cradle of the death god

eolee

After some hours spent in the new trial i'd like to ask/give some feedback (yea i know, might have been done on preview sorry)

First of all, the cutscene: before fighting the atropal, can we skip this long cutscene where we get to see our character from front back side and so on?

Secondly: before every new release when you devs introduced some new mechanics we got some sort of practice (i think about Drufi in Fangbreaker Hideways for example with her push and so on). It was nice. We knew what to expect. We could practice the push, not hours needed but after the second try, we got it. And for CODG nothing.
So you will say there's no practice for Ras Nsi in Tong. Ok! Fair enough, but guess what, when we fail Ras Nsi we restart at the campfire before the boss. So first timers in there get to practice with the tilt the souls and all that jazz without having to restart the whole dungeon. For CODG, there's no room for a single mistake. Whereas the elevator is pretty easy to get with mechanisms, im sorry but the push/pull of Atropal is unforgiving. I like the idea really, of everybody having (or mostly everybody) to success this push/pull phases to keep going. Fair enough. But why on earth do we have to restart all over with the elevator and the chords? This is disheartening (spelling?). This is a skill check. I get that. But for some classes this push/pull is way easier to do than on others. I ran it on my OP, i had no issue. On my DC it was a pain. Gwf can sprint for example.

So maybe you dont want to put a campfire before Atropal, because that wasnt your point in creating the trial... That would be nice but i would understand that you dont want to. What if you would build a Atropal fight training? Something we could kwew for without any kind of rewards, but it would allow people to practice the push/pull without having to restart all over. Some people learn faster than others. And yet again this is going (if not already) to create an other gap between players.
Currently there's three kinds of groups running this content: the first one is exploiting the hell out of it. The second one is trying over and over and over, then kick one or two persons that they think are too weak, some are eventually giving up and this kind of group eventually succeed after 2hrs. The third one is the guild type one, where 90% of the group is skilled enough to burn the boss and get through only 1 or 2 push/pull during the fight.
Not everyone wants to exploit this trial, not everyone is in the guild where there's enough people to carry the ones that fail at Super Mario skill check.

ambulates

I don't understand why a game that has never had any platforming would make the hardest trial in the game have a platform. the trial itself is very simple. but the last bosses push pull mechanic in unbelievably broken. doesn't not respect control resist. does not respect elven battle. does not respect paladin shift. does not respect any form of resistance yet still you expect players to play with this broken mechanic. please fix this or else you will see a player doing the trial ever again after they get the vivified and exalted weapons/armor

muminekm

>>I don't understand why a game that has never had any platforming would make the hardest trial in the game have a platform

MSP 2nd, FBI 1st (kind off) or 2nd, Tong 3rd bossess? It's actually more like they like platform mechanics too much :P

marv700

I do agree, some sort of training option would be nice. Took me about 15 attempts to finally get my timing down.


I will say that sometimes you DONT get the animation of him going down and starting the sucking motion. That should just not happen.

mamalion1234

eolee said:

After some hours spent in the new trial i'd like to ask/give some feedback (yea i know, might have been done on preview sorry)

First of all, the cutscene: before fighting the atropal, can we skip this long cutscene where we get to see our character from front back side and so on?

Secondly: before every new release when you devs introduced some new mechanics we got some sort of practice (i think about Drufi in Fangbreaker Hideways for example with her push and so on). It was nice. We knew what to expect. We could practice the push, not hours needed but after the second try, we got it. And for CODG nothing.
So you will say there's no practice for Ras Nsi in Tong. Ok! Fair enough, but guess what, when we fail Ras Nsi we restart at the campfire before the boss. So first timers in there get to practice with the tilt the souls and all that jazz without having to restart the whole dungeon. For CODG, there's no room for a single mistake. Whereas the elevator is pretty easy to get with mechanisms, im sorry but the push/pull of Atropal is unforgiving. I like the idea really, of everybody having (or mostly everybody) to success this push/pull phases to keep going. Fair enough. But why on earth do we have to restart all over with the elevator and the chords? This is disheartening (spelling?). This is a skill check. I get that. But for some classes this push/pull is way easier to do than on others. I ran it on my OP, i had no issue. On my DC it was a pain. Gwf can sprint for example.

So maybe you dont want to put a campfire before Atropal, because that wasnt your point in creating the trial... That would be nice but i would understand that you dont want to. What if you would build a Atropal fight training? Something we could kwew for without any kind of rewards, but it would allow people to practice the push/pull without having to restart all over. Some people learn faster than others. And yet again this is going (if not already) to create an other gap between players.
Currently there's three kinds of groups running this content: the first one is exploiting the hell out of it. The second one is trying over and over and over, then kick one or two persons that they think are too weak, some are eventually giving up and this kind of group eventually succeed after 2hrs. The third one is the guild type one, where 90% of the group is skilled enough to burn the boss and get through only 1 or 2 push/pull during the fight.
Not everyone wants to exploit this trial, not everyone is in the guild where there's enough people to carry the ones that fail at Super Mario skill check.

AH yes this bug that cryptic once more pretend they dont know .

vorphied

Cradle is way too buggy or just plain inconsistent to be very enjoyable, which is a shame since it's a pretty cool encounter otherwise. I've experienced everything from grasping hands popping up during the push/pull mechanic to appearing to get hit twice by a push (could have been latency, but appeared to be a second push immediately after having dodged the anticipated push in a timely manner) to watching OPs somehow heal the Atropal to full when Acererak appears.

Could we please see some adjustment to alleviate the unnecessary pain points in this trial? The push/pull thing needs to be tweaked badly, or else there needs to be a mechanic in the fight that gives us a legitimate way to resist it and not hope that we aren't killed by latency or by glitches even while dodging correctly. At this rate, the pain is only going to ratchet up once the log out trick is patched. Not having a campfire at the end just makes it so much worse when you fail from no fault of your own.

alleykate

I have to say I am over firstly over being thrown off a platform then secondly, over having start from the beginning every time we all fail. This has to be my least favourite thing in the game. I love the initial mechanics but please Devs tell us how to survive this tiny platform with lag and living on a island so far away from any servers. Desperate for the platform mechanic to go. Pushed in FBI, thown off in Spellplague, platform for Tong to be tipped off and now this...enough make it stop.

laimcell

We failed and failed for hours and got at the end to learn how to survive the mechanics. Would you really love to play a game that is a piece of cake? Go in with a "practice" group with other newbies that need to learn like you, so you slowly get how to make it through.
No need to rush anything in this game, take your time, learn and be awarded for that.

Cheers

trgluestickz

I am in favor of the devs introducing a way to practice for the pull-push mechanic. This trial makes you start over from the beginning of the trial if your group fails at the boss. This means there is 0 time to practice for the push-pull mechanic. Most groups are understanding if you don't get the mechanic on the first few trys but the more times you fail at it, the less patient people will get with you. If you can't get it down within a few trys, many groups will not hesitate to kick you if the rest of the group is more experienced than you.

Now don't get me wrong here, I think the pull-push mechanic is actually a very good addition to this trial. Please don't nerf this mechanic, its fine the way it is and its nice to see a real skill check get implemented in this game. Lots of players asked for harder content because most prior content was too easy and could be burned down whilst totally ignoring the mechanics. Please do not go back on their request just because a few people either don't want a challenge or have yet to learn how to counter this new mechanic.

There are however 2 minor tweaks I would like to see for the pull-push stage. The pull-push mechanic itself should stay as is:

#1) The grasping hand is a death sentence if it grabs you durring the pull-push. No time for your teammates to bust you out, no way to survive it. Making it so the grasping hand doesn't grab you durring the pull-push phase would be a great adjustment.

#2) Fix any outright bugs with the trial. Someone mentioned earlyer that they sometimes don't get the pull-push stage animation. Someone else mentioned that the push outwards might be double its normal length some of the time.

As for lag, it is one of the most crippling and most heavily complained about things in this game. It effects everything you do. I want to see the servers get upgraded to reduce the lag. This is long overdue.

Also, for those of you who have not yet figured out how to survive the pull-push mechanic, here are 2 videos. The first one is a short video that demonstrates the correct way to counter the pull-push mechanic on 4 different classes. The second video goes over the entire trial including the push-pull mechanic:

Video removed by mod due to flaming/flame baiting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMw-ScwfwnE

pterias

It was suggested on preview to have a non-Master version of it too with lesser rewards so people could practice the trial before being really thrown in the deep end. They did it with Demogorgon, which was great, and SVA, which was... so-so. I could imagine a normal version that allows respawning just before the final boss. It would also allow more people to actually see the content they've created instead of locking it behind really high IL and playerbase meta filtering.

vorphied

Removed mod edited quote.

Good, constructive post. If they fixed the bugs associated with the mechanic, it should be doable even with latency issues due to its uniform timing.

Also, let's all be honest that this mechanic by itself, when it works properly, does not constitute end-game difficulty. It's not hard; it's simply very punishing if failed. It's kind of an odd choice as the trial's signature mechanic given how bug and latency-prone the end-game encounters tend to be, but I agree that it's a good thing that the devs are trying to include challenges that aren't completely tank-and-spank.

pterias said:

It was suggested on preview to have a non-Master version of it too with lesser rewards so people could practice the trial before being really thrown in the deep end. They did it with Demogorgon, which was great, and SVA, which was... so-so. I could imagine a normal version that allows respawning just before the final boss. It would also allow more people to actually see the content they've created instead of locking it behind really high IL and playerbase meta filtering.

To be fair, this trial doesn't require a massive ilvl or even strict adherence to ideal comps. The DPS check aspect isn't that crazy; it's just necessary that the group be able to execute the mechanics. Right now players are focused on max DPS because of how recurring bugs make the experience inconsistent, and higher DPS means fewer mechanics to deal with. Not all of my clears this week have had amazing group DPS, but I admit it helped.

muminekm

I've tried to complete it several times yesterday. My group didn't had any problems until the boss fight. You don't even need great dps, IL or team composition. But push/pull is way too unforgiving.. fail once and you need to redo whole thing over. I've watched all the videos and guides but I still cannot do it. Not sure if it's lag (I'm living pretty far from server) or just I'm unskillful. I feel like I'm missing short period of time. Actually if you watch those videos on youtube you will see people who barely manage to stay at edge. @trgluestickz in that video gwf was like 0.1m off the edge? If I account I'm worse player than him I'm just uncapable of doing it.

Maybe I would learn it with time if I would have some training ground. Running whole thing only to die at first pull x repeat dozens of time don't help me learn it at all.

minotaur2857

laimcell said:

We failed and failed for hours and got at the end to learn how to survive the mechanics. Would you really love to play a game that is a piece of cake? Go in with a "practice" group with other newbies that need to learn like you, so you slowly get how to make it through.
No need to rush anything in this game, take your time, learn and be awarded for that.

Cheers

Have you tried to do it when it's really laggy or, like some of our guildies who live out in the Australian or South african wilds have to deal with, a permanent 300-400 ping.

archangelzorak01

I would like to see a campfire at the bottom of the elevator, but I understand why there isn't one. Or at least I think I know why.

I liken it to psychological warfare. Starting over from the beginning forces everyone in your group to suffer the slow agonizing first phase. This drastically increases the chances of people forgetting the valuable lessons they learned from their horrible failures during the previous attempt. The first phase being so mind-numbingly boring causes people's minds to begin to wander, they start jabbering on voice comm's about non-essential garbage just to pass the time. All of this acts as a distraction and then when they get back to the actual boss again they make all the same mistakes they just made.. and the process repeats.

This wouldn't be so much of an issue if the average player had an attention span greater than that of a speckled newt. Alas we are surrounded by so many amphibians.

Aside from that I have been grabbed by a claw mid pull and... ya, there is no fighting it, if that happens your off the edge, by no fault of your own, this fight is supposed to be a skill-check, if you allow something to occur during the fight that has no counter you turn it into a luck-check, and honestly there is already enough RNG in this game to choke a moose (Ayasuke's Wealth Management, LLC does not condone cervine violence). Same goes for any lag spikes you may have, if a lag spike rears its ugly head your done and dusted. As far as lag goes it will only get worse in the coming weeks, as more and more people unlock Cradle more and more instances will be open and we KNOW the more instances of a particular map are open the more lag those instances potentially suffer from. (srsly, its not a debate anymore so don't even try)

In conclusion I would like to see the claw grab disabled during push/pull. A campfire at the bottom of the elevator would be cool but I don't see that happening so at the very least speed up the mob spawn rate during phase 1, there sure is a lot of standing around waiting for them to spawn.

*edit* Oh, and Cutscenes... STOP WITH THE CUTSCENES.. for the love of all things good and wholesome in this world just make them stop!!!

trgluestickz

muminekm#3459 said:

I've tried to complete it several times yesterday. My group didn't had any problems until the boss fight. You don't even need great dps, IL or team composition. But push/pull is way too unforgiving.. fail once and you need to redo whole thing over. I've watched all the videos and guides but I still cannot do it. Not sure if it's lag (I'm living pretty far from server) or just I'm unskillful. I feel like I'm missing short period of time. Actually if you watch those videos on youtube you will see people who barely manage to stay at edge. @trgluestickz in that video gwf was like 0.1m off the edge? If I account I'm worse player than him I'm just uncapable of doing it.

Maybe I would learn it with time if I would have some training ground. Running whole thing only to die at first pull x repeat dozens of time don't help me learn it at all.

It took me about 4 evenings worth of Cradle attempts before I succeeded at surviving the pull-push mechanic for the first time. I failed miserably at it for the first 9 or so runs. That first success turned the tables and now I survive the pull-push mechanic fairly often and am getting better and better at it. I watched both of those videos before I unlocked Cradle but some trial and error was still needed to actually get the hang of it.

If you didn't figure out how to survive the mechanic on your first few trys, that does not mean you are unskilled or unable to do it. I'd keep trying over the next couple of days until you get your first success at it.

I also asked around and got a few more tips, some of which aren't covered in those videos:

#1) The pull-push is around 5 seconds long.

#2) The innermost 1 quarter of the platform out of 3 quarters is where you need to be when the push happens. In other words, the closer you are to the boss when the push happens, the better.

#3) You also need to be running towards the boss when the push happens. If you just stand still during the push, you will usually be blasted off the edge even if you were in the right area.

#4) Some people use their stamina dodge as a way of resisting the pull or to quickly get into the right area before the push. This can be worth it but it is risky if you are a class with a long dodge mechanic (DC or TR). Classes with long dodge mechanics can easily dodge right off the edge by mistake.

#5) One of the safest methods is to try to stay near the center of the platform during most of the pull. You usually want to be closer to the outer edge when the pull starts and then let it drag you to the middle or a little bit past the middle. This will shorten the amount of distance you need to cover right before the push.

#6) Some classes can run faster than others. Make sure to take that into account when deciding how close the the outer edge you want to be when the pull starts. This also effects how much distance you can cover right before the push.

Here is a tip of my own:

When the push happens and I'm running towards the boss, I usually press my W/forwards key, let go of it for a brief moment, and then press it again. This usually brings me to a stop sooner when being pushed away.

mcfob

Probably be easy and a good idea to throw a campfire outside the boss on the preview server for people to practice on, if they won't do it on live.

lardeson

grrouper said:

Another issue at hand is with cryptics servers and poor FPS from it. With so many complaints about the lag in dungeons and then they go ahead and add a mechanic that will cause a fail from lag. Yesterday i made several run in cradle many no problem at the push pull phase yet other times me and a good share of the group would fall do to the game skipping or ramping up. Even the one time when i fell i am back at campfire with server not responding and then game crashes.

I do like the mechanic and something new is fun but to send party back to the start muck though anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes for another attempt is way to time consuming on many.When you add in the time spent waiting for rest of party to wipe and then getting replacements or the afk back on track one failed attempt can cost a lot of game time. If the mechanic would have been used in fane of the night serpent or somewhere that a solo player could practice some without taking it out on the party that would have been a smart addition. But instead it will just segregate the players even more.

With cryptic wanting to make it so more players interact with one another "randumb queue" they just shot themselves in the foot. And by bringing lesser geared or newer players to the cradle you will be at even more of a disadvantage than any other dungeon there is. The better the buffs/damage the lesser times that party has to survive the push pull phase . But with a weaker group not only are they having to spend longer fighting the boss and getting one shots left and right they are also having to survive the push and pull phase a lot more times.

this is the point, but apart from the already suggested campfire, practise or nsva/ndemo like version of the trial. my question is, why isn't there a playtest by the devs? did i miss it, should they at least explain the mechanic in a video? i know we have to figure out the mechanics ourselves but the way this boss fight starts it makes it very difficult to have any time to search for extra mechanics, if this is maint to be a platform fight, how about those elevators and masks? should we be able to close some of them to reduce the pull/push force? and the other issue as already stated is that depending on the class is can be easier or tougher, now, thats a huge issue. i believe there's or should be a proper mechanic in there we are missing but not enough time to figure it out without much guides and playtests. cos if the pull/push is all there is, then the min IL u recommend makes no sense, 12k will all get 1 shot at the start of combat.

mamalion1234

1:) stop making mechanics that can fail easily if you lag.
2) dont bother make mechanics when you dont " fix your relog exploit".
3) Make relog to take 15 seconds to happen during battle like nostura fight and icewind area!.


Thanks.

vorphied

trgluestickz said:

#4) Some people use their stamina dodge as a way of resisting the pull or to quickly get into the right area before the push. This can be worth it but it is risky if you are a class with a long dodge mechanic (DC or TR). Classes with long dodge mechanics can easily dodge right off the edge by mistake.

A good point, but as long as the player releases the W key for the duration of the dodge animation, they are generally okay. Most (perhaps all or nearly all) edges in the game prevent you from dodging directly off, so you fall only if you continue to move forward when the dodge is complete.

Personally I like to dodge (as DC) right up against the inner ring when the push is activated, releasing W, then holding it down again as soon as I get repelled. Sometimes the push seems to last longer or hit twice, so I don't let up completely until I'm sure it's over.

pterias

Looks like they're fixing the relog trick tomorrow. Good luck/have fun everyone!

(on a side note to the devs, it's generally better to fix an exploit people feel like they HAVE to use AFTER addressing the reason people are using it.)

namelesshero347

But sadly, only players dedicated enough to have unlocked CoDG last week or even this week were able to take advantage of the relog trick. I don't unlock till next week, so no easy runs for me

And price of UES in the AH will stop the downward trend and spike higher in the short term. At least I was able to benefit from the trick by making some unparallel weapon enchantments with sub 400K UES.

eolee

mcfob said:

Probably be easy and a good idea to throw a campfire outside the boss on the preview server for people to practice on, if they won't do it on live.

Just this. Would be enough to help out most players that are willing to learn. Live training CoDG practice runs, whatever you wanna call them, are burning people out. It's frustrating to those that succeed while others keep failing over and over, and vice versa.

All the videos and tips in the world aren't worth practice. But practice can't be done if people reach the moment of the practice thinking "omg here is the push/pull" then start freaking out about failing and of course just fail because they were freaked out.
Like this post says, a simple campfire on preview would make most people happy im pretty sure.

muminekm

@trgluestickz Thanks for all tips I finally did it and now I survive 90%+ push pulls. Too bad my team doesn't so we either use tons of scrolls when most of team die or we need to repeat elevator xD I hope it will get better with time.

mamalion1234

Great tips great videos but are moments can ruin a whole run because :
1: hand grab you while you resist pull-push.
2: if your character land after the final push near the edge your character acts like " the companion" and do a step backward on his own ( no conttrol at all from the player). That also happening in master spellplague against the nothic eye is like the character do not have balance ( now that is intentional or bug i dont know).

jonkoca

Seconding the following:

1) At the absolute very very least, make the cutscenes skippable.
2) Some means of practicing the push pull.
3) Campfire or just a restart at bottom of elevator. The elevator is just one gigantic cutscene.

dcdc7

If Neverwinter is all about role-play, and about getting a stronger character over time (by means of leveling, boons, equipment, stronghold), why is the hardest part of the endgame content platforming? I'd rather die to a boss because our party does not have enough dps, tanking, or healing, than by some platforming mechanic...

At the very least add a campfire (or let Makos teleport us to the last boss from the start position) after you've cleared the elevator and chords once.

archangelzorak01

Companions going over the edge is the biggest problem plaguing my groups. 3 of us were standing there waiting for a pull/push.. perfectly still, and my cat decided to do a 360 noscope yolo off the edge for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

I'd say in every run we do we have at least 3 or 4 people who have to purposely try to die in order to resummon their companion and use a scroll to res. Feelsbadman

jonkoca

Right now, outside an elite guild group armed with a whole buttload of scrolls, you may as well forget it.