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Feedback on Module 11: The Cloaked Ascendancy
karakla1
Member Posts: 1,355 Arc User
TL; DR = I like the new module
Red text for bugs/issues
The Story
It is a good story that tracks back to our very first Quest in Neverwinter and we get a Story around the throne of Neverwinter and who will be in charge. The introduction quests are short and feel diverse enough for me and offer a bit of replay ability to get all the achievements. Well done! I want more Storytelling like this in Neverwinter.
The new Zone
Finally we get a harbor in Neverwinter and a lot more. I like how diverse the River District is. We have the harbor area, the cursed woods, a bit of abyss and a volcanic area. And on top of that it feels alive.
The heroic encounter tie into the story of the module, same does the excavation sides and to be able to clean them from enemies, upgrade them with our own guards and then visit the a crypt on the excavation side feels good. It is all tied to the story.
I especially like that a lot of activities tie into triggering the heroic encounters.
What I dislike is that we need a lot of bag space.
We need space for the three main resources.
RD also offers again Treasure Maps (a system I adore) but there are like 18 different maps and they all use up a different slot in the inventory.
The excavation side need us to purchase a special ticket which also use up an additional bag space.
And then we have special maps to find more loot within the excavation dungeons which also use up three different slots.
That mean 7 to 32 slots only for items of the River District. Best would be to get the three main resources in our resource bag, after all they are kind of raw material. The treasure maps could be contained in a different items similar to the flasks in SOMI. For example this round thingy architects use to store their maps and documents in it. And make the special tickets to enter the excavation side an consumable so they are directly used if we enter the dungeon (seriously they are not that rare or expensive enough to give me a reason to carry them around all the time. And didn’t Neverember wanted more money? A reason more to use them up).
To note is that the special maps for the excavation dungeons aren’t consumed/used anymore. It worked the first time as the quest was active but after that not again.
The Campaign
Another thing I like about this module is that I can decide how I take part in it. I can do excavation dungeons, kill monster, spend resources on the treasure ship, participating in heroic encounters, etc. I really wish it would be like that from the very start since we have different campaigns because I love it.
And the whole daily progress doesn’t take up too long in it and I still can participate in the different tasks for maybe a bit more progression even if the drop rate of Evidences of Evil is extremely low.
What has a big plus in my book are also the three mini dungeons around the three big bosses called Kabal, Gyriador and Nostura and that they all have different stuff to do in. For example Kabal has a Jump’n Run Area and Nostura a racing track. The boss fights have also different mechanics.
But sadly the whole campaign is plagued with bugs and lags. While I like the concept of Kabals Jump’n Run it is nearly unplayable because of severe lag. Same goes for the racing track of Nostura which is worse than in Kabals case because Kabals Jump’n Run allows to be bypassed by killing monsters while Nosturas racing track has not such a mechanic. Same goes for heroic encounters. Especially the Epic Heroic Encounters bug out quite often and doesn’t spawn monsters at some point which mean they automatically enter a fail state, same happens now since the last update with the small HEs.
And the traveling merchant is not accessible even if I have done the right campaign task. It is really saddening because the whole design is really well flesh out. I hope it gets patched really quick.
The new Skirmish
Skirmishs are often really boring and tedious in Neverwinter. And while I like the Illusionist Gambit because it offers a lot of variety how it is displayed and how much reward we can get out of it (a tremendous amount of XP and the new companion gear) it gets boring really quick.
The reason is probably that it is a bit too long. Also the interruptions if we want to continue or leave seem unnecessary for me. So it would already help to get rid of these interruptions and make it like 1-2 minutes faster.
The skirmish also suffers currently from lag and rubber banding.
To sum it up
The Cloaked Ascendancy is probably the best Module/Expansion we ever got. The dailies feels diverse and tie great into the whole story. The story is interesting. And it offers a lot of activities without being too time demanding. And the new zone feels alive!
Sadly it suffers from bugs and issues with lags and rubber banding but hopefully this will be fixed quickly. I am currently looking forward to unlock the new/old dungeon: Spell plague Caverns and I am interested how the story will develop.
Thanks to Mimic King and his Team!
Red text for bugs/issues
The Story
It is a good story that tracks back to our very first Quest in Neverwinter and we get a Story around the throne of Neverwinter and who will be in charge. The introduction quests are short and feel diverse enough for me and offer a bit of replay ability to get all the achievements. Well done! I want more Storytelling like this in Neverwinter.
The new Zone
Finally we get a harbor in Neverwinter and a lot more. I like how diverse the River District is. We have the harbor area, the cursed woods, a bit of abyss and a volcanic area. And on top of that it feels alive.
The heroic encounter tie into the story of the module, same does the excavation sides and to be able to clean them from enemies, upgrade them with our own guards and then visit the a crypt on the excavation side feels good. It is all tied to the story.
I especially like that a lot of activities tie into triggering the heroic encounters.
What I dislike is that we need a lot of bag space.
We need space for the three main resources.
RD also offers again Treasure Maps (a system I adore) but there are like 18 different maps and they all use up a different slot in the inventory.
The excavation side need us to purchase a special ticket which also use up an additional bag space.
And then we have special maps to find more loot within the excavation dungeons which also use up three different slots.
That mean 7 to 32 slots only for items of the River District. Best would be to get the three main resources in our resource bag, after all they are kind of raw material. The treasure maps could be contained in a different items similar to the flasks in SOMI. For example this round thingy architects use to store their maps and documents in it. And make the special tickets to enter the excavation side an consumable so they are directly used if we enter the dungeon (seriously they are not that rare or expensive enough to give me a reason to carry them around all the time. And didn’t Neverember wanted more money? A reason more to use them up).
To note is that the special maps for the excavation dungeons aren’t consumed/used anymore. It worked the first time as the quest was active but after that not again.
The Campaign
Another thing I like about this module is that I can decide how I take part in it. I can do excavation dungeons, kill monster, spend resources on the treasure ship, participating in heroic encounters, etc. I really wish it would be like that from the very start since we have different campaigns because I love it.
And the whole daily progress doesn’t take up too long in it and I still can participate in the different tasks for maybe a bit more progression even if the drop rate of Evidences of Evil is extremely low.
What has a big plus in my book are also the three mini dungeons around the three big bosses called Kabal, Gyriador and Nostura and that they all have different stuff to do in. For example Kabal has a Jump’n Run Area and Nostura a racing track. The boss fights have also different mechanics.
But sadly the whole campaign is plagued with bugs and lags. While I like the concept of Kabals Jump’n Run it is nearly unplayable because of severe lag. Same goes for the racing track of Nostura which is worse than in Kabals case because Kabals Jump’n Run allows to be bypassed by killing monsters while Nosturas racing track has not such a mechanic. Same goes for heroic encounters. Especially the Epic Heroic Encounters bug out quite often and doesn’t spawn monsters at some point which mean they automatically enter a fail state, same happens now since the last update with the small HEs.
And the traveling merchant is not accessible even if I have done the right campaign task. It is really saddening because the whole design is really well flesh out. I hope it gets patched really quick.
The new Skirmish
Skirmishs are often really boring and tedious in Neverwinter. And while I like the Illusionist Gambit because it offers a lot of variety how it is displayed and how much reward we can get out of it (a tremendous amount of XP and the new companion gear) it gets boring really quick.
The reason is probably that it is a bit too long. Also the interruptions if we want to continue or leave seem unnecessary for me. So it would already help to get rid of these interruptions and make it like 1-2 minutes faster.
The skirmish also suffers currently from lag and rubber banding.
To sum it up
The Cloaked Ascendancy is probably the best Module/Expansion we ever got. The dailies feels diverse and tie great into the whole story. The story is interesting. And it offers a lot of activities without being too time demanding. And the new zone feels alive!
Sadly it suffers from bugs and issues with lags and rubber banding but hopefully this will be fixed quickly. I am currently looking forward to unlock the new/old dungeon: Spell plague Caverns and I am interested how the story will develop.
Thanks to Mimic King and his Team!
Platypus wielding a giant hammer, your argument is invalild!
1
Comments
Maybe it would be better then to get rid of them totally and instead demand more resources to unlock a specific dungeon and exchange the reward for this maps for more resources?
The reason is that I personally run rarely in a not unlocked excavation side and 90% of the time discard those maps. Or am i the only one that is so lucky?
What really need improvement is the Arcane Focus drop rate or it would be better to include it like the books in one of the campaign tasks to generate them. Because at the current pace it will take ages to get enough Arcane Focus.
I'm also very frustrated with the droprate of Arcanic Focus in digsites; I've run about 80 of them and only gotten 12 Arcanic Focus. Please raise the droprate for them as it becomes so incredibly tedious to keep running digsites for nothing.
I have a suspicion this might have something to do with the passes you get from treasure chests - possibly related to having those expire unused in your inventory. At the very least I have totally stopped digging up those treasure chests - I do not want to lose access to more dig sites - getting my 3 Arcanic Focus per day is hard enough with only 5 sites accessible.
And, while grinding for those, I can hope that M11-B brings what they promised during the LIve Stream.
while some toons get 3 right away.. others have done 9-10..
personal timers sux..
BTC vs BTA sux
bag space sux...
but some of these are issues THAT every module in a year has had.
I would put a medium grade on it..
They are way to easy on grind adding..
I dont find massive grind walls fun..
I thought this game was a great example of how you could do a MMO without so much boring grind.. then they added it at the start mod 10..
I hope they deescalate this..
Underdark was a great example of how to add grind , but reasonable grind.
Whats funny is underdark had too much rng.. but thats not changed.. game still all about rng.. and of course now more grind then ever.
I dont think this game will ever be quite has fun as it was early in its existance.. Ive learned to live with that.. but I wish they could just scale it back a tad bit.
Overall we got a lot of stuff:
We got a new diverse Zone which offers Heroic Encounters that interact with player actions (spending resources to prolong them or spending resources to trigger them). The Watchtower/Guardtowers with their digsites ties into the story. Which mean we also got three digside dungeons.
The campaign feels very flexible and leaves me a choice where to start and which campaign tasks I want to do. The three Magus Instances (Nostura, Gyrion and Kabal) are all different Mini Dungeons. For example Nostura offers a race, Kabal and Gyrion a Jumping Puzzle while both work differently. Also all three boss fights have different mechanics.
The new zone offers three "secret" daily quests. No biggy but they also tie into the story and seem not that random like other quests of that kind.
A new skirmish. I kinda like it but yeah it can get boring because it is "only" an Arena, but I like the style and randomness of it. Also it offers a lot of rewards in form of XP and the new companion gear.
Of course Stormkings Thunder offered a lot more with three to four new zones, a new dungeon, a new heroic trial including the best gear in the game, traveling by boat, fishing and treasure maps.
But the Cloaked Ascendency ties all mechanics better together into the backstory and gives me in the new zone a lot to do while i can choose what to do and no other campaign/module did this ever before properly, in my opinion. Even Stormkings Thunder felt very static and forced. But hey, only my opinion.
Like a lot of other stuff in this module I like the new Spellplague but it needs a bit of work.
(Note: I played the Spellplague Caverns only once with my Tank)
Come we first to the monster fights between the Boss fights. Same way as in the old Dungeon but without some of the tasks you need to do to progress. I personally had the feeling the pacing was a bit off. For example we run through the corridor and occasionally portals spawn. Sometimes even WAY behind our group. A little suprise but I can see that being annoying later on to wait for portals to spawn to properly clean the dungeon out and not being attacked in the back (not everyone calls a 4.2K Character his own to shrug such stuff off).
But maybe I will adjust to it, but it felt strange to run back and forth to clean monsters.
Come we to the bosses.
Kabal is a great Boss with his three different phases. The chaining, breaking the damage Immunity and avoiding the flooded areas feels like an intense fight.
But here seems also some Bugs. Aggro seems all over the place. Even with Skills like Binding Oath which forces monster to attack me for the duration of the skill it hardly works. Also the Fireball mechanic to get rid of the damage immunity seems to not work properly and gets stuck sometimes.
The Stone Eye Boss from Nostura which is left behind to block the path is really hard to crack but I like it. It feels like a really skill based fight where you can't use your companions bonding runestones properly because they are often thrown out of the arena. I hope we will see more similar bosses that are more skillbased and throw the Bonding Runestones out of the fight.
But this Boss has also its problems.
For example the Arena is way to small. Don't get me wrong. I understand that the Arena is supossed to be small to get thrown out from the boss as soon as he jumps but the margin of error is so small that you can even thrown out of the arena if you properly move if there is a small delay. And I don't talk about severe lag, we are talking about a few milliseconds not running against the shockwave because of a delay and you are out. (But it is to note that it can lag pretty hard because of all the different AOE effects in this Boss fight).
Also the boss has this "hug attack" where he deals enough damage to one or two shot any none tank class standing in front of him which leaves the remaining group no space to maneuver properly around the boss to avoid this attack and a short follow up where jumps up to throw us out of the arena.
I personally think a 10-15% bigger Arena would be better (or a smaller push effect to throw us out).
From time to time the Boss gains a huge damage resistance buff where the group is only dealing like 10% damage (similar to the Orcus Portal Phase). To break through this phase the Boss must attack you with his petrifying glare and watching in an Illusionary Mirror. Some player said the Boss is also supposed to be stunned but that doesn't happen. The problem with this mechanic is it only works at random which is very frustrating.
As a Tank I lose instantly all of my aggro as soon as he starts the attack which leaves me with no control where the Boss is supposed to look at, he simply starts to glare at a person at random and as soon as he starts the attack you can't move/pull the boss to look at a specific direction.
I mean we could try standing all at the space/direction but that means that 4 out 5 people can die from the "hug attack" or if they stay only a few feets behind the tank to be thrown off the arena, which mean this tactic is pure suicide.
The last Boss is Nostura. After the Stone Eye this fight feels a bit like a joke because it feels way easier with such a big arena to move around. I personally think the Arena here could be smaller (simply exclude the stones at the edge of the arena and it should be fine). But the Boss Fight looks flashy with all the different effects, attacks and the plaineshift mechanic. The only thing i didn't understood in the fight is when the curse of Nostura is applied (a really potent dot) and how to get rid of it.
Also the Dungeon has a Secret in it which is better explored by everyone himself/herself.
It took me 1 hour and 40 minutes to complete with my group. But we also stuck for like 6 tries at the second boss (and two times almost killing him). Of course it goes way shorter. It seems 35-45 minutes is currently the norm.
The most problem I have with the Dungeon is the reward at the end. Of course the loot was upped and the longer or more difficult the run is, the better the chance to get a mount, companion, etc out of it. But the regular loot is simply not worth running the Dungeon.
Can we get like 1-5 Pres. Wards and the chance of some Marks out of it? I mean we need about 1,500+ Pres. Wards to upgrade our gear to max. To get like 1-5 Pres. Wards on such a lengthy Dungeon with the chance of some blue or epic marks seems not unreasonable.
I mean... yeah running Dungeons in itself can be very fun but I also run it for the loot. For the overall progression. To earn something out of it that I want. I run over 500 times the epic Lair Of Lostmauth. Not only because it is a fun Dungeon but also for the Horn of Lostmauth and several other rewards in it.