Merchant Prince's Folly might need some retuning

hustin1 · April 2020

Going to ping @nitocris83 just to make sure this gets a look. I've been running this a lot over the past couple of days, and compared to other skirmishes this appears to be a real outlier in terms of difficulty. It's not so much one thing as a combination; with the number of enemies that attack during the first phase, the scaling level, and the fact that they all get combat advantage on you, it is extremely difficult to stay alive. I'd appreciate it if someone there could do some playtesting with an average-ish (is that a word?) character and try it out.

greywynd · April 2020

Step 1: remove scaling.

rikitaki · April 2020

If the whole holly trinity is present, it works.

greywynd · April 2020

I've never tried running anything with 3 Hollys in the party.

xenocide · April 2020

The balancing on skirmishes is alot different than dungeons. While dungeons and scaling are for the most part pretty good in my opinion. The skirmishes vary quiet significantly in difficulty with their current scaling.

You have dread legion and master of the hunt which are extremely easy and can be completed solo.
Then you have prophecy of madness which is extremely difficult to get gold rewards, and folly which can also be really difficult.

I find putting together a pure hdps party helps, unfortunately if you have a tank in those parties who is not spected to do damage your party will be at a disadvantage for getting top their rewards.

kranky · April 2020

biggest issue for me right now is i have done 10 Prince Folly runs in last 2 days (trying to get the scale) to upgrade my chain of scales. but every single run the rewards are exactly the same 3 basic items. not one comp, gear / shirt / pants / or even guild hall item....... idk but can someone check to see if the loot is working correctly. i have 4 other toons with mythic scale and never had this issue before.

durugudesu · April 2020

It is not as long like IG, if you queue privately and choose to proceed until gold, which is a useless skirmish for now. If anything needs to be toned down, that should be their first priority.

nitocris83 · April 2020

I'll flag this thread for review. Thanks!

hustin1 · April 2020

kranky#1106 said:
biggest issue for me right now is i have done 10 Prince Folly runs in last 2 days (trying to get the scale) to upgrade my chain of scales. but every single run the rewards are exactly the same 3 basic items. not one comp, gear / shirt / pants / or even guild hall item....... idk but can someone check to see if the loot is working correctly. i have 4 other toons with mythic scale and never had this issue before.

I found that you have to finish Gold to get one. It took me maybe 11 hours of pugging until we finally managed it.

kranky · April 2020

hustin1 said:

kranky#1106 said:
biggest issue for me right now is i have done 10 Prince Folly runs in last 2 days (trying to get the scale) to upgrade my chain of scales. but every single run the rewards are exactly the same 3 basic items. not one comp, gear / shirt / pants / or even guild hall item....... idk but can someone check to see if the loot is working correctly. i have 4 other toons with mythic scale and never had this issue before.
I found that you have to finish Gold to get one. It took me maybe 11 hours of pugging until we finally managed it.

well i know i have gotten 4 other toons the scale there and i have never gotten a gold rating in merchant prince. but not just scale its you only get the basic 3 currency items. i usually always getting HAMSTER comp gear or fern for the GH or useless pants/shirts but now literally not getting anything and have done 20+ over last few days.

Unknown · April 2020

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Unknown · April 2020

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Unknown · April 2020

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zimxero · April 2020

vigor#8801 said:
flagged for review on the 13th it is the 30th and i ran it several times this morning trying to get the scale. It is still messed up.

FYI i play a char of every class and i think i have done folly with at least half of the classes recently, some multiple times and i have even tried to solo it with a few.

Some problems i see...
---bondings, runes and enchants are capped at level 10. So for me, best case scenario i get level 10 quality out of my r15's. Worst case, i am getting extra balanced because i have them. My enchants, bondings and runes are no where near balanced i use 8's 9's and 15's pretty much.

That being said, i often carry. How? It might be that my equipment tends to be on a LOWER level i.e. 1000ish IL which might make me get "balanced" less. I would make an effort to get higher IL equipment but it seems to me that nearly all content is balanced so what is the point? Problem is i can't carry well enough to get gold unless my teammates choose not to insist on killing the trex, which, they always do. I can lead the trex away so it won't stop us from completing the mission but one of them will lead it back. If we do get gold we barely get it.

---Level 70's can get in the queue, possibly even level 60's. Then they do about 800 damage total through out the course of the skirmish. How are we supposed to do well when 40% of the team can't scratch anything?

---It seems impossible to set up stats well for it. Companion equipment is also nerfed which creates a scenario where the companion equipment you get for completing undermountain is actually BIS. It is the most balanced companion equipment and gives you almost enough of all of the things you need. Unfortunately, for a tank it doesn't give enough defensive stats with so many enemies and no healer. If you put a 2nd defensive companion equipment piece you wont do enough damage to hold aggro. In that map, if aggro is divided and enemies are all over the place you won't do well. I am pretty sure the skirmish allows 2 tanks too which makes confused enemies. As DPS, i get aggro almost every time despite a tank being there. So, as DPS i have to run defensive equipment too which makes killing hard again. The only way i don't get aggro as dps is when there is another, stronger DPS getting it. If he were to equip so he could survive, i might be getting aggro again.

---I'm not sure what the devs can do about this but another problem is that whatever player has the biggest ego or the most to prove always goes to fight when you need to grab weapons and knock on doors to advance the first part. Then he is dead in .2 seconds. There needs to be one tank and only one tank and that needs to be the tank's job, not to kill them but to keep them busy while the rest perform the dungeon mechanics. The tank is probably the only one with a chance to survive the charge. The faster you get the doors and weapons done the fewer enemies you face (i can solo it on one char and you fight a ton of enemies just to get the mechanics finished while needing to kill too) I have always suspected that the high dps gets better rewards in dungeons. If that is true the devs are giving incentive to play this skirmish in a way that makes you less likely to get gold tier rewards.

I don't have enough inventory space to be keeping sets of equipment for different size IL caps despite having extra bank slots and lots of bags. I also don't have enough gold to be swapping enchants to fit the IL cap. (Or the time either) I am sure someone here wants to tell me right now that it doesn't hurt you to have higher level ones... i have reasons to believe it does.

I can't speak to the chain scale drop currently. I have run this skirmish 4 times this month with my Whisperknife and gotten over 10 million damage each time. (its amost solo, i know) In the past I ran this skirmish with Barbarian, Arcanist, Thaumaturge, and Justicar tank. All of them got over 5 million damage every run. There is no problem with max damage I assure you. This skirmish has the highest enemy stats, which is why leveling character (or a new catapulted one) has trouble with it. The damage is also high. To me this is what makes this skirmish awesome. I think, if players are having trouble with Merchant's Folly, the enemy stats should be reduced by 1,000 and the scale issue should be fixed if it in fact exists.

Unknown · April 2020

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Unknown · April 2020

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gradii · May 2020

I've only had an issue once, and most of my clears were 5 dps. People need to look away from spooky eyes and play smart.

Also stop whining about scaling, if you think they'll even consider your request to remove it for a second, you are so sadly mistaken. Scaling is the future of the game because without it the game has no future. Scaling is the life support which keeps a flow of new players. without it, people who try this game will quit in their first week. it'll bore them to tears as overleveled people carry them in seconds through every dungeon.

gabrieldourden · May 2020

The main issues I see with Merchant's Folly are the large number of enemies in the first room and the T-Rex. If you have no tank or healer in the first room just switch to control area powers and clear everything up. If you have a tank you should have no issues. For the T-Rex just have somebody kite it away, clear the rest and then burn it down. I can solo MF up to a silver result on my HR even with the scaling so a party of 5 should be easily able to do that if it doesn't charge in the first room with single-target-no-control powers.
Manycoins is a different story. There without a healer things look really grim.

Merchant Prince's Folly might need some retuning

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