I have one impression so far and that is how disappointing it is that the devs didn't take the opportunity to increase/improve the drops from chests in the new area. You are talking about the top-most level area where endgamers are playing and you are still offering black pearls and green insignia which is the same as at the lowest levels. It would have been so much better and more appropriate to the level to increase the rewards to something better, even a higher value RP stone and some insignia powder would have done. But to give the same things as the lowest areas is kind of a major missed opportunity and I'm a little disgusted tbh.
Apparently pointing-out the bleeding obvious is a 'personal attack'.
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My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
I was in instances where 15 people couldnt kill a drider lol
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Drider strategy: he/she can be moved after the web so when he/she does the next mechanic there will be space in red circle where you can be safe and still continue to dps(ranged at least).
As of my melee brothers, i switch to HR previous mod because playing my rogue was just a nightmare, please be more considerative with all classes while you're making new content. In regards of mechanics in general they are not melee friendly at all and im not stating they should be, of course mechanics are there to be your worst enemy not your friend, but playing melee in current state of game is just (puke), ive played rogue only for years and years and ive swore that ill never change my class, i sadly had to do it at the end, but ill say this much it's easy to build tower out of cards, but having it no to collapse during the process is something totally different, which is exactly what am i seeing right now, having mechanics just so you can call them mechanics and having them actually working out is part that you guys failed.
The problem with the web is the damage over time. Web should slow us, but not damage us so melee characters can stay in web with some penalities but not dying.
If they remove the DOT from the web should be OK, once you learn the rotation you can avoid the deadly donut.
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Treasure Chests - improve the contents or if that's not doable, get rid.
Agree with rockster's comments.
Lifesteal had got a bit out of hand, I had a Guardian Fighter stacked with Lifesteal and Deflect and I could go fight Baphomet and go AFK for up to 10 mins and my toon was still alive and kicking...
I think the intention was to make Healers more popular and wanted but all its really done is move many players to ranged DPS.
Back on the new area, I will give it a proper look later today. My first impressions werent exactly that positive.
So far, I played Rogue, Warlock, Barbarian, Cleric, Ranger, Paladin and Fighter against it.
Rogue, Warlock, Barbarian had least problem but they were all barely out run the red before the drops. One mis-step, they are dead.
Cleric has range attack.
My Ranger has range attack but her power is in melee. Her running is too slow. So, when it is red (or I know red is coming), I switch to range stance and use Marauder's escape. This issue is often, she would be just inside the red close to the edge. As the result, she died. Sigh!
My Paladin is even slower. However, for some reason (may be he happened to fight with a better group), he did pretty good. I consider that was just an exception.
My fighter is also slow. He was awful. His range attack just out of range of the web. He did close melee and would be killed after doing few attacks. He died the most and I often needed to worry about he might not even get a hit.
My second toon I did not even try because I was just happy to get that one going but then I took my TR in and figured out how to do it without dying constantly. Luckily other people did join in but before that I was totally cheating by bringing it close to the campfire and just fighting it there so I would not have to travel as far to reengage. Although, at first it was a little to close to the campfire as I literally kept reviving and dying without any chance to do anything while that spider thing was going on.
I only kept doing it because I was having fun and with VIP no revive sickness to worry about.
For me going at it solo for a bit actually helped me out a lot. Now that I know how to fight it yeah the fighter and paladin are pretty much screwed on this one in terms of soloing it. For the fighter, as near as I can tell the only option you have to try and reduce the amount of times you have to revive is the encounter power Bull Charge and hopefully whoever is tanking got the drider to move away from the middle of the spiders that almost always seem to be there when it does that big AoE one.
I guess it's always a balance between making the place really dangerous and accounting for the fact that in a couple months the big trains will be gone and new players will still have to be able to complete the campaign somewhat comfortably. But my goodness the zone mechanic variety in Neverwinter is scarce. And when the game does try something else it's weirdly whatever.
River District was new but like Menzoberranzan never really managed to generate a unique atmosphere or generate a dynamic interaction between player behavior and the environment. Ravenloft's day/night was essentially just stalling questing and the vampire utility belt and random vendors never became a relevant feature. Path of the Fallen Mad Max racing is fun, but just another farm mechanic you needed to do for Hunts. And that map also had some sort of Demon vs. Devil dynamic that you had trouble understanding what it's actually doing other than spawning certain mobs that players, you guessed it, had to farm.
I think grappling in the Dragonbone Vale is definitely cool though and would not mind if it was used again to create verticality in a game without flying.
So here's what I think can be done to improve this mess. Take your rare spawn Drider and have him spawn randomly twice a day. Give him a decent loot table with maybe a mount and 1 or 2 other items that are BOP with a 1-5% drop rating that are worth hanging around to fight it repeatedly. Make all gear except the latest high end Mythic gear BOE so people can equip alts and farm gear to sell on the AH. This gives people a way to get better gear for alts and people to get better gear through the AH to run end game. Do something about the miserable mounts with 4 slots. I didn't see 1 that interested me. Figure out what the hell you're doing with companions. If you can't figure it out then just leave them alone. You're Battle Passes are so bad now they should just go away, you've done better in the past.
I'm giving it 1 more mod. If they can't get their act together I'll just let my VIP expire and see if the game ever turns around. I wonder if they even play the game any more when they are putting out mods like this. Remember when people actually got excited for a new mod coming out? Been a while hasn't it?
Of course dragonhunts takes most of spotlight, but that was intended, so it might be hard to see.
Passes are flawed in generall, would say : make em for randoms or zones, not both.
Now if we only could get more vaulted content back, especially dungeons ...
Web - remove or severely reduce the DOT
BHEs should be scaled per number of players (atm easy with a big group, impossible with a small one)
Mini Bosses are cool, soloable and drop decent rings but tend to be placed in cul-de-sacs (should be in lairs/dungeons)
Also, where is the labyrinth of underground tunnels and secret places a town like Menzoberranzan would surely have?
Dryder have close range( claws) attacks and stright line blast.. But since they are not so problematic I am skipping them. Cuz they are not the main reason why players failing to take down dryder.
Main attacks.
1) Spider web - casted where dryder stand.
2) Repel- dryder cast AoE repel to push all players away from him/her( duno about gender).
3) AoE dps - dryder cast mid/long range dps hits( Raining star).
The sequance is simple.
Dryder cast first mecahnic( spider web) then after few moments cast second mechanic(Repel), and after that it will use third attack> Wide range AoE dps ( falling stars).
Then dryder goes for Repel, and Falling sar, then spider web. Then sequance restart.
To deal with it is simple. Tank or player who have her/his attention( aggro), after Dryder use spider web, to lure it away from spider webs center. In short after it's mechanic use you simply stand out of spider web range and do dps ( if ranged) or simply wai till dryder come to you.. IF dryder walk just to you, then usually once it get out of her/his spider web ( DoT) area, it will cast Repel. So all is matter is simply make few steps away from that CC range.. And right after it rush to the center/near Dryder.
And in worst case just bring few wizards and let them cast Entangling force encounter, and keep Dryder in CC lock. Either way works just fine.
With warlock first 4 dryders I took solo. Three killed with long rand dps set up, and fourth I took with close range dps set up. Then next five where done with small group and then like 15 or so with train..
The main reason why groups fails is that, they do not lure Dryder from spider web center.
And do not make safe zone for it's third mechanic( raining star). What happens is group just keep throwing their dps powers and hope to melt dryder within seconds.
Hope that they can melt dryder with few power rotattions. That's didn't happen and playes dies. Some tanks try act brave and try stay in center in spier web and fight dryder there. ( that usually ends in bad way for tank). And as usually latter complain why no one ress or why no one healed him.. ( traditional complains).
This lack of field view( fight and pay attention to the field) is main reason why players fails not just dryder but other contents too.
“The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.
Gustave Le Bon.
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What I noticed is that this would have worked with the old damage values the web did, but the new ones are just way too high:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/V0vux0ljC_U
In that video the web is doing like 35k damage per tick. That's not how much it does now, it does almost 10x that damage. I think they increased it so people couldn't just sit on top of it with a heal. If they wanted it so that you don't just sit on top of it 100% of the time they should have added an effect to it like the ones that Traps have (You know, the ones that stack and really nerf your character?) or made the web make you take vastly reduced incoming healing or something...
https://us.v-cdn.net/6025210/uploads/editor/gf/octa44s48km0.png
B ) got so used to new system, that almost forgot how good it was before; lairs bosses can be mixed with rare spawn bosses, so we can get best from both - as long as those not come with that meaningles black pearl reward chest
Makes the campaign solo-able although a potent group should always have a speed advantage imho. Although it's super dull I'd prefer high HP and low damage to start with and then scale damage more than HP. That way you could still solo encounters (just takes a long time) while a maxed group can burst faster but has to watch the mechanics as they are going to hit like a truck.
Seems to be an easy fix.
There is also reward tier system in some skirmishes, but likewise mostly remnant of the past.
I do hope its easier to build on this than think of some drastic chnges, like we usually gettin lately.
The Drider captain's web is way over powered.
The mini-bosses are almost fun.
The whole area seems empty and devoid of "life", more like some sort of sad refugee town [maybe that was the intention]
The new trial is doable with scrolls pretty easy, but bugs out a few times.
Content is just so dull.
Remember how much fun Barovian Hunts were when they came out? Awesome fun.
{And Ravenloft was five years ago!}