Official Feedback Thread: Assault on Svardborg

asterdahl · October 2016

Greetings adventurers, Asterdahl here! Today the epic trials Assault on Svardborg and Assault on Svardborg (Master) are now up and accessible on the preview shard! We hope the most enterprising among you will tackle this challenge! We're in our final tuning pass now, any bug reports and feedback you can provide will be invaluable. Please use this thread for providing feedback and bug reports on issues you may have encountered in the trial.

We look forward to seeing you all tackle the Jarl and receiving your value feedback! If you're giving feedback or bug reports, we'd like for you to follow some formatting outlined below, to ensure that we can note and address these issues quickly.

If you're looking to provide feedback on loot, please see: OFFICIAL FEEDBACK THREAD: ASSAULT ON SVARDBORG (LOOT EDITION)

P.S. If giving any sort of feedback on the difficulty, please include what classes were in your group and as specific information as you can provide about your item levels!

Type: Bug/Feedback (Please only choose one)
If you are listing a bug please have this text in RED, if you are posting an opinion or feedback please use CYAN. If you are replying to another user's post, or just engaging in general discussion, please do not color your posts, general discussion is welcome and we will read all of it, regardless of color! You can use BBCode to color your text:

<font color=cyan>This text will display in cyan.</font>
<font color=red>This text will display in red.</font>

Examples:
Bug: When Hroogandr appeared, others in my party saw him but he was invisible on my screen!

Feedback: It only took three of us to survive Hypothermia, too easy! We were a 3500 Devoted Cleric, 3700 Oathbound Paladin and 3900 Hunter Ranger.

Thank you for taking the time to check out the preview build, and thank you for taking the time to hop on the forums and give us your feedback.

loboguild · October 2016

Bug: Manticore pet pierces control immunity
The Manticore pet was able to disable the boss similar to how other pets and powers could stun SH dragons and FBI bosses.

Bug: Adds getting stuck in first phase
In one try, one troll in the first phase got stuck in the environment and was not attackable, which failed the encounter. No more adds would spawn.

Feedback: Fight dynamics
So far I like the fight. You have to pay attention to many mechanics at once, but I think it's manageable.

Unknown · October 2016

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diogene0 · October 2016

The difficulty of the trial seems about average in master, ie, on par with other raids such as tiamat when it was released. From my point of view, this is accetpable as gathering 10 skilled players is far more difficult than gatering 4 or 5 for a dungeon, given the game's relatively small population at endgame level.

Mechanically, it's fairly simple, hypothermia can be avoided almost entirely with good dodge timing, even if no one cares about it. Unavoidable permafrost traps seems to be a challenge as melee characters don't pay attention to such things, but with practice it should be fine. I don't think it's a bug, but a feature instead, and if there's a way to avoid it i haven't find it yet.

The special "ring" attack with runes empowering a special attack can however be mostly ignored, except during the very final phase, in the eye of the storm. In that case, even if all runes are dealt with (sitting on them is enough?) it's a potential party wipe. The damage should be looked at in that case. See in the video.

There's however an unfair element, right after the adds phase: there's an attack to hide from but nothing to hide the party. This caused wipes on every try we did.

As usual, stacking DCs with anointed army and hallowed ground greatly trivialized the content as damage immunity and high damage reduction provide a way to ignore a lot of the challenges and mechanics. As you can see in the video, on our second attempt in master, we had 3 clerics and a lot of stuff could be ignored. IMO the problem isn't the design itself but the damage and CC immunity of anointed army that should be removed entirely.

The fact that we can't enter the boss arena if one player drops should be looked at. It's 10 players content, there will always be such things.

Here is a video of the run. It will be available once Youtube is done processing it in an hour or two:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI8-CmERl90

Bug: it seems there's no overtime limit when we enter overtime.

Bug: apparently some players found a way to revive their dead character using portobello's wand. They first log out and then they're back. I can't give any details as I don't know them but it also happens in FBI boss fights.

loboguild · October 2016

You can avoid the initial Call of Winter after the adds phase. Just hide behind one of the pillars left and right of the ice throne.

asterdahl · October 2016

diogene0 said:
The difficulty of the trial seems about average in master, ie, on par with other raids such as tiamat when it was released. From my point of view, this is accetpable as gathering 10 skilled players is far more difficult than gatering 4 or 5 for a dungeon, given the game's relatively small population at endgame level.

Mechanically, it's fairly simple, hypothermia can be avoided almost entirely with good dodge timing, even if no one cares about it. Unavoidable permafrost traps seems to be a challenge as melee characters don't pay attention to such things, but with practice it should be fine. I don't think it's a bug, but a feature instead, and if there's a way to avoid it i haven't find it yet.

Permafrost is indeed intentionally unavoidable, however, there is an indicator that you will soon be frozen that you can use to your advantage.

diogene0 said:

The special "ring" attack with runes empowering a special attack can however be mostly ignored, except during the very final phase, in the eye of the storm. In that case, even if all runes are dealt with (sitting on them is enough?) it's a potential party wipe. The damage should be looked at in that case. See in the video.

The damage of Winter's Fury scales non-linearly with the number of open runes. There's a certain number that can be left open and you can probably survive alright. As the number of runes increases during the final phase, if you don't have enough party members alive to deal with them you're going to have a bad time. This is an intentional escalation.

diogene0 said:

There's however an unfair element, right after the adds phase: there's an attack to hide from but nothing to hide the party. This caused wipes on every try we did.

I did not see this situation arise in your video. I can tell you that there are cases in the fight where Call of Winter can be used with no chance to avoid it, however, these are intentional failure states.

diogene0 said:

As usual, stacking DCs with anointed army and hallowed ground greatly trivialized the content as damage immunity and high damage reduction provide a way to ignore a lot of the challenges and mechanics. As you can see in the video, on our second attempt in master, we had 3 clerics and a lot of stuff could be ignored. IMO the problem isn't the design itself but the damage and CC immunity of anointed army that should be removed entirely.

Thank you for the feedback, we're still in the tuning phase, so the avoidability and numbers on a number of powers may change before release. And as always we're reviewing how player powers interact.

diogene0 said:

The fact that we can't enter the boss arena if one player drops should be looked at. It's 10 players content, there will always be such things.

Bug: it seems there's no overtime limit when we enter overtime.

Bug: apparently some players found a way to revive their dead character using portobello's wand. They first log out and then they're back. I can't give any details as I don't know them but it also happens in FBI boss fights.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll make sure Commander Ander gets the feedback on the overtime and team corral. We'll also look into the wand issue, thank you.

hastati96 · October 2016

We went in with:
2x Pala, 2x DC, 2x CW, 2x TR, 2x GWF

Our average ilvl was about 3.7k.
We completed the master version in about 7 min. The fight itself was pretty easy. I would say FBI was a lot harder in the beginning. The trial wasnt really a challenge so the 3.2k ilvl as requirment doesnt fit to it in my opinion. A 2.8k ilvl would fit better. All in all FBI is harder than the trial in my opinion.

The difference of difficulty between normal and master version wasnt noticable.

"Storvald" doesnt have enough HP in my opinion too. The current HP (about 540mio) isnt enough. I would suggest to increase it by another 150-200mio. Why increase it? Our team was just average, we didnt even have a buff gf. If we would had one we would have completed it in about 5-6 minutes.
The adds also just melted in the beginning of the trial. You really need to increase the HP of them too.

mrvincent1959 · October 2016

I see this thread has turned into "nerf the DC" again.

imperiousshini · October 2016

feedback: I disliked that the reagents are bound, what will happen onec you are done refining the weapons..or to someone not interested in the weapons

Other than that i think it was a bit of fun. Need to play more to get more feedback cya later!

Unknown · October 2016

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diogene0 · October 2016

streuner10000 said:
The new trial is a joke. I will run this only 1 time a week to improve my relic gear. After that I won´t run it again. It is not worthy to waste more time for this. Btw, thanks for destroying FBI with this (new --> edemo 2.0) trial.

I don't think it is. It's 10 players content. Few players have a friendlist that can field 10 stellar level players on a regular basis. I could probably do that, once in a while. Regularly? no. Your average team will be 3-4 core and 6-7 average or sub average players. Once it hits live, it's going to be much harder due to the necessity to field 10 players.

Unknown · October 2016

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asterdahl · October 2016

streuner10000 said:
Oh, did I forget to mention you will need 3 legendary keys from the zen store to open alle 3 chests?

As with other chests in the game, there is an alternative method to opening those chests. You can support the three factions in the Sea of Moving Ice. You can store a number of bonus rewards as well. On the preview shard, we're granting early access to the trial for testing purposes, but you would be introduced to the factions before unlocking the trial in normal play.

Unknown · October 2016

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cromejohnsen · October 2016

So we are supposed to run HEs on the sea of moving ice like crazy so that we can open 1 chest ?

asterdahl · October 2016

streuner10000 said:

asterdahl said:

streuner10000 said:
Oh, did I forget to mention you will need 3 legendary keys from the zen store to open alle 3 chests?
As with other chests in the game, there is an alternative method to opening those chests. You can support the three factions in the Sea of Moving Ice. You can store a number of bonus rewards as well. On the preview shard, we're granting early access to the trial for testing purposes, but you would be introduced to the factions before unlocking the trial in normal play.
Ok, if I store the bonus rewards to max, what will I get guaranteed? A legendary refinement stone for relic weapon? So the legendary key from zen store gives you worth less reward than the full stacked rewards from the three factions?

Imagine each bonus reward as a key that takes no inventory. If you had 4 bonus rewards with all 3 factions, you could run Svardborg 4 times and get each of the 3 chests once per run.

cromejohnsen said:
So we are supposed to run HEs on the sea of moving ice like crazy so that we can open 1 chest ?

Each faction is supported in different ways, so if you'd rather not run as many heroic encounters, you can support a different faction.

imperiousshini · October 2016

Though by supporting another faction you won't be able to claim the regeant that tribe rewards you with.. Those being bound you won't be able to buy them or trade them/craft them so you abandon the chance to progress your weapons?

Or is my theory wrong and every tribe doesn't reward you with a the tribe's special regeant (rare /epic/ legendary)

And will you be able to not claim a reward if you don't like the contains and try again later?

Unknown · October 2016

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cellablock · October 2016

hastati96 said:

We went in with:
2x Pala, 2x DC, 2x CW, 2x TR, 2x GWF

Our average ilvl was about 3.7k.
We completed the master version in about 7 min. The fight itself was pretty easy. I would say FBI was a lot harder in the beginning. The trial wasnt really a challenge so the 3.2k ilvl as requirment doesnt fit to it in my opinion. A 2.8k ilvl would fit better. All in all FBI is harder than the trial in my opinion.

The difference of difficulty between normal and master version wasnt noticable.

"Storvald" doesnt have enough HP in my opinion too. The current HP (about 540mio) isnt enough. I would suggest to increase it by another 150-200mio. Why increase it? Our team was just average, we didnt even have a buff gf. If we would had one we would have completed it in about 5-6 minutes.
The adds also just melted in the beginning of the trial. You really need to increase the HP of them too.

and you all had r12 bonding thinking of the average that didnt go for bonding will ya

mrvincent1959 · October 2016

We did several today with a mostly fully geared group. The graphics were so bad that it was really hard to see very well, so we just killed everything that came in to the room. There are no delays between phases like in Edemo, so it can go pretty quickly with a fully geared group.

It kinda feels like an instanced HE since you never actually go anywhere as a group. Its still better than POM or Throne since it doesnt required so many platforming elements.

I also take offense that someone tried to use this thread to claim that DCs "trivialize the content" and are now calling for nerfs. Shame on you!

Unknown · October 2016

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Unknown · October 2016

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hastati96 · October 2016

cellablock said:

hastati96 said:

We went in with:
2x Pala, 2x DC, 2x CW, 2x TR, 2x GWF

Our average ilvl was about 3.7k.
We completed the master version in about 7 min. The fight itself was pretty easy. I would say FBI was a lot harder in the beginning. The trial wasnt really a challenge so the 3.2k ilvl as requirment doesnt fit to it in my opinion. A 2.8k ilvl would fit better. All in all FBI is harder than the trial in my opinion.

The difference of difficulty between normal and master version wasnt noticable.

"Storvald" doesnt have enough HP in my opinion too. The current HP (about 540mio) isnt enough. I would suggest to increase it by another 150-200mio. Why increase it? Our team was just average, we didnt even have a buff gf. If we would had one we would have completed it in about 5-6 minutes.
The adds also just melted in the beginning of the trial. You really need to increase the HP of them too.
and you all had r12 bonding thinking of the average that didnt go for bonding will ya

The companions disappear anyway. Either you are stuck in a iceblock and it disappears or trough something else. It doesnt really matter how your companion is equiped. On the other hand why dont you use bondings? It is not our problem if you struggle in content just because you dont want to use some enchantments.

matiagronx · October 2016

What about FBI? You are going to leave it there to ROT with the other dungeons as well? You guys need the real FBI to take you in..

arcticblitz · October 2016

asterdahl said:

Each faction is supported in different ways, so if you'd rather not run as many heroic encounters, you can support a different faction.

Could you please modify this so we can avoid HE's all together and still progress our characters by playing the campaign and not the AH.

emilemo · October 2016

@asterdahl Can you please list your plans for the next mod after Moving Ice so I can plan my grinding and spending accordingly? Thank you

commanderander · October 2016

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the feedback so far, I've got a fix locally for the issue of enemies being stuck in collision, it should be pushed with our next Preview build. I'll let you all know if the plan for that gets changed.

cellablock · October 2016

hastati96 said:

cellablock said:

hastati96 said:

We went in with:
2x Pala, 2x DC, 2x CW, 2x TR, 2x GWF

Our average ilvl was about 3.7k.
We completed the master version in about 7 min. The fight itself was pretty easy. I would say FBI was a lot harder in the beginning. The trial wasnt really a challenge so the 3.2k ilvl as requirment doesnt fit to it in my opinion. A 2.8k ilvl would fit better. All in all FBI is harder than the trial in my opinion.

The difference of difficulty between normal and master version wasnt noticable.

"Storvald" doesnt have enough HP in my opinion too. The current HP (about 540mio) isnt enough. I would suggest to increase it by another 150-200mio. Why increase it? Our team was just average, we didnt even have a buff gf. If we would had one we would have completed it in about 5-6 minutes.
The adds also just melted in the beginning of the trial. You really need to increase the HP of them too.
and you all had r12 bonding thinking of the average that didnt go for bonding will ya
The companions disappear anyway. Either you are stuck in a iceblock and it disappears or trough something else. It doesnt really matter how your companion is equiped. On the other hand why dont you use bondings? It is not our problem if you struggle in content just because you dont want to use some enchantments.

as a 3.2k gwf i do very fine thank you

emilemo · October 2016

The ways to acquire equipment in the game are way too complicated. Way. Used to be simple, the adventurers gather, they go into a cave, they slay a beast, they find a chest - simple but it felt rewarding. I'm not even gonna talk about selling whatever they found, just using it. Now, adventurers must keep track of several different processes, collect a ton of hard to get items, keep their smartphones in the back pocket of their armored pants so they can check spreadsheets and what not every 5 mins to make sure their stat allocation is optimal with that new piece of gear... And when finally they complete this massive undertaking and end up with the strongest equipment the overlords from the studio throw a new tier items at them and it all starts again.

Working toward a goal, in this case new gear or boons, is fine. Its part of the fun in a rpg however what is even more fun is actually playing with the best equipment you managed to get. Somehow that part got lost in Neverwinter (maybe Lostmauth ate it). Here the only real activity is working toward the best gear, always. You finally get it, you step back, you take a deep breath and relax and next thing you know you're back in the wheel grinding away ad infinitum.

Guild Wars 2 has been out for awhile now, it takes exactly 1 month (without too much rush) to create an Ascended weapon in there. I know cause I made one recently. Said weapon can be considered bis as far as dps goes and thats it. Once you got it you got it. How do they keep making money without releasing new tiers of gear ever few months? C'mon Cryptic, steal the good ideas of others, your game has one of the best combat systems around, graphics are good, IP is good. Its the combination of those things thats still keeping me here and its your development decisions that drive me away. Find the balance already, the Golden mean.

@panderus
@asterdahl

ironzerg79 · October 2016

So, I don't know where to put this, so I'll stick it here (also, gigitty).

The progression doesn't make sense with the new challenge. If I'm still gearing up, heading towards a 3100 iLevel, things get a little wonky here.

At 2800 iLevel, I can face down the Ice Giant Jarl, and "finish" the adventure in normal mode

But then I need to get a 3100 iLevel to hit FBI, which takes me backwards to search for the Ring of Winter, which ends up NOT being at FBI, and I need to go to Svardborg to get it. But per the story line, I already did that when I had a 2800 iLevel.

Then I can access the Master version of the assault at 3200 iLevel AND having finished FBI.

To me, it seems like that needs to be reversed, or there needs to be some way to access FBI prior to facing down Svardborg here. Have you guys considered a "downgraded" version of FBI to help better fill the gap between being 2500 and doing eDemo, to then a "normal" FBI, "normal" Assault, then the master versions?

gabrieldourden · October 2016

emilemo said:
C'mon Cryptic, steal the good ideas of others, your game has one of the best combat systems around, graphics are good, IP is good. Its the combination of those things thats still keeping me here and its your development decisions that drive me away. Find the balance already, the Golden mean.

@panderus
@asterdahl

I couldn't have said it better.

Official Feedback Thread: Assault on Svardborg

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