Official: Gzemnid's Reliquary (Normal)

lassor · February 2023

Greetings, adventurers!

This is the thread to leave feedback on the Gzemnid's Reliquary (Normal) trial. The trial requires 30,000 IL (25,000 in private) to enter and is intended to be included in the Random Trial Queue.

Please give any and all feedback in regards to tuning, feel, art, rotations, mechanics, bugs, and any other aspects that pertain to the gameplay of the trial. Rewards feedback should be given on the rewards thread and will not be reviewed or considered here.

Our intent is to open the trial for testing starting on 2/24.

GLHF!

sonofstealthbl · February 2023

Definitely too hard to be in RTQ as is. The portals need red warnings like those in Zariel, the tankbusters come too fast to react for RTQ level, the purple beam mechanic is very confusing to new players; it needs a warning, a certain returning character's mechanics aren't known to RTQ level players, phase 4 spinner shouldn't be instant 1-shot, and the barrier on last part isn't clear for new players. I think it could be a great intermediate trial like Zariel, but it is definitely not RTQ ready and I don't see a way it becomes RTQ ready without butchering everything. I would sooner put Zariel in RTQ than this, it is very difficult to understand and very punishing for new players. If RTQ Tiamat right after rework was a disaster, this being in RTQ as is would be cataclysmic. P3 in particular is too overwhelming even if it isn't difficult.

rikitaki · February 2023

Warning against a deadly attack in form of a voice line sounds cool, but does not bode well with a muted game. (while muting the whole game is still the only way to disable annoying companion noises)

sonofstealthbl · February 2023

I still stand by what I said earlier, even if a lot of the mechanics are nowhere near as lethal on master, it's extremely overwhelming for a new player who won't know/understand the mechanics that bosses have on P3, much less both at once. There are so many issues with this trial as an RTQ-level trial that it just shouldn't be one. The mechanics are too hard, bosses/mobs hit too hard, no warning for many mechanics, and P3 is completely unfair to new players. I think it would be a great in between trial like Zariel to help newer players transition into the mentality/mechanics that are common in master trials. Even with number changes and taking out mechanics I don't think the trial can be boiled down to an RTQ level trial.

rikitaki · February 2023

My opinion is: You should learn the mechanics in smaller portions prior getting the summarizing test. Baby Zariel and Baby TOMM should be in RTQ prior to this trial.

The other concern is about how the players are (forced to be) spread. That is nice and dandy for 80 feet AoE heals when you throw mobs into the mixture, but in RTQ you can end up with two soulbinder warlocks! (The difficulty of the trial might get vastly different for the multipurpose bards or "optimal" pally+cleric combination compared to two warlocks.)
It is a worse scenario compared to the first phase of SVA, because there is everything forcing players to stick together, but they still run around - and they tend to die alone, in a corner. ...they die in a trial that is technically absolutely harmless. Even if this new trial will be "technically harmless" too, just the mandatory spread might be too much for beginner healers to manage.

Alternatively, you can try to rework aggro for tanks so they do not have to touch a mob to gain aggro. (if you aggro a mob and your tank is within 80 feet radius, the group aggro meter applies for who will become the target)

lassor · February 2023

sonofstealthbl said:
Definitely too hard to be in RTQ as is. The portals need red warnings like those in Zariel, the tankbusters come too fast to react for RTQ level, the purple beam mechanic is very confusing to new players; it needs a warning, a certain returning character's mechanics aren't known to RTQ level players, phase 4 spinner shouldn't be instant 1-shot, and the barrier on last part isn't clear for new players. I think it could be a great intermediate trial like Zariel, but it is definitely not RTQ ready and I don't see a way it becomes RTQ ready without butchering everything. I would sooner put Zariel in RTQ than this, it is very difficult to understand and very punishing for new players. If RTQ Tiamat right after rework was a disaster, this being in RTQ as is would be cataclysmic. P3 in particular is too overwhelming even if it isn't difficult.

The mirrors will have warning indicators on Normal, it's just a bug right now that they aren't displaying.
Please clarify what you mean by the Tankbusters coming too fast. If you're referring to Obliterate, it has a very long warning before it activates.
Please clarify what you mean by the purple beam mechanic being confusing.
The Phase 4 Scorching Artifact (large) will remain extremely high damage as it is very slow moving and easy to avoid
I am a little skeptical that most players will opt to walk into a very scary looking beam on the final phase, but if they choose to do so the rest of the party should be more than capable of finishing the fight.

lassor · February 2023

rikitaki said:

The other concern is about how the players are (forced to be) spread.

Alternatively, you can try to rework aggro for tanks so they do not have to touch a mob to gain aggro. (if you aggro a mob and your tank is within 80 feet radius, the group aggro meter applies for who will become the target)

Please clarify what you mean by "Forced to be spread".

We will not be changing the functionality of how tanking works in our game specifically for this trial. Tanks have a vital role to play in group content and it is not our intent to minimize that role. If a particular task in the trial feels too advanced for this difficulty level then we can examine those specific instances.

sonofstealthbl · February 2023

lassor#2420 said:

sonofstealthbl said:
Definitely too hard to be in RTQ as is. The portals need red warnings like those in Zariel, the tankbusters come too fast to react for RTQ level, the purple beam mechanic is very confusing to new players; it needs a warning, a certain returning character's mechanics aren't known to RTQ level players, phase 4 spinner shouldn't be instant 1-shot, and the barrier on last part isn't clear for new players. I think it could be a great intermediate trial like Zariel, but it is definitely not RTQ ready and I don't see a way it becomes RTQ ready without butchering everything. I would sooner put Zariel in RTQ than this, it is very difficult to understand and very punishing for new players. If RTQ Tiamat right after rework was a disaster, this being in RTQ as is would be cataclysmic. P3 in particular is too overwhelming even if it isn't difficult.

The mirrors will have warning indicators on Normal, it's just a bug right now that they aren't displaying.
Please clarify what you mean by the Tankbusters coming too fast. If you're referring to Obliterate, it has a very long warning before it activates.
Please clarify what you mean by the purple beam mechanic being confusing.
The Phase 4 Scorching Artifact (large) will remain extremely high damage as it is very slow moving and easy to avoid
I am a little skeptical that most players will opt to walk into a very scary looking beam on the final phase, but if they choose to do so the rest of the party should be more than capable of finishing the fight.

The cone attack that Mr. Minotaur does hits for ~750k which is very high for an RTQ-level tank and there isn't very much warning considering the ping that some people have to play the game on. I tried to do some testing of the withering ray on normal, but I could not get it to do any damage, no DoT and no detonation, but most RTQ trials involve grouping up to hit the boss and only moving away to avoid a red area/certain mechanic (like cradle). It isn't at all clear to someone playing the trial for the first time that once their DoT debuff wears off that there will be an explosion around them. The biggest issue with this in RTQ though is the Phase 3 bosses having mechanics completely foreign to RTQ-level players even if they are nowhere near as punishing as in master. I still think it could serve as a good intermediate trial as a stepping stone to harder content by keeping it out of RTQ and as an introduction to mechanics also present in master trials. Even if you make all the damage numbers 0, it's the Phase 3 mechanics existing on top of each other in the first place that makes that part in particular unfair to newer players. They don't have the knowledge like a lot of the playtesters or those on preview have and it will be overwhelming.

lassor · February 2023

sonofstealthbl said:

The cone attack that Mr. Minotaur does hits for ~750k which is very high for an RTQ-level tank and there isn't very much warning considering the ping that some people have to play the game on. I tried to do some testing of the withering ray on normal, but I could not get it to do any damage, no DoT and no detonation, but most RTQ trials involve grouping up to hit the boss and only moving away to avoid a red area/certain mechanic (like cradle). It isn't at all clear to someone playing the trial for the first time that once their DoT debuff wears off that there will be an explosion around them. The biggest issue with this in RTQ though is the Phase 3 bosses having mechanics completely foreign to RTQ-level players even if they are nowhere near as punishing as in master. I still think it could serve as a good intermediate trial as a stepping stone to harder content by keeping it out of RTQ and as an introduction to mechanics also present in master trials. Even if you make all the damage numbers 0, it's the Phase 3 mechanics existing on top of each other in the first place that makes that part in particular unfair to newer players. They don't have the knowledge like a lot of the playtesters or those on preview have and it will be overwhelming.

Thanks for the heads up on the minotaur's cleave. Yes it is hitting too hard on Normal and will be brought down.

As for Withering Ray, you shouldn't assume that Master mechanics transfer to Normal. There are many differences between the two versions. I don't know why it wouldn't have done damage to you though, that's strange.

Blanket statements about difficulty of bosses/mechanics aren't particularly helpful. If there's a particular aspect of the bosses that feels overwhelming then we can definitely discuss it. Our intent is not to create a place where failure is not possible, but we do want to present players with reasonable challenges that they can overcome.

sonofstealthbl · February 2023

lassor#2420 said:

sonofstealthbl said:

The cone attack that Mr. Minotaur does hits for ~750k which is very high for an RTQ-level tank and there isn't very much warning considering the ping that some people have to play the game on. I tried to do some testing of the withering ray on normal, but I could not get it to do any damage, no DoT and no detonation, but most RTQ trials involve grouping up to hit the boss and only moving away to avoid a red area/certain mechanic (like cradle). It isn't at all clear to someone playing the trial for the first time that once their DoT debuff wears off that there will be an explosion around them. The biggest issue with this in RTQ though is the Phase 3 bosses having mechanics completely foreign to RTQ-level players even if they are nowhere near as punishing as in master. I still think it could serve as a good intermediate trial as a stepping stone to harder content by keeping it out of RTQ and as an introduction to mechanics also present in master trials. Even if you make all the damage numbers 0, it's the Phase 3 mechanics existing on top of each other in the first place that makes that part in particular unfair to newer players. They don't have the knowledge like a lot of the playtesters or those on preview have and it will be overwhelming.
Thanks for the heads up on the minotaur's cleave. Yes it is hitting too hard on Normal and will be brought down.

As for Withering Ray, you shouldn't assume that Master mechanics transfer to Normal. There are many differences between the two versions. I don't know why it wouldn't have done damage to you though, that's strange.

Blanket statements about difficulty of bosses/mechanics aren't particularly helpful. If there's a particular aspect of the bosses that feels overwhelming then we can definitely discuss it. Our intent is not to create a place where failure is not possible, but we do want to present players with reasonable challenges that they can overcome.

Unfortunately I don't have much insight about too much damage from mechanics past the first phase. Only managed to get 1 full run, but that was with a bunch of endgame-level players so it's hard to estimate how damage works out for newer players. I'll add more to this if we get a 2nd test phase or what I hear/see from people doing the trial when it comes to live.

sonofstealthbl · February 2023

Thinking about it more, this could be in RTQ, but the issue is that not all RTQ trials are equally presenting a "reasonable challenge that they can overcome." Trials like Rise of Tiamat and Demogorgon present a fair and reasonable challenge, but trials like Assault on Svardborg and Cradle of the Death God don't provide much of a challenge. Players naturally like to complete content as quickly and easily as possible so they may quit when they see Rise of Tiamat or Demogorgon. Svardborg in particular is extremely easy and does not "present players with reasonable challenges." All of Storvald's attacks do too little damage to represent any sort of threat to the tank and the manticores often bug out, standing there and doing nothing. You probably have better access to data than I do, but I reckon Svardborg has a much higher completion rate than Tiamat. I know this is all a bit of a tangent, but when this trial comes out and players fail mechanics, a lot of them just quit, because they want trials that are easy, like Svardborg. Obviously trials shouldn't be easy, but right now some trials are too easy and it skews player perception. Hoping this trial does play out well in live.

muschellka · February 2023

I am not sure if we are playing the same game and with the same ppl.

I could only say one thing: you don't know your player base at all.
I would recommend in this case to come down from the heights of your Olimp and play a few days random queues, as we have to do. With real players to who you addressing your work.
With players who are not capable of performing the simplest mechanics, have itemlevel raised to the maximum, do not know their own class and inflict damage at the level of the average companion.
There is no way any of them can survive longer than 30 sec on your new trial for 25k TIL players

rikitaki · February 2023

lassor#2420 said:

rikitaki said:

The other concern is about how the players are (forced to be) spread.

Alternatively, you can try to rework aggro for tanks so they do not have to touch a mob to gain aggro. (if you aggro a mob and your tank is within 80 feet radius, the group aggro meter applies for who will become the target)
Please clarify what you mean by "Forced to be spread".

You know, random mechanics that punish you if you are close together - like the CN rubber band.

rikitaki · February 2023

lassor#2420 said:

We will not be changing the functionality of how tanking works in our game specifically for this trial. Tanks have a vital role to play in group content and it is not our intent to minimize that role.

Well let me then specify where the problem lies: You have to touch a mob to gain aggro on it. You have a big arena with spread mobs.

The only way you can at least dream about fulfilling a tank role in such a scenario is running around in super speed with "Charging Bull" effect on one of your rings. (Because, while pally and fighter do have ranged attacks, they might not have the resources to touch every mob around. Barb is melee only, so he is out of luck completely.) This is a general issue not specific to this trial: spread adds away from the tank position.
In that situation it is only the healer and DPS chars that are part of the equation. Do not speak of tank vital role in scenarios they literally cannot participate in.

edit: To be super clear - I just suggested something like "threat only Aura of Vengeance" for all the tanks as a default feature.

lassor · February 2023

sonofstealthbl said:
Thinking about it more, this could be in RTQ, but the issue is that not all RTQ trials are equally presenting a "reasonable challenge that they can overcome." Trials like Rise of Tiamat and Demogorgon present a fair and reasonable challenge, but trials like Assault on Svardborg and Cradle of the Death God don't provide much of a challenge. Players naturally like to complete content as quickly and easily as possible so they may quit when they see Rise of Tiamat or Demogorgon. Svardborg in particular is extremely easy and does not "present players with reasonable challenges." All of Storvald's attacks do too little damage to represent any sort of threat to the tank and the manticores often bug out, standing there and doing nothing. You probably have better access to data than I do, but I reckon Svardborg has a much higher completion rate than Tiamat. I know this is all a bit of a tangent, but when this trial comes out and players fail mechanics, a lot of them just quit, because they want trials that are easy, like Svardborg. Obviously trials shouldn't be easy, but right now some trials are too easy and it skews player perception. Hoping this trial does play out well in live.

Svardborg is an outlier in the Trial queue that will be addressed in the near future. It's something we've intended to tune but other priorities have taken precedence. All of the trials in RTQ have high completion rates so there's not a huge delta in the data, but the player perception is certainly that trial completion rates are lower than they actually are by a large margin which then makes Svardborg seem all the more appealing.

pitshade · February 2023

Svardborg was very challenging when it came out. I hope the fixes are just to the manticore AI and Storvald's low HP and damage.

muschellka · February 2023

lassor#2420 said:
All of the trials in RTQ have high completion rates so there's not a huge delta in the data, but the player perception is certainly that trial completion rates are lower than they actually are by a large margin which then makes Svardborg seem all the more appealing.

I don't know if any of you are taking into consider that these fabled "completion rates" of trials come 99% from guild runes or gathered by enclave people. In this, there is no room for the actual results of completing random queues without premades.

sonofstealthbl · March 2023

Just tried again and an 80% defense, 60% awareness tank is still taking ~200k damage each hit on criticals when our health is scaled down to ~550k. The cleave damage is better, but the damage from the minotaur's normal attack is a bit high. For an even less-geared tank the boss can 2-shot them pretty fast once they run out of stamina. The portals are better, enough time to reacts and red areas to show where not to go. I think the changes making the Minotaur faster also made it much more difficult to just kite him around the arena and so he is a much bigger threat than before to RTQ-level tanks. Unfortunately still not enough interested to get a proper test from RTQ-level characters, endgame players just blaze through it too fast to get a good idea of how difficult it would be for an RTQ trial.

arazith07 · March 2023

muschellka#7783 said:

lassor#2420 said:
All of the trials in RTQ have high completion rates so there's not a huge delta in the data, but the player perception is certainly that trial completion rates are lower than they actually are by a large margin which then makes Svardborg seem all the more appealing.
I don't know if any of you are taking into consider that these fabled "completion rates" of trials come 99% from guild runes or gathered by enclave people. In this, there is no room for the actual results of completing random queues without premades.

I would assume that it's the average of ALL RTQ runs, or the average of all Trials that appear in RTQ. They are looking to provide entertainment for the largest majority. I should hope that they don't cater to the worst players who actively avoid participating with others in an MMO. If a group is not premade, nothing is stopping them from talking to each other to get the run done. Players choosing not to use communication or common sense should not be the standard at which RTQs should be set.

mintmark · March 2023

Not being able to speak the same language might stop people talking to each other...

muschellka · March 2023

arazith07 said:

muschellka#7783 said:

lassor#2420 said:
All of the trials in RTQ have high completion rates so there's not a huge delta in the data, but the player perception is certainly that trial completion rates are lower than they actually are by a large margin which then makes Svardborg seem all the more appealing.
I don't know if any of you are taking into consider that these fabled "completion rates" of trials come 99% from guild runes or gathered by enclave people. In this, there is no room for the actual results of completing random queues without premades.
I would assume that it's the average of ALL RTQ runs, or the average of all Trials that appear in RTQ. They are looking to provide entertainment for the largest majority. I should hope that they don't cater to the worst players who actively avoid participating with others in an MMO. If a group is not premade, nothing is stopping them from talking to each other to get the run done. Players choosing not to use communication or common sense should not be the standard at which RTQs should be set.

This is the average of completed runs. The key word in this case is "completed", "crowned with success".

Very often when waiting for a random queue, there are brilliants such as the first, second or even the last boss, which players were not able to finish. For us, it's a win-win, because we come almost at the ready. But... How many of such cases do people simply surrender instances?

And here you have the answer to your question: the completion rate is assigned to a random group, while this group would not really have completed anything if it weren't our premade.

However, for the devs the completion indicator went up.
Completed dungeon/trial? Completed.
From a random queue? Yes.
Success, we were right, regular random people are doing great.

sonofstealthbl · March 2023

@lassor#2420 Okay, I did some more testing and this definitely feels too difficult for RTQ. There are also some bugs to get fixed:

Mr Minotaur will still throw his axe during mirror artifacts, he can initiate the attack as the mirrors spawn, launching his axe just before they fire, causing people to still get knocked into them.
See above, but for Ettercap
Cleave can bug, causing the red area to remain visible permanently, always facing you. It is very distracting and makes it hard to tell when an actual cleave comes
Gzemnid's voicelines for mirrors sometimes gets desynced
Target-able entities still appear with Petrifying Ray and Gzemnid's Artifacts, Petrifying Ray in particular can steal dailies, mounts, encounters, etc. which is frustrating

Some other issues I have observed are:

Rust Monsters do a TON of damage, each hits for around 80k and then can all sync up, causing a big burst against the tank.
The adds (Rust Monsters, Bladed Spiders, and Owlbears) in Phase 1 probably have too little health, they all die from 1 daily or mount power of a decent DPS
Phase 1 minibosses do a lot of damage, around 200k each hit even with good defensive stats
Cleave attack is a lot more threatening now that it turns with tank, it's damage should probably be toned down a bit
Spinning attack probably does too little damage, the area is clear, there is time to move, but staying in it you only take around 100k damage
The CC from Owlbear headbutts can lead to a chain CC, especially with Petrifying Ray
Gzemnid does a TON of damage to the main tank in Phase 2 even with only a few stacks, he often hits for 250k back to back followed by Gaseous Expulsion which leads to tons and tons of healing required from healers.
I see the point above being a big, big issue for RTQ where if the other tank doesn't know how to switch, they will likely get kicked from queue because without several strong DPS, the group won't be able to pass.

I still think even with these changes that the normal version will be too difficult for RTQ. The mechanics are challenging for tanks, healers, and DPS, especially with Phase 3. RTQ players already struggle with pull/push of CotDG, but now they have all these other mechanics to also do semi-decently or else they wipe. 75% of RTQ players have never seen TOMM so how would they know how to avoid Disintegration Wave?

P.S. #JusticeForMrMinotaur

Official: Gzemnid's Reliquary (Normal)

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