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It's that time again: Epic Cragmire Crypts - Two-manned. Concerns about dungeon difficulty.
jaegernl
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 455 Arc User
Hello, folks.
I wanted to talk about Dungeons, today. This post has two reasons: 1) Bragging rights; 2) Concerns about Dungeon difficulty.
Sharpedge - @thefabricant - and myself, Isaac, decided to try a two-man Epic Cragmire Crypts (ECC) today. He runs a Control Wizard - SS Renegade - of about 2.8k Item Level, while I run a Oath of Devotion Paladin of about 3.4k Item Level. Our decision to run ECC with just the two of us was two-fold. On the one hand, we wanted to just see how far we could push ourselves. On the other hand, we wanted to put to rest all the endless complaining about ECC being impossible. And yes, we killed Traven legitimately.
Since the last bout of Dungeon nerfs, we've been seeing more and more video's and posts of people either two-manning something - I believe it was EToS? - or soloing an epic dungeon: Lazalia in Temple of the Spider. We couldn't stay behind, because we're both known for complaining about the difficulty - or lack thereof - of the dungeons. Neither of us is Best-in-Slot. Below, our stuff:
Sharpedge:
Isaac:
So, the dungeon itself was a piece of cake. We had no wipes, and Sharp soulforged once because he was too lazy to dodge a red zone. Both mini-bosses were pretty easy to deal with. Kallos Tam was mostly a tank and spank, with Sharp dancing around. No problem. The Competing Adventure Party was even easier, considering they're affected by CC, meaning some Burning Light plus everything a CW can throw at them made short work of them. I think it took us about half an hour to get to Traven.
The whole run through the dungeon, damage was completely manageable. With just Bond of Virtue and Shield of Faith up, nothing was killing us. At one point, we decided to pull about three rooms worth of mobs - ECC has too many doors to pull more - and between Bond, Shield of Faith and some CC, we'd do just fine. Sharpedge did have a summoned companion active, so I had something else to bounce Prism off of. Made healing quite easy. Mostly healed through Prism, Bond of Virtue and Vow of Emnity. Nothing different from when you'd have a 5-man setup.
Of course, Traven did give us a little more difficulty. I expected to die a lot, so I brought about 40 kits. In the end, I needed 4. We tried multiple setups during our four tries. First try, I used my Augment instead of the Angel of Protection. Also, I ran with Relentless Avenger/Vow/Bond. At first, Sharp ran without Shield on tab, but it became apparent that when he grabbed agro - I lack any form of taunt - the incoming damage would be too much. On the final try I ran with Burning Light/Vow/Bond with an active companion (the Angel) and just spammed Shield of Faith whenever my AP was full. We followed the pattern described in @thefabricant 's ECC Guide for the 2k IL party. Zigzagging through the room, all the way to the barrel. I'd pop Shield of Faith, hit the barrel, hit my DC sigil, spam heals while Traven goes on his rampage - sometimes, Sharp would Soulforge anyway - and then pop Heroism to cover myself for the second rampage.
When it comes to adds, the cutthroats and the snipers are completely ignorable. They don't deal enough damage and they'll die by AoE damage soon enough. The ones to look out for are the Deathpledged - although not *that* annoying - and most of all the Hexers. There was something about them that made them chew through us pretty quickly.
Anyway, after zig-zagging and popping the keg a few times - It took a while, DPS wasn't at it's highest - we managed to get him down:
Now, with the bragging out of the way, let's head over to the concerns.
The first of which is a often heard problem with the dungeons: Risk (or time/effort) versus reward. At the start of mod 6, the often heard complaint about the T2 dungeons was that the risk wasn't close to the reward. It took too much time and effort to finish ECC or EGWD, so everyone just did EToS. The way this has been dealt with, is reducing the risk, while keeping the rewards at HAMSTER-poor levels. I'm guessing that does mean that the balance between Risk vs Reward is better, but for the sake of longeviety of the dungeon, they've gone the wrong direction. High risk, high reward would've been preferable, as we've got few dungeons to run, and they're soon becoming boring.
Related to the first concern is the second concern: Power creep. Mod 6 was supposedly a 'reset' on the game. People were soloing the toughest content, and this had to be dealt with. Well, less than a mod later we're already seeing people solo Epics, like Lazalia did. Granted, that's a BiS GWF - a class that right now has a whole bunch of issues with balancing when at those item levels - but it's still worrying. People are just beginning to get their mod 8 stuff. As you can see, the only stuff I was using was the Drow set pants/shirt. There's a whole slew of items coming our way that greatly increase the power of your character. Legendary rings, Twisted Weapons, the Elemental weapons, etc. etc. None of these are - luckily - cash-gated, but they'll make the dungeons and ever bigger cake-walk than they are now. Once again, this is bad for the longievety of the dungeons.
Finally, there's a more over-arching concern: the state of the community. People on the forum have accused others of using 'Fake Item Level', using 'Dev magic' or being 'endorsed by Cryptic', whatever that last part might mean. Of course, some of these people throwing about these accusations are utter nutters, but I do legitimatly worry for these people that seem to be completely fixated on the idea that this stuff is hard. It's not. It's doable with two people.
I wanted to talk about Dungeons, today. This post has two reasons: 1) Bragging rights; 2) Concerns about Dungeon difficulty.
Sharpedge - @thefabricant - and myself, Isaac, decided to try a two-man Epic Cragmire Crypts (ECC) today. He runs a Control Wizard - SS Renegade - of about 2.8k Item Level, while I run a Oath of Devotion Paladin of about 3.4k Item Level. Our decision to run ECC with just the two of us was two-fold. On the one hand, we wanted to just see how far we could push ourselves. On the other hand, we wanted to put to rest all the endless complaining about ECC being impossible. And yes, we killed Traven legitimately.
Since the last bout of Dungeon nerfs, we've been seeing more and more video's and posts of people either two-manning something - I believe it was EToS? - or soloing an epic dungeon: Lazalia in Temple of the Spider. We couldn't stay behind, because we're both known for complaining about the difficulty - or lack thereof - of the dungeons. Neither of us is Best-in-Slot. Below, our stuff:
Sharpedge:
Isaac:
So, the dungeon itself was a piece of cake. We had no wipes, and Sharp soulforged once because he was too lazy to dodge a red zone. Both mini-bosses were pretty easy to deal with. Kallos Tam was mostly a tank and spank, with Sharp dancing around. No problem. The Competing Adventure Party was even easier, considering they're affected by CC, meaning some Burning Light plus everything a CW can throw at them made short work of them. I think it took us about half an hour to get to Traven.
The whole run through the dungeon, damage was completely manageable. With just Bond of Virtue and Shield of Faith up, nothing was killing us. At one point, we decided to pull about three rooms worth of mobs - ECC has too many doors to pull more - and between Bond, Shield of Faith and some CC, we'd do just fine. Sharpedge did have a summoned companion active, so I had something else to bounce Prism off of. Made healing quite easy. Mostly healed through Prism, Bond of Virtue and Vow of Emnity. Nothing different from when you'd have a 5-man setup.
Of course, Traven did give us a little more difficulty. I expected to die a lot, so I brought about 40 kits. In the end, I needed 4. We tried multiple setups during our four tries. First try, I used my Augment instead of the Angel of Protection. Also, I ran with Relentless Avenger/Vow/Bond. At first, Sharp ran without Shield on tab, but it became apparent that when he grabbed agro - I lack any form of taunt - the incoming damage would be too much. On the final try I ran with Burning Light/Vow/Bond with an active companion (the Angel) and just spammed Shield of Faith whenever my AP was full. We followed the pattern described in @thefabricant 's ECC Guide for the 2k IL party. Zigzagging through the room, all the way to the barrel. I'd pop Shield of Faith, hit the barrel, hit my DC sigil, spam heals while Traven goes on his rampage - sometimes, Sharp would Soulforge anyway - and then pop Heroism to cover myself for the second rampage.
When it comes to adds, the cutthroats and the snipers are completely ignorable. They don't deal enough damage and they'll die by AoE damage soon enough. The ones to look out for are the Deathpledged - although not *that* annoying - and most of all the Hexers. There was something about them that made them chew through us pretty quickly.
Anyway, after zig-zagging and popping the keg a few times - It took a while, DPS wasn't at it's highest - we managed to get him down:
Now, with the bragging out of the way, let's head over to the concerns.
The first of which is a often heard problem with the dungeons: Risk (or time/effort) versus reward. At the start of mod 6, the often heard complaint about the T2 dungeons was that the risk wasn't close to the reward. It took too much time and effort to finish ECC or EGWD, so everyone just did EToS. The way this has been dealt with, is reducing the risk, while keeping the rewards at HAMSTER-poor levels. I'm guessing that does mean that the balance between Risk vs Reward is better, but for the sake of longeviety of the dungeon, they've gone the wrong direction. High risk, high reward would've been preferable, as we've got few dungeons to run, and they're soon becoming boring.
Related to the first concern is the second concern: Power creep. Mod 6 was supposedly a 'reset' on the game. People were soloing the toughest content, and this had to be dealt with. Well, less than a mod later we're already seeing people solo Epics, like Lazalia did. Granted, that's a BiS GWF - a class that right now has a whole bunch of issues with balancing when at those item levels - but it's still worrying. People are just beginning to get their mod 8 stuff. As you can see, the only stuff I was using was the Drow set pants/shirt. There's a whole slew of items coming our way that greatly increase the power of your character. Legendary rings, Twisted Weapons, the Elemental weapons, etc. etc. None of these are - luckily - cash-gated, but they'll make the dungeons and ever bigger cake-walk than they are now. Once again, this is bad for the longievety of the dungeons.
Finally, there's a more over-arching concern: the state of the community. People on the forum have accused others of using 'Fake Item Level', using 'Dev magic' or being 'endorsed by Cryptic', whatever that last part might mean. Of course, some of these people throwing about these accusations are utter nutters, but I do legitimatly worry for these people that seem to be completely fixated on the idea that this stuff is hard. It's not. It's doable with two people.
Isaac the Adequate - Level 70 Oath of Protection Paladin
Aurelius the Awkward - Level 70 Pathfinder Ranger
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However, I disagree with your assessment of dungeon difficulty and how you conclude that it can be done with 2 players. Is it truly 2 players of ANY class? Can it be done with a GF and HR?
Have you mistaken the problem when the real cause lies in class imbalance? Do not forget your history lesson:
1) TR : best solo class for PvE (mod 1 & 2)
2) CW: best CC and DPS and party formed entirely with CW was not uncommon
If the success cannot be replicated or repeated with other permutations, that assessment is not robust enough.
You must acknowledge, though, that the point about the power creep still stands. While I might be overgeared for the content, my characters effectiveness drops rapidly when there's less people around. And we're seeing an evolution here, too. At first, people would consider this only doable with a Protector with permanent Divine Protector. Then, a while back, we showed that it's doable with a party of around 2k IL both with and without any Paladins in the party. While you're right that Lazalia might nog be the prime example of why we need to take another look at diffulty - and, tbh, I placed a little footnote there
Thinking about it, that might be my major gripe: The way a mod is set up. You don't gear up to beat content; you beat content and get gear that made the content you had to do - and that all there is, really - way too easy.
Edit: I want to add that the reason that players feel quite overpower now is related to so many artifact stuff. Elol set, lol.
Join the Greycloaks
Ana-GWF SM Destroyer | Farseer-CW MoF Renegade | Leon-GF SM Tactician
Adrik Battlefate-DC DO Virtuous | Cassi Woodsheart-HR PF Trapper
Yes, power creep is slowly building up again (as is the cycle of MMOs), and it is something worth watching over as I'm sure we'll be outgearing content for a while before anything new is added, but I think class balance is still the bigger issue regarding content (dungeon) difficulty at the moment. Outgearing content is always an issue, the fact we have players running around with 4k TIL and our single hardest 'dungeon' requires 2.5k for entry shows we are technically already there, but I feel the gear simply compounds the strength of class imbalances. Lazalia soloing T2s as a GWF is honestly not surprising, a few mods ago CW's were the king for that sort of thing, we've simply moved on. But until a HR or SW can achieve this it shows where priority should lie. Fix the classes, then fix the gear/content. Working with a broken 'foundation' is simply going to mess everything else up in the long-run.
TL;DR Certain classes can "cheese" the content, the gear requirement isn't necessarily high for that. Fix the classes, then "outgearing" concerns can be properly handled.
Fabricant is probably running three perfect bonding runestones (at least) on his companion and a full set of companions. So basically what we're getting at is that dungeons are too easy for players that don't really need AD anymore. If PWE/Cryptic were willing to increase rewards sufficiently, sure, make some dungeons harder. But I really doubt that will ever happen and the game is already at the point where reaching the kind of stats that OP and his OP had are out of reach for most players.
Agreed that the power creep is getting out of control again and the rewards not lining up with the effort put in. It is concerning that not long after the reset button was pressed, we're seeing a repeat of Mod 5 already.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
Neverwinter, more than any other MMO out there, rewards skill. Players are rewarded for being great at the game, not just having the best gear or playing the most over-powered class. Sure, that stuff matters...but skill and thoughtful gameplay matter more. Most other MMOs tend to focus on gameplay that punishes skillful play and forces people to stay within certain boxes, else content can't be completed.
This is just a prime example of that. You take two very good players with very good gear, put them in a situation where they needed to thoughtfully execute every fight, and they can succeed. No other MMO rewards players for that type of play. It's either you're geared or you're not. You run the right rotation or you don't. You stand in the stupid or you don't.
The average player has no chance at every duo'ing a dungeon like this, no matter how good their gear. Heck, the average player in average gear still has a hard time with some of the T2 dungeon content. And there's not many MMOs out there where fights aren't ever over until everyone is on the floor. In almost every game, if one person dies, it's a wipe. Is the tank dead? Wipe it. Is the healer dead? Wipe it.
In Neverwinter, it ain't over until it's over. There's been so many times where I've seen amazing players actually BE HEROES in fights that I though for sure were over, but somehow they end up pulling it out. Fights were there's only one person left and a boss at 5% health, and they manage to dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge, while putting out enough damage to finish off the boss.
In any other MMO, that's a wipe. Tanks dies? Boss one-shots everyone else and you restart. Healer dies? Tanks dies in three hits, all the DPS get one-shot, and you restart. In Neverwinter? Maybe the group wipes, maybe not. So even in that regard, you have the holy grail that so many other MMOs chase, but fail to achieve. Is there a Trinity in Neverwinter? Yes. Do you always need a tank/healer/DPS? Not really...honestly most times the answer is "depends on how good you are". That's something that shouldn't be understated.
But back to the example above. Does this mean the entire game is too easy? For some people, yeah. For most others, no. Does this mean we have to nerf/buff? Maybe? Maybe not. The problem here becomes player perception of what is and isn't overpowered, since something in the hands of the right player can seem impossibly strong, while other stuff in the hands of a bad player can seem ridiculously weak. Balancing classes and content in a game where player skill is so important is tough.
So great accomplishment and congratulations. But does this mean the entire game needs to be rebalanced? No. Is it fun to see players who are over-gearing content get creative with new ways to challenge themselves? Absolutely.
Is the sky falling from an alarming amount of power creep? Again, not really. You're taking an example of 7 month old content, and running it with current gear. Can you 5 man Epic Demogorgon and still get Gold? Probably not...but that's the bar for "end game" right now.
And hopefully with what they have planned for new dungeon content in Module 9, the difficulty bar will be raised a couple more notches, and players will be challenged again, just like when the revamped dungeons did when Mod 6 launched.
So it's better to get alarmed now than discover in 2 mods that almost everything is soloable, half the population left due to boredom (aka mod5), compensate to late (mod 6) and watch the tears again.
So, yes, it's time to get alarmed, or it will be to late.
Abut other games:
Not sure if naming them is ok here, so I'll just say that I recently was curious and tried two games,
lets call one Hephaestus, and the other white tundra.
Hephaestus is more similar to NW, and in 5 man dungeons, a tank could die, and the rest could keep up ( for a time at least - there is no healer there) and so on.
What I liked there, a lot, (except the class change option, and about 30 dungeons) is that in one dungeon you had patrolling enemy's that were way to hard to kill, you aggro one and the group dies.
So you had to sneak from room to room as they pass the corridor.
Or other examples were platform that each member had to stand on to disable bosses shield, a canon a player had to use while another leading the boss into the firing range and so on..
This is a significant step up from aggro a bunch of mobs and smash them to death. Tavern water idea, and Garisto are somewhat a step in that direction and I hope to see more stuff like that.
About 5 man eDemo, honestly, maybe not 5 but I think 6 smartly picked classes, enchants and so on can do it.
Tank, primary healer, debuffer/secondary healer + 3 dps can do it.
but sadly that reward is only as personal satisfaction achievement of sort and has no impact on game resources. Why trying leading pugs through difficult dungeon, when you can zerg few heroic encounters and get more AD from them. but rewards system in the game should be all rebalanced
Now to the point of my post:I totally agree with Ironzerg79 in that this game is made a lot easier by player skill. From my experience of running with the two of you I can confidently say that you play your characters to their highest potential. I would guess that Ironzerg himself falls in the same category but since I did not meet him yet I can't judge. Unfortunately, I belong to the sort of players who are just not that skilled. Be that because I don't take the time to do extended testings or look at the combat log after a fight or just personal skill, I don't know. Fact is that for a player like me the current content is totally fine. Both of my main toons are now just above 2.5 k iLvl so that I can run eDemo, and at that point eTos is rather straightforward while eCC and eGWD are still a challenge (though probably mainly because I ran both exactly twice so far).
However I also see the power creep and even at this point there is a lack of incentive for me to grind all the stuff I need to push my characters higher. Sure, I love to see them grow stronger, but if that means I have to farm 100 motes I will probably just pass on that. It's as you say the balance of effort and reward. At this point the effort is just to high for the reward, since I can play everything at my current level.
So overall I am strongly against making the current content harder. What this game really needs imho is T3 and T4 dungeons. Put T3 at around the same difficulty as epic Demogorgon, and T4 even higher. This would give highly skilled and geared players a new challenge while not increasing difficulty for the average player. I am still hoping that the old dungeons are reworked in that way since I know that this is not a new idea and has been brought up before.
How did i do it? 1 lathander dew, 1 rank 15 valindra necklace, tidespan potion (5600 recovery total), 1 epic sigil of the devoted, IL 2100, templar's wrath, smite, burning light, tick divinity and repeat, the best neclace for OP regarding resistance would be tiamat, but valindra was just 17k and i didn't want to spend much on a secondary char.
So, is IL a problem? absolutly not, if i go back to protection and i put some more resistance and legendary sigil, and a proper weapeon enchant for a OP, like a plague, soon i woud not find problems in soloing both.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Our GWF did eTos/eLoL solo too, just to proofe he can do it. But he was bored the whole runs.
P.S.: And i think you cant do spider temple solo...sry. Maybe the 3 man version . *ha ha
Also: CWs are a very balanced class: they can output very good DPS and AoE CC, which adds to survivability. So a CW might do it with a DC, while, for example, a SW probably would fail.
I also agree that players tend to go for the "class is overpowered" route, while skills play a very big role.
Lazalia spent time and effort to change the usual PvE build for that fight, and also studied the attacks and learned how to avoid them. Another 4k GWF would, probably, just die if going unprepared.
In this case, instead, the Paladin most likely completely erased the risks, so all you need to concentrate was attacking. With current paladins it's usually like that.
Players got used to just being invulnerable/ immortal with Paladins, and should re-learn how to dodge and survive cause OPs won't stay like that forever.
I'd love to se a really BiS trapper and CW trying to solo these dungeons too. I think these classes might have the potential to make it. If the player is skilled enough.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
It says nothing about the capacity of average players who don't have all day to grind the game or pay a bunch of money. For them, and that's a lot of us, the difficulty is just fine for the most part. However, it would be more accurate to say that Neverwinter COULD reward skill, but at this point, the rewards are not commensurate with the experience.
Unless you can craft many, many pairs of pants.
>Neverwinter
>skill
Thanks for a good laugh.
By the way, I did those things before. They have nothing to do with skill and everything to do with your gear and proper class build.
Lazalia's videos are amazing but yeah, it would also be fun to see other classes doing it, if they have the potential.