Hello, we tried to finish the trial with our guild for about 6-7 hours now (all endgame players, regularly farming ZCM and ToMM on live and doing deathless here and there) In the new trial we took down 4-5 bars of HP of the Dragon in the last phase, that's the furthest we got after 7 hours of the trials. We all knew the mechanics in the beggining, so there was no finding out new mechanics (YT and info from other players).
In general the trial is a bit boring in the mechanics subject. I was hoping for something more like ToMM or Zariel, but it's not too bad, it's just different, closer to the new Demogorgon trial in that subject and I understand that's what you were aiming for.
Depends on what you're after or expecting. There's a difference between endgame content and best in game content. TOMM was meant to be the latter. I understand that some people want to be tested. Others in game that are geared would like content also, without the best in game difficulty. As of now, there is no middle ground. This could be an exception and a start.
Had fun in new trial. Maybe make the bahamut claw and scale available on preview for those that didn't save them, or ever get those armor kits. Good stuff I think though.
I checked them, they don't work in new trial
Someone was running ACT and it showed the scale on my incoming heal, the heal from the 1 armor kit. The DPS 5% one might be factored in the damage total like the vorpal was, not sure on that one.
So, I have done the trial on preview a couple times, and while it's visually appealing and mechanics could be interesting, I have quite the few complains.
1. RNG on mechanics. Sometimes the dragon swipes tail, sometimes he don't. This breaks artifact call rotations as most DPS just get flung. This can kill DPS who get randomly flung into lightning ground, take massive damage and additionally get knocked into the air, taking bonus fall damage. 2. Phase 1 and Phase 4 length. Seriously, cut P4 in half and double P1 duration. P4 is probably the most annoying and boring fight in Neverwinter to date. 3. CC of lighting ground in P3-4, forcing spreads, healer issues - being a warlock or a bard healer in the trial is absolutely worst choice one can make. DPS in P3-4 are constantly being forced to move while being affected by DoTs. Warlock has issue that their most reliable heal... is a circle on the ground. Yeah. Bard can't get Performance back as the lightning explosions keep spawning under everyone, I have managed maybe 1 full Bassline in a run where I were on bard healer. One explosion cancels whole charge.
If it were me, I'd first make a visual tell that doesn't require reactions of a pro gamer on focus drugs and make lightning ground delay a little higher so that people have time to accomodate instead of almost always requiring to dodge if not straight out only put those on DPS rather than healers too. Let me put this straight, I don't know how would a fighter DPS feel in this trial, but I doubt they'd have a good time either.
Here is my feedback : First, the trial does look great and nothing looked recycled in the environment. Second, on my first run, there was a quasit named Lassor waiting next to the entrance, send my regards to this gentleman, he looked like he wanted to be here to see how people would react to your creation, and to ensure we would not encounter a bug a few moments after the beginning of the testing. That’s a sign of commitment of a whole team.
It was content meant to be tested for feedback, and as a test, I would have appreciated greatly that the voices lines from Valindra would have stayed "place holder" voice lines for test purposes, because I have been disappointed that the storyline has been spoilt to me. I mean, I know we were going to fight Valindra and Pavalorithyn, but when she does left at the end of the third phase, she says that she has to prepare the Mythal, but at that point of the progress of Dragonbone Vale campaign, I was assuming that Valindra had accomplished the Mythal prior to the content of the trial, to subjugate Pavalorithyn.
The content I have tested was stated to need 45k item level (public and private queue) to go in. About that point, I can’t believe at all that a full team of 45k item level character would have a chance to go through the first phase as the draconic aura deals for about 200k base damage per second to everyone as long as there is any support add alive. For a dps with around 45k item level, he would be around about 450-500k health points. The four support adds that spawns have all 2M9-3M health points and the current hitbox of the dragon often makes ranged dps to unwillingly use their encounter on Pavalorithyn instead of the adds. How many seconds two 45-50k healer character would be able to sustain a 200k base damage/seconde aura effect without running out of divinity? During this mechanic, mitigation is impossible, as the dracolich can’t be affected by any debuff (tried Bulet and swarm mount, no debuff shown, and the Active Combat Tracker has recorded no changes), I don’t know if it is intended or not. For the parties I have run with, it was easier to start the fight and deal 426M damage under 62 seconds prior to the first support adds spawn to make the second phase start, than to keep everyone alive with the aura the time to deal 3M on 4 mobs away from each other.
About the second phase with the grappling system, I would have enjoyed a more epic tone but I believe that as the grapple in the campaign has a different effect when we are in fight, it was required to maintain us out of combat to use it to go from an island to the next one.
Now, I will explain you how it is actually possible to break this trial with a single tank, 9 dps and no healers. I believe you have recorded all the trial runs occurred, and if so, you should be able to understand that I’m not kidding. As soon as I have understood that the boss was a reskin of the first boss of The Infernal Citadel, and used similar patterns outside of the mechanics, I knew that it was possible to avoid any attack from him. If the tank stick to any hinder leg of the boss, the boss will turn slowly to hit the tank and the tank can just continue to turn with him at the same time, staying close to any hinder leg and the boss will never be able to hit him. You could believe that then, if the tank is moving, he will not be able to generate threat and will lose the agro to the dps but it’s an illusion because the GF can do that without any trouble. The GF’s encounter Shield Throw does not cancel the movement during casting time, and can use the encounter Knight’s valor to steal threat from dps while he can keep rotating around the boss hitbox staying close to hinder legs. Extra threat can be generated using a condemned ring at the same time. He can even be helped by a bard songblade using the feat “Voice Throw” to give to the tank 50% of all the threat he has generated. For the healers, as the boss will not hit due to that manoeuver, no heal needed on P1, but if support adds have spawned despite 9 dps in the party, one or two Paladin Helmit’s ghost companion will easily put their mark on the boss, as he will stay static as he is just rotating on himself to try to hit the tank. For the P2, no healer no tank required. For the P3, still no healer required, repeat phase one with a dps keeping Valindra away, no need to hit her, and her damage are rubbish, a dps can tank her using healthstone to heal if needed. With 9 dps, it’s possible to one phase Valindra. If not, then the tank can use Horn of the Vallalha to make Valindra attack the summoned barbarian, while moving the dragon away and make him lose 25% hp again and then, finishing Valindra. P4, same as phase one for the GF tank, avoiding any damage. Party can get heal due to helmite seal on the phylactery. P5, same as P1. No need to have 2 tanks, no need to have healers.
In Neverwinter, there is too many tools that allow players to not need healers, or tanks, or both sometimes too. Recently, we have seen different effects depending of the role of the user (Pegasus bonuses different depending of role, set of Northern Jewels, Cunning Mimic Companion, new weapon set of Dragonbone Vale campaign, etc). If you really want people to run a new trial content with 2 tanks and 2 healers, adding attacks that will have different effect depending of the role of the target is a way that could not be ignored and that could allow active participation of both tanks, or both healers. Exemple : Boss use a targeted attack to the player with the aggro. If he’s not a tank, the attack does make the player explode, killing everyone on the map, if he’s a tank, the attack does give him a stack. On a second stack, the tank could permanently die, so a second tank will have to take the agro until he get himself a stack too, and the first tank loses his one. It could serve as a tank check aswell. Using a mechanic asking a specific role make that if someone want to just use the Horn of the Vallalha, the summoned barbarian has a taunt, but it’s not a tank, so it will explode and kill everyone on the map. If players use Staldorf, the result will be the same as it is not a tank. That’s just an exemple and I believe that there is room for creativity to make again mandatory to respect the 2 tanks, 6 dps, 2 healers. When mechanics need coordination, people will just want to run with more dps to skip those mechanics. Overall, I have appreciated this content, and I truly believe that you have put a lot of hard work in it. If you have any doubt about the possibility to avoid all damages from the boss as a tank, if you are recording datas from every run, just looks at all Maelstrom’s run made alone. I was not kiting him, I was just on a hinder leg, rotating with him. Even the bite/headbutt can be avoided if you’re not in front of him.
Please for the lov of Neverwinter. Increase the health pool and the dmg it does. As an endgame player with a year without content (hc vos dont count its simply to easy). We need a trial that actually takes skill to learn and complete. Make it equal or harder then tomm. This is the last hope for endgame imo so many players have been sitting and taken breaks over the last year because the last trial was made impossible NOT to beat. When a 7 man decent ish team without preperations can gothrough mulitple phases on day one. They literally started saying were not running serious right now and they did first phase 🤣🤦 What will a 10man group with "maxed" out toons. Debuffs, mounts and companions sorted do? How long will that keep endgame players running it. Unless you start paying us to run it. Tomm is still the hardest content to date and myself and others got 1000+ completed runs. We need a new endgame trial not baby zc level trial. We have done 4man tomm, no heal, solo heals, solo tanks, solo heal zc, no heal zc and ppl run with less dps just to make it harder. What more can you do with current easy trials.
If there are so many people out there who think HC VOS is "too easy" that they create a worthwhile audience for an entirely new trial, then I'm playing the wrong game.
I'm loving what I'm reading about the straightforward nature of this trial. I'm sick of begging for Tiamat or Svardborg or Cradle every time I go looking for a trial...and getting Demogorgon, which is another one that you could sleepwalk through if the hit points weren't stacked to the ceiling on every portal.
@chaderickrax#3780 Are you talking about when you're wanting to run your daily rtq you hope for tiamat or sva? If so then yes, most hope for something easy on their daily rtq because they want their AD quickly and to be done. Rtq however isnt considered end game at all. If you actually think that then my assumption is that you are not end game yourself and still building up (which is absolutely fine) but the chances are that content being released as a new 'end game' isn't likely to be targeting you atm and you still have stuff in the game already you can be working towards.
Please please please make sure the content is difficult like tomm and zariel. People should not be reaching p4 on day 1 of preview in a mediocre testing group. There is currently no content in the game that requires people to be BiS and with the huge upgrades coming in m22 from the enchant changes, this is only going to be exaggerated. 1st day of the trial people shouldn't be able to pass phase 1. Please give us a reason to actually make all these upgrades to our characters as right now no content demands players to be completely decked out or even close to it.
I really hope they are working on different difficulty versions.
It can be a Master mode, and the current one in the preview is a normal mode, but something that was said in this forum in the past not so far from the possibility of having the option to mark the queue as easy, normal and hard. would also be welcome.
@alquimistgg#0914 Yes, they sort of started with it during zariel which was great, even though implemented in the incorrect order for zariel, the idea of having 'normal' and 'master' versions of the content is a really great idea and includes everybody whilst giving the top 1 or 2% of players that real challenge they are hoping for.
@alquimistgg#0914 Yes, they sort of started with it during zariel which was great, even though implemented in the incorrect order for zariel, the idea of having 'normal' and 'master' versions of the content is a really great idea and includes everybody whilst giving the top 1 or 2% of players that real challenge they are hoping for.
The implementation of this model at Zariel was done incorrectly, in fact, which resulted in several imbalance problems, in addition to a bulling name, baby zariel, something I think is sad.
I understand what was tried there, the reduced difficulty, slower mechanics and areas of effect being shown in the red zone really help a lot. I remember hearing a dev talk about how making these changes was more complicated than it looked.
In this case I would feel good with simpler game modes for all queues in the game, where instead of 1 checkbox, we have 3 or 4, each for a level of difficulty, with changes only in the damage multipliers of the enemy, HP and resists is a suitable loot obviously, and if it wasn't too much work just add the red zone to the starting levels.
It's very sad for content to be released and most players don't have access to it, even as the fun/training mode. It's shocking when we analyze that many players, I think that well over half of the entire server has never made a TOMM, DG that was released almost 3 years ago, and many of these players already have the capacity to do so, but because there are no level versions lower.
This level system would make covers for any player, even the one that just released the content within the minimum level item, whether covers for fun, even if the loot is more basic for these cases. And I'm not even going to comment that the entire game loot table urgently needs to be reworked, I think everyone knows that.
I haven't played this but definitely agree with that sentiment ^
I've never run a TOMM or ZC because they require finding a group willing to run a training round with you. I don't really... want to have to do this, or watch a bunch of youtube walkthroughs. In a dungeon I'm only wasting 4 people's time if I can't get something, but when you missing a mechanic might result in a 10 person wipe, it's a little different.
I love difficult mechanics but I'm kind of glad to hear this one uses a lot of things we've seen already. If they were going to introduce something new, it'd be nice to have an opportunity to "train", in some manner, just to experience some of what you would run into.
And if they didn't want to do solo training opportunities, even just the addition of being able to queue for things with a "training" flag and allow players to opt out of accepting inexperienced players when queueing would be amazing. Right now, in "endgame" content, it's hard to join unless you have a group you know who runs it since there's a high likelihood trying to join as a newcomer you'll mess it up for others involved and get slammed for it.
So, essentially, if they did add some mechanics or difficulty, it'd be amazing to see a 'training' option for those of us who haven't had the opportunity to run some of the endgame stuff since we rely on random queues
The Trail is ok. But it's scales same regardless of item level. If you have 50k item level it's taking time to kill and if you are close to 80k you can kill fastly.. if the Trial scales based on the number of people in the trial and their item level which is same experience for all item level players from 50k to 80k. One more thing if a team of 5 wants to finish this trial the boss damage and hit points should match that teams item level and 10 people of attempting the trial then it should match 10 people's average item level. Suppose the boss is dealing massive 1mil dmg on 10 people with h item level around 80k and if the teams average item level is just 50l then the damage should decrease to 600k instead of 1m. Or something..
I hope this type of scaling is really good to enjoy all kinds of content and more people will be interested to repeat the content as it's more enjoyable..
You did a great Job on all Scaled content except the new one.. please implement scaling on everything..
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arazith07Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,719Arc User
The Trail is ok. But it's scales same regardless of item level. If you have 50k item level it's taking time to kill and if you are close to 80k you can kill fastly.. if the Trial scales based on the number of people in the trial and their item level which is same experience for all item level players from 50k to 80k. One more thing if a team of 5 wants to finish this trial the boss damage and hit points should match that teams item level and 10 people of attempting the trial then it should match 10 people's average item level. Suppose the boss is dealing massive 1mil dmg on 10 people with h item level around 80k and if the teams average item level is just 50l then the damage should decrease to 600k instead of 1m. Or something..
I hope this type of scaling is really good to enjoy all kinds of content and more people will be interested to repeat the content as it's more enjoyable..
You did a great Job on all Scaled content except the new one.. please implement scaling on everything..
New content does not and should not have scaling. Otherwise, what's the point of having anything unscaled at all?
To your suggestion of scaling to the number of players, this is a 10 man trial, not a dungeon. But if they were to implement this, they should not be decreasing the amount of damage they can do (except for the shared damage everyone group up skill), otherwise the tank and healer would not be needed. The only reason why 2 tanks are needed now is the tank switch mechanic, otherwise a single tank can do just fine.
> @arazith07 said: > New content does not and should not have scaling. Otherwise, what's the point of having anything unscaled at all? > > To your suggestion of scaling to the number of players, this is a 10 man trial, not a dungeon. But if they were to implement this, they should not be decreasing the amount of damage they can do (except for the shared damage everyone group up skill), otherwise the tank and healer would not be needed. The only reason why 2 tanks are needed now is the tank switch mechanic, otherwise a single tank can do just fine.
I don't agree with you on this Every should scale otherwise it's waste of time playing it
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arazith07Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,719Arc User
> @arazith07 said: > New content does not and should not have scaling. Otherwise, what's the point of having anything unscaled at all? > > To your suggestion of scaling to the number of players, this is a 10 man trial, not a dungeon. But if they were to implement this, they should not be decreasing the amount of damage they can do (except for the shared damage everyone group up skill), otherwise the tank and healer would not be needed. The only reason why 2 tanks are needed now is the tank switch mechanic, otherwise a single tank can do just fine.
I don't agree with you on this Every should scale otherwise it's waste of time playing it
If everything was scaled, there would be no point to gear progression in the game. No chase items, no reason for players to buy stuff from the Zen store, no money for Cryptic, then no game.
> @arazith07 said: > If everything was scaled, there would be no point to gear progression in the game. No chase items, no reason for players to buy stuff from the Zen store, no money for Cryptic, then no game.
If you understand correctly the benefit of having new gear is 0.1%. all you need is Max Enchants and Insignias and Mount Collars and Bolsters to 100%. Nobody is willing to run end game content due to this if it's not enjoyable and playable by everyone.. we need More Players to participate in the Endgame content. Not like couple of People.. if it's for only couple then it's a dead content.. Cryptic will make more money by making the content available for >90% of the people. The timing spent on the game is very important.. we should be able to finish quickly and move with real-life commitments. Not spending days worth time for nothing.. With the scaling the content is bit easy and finishable with very less time so more people will play the game. And More money for Cryptic... If you relay on the gear you are getting nothing and loosing everything...
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arazith07Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,719Arc User
> @arazith07 said: > If everything was scaled, there would be no point to gear progression in the game. No chase items, no reason for players to buy stuff from the Zen store, no money for Cryptic, then no game.
If you understand correctly the benefit of having new gear is 0.1%. all you need is Max Enchants and Insignias and Mount Collars and Bolsters to 100%. Nobody is willing to run end game content due to this if it's not enjoyable and playable by everyone.. we need More Players to participate in the Endgame content. Not like couple of People.. if it's for only couple then it's a dead content.. Cryptic will make more money by making the content available for >90% of the people. The timing spent on the game is very important.. we should be able to finish quickly and move with real-life commitments. Not spending days worth time for nothing.. With the scaling the content is bit easy and finishable with very less time so more people will play the game. And More money for Cryptic... If you relay on the gear you are getting nothing and loosing everything...
This is completely doable by most players who meet the requirements to get in though. This isn't anywhere near the difficulty of ToMM or ZC. Players who have 80k iL will want to be able to complete it faster with a lot more breathing room than someone with 50k. There is a ton of work and effort between those two points, and for there to be nothing to reward those higher geared players, then what would the point be to get there?
> @arazith07 said: > This is completely doable by most players who meet the requirements to get in though. This isn't anywhere near the difficulty of ToMM or ZC. Players who have 80k iL will want to be able to complete it faster with a lot more breathing room than someone with 50k. There is a ton of work and effort between those two points, and for there to be nothing to reward those higher geared players, then what would the point be to get there?
The gear is not so important with M22 changes. It will provide 0.1% benefit You will reach above 75k item level without any gear from content M19 and above... Damage is coming from item level and 75k item level and 80k item level damage is very negligible and no body want to do gear hunt if there is not a huge gap in the damage or Healing and Tanking equipment. Even with h the gear from Chult is too good for finishing any content..
My intention is to make it viable for every body with the scaling and and boss date scaling. If all 80k players able to finish in 15 mins all 50k gear players should be able to finish at the same time. Without scaling that won't happen. Which is huge gap...
All you will get from the gear selling is AD most items in AD are too much in cost like coal ward is Just 350k ad bit now it's selling for 1.1m ad that's too much for 1 item it's b cause the ad and zen conversion times are too high..
And the gear is you get from the Trial is Bound to you and the values on the gear is static and they won't change at all
If the stats for. Gear is dynamic and change when you get new price of gear from the chest and if they are better stats than current then there is a value to it..
Every one should be able to complete the Trial without any issue then it's a success and most people will run the content over and over If they want that 0.1% high chance..Most people expecting drops from the cheats are wards and Insignias and Shards all materials used to upgrade collars with higher drop rate.
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arazith07Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,719Arc User
> @arazith07 said: > This is completely doable by most players who meet the requirements to get in though. This isn't anywhere near the difficulty of ToMM or ZC. Players who have 80k iL will want to be able to complete it faster with a lot more breathing room than someone with 50k. There is a ton of work and effort between those two points, and for there to be nothing to reward those higher geared players, then what would the point be to get there?
The gear is not so important with M22 changes. It will provide 0.1% benefit You will reach above 75k item level without any gear from content M19 and above... Damage is coming from item level and 75k item level and 80k item level damage is very negligible and no body want to do gear hunt if there is not a huge gap in the damage or Healing and Tanking equipment. Even with h the gear from Chult is too good for finishing any content..
My intention is to make it viable for every body with the scaling and and boss date scaling. If all 80k players able to finish in 15 mins all 50k gear players should be able to finish at the same time. Without scaling that won't happen. Which is huge gap...
All you will get from the gear selling is AD most items in AD are too much in cost like coal ward is Just 350k ad bit now it's selling for 1.1m ad that's too much for 1 item it's b cause the ad and zen conversion times are too high..
And the gear is you get from the Trial is Bound to you and the values on the gear is static and they won't change at all
If the stats for. Gear is dynamic and change when you get new price of gear from the chest and if they are better stats than current then there is a value to it..
Every one should be able to complete the Trial without any issue then it's a success and most people will run the content over and over If they want that 0.1% high chance..Most people expecting drops from the cheats are wards and Insignias and Shards all materials used to upgrade collars with higher drop rate.
Why are you comparing 75k to 80K? The Trial is would be scaled much lower than that, likely to 60k. Which does yield a large difference from 60k to 80k in damage and HP. There should be a huge difference between the completion times, that's the whole point of progression.
> @arazith07 said: > This is completely doable by most players who meet the requirements to get in though. This isn't anywhere near the difficulty of ToMM or ZC. Players who have 80k iL will want to be able to complete it faster with a lot more breathing room than someone with 50k. There is a ton of work and effort between those two points, and for there to be nothing to reward those higher geared players, then what would the point be to get there?
The gear is not so important with M22 changes. It will provide 0.1% benefit You will reach above 75k item level without any gear from content M19 and above... Damage is coming from item level and 75k item level and 80k item level damage is very negligible and no body want to do gear hunt if there is not a huge gap in the damage or Healing and Tanking equipment. Even with h the gear from Chult is too good for finishing any content..
My intention is to make it viable for every body with the scaling and and boss date scaling. If all 80k players able to finish in 15 mins all 50k gear players should be able to finish at the same time. Without scaling that won't happen. Which is huge gap...
All you will get from the gear selling is AD most items in AD are too much in cost like coal ward is Just 350k ad bit now it's selling for 1.1m ad that's too much for 1 item it's b cause the ad and zen conversion times are too high..
And the gear is you get from the Trial is Bound to you and the values on the gear is static and they won't change at all
If the stats for. Gear is dynamic and change when you get new price of gear from the chest and if they are better stats than current then there is a value to it..
Every one should be able to complete the Trial without any issue then it's a success and most people will run the content over and over If they want that 0.1% high chance..Most people expecting drops from the cheats are wards and Insignias and Shards all materials used to upgrade collars with higher drop rate.
Why are you comparing 75k to 80K? The Trial is would be scaled much lower than that, likely to 60k. Which does yield a large difference from 60k to 80k in damage and HP. There should be a huge difference between the completion times, that's the whole point of progression.
the time should be same for all item level players those who met the requirements it should not be more for 50k players and less for 60k players.
Comments
loot needs to be bis and unbound (except for weapons) otherwise theres no point in running the trial
1. RNG on mechanics. Sometimes the dragon swipes tail, sometimes he don't. This breaks artifact call rotations as most DPS just get flung. This can kill DPS who get randomly flung into lightning ground, take massive damage and additionally get knocked into the air, taking bonus fall damage.
2. Phase 1 and Phase 4 length. Seriously, cut P4 in half and double P1 duration. P4 is probably the most annoying and boring fight in Neverwinter to date.
3. CC of lighting ground in P3-4, forcing spreads, healer issues - being a warlock or a bard healer in the trial is absolutely worst choice one can make. DPS in P3-4 are constantly being forced to move while being affected by DoTs. Warlock has issue that their most reliable heal... is a circle on the ground. Yeah. Bard can't get Performance back as the lightning explosions keep spawning under everyone, I have managed maybe 1 full Bassline in a run where I were on bard healer. One explosion cancels whole charge.
If it were me, I'd first make a visual tell that doesn't require reactions of a pro gamer on focus drugs and make lightning ground delay a little higher so that people have time to accomodate instead of almost always requiring to dodge if not straight out only put those on DPS rather than healers too. Let me put this straight, I don't know how would a fighter DPS feel in this trial, but I doubt they'd have a good time either.
First, the trial does look great and nothing looked recycled in the environment.
Second, on my first run, there was a quasit named Lassor waiting next to the entrance, send my regards to this gentleman, he looked like he wanted to be here to see how people would react to your creation, and to ensure we would not encounter a bug a few moments after the beginning of the testing. That’s a sign of commitment of a whole team.
It was content meant to be tested for feedback, and as a test, I would have appreciated greatly that the voices lines from Valindra would have stayed "place holder" voice lines for test purposes, because I have been disappointed that the storyline has been spoilt to me. I mean, I know we were going to fight Valindra and Pavalorithyn, but when she does left at the end of the third phase, she says that she has to prepare the Mythal, but at that point of the progress of Dragonbone Vale campaign, I was assuming that Valindra had accomplished the Mythal prior to the content of the trial, to subjugate Pavalorithyn.
The content I have tested was stated to need 45k item level (public and private queue) to go in. About that point, I can’t believe at all that a full team of 45k item level character would have a chance to go through the first phase as the draconic aura deals for about 200k base damage per second to everyone as long as there is any support add alive. For a dps with around 45k item level, he would be around about 450-500k health points. The four support adds that spawns have all 2M9-3M health points and the current hitbox of the dragon often makes ranged dps to unwillingly use their encounter on Pavalorithyn instead of the adds. How many seconds two 45-50k healer character would be able to sustain a 200k base damage/seconde aura effect without running out of divinity?
During this mechanic, mitigation is impossible, as the dracolich can’t be affected by any debuff (tried Bulet and swarm mount, no debuff shown, and the Active Combat Tracker has recorded no changes), I don’t know if it is intended or not.
For the parties I have run with, it was easier to start the fight and deal 426M damage under 62 seconds prior to the first support adds spawn to make the second phase start, than to keep everyone alive with the aura the time to deal 3M on 4 mobs away from each other.
About the second phase with the grappling system, I would have enjoyed a more epic tone but I believe that as the grapple in the campaign has a different effect when we are in fight, it was required to maintain us out of combat to use it to go from an island to the next one.
Now, I will explain you how it is actually possible to break this trial with a single tank, 9 dps and no healers.
I believe you have recorded all the trial runs occurred, and if so, you should be able to understand that I’m not kidding. As soon as I have understood that the boss was a reskin of the first boss of The Infernal Citadel, and used similar patterns outside of the mechanics, I knew that it was possible to avoid any attack from him. If the tank stick to any hinder leg of the boss, the boss will turn slowly to hit the tank and the tank can just continue to turn with him at the same time, staying close to any hinder leg and the boss will never be able to hit him.
You could believe that then, if the tank is moving, he will not be able to generate threat and will lose the agro to the dps but it’s an illusion because the GF can do that without any trouble. The GF’s encounter Shield Throw does not cancel the movement during casting time, and can use the encounter Knight’s valor to steal threat from dps while he can keep rotating around the boss hitbox staying close to hinder legs. Extra threat can be generated using a condemned ring at the same time.
He can even be helped by a bard songblade using the feat “Voice Throw” to give to the tank 50% of all the threat he has generated.
For the healers, as the boss will not hit due to that manoeuver, no heal needed on P1, but if support adds have spawned despite 9 dps in the party, one or two Paladin Helmit’s ghost companion will easily put their mark on the boss, as he will stay static as he is just rotating on himself to try to hit the tank.
For the P2, no healer no tank required.
For the P3, still no healer required, repeat phase one with a dps keeping Valindra away, no need to hit her, and her damage are rubbish, a dps can tank her using healthstone to heal if needed. With 9 dps, it’s possible to one phase Valindra. If not, then the tank can use Horn of the Vallalha to make Valindra attack the summoned barbarian, while moving the dragon away and make him lose 25% hp again and then, finishing Valindra.
P4, same as phase one for the GF tank, avoiding any damage. Party can get heal due to helmite seal on the phylactery.
P5, same as P1.
No need to have 2 tanks, no need to have healers.
In Neverwinter, there is too many tools that allow players to not need healers, or tanks, or both sometimes too.
Recently, we have seen different effects depending of the role of the user (Pegasus bonuses different depending of role, set of Northern Jewels, Cunning Mimic Companion, new weapon set of Dragonbone Vale campaign, etc).
If you really want people to run a new trial content with 2 tanks and 2 healers, adding attacks that will have different effect depending of the role of the target is a way that could not be ignored and that could allow active participation of both tanks, or both healers.
Exemple : Boss use a targeted attack to the player with the aggro. If he’s not a tank, the attack does make the player explode, killing everyone on the map, if he’s a tank, the attack does give him a stack. On a second stack, the tank could permanently die, so a second tank will have to take the agro until he get himself a stack too, and the first tank loses his one. It could serve as a tank check aswell.
Using a mechanic asking a specific role make that if someone want to just use the Horn of the Vallalha, the summoned barbarian has a taunt, but it’s not a tank, so it will explode and kill everyone on the map. If players use Staldorf, the result will be the same as it is not a tank. That’s just an exemple and I believe that there is room for creativity to make again mandatory to respect the 2 tanks, 6 dps, 2 healers.
When mechanics need coordination, people will just want to run with more dps to skip those mechanics.
Overall, I have appreciated this content, and I truly believe that you have put a lot of hard work in it.
If you have any doubt about the possibility to avoid all damages from the boss as a tank, if you are recording datas from every run, just looks at all Maelstrom’s run made alone. I was not kiting him, I was just on a hinder leg, rotating with him. Even the bite/headbutt can be avoided if you’re not in front of him.
I'm loving what I'm reading about the straightforward nature of this trial. I'm sick of begging for Tiamat or Svardborg or Cradle every time I go looking for a trial...and getting Demogorgon, which is another one that you could sleepwalk through if the hit points weren't stacked to the ceiling on every portal.
Are you talking about when you're wanting to run your daily rtq you hope for tiamat or sva? If so then yes, most hope for something easy on their daily rtq because they want their AD quickly and to be done. Rtq however isnt considered end game at all. If you actually think that then my assumption is that you are not end game yourself and still building up (which is absolutely fine) but the chances are that content being released as a new 'end game' isn't likely to be targeting you atm and you still have stuff in the game already you can be working towards.
It can be a Master mode, and the current one in the preview is a normal mode, but something that was said in this forum in the past not so far from the possibility of having the option to mark the queue as easy, normal and hard. would also be welcome.
Yes, they sort of started with it during zariel which was great, even though implemented in the incorrect order for zariel, the idea of having 'normal' and 'master' versions of the content is a really great idea and includes everybody whilst giving the top 1 or 2% of players that real challenge they are hoping for.
I understand what was tried there, the reduced difficulty, slower mechanics and areas of effect being shown in the red zone really help a lot. I remember hearing a dev talk about how making these changes was more complicated than it looked.
In this case I would feel good with simpler game modes for all queues in the game, where instead of 1 checkbox, we have 3 or 4, each for a level of difficulty, with changes only in the damage multipliers of the enemy, HP and resists is a suitable loot obviously, and if it wasn't too much work just add the red zone to the starting levels.
It's very sad for content to be released and most players don't have access to it, even as the fun/training mode. It's shocking when we analyze that many players, I think that well over half of the entire server has never made a TOMM, DG that was released almost 3 years ago, and many of these players already have the capacity to do so, but because there are no level versions lower.
This level system would make covers for any player, even the one that just released the content within the minimum level item, whether covers for fun, even if the loot is more basic for these cases. And I'm not even going to comment that the entire game loot table urgently needs to be reworked, I think everyone knows that.
I've never run a TOMM or ZC because they require finding a group willing to run a training round with you. I don't really... want to have to do this, or watch a bunch of youtube walkthroughs. In a dungeon I'm only wasting 4 people's time if I can't get something, but when you missing a mechanic might result in a 10 person wipe, it's a little different.
I love difficult mechanics but I'm kind of glad to hear this one uses a lot of things we've seen already. If they were going to introduce something new, it'd be nice to have an opportunity to "train", in some manner, just to experience some of what you would run into.
And if they didn't want to do solo training opportunities, even just the addition of being able to queue for things with a "training" flag and allow players to opt out of accepting inexperienced players when queueing would be amazing. Right now, in "endgame" content, it's hard to join unless you have a group you know who runs it since there's a high likelihood trying to join as a newcomer you'll mess it up for others involved and get slammed for it.
So, essentially, if they did add some mechanics or difficulty, it'd be amazing to see a 'training' option for those of us who haven't had the opportunity to run some of the endgame stuff since we rely on random queues
I hope this type of scaling is really good to enjoy all kinds of content and more people will be interested to repeat the content as it's more enjoyable..
You did a great Job on all Scaled content except the new one.. please implement scaling on everything..
To your suggestion of scaling to the number of players, this is a 10 man trial, not a dungeon. But if they were to implement this, they should not be decreasing the amount of damage they can do (except for the shared damage everyone group up skill), otherwise the tank and healer would not be needed. The only reason why 2 tanks are needed now is the tank switch mechanic, otherwise a single tank can do just fine.
> New content does not and should not have scaling. Otherwise, what's the point of having anything unscaled at all?
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> To your suggestion of scaling to the number of players, this is a 10 man trial, not a dungeon. But if they were to implement this, they should not be decreasing the amount of damage they can do (except for the shared damage everyone group up skill), otherwise the tank and healer would not be needed. The only reason why 2 tanks are needed now is the tank switch mechanic, otherwise a single tank can do just fine.
I don't agree with you on this Every should scale otherwise it's waste of time playing it
> If everything was scaled, there would be no point to gear progression in the game. No chase items, no reason for players to buy stuff from the Zen store, no money for Cryptic, then no game.
If you understand correctly the benefit of having new gear is 0.1%. all you need is Max Enchants and Insignias and Mount Collars and Bolsters to 100%. Nobody is willing to run end game content due to this if it's not enjoyable and playable by everyone.. we need More Players to participate in the Endgame content. Not like couple of People.. if it's for only couple then it's a dead content.. Cryptic will make more money by making the content available for >90% of the people. The timing spent on the game is very important.. we should be able to finish quickly and move with real-life commitments. Not spending days worth time for nothing.. With the scaling the content is bit easy and finishable with very less time so more people will play the game. And More money for Cryptic... If you relay on the gear you are getting nothing and loosing everything...
> This is completely doable by most players who meet the requirements to get in though. This isn't anywhere near the difficulty of ToMM or ZC. Players who have 80k iL will want to be able to complete it faster with a lot more breathing room than someone with 50k. There is a ton of work and effort between those two points, and for there to be nothing to reward those higher geared players, then what would the point be to get there?
The gear is not so important with M22 changes. It will provide 0.1% benefit You will reach above 75k item level without any gear from content M19 and above... Damage is coming from item level and 75k item level and 80k item level damage is very negligible and no body want to do gear hunt if there is not a huge gap in the damage or Healing and Tanking equipment. Even with h the gear from Chult is too good for finishing any content..
My intention is to make it viable for every body with the scaling and and boss date scaling. If all 80k players able to finish in 15 mins all 50k gear players should be able to finish at the same time. Without scaling that won't happen. Which is huge gap...
All you will get from the gear selling is AD most items in AD are too much in cost like coal ward is Just 350k ad bit now it's selling for 1.1m ad that's too much for 1 item it's b cause the ad and zen conversion times are too high..
And the gear is you get from the Trial is Bound to you and the values on the gear is static and they won't change at all
If the stats for. Gear is dynamic and change when you get new price of gear from the chest and if they are better stats than current then there is a value to it..
Every one should be able to complete the Trial without any issue then it's a success and most people will run the content over and over If they want that 0.1% high chance..Most people expecting drops from the cheats are wards and Insignias and Shards all materials used to upgrade collars with higher drop rate.