest (new players will need to finish the quest too, but new players will come in at a slower rate than vets finishing the quest). The price gouging will mostly affect long time players who have the cash to throw around and can't be bothered to do a little farming.
2. Just because a skill is aquire-able at low combat level, doesn't mean to learn it then. Someone just hitting hogan's keep isn't going to have enough fat to really make use of candle making anyways. Plus many of the recipes are in more difficult areas that won't be accessible until the areas that drop the <quest item> are accessible too.
3. Ultimately i think it just adds a greater feeling of non-linearity and complexity to the game. It can be fun to have something to unlock and not knowing when or even if you will find the item to unlock it, rather than simply stumbling across it in the normal course of leveling an hour after you learn you need it. Not if it unlocks something vital to progress, but here it unlocks something auxiliary.
Anyways, just my rambling thoughts. I can see your side to the argument as well, but maybe you will consider an alternative point of view, even if you don't entirely agree.
I think the lower frame rate issue isn’t consistent. I’ve had some issues with lower than average frame rate, but this isn’t always the case. I wrote it off as tons of people behind walls that I can’t see and the detailed combat log being tracked again. But I have heard of people having super low FPS.
Recently my group has noticed the ensigns around the captain’s area (outside the locked doors ) don’t always shout. I am not sure what that’s about. I also am not sure what alarmist means yet. I assumed it meant double the shout range or something, but now I’m starting to think it calls over a friend? Anyway, I’ll try and get the ensign’s shout bug reported, as I might have time between their stuns :P
After spending maybe a dozen hours in the new dungeon with a good group, I decided to try to solo. Really, really hard. Of course, aberrations and bears/minotaurs are somewhat straightforward, but it seems like most mobs have a 3-4 second stun which REALLY puts a damper on making solo progress. More importantly, it 100% takes the fun out of soloing and won't be fun even at 100. Seriously, what kind of sadist makes elites with power drain?
Thank for this, that seems more reasonable. I'm not sure if that's how it actually works as I don't believe a fire immune mob was taking damage from fire damage with calefaction (why I deleted it originally), but I know for a fact that fire/ice (with an ice magic debuff on calefaction) does a ton of damage to Dalvos despite being immune to fire and ice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Citan
I'm torn on this as well. With a good group, you can make 100k+ in an hour with the new daily. I came out with 120-130k after the hardest Aurest daily. This is enough money to fund 80 unlocks in a reasonable timeframe and something like it was necessary. Previously, "crafting first" type people had the only legitimate way to make large sums (work orders). At the same time, as someone with a lot of capital, I'm kind of fearing the inevitable inflation. This is a lot of guaranteed money (npc/quest vs waiting to sell/get undercut at a shop) for people, hopefully it goes back into the economy (shops) as well as unlocks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Deldaron
Sorry but I think you misunderstood, my opinion on the poor design is not about the craft skill, it is about gating a level intended solo dungeon, which should be a gearing up place before progressing similar to the war caches, behind an item that doesn't drop until 3 zones further in progression.Quote:
Originally Posted by alleryn
I actually really like how it works this way right now. It makes these debuffing skills more situational in their use but still very helpful. Debuffing an enemy's vulnerability by 15% isn't very useful on a target that's neutral to the damage type, but being able to lower an enemy's high resistances with it makes it a useful situational skill. It also allows you to damage immune targets, but I believe that's good design because you're still doing way less damage (Doing 15% damage on an enemy that should have been immune is not going to out DPS using a proper damage type).Quote:
Originally Posted by Citan
For example, when I was playing with friends through Wintercourt Nexus, we had to coordinate our attacks to put debuffs on portals before attacking them for damage. This was way more fun than being forced to leave the dungeon, awkwardly changing our builds to include a specific damage type, and then come back just to kill one enemy type, but if one of us did bring one of those damage types we would have killed them instantly rather than needing to plan out our attacks just to hit them for 10-30 damage at a time.
I get that part of the design might be to force the players to use certain damage types to encourage parties to bring a variety of damage types, but I think the current design is more fun in that you are still heavily rewarded for using the 'right' damage type because you'll do significantly more damage, but with the right abilities/mods you can still do something. Both require planning/preparation, but the former is more rewarding. You COULD try to defeat a damage immune enemy with debuffs, but either you need to be significantly stronger since your damage is much lower, or you need to coordinate with your team to stack debuffs and attacks properly.
One big exception to this though is Calefaction's cold vulnerability debuff, since it's way too strong. At level 80 it increases vulnerability by 90%, which pretty much removes any immunity/resistance. It sort of feels like every end game ice mage should be running fire just for that, since there's a lot of cold immune/resistance monsters and the ability basically lets you ignore resistances as if they aren't there while giving you a ton of damage. There isn't really planning there since with one move you can instantly turn any mob weak/ almost neutral to cold, and there's no greater reward for using the "correct" damage type since you will basically do the same damage with just one Calefaction. I think each skill line should probably be limited to something like 25% vulnerability debuffs maximum to one damage type (with mods) so that way while you can still hurt immune enemies, you're doing 1/4th the damage which still heavily encourages using a better damage type.
So, I've gotten the chance to do some candle making and I've mostly just been collecting fat in preparation for when the poetry jam buffs come around, but I think I've noticed a few things that I want to bring up and have a few questions about.
As Deldaron mentioned it seems like the exp table becomes much harsher after 50, honestly the first 40 levels seem very easy and don't require much fat at all, I was able to make do with only 18 filthy fat before I had completely moved onto the next tier and I wasn't even using every possible exp buff available. I haven't completely done the lumpy fat yet but it seems similar from looking at the wiki, then the typical fat after that takes much more to reach the next tier. This is all fine so far, except that perhaps the first tier is actually even too easy, but then once you get to the 60s and 70s, it seems as if the skill REALLY slows down. This is a combination of factors, not only do you need more fat, each mob takes you longer to kill and they're in more dangerous zones so you face more deaths and can't pull as many at once. This would be ok on it's own and honestly, if you stretch the amount of grind required over a month or 2 it's not even that bad. However, the key issue I see is that the xp table gets incredibly harsh combined with very few mobs seeming to actually give the highest tier of fat. I still wouldn't mind doing the grind personally, but I wanted to ask, is it intended to be this difficult? I personally predict it would take me about 25 hours of grinding just to get the smooth fat, even if I used every exp buff in the game, and that's after already doing about 10 hours of typical fat farming to reduce the amount of smooth I would need. I don't want to do the grind if this isn't intended and is going to be changed.
So, about the availability of smooth fat, the dinosaurs in the fae realm don't seem to give any organs at all, which seems like a bug but not sure. I was also told by another player in game that they farmed the fae realm bears and panthers for 3 hours and didn't receive a single fat drop. I farmed them myself for about 20 minutes and didn't receive any either. This isn't really conclusive evidence, so I suppose another question would be: do the fae realm mobs actually drop smooth fat?
I'm also a bit confused on what determines the tier of fat dropped by the mob. I initially thought it was just based on level, but I noticed that the bears in animal nexus drop lumpy fat, and the panthers in the same dungeon, which I think are the same level, drop filthy fat. I also noticed that kur wolves drop filthy fat, yet lower level sheep and deer in kur both drop lumpy. Again, the lvl 70 gazluk bears (and possibly cows?) drop smooth but the lvl 80 tun-uraks drop typical. There doesn't really seem to be a pattern between mobs that drop cheap meat or non-cheap meat and although there's a general trend in higher tier fat at higher levels, it's not 100% true. Perhaps it's based on the mob anatomy type to an extent, ruminants and bears seem to give higher quality fat at a lower level than canines, felines and arthropods.
@Yaffy - that's an interesting take. I admit I haven't really considered leaving it as-is, because it makes it impossible for me to do specialty encounters -- "you MUST do this" type thing. I don't want to do that all the time, but with a boss like (the ghostly one) in this update, I don't really want him to be affected by, say, blood loss. But eh, maybe it's fine. Magic is magical.
@Celerity - fat drops are based on the monster's level and their anatomy type. Herbivorous animals (such as Ungulates) have the best of all of the resources: skins, meat, organs. Carnivores have the worst. And omnivores are somewhere in between. But that said, it does look like the specialty monsters in the Fae Realm (which amounts to nearly all the monsters in the Fae Realm) are missing parts of their butchering profile. Will take a look at that now.
@all - we'll do an update tomorrow evening to fix a few small bugs, and one big bug that's broken several framerate optimizations. Will be making some tweaks to bosses as well.
Thanks for the reply Citan, it's nice to receive confirmation on things and know I'm not just going insane or facing a streak of bad luck.
Thanks for the change to the entry requirements of the Hogan's keep dungeon.
Wintertide content suggestion:
With the new dungeon, I would like to suggest the addition of more fairy lights. I saw this amazing fairy light in the dungeon, and I knew I needed a full size version for my Fae.
Perhaps one of the control panels could teach Fairies the recipe, or even provide a list for Fae to choose their fairy light from.
Regardless, This over-sized fairy light would be a great addition as a follower to my shopping days in Serbule.
Holy crap. So the ensign area got way, way more difficult now that they answer calls for help. I'm not entirely sure you can hit switch #2 without dying... is that a problem? Admittedly, we only have been there once since the change, but it seemed like it was virtually impossible to not end up with 5-6 at some point. I had to go change to my tank with 75% darkness resistance for us to do it without just throwing a bunch of bodies at it and praying for the best (and we had 4-5 people with 55+ mods).
Okay I'm back to update my feelings on candle making now at lvl 60 candle making. I think the progression needs some tweaking. It's not awful, it's just a little odd. One thing I will say is when I see skills like this where the number of recipes drop off in the 60-80 range and the xp table grows while the new recipe craft doesn't grow proportionally I assume that it is leaving space for new recipes in what will be mid game as we progress. I say that because it means I leave some "room for growth" and an expectation that the progression now in beta will not be the progression later so I do expect it to be slower.
I managed to get by with 35 filthy fat, around 50 lumpy fat, around 100 typical fat and 5 smooth so far. That all checks out to me, though I have some points on the lower tier fats. I am at lvl 60 with 100 typical fat and I'll continue to use typical fat for a while. I did a lot of wick making with typical so I could get by with just smooth from here on out, but typical will continue to be worth while from a lvling perspective. Lumpy I could use and could see myself using for a little filler xp, but filthy is going straight to other players. If the hope is that filthy fat will get filled in by player stalls and give low lvl players something else to sell to higher lvl players working I think the progression should use more of it and for longer. I spent a couple nights in Eltibule farming mobs and then never looked back. It seems like the stomach market has tanked, but the fat that has caused this is which is available to lower lvls so limited in use low level players actually got a method of money making taken away from them not added.
The filthy, lumpy and typical grinds were fine and fun - I enjoyed being in Gaz and though it was slow going I felt like I was progressing. I was looking forward knowing I would have a lot of work ahead of me, but then I was perplexed to find bears and panthers in FR dropped typical as well. That leaves, as far as I've found, snow oxes and FR Rhinos to drop smooth fat. It's hard to figure out if I think this is broken because we don't know what's coming next. I would expect smooth fat to transition out starting at lvl 80 and fully be out of the picture by ~90-95, leaving a new fat to carry most of the way. If that's the case this is probably fine and what we're really seeing is a preview of candle making, but it won't hit full force until the zone after fae realm is introduced which would bring greater quantities of smooth fat. But intuitively I feel like all the fats could be zoned down a step, having Ilmari start up typical if it isn't already and having typical end at gaz so that all FR mobs drop smooth.
What I find confusing is that the lvl 60-70 progression seems to be built as if to require smooth fat, but smooth fat seems to only drop from lvl ~80 mobs. There is some smooth fat in Gaz which makes this hybrid smooth/typical 60-70 make sense, but I would expect an area to pivot to mostly smooth with a little typical which I haven't seen. As it currently stands I can't see myself continuing to focus on this skill, but rather stopping here and using the quality candles. Again I expect some "preview" style things like this if that is what is intended, but if the intention was that the current zone layout would make it reasonable to follow candle making to the amazing varieties something seems off. Still love the skill and as someone heavily focused on crushing dmg I'll still find it useful if I decide to stop around 60.
Alarmer cocks make the area out by Captain Evergloam difficult for any group. They’re perfect in the area with hippogriffs, trolls and ensigns area tho. The player bases answer to them by the Captain/Ensigns is zerging, and I think that represents too hard of a difficulty, and honestly it’s not fun.
By Zerg I mean, killing the cocks and everyone dies to the swarm of Ensigns and respawn + return. Everyone is running around like a chicken without their head. One player solution can be send in an AH pet to just 1 shot the cock and then dismiss the pet, but I have not brought AH into the Wintertide since the changes. There are a few scenarios where the cock might be next to another cock, and then you can expect a pull of 10+ without the sacrificial AH-puller. Knowing this hellish scenario is possible is very disheartening.
One fix would be, make it so they can only shout to 3 friends every 4 seconds. Another fix would be that their “shout” status only triggers once a regular shout triggers. Meaning, fears, mez, knockbacks skills alike (that suppress shout) can be used to eliminate the cocks without them freaking out. If their alarmist chain-shouting madness starts after their first shout, groups can just pay attention to their skills and carefully eliminate the cock without inviting the Ensign’s to airstrike everyone back to the stone-age. My real only worry is that pulling from back from a far distance trivializes their Alarmer status, BUT that’s an improvement vs the strategy of dying and hoping to make minor progress.
Yeah, I agree that the ensign area is too tough now and we'll make some changes to it in the next update.
Hello, plz make mob corpse collision with player again and increase the mob chase range to infinite , it feels like the game has been dumbing down
I have done Wintertide with several groups, post patch.
-It is definitely more difficult.
-The difficulty can be overcome.
I've been in two groups that experienced multiple wipes, and a lot of problems with ensigns. In both cases their was little discussion about who was pulling, where to pull back to, who was mezzing, did we even have people to mezz? and concentrating fire. Use of meditations and potions was also varied. You can't just move up as a group and pop attacks like you can in other dungeons. This isn't a normal daily. Frustration in the groups with less forethought was high. But in groups where we played as a team, we actually got by them very quickly.
One strategy was simply body pulling to the group, with the group hanging far back. The puller needs to be able to take a few shots. So someone with high evasion, and some mitigations of darkness damage is needed, and a healer targeting them. Getting 1-3 ensigns at a time is easy to put down. 4-6 is not. Worst i saw was the whole group move up, two security cocks come running with 9-12 ensigns. it was like machine gun fire whittling us down. :)
Last night I did the entire dungeon with a group in two hours, all areas. We did the ensigns multiple times. I'd say a bit above average group as we had two foxes and a wolf warden, all with some darkness mitigation. But also a player there for the first time who was still partially in level 70 gear.
I agree the ensigns are tough, and it's ironic that they may be the toughest part of the dungeon to get through. But this is also the top level 80 dungeons and groups are clearing it after only a couple of weeks. So I don't think the difficulty is out of line.
One bug: We had a problem with nearly a dozen ensigns stuck as a group on the ledge to a dropdown. Nothing could budge them, and they were sheer death. Zerging got a few killed, but that was also a couple of group wipes.
There is some sort of inventory bug in the Hogan's keep dungeon. I entered with over 40 slots open in my inventory but the first loot box, I think called junk box, wou;d not open, said "i did not have inventory space" I got the same message at the chest where you open with the finger. When I tried it a 2nd time it told me to wait 24 hours as I had already looted it. I bug reported the first chest but not that 2nd as the respawns hitting before I could type a report along with the bullshit 5 minute secret door crap plus having to play inventory manager because nothing stacks drove me to a rage quit, log off.
Even as I type am seriously considering uninstalling because of both inventory shortage compared to the number of items dropped that don't stack in dungeons along with my 100% disagreement with the concept that spawn density and high respawn rate make good game play, Kur yetis are the worst example through in a warden quest respawn and Kur can get shoved where the sun doesn't shine.
That seems a little dramatic...Quote:
Originally Posted by Silkt
My opinion on Ensigns has kind of changed. I do appreciate that they add some excitement and since they're near the entrance, it isn't a huge imposition to die once or twice. That said, considering the stack of tombstones near them last night, it might be best that you're making it a little easier.
Well, the tombstones are there because some people never clean up their own tombstones. Ran the dungeon again last night. As usual we had a few deaths on ensigns and a 10 second run back up. But we all cleaned up our tombstones. Does seem like they are building up, but i see that as a player problem, not so much an ensign problem. :) With WT being on the daily Aurest rotation, there are a lot of groups going there some days. More groups, more tombstones.
Some other behavior I'm noticing:
-"Does everyone have their Darknest resist potion from Daniel Murdark's skeleton"?
-"I'm dropping down a stool, everyone knows to meditate with #63 ? I've got extra squash!"
-"You don't have meditation to 63, well use the lower one then. You don't have meditation? Oh well, this will hurt more"
-"let the fox or the warden pull, or the guy with evasion armor. Easier on the healers"
-"OH GOD, A Chicken!!" "Run away first, far away, then hit it!"
Harder dungeons means players will adapt and look for the tools already in the game.