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Official Feedback Thread: Kessell's Retreat
urrgghh
Member, Cryptic Developers Posts: 2Cryptic Developers › Arc User
Greetings Adventurers!
As you progress through the Icewind Dale campaign and earn black ice equipment, you’ll unlock the opportunity to confront Akar Kessell, the vile wizard who’s been behind most of the recent problems in the Dale.
Overview
Kessell’s Retreat is an Epic Skirmish – a fast-paced battle through the wizard’s lair high atop Kelvin’s Cairn, culminating in an encounter with Kessell himself. It’s intended to be the capstone experience of Icewind Dale in terms of difficulty, so not only have we gated it behind the Icewind Dale campaign, but we’re requiring that you be wearing four pieces of Corrupted or Purified black ice equipment to enter.
We’ve aimed the completion time of Kessell’s Retreat at around fifteen minutes, on average. Completing it gives you a chance to get some of the very best rewards in Icewind Dale, like the black ice pieces you’ll need to complete your black ice set, or even a very special black ice artifact! Plus you’ll be wrapping up the story of Akar Kessell, which started over 100 years ago in the book The Crystal Shard.
Feedback
We want Kessell’s Retreat to feel like the capstone experience of Icewind Dale, both in difficulty and in presentation. It’s an Epic Skirmish, which we haven’t done before, so we want to make sure we’re hitting the mark as best as we can.
So, we want your feedback! Below you’ll find instructions for how to give feedback in such a way that we can most efficiently sort it and then act on it. Please follow those instructions so we can catalog your feedback properly.
Type: Bug/Feedback (Choose only one)
Class: (Enter the class that you played as during your testing here)
Use Bold face text to write out Type & Class at the top of your post, then write the body of your feedback below. If you are listing it as a bug, please put your feedback text in RED; if you are listing it as feedback, please use BLUE.
Try to be as concise as you can with your feedback, and if you can include one or two appropriate screenshots with your post, that will be extremely helpful.
Examples:
Bug: Guardian Fighter
I managed to knock one of the enemies in the third fight behind some kind of invisible barrier, causing it to get stuck. We also couldn’t hit it through this invisible barrier. Here’s a screenshot: [screenshot]
Feedback: Devoted Cleric
The Akar Kessell fight was too easy. I could easily heal all of my teammates through the damage they were taking.
Thank you for your help, Adventurers! We look forward to hearing back from you!
As you progress through the Icewind Dale campaign and earn black ice equipment, you’ll unlock the opportunity to confront Akar Kessell, the vile wizard who’s been behind most of the recent problems in the Dale.
Overview
Kessell’s Retreat is an Epic Skirmish – a fast-paced battle through the wizard’s lair high atop Kelvin’s Cairn, culminating in an encounter with Kessell himself. It’s intended to be the capstone experience of Icewind Dale in terms of difficulty, so not only have we gated it behind the Icewind Dale campaign, but we’re requiring that you be wearing four pieces of Corrupted or Purified black ice equipment to enter.
We’ve aimed the completion time of Kessell’s Retreat at around fifteen minutes, on average. Completing it gives you a chance to get some of the very best rewards in Icewind Dale, like the black ice pieces you’ll need to complete your black ice set, or even a very special black ice artifact! Plus you’ll be wrapping up the story of Akar Kessell, which started over 100 years ago in the book The Crystal Shard.
Feedback
We want Kessell’s Retreat to feel like the capstone experience of Icewind Dale, both in difficulty and in presentation. It’s an Epic Skirmish, which we haven’t done before, so we want to make sure we’re hitting the mark as best as we can.
So, we want your feedback! Below you’ll find instructions for how to give feedback in such a way that we can most efficiently sort it and then act on it. Please follow those instructions so we can catalog your feedback properly.
Type: Bug/Feedback (Choose only one)
Class: (Enter the class that you played as during your testing here)
Use Bold face text to write out Type & Class at the top of your post, then write the body of your feedback below. If you are listing it as a bug, please put your feedback text in RED; if you are listing it as feedback, please use BLUE.
Try to be as concise as you can with your feedback, and if you can include one or two appropriate screenshots with your post, that will be extremely helpful.
Examples:
Bug: Guardian Fighter
I managed to knock one of the enemies in the third fight behind some kind of invisible barrier, causing it to get stuck. We also couldn’t hit it through this invisible barrier. Here’s a screenshot: [screenshot]
Feedback: Devoted Cleric
The Akar Kessell fight was too easy. I could easily heal all of my teammates through the damage they were taking.
Thank you for your help, Adventurers! We look forward to hearing back from you!
Post edited by urrgghh on
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Comments
Also is it available upon starting the IWD campaign or do you have to finish or partially finish the campaign to get into it , above it says it is gated behind the IWD campaign so it isn't exactly clear, if people have to craft loads of stuff and run a campaign it might not be tested fully , then again I guess you want people to craft and play through the campaign so I don't know lol .
Yes , this is the capstone content. New gear is the black ice gear and that is crafted so there isn't really any need for a whole new dungeon , epic skirmish gives a powerful artifact .
Capstone could have meant "but there's a dungeon you can unlock when you've played the campaign for 48h", like VT or MC. Oh, well, I guess the new zones will keep us busy for some time, and sincerely hope that heroic encounters are a good challenge.
Yeah they are doing this module a lot different to the others and personally I like it , i would have liked a new dungeon but to make up for there not being one there seems to be a nice amount of new stuff to keep us occupied and yeah the heroic encounters sound good if they are done well.
What will we farm for AD?
CN yet again?
I believe that since Black Ice Armor will clearly be superior to other armors (confirmed only for PVP. Probably PVE to), you constantly farming black ice will replace some of that CN farming
Yeah I was thinking this , I think the demand for CN drops will decrease after looking at the black ice gear (well the pvp parts in that video ) its supposedly easy to craft so who's going to spend lots of AD on drops that they will only have to salvage in a matter of a couple of weeks.
You use the new profession to craft the purified or corrupted black ice gear .
u can buy black ice gear for 9k black ice per part but idk will this gear work or u have to have crafting sets
It needs to be either purified or corrupted so you need to buy the basic gear then enhance it using the profession.
so how should we craft purified or corrupted when we will need drop from skirmish to craft it
Was unable to order from the dwarves for the daily quest. I forget what you needed to order, but after doing the daily quests I was sent to the forge (or something) to order something, it was bugged and wouldnt let me through...
Not sure what this is doing in the Kessel's Retreat thread unless I'm missing something.
Do you refer to the Campaign? If so, this might help you: http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?635371-Official-Feedback-Thread-Icewind-Dale-PvE-Campaign&p=7603091&viewfull=1#post7603091
Feedback regarding the black Ice gear requirement.
Considering that the black ice gear is pretty much worthless for me as a DC, I am not going to waste my time on getting that - which means I will be locked out of this skirmish.
Not fun. I was looking forward to this.
I think they are doing that because of black ice damage. Wearing four black ice pieces gives you a minimum of 27% resistance to black ice damage. That is likely a large portion of the damage you will take in that skirmish.
You can buy the basic gear in Caer Konig , the materials drop randomly in the Heroic encounters that happen in the adventure zones then when you have collected the stuff you need you use the new profession to make the gear
The set bonuses just don't do it for me and I like the current bonuses for my current gear.
Can we please have the skirmish unlocked on preview server without the need to play 35 days and unlock the campaign? Assuming the corrupt gear can be obtainable from an NPC this will allow use to attempt the skirmish with a variety of party compositions and gear and give feedback on its tuning and especially the relevance of black ice damage.
While initially I was disappointed it's not a dungeon I've revised my position. In terms of design I'm actually happy for the capstone content to be a short skirmish with a challenging boss mechanic. After all, all the dungeons were just clearing piles of trash to end boss, and given the chance the majority of players would skip/ clear the trash encounters as fast as possible to get to the boss. This previously was via various skips/exploits/running to campfires and stacking CWs for massive AoE.
In a skirmish setting you basically get straight to the boss after a number of encounters and then attempt the fight with some decent rewards. This reduces the need for exploiting, reduce the need to stack CW to clear 'trash' encounter faster and makes it more open/accessible to parties of various class compositions.
Edit: No I haven't tried skirmish so have no idea how hard/easy it is. Hopefully it'll be unlocked without having to grind the campaign so we can provide feedback.
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Ehm, I may sound like a fool here, but did you get to try the skirmish?
A short skirmish with a challenging boss that gives a decent shot at some sweet rewards would be indeed a fantastic capstone. However, and without bashing the devs, I must point out that the current skirmishes do not quite...fullfil those criteria. In fact, I would qualify them rather close to "clearing pile of trash". I would really love a skirmish where you could wipe, where there is a boss or some mechanic that need coordination and skill, and by that I don't mean "cover the floor in red and throw adds at us until our computers collapse".
It would be REALLY wise to have a way to test the skirmish at intended gear.
This is an epic skirmish, so it is likely it will be much more challenging than current skirmishes.