Official M16: Difficulty Issues and Unexpected Deaths

asterdahl · March 2019

Difficulty Issues and Unexpected Deaths

Greetings adventurers, Asterdahl here. Those of you who have had a chance to play on the preview server may have noticed inconsistencies in the difficulty of enemies or zones. Know that if you're getting unexpectedly hit for hundreds of thousands of damage by a spider, that's a bug, we're not aiming to make Neverwinter more punishing in Module 16.

Here are a few types of issue related to unexpected difficulty:

The campaign zone or dungeon you are is more difficult than expected across the board. Fights take exceptionally longer than usual, and enemies can kill you very easily.
An enemy you encountered is unexpectedly much, much stronger than nearby enemies.
An enemy you were fighting and seemed fine suddenly one-shot you with no warning at all.
You encountered an enemy who was a higher level than the rest of the enemies in the surrounding area.

This list is just an example, and is by no means exhaustive. We'd like to ask for your help in identifying these issues so we can address them as quickly as possible, so that everyone can focus on testing the Module 16 changes, uninterrupted by unexpected spikes in difficulty. Many of you have already been posting logs of your character being one shot, or similar stories on various class threads and the general thread. And we appreciate that and are already looking into those cases.

Moving forward, we ask that you centralize bug reports related to unexpected deaths or spikes in difficulty here so we can better triage the reports. I'd also like to ask that you provide as much information as possible. If you can, please provide the following information when posting your experiences.

Necessary Information
Please make every effort to include the information listed in this section, without it, we can't do much to investigate your issue.

Your character's name on the preview server.
Your class.
Your level.
Your item level.
What zone you were in.
What enemy or enemies killed you or were more difficult than expected.
A brief description of what happened.

Additional Information
If possible, we'd greatly appreciate if you could provide as much of this additional information as possible, it will help us to move through the reports and feedback more quickly, but if you don't have it on hand that's okay. Also, feel free to go back and edit your post to include the information after you've already made it.

Your defensive ratings, either listed out or in screenshot form. Most importantly, defense.
The power the enemy killed you with or was stronger than expected.
If you were killed unexpectedly by a power, the amount of damage that power did to you.
If possible, a transcript of your combat log leading up to and including the lethal damage. (Screenshots are fine.)
Any other information you can include would be great, screenshot of your character's equipment page, insignia page, boon page, companion page, etc.

We greatly appreciate your help as we work to catch and resolve the various issues negatively affecting difficulty as quickly as possible. Know that we are working on these issues already, and that we are putting new logging onto the preview server with this week's build to help us track down these problems even quicker.

Thank you all for your time.

Known Issues

The companion player bonus "Chicken's Instinct" has a triggered effect which is currently causing enemies to deal excessive damage. We have a fix in for this week's build, in the meantime we ask that you unequip the player bonus "Chicken's Instinct" until this issue is resolved.

obsidiancran3 · March 2019

Do you want feedback on Varakandoom here as well, or leave that in its own thread? (Because the whole zone suffers from this and it’s final quest is worse.)

asterdahl · March 2019

obsidiancran3 said:
Do you want feedback on Varakandoom here as well, or leave that in its own thread? (Because the whole zone suffers from this and it’s final quest is worse.)

With the newer zones, since they have their own specific threads, its fine if you put your bug report in either place, with that said—if its a specific enemy, especially in cases where you are suddenly and unexpectedly one shot, please direct those reports here.

Thank you for asking for clarification!

wisper2048 · March 2019

Please add "known problems" section to the original post. For example, Dread Ring that was reported multiple times on the forum by others.

asterdahl · March 2019

asterdahl said:

Known Issues

The companion player bonus "Chicken's Instinct" has a triggered effect which is currently causing enemies to deal excessive damage. We have a fix in for this week's build, in the meantime we ask that you unequip the player bonus "Chicken's Instinct" until this issue is resolved.

Just wanted to take a brief moment to bump this thread with a major known issue. Those of you who have been following things closely will already be aware of this issue, but I wanted to make sure it gets the proper visibility.

thefabricant · March 2019

So far I have gone solo through eCC, eGWD, eLoL, eSoT and KR. None of them were particularly challenging, I could just pull every monster pack into a single group and kill them all at once. I also tried Malabog's Castle, this was a little more challenging and I had to fight monster packs one at a time. I think this has closer to the correct scaling, but I suspect it is still too easy in a group of 5.

My character has an Item Level of 21354, is a Control Wizard, has the name M16 CW@thefabricant.

rickcase276 · March 2019

Sure they may be fairly easy for a near BiS group of 5, or even a near BiS solo player, but that does not mean it will be the same for the average player or average group of 5. They have to keep that balance to where casuals do not get frustrated with the game, and give it up. Yes it is a delicate balance keeping both hardcore and casuals engaged, but it is something they have to do, and not just cater to one side or the other. I would say try running it at say 11-13k ilevel and see if it is the same experience for you, as that is more the ilevel that casual players would have. That would give a better gauge for how it needs to be balanced.

dashat · March 2019

When doing the quest "What Lies Below", in the catacombs area, I've come across a level 80 Undead Twisted Warden, which one-shotted my level 70 warlock (Irann Loyalar 1, IL 13,9k).

thefabricant · March 2019

Here is a video that illustrates what these dungeons are like for me atm (I picked eSoT because it is the shortest of them, but all of the ones listed above except MC was like this).

https://youtu.be/fi7Ouwo3Rtk

mdarkangel · March 2019

I was able to solo Vartilingorix (Ebon Downs dragon) in under two minutes with only At-Wills and Encounters. Seems a bit too easy. Character Sheet below for reference.

For comparison, I was lucky enough to find an instance with only one other player on Live that left before the dragon showed up leaving me to solo there as well (at least until the dragon was at 50% when a SW showed up to help). Even with the help it took almost 6 minutes to down the dragon.

obsidiancran3 · March 2019

I didn't believe thefabricant's ease of completing eSoT, so I grabbed my SW that I stuggled through Vanrakdoom on and gave it a spin. I smashed through it pretty much as his video shows (except I'm not as good at this game play stuff as him).

Vanrakdoom was far, far harder than eSoT!

Character screenshot:

dressroba · March 2019

i did a tong run and i did notice 2 big bugs the hulks( mobs ) aoe bugged it's insta one shot the team even when we reve with scroll it's a one shot , also last boss all aoe one shot everyone even the tank .

dressroba · March 2019

i did vt 2 times and the ghosts one the aoe phase in the last boss are bugged they don't even move .

dressroba · March 2019

i did mc with a team and it was very hard ( alot more hard than tong run i did , with same team ) mobs very tank but bosses ok . not sure if this is scale right to a 9 il lvl dungeon .

Unknown · March 2019

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dressroba · March 2019

i finsh it by dazing the hulks and killing them fast but we still died , we didn't cheat in the run and use artifact dmg but we had just to kill the last boss , also one thing i forgot the souls on the last boss in tong had alot of hp .

Unknown · March 2019

This content has been removed.

hustin1 · March 2019

iamsmokingone#2455 said:

dressroba said:
i did a tong run and i did notice 2 big bugs the hulks( mobs ) aoe bugged it's insta one shot the team even when we reve with scroll it's a one shot , also last boss all aoe one shot everyone even the tank .
did tong, same experience, but the hulk part i've grown used to possibly my whole team dying and me facing the group of hulks and necromancers and wraiths alone...so i kite them to the campfire. the red aoe at ras nsi killed my entire team everytime it happened, and regardless of the pattern, i abandoned the dungeon after everyone died 2-3 times to the aoe because i'd seen enough.

Wow. Now THAT brings back memories. When Mod 6 first launched that was the ONLY way to defeat the competing adventuring party unless someone had a Cloak of Lesser Etherealness -- and we died a LOT in the process.

And for the curious: if I was playing someone who had the cloak, everyone else would have to pull the adventuring party out of the room while I hid in the corner. At the door to the room with the gnolls and the hexer, I'd use the cloak. It was just barely enough to run through the room without being seen. Then I'd open the portcullis from that side, and everyone else would have to die to reset the boss(es). The irony is that that tactic felt the most D&D-like (well, except for everyone else dying, of course). Ideally we'd have a TR roll for move silently and hide in shadows and do it instead of my HR/DC/CW using their "Stealth for Dummies" book. It was probably the first time the cloak had ever been actually necessary to do something.

(And, no, it's NOT an exploit. It's a legitimate use of an item for its intended purpose. I'd actually like to see mechanics require its use in the future. Thinking our way through a situation is fun.)

asterdahl · March 2019

Thank you everyone for the reports! We greatly appreciate it.

Just a reminder to everyone, this thread is for posting reports about unexpected deaths or issues with scaling. Basically, content that is either notably too difficult or too easy. I went through this thread and purged out some more general feedback on scaling, and random discussions.

We are happy to receive all of that feedback, but please direct it to the appropriate threads. Considering the high priority nature of the issue this thread is dealing with, and that we would like to be able to easily navigate it and track down issues, I will be deleting posts judiciously. Please don't take offense if I delete your post, it's nothing personal!

Also, I won't be responding in this thread a lot, but we are keeping a very close eye on your reports. Many thanks!

obsidiancran3 · March 2019

So its been a busy night already....

Been running HEs in Terminus and Twisted and had 3 different experiences, firstly in Terminus I had 2 unexpected deaths.

Death 1

Death 2

Second in Terminus I had unexpected difficulty with mobs in a HE:
(Forgot to get my stats in the HE - sorry)
https://youtu.be/Gq05ImuGBiA

Third in Twisted where everything worked "as expected" and where I got my stats in the HE (at start) and normal (at the end).
https://youtu.be/qonEVV4wz0w

In both vids I have the Combat Log visible.

hustin1 · March 2019

One (almost) unexpected death came from an ogre during the expedition to Wyllowwood. It was at the part where you get to the lake with the sad wraith. Before mitigation, the damage was over 300k and after mitigation it was about 180k. I had barely enough HP to withstand it (and a defense of 51k -- my HR is as tanky as I know how to build). Anyway, it seemed way out of whack with everything else up to that point.

skrewfaz3d · March 2019

So far, the experience seems to be that zones that are about 4 (3-5) levels under the player is equal to the difficulty in previous mods. For example, I just got done doing the plague tower as a level 24 and the mobs were level 19. I was able to combat groups of 5-6 no real issues with using a healer companion from the quest. Now, Blackdagger Ruins next for artifact recovery quest (level 21): I zone in at character level 25. Trash mobs outside are level 23. No big issue, go in the cave, and I get swarmed by a group of level 24 enemies die, repeat situation, I then get past thanks to a radiant charge, get into the zone which is scaled to 21, no real issues there, get out and it's "them" again. Completing Plague tower was pretty fun, slightly easy. Artifact recovery was not due to the experience in between.

Edit: It seems to be related to mobs that use 'Slam.'
Class: Paladin Item level: 2,448

kopisusu36b · March 2019

Solo CN Private queue first mob encounter, and died suddenly.
[10:18] [Combat (Self)] Shadow Demon deals 77470 (134600) Physical Damage to you with Claw.
[10:18] [Combat (Self)] Glabrezu deals 200062 (348000) Physical Damage to you with Pincer.

Using paladin justicar lvl 75. HP and rating downscaling from normal inside CN.
Total IL 18212 inside CN, Defense rating 25,546.
Using Negation rank 13 as armor enchantment and holy avenger rank 14 as wep enchantment

2nd try
[15:35] [Combat (Self)] Your Block absorbs 208084 damage from Glabrezu's Power Word Stun.
[15:35] [Combat (Self)] Glabrezu deals 172564 (607287) Psychic Damage to you with Power Word Stun.
[15:35] [Combat (Self)] Glabrezu gives 0 Hold to you with Power Word Stun.
[15:36] [Combat (Self)] Not enough Divinity.
[15:36] [Combat (Self)] Barlgura deals 263507 (320546) Fire Damage to you with Phantasmal Force.

After Barlgura attacked, my paladin died again.

Even with absolution, tab and block, my hitpoint only left with 36k from Glabrezu attack.

motu999 · March 2019

Master of the Hunt (MoH), lvl64 skirmish is far too difficult.

Dread Ring skirmish had the same problems as MoH on the first preview release (March 1), but was fixed in the first patch (March 6 or so). Dread Ring is fine now. Takes longer as on live, but that was to be expected.

Assuming Dread Ring now has the difficulty level intended, MoH (a lower level skirmish) is far too difficult.

My Character on preview:

Manja
Barbarian Blademaster lvl 71
IL ~16k
Healing Companion (Lillend)

On MoH there are ~10 mini-bosses with adds that need to be killed before you reach the "real" boss.
Every mini boss has the potential to nearly insta-kill my barb.
It is the combination of hard hitting attacks from mini-boss and additional cc from the adds
- circular red area with rather larger size lits up
- difficult to sprint away from it, because rather large size (slower classes will have even more difficulties)
- when caught in red area: hit takes more than 50% health and stuns
- second hit (or adds) kill before you get out of stun
- one small mistake (or out of stamina when red area lits up), its over

Bottom line: a lvl 64 skirmish is far more difficult than the (reworked) lvl 70 skirmish

Other observations:
- all weapon enchantments tested so far randomly go from 5% additional damage (rank 14) to 0.05% or 0% (could be a side-effect of scaling)
- armor enchantment (negation) shows +0.03% or even +0.00% damage reduction in all zones (not just the scaled zones)
- I tested the dread ring zone and the lairs with my Barb (same setup as above). Everything rather easily doable (~50% slower than on live, but thats within expectations). Taking Dread Ring Zone and the 5-man Dread Ring Skirmish as an indicator of the difficulty intended in MOD 16, MoH is far far far too difficult

thefabricant · March 2019

After this patch, these dungeons can still be soloed:

Would have been a lot faster if I had played carefully, but I approached it with the same mindset as from last week. For reference, this same character did it as follows last week:

I think this is better, but still needs improvement.

obsidiancran3 · March 2019

I just completed a Master Expedition with drow in it, they ranged from easy to dying when I glanced in their direction with my just under 20k il Warlock (Obsidian Oath). I suspect some were spawning in well below the required level of 80 (Priestess in particular.)

Oh the Brood Mother boss in the Expeditions went from a simple solo challenge to dying easily.

motu999 · March 2019

thefabricant said:
After this patch, these dungeons can still be soloed:

Would have been a lot faster if I had played carefully, but I approached it with the same mindset as from last week. For reference, this same character did it as follows last week:

I think this is better, but still needs improvement.

You have been doing this with your 21k IL level, right? Thats the about the highest IL possible in MOD 16?
I am not so much concerned about the topmost bis-players being able to solo a (rather old) dungeon. I am more concerned whether the players in the mid-IL range (15-16k) can complete it without dying constantly.

Not quite sure what the difference in effectiveness currently is in MOD 16, e.g. is it a factor of 2, 3, or some different factor between you (21k IL) and the majority of players that queue into that dungeon (more around 12-13k). If it is soloable for a 16k I would be concerned.

thefabricant · March 2019

motu999#9953 said:

thefabricant said:
After this patch, these dungeons can still be soloed:

Would have been a lot faster if I had played carefully, but I approached it with the same mindset as from last week. For reference, this same character did it as follows last week:

I think this is better, but still needs improvement.
You have been doing this with your 21k IL level, right? Thats the about the highest IL possible in MOD 16?
I am not so much concerned about the topmost bis-players being able to solo a (rather old) dungeon. I am more concerned whether the players in the mid-IL range (15-16k) can complete it without dying constantly.

Not quite sure what the difference in effectiveness currently is in MOD 16, e.g. is it a factor of 2, 3, or some different factor between you (21k IL) and the majority of players that queue into that dungeon (more around 12-13k). If it is soloable for a 16k I would be concerned.

There shouldn't be too much of a difference between this character and a much less geared character. The way the combined rating works, makes it impossible for me to correctly distribute stats. So although I have much more stats then say a 12k character, they are in stats that I am way overcapped in and cannot benefit from at all. For example, this character has 60k crit, but only needs 46.5k, but I have no way to move that crit to power because I am forced to take it due to the way stats work in m16.

motu999 · March 2019

thefabricant said:

motu999#9953 said:

thefabricant said:
After this patch, these dungeons can still be soloed:

Would have been a lot faster if I had played carefully, but I approached it with the same mindset as from last week. For reference, this same character did it as follows last week:

I think this is better, but still needs improvement.
You have been doing this with your 21k IL level, right? Thats the about the highest IL possible in MOD 16?
I am not so much concerned about the topmost bis-players being able to solo a (rather old) dungeon. I am more concerned whether the players in the mid-IL range (15-16k) can complete it without dying constantly.

Not quite sure what the difference in effectiveness currently is in MOD 16, e.g. is it a factor of 2, 3, or some different factor between you (21k IL) and the majority of players that queue into that dungeon (more around 12-13k). If it is soloable for a 16k I would be concerned.
There shouldn't be too much of a difference between this character and a much less geared character. The way the combined rating works, makes it impossible for me to correctly distribute stats. So although I have much more stats then say a 12k character, they are in stats that I am way overcapped in and cannot benefit from at all. For example, this character has 60k crit, but only needs 46.5k, but I have no way to move that crit to power because I am forced to take it due to the way stats work in m16.

I hear you. No critique on your testing. The problem just is, that we are mostly forced to do the testing solo, and then extrapolate how it might be for the typical group. Given that we do not really know the difference in effectiveness between a bis-player and a "badly geared" entry level player, when MOD 16 goes live, it is difficult to provide useful feedback.

EDIT:
The easiest way for the Devs to adjust the difficulty level of a dungeon is to scale up the magnitude of the attacks. Changing the frequency of attacks or the attack pattern, changing the attacks themselves, is far more difficult. So I guess that is what the Devs will do or already have done, reacting to your feedback.

Given what I just said in the newly edited piece of text, what I am concerned about is not the overcapping, its the hit points you have. If you have, for instance, more than twice the hitpoints of the typical player, attacks that just barely don't one-shot you, will surely one-shot the less well geared players.

Not sure if hitpoints are capped as well. What the devs should really avoid is to have the typical player one-shotted by a single attack (or a combo that cannot be avoided). In fact, that was one of the main reason for the revamp, not to be one of two states: fully healed or dead.

So it might be useful to look at your hitpoints and compare them to a lvl70 player with green gear from the Underdark-Intro quest, because such a player will be almost certainly be eligible to queue for Lostmauth. One also needs to figure in, that you are fully capped at damage reduction (mitigation). A lvl 70 with green gear will likely not be fully capped. So the hits (s)he takes will be much harder (possibly twice as hard, taking the non-capped counter-stats into account).

Essentially the magnitude of the attacks should be adjusted in such a way, that the entry level player takes, say at most 50% damage (undercapped damage mitigation and counter-stats taken into account), so that the healer has a chance to heal before the next attack kills.

thefabricant · March 2019

motu999#9953 said:

thefabricant said:

motu999#9953 said:

thefabricant said:
After this patch, these dungeons can still be soloed:

Would have been a lot faster if I had played carefully, but I approached it with the same mindset as from last week. For reference, this same character did it as follows last week:

I think this is better, but still needs improvement.
You have been doing this with your 21k IL level, right? Thats the about the highest IL possible in MOD 16?
I am not so much concerned about the topmost bis-players being able to solo a (rather old) dungeon. I am more concerned whether the players in the mid-IL range (15-16k) can complete it without dying constantly.

Not quite sure what the difference in effectiveness currently is in MOD 16, e.g. is it a factor of 2, 3, or some different factor between you (21k IL) and the majority of players that queue into that dungeon (more around 12-13k). If it is soloable for a 16k I would be concerned.
There shouldn't be too much of a difference between this character and a much less geared character. The way the combined rating works, makes it impossible for me to correctly distribute stats. So although I have much more stats then say a 12k character, they are in stats that I am way overcapped in and cannot benefit from at all. For example, this character has 60k crit, but only needs 46.5k, but I have no way to move that crit to power because I am forced to take it due to the way stats work in m16.
I hear you. No critique on your testing. The problem just is, that we are mostly forced to the testing solo, and then extrapolate how it might be for the typical group. Given that we do not really know what difference in effectiveness we will have in MOD 16, when it goes live, between a bis-player and a "badly geared" entry level player, it is difficult to provide useful feedback.

What I am concerned is not the overcapping, its the hit points you have. If you have, for instance, more than twice the hitpoints of the typical player, attacks that just barely don't one-shot you, will surely one-shot the less well geared players. Not sure if hitpoints are capped as well. What the devs should really avoid is to have the typical player one-shotted by a single attack (or a combo that cannot be avoided). In fact, that was one of the main reason for the revamp, not to be one of two states: fully healed or dead. So it might be useful to look at your hitpoints and compare them to a lvl70 player with green gear from the Underdark-Intro quest, because such a player will be almost certainly be eligible to queue for Lostmauth. The magnitude of the attacks should be adjusted in such a way, that the player takes, say at most 50% damage, so that the healer has a chance to heal before the next attack kills.

The 1st and 2nd boss 1 hit me anyhow, I have to dodge every attack otherwise I just die.

obsidiancran3 · March 2019

I haven't tried LoL, but I found the same things as @thefabricant in eSoT and my iL is not 20k in full Spy Gear, Mountain Weapons and all boons, and before patch when I tried it my iL was significantly lower. I basically didn't see the point in duplicating his work further than eSoT. (Besides I already know he's a better player in general than I am, so if I can manage it *shrug*)

Official M16: Difficulty Issues and Unexpected Deaths

Difficulty Issues and Unexpected Deaths

Known Issues

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Known Issues