Official M18: Zone, Repeatable Quests and Heroic Encounters Feedback

ncoreadev

Vallenhas Stronghold has been pulled down to hell. Suspended high above Avernus, the land has fractured and has been inundated by devils and demons alike. Alric, Gaerwen and Captain Rayns need your help.

We would love to hear any feedback on the open zone, HEs and the quests!

Specifics on environment collision, encounter difficulty and quest flow would be particularly useful.

Thank you and enjoy!

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Formatting Your Feedback and Bugs

For posting feedback and bugs, please follow the following format to ensure your feedback and bugs are seen clearly and processed in a timely manner, thank you!

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, asking a question, 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: While attempting to rescue the Baby Kua-Toa in the "Bounty Daycare" quest, the child got hung up on invisible collision and could not follow me. Mission is impossible to complete.

Feedback: Despite the impressive VFX, players should not be able to fireball Baby Kua-Toa and kill him.

joe7777

So a Stronghold map reskin eh? Meh.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

adinosii

Here are two points I brought up before.

There is one issue which really needs clarification. Once you reach the point in the campaign where you can "buy" boon points, it is not clear if there is an upper limit to the number of points you can get at all.

The question - is the intention that players can get like one boon point per week, with no upper limit? If that's the case, it will seriously reduce the motivation to complete some of the older, more "grindy" campaigns. It will also reduce the motivation to buy campaign completions.

If there is an upper limit, say 3-5 boon points, it needs to be clearly shown ... and currently it is not.

Also, totally, unrelated, a suggestion: Change the boon that gives a 1% bonus against demons to make it give a bonus against demons and devils. This would make it a really viable choice.

theraxin

Bugs:
Devil siege does not progress through the 0%.

You can push Shocktroops out of the area (or multiple of them) with Repel, which means they despawn immediately. In general, you can just move out of the BHE, half of the siege aggroed on you and you despawn them. The Nightmares rush out by their own.

Feedback:
First, I the BBCode explanation does not help at all for those who don't know how to make it. It's not that new of an issue, but I used to copy the actual text to make my suggestions.

Sometimes the BHE just gets overswarmed with creatures on a spot, creating a swath that just kills anyone who happens to be close by. And if you make a swarm, don't include creatures that stun you. It was kind of annoying in Hell Pit, because I did not even had an idea which one did it.

hustin1

BUG: Lore entry category

The lore entries for Avernus are being combined with the lore entries for Blackdagger Ruins. Actually, what's happening is that the Blackdagger Ruins category has disappeared and they're all being piled into the Avernus category.

BUG: Invisible walls blocking imps

At the rear of the Stronghold there is a group of imps behind a couple of invisible walls. They are near some dead villagers. It's possible to reach them, but you have to feel your way along the two walls until you can find a way around.

FEEDBACK: Zythar blast CC is way too high

I really hate what you've done with the Zythars. Now, if they hit you with a blast, it REALLY tosses you, and with the sheer density of enemies in the demon area, it almost always means that it makes you aggro a whole new group of enemies (or, as happened to me, into the abysss). Please tone this down, or mark my words, just as with Mod 16, you'll hear howling like you can't imagine when the playerbase at large gets their hands on it. It reeks of a dev just deciding to be mean for no reason. It's cheap-shot garbage like this that makes me think about looking for another game to play.

FEEDBACK: Invisible AoE

I haven't pinned down which demon does it, but someone lays down an extremely nasty AoE that will take you down in two seconds flat, and it's impossible to see where it is on the ground. This makes for some incredibly frustrating fights.

FEEDBACK: Combat companion ineffectiveness

This isn't too surprising given the higher enemy ratings. Combat companions are woefully ineffective in the new map. The vast, vast majority of companions are just that -- companions, not augments, and it's just not fair (especially to lower-geared players) to have their companions this ineffective. This is doubly true when you take the high density of enemies into account.

FEEDBACK: demon enemy density

As you progress farther south, the density of demons gets ridiculously high. It's really beyond the pale and they should be thinned out.

FEEDBACK: revive sickness

This wasn't a problem with earlier mods, but the high enemy density is really exacerbating the issue. I have a real problem with having revive sickness when you use a scroll of life (or worse, mass life). The result with the new map is that you wind up in a never-ending cycle of death. You get overwhelmed by demons and they melt you inside of two seconds. You use a scroll and before you can say "boo" you're taken down again. And again, and again, because your hit points are MASSIVELY gimped by the increasing stacks of revive sickness. A Zen item like these scrolls should NOT give you revive sickness. Please stop being mean to players just for the sake of it.

FEEDBACK: glabrezus

They're doing way too much damage. WAY too much. And that stupid ranged knockdown from 50 feet away has to go. GET RID OF IT. I have a quest to get an artifact from one of those SOB's and I refuse to do it. (You guys didn't listen when I issued warnings like this for mod 16; listen now. You saw what happened when the larger playerbase got hold of it.)

FEEDBACK: plot hole

You could sail CVN-68 USS Nimitz through this one. Why are demons even IN Avernus? Demons and devils are mortal enemies. They've been fighting for millennia. A demon invasion like this would bring all manner of devils from the other eight planes to expel them.

FEEDBACK: Alric's location

Everyone on preview is having problems with this. The quest path leads you to the center of the keep, but he is in fact outside, hiding along the wall very close to the seal vendor.

FEEDBACK: enemy aggro radius

It sure feels like it's been increased. Guys, you can't increase the aggro radius and jack up the enemy density to such high levels and not expect to frustrate the hell out of players.

FEEDBACK: excessive damage

Below is all the damage I took against the lair boss to restore the runeworks. Dark Cleave seems really excessive. Those last two hits took me from 40% to 0% instantly. Remember, this is a solo quest.

[Combat (Self)] Image of Baphomet deals 9794 (15147) Physical Damage to you with Crushing Charge.
[Combat (Self)] Image of Baphomet deals 38512 (70075) Physical Damage to you with Dark Cleave.
[Combat (Self)] Image of Baphomet deals 39380 (71654) Physical Damage to you with Dark Cleave.
[Combat (Self)] Image of Baphomet deals 7980 (14520) Physical Damage to you with Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Image of Baphomet deals 1621 (2950) Physical Damage to you with Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Image of Baphomet deals 1907 (2950) Physical Damage to you with Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Image of Baphomet deals 1907 (2950) Physical Damage to you with Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Image of Baphomet deals 1907 (2950) Physical Damage to you with Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Image of Baphomet deals 1907 (2950) Physical Damage to you with Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Image of Baphomet gives 0 (2950) Physical Damage to you with Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Acolyte gives 0 (5331) Physical Damage to you with Dagger Throw.
[Combat (Self)] Acolyte gives 0 (4557) Physical Damage to you with Dagger Throw.
[Combat (Self)] Succubus deals 9828 (19656) Physical Damage to you with Draining Kiss.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Image of Baphomet deals 70723 (109382) Physical Damage to you with Dark Cleave.

------ 2nd Attempt ------

[Combat (Self)] Image of Baphomet deals 9321 (14416) Physical Damage to you with Crushing Charge.
[Combat (Self)] Image of Baphomet deals 3858 (14038) Physical Damage to you with Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Image of Baphomet deals 811 (2950) Physical Damage to you with Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Image of Baphomet deals 811 (2950) Physical Damage to you with Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Image of Baphomet deals 811 (2950) Physical Damage to you with Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Image of Baphomet deals 811 (2950) Physical Damage to you with Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Image of Baphomet gives 0 (73765) Physical Damage to you with Dark Cleave.
[Combat (Self)] Image of Baphomet gives 0 (2950) Physical Damage to you with Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Image of Baphomet deals 62890 (114433) Physical Damage to you with Dark Cleave.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Image of Baphomet deals 55913 (105829) Physical Damage to you with Dark Cleave.
[Combat (Self)] Image of Baphomet deals 7955 (15056) Physical Damage to you with Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Image of Baphomet deals 1558 (2950) Physical Damage to you with Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Image of Baphomet gives 0 (2950) Physical Damage to you with Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Image of Baphomet deals 14193 (22833) Physical Damage to you with Crushing Charge.
[Combat (Self)] Image of Baphomet deals 23720 (73373) Physical Damage to you with Dark Cleave.
[Combat (Self)] Image of Baphomet deals 23259 (71946) Physical Damage to you with Dark Cleave.
[Combat (Self)] Image of Baphomet deals 45799 (70834) Physical Damage to you with Dark Cleave.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Image of Baphomet gives 0 (22935) Physical Damage to you with Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Image of Baphomet deals 2861 (4424) Physical Damage to you with Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Image of Baphomet deals 2861 (4424) Physical Damage to you with Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Image of Baphomet deals 2861 (4424) Physical Damage to you with Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Image of Baphomet deals 2861 (4424) Physical Damage to you with Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Image of Baphomet deals 2861 (4424) Physical Damage to you with Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Image of Baphomet deals 2861 (4424) Physical Damage to you with Swipe.
[Combat (Self)] Image of Baphomet deals 56690 (87678) Physical Damage to you with Dark Cleave.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Image of Baphomet deals 35128 (108659) Physical Damage to you with Dark Cleave.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Image of Baphomet deals 109768 Physical Damage to you with Dark Cleave.

This fight is just wrong. Dark Cleave is a rapid-fire non-telegraphed attack that comes multiple times a second. No way is this acceptable. As I type this I'm at an impasse with a boss I cannot hope to defeat.

I know you don't want to hear this, but I'm going to say it nonetheless. A huge part of the problem is that sadistic 50% cap on defense. Yes, it's SADISTIC.

FEEDBACK: Lore entries

And now for something positive. I'm VERY happy with all the lore we get! Some of it could use an extra pass to make it "flow" better, but it's otherwise very well done, there's plenty of it, and it's coherent. I really think there needs to be a solid explanation at some point in the campaign as to why there are demons in Avernus at all, though. Demons come from the Abyss, not the Hells, and there are three other planes in between those two places. A demon invasion into the Hells would bring all devils to DEFCON 1 to deal with them.

FEEDBACK: Region map

While I'm fine with the tabs at the top of the map to declutter it, I'm not a fan of the monochrome sepia-toned look. I think a color map would look much, much better. What if you did something like this: make the tabs look like little scrolls and make the main map color with a sepia-toned outline that looked like parchment?

Testing with 23.5 Barb

arazith07

Overall I feel the difficulty is in the right place. The higher ratings will provide most with a challenge, but as we have seen in M16, players quickly find out the right approach and content gets easier as a result. I am a 23.9k Arbiter.

There is no prompt for to complete the first campaign task to get more quests.
Alaric is in an odd place and is hard to find.

carloswartune

hustin1 said:

FEEDBACK: revive sickness
This wasn't a problem with earlier mods, but the high enemy density is really exacerbating the issue. I have a real problem with having revive sickness when you use a scroll of life (or worse, mass life). The result with the new map is that you wind up in a never-ending cycle of death. You get overwhelmed by demons and they melt you inside of two seconds. You use a scroll and before you can say "boo" you're taken down again. And again, and again, because your hit points are MASSIVELY gimped by the increasing stacks of revive sickness. A Zen item like these scrolls should NOT give you revive sickness. Please stop being mean to players just for the sake of it.

I disagree HEAVILY about that. The Revive Sickness rework is one of the few things in M16 that I liked: players can't just scroll their way out of mechanics in dungeons. Thankfully, "LFXM for High End Dungeon w/ scrolls" is, and should stay, a thing of the past. ToMM would be a joke if scrolls worked like they used to. That said, I agree with your points about damage and mob density being too high. I had no problem on my 23k Cleric, but 20k players (recommended IL for starting the campaign) probably will.

putzboy78

BUG: The herb in the collect herbs quest does not show up at low resolutions

FEEDBACK: In the rescue villagers quest, everyone within range of the door should get credit for activating the flag. People are standing back waiting for someone else to clear the mobs around the doors then activating the door. i.e stealing the quest objective which also results in increased time waiting for flags to respawn.

nova

BUG:

When entering the quest "Restore The Village Glyphworks"
Your character enters into the quest, normally, but once you pass through the first archway, your character and companion turn a full red color. *see picture attached.

https://imgur.com/a/ATDclhN

nisckis

While the video from Makos is playing at "A House in need" you receive damage from any enemies still alive so you die

nova

Big Heroic Encounter Devil Seige is bugged

Says to engage devils. we engaged for about 10 - 15 minutes.
No timer or nothing changes. It was different first day, we could complete it, but there's something now preventing the progression.

nisckis

The herbs from "Garden occupation" do not glow at all so you can't see them unless you step over them

nisckis

Please change the "Valiant Efforts" to something else that doing heroics. We already had enough in the past modules (Chult) and, despite the fact if looks like a nice way at the start of a module, when time goes by and new modules come in, no one will be doing them so new players would have a really hard time doing them.

nisckis

Alric Vallenhas placement is dreadful

gabrieldourden

After Alric gets moved near the wall, the quests where you have to go back to him still point at the old position in the middle of the central hall.

The density of mobs in the map is too high. Getting pushed back by Glabrezus can often start a chain aggro reaction that gets 3 or 4 mob groups against you. Near BIS characters will survive but others will be slaughtered over and over

polysatyr81

Agreed with density of mobs too high. Also the campfire near Etrien in the Dark woods will get spawns near it that camp and I was dying and respawning there and they would attack me immediately to the point where I had 2 major injuries and one minor one.

hustin1

FEEDBACK: campaign item level

I would strongly urge the devs to rescale the campaign item level a little lower, perhaps to 19k or even 18k. It takes no time at all to level from 70 to 80, and most new players will be level 80 before they even set foot in Undermountain. When they leave Undermountain with purple level-80 gear from MEs, their item level will likely be in the 18k range and they'll have nowhere else to go. Getting to 20k means having a lot of epic mount insignia and enchantments all around R11. At 20k you're bound to freeze a lot of players out of the only level 80 campaign available.

Furthermore, looking at the gear rewards in Avernus, I wouldn't even set mod 19 at 20k, because the only way to get better gear is to grind the new dungeon, which requires 23k just to get in. There really needs to be something to bridge the gap between players who have geared up from ME's and the 20k threshold. It presently takes a lot of enchantment and insignia upgrades to cross that gap. You can't count ANY LOMM or TOMM gear, because someone below 20k can't even enter those places.

I know, the TOMM crowd will howl. I think by now you devs know how much weight I give that perspective. Campaigns are for far more than an elite dungeon crowd, and the first level-80 campaign should be playable by everyone who has level-80 gear.

blackmagid

BUG: Garden Occupation - Harvest Herbs. Cannot see herbs in the marked area BUT mouse over detects where they should be so can complete the quest.

FEEDBACK: Knockbacks. Way to powerful, if you are not catapulted into another mob then you are slam dunked into the abyss.

Thanks
Black

mythdemeanour

hustin1 said:

FEEDBACK: plot hole

You could sail CVN-68 USS Nimitz through this one. Why are demons even IN Avernus? Demons and devils are mortal enemies. They've been fighting for millennia. A demon invasion like this would bring all manner of devils from the other eight planes to expel them.

So much this! I have been a DM and player since 1st edition, and unless there is an invasion Demons and Devils get along as well as fire and gas. I know it is likely due to reusing resources so as to keep the cost down, but seriously this alone will ruin the immersion for me. If you really need to have the occasional demon(s) in hell, they took a wrong turn in the astral plane for example, fine I guess. But only as a very seldom major encounter because mixing them up is just lazy programming and some of us like to see some logic in the lore!

hustin1

nisckis said:

Please change the "Valiant Efforts" to something else that doing heroics. We already had enough in the past modules (Chult) and, despite the fact if looks like a nice way at the start of a module, when time goes by and new modules come in, no one will be doing them so new players would have a really hard time doing them.

THIS. Just last night I had to complete the Tyrant HE for the weekly quest. A grand total of three of us were available to do it. Talk about your heavy lifts. All night there was just ONE active instance in Soshenstar and Omu.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

fisenfis

Not sure this has been addressed but the drops from the named mobs, seals and anything else that drops, goes to the person that does the last hit to the target. This needs to be changed unless you want another Soshenstar T-rex frenzy on your hands where everyone rages at everyone.

fisenfis

300 currency for this box only to get 5k AD? I think this needs to be changed. It takes quite a while to accumulate enough currency to buy the boxes and I must say after getting this reward 4 times in a row I stopped handing in my currency. I would rather take more vanity pets or if you wont change the rewards, perhaps raise the AD reward.

chemjeff

FEEDBACK #1: Not enough demon chickens
You have to get 12 demon chickens, and only about half of the chickens are demon chickens. Imagine everyone on the first day trying to do this quest - it will end in tears and frustration. Either make more demon chickens or reduce the number needed.

FEEDBACK #2: Mob Interrupts
There are some mob packs that have multiple types of mobs that can interrupt you. Stun, daze, knockback, etc. So it's quite possible to get chain-stunned until you die. Maybe consider not packing so many critters in one place that can all interrupt you.

FEEDBACK #3: Mob density
I agree with the others who say that the mob density is too high. For example, if you come across some Savage Hezrou with 4 dots (who hit quite hard), and you want a little bit of room to run around and escape the very large red AOE that they throw, you are going to run into another mob group as a result. Which makes it quite hard to fight without antagonizing lots of mobs, and a killer when those mobs have 4 dots.

gabrieldourden

The silver ore gathering quest will be a mess as soon as you will have more players on the map, Spawn rate of silver ore is too low, and one of the ore deposits cannot be interacted with

mattia78

BUG

Quest: Restore the Devils Hold Glyphworks

The quest says: Find a pick in the Ruins; you can find it near a bunch of mobs but cannot pick it up ; the other one near the cliff works

salidor

The weekly (blue) restore the Glyphwork Quest will appear exactly 7 days after you restored the Glyphwork the first time (yellow quest). Please make it appear after week changes and maybe on the same week also (like in other campains).

After you get a weekly glyphwork quest you can repeat those quest many times in the same week (might be preview server related to farm campain tokens)

hannibalsmith

Is anyone else having framerate issues? On Live, I have all graphic settings maxed with no problems. On Preview the result is different.

* In conversation with Alric, his movements are noticeably jerky. That doesn't happen with Vario Cepheid (greeter in Winter Festival) even when I'm in an instance with severe rubber-banding.

* I'm zipping along a path on the main map (legendary mount) and sometimes the movement becomes "jerky" but then clears up.

* A friend told me that he might not play Mod 18 because "the game drops to 1 FPS". He didn't give specifics.

Searching on "framerate"/"frame rate" does not turn up any posts in the Preview forum. If it has something to do with the new zone we had better start discussing it. It can't be my PC or internet connection because I can switch between Live and Preview and these things only occur on Preview.

hustin1

Yup, I had framerate issues too. I think quite a few players reported it. I suspect that the map hasn't yet gone through an optimization pass.

On another note, I can't stress enough the need for variety. The pool of repeatable quests are a good start, but I'd like to see even more done. The pool of available quests should be huge. I'd also like to see many different quest lair instances to further increase the variety. This mod should strive to be the opposite of the staleness that we had in Mod 17.

Another idea would be to have multiple groups of quest-givers; at different points of the campaign you should encounter different quest-givers, each with their own part of the overall story.

Did I mention "story"? Mod 18 should have a very compelling story -- one that makes us go "whoa!". One thing that a lot of people praised about Mod 8 was the story.

fisenfis

Currently unable to interact with the merchant in the zone, was this done intentionally to do some rework/tuning to the merchant or is it a bug?