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OFFICIAL M19: Zariel's Challenge Feedback
asterdahl
Member, Cryptic Developer Posts: 1,258Cryptic Developer › Cryptic Developer
Feedback: Zariel's Challenge
Greetings adventurers, Asterdahl here! This thread is for providing bug reports and feedback on the upcoming trial: Zariel's Challenge.Zariel's Challenge is an epilogue to the story of Module 19, a friendly showdown with redeemed Zariel, and requires item level 26,000 to enter. As always, we're looking for both bug reports, and any feedback you may have. Good luck adventurers!
Formatting Your Feedback and Bugs
For posting feedback and bugs, please follow the following format to ensure your feedback and bugs are seen clearly and processed in a timely manner, thank you!Type: Bug/Feedback (Please only choose one)
If you are listing a bug please have this text in RED, if you are posting an opinion or feedback please use CYAN. If you are replying to another user's post, asking a question, or just engaging in general discussion, please do not color your posts, general discussion is welcome and we will read all of it, regardless of color! You can use BBCode to color your text:
< font color=cyan >This text will display in cyan.< /font > < font color=red >This text will display in red.< /font >* Do not include the spaces after the "<" or before the ">" character as in the above example.
Examples:
Bug: The visual effects for Anthelion don't play when I am looking away, but I still take damage..
Feedback: Our group can't survive Zariel's Weight of Virtue ability. We all have over 400,000 HP, had full hit points, no rez sickness, and -25% incoming damage when the attack went off.
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Comments
This trial needs better loot. ToMM rings are not a good enough incentive to continue running it after people have acquired their weapons. I suggest either new pet gear or something else otherwise the trial will be a failure.
Some of the healing/mitigation checks might be a tad overtuned if the trial is intended to be accessible to parties without ideally stacked legendary mount abilities etc., much more so than with ToMM currently. Need to do more extensive testing to offer more informed feedback, but whether or not it's by design, the incoming damage on some of the unavoidable mechanics (was it "White Noise?") is so high that survival can't reasonably be guaranteed without a lot of stacked damage down effects and extremely high HP on all party members. The players who aren't near the top of their respective classes for ToMM will not be able to be effective in this trial for some time if it launches as-is.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Also, it does not really have place anywhere else, so I put in here: I am glad that Ebony stained armor will be nerfed, it hogged up the armor space being generally shared as universal BiS for most classes and seemed to stay there for a long while. But... the new alternatives are hardly anything to be compared with that. While it will be changed, it will be changed into an item with the exact bonus, but more IL. Two problems:
-The Seer of the Star's Robes comes from mod16 expeditions, which means a huge unexpected grind, with the additional grind for some people in WE's for the perfect companion item to exact the needed stats. This puts an immense and soulless grinding process over an other, except if the companion item can be skipped by getting it as a trial reward :P .
-The power% items seems like a mistake which will probably creep on the game for a long time. If a mythic mount gets introduced with 15k power, they just get 5% (+750) of it. Same with any weapon set upgrade, enchantment rank raise or just things like: nerfing the tales of old set -> people start to use artis with +3k power, extra 3750 power stat -> +187 power for those power% items. I just suggest changing them to around +1250-1400 instead of 1%, which can even be a buff, but it's will be overshadowed when new items gets introduced with higher base power.
These items are: Primal armlets, Ebony stained armor and Seer of the Star's robes.
Also Alpha Compy has the same effect, but it's not a gear.Also, most of the new gear is underwhelming and even the potential changes seems like a cookie-cutter. And most of them seems like a waste of space, but this in a later post.
I personally like the idea of the trial being hard enough that is a challenge to complete it and the feeling of satisfaction of trying so hard and finally succeeding. The main issue that I have with it currently is that unlike ToMM in which I had unbound BiS rings included in the loot table of both chests the new trial seems to lack good loot that will make the initial investment of clearing it worth it. We have bound to account weapons with a bad bonus set, an unbound artifact set with an awful set bonus, and the old ToMM rings that are more easily farmed in ToMM. The current loot of the trial is awful enough that I personally don’t consider it wise to spend weeks training for it and wasting significant amount of resources (I’m on console no preview for unlimited AD and duplicating consumables) to clear it more than once. All current content can be cleared with lionheart weapons and on m19 they will be buffed to IL 1200 and the first group to clear this trial will have to make do with lionheart weapons at most therefore I don’t feel a strong need for the weapons besides dunking on people in pvp.
To give a strong new identity to the trial I suggest a new unique family of items be included in the chest to replace the old ToMM rings that are currently in the chest. ToMM has the rings market cornered so my initial suggestion is to add unbound pet gear to it. I personally get headaches from ME/WE probably due to photosentivity thanks to the “wonky” changes in lighting and keep getting rewarded with all the awareness pet gear that I never wanted. My initial suggestion is to add 1 tier or 2 at most of pet geat since I’m sure no one wants +1 +2 +3 pet gear from this trial. Please make it legendary because I like the shininess or legendary and epic if two tiers. The implementation should be fairly simple take the highest or the two highest tier of pet gear from undermountain scale it up to an appropriate item level and put some new sassy name to it (don’t forget to make 1 version legendary
If for some reason you guys are really out to get me and like to put pet gear in all the places I dislike (lockboxes, Illusionist’s Gambit, ME/WE/Zok, etc) then worry not since I have another wonderful idea that will most likely not get implemented but it’s relatively easy to implement. From what I understand the m19 storyline goes something like the Fallen Angel Zariel redeemed herself but I’m not sure we have a reaaaallly good reason to fight her after she turned over a new leaf. After much thought what if the story went more like:
A regular compy also works out but seriously the loot need some serious rework to match the effort of clearing the trial. I would also recommend to redo both the weapons and artifact set bonuses since they are underwhelming to put it nicely.
Ok my post got eaten 4 times but no compy censorship allowed on my watch
Edit: Someone suggested that as a plot twist Zariel genetically modified compies into hollyphants so that her friend Lulu could have friends to play with. So the new companion could be the flying elephant looking thing with the evolved compy bonus.
An event is not a trial and dungeon. Just like tales of old is NOT the return of old dungeons!!! Players will not be happy with this since many still struggle with LOMM. PLEASE think about non bis players also !!!!!!
RIP Real Tiamat, RIP Real Demogorgon RIP real Temple of the spider. Why remove non bis content to give to bis players ????
FORCING the majority of your player base to play 4 mod old dungeons and trial will have a bad result on player base
Changes are getting so bad i would rather prefer no new changes (RIP ICE FISHING in winter fest)
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
In other words, this means that if one tank messes up and the other one gets aggro on both for a second or so, the fiends fuse together and you can no longer recover from that since they start walking and attacking in absolute sync.
Unless this is intended a possible fix would be to make it so that the fiends can't clip through each other.
Still regarding phase 2, after the big overhead smash when you are supposed to swap aggro, increase the time the fiend doesn't attack by one second or so. With two paladin tanks we have no issue aggro swapping because smite is ranged. But in a party with no paladin tanks they dont have enough time to switch, so they "get their butt slapped" on the way to swap aggro, that is not survivable without loads of temp hp or a deflection(and you cant block it because...you're walking away ! hence the "butt slapping")
It's not that it's impossible to do, but two barb tanks in the same group would get their butt slapped as they walk away alot more than two paladins, which just makes it unfair towards the barbs.
As i said above, feedback is: increase time between overhead smash and next hit by some amount (not a big amount, otherwise it becomes too easy)
***when i ran my paladin with a barb tank we did get through it but i was the one whose butt got slapped, since he couldnt take it from me as he walked, but i learned to use tab during aggro swap, so i survived, barely***
1) a new campaign + a new map
2) treasure maps
3) Hunts
4) an easier and a harder version of the new trial
and prolly alot more stuff that i havent checked out
So where is this only focused on the "1%"? Or are you maybe just continuing on your wierd crusade about everything thats even remotely hard?
I will follow the need of significant unbound loot.
I want to add that is imho bad for the long term life-cycle of the trial providing such a relevant damage increase like weapons are. I mean I would love the trial keeping its level of difficulty on long term and not being a challenge until it had been beaten several times, having it designed more like a "survival" than a "burning" trial helps this way but I would providing weapons outside the trial may help long term balancing.
Setting as a loot (desirable) unbound gear, like rings or companion gear for example, will work mostly as QoL improvement to fix stats while it won't represent an huge improvement as a weapon set is.
Trial related feed-back: the platform is very bright and some attacks (runes/spreading lights) are hard to find with some graphic settings
your ping is half the cast timeyou don't know what you're doing,and seems "out of line" with the other mechanics in which we have much more time to react.EDIT: I think I understand this now. Thanks Viral for confirming this is intended without spoilers
By the way love the visuals of the area. Zariel and the area with the souls impaled on trees kind of remind me Darksiders 2, the "buggy" and the emporium have a Rage feeling and everything fits together quite well. Take it easy guys, don't always chase BIS as the sole thing you can do in the game.
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
We spend most of the time running away from mechanics, this penalizes our performance.
The trial lights hide some mechanics.
> Here is a completion run, for those who want to study the fight:
<font color=cyan>Having watched the video a couple of times. Cant help but wonder the importance of damage mitigation. Specially the fighter daily: Phalanx which mitigates 20% damage.
This is not to say fighter daily needs a nerf but all other tanks need a buff in their daily powers. I’ll admit i am not familiar with barb tanks so cant really speak for them but I main a justicar paladin.
The daily options we have for group survivability are underwhelming compared to something like Phalanx.
The incoming healing bonus from shield of faith is nice but 5% damage reduction is low where we need whole group to survive during huge attacks.
Divine protector when used without feat taken will probably kill tank because damage taken by allies is redirected to tank. With the feat, the 180s cool down makes it unsuitable in this trial where huge attacks are dealt in quick succession.
I believe the trial is fine (haven’t run it myself) but once is gets to live server people will have difficulty surviving because not every group will be running with 10x legendary triceratops and multiple griffons.</font>
It will be the same as in the case of mod 17, but now instead of Arcanist people will be looking for Arbiters to pass the DPS check.
In addition, the new set bonus favors the Arbiter even more, which leads to even greater discrepancy between dps classes
1st Phase (Zariel):
Good, I don't think there needs to be anything done here, lots of fun mechanics, and the length is appropriate. Could be longer if you want that.
2nd Phase (2 Devils):
I like this phase alot more after the buffs you gave to it. I think you could even increase the HP a bit more, and let the Demons also cast stuff like creeping ice, lava on the floor, or put people into Ice (like in ToMM).
3rd Phase (Zariel):
I also feel that Phase 3 could be a little longer, maybe 10-20% more HP
This still feels harder than Phase 5. but thats probably because of the Rune Bug.
I feel like it could use a bit more Celestial Blades, and maybe more locations for Spreading Light to spawn. Since the patter now is very easy to avoid, once you understood where the Spreading light goes.
4th Phase (2 Angels):
This Phase is the hardest at the moment, cause the dps check is rather tight. I like that and in my opinion Powercreep will make this easier, so i dont think it needs to be nerfed. But id like this whole phase to last a bit longer, so maybe you can increase the timer and the HP proportionally.
5th Phase (Zariel):
This phase is possibly easier than P3 and shorter, which feels very anticlimactic.
The fact that she increases her casts of Weight of Virtue each time she goes through her rotation, is hardly noticeable when you have sufficient dps.
In my opinion the most difficult mechanics are absent in this phase, for example Celestial Blades, Parhelion, Anthelion.
Also, Hallowed Slash feels better since it got increased speed, but its still just running around in a circle.
Some interesting combinations to think of:
Celestial blades + swordfall
Rain of Swords + Celestial Blades
Rain of Swords + Scathing Light
More detailed feedback on the mechanics is in the next section.
Also in my opinion this phase should be at least twice as long (with more mechanics in it ofc), so id suggest that she heals to full life after P4.
Mechanics:
Rain of Swords: Good mechanic, i suggest increasing the number of Rain of Swords up from 2 to 3 or 4 (4x would take place in P5). We are still very keen on the idea of a single target Rain of Swords, that would have to be soaked by the tanks
Tempest Wings/Great Divide, i suggest having more of these in quick succession, so for example, she is at 12 o’clock, does her Tempest Wings, moves to 9 o’clock, does another Tempest Wings. Same goes for Great Divide. Also it feels like you have too much time to react to both of those. Reduce it.
Spreading Light: Feels like a good mechanic, but the locations where the Spreading Light spawns must be more random, or there have to be at least more spots where it can spawn. Otherwise it gets too easy to avoid. Maybe even consider having 3 spawns in the final phase.
Scathing Light: OK
Celestial Blades: The DoT inflicted by it seems not punishing enough. If you don't want to tune up the dmg of the DoT, we suggest adding a damage debuff (similar to the magnet debuff) that is also inflicted onto the player when he is hit by the mechanic. WE NEED MORE OF THIS!
Vulnerability up: OK
Hallowed Slash: As said above this feels alot better after getting its speed increased, but its still only running in a circle, maybe try out randomizing the area she targets.
Parhelion/Anthelion: Both feel ok, but it's a problem that they both can be avoided by just staying far away. Especially in the later stages that feels too easy to avoid.
Penance: Feels like you have a little too much time to position. They should trigger faster.
General design:
I feel like the fight is missing mechanics that interact with the arena itself, much like creeping ice in ToMM, or like the lava ground mechanic in IC. Something that reduces the usable area, restricts players from entering a certain part of the arena or inflicts some sort of status debuff/disables their powers etc. Letting the players influence the placement of those areas would lead to much more interactive gameplay.
i think Scrolls of Life and Stones of Health make it a lot easier than it should be. Consider disabling them in the harder version (ofc best case: remove them from the game entirely :>)
Feedback on Loot and special Rewards:
The changes to the weapons make ToMM way too easy, but you already know that
It also kind of negates the nerfs to healing you did. (25% bigger shields for example)
Besides that, ToMM rings seem pointless, they are not valuable outside of a few outliers and i don't think they would hold up as long term motivation. I don't know what kind of gear you plan to implement in the future, so it's up to you guys how you want to do this, but the current situation sets the trial up for failure. People will get their weapons and then dont bother with it. Especially since ToMM will be so much easier with the new weapons. I suggest unbound Companion gear. Just take the gear that can drop from MEs/WEs now, put the 1010 version + a Legendary version (1100 IL) and maybe a few new stat combinations in there. Let the easier version drop the 990 IL companion gear, because this would, in my opinion, make both versions lucrative to farm in the short and long term.
On the subject of loot, with rings coming from Rage of Bel episodic content it feels like both ToMM and Zariel are being made completely obsolete for rewards. You could either run ToMM or Zariel, or complete the (significantly easier) episodic content and be "rewarded." For a trial with a dialogue line about being worthy, it seems like the loot is rather ironically not worthwhile.
Visual) Personally I felt like that colours contrasts need to be increased. With the light enviroment and the lights/yellow/white effect of attacks it's hard to see where is going to happen what.
Loot) Absolutely not worth running the content for the loot. As soon as people will get the weapons it will go in disuse. And also, a good loot is something worth for people running it and get back the efforts to make characters ready for it.
Fight) Again, unluckily, one more content melee unfriendly. Especially with phases where it's not possible to keep melee fight with the boss (or adds) ranged dps will have full advantage.
And no. Rogue WK loadout and Ranger Hunter loadout still sucks to make them viable. Even if you can manage their improvement still some classes will be out (Barbarians, Fighters).
The imaginary Friends
Main Kingslayer.jr(barb)
And please put some loot so at least we can try more or no one will do it.
Companion gear and transmute unbound is nice idea that all have said
The imaginary Friends
Main Kingslayer.jr(barb)
Many communicated a proper reward for the time invested, more so for some of use mere plebs.
What I want to add, that whatever intentions there are, I really ask for them to be communicated ASAP*, so we can decide if we wish to invest a lot of time, effort, and resources into adapting and learning it or not.
It is one thing to not like something and hence skip it and another to invest massive amounts of resources and for those to be wasted, there is an added breach of trust, expectations and innumerable disappointment.
*by ASAP I really mean ASAP, as in if possible this week... If there are not intentions to create adequate loot and it will be parallel to some gear that can be acquired through some campaign boxes I would like to know this yesterday, and not after I dragged the whole guild by their ears to preview, and then look like a top idiot.
Here is a balancing idea, that I'm sure many would "love" so much.
We should have a completion leader-board, each completion a player (Account) gets points. The earlier the completion is after the release, the more points the player is granted.
But there is a catch, the more points a person have, the harder it becomes for them (can be non linear), some resistance debuff, longer res-sickness, speed debuff, or like rez sickness, just hp and damage, you get the idea, I'm sure.