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K-Team Brilliant idea, but needs adjustments
matthiasthehun76
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,184 Arc User
Hi dear Devs and Players!
First of all let me wish happy New Years to all of you!
Recently i haven't participated here, but i felt it is time to grab the virtual pencil and write a few of my experiences about the new dungeon run format, K-Team.
I would wish to see this topic to be an open, but civilized and constructive discussion about the issues this new format is facing and it would make me very happy, if the Devs could add their thoughts to it, no demand, just a polite ask.
Sorry, if i bother you with my personal story, i am a long time player from the beginnings, been here with the game since ages, have seen many ups and downs and i am still here playing and still enjoying my "balanced" TR and i would like to enjoy her as long as the game stands, but after the Mod 15 "balancing act" to TRs it is already tough for us to find a place in meta, so i was very happy about being able to play the old content as it was designed and as i had it in memory from before Mod 6, where it was more about playing the game as a team and not just blindly face rolling it.
So took the chance to get into some K-Team runs and as you can guess,- cause why would i write these lines, if everything went okay- all failed. Mind you i have never died, still wasn't able to claim victory once.
So, if you allow me, lets get into some details, i will be as polite and diplomatic as i can- promised.
I went out to join a few runs, it wasn't an easy job, cause well yeah my main is a TR and people have a very distorted picture about us and despite the "balances" we are not as bad as some picture us to be, as a pure DPS class we still can dish out nice damage.
So after having to fight for a place i got in, just to nearly smash my keyboard.
For Christ's sake most of the people can't put their smartphones,those social media sites and a bunch of their chat programs at side, not for 1 sec and there will be definitely at least 1 person HAMSTER the fun for others.
I was talking to one of these chaps, he told me (feel free to laugh) he has over 15 applications running in the background, but then again blaming the game he had major lag. He had many games, 5 chat programs and 2 voice chat programs running at the same time. You could see, when he was typing, cause he was standing still in the middle of red AoE and yes you can bet, these types of folks have the best ideas why a run has failed and believe me over the dozens of tries there was always at least 1 such a genius in the group.
Other type of player is the one, who for God's sake won't understand, he or she isn't buffed up and still tries to face tank and face roll everything, despite seeing it, it won't work. Get me some head ache pills please lol.
Then there are the ones who simply make things worst, the new all buff meta parties, where not even one DPS can have a place, cause they try to circumvent their lack of knowledge of the dungeon's mechanics by fighting it with an over buffed party. I guess some of us still remember when Valindra was on the menu and after so many years of being able to play her the lazy way, most couldn't handle it and where still running anti clock wise. Now try to tell most people, who never saw a mechanical clock in their life the proper way- wasted energy, they think you are a smart HAMSTER and won't listen anyway. So you see, there is a new meta forming, even worse than the normal end game one, giving many classes some serious troubles to fit in there.
So, sorry for my small rant tainted post, but these are my true feelings and there is a thing i would say and ask the Devs to consider.
Dear Devs, this format is awesome on it's own, but please don't hide the new gear pieces behind this format, most of us will get tremendous head aches before we ever get the piece(s) we want from there.
Please change the K-Team to be just a fun place for the very dedicated and let us just play it as a place for fun, AD and some other loot.
This format is awesome, but we write now 2019, it would have been great if we just had the 90's and no smart phones, not so many social media sites and whatnot to divert people's attention, cause let's be realistic, most people can't multitask and 1 or 2 such crazy people ruining the fun for others is very annoying- mildly spoken. Currently the dedicated people can feel punished without doing anything wrong, just cause their team mates can't focus a few minutes on the task... You know bit off topic, but what would happen, if in the army nobody would get their payment, just because there are a few lazy people.
Thank you for your time and please consider giving us a way to obtain those items via other ways too!
First of all let me wish happy New Years to all of you!
Recently i haven't participated here, but i felt it is time to grab the virtual pencil and write a few of my experiences about the new dungeon run format, K-Team.
I would wish to see this topic to be an open, but civilized and constructive discussion about the issues this new format is facing and it would make me very happy, if the Devs could add their thoughts to it, no demand, just a polite ask.
Sorry, if i bother you with my personal story, i am a long time player from the beginnings, been here with the game since ages, have seen many ups and downs and i am still here playing and still enjoying my "balanced" TR and i would like to enjoy her as long as the game stands, but after the Mod 15 "balancing act" to TRs it is already tough for us to find a place in meta, so i was very happy about being able to play the old content as it was designed and as i had it in memory from before Mod 6, where it was more about playing the game as a team and not just blindly face rolling it.
So took the chance to get into some K-Team runs and as you can guess,- cause why would i write these lines, if everything went okay- all failed. Mind you i have never died, still wasn't able to claim victory once.
So, if you allow me, lets get into some details, i will be as polite and diplomatic as i can- promised.
I went out to join a few runs, it wasn't an easy job, cause well yeah my main is a TR and people have a very distorted picture about us and despite the "balances" we are not as bad as some picture us to be, as a pure DPS class we still can dish out nice damage.
So after having to fight for a place i got in, just to nearly smash my keyboard.
For Christ's sake most of the people can't put their smartphones,those social media sites and a bunch of their chat programs at side, not for 1 sec and there will be definitely at least 1 person HAMSTER the fun for others.
I was talking to one of these chaps, he told me (feel free to laugh) he has over 15 applications running in the background, but then again blaming the game he had major lag. He had many games, 5 chat programs and 2 voice chat programs running at the same time. You could see, when he was typing, cause he was standing still in the middle of red AoE and yes you can bet, these types of folks have the best ideas why a run has failed and believe me over the dozens of tries there was always at least 1 such a genius in the group.
Other type of player is the one, who for God's sake won't understand, he or she isn't buffed up and still tries to face tank and face roll everything, despite seeing it, it won't work. Get me some head ache pills please lol.
Then there are the ones who simply make things worst, the new all buff meta parties, where not even one DPS can have a place, cause they try to circumvent their lack of knowledge of the dungeon's mechanics by fighting it with an over buffed party. I guess some of us still remember when Valindra was on the menu and after so many years of being able to play her the lazy way, most couldn't handle it and where still running anti clock wise. Now try to tell most people, who never saw a mechanical clock in their life the proper way- wasted energy, they think you are a smart HAMSTER and won't listen anyway. So you see, there is a new meta forming, even worse than the normal end game one, giving many classes some serious troubles to fit in there.
So, sorry for my small rant tainted post, but these are my true feelings and there is a thing i would say and ask the Devs to consider.
Dear Devs, this format is awesome on it's own, but please don't hide the new gear pieces behind this format, most of us will get tremendous head aches before we ever get the piece(s) we want from there.
Please change the K-Team to be just a fun place for the very dedicated and let us just play it as a place for fun, AD and some other loot.
This format is awesome, but we write now 2019, it would have been great if we just had the 90's and no smart phones, not so many social media sites and whatnot to divert people's attention, cause let's be realistic, most people can't multitask and 1 or 2 such crazy people ruining the fun for others is very annoying- mildly spoken. Currently the dedicated people can feel punished without doing anything wrong, just cause their team mates can't focus a few minutes on the task... You know bit off topic, but what would happen, if in the army nobody would get their payment, just because there are a few lazy people.
Thank you for your time and please consider giving us a way to obtain those items via other ways too!
The real honest man is honest from conviction of what is right, not from policy.
Robert E. Lee
I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself.
Winston Churchill
The human race is a herd. Here we are, unique, eternal aspects of consciousness with an infinity of potential, and we have allowed ourselves to become an unthinking, unquestioning blob of conformity and uniformity. A herd. Once we concede to the herd mentality, we can be controlled and directed by a tiny few. And we are.
David Icke
Robert E. Lee
I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself.
Winston Churchill
The human race is a herd. Here we are, unique, eternal aspects of consciousness with an infinity of potential, and we have allowed ourselves to become an unthinking, unquestioning blob of conformity and uniformity. A herd. Once we concede to the herd mentality, we can be controlled and directed by a tiny few. And we are.
David Icke
3
Comments
Edit : the KC is the best thing that has happened to this game for a long time.
Still a few small adjustments, like a little extra bonus, and it will be perfect.
My experience is that with the easy zones, kteam parties are formed with little regard to IL or class, except there must be a tank and there must be a healer. That goes for VT, and that goes for ESoT. Zones like CR are just not very doable kteam. CN was a fun kteam zone, but definitely nontrivial to complete even with a 17k+ team.
The big problem has been that many NW players has no idea of proper group tactics altogether. In normal zones people are so overpowered that they just rush in with no thought. That playstyle taken into kteam does not work. In kteam you need to play defensively, let tanks lead, fight ranged if you have low defenses etc. I had one kteam where a GWF did his normal run-ahead routine, got promptly killed by the first group of mobs and ragequit. *snicker*
And then there is the tactics on the end bosses. A lot of (the newer) people are so used to being in really overpowered groups that they have no understanding and no training on the endboss tactics. Valindra red stripes and ESoT boss red fields caused lots of wipes because many people do not know how to handle those.
The problems in kteam has to a large extent been players lacking party skills and boss script understanding, (for VT and ESoT) not ILs or class selection.
At least as long as you are past 12k IL or so, it should not be very difficult to do the easier kteam zones as long as your personal skills and boss understanding is up to it. You won't get a kteam score every week, but you'll get there.
I applaud Cryptic for making a play format that forces people into proper group tactics and forces people to learn endboss scripts. It also brings lots of nerve into the gameplay, that has been missing since mmorpg's all but removed the penalties for dying.
And no matter how interesting the play is, if there is no worthwhile loot at the end, such features will not be used. So please make sure any such features have worthwhile loot on success.
Cryptic is providing an opportunity to rediscover the power of focus!
Sadly it was seemingly impossible to explain to someone in alliance chat that the bank heist was not k-team.
If this is going to be a long-term approach then they should add a category to the queue system that has the ever changing k-team or equivalent challenge.
Your third point is fair and I've seen it myself many times doing MinIL runs. People don't know how to actually do old content because power creep has gotten to where the old content is super easy. That's why MinIL is such a great idea! I should point out that the scaling on already hard runs (Tong, CR, etc) isn't actually that bad - it's the HC mode that makes those REALLY difficult for K-Team. Valindra is a good example though - under HC+MinIL, that run becomes challenging to the point where teams have to actually deal with the caskets (for example) or actually die. No one that's started this game in the last 2 or 3 years will really know how to do that - not because they're dumb but rather because it's been unnecessary.
My alliance ran a Dragonflight during a recent 2x event (can't recall which one off hand) and it was a disaster. Many of us veterans remembered how to do 4 dragons, but newer players just didn't know how to do it at all since we hadn't run a DF in ages. So, after the first run was an abysmal failure, we took the time to explain all the details and after that, we did several 4-dragon runs in quick succession.
My point? Education. If your team is failing at VT or any other older dungeon, and they aren't (your points 1 & 2) then just take some time and explain the mechanics to the team, get each one to acknowledge what needs to be done, etc. Maybe do some practice MinIL runs without HC mode until the team gets what needs doing.
If you're pugging... well... gods help you, but really it's the same thing I always say to elitists that cry about low IL players doing RAQ or whatever: Don't run pugs if you're not prepared to deal with the mouthbreathing masses (see OP points 1 & 2). Instead, join a good guild/alliance and premake your teams - I don't mean in the elitist way either, in this case, I just mean premake teams that are all willing to at least give it a solid try and, if they don't already know how to do that DD in MinIL mode, are willing to spend the time learning it.
You can't help what other people do or say in MMOs - but you can take responsibility for your own actions.
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
But for "hard" content I am nowhere near as good as a 12k iL veteran - I cant draw aggro whilst holding up a shield for a boss fight, find it hard to get my toon between a group of others who don't stand behind the shield, constantly trying to reposition my toon better and then still getting one shot splatted by groups of mobs in FBI despite my best efforts.
And at my time in life learnign new tricks isn't easy. I do my best but the powercreep and the levelling process dont teach much of any use when it comes to FBI+
Oh and I had so much stick as "Tank" in FBI+ runs when the more squishies were running around like headless idiots that I dont bother with FBI+ anymore.
But I dont inflict myself upon those who want to do them which is pretty much what most players need to do until they learn the mechanics as they are essential for stuff.
Example being I had to solo Valindra from 50% health down and that was bloody hard work. Most times I never even see the casckets for example so I had no idea what to do with them
What they DO need to work on is fixing bugs and tweaking the timing of certain attacks. Since HC is supposed to be a test of skill and understanding of the dungeon, they need to fix the "out of your control deaths." Some examples:
- CR still has bugs at last boss (unless they've fixed in the last couple of weeks)
- CODG hand grab was only partially fixed. The pull/push can still sometimes pull/push you out of the hand.
- CN: sometimes you get the green tether right at the start of the first boss. I guess the tether happens randomly, but adjustment could simply be "random, but can only happen 3 seconds after the start of the fight"
- FBI last boss: everyone is standing behind the ice, but sometimes it still manages to kill most or everyone.
Anything else?
CN first boss: He got a laser attack that sometimes oneshots you (I possibly just did not understand the mechanics of this and how to avoid it)
CN second boss: You get oneshotted from the room turning upside down. The red fields showing where it is dangerous do not always show up of come very late.
CR, phase where one person is summoned up: If you have ranged people in the team and have low defenses it is very difficult to stay alive.
Vistani Set for free, so everyone gets iLevel. No one knows any mechanik. No one knows anything about boss fights. GG Cryp.....
K Team? Great idea. Better rewards, but dont change any gameplay of the dungeons.
That's so true.
One other concomitant problem also is most of the players can't really adapt themselves to the party (if they don't really know each others, and are outside the usual "meta"), or are too lazy to even think about making adjustments.
Everyone expects everyother to adapt to him and his playstyle, or would prefer blaming one for not doing "his job"/"wrong build" instead of trying to figure out a way to make the group a successful one (though sometimes it's not possible ^^).
A K-team with GF, OP, CW/HR/TR doesn't work the same as one with OP, DC, SW/GWF/TR but both can be equally successful (at least until ToNG).
One exemple among others : if you are the TR, you probably wouldn't need to smoke-bomb in the first party because the combo CW/HR generally take care of mobs AoE control, but you would very use the smoke in the second group.
I can't count the number of runs where after a little chat together, just changing 2-3 little things, the fights then go from "hell hard we are dead" to "smooth win".
Most of the time, failure is due to lack of communication and lack of understandings about how the other classes work (which is why I recommand to everyone to make at least 8 toons, on of each class; and do the RLQ/RIQ sometimes on those rerolls, to grab some basic knowledge on every class).
Sometimes, it is combined with what's is considered as "mistakes" (can be debated) on build of the members of the party or even lack of knowledge about their own class.
That's the very reason why I prefer playing in guild/ally/friend-party (though i like to sometimes go alone/duo with full random, when i feel i have enough playtime ahead).
Never expect knowledge, skill or proper/logical build from random people. But you can at least try to explain them (if needed) a bit.
And in a no death wanted match like this, the healer needs to not only heal but keep you from dying, be it the cleric or pally. If your class is squishy then run with some extra resistance buffs instead of extra DPS ones like infernal spheres for your SW.
And almost all the classes can buff each other, if you are a SW, place that pillar of power where the melee fighters are and then back out, you should be getting 5 seconds of benefit from it anyway and if more then one party member is in there, it is doing more work then just you standing in it.
Etc and so on. This is not even the more complex dungeon mechs to learn, this is just basic class jobs and such.
A lagspike, a bug, a disconnection, a simple IRL distraction of one of the 5 causes everyone to be punished (sometimes very harshly), is this really fair? (ok, now you're gonna tell me this ain't supposed to be fair, but I'm trying to be serious here for a moment)
Imho, this could be changed to something a little more sophisticated like:
1) No Scrolls of Life allowed.
2) No Consumables allowed.
3) Mount Powers disabled.
4) Artifact Powers disabled.
5) VIP buff disabled.
Spidey
With that being said...dear fellow Prot OPs...for the sake of smooth k team runs...learn to cast Absolution on the party members before boss fights/dangerous areas (green ball area in CN)...it's a 50% hp shield + 50% dr resistance buff that is permanent until said shield is depleted, on normal content it's meh...on hardcore...a life saver...stops every single one shot in CN, in Valindra it may eat up 1 death ray but more important it allows you to ignore the ghost's damage, etc...slot it in before a boss, cast it on every party member, your mom, your dog, your cow...once you are done, go back to your usual power setup...start the fight.
You can thank me later.
Two squishies can get chained at a bad time, bleed to death and take damage destroying the chain. Nostura's random curse HAMSTER.
..a little thought to which dungeons are given out as tasks - CR and MSP that have bugged content that automatically results in a wipe right at the final boss is pretty shameful tbh.
EXAMPLE : CR-SP-TONG-FBI TOP gear.
rest dungeons lower item level gear.