test content
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc

Tales of Old: The Dread Vault - Extension and upcoming changes

terramakterramak Member, Cryptic Developer Posts: 991 Cryptic Developer
edited September 2019 in News & Announcements
We're looking into the difficulty of the Tales of Old: The Dread Vault event, but we haven't been able to lock down changes that we can safely get live today. The event will continue running through the weekend as-is, and we hope to do the following next week:
  • Extend the "Tales of Old: The Dread Vault" event by one week, ending September 12 instead of September 5.
  • To accommodate that, reschedule Coins of Waukeen to September 19-23, delayed from September 5-9.
  • Test how it feels when we raise the maximum item level of the event, and see whether we need to make any additional changes from there.
Thank you for making us aware of this issue and for giving us the information needed to investigate.


EDIT 2019-09-05: We're still hard at work adjusting and testing the balance changes. Our current target is for an internal team to be able to complete Difficulty x3 with a reasonable amount of coordination, and make decent progress through Difficulty x4.

Our adjustments are not yet ready to hit the live server. We'll still make sure the event gets extended--that'll happen without a patch, tonight or early tomorrow morning. We're aiming to get a build with difficulty improvements live before the weekend.

Some changes we're testing internally:
  • Fix the red zones on the ground for Mind Burst, so that they consistently display. (This previously made it look like there were safe areas within the area with big scary purple sparks.)
  • Make the tether VFX between Yshiggol and nearby enemies display more consistently.
  • Review add spawn rates and composition during the Yshiggol fight.
  • Review Item Level scaling values in the instance.
Thanks again.



Edit 2019-09-06: The difficulty changes are now live on Dragon, and will be live on Drider after maintenance in several hours.
Post edited by terramak on
«1345678

Comments

  • durgan#5731 durgan Member Posts: 28 Arc User
    Making heal potions work would go a long way to getting survivability within reason. I'm at about 23k IL and the damage adds were doing was insane, on a pally tank, no less. No way I could keep that many adds off the ranged folk. Spawn distance meant you had to use life scrolls and the res sickness just makes you ineffective. I could go on, but...judging by their plan to just adjust IL level, does nothing.
  • dread4moordread4moor Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,154 Arc User
    ty, @terramak .

    Ran it (or tried to) with a party of all 24k+.
    All experienced. All well geared.
    Some of us played the old Dread Vault >5 years ago.
    Tried 3 times. Crushed in 2nd round boss every time (on 0 remaining deaths). Struggle is real.
    Shouldn't get that hard until round 4 or 5, imho.

    ty 4 fixing.
    JrUzbQw.jpg?1
    I am Took.
    "Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
  • hiperion16#1663 hiperion16 Member Posts: 34 Arc User
    This is very good news. With the release of mod16, 16k Ilvl previously became 20k in current stats. A setting of 20-22k should be plenty to complete the Tales of Old even on 5th Tier reductions while being difficult.
  • odt#4182 odt Member Posts: 61 Arc User
    thanx for adjusting abit and extending,
    It's almost impossible to do multi level runs and we could never get enaugh pages,
    seems like the difficulty of 1 atm on the end boss should be lvl 3 or so.
    Liking the dungeon and big brain :)
  • gonzakotwigonzakotwi Member Posts: 267 Arc User
    The main issue is everyone gets one-shotted on the last boss, maybe its areas are hitting too much? idk if it has something to do with scaling
  • bspallybspally Member Posts: 36 Arc User
    edited August 2019
    any plans to change event artifact to 300 gear score? It is obviously harder to get than a 2500-magic art from the m16 shop!

    Update please
    Make Neverwinter's players willing to buy Zen great again!
  • bojshabojsha Member Posts: 82 Arc User
    @ Terramak,
    Thank you very much, apreciated!
  • mentinmindmakermentinmindmaker Member Posts: 1,489 Arc User


    So I guess the feedback you got from preview just kinda got lost somewhere? Or maybe folks don't even bother to post anymore. I mean what is the point after all?

    Most of the feedback on Test comes from the ToMM-ready team :) They are a bit above the average when it comes to gear and game experience :)
  • mentinmindmakermentinmindmaker Member Posts: 1,489 Arc User
    bspally said:

    any plans to change event artifact to 300 gear score? It is obviously harder to get than a 2500-magic art from the m16 shop!

    Update please

    This. The event is not that attractive now since the main reward(the artifact with all upgrades) is inferior to the mod 16 artifacts.
  • alleykatealleykate Member Posts: 43 Arc User
    We ran with a group of item level 24-25k and found we were being one shot 2nd round last boss and all died. ACT was run for both rounds and the enemies 2nd round were doing more damage to us than the 1st round by a long shot. Shouldn't the damage to to us be the same each round while we are just penalised with different things? Hoping you can fix it and bring the fun and appropriate challenge we had last 2 events.
    Guild - Fair Dinkum 2.0
    Part of Team Tredecim of the Cloaks Alliance website
    https://cloakalliance.wordpress.com/
  • wizzy#0870 wizzy Member Posts: 24 Arc User
    edited August 2019
    Raising the Item Level isn't going to do much if you don't fix the underlying issue of enemies being much harder on play throughs 2/3/4/5.
  • jonkocajonkoca Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,586 Arc User
    Good news, thanks.
    No idea what my toon is now.
  • thyrannoothyrannoo Member Posts: 24 Arc User
    The artifact is broken, so it will be very interesting to stack the multiple ones. Will give insane HP's and ToMM will be easier for some.
  • theflowerbottheflowerbot Member Posts: 18 Arc User
    The boss mech is doable, so the one-shots aren't so much a problem as long as you know it, however the 2nd run seems to hit harder, or we have less defense, it doesn't feel like the only change between run 1 and run 2 is that you can't use an artifact, it almost feels like we already got reduced defense and hitpoints by then.... or the trash mobs are stronger than the first time through ..
    Before you jump to judge me, know this - I was called flowerbot long before I started playing Neverwinter.
  • caldochaud#4880 caldochaud Member Posts: 213 Arc User
    edited August 2019
    Please also consider adding the Dread Vault to the queues (selected and random) because unlike the CTA event, it would seem that a significant number of players (at least when I am on) are simply not bothering with this particular event.

    (While this may be a game-wide Mod 16 side-effect I am still finding that when I am soloing content I hit pretty hard but when I am in a party, I hit like my weapon is made of rubber. Is the new scaling punishing the entire party based on the stats of the most powerful player in a party? Not good.)

    Btw: Is the Cat-In-The-Hat Bard a subtle hint at an upcoming playable race? ;)
    "Talent is a flame. Genius is a fire." - Sir Bernard Williams
  • andorrabellandorrabell Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 437 Arc User
    terramak said:

    We're looking into the difficulty of the Tales of Old: The Dread Vault event, but we haven't been able to lock down changes that we can safely get live today. The event will continue running through the weekend as-is, and we hope to do the following next week:

    • Extend the "Tales of Old: The Dread Vault" event by one week, ending September 12 instead of September 5.
    • To accommodate that, reschedule Coins of Waukeen to September 19-23, delayed from September 5-9.
    • Test how it feels when we raise the maximum item level of the event, and see whether we need to make any additional changes from there.
    Thank you for making us aware of this issue and for giving us the information needed to investigate.
    Thank you.
    Wish this had been a day ago, but thank you.

  • lugiarylugiary Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 4 Arc User
    hey guys there is a big problem, why the event is capped at the level of tomm ... the level of difficulty isnt normal for the dungeon. You can't even get the book, the chapter or the bonuses and you don't even increase the duration of the event for the bugs being said to settle. Please do something it's misery i'm dying on the spot

    God Help them ^^.

  • andorrabellandorrabell Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 437 Arc User
    They just said they are extending the event a week and will try to patch the difficulty before the 2nd week.
    I'm pretty happy with that, just wouldve liked the announcement a day or 2 ago.
  • oremonger#9999 oremonger Member Posts: 213 Arc User

    They just said they are extending the event a week and will try to patch the difficulty before the 2nd week.
    I'm pretty happy with that, just wouldve liked the announcement a day or 2 ago.

    OR maybe they could have taken care of this while it was on preview?

  • gonzakotwigonzakotwi Member Posts: 267 Arc User
    Coins of tales told get accumulated on daily cap, I did only 1 run today and it shows in the daily cap that i have gained 4 (which is the total coins i have). Please address this issue also
  • lordtweety#3604 lordtweety Member Posts: 275 Arc User



    OR maybe they could have taken care of this while it was on preview?

    If anyone actually played through it on preview. No one from my alliance did, for a major release we have people on preview testing. I'd be surprised if anyone tested it.
    Main: Angels Scar
    Guild: Ruathym Corsairs
  • drdark21#0636 drdark21 Member Posts: 23 Arc User
    @terramak plz consider raising the stats and IL of the artifacts - it doesnt make sense to have a set where the belt and neck are lvl 80 but the artifacts are lvl 70 especially being this difficult to obtain - since this is supposed to be one of the top events maybe consider making it unscaled. It seems as is our unscaled toons would have a hard time completing 5 runs. Is it known what the stat caps should be for this event? is it mod 16 68k or mod 17 80k or something entirely different? would be nice to know maybe everyone running this isnt meeting the stat caps defensively - i hope this gets fixed by console release as this is the only event in game that i care about lol. Any info on stats for this would be greatly appreciated
  • krevgkrevg Member Posts: 98 Arc User
    Thank you for extending and looking into a fix......However, can you please please please bother to actually play test content before pushing it live in the future. I am 100% sure you all didn't even bother to run 2x for this event before pushing it out. If there's not enough time/resources to test, maybe it's time to update the business model. This was an easily catchable issue if the content was actually tested. :-(
  • c1k4ml3kc3c1k4ml3kc3 Member Posts: 1,257 Arc User
    Hey guys,


    Fantastic job on the update and consideration!

    The way I see it, transition from MOD15 to MOD16 didn't bode well for the event, and it shows in the runs. It really needed to be adjusted before the event hit LIVE servers, as people have a tendency to remember stuff like this and avoid similar things in the future.
    Developer's job isn't easy on this, I think. Basically, giving a rough estimation where the IL cap should be and what is a decent enough setup for people to run x4/x5 successfully is really not an easy job because the Event should be played by people of various IL and it shouldn't be only elite-player exclusive content. Yet again, it should provide a decent challenge. So, RAQ-level stuff at x1-x3, and then REQ-level stuff at x4/x5.
    I also think that losing 50% power/def in this case will be extremely bad. It should be 25%-30%, and that's already enough to really mess some people's rotations, let alone defense against enemies.
    I also think that the event should be inviting, friendly, and beneficial to new players who, despite the fact they might not get a chance to obtain some of the items, can still experience what it was for the old players to play some of the oldest dungeons from "back in the good ol' days".


    A QUICK BUG, a nuisance.
    Oh, BTW, Vansi jumped into the pit (1st miniboss spawn @ brain), he launched himself into the oblivion, instakilling himself. Just ptsiuuuu whooosh dead in a sec. Same like that skelly from OMU who liked to imitate formula 1 stuff.
    I state this because what will happen to people if, let's say, Vansi gets stuck in a texture after such a jump/dash and it destroys one of X5 runs for someone? Would be bad, really bad.
    It's his long reaching, cone attack power. No idea what it's called, but should be tested.

    Regards.
    True Neutral
    Left the Game due to heavy Damage Control & Missing Spanish Language
  • hastur905hastur905 Member Posts: 173 Arc User
    @lordtweety#3604 @c1k4ml3kc3 A group of us went in to test ToO on preview, however it wouldn't allow for parties to enter. You could enter solo, but it would not let you enter as a party. However, having said that, Frozen Heart, the last ToO, which came out a few weeks after Mod16 was pretty much the same as this one when we tested it on Preview. The issue is not directly scaling though. The stats that you enter in with in the 1st round are the same as the ones as you have in the 2nd round.

    @terramak is it possible that this is something similar that was happening in the Hunts in Barovia right after Mod 16 release? The adds say they are level 73 both in round 1, and round 2. However I give you the ACT numbers for Yalghoor the Rank for example, Round 1 he had 1,881,148 HP (that was incoming damage) and he was hitting for 9.4K average. Round 2 he had 3,513,985 HP (incoming damage) and was hitting for 50.9k average.

    Yshiggol is actually not bad, when on round one it took 15,279.940 damage to kill, and it was averaging 32k damage outgoing, with it max hit 180k non-crit of mind burst, Round two out going damage was only slightly more at 40k, but its non-crit hits with mind burst were 280k +. I couldn't give u incoming because we died before we killed it.

    Graft Harrow first round 1,925,020 incoming damage, no outgoing will killed before they had a chance to hit, round two 3,548,253 HP ( incoming damage) outgoing average of 42.5k with a non-crit of 163k from mind burst.
  • vordaynvordayn Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,283 Arc User
    edited September 2019
    I haven't been able to play much due to real life commitments, however I was looking forward to this event (if only to complete the Embellishments and Storybook set).

    Pros
    - Being able to play Dread Vault again (what I once considered the hardest dungeon in the Mod 5 era) was nice

    Cons
    - Round 1 took about 20-30 minutes to complete with a nearly end-game group (IL 24-26k; lower IL due to equipment with better % damage modifiers)
    - Round 2 was impossible to complete - our tank with 600HP+ was killed far too quickly for our healer to keep alive, and all other characters were one-shot by adds
    - Trying to earn 125 tokens to complete the Storyteller book is an exercise in masochism and futility

    As noted by players above, the scaling is off. Something is not right when the difference between round 1 and 2 causes a mass wipe in the majority (if not most) of teams entering.

    If you have scaling issues, but also the difficulty modifiers with each round (e.g. can't use artifacts, reduced defense and power), you are making things needlessly hard. You will turn players away from events like this, and they will remember it.

    I appreciate the developers increasing the duration of the event, and looking at toning down the difficulty.

    Recommendation
    - Either do not scale us, or change the modifiers per round. DO NOT have both
    - If you do still decide to scale us, at least increase the minimum level with each subsequent round
    - Allow cut-scenes to be skippable
    - Implore you to not release things live before at least having it somewhat reasonably tuned

    Vordon CW        Vordayn DC        Axel Wolfric GWF        Logain SW        Gawyn GF        Galad OP        Aspen Darkfire HR        Min TR
  • agilestoagilesto Member Posts: 516 Arc User
    hastur905 said:

    However, having said that, Frozen Heart, the last ToO, which came out a few weeks after Mod16 was pretty much the same as this one when we tested it on Preview. The issue is not directly scaling though. The stats that you enter in with in the 1st round are the same as the ones as you have in the 2nd round.

    Actually the Frozen Heart TOO was a week before M16, so this one Dread Vault is the first one we have to deal with with the M16 scaling and classes rework.
    Also about the stats, I definitely saw a loss of stats on my character from the T1 to the T2. I couldn't say how much since I only tried the T2 once, but it did happen.
This discussion has been closed.