We tried it once a few nights ago, didn't get past the sisters but we were messing around trying to figure everything out more than we were trying to burn them down.
I was tanking the first Sister and trying to figure out that stacking debuff that would sometimes one-shot me for 3+ million damage at 10 stacks...and sometimes just go away and do no damage. Hovering over it to read the tooltip says I need to block it, but I didn't see anything in the area that would block it, and the tooltips on the abilities from the book don't say anything about blocking. Blocking didn't seem to have anything to do with holding up my shield as I tested that a couple times and it didn't work. I even tried getting behind a pillar so it was between me and the sister right as I got to 10 stacks, but she just came right to me immediately. Again, sometimes it just went away at 10 stacks and I didn't take the damage, but I couldn't see anything different than the times that I took the damage.
It seems like people just burn scrolls of life to get past the hard parts since it's preview and they are free.
@wickedduck22#9795 idea with using Tarokka cards in dungeon would suit it best..if dungeon would be too easy for you then use some card to increase difficulty..but with better rewards of course.
Great idea who can make everyone happy ! This idea is great, many players would like the possibility to increase difficulty for better rewards. Because if we are honest, we all know the difficulty of the endgame content is too easy for endgame players. As long as the end game content stays at 13k and the players at 18k balancing will be difficult. But anyway a love your idea !
I like the idea of using the cards to increase difficulty and rewards but isn't this essentially just like asking them to make a normal version and master version of the dungeon? (Which I believe they should do with every single dungeon anyway so less experienced players have a place to learn mechanics before hitting the master version).
Nice work on the environment, it felt for me like playing the old days of Neverwinter with those dungeons i could run over and over because it was fun. I found the first boss aswell being the most complicated of all. Took some time to figure it out.
Before worrying about the fact that medium not competent low geared or whatever you wanna call them players can finish this dungeon, go have a look if those same players can pass first fbi msp and tong, and then I think we can all worry about the difficulty of Castle Ravenloft for them.
Before worrying about the fact that medium not competent low geared or whatever you wanna call them players can finish this dungeon, go have a look if those same players can pass first fbi msp and tong, and then I think we can all worry about the difficulty of Castle Ravenloft for them.
It didn't help that our primary buffer/healer was wielding the Sun Sword, but we were having fun so whatevs. We defeated Strahd and took turns passing around the Sun Sword to see the abilities, collected our loot and took our leave.
Is the Sun Sword similar to the DPS curse buff you get at Orcus in TONG?
Best dungeon that has come out in the last new years. We ran the dungeon with 2xOP 1xTR 1xDC 1xSW as the party. It was not too hard but we are over geared for it 15-17k IL. I think the one shots are fine since they are very obvious mobs called executioner.
First boss's took us two shots as had to learn the mechanic but went smooth at that point. The person with the book only ever used the two taunt powers as the others were not needed.
Second boss mechanic is pretty straight forward, Pillars and spiny moves, Art-style of the boss is pretty cool.
Last boss is kinda chaotic with the AOE spam. The nightmare/person on their own only take a bit to figure out. not sure if there point in killing stuff in the nightmare or just running till your team saves you. Only thing is for the last boss with the Sun Sword it needs bit of explanation on how to charge it for its daily, the bar never really filled up.
Agree with a few of the other people that being able to use the cards to increase rewards here would be cool but prob to late in the dev cycle for it.
Also crashed out on the last boss at 15% HP just as he did a knockback.
Not sure if this is the right place but... the 100k limit on refining AD is too low. I fully understand why and agree with the concept. It is a question of level. I would request that it be revised to 200k a day.
This still reduces the issues of; people having armies of alts, people spending all day farming rather than playing, inflation, in the PC game at least reduced revenue to Cryptic
200k daily level for refining AD would encourage newcomers to play a reasonable number of alts thus improving interest and longevity Middle game players to continue growing and progressing Current players with armies of alts to feel that their concerns have been heard and that there is a future (albeit reduced) for the "farmers"
There is a need for Cryptic/Perfect World to make money to pay the bills and reward the investors. My suggestion would be that VIP could only be bought with AD for 6 months of the year, the remaining 6 months to be paid for.
Thank you all for the fantastic feedback, we're glad to hear that you're finding less bugs with the Castle than with the Tomb when it first appeared on preview. As many of you have pointed out, the castle feels easier than the Tomb did at the time. Actually, the castle's enemies are statistically tougher than the Tomb! With that said, we are planning to make at least some adjustments to the difficulty of the Castle, and they will mostly be increases.
Certain standard enemies, as well as the Arcolith will definitely be seeing increases in their difficulty. Strahd will also see some adjustments, with certain abilities being increased in potency, and others potentially reduced. And as I noted earlier in this thread, his ultimate attack and the sunsword mechanics currently have some issues.
So if you're interested in providing difficulty feedback and you've already run it, please give the Castle a spin again after the next few preview builds. Thanks!
Where the boss takes someone into some parallel boss fight where they're taken and have to fight their friends seems like just a really unnecessary way to take another player out of the equation in the main room. I'd like to see some benefit from killing the ads in that room. Some form of buff you can get from killing your friends in there. Also I'd like to see the One-Shot nature of this dungeon be removed from that room 'cause at the moment we're calling it the scroll consuming room because that's all it does. And after you've run the dungeon a few times it really starts to take the p!ss how many scrolls are needed if you get taken by the boss and thrown in that other room - especially if it happens more than 2 times to the same player.
If you were having trouble in the nightmare room, can you give more information about your class, item level and strategy when you were down there? As you said, there is currently no advantage to downing the nightmares yourself, though they will be in a "downed" state and out of commission for a time. Additionally, when your allies defeat one of the nightmares binding you, it will be dispelled, reducing the number of enemies you must survive.
In our internal tests, we very rarely ran into an issue with the nightmare room after everyone was used to the mechanic. And generally speaking, compared to some of the community's best groups, our DPS is usually notably lower so they spent more time down there. The last note I would make is that, if you are freed from the nightmare while in a downed state, you will return to the original arena downed, and can be revived.
We tried it once a few nights ago, didn't get past the sisters but we were messing around trying to figure everything out more than we were trying to burn them down.
I was tanking the first Sister and trying to figure out that stacking debuff that would sometimes one-shot me for 3+ million damage at 10 stacks...and sometimes just go away and do no damage. Hovering over it to read the tooltip says I need to block it, but I didn't see anything in the area that would block it, and the tooltips on the abilities from the book don't say anything about blocking. Blocking didn't seem to have anything to do with holding up my shield as I tested that a couple times and it didn't work. I even tried getting behind a pillar so it was between me and the sister right as I got to 10 stacks, but she just came right to me immediately. Again, sometimes it just went away at 10 stacks and I didn't take the damage, but I couldn't see anything different than the times that I took the damage.
It seems like people just burn scrolls of life to get past the hard parts since it's preview and they are free.
In regards to the mechanic you are referring to—Theft of Vitae—those stacks are periodically applied to whoever the sister is attacking, at 10 stacks she will perform a high damage attack on the affected target. This attack has a very long and noticeable animation, so try and watch for it. If blocked, you should be able to survive the attack.
That being said, the attack does not always come immediately after her target reaches 10 stacks, it will depend on where she is in her rotation. Additionally, if she changes primary targets due to someone else pulling threat, she may never use the attack before the stacks fall off of you. Instead of blocking immediately after reaching 10 stacks, once you reach 10 stacks, you should pay heightened attention to her until the stacks are cleared. I did not work on the brides fight myself, but during our playtests I generally tanked her. As both a guardian fighter and a paladin I had no issues blocking her attack when I wasn't distracted by some other component of the fight (or my teammates!)
We tried it once a few nights ago, didn't get past the sisters but we were messing around trying to figure everything out more than we were trying to burn them down.
I was tanking the first Sister and trying to figure out that stacking debuff that would sometimes one-shot me for 3+ million damage at 10 stacks...and sometimes just go away and do no damage. Hovering over it to read the tooltip says I need to block it, but I didn't see anything in the area that would block it, and the tooltips on the abilities from the book don't say anything about blocking. Blocking didn't seem to have anything to do with holding up my shield as I tested that a couple times and it didn't work. I even tried getting behind a pillar so it was between me and the sister right as I got to 10 stacks, but she just came right to me immediately. Again, sometimes it just went away at 10 stacks and I didn't take the damage, but I couldn't see anything different than the times that I took the damage.
It seems like people just burn scrolls of life to get past the hard parts since it's preview and they are free.
In regards to the mechanic you are referring to—Theft of Vitae—those stacks are periodically applied to whoever the sister is attacking, at 10 stacks she will perform a high damage attack on the affected target. This attack has a very long and noticeable animation, so try and watch for it. If blocked, you should be able to survive the attack.
That being said, the attack does not always come immediately after her target reaches 10 stacks, it will depend on where she is in her rotation. Additionally, if she changes primary targets due to someone else pulling threat, she may never use the attack before the stacks fall off of you. Instead of blocking immediately after reaching 10 stacks, once you reach 10 stacks, you should pay heightened attention to her until the stacks are cleared. I did not work on the brides fight myself, but during our playtests I generally tanked her. As both a guardian fighter and a paladin I had no issues blocking her attack when I wasn't distracted by some other component of the fight (or my teammates!)
Thanks for taking the time to respond! I love tanking as I love the added challenge and the aspect of controlling the fight (when you can) via positioning etc. The biggest challenge sometimes is that it can be hard to see everything that is going on around you with so much going on right in your face. Soulsight artifact makes it even worse, I'm going to have to turn down the graphics until I have the new content memorized just so I can see what is happening. I'll be sure to jump in preview and try this again now!
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tassedethe13Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 806Arc User
edited May 2018
We just ran this dungeon with a 17K5 team 1 HR, 2 DC, 1 OP, 1 SW and manage to end it after more than 2H and many scrolls.
Graphism: Very beautiful work on this. We loved the arts, the monsters, the scenario. Maybe a little too much thunder, it hurts the eyes, that's the only thing that bugs me.
Gameplay: Interesting mechanics, which we can learn about by reading our quest log after being HAMSTER kicked by bosses. For the first boss, please change the way you can drop the tome. Make it work same way than the sword at last boss, ie, maintaining tab to drop the tome. For the last boss, it's confusing when you are caught in the nightmare and how you charge the sword. Maybe add some hints.
Difficulty: Well it was really difficult, but very proud to end it even if we burnt a lot of scrolls. 1st boss needs a huge burst, and last boss if you have one DPS and he is caught, it's like hell form him. But we loved it.
Recap of improvement: - Less thunder - Drop the tome by maintaining tab - More hints for last boss - Raise the cap of minimum IL to 15K or send me a video with 13K group managing to run successfully it
TLDR Great work, sincerely
For those who didn't reach last boss this is the spells of the sword ( i couldn't find any spolier tag, if it is considered as spoil please remove it)
On the offchance: can you guys tell us what Resistance Ignored % is needed to deal full damage to every enemy in this instance? It would be nice to know what we should to to prepare besides stacking random amounts of ArmPen and hoping for the best.
Feedback: Dungeon Design
MAKE ALL THE CUTSCENES SKIPPABLE.
It was annoying to have to listen to all the bosses drone on and on and on.
Considering how ... interesting that last boss is, people are going to be very annoyed that they have to sit through that same cutscene over and over and over.
ADD MORE CAMPFIRES.
There are barely any campfires where you are able to swap your loadouts, and very few of them strategically placed. For example, there is no campfire before challenging the first and second bosses. Depending on the class, this can just be minorly annoying (GWF) or crippling to your plans (CW).
Sun Sword:
Make the animation of the buffing power faster.
It is annoying to use.
Other than that, I see its purpose, giving all teams the "DPS" needed to finish. It's fun to use, but those long animations are extremely frustrating.
Boss 1 Decently designed, the mechanic to move the boss away was an interesting twist.
Boss 2
No comment.
My team finished no problem, but you should add more pillars for all the people who will struggle (but then again, maybe they shouldn't be in this dungeon to begin with?)
Boss 3
Confusing and extremely annoying.
The pre-fight dialogue and constant phase changes are just annoying, in addition to getting very little time to hit the boss.
The confusing parts are how the mechanics are spelled out. Nothing is well explained to you and nothing the boss says overtly hints to what you should do, unlike Tomb boss 2.
Specifically, the bats swarm was the most confusing part. There is nothing that explains what the team needs to do to counter this.
During the part where the Sun Sword is cursed, the boss says something about releasing his pets. Then, he places arrows on teammates and then you get damaged. When we tried it on preview, we grouped up, and then the boss instantly nuked us.
Feedback: Miserable Piles of Secrets Loot
Pls add wine throwing emote for beating Strahd by *insert wacky achievement description here*. Or add a wine throwing emote to the rewards store. Pls also make the wine do damage so I can meme on bosses.
The armors look nice, glad to see Profound and Draconic Templar returning.
1000 RP upon completion is a joke. It should be buffed to somewhere between 5000 - 7000 RP, if not more.
I was able to get the Thirst artifact. It works as intended, but the animation takes forever to finish because your character needs to finish their flourishing animation. Could you consider just having the lunge attack? Or make it a projectile?
Bugs:
-Companions get Stuck on the Benches
In the chapel that you need to clear the zombies in, your pets will get stuck on the benches.
-Sun Sword "Loss"
I only saw this occur in the pre-patch version of Cravenloft, but if you manage to chip down Strahd without picking the Sun Sword at all, when he curses the sword, the phase bugs and you cannot proceed with the fight.
I believe @midnightlight#2361 was shadowing Tardli's stream when it happened to Tardli.
-Sun Sword Daily Attack AP "Clear"
Whenever you drop the Sun Sword, or the sword is cursed, your AP is drained. And it never seems to charge while using abilities
The problem with this is ... that it makes the Bloodbath style attack nearly unsurvivable. When the boss used the bloodbath style attack, only ~10-15% of my AP actually charged. We survived only because we spammed a ton of defensive daily attacks (Divine Armor, Shield of Faith, HG) and other defensive stuf (KV, Shepherd's, etc.)
-Bug: Second Boss is Unable to be Re-entered
I personally did not encounter this bug. But this video does highlight this bug.
In regards to the mechanic you are referring to—Theft of Vitae
OMG 90s neeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrd.
A few too many games of Vampire The Masquerade among the designers this mod. Still, Vampire could be good, most often it was the players who made it bad, not the game itself.
I have no actual comment on the mechanic. Just, that name tells me that the designer in question and I share some very questionable 1990s habits.
Had my first run through today with a great group (GF conq, OP devo, DC ac, DC do, SW). First run through the instance went well, we all used a handful of scrolls. Bosses all seem to have a one shot mechanic, tanking the second run I used a lot less scrolls once I had somewhat learned their abilities. Group had a good discussion after the bosses/runs about mechanics though we still couldn't figure a few things out, especially on the last boss.
FEEDBACK:
Love, love, love! the atmosphere of the instance. The graphics, sound, and theme is really well done.
Boss 1: We honestly didn't have a rough time with them and after watching a few prior videos I thought we would. Our tome group member kept the ghost sisters away from the active sister with relative ease. We figured out the active sister linked ability during the 2nd run, though the active sister did still one shot myself a few times with an ability.
Boss 2: My only complaint about this boss as a tank is that he is not "solid". I was constantly walking through him while trying to attack and keep him in position. Which means he could turn (to follow me) and an ability will hit the dps/healers.
Boss 3: This boss has so many things going on. We couldn't figure out a way not to get hit from the two quick big red circle AoE's, unless we were just lucky and were near a open spot (shield from sword is supposed to be used here?). When he takes a random group member below and sticks them with the evil doppelgangers & executioner I had no issues surviving but I can see squishy's having an issue (maybe more room is needed to run around?). The phase where he lifts you up, floor turns to red/glyphs and proceeds to slap you about, I take it you're just suppose to survive it?
Overall our group had a great time and loved the instance.
Edit: One thing I forgot, Strahd needs a better death animation!! You defeat him and he just kinda goes *poof* Was kinda anticlimatic
We only had one bug and that was after killing the initial trash mobs outside the gate, the gate lifts and Strahd comes riding in. You then cross the bridge while he monologues and the undead knights rush you. In our 2nd run the knights never came, Strahd just appears/vanishes on the side of the bridge while talking and firing off the small AoE's. We ended up reforming, going back in and it worked fine.
Specifically, the bats swarm was the most confusing part. There is nothing that explains what the team needs to do to counter this.
The bats appear simultaneously with the soak indicator (5 arrows pulsing and pointing to the primary target.) Mechanically this works identically to other soak mechanics, e.g. hypothermia (Drufi, Storvald) and uncontrollable turmoil (the atropal.)
We couldn't figure out a way not to get hit from the two quick big red circle AoE's, unless we were just lucky and were near a open spot (shield from sword is supposed to be used here?).
The mechanic in question—ardor, the black and red flames—can be easily avoided if you are watching for it. The flames at the center of the blasts appear and grow over 6 seconds, but the indicator only appears in the last second. In some cases, with boss powers or more difficult critters, we put the onus more or less on paying attention to environmental queues depending on the desired difficulty.
In this case, if we showed the indicators for the full 6 seconds, it would be both significantly easier to avoid, and more visually overwhelming, covering a large area for much of the fight. However, we also don't want to only show the flame for a second right before the explosion. We want you to have enough time to reposition. Additionally, there are cases where the whole arena may be covered, but the order in which the flames appear is important in order to avoid being damaged. We bring the indicators in right before the final explosion to make it clear where the edge of the damage area is.
The next preview build should have significant adjustments to a variety of boss powers, and ardor will be much more important to avoid than in the current build.
We only had one bug and that was after killing the initial trash mobs outside the gate, the gate lifts and Strahd comes riding in. You then cross the bridge while he monologues and the undead knights rush you. In our 2nd run the knights never came, Strahd just appears/vanishes on the side of the bridge while talking and firing off the small AoE's. We ended up reforming, going back in and it worked fine.
Thanks for the feedback! Looking into the skeletal nights bug.
got a bug to report on the second boss, the big statue he did all 4 spins in under 60 sec, meaning we could not finish the fight after we had to wipe (since he is immune during the spin) we all revive at camp fire we could not re-enter the boss room, at all, there was an invisible wall blocking the way TO the middle of the room so the path was block before the place where you interact to start the fight (as if the fight was still in progress) even after we all did /defeat me, there was no change, and we had to abandon instance and start again i have recorded the whole issue if any Dev wants a link to the Google-Drive video
some feedback on last boss it would be nice if the Sword Daily would not lose ALL the AP after getting hit once the Daily shield helps a lot surviving all the hell of AOEs hitting the group
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thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
We only had one bug and that was after killing the initial trash mobs outside the gate, the gate lifts and Strahd comes riding in. You then cross the bridge while he monologues and the undead knights rush you. In our 2nd run the knights never came, Strahd just appears/vanishes on the side of the bridge while talking and firing off the small AoE's. We ended up reforming, going back in and it worked fine.
Thanks for the feedback! Looking into the skeletal nights bug.
Took care of this one. The dungeon should properly reset if you queue and enter a new instance of the castle from an existing one.
got a bug to report on the second boss, the big statue he did all 4 spins in under 60 sec, meaning we could not finish the fight after we had to wipe (since he is immune during the spin) we all revive at camp fire we could not re-enter the boss room, at all, there was an invisible wall blocking the way TO the middle of the room so the path was block before the place where you interact to start the fight (as if the fight was still in progress) even after we all did /defeat me, there was no change, and we had to abandon instance and start again i have recorded the whole issue if any Dev wants a link to the Google-Drive video
some feedback on last boss it would be nice if the Sword Daily would not lose ALL the AP after getting hit once the Daily shield helps a lot surviving all the hell of AOEs hitting the group
In regards to the arcolith using sturmhau (the spinning attack) more often than you expected—there is a mechanic at play there. If you fail the mechanic, he will use it early, even if he has not empowered his sword prior to that point.
In terms of the Sunsword's action points, there were some bugs with the original implementation that went to preview, in terms of how that mechanic was working. Please give it a try with the next preview build.
Weird scenario but just did the fight and couldn't complete the dungeon with an unusual bug. The same group had completed CR many times before the latest patch. 1. This might be on us, but could never really use the daily power of the sunsword. It just kept saying "Not enough action points" even though it looked like it was full for at least 20-30 seconds during a fight. Tried it away from Strahd, next to Strahd and everything in between. Didn't try reverting to defaults, but I don't have the any of the default keybinds so not sure if that matters at all. 2. The real gamebreaker. Could be related to the above but got the boss down to ~25% HP where it used to phase change to the platform section but then Strahd just disappeared and then nothing happened. We just stood around for a few mins with nothing happening and then decided to all just wipe. Note that the sunsword happened to only have ~80% AP at the time that this occurred. 3. After we wiped, the boss spawned right away inside the dungeon but the sunsword was also left inside and we couldn't enter/start the Strahd fight anymore and had to abandon instance. It just had the red "you can't interact with this object" text or something similar.
Post edited by inebriety on
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thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
So we got through the Sisters last night, obviously stalled on the second boss since it's currently bugged, but experienced what I suspect may be a significant design flaw with the first boss. When the Sister chains you and you need to stop attacking...if you are a class that has DoT effects and those are already on her, you're kind of hosed. This is likely to be an issue for multiple classes and should probably be looked into.
I've run CR all weekend. I love this dungeon. I actually feel like it's appropriate in difficulty given the setting. There are lots of mechanics to learn and that keeps things interesting. I appreciate the amount of detail and work that has gone into these new artifact mechanics for the dungeon and I think it's generally great. It feels more like I'm playing DnD and less like I'm fighting against loot pinatas (No offense to illusionist gambit). Thanks for giving me something to do that makes me feel like I'm not just a sword sharpener but a support player. I like having to work together with my party.
It makes sense for a warlock or a wizard to have to use a book to control a boss. It makes sense for the cleric and tank and dps to work on killing the boss. 1st boss- generally cool.
2nd boss- holy cow- coordination! if you don't have it already it really makes you learn it.
3rd boss- Strahd is supposed to be an immortal dude and holy cow does it feel like he's really the wizardy vampire from the lore. The mechanics are cool and have me needing to learn how to run the dungeon as several distinct roles that at the moment must be filled.
Just wanted to say thank you and the castle looks lovely.
There are some buggy parts of the fights that might have to do with latency issues but overall I'm very entertained by this content and it has made it feel worth coming back.
Relmyna - AC/DC Righteous + Haste| Nadine - CW MoF (working on it)|Buffy - GF SM Tact| Hrist - Justice Tankadin|Healadin (Wannabe Tank)| Lena -MI Sabo TR (Farmer) | Jeska - GWF SM Destroyer (Farmer) | Maggie - HR PF Trapper (Wannabe DPS)
--
I'll never retrace my steps.
Is the bat soak at the Sisters and at Strahd (Bloodflight, I think) working as intended? It seems to vary widely in duration and damage.
- Sometimes it does nothing and vanishes immediately; other times it lasts for several seconds and pulses for more damage than party members have max HP.
- Sometimes it lands on a solitary target and does nothing; other times it murders them.
- As above, except in regards to grouping up.
I know asterdahl stated that this is a soak mechanic like that in Cradle, but it does not work the same at all right now. Are players missing something, is this randomness intended, or is there a bug?
Edit: I'm aware of a suggestion on reddit that Bloodflight's damage is triggered by power use, but my groups have tried it both ways with seemingly random results, so we default to soak mode.
Not sure if this is still the right place to put these or that they have to go in the normal bugs section.
Sisters fight: After killing the first sister, during the destroy-the-portal phase, if a player uses any power that can interact with the other 2 sisters (including but not limited to: AA, PoP, possibly TW) too close to the them, the second sister bugs. She will start teleporting around way more and her HP bar won't show up at the top of the screen. This adds about 3-5 minutes to the run.
Strahd fight: With an endgame group it is not that hard to "onephase" Strahd. However even if Strahd reaches 0% HP he will still do all the phases and monologues before dying. This forces the group to basically just stand there and take a beating for a couple of minutes without all that much to do. This also adds 3 minute to the run.
Comments
I was tanking the first Sister and trying to figure out that stacking debuff that would sometimes one-shot me for 3+ million damage at 10 stacks...and sometimes just go away and do no damage. Hovering over it to read the tooltip says I need to block it, but I didn't see anything in the area that would block it, and the tooltips on the abilities from the book don't say anything about blocking. Blocking didn't seem to have anything to do with holding up my shield as I tested that a couple times and it didn't work. I even tried getting behind a pillar so it was between me and the sister right as I got to 10 stacks, but she just came right to me immediately. Again, sometimes it just went away at 10 stacks and I didn't take the damage, but I couldn't see anything different than the times that I took the damage.
It seems like people just burn scrolls of life to get past the hard parts since it's preview and they are free.
I found the first boss aswell being the most complicated of all. Took some time to figure it out.
Before worrying about the fact that medium not competent low geared or whatever you wanna call them players can finish this dungeon, go have a look if those same players can pass first fbi msp and tong, and then I think we can all worry about the difficulty of Castle Ravenloft for them.
We ran the dungeon with 2xOP 1xTR 1xDC 1xSW as the party. It was not too hard but we are over geared for it 15-17k IL.
I think the one shots are fine since they are very obvious mobs called executioner.
First boss's took us two shots as had to learn the mechanic but went smooth at that point. The person with the book only ever used the two taunt powers as the others were not needed.
Second boss mechanic is pretty straight forward, Pillars and spiny moves, Art-style of the boss is pretty cool.
Last boss is kinda chaotic with the AOE spam. The nightmare/person on their own only take a bit to figure out. not sure if there point in killing stuff in the nightmare or just running till your team saves you.
Only thing is for the last boss with the Sun Sword it needs bit of explanation on how to charge it for its daily, the bar never really filled up.
Agree with a few of the other people that being able to use the cards to increase rewards here would be cool but prob to late in the dev cycle for it.
Also crashed out on the last boss at 15% HP just as he did a knockback.
This still reduces the issues of;
people having armies of alts,
people spending all day farming rather than playing,
inflation, in the PC game at least
reduced revenue to Cryptic
200k daily level for refining AD would encourage
newcomers to play a reasonable number of alts thus improving interest and longevity
Middle game players to continue growing and progressing
Current players with armies of alts to feel that their concerns have been heard and that there is a future (albeit reduced) for the "farmers"
There is a need for Cryptic/Perfect World to make money to pay the bills and reward the investors. My suggestion would be that VIP could only be bought with AD for 6 months of the year, the remaining 6 months to be paid for.
Rgds Chris
There is already enough post on this subject.
We talking about the new dungeon here.
Certain standard enemies, as well as the Arcolith will definitely be seeing increases in their difficulty. Strahd will also see some adjustments, with certain abilities being increased in potency, and others potentially reduced. And as I noted earlier in this thread, his ultimate attack and the sunsword mechanics currently have some issues.
So if you're interested in providing difficulty feedback and you've already run it, please give the Castle a spin again after the next few preview builds. Thanks! If you were having trouble in the nightmare room, can you give more information about your class, item level and strategy when you were down there? As you said, there is currently no advantage to downing the nightmares yourself, though they will be in a "downed" state and out of commission for a time. Additionally, when your allies defeat one of the nightmares binding you, it will be dispelled, reducing the number of enemies you must survive.
In our internal tests, we very rarely ran into an issue with the nightmare room after everyone was used to the mechanic. And generally speaking, compared to some of the community's best groups, our DPS is usually notably lower so they spent more time down there. The last note I would make is that, if you are freed from the nightmare while in a downed state, you will return to the original arena downed, and can be revived. Thank you! I will forward your sentiments to the rest of the dungeon team. In regards to the mechanic you are referring to—Theft of Vitae—those stacks are periodically applied to whoever the sister is attacking, at 10 stacks she will perform a high damage attack on the affected target. This attack has a very long and noticeable animation, so try and watch for it. If blocked, you should be able to survive the attack.
That being said, the attack does not always come immediately after her target reaches 10 stacks, it will depend on where she is in her rotation. Additionally, if she changes primary targets due to someone else pulling threat, she may never use the attack before the stacks fall off of you. Instead of blocking immediately after reaching 10 stacks, once you reach 10 stacks, you should pay heightened attention to her until the stacks are cleared. I did not work on the brides fight myself, but during our playtests I generally tanked her. As both a guardian fighter and a paladin I had no issues blocking her attack when I wasn't distracted by some other component of the fight (or my teammates!)
Graphism:
Very beautiful work on this. We loved the arts, the monsters, the scenario.
Maybe a little too much thunder, it hurts the eyes, that's the only thing that bugs me.
Gameplay:
Interesting mechanics, which we can learn about by reading our quest log after being HAMSTER kicked by bosses.
For the first boss, please change the way you can drop the tome. Make it work same way than the sword at last boss, ie, maintaining tab to drop the tome.
For the last boss, it's confusing when you are caught in the nightmare and how you charge the sword. Maybe add some hints.
Difficulty:
Well it was really difficult, but very proud to end it even if we burnt a lot of scrolls.
1st boss needs a huge burst, and last boss if you have one DPS and he is caught, it's like hell form him.
But we loved it.
Recap of improvement:
- Less thunder
- Drop the tome by maintaining tab
- More hints for last boss
- Raise the cap of minimum IL to 15K or send me a video with 13K group managing to run successfully it
TLDR
Great work, sincerely
For those who didn't reach last boss this is the spells of the sword ( i couldn't find any spolier tag, if it is considered as spoil please remove it)
Feedback: Dungeon Design
MAKE ALL THE CUTSCENES SKIPPABLE.
It was annoying to have to listen to all the bosses drone on and on and on.
Considering how ... interesting that last boss is, people are going to be very annoyed that they have to sit through that same cutscene over and over and over.
ADD MORE CAMPFIRES.
There are barely any campfires where you are able to swap your loadouts, and very few of them strategically placed. For example, there is no campfire before challenging the first and second bosses. Depending on the class, this can just be minorly annoying (GWF) or crippling to your plans (CW).
Sun Sword:
Make the animation of the buffing power faster.
It is annoying to use.
Other than that, I see its purpose, giving all teams the "DPS" needed to finish. It's fun to use, but those long animations are extremely frustrating.
Boss 1
Decently designed, the mechanic to move the boss away was an interesting twist.
Boss 2
No comment.
My team finished no problem, but you should add more pillars for all the people who will struggle (but then again, maybe they shouldn't be in this dungeon to begin with?)
Boss 3
Confusing and extremely annoying.
The pre-fight dialogue and constant phase changes are just annoying, in addition to getting very little time to hit the boss.
The confusing parts are how the mechanics are spelled out. Nothing is well explained to you and nothing the boss says overtly hints to what you should do, unlike Tomb boss 2.
Specifically, the bats swarm was the most confusing part. There is nothing that explains what the team needs to do to counter this.
During the part where the Sun Sword is cursed, the boss says something about releasing his pets. Then, he places arrows on teammates and then you get damaged. When we tried it on preview, we grouped up, and then the boss instantly nuked us.
Feedback: Miserable Piles of
SecretsLootPls add wine throwing emote for beating Strahd by *insert wacky achievement description here*. Or add a wine throwing emote to the rewards store. Pls also make the wine do damage so I can meme on bosses.The armors look nice, glad to see Profound and Draconic Templar returning.
1000 RP upon completion is a joke. It should be buffed to somewhere between 5000 - 7000 RP, if not more.
I was able to get the Thirst artifact. It works as intended, but the animation takes forever to finish because your character needs to finish their flourishing animation. Could you consider just having the lunge attack? Or make it a projectile?
Bugs:
-Companions get Stuck on the Benches
In the chapel that you need to clear the zombies in, your pets will get stuck on the benches.
-Sun Sword "Loss"
I only saw this occur in the pre-patch version of Cravenloft, but if you manage to chip down Strahd without picking the Sun Sword at all, when he curses the sword, the phase bugs and you cannot proceed with the fight.
I believe @midnightlight#2361 was shadowing Tardli's stream when it happened to Tardli.
-Sun Sword Daily Attack AP "Clear"
Whenever you drop the Sun Sword, or the sword is cursed, your AP is drained. And it never seems to charge while using abilities
The problem with this is ... that it makes the Bloodbath style attack nearly unsurvivable. When the boss used the bloodbath style attack, only ~10-15% of my AP actually charged. We survived only because we spammed a ton of defensive daily attacks (Divine Armor, Shield of Faith, HG) and other defensive stuf (KV, Shepherd's, etc.)
-Bug: Second Boss is Unable to be Re-entered
I personally did not encounter this bug. But this video does highlight this bug.
A few too many games of Vampire The Masquerade among the designers this mod. Still, Vampire could be good, most often it was the players who made it bad, not the game itself.
I have no actual comment on the mechanic. Just, that name tells me that the designer in question and I share some very questionable 1990s habits.
FEEDBACK:
Love, love, love! the atmosphere of the instance. The graphics, sound, and theme is really well done.
Boss 1: We honestly didn't have a rough time with them and after watching a few prior videos I thought we would. Our tome group member kept the ghost sisters away from the active sister with relative ease. We figured out the active sister linked ability during the 2nd run, though the active sister did still one shot myself a few times with an ability.
Boss 2: My only complaint about this boss as a tank is that he is not "solid". I was constantly walking through him while trying to attack and keep him in position. Which means he could turn (to follow me) and an ability will hit the dps/healers.
Boss 3: This boss has so many things going on. We couldn't figure out a way not to get hit from the two quick big red circle AoE's, unless we were just lucky and were near a open spot (shield from sword is supposed to be used here?). When he takes a random group member below and sticks them with the evil doppelgangers & executioner I had no issues surviving but I can see squishy's having an issue (maybe more room is needed to run around?). The phase where he lifts you up, floor turns to red/glyphs and proceeds to slap you about, I take it you're just suppose to survive it?
Overall our group had a great time and loved the instance.
Edit: One thing I forgot, Strahd needs a better death animation!! You defeat him and he just kinda goes *poof* Was kinda anticlimatic
We only had one bug and that was after killing the initial trash mobs outside the gate, the gate lifts and Strahd comes riding in. You then cross the bridge while he monologues and the undead knights rush you.
In our 2nd run the knights never came, Strahd just appears/vanishes on the side of the bridge while talking and firing off the small AoE's. We ended up reforming, going back in and it worked fine.
The mechanic in question—ardor, the black and red flames—can be easily avoided if you are watching for it. The flames at the center of the blasts appear and grow over 6 seconds, but the indicator only appears in the last second. In some cases, with boss powers or more difficult critters, we put the onus more or less on paying attention to environmental queues depending on the desired difficulty.
In this case, if we showed the indicators for the full 6 seconds, it would be both significantly easier to avoid, and more visually overwhelming, covering a large area for much of the fight. However, we also don't want to only show the flame for a second right before the explosion. We want you to have enough time to reposition. Additionally, there are cases where the whole arena may be covered, but the order in which the flames appear is important in order to avoid being damaged. We bring the indicators in right before the final explosion to make it clear where the edge of the damage area is.
The next preview build should have significant adjustments to a variety of boss powers, and ardor will be much more important to avoid than in the current build.
second boss bug after failing we ran out of pillars because we attempted it with only 4 people so not sure if this happens to everyone or just us
on the second boss, the big statue
he did all 4 spins in under 60 sec, meaning we could not finish the fight
after we had to wipe (since he is immune during the spin)
we all revive at camp fire
we could not re-enter the boss room, at all, there was an invisible wall blocking the way TO the middle of the room
so the path was block before the place where you interact to start the fight (as if the fight was still in progress)
even after we all did /defeat me, there was no change, and we had to abandon instance and start again
i have recorded the whole issue if any Dev wants a link to the Google-Drive video
some feedback on last boss
it would be nice if the Sword Daily would not lose ALL the AP after getting hit once
the Daily shield helps a lot surviving all the hell of AOEs hitting the group
last 10 secs you can see the door bug at 2nd boss.
In terms of the Sunsword's action points, there were some bugs with the original implementation that went to preview, in terms of how that mechanic was working. Please give it a try with the next preview build.
1. This might be on us, but could never really use the daily power of the sunsword. It just kept saying "Not enough action points" even though it looked like it was full for at least 20-30 seconds during a fight. Tried it away from Strahd, next to Strahd and everything in between. Didn't try reverting to defaults, but I don't have the any of the default keybinds so not sure if that matters at all.
2. The real gamebreaker. Could be related to the above but got the boss down to ~25% HP where it used to phase change to the platform section but then Strahd just disappeared and then nothing happened. We just stood around for a few mins with nothing happening and then decided to all just wipe. Note that the sunsword happened to only have ~80% AP at the time that this occurred.
3. After we wiped, the boss spawned right away inside the dungeon but the sunsword was also left inside and we couldn't enter/start the Strahd fight anymore and had to abandon instance. It just had the red "you can't interact with this object" text or something similar.
It makes sense for a warlock or a wizard to have to use a book to control a boss. It makes sense for the cleric and tank and dps to work on killing the boss. 1st boss- generally cool.
2nd boss- holy cow- coordination! if you don't have it already it really makes you learn it.
3rd boss- Strahd is supposed to be an immortal dude and holy cow does it feel like he's really the wizardy vampire from the lore. The mechanics are cool and have me needing to learn how to run the dungeon as several distinct roles that at the moment must be filled.
Just wanted to say thank you and the castle looks lovely.
There are some buggy parts of the fights that might have to do with latency issues but overall I'm very entertained by this content and it has made it feel worth coming back.
--
I'll never retrace my steps.
Some of my best friends are Imaginary.
- Sometimes it does nothing and vanishes immediately; other times it lasts for several seconds and pulses for more damage than party members have max HP.
- Sometimes it lands on a solitary target and does nothing; other times it murders them.
- As above, except in regards to grouping up.
I know asterdahl stated that this is a soak mechanic like that in Cradle, but it does not work the same at all right now. Are players missing something, is this randomness intended, or is there a bug?
Edit: I'm aware of a suggestion on reddit that Bloodflight's damage is triggered by power use, but my groups have tried it both ways with seemingly random results, so we default to soak mode.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Sisters fight:
After killing the first sister, during the destroy-the-portal phase, if a player uses any power that can interact with the other 2 sisters (including but not limited to: AA, PoP, possibly TW) too close to the them, the second sister bugs. She will start teleporting around way more and her HP bar won't show up at the top of the screen. This adds about 3-5 minutes to the run.
Strahd fight:
With an endgame group it is not that hard to "onephase" Strahd. However even if Strahd reaches 0% HP he will still do all the phases and monologues before dying. This forces the group to basically just stand there and take a beating for a couple of minutes without all that much to do. This also adds 3 minute to the run.