The Dread Vault Tales of Old doesn't have lives or +5 minute timers to grab throughout the runs. Only 1 bonus has a working spawn, located inside the starting area with the gate and countdown. Appears maybe once every 5 rounds, either a life or a timer, 1 in 10-ish chance of valuable timer bonuses. Want to describe the problem, and the current player experience as-is to help devs with prioritizing fixes, if needed.
Dread Vault 5x makes for a massive challenge, for groups that are extremely well specced/skilled/adapt to the unique content strategy needed. To give an idea of who is currently locked out of completing the content - I set a tomm-capped, 180k+ power, geared in mostly BiS/not ilvl maxing, r14 weapon enhance+barkskin, 350k HP bar for DPS, TOMM-statted/geared Cleric healer with appropriate power/crit/outgoing, and we cut it close to failing.
1 healer 4 DPS is a soft group comp requirement for 5x runs, could not imagine damage output being high enough to allow for the necessary pace otherwise.
With the appropriate strategy, rounds 1-4 take about 10-12 minutes, sprinting literally at all times doing whatever damage you can as you go. Hard "no stopping, except to occasionally compensate for run speed differences" rule.
You have to have done enough damage while moving to make the army following manageable during the hard-stops where everything needs to be killed to progress. You get 20-40 of mostly the larger health bar/more damaging enemies stacking before the 1st and 2nd bosses. Need enough of them at low health to where 50%-75% die from all DPS dropping all encounters at once, before the full group charges up and fire off their first round of big damage abilities causing most players to die.
Runs 1-4 have to land in the 10-11 minute range without timer bonuses to stockpile an extra 4-6 minutes for round 5. You could reset the instance over and over for a round 1 timer, take it a bit slower and have the same time for 5. If needed groups could reset till a timer spawns round 1, then hope for another 2-5. My 5x completion lucked out and got a timer round 5, ended with 8 minutes 56 seconds to spare/3:56 if we didn't get a pickup.
If this difficulty level/setup is intentional then it would actually be pretty cool - but only if the Tales of Old titles are fixed/added. Would make the Dread Vault 5x and all tales 5x titles feel very prestigious.
As it stands, Dread Vault 5x completion is inaccessible to 99% of players. And endgame players won't choose to push themselves/take the time to coordinate the right team, when all rewards can be obtained while skipping Dread Vault days/ignoring it on the last two days.
My preferred outcome is leave the pickup spawns as-is, and reward players with titles earned. Two reasons - it's currently very fun/challenging. The same sort of thing can only be found elsewhere in TOMM. Genuine celebration and feeling like we'd accomplished an extraordinary task when my team finished. Makes for an example of challenge scaling, accidental or otherwise, done right. Resulted in the most memorable part of the event by far for my team and I. And, if the titles were added with no other changes, it'd incentivize others to seek out and experience the same thing.
But the vast majority of players are inadvertently locked out of 5x completion (if a bug), may make more sense to add in bonus pickups because of it.
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> The Dread Vault Tales of Old doesn't have lives or +5 minute timers to grab throughout the runs. Only 1 bonus has a working spawn, located inside the starting area with the gate and countdown. Appears maybe once every 5 rounds, either a life or a timer, 1 in 10-ish chance of valuable timer bonuses. Want to describe the problem, and the current player experience as-is to help devs with prioritizing fixes, if needed.
>
> Dread Vault 5x makes for a massive challenge, for groups that are extremely well specced/skilled/adapt to the unique content strategy needed. To give an idea of who is currently locked out of completing the content - I set a tomm-capped, 180k+ power, geared in mostly BiS/not ilvl maxing, r14 weapon enhance+barkskin, 350k HP bar for DPS, TOMM-statted/geared Cleric healer with appropriate power/crit/outgoing, and we cut it close to failing.
>
> 1 healer 4 DPS is a soft group comp requirement for 5x runs, could not imagine damage output being high enough to allow for the necessary pace otherwise.
>
> With the appropriate strategy, rounds 1-4 take about 10-12 minutes, sprinting literally at all times doing whatever damage you can as you go. Hard "no stopping, except to occasionally compensate for run speed differences" rule.
>
> You have to have done enough damage while moving to make the army following manageable during the hard-stops where everything needs to be killed to progress. You get 20-40 of mostly the larger health bar/more damaging enemies stacking before the 1st and 2nd bosses. Need enough of them at low health to where 50%-75% die from all DPS dropping all encounters at once, before the full group charges up and fire off their first round of big damage abilities causing most players to die.
>
> Runs 1-4 have to land in the 10-11 minute range without timer bonuses to stockpile an extra 4-6 minutes for round 5. You could reset the instance over and over for a round 1 timer, take it a bit slower and have the same time for 5. If needed groups could reset till a timer spawns round 1, then hope for another 2-5. My 5x completion lucked out and got a timer round 5, ended with 8 minutes 56 seconds to spare/3:56 if we didn't get a pickup.
>
> If this difficulty level/setup is intentional then it would actually be pretty cool - but only if the Tales of Old titles are fixed/added. Would make the Dread Vault 5x and all tales 5x titles feel very prestigious.
>
> As it stands, Dread Vault 5x completion is inaccessible to 99% of players. And endgame players won't choose to push themselves/take the time to coordinate the right team, when all rewards can be obtained while skipping Dread Vault days/ignoring it on the last two days.
>
> My preferred outcome is leave the pickup spawns as-is, and reward players with titles earned. Two reasons - it's currently very fun/challenging. The same sort of thing can only be found elsewhere in TOMM. Genuine celebration and feeling like we'd accomplished an extraordinary task when my team finished. Makes for an example of challenge scaling, accidental or otherwise, done right. Resulted in the most memorable part of the event by far for my team and I. And, if the titles were added with no other changes, it'd incentivize others to seek out and experience the same thing.
>
> But the vast majority of players are inadvertently locked out of 5x completion (if a bug), may make more sense to add in bonus pickups because of it.
This isn't a TOMM level event, stop trying to turn everything into a most be for BIS players. This event is for all toons and a group of 22k to 23k with lomm stats should be able to finish 5x run with not much difficulty.
Just admit this is as bug, as it was on PC when it was released and then removed due to it being broken.
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