Test Discussion Survival Mode: Content

Ok.

Overall the boss choices is what the underlying issues are with the new SM. The bosses chosen do not present a danger to the group only the tank but that can be mitigated by range and kyte tanking. This is why even on test server you have seen groups breeze through rounds 1-20 with much lower gear/stats/skillpoints than they would have on live server. Which makes it so that 66% of your new SM season will be beaten easily on live server by multiple groups. If 66% of your SM has been beaten in the first few days of test server that is a concern, despite the roleless buff system which all that would do running with a controller (where some groups did run a 1-1-1-1 setup) is increase the duration of completion by 5-10min which normally would be a concern in past SM's but since the majority of the bosses don't present any risk to the group there is no such concern of wiping. So in actuality as you will see below only 3.5 bosses out of 10 are a risk to the group which puts the onus on the tanks and even in later rounds having 2 tanks to bounce aggro between may mitigate any risks even further from any bosses. Also with not having addressed the imblances in weapon combos you will have the overwelming majority of high rounds be reached with precision only players because of the max damage and max range potential as well as the drastically lower power requirements. Most might s/t users need heat vision which is a channel which would then need to be jump cancelled to avoid any group dangers or to remain mobile where precision users don't have such drawbacks and can stay mobile and flexible while in their flurry shot combos. To have a single target focused survival mode be released where Superpowered and Hybrid are at drastic disadvantages to Weapons Expert is just a recipe for overwhelming favoritism to be showed where in past SM's besides Quantum there was never a required playstyle required for damage. Also because precision users can easily have extra slots available to them they can use Robot Sidekick which would allow for a constant extra npc target and for players like gadgets they can run decoy as a dps which will aid in rez's and tanking where might PFTT users have much harder times freeing up loadout slots.

Boss Round Breakdowns

Lex Luthor
Has been fought in previous SM's and acts the same so there are already strategies in place to mitigate his risk to the group by running multiple pets which give Lex multiple other targets to use his bunker/laser/solarflame power move on instead of players. Also Lex has no follow up attacks when he does do bunker or the laser on the group so even if a player died, unless it was the tank, the rez can be easily gotten without risk of a further wipe.

Suggestions

Have Lex Luthor's primary attacks not be target-able to NPCs

King Shark
Presents no danger to the group as you can remain spread out and see where his swim charge is going to and because this King Shark is the regular version you can lunge it to stop his frenzy even if it hit a player. The wirlpool is slow moving and unless the tank walked into it (which he wont because he will be continually kyting and range tanking as you can't face tank King Shark) the wirlpool also doesn't present any danger to the group. King Sharks difficulty lies in his stomp smash which even at round 12 was doing upwards of 100k so this fight is more on tank survivability than players.

Baron Savage
This more more a tank fight as he is a counter heavy boss where if you face him away from the group there is only 1 attack that can even impact the group which is his jump which is the same from JFA so players are already aware and it is easily avoidable for any player paying attention and is easily telegraphed for the healer to place a shield for extra protection. Also with multiple pets such as henchmen you can block Savage from even jumping which was a strategy for JFA as well.

Johnny Quick
Johnny Quick is fine as a boss choice and presents actual combined difficulty to the group and tank (to a less degree) as you have to remain vigilant about his chain lighting pull and keeping distance from the clones and his tornado pull in will still one shot players if not lunged promptly. If you have the chain lightning at the same time as a clone sequence it will very much lead to a wipe.

Vampire Lord
Vampire Lord is also a fine choice for a boss because once again he actually presents dangers to the tank and group. It is the ONLY SM boss to have adds spawn during his fight which at higher CRs have always presented the largest concern in past SMs. The group would have to dps down each extra npc while watching the pools and the pull-in which would have to have immunity saved for.

Suggestions

Increase the health on the extra NPC spawns

Black Manta
Black Manta's only danger to the group and its not even the group just 1 player is his heat vision, which I have no doubt will one-shot at later rounds but there is no follow up attacks that will endanger the group unless its the tank targeted which from my experience on test and on SS/SSE rarely targets the tank so the group will know a player will die and can be ready for the rez as it won't be a surprise the player died they can be already waiting for the rez. The manta bombs are a small aoe which can easily be avoided and because you need to range/kyte tank manta because of his DW combos his rocket retreat won't impact the tank either.

Suggestions

Have the reduced version of the manta bombs where at least 2-3 players would need to turn the cog in order to stop a damage explosion instead of the random manta bomb placement from Black Manta which can easily be avoided with the size of the room

Deathstroke
Deathstroke being a copy of HIVE tanks already know that his attacks that would hurt the group like the execution etc can be lunged so it because more on the tank than the group to save unnecessary deaths. Currently his staff spin is at the beginning and only once so players can be aware of avoiding that or getting out of range. The IKON suit damage threshold is also very low where even a trinket pet and regular attacks would drop it.

Suggestions

Increase the damage threshold on the IKON suit to account for at least an orbital being required but reduce how many times it can occur during an instance to account for only 4 orbitals being avialable.

Minotaur
This is just a free round that doesn't actually even require a Tank. You can just run around with Minotaur in the middle of the room while at least one player stays the furthest by the chain to taunt his charge. If a player is caught by the charge etc the pushback will most likely kill but once again any player in the entire group tank or not can aggro minotaur because he is proximity aggro based. It just becomes a battle of attrition where the group can kill themselves easier than the minotaur can kill them.

Suggestions

Honestly unknown as this should never have been an SM boss it was a more curious option. Imagine the Harpy, Gorgon, or Phoenix as a SM Round Boss and how much more difficulty that would present to the group instead of the Minotaur..

Ultimate Solider
US is a fine choice for a boss because once again he actually presents a danger to the group throughout his fight where the group members will most likely die from the lightning skull at later rounds (however it seems that he does lightning only 20% of the time compared to USR/E which was in order. US uses flamethrower much more frequently which is only a danger if you get caught in it which is on the group members then as the tank will always be range tanking US which baits US into doing motars which can be lunged each time. The portals on the side of the room seem to do nothing as nothing spawns in them.

Suggestions

Have the portals spawn the npc's that carry the nuke like the in the gentleman ghost fight which would make players be more aware of their surroundings and actually have the portals do something

Ultraman
Ultraman is also a fine choice for a boss because he has multiple attacks that will impact the group like the mines, his orbs, backhands, all of which im sure will near one-shot at later rounds and if there are multiple pickups required in a 4man instance that pretty much leads to a group wipe.


KNOWN BUGS/IS IT WORKING AS INTENDED?

• Roleless buffs were confirmed already

• Is it your intention to have the Progress Points exploited? What I mean by that is in previous SM's if players in the group were missing PP rounds as long as the group leader or a majority vote had the desired PP you could still start at that round. Currently on test server if I have the Round 15 PP but 1 player hasn't even stepped foot in SM that player can get pulled through to round 15. This presents the issue where all a group would need to do is get to Round 24 etc and then can pull in every friend and leaguemate to clear round 25 to get them the Shadow Bat trinket checkpoint or any other reward. Not to mention you could pull in any alts or friends to achieve the highest rounds. Progress Points should be required to be the same for each and every group member to start the instance at that Round or groups will just exploit it.

• It is not known on test server whether or not the lamp of van helsing consumables will work to damage the shadow npcs and or allow the pools to be closed. If this was the case it would turn that Round completely trivial so that must be tested internally or by giving players access to the consumables on test server.

• Currently there is a bug with certain Progress Point rounds such as 15 where if you all start the instance at R15 it will start at Round 1 and you will need to disband and reque in order to get the correct Progress Point Round start

• The bugs mentioned previously about the nukes affecting the health of Ultimate Solider

• Is it intended for movement modes to be enabled? it does raise the concern that groups will exploit keeping themselves and max distance from skull attacks or kyting where you could put the boss in a position where you can permanently have him chase the group. I just fear like say Ultimate Solider you could just zip-line away from him when he flamethrowers and zip line back or ultraman laser just run around in superspeed. I'm sure groups on live will find some sort of exploit similar to flying above the tornado's in ZOOE or flying above tanking the adds in COTE.

• There are cases where Ultraman's freezing breath will not encase you at all

I generally agree but from actual experience the following arent an issue due to:

- Dodging Minotaur Charge: not deadly (includes higher rounds, tested and confirmed by myself)
- Savage's jump: not deadly (includes higher rounds, tested and confirmed by myself) only if you keep standing there it can end deadly but then there is another issue not related to the boss ^^



Aside from that I got another potencial bug report:

We got headlines last night but no feats that should have popped for completing the rounds which are necessary to happen to get access to the vendor items that are locked behind the completed rounds (not a problem on test to get but its gonna be an issue for live for sure). I don't know if it belongs in here or more in the reward thread.

How close is it to a 1shot? I know you tested 10-20 already, but if those aren't 1shots in the 20-30 range, that's somewhat worrisome.

Also not to intentionally blacklist but just to highlight the point that I hope you do stay true to your feedback on speed hackers as if they do it on test server already they certainly will on live server. I know how much of an undertaking it would be to search through all those logs to determine which is legit but I worry the same that say a group struggles on 23 and can't pass it and then exploit through 23 then go back to normal and reach the higher rounds if that type of situation would be accounted for as well. I know its a sensitive subject but its already been done on test they will continue to do it on live.

Well, this just put a damper on my day. Lol

I hope monitoring all of those groups to the point where a group cheesing one round wouldn't go unnoticed is feasible

You mention the difficulties faced with using heat vision in this content.

As a risk/reward idea, do you think buffing heat vision/amplified heat vision is a viable solution to combat the discrepancy between single target might & prec dps?

I'm sure it's not without its flaws, but given how imminent the release is, I can't really think of anything else that could be done.

Without getting into a debate about what the target audience for SM is, I'm sure it benefits everyone to maximise the participation of the target audience.

You're talking about a 2-3k+ dps increase for low tier/medium tier migth based dps to catch up to bare minimum flurry, not even the highest prec powers. And even if you did that, powers such as HL, Gadgets, Celestial would be in a weird place because they don't use Heat Vision normally. Which puts them at the same or bottom tier temporarily. Increasing heat vision by that amount would also make Nature stronger than top end prec powers, which makes it the best dps in scenario for extended damage, whether melee or ranged or single or aoe.

Dang you could have blacked out the left side...

Hi Mepps,

I just wanted to give a differing perspective on this one element so your team can consider it, ultimately it's the developers choice and will be what it will be but... it's said that it will make this round trivial if you can use the consumable, which has an element of truth to it, but I feel it also doesn't.

The consumables have a cool down, so they're not going to be spammed if they are used, they're also a finite resource in the fact that a player has to earn them in game and when they're used, they're used.

I disagree somewhat with the prospect that it'll make the round trivial, using the consumable still requires the player to either put the consumable in their load out on the fly during the fight or sacrifice something for it.

Closing the pools also requires a player to undertake that task, taking them away from other tasks they might otherwise be doing momentarily and closing pools for example in certain places or in all places would simply be a strategic move by the players where they could either do this and "waste" consumables or take advantage of what they've earned in game elsewhere.

In my opinion the better option wouldn't be to prevent a player from closing pools, you could also include the NPC's that recreate them so that even if the pools are closed, it's for a short period and not permanent that way it's simply incorporated as a completely viable strategy to close them, essentially the boss mechanics are simply identical to that which a player has already experience and identical to the experience with all other SM bosses.

How would you figure that it doesn't make the round trivial? The extra NPC spawn and the pools are the only thing between making it a multi-dimensional fight and just a regular burn 1 boss and be done round. There are no other vital trinkets that need to be used continually on your utility belt. The tank can have immunity cleanse for the pull in to the pools thus not needing players to have the breakout trinket. Vampire Lord doesn't have abilities that target pet npc's like Lex so there isn't a real need to have boos/shadows/seahorse etc out the entire fight its just simply extra damage. Supply drops are situational but if its a 1-1-1-1 setup the Vampire Lord as no massive aoe attacks and the only risk comes from the pool damage and the snake aoe which if you are closing the pools it defeats that purpose. The pools and npc's don't respawn after you have defeated them so not having the pools and even if the NPC spawn wasn't tied to the pool they don't have enough health currently to warrant orbitals & having the damage consumables from the lamp. The danger in that round comes from 1 tank handling the Vampire Lord & the extra NPC which is alot of damage at once especially in the later rounds so a consumable that would greatly decrease how long that npc was alive for seriously impacts the rounds difficulty.

Not sure what "other tasks" the 3 other players would be doing in the instance, if the choice is between lets close the pool to make the round significantly easier or continue to jump around and dps pointlessly because there isn't enough damage at that point to kill the tank nor wipe the group. There is also no "waste" as you have a set number of npc and pool spawns & you would only have to do it 3 separate rounds in all of survival mode than you would have the progress points to skip the rounds in the future. If you have to "waste" consumables that are already made tradable in game on 3 rounds and then you're done and never need them again not sure how that can be considered "waste"

I would like to test certain things as I fear the worst in terms of max possible round but test doesnt give me the max attainable stats compared to live. Considering we went to 20 without any real issues but disconnects or food breaks (need to find a way to forbid eating in my groups -_-') and only 20 began to be interesting and after its going to be easy again for a couple of rounds cause 10/20/30 boss is such a difficulty difference, yeah... .

I'm open to devs/cm to invite a group of mine for a live run with our stats and to straight start at 21 and check certain things on the list we've collected. I know they already done this but Mr. "Tactical Guy" (hello opti ^^) has already went through the footage with timers, damage analysis and more and has a list on how to "bypass" certain mechanics. I also found a way to pass high round adds if they do too much dmg. So yeah to use your words "somewhat worrisome" ;-)

As already pointed out by Mepps, I'm not here to argue about our disagreements, I could outline all the areas I disagree with you Chill but what's the point it'll just instigate an ongoing debate and we still won't agree, which Mepps has already told us to avoid. My feedback was for Mepps, enjoy your day buddy

Van Helsing consumables are intended to work in the Vampire Lord SM encounter with the exception of the Illuminating Touch consumable, which is grayed out in this instance so you can't use it and waste it.

You can use the pyre, stun, and immunity to pool damage consumables at this point in time.

There will be a box of food and a lamp put up in an upcoming build for you to test now that you have tested the content without the consumables.

Millbarge will make necessary adjustments to the creature spawns as needed based on the feedback with the consumables in play.

It really doesn't matter because the point stands that there shouldn't be an outside consumable that greatly benefits you that isn't apart of the instance. Why don't we just have qwa-bombs impact bosses then? Your argument would be well yes qwa-bombs will effect SM bosses but you have to "waste" them so that makes it ok? The lamp of van helsing was created to help with the NPC's in the RISING DARKNESS ALERT this survival mode is not the rising darkness alert it's just a copy and paste of npc's from the alert. Consumables that drastically assist you a JLD Episode Alert shouldn't translate to a Survival Mode Season.

That's a shame its basically just Qwa-Bombs 2.0 for making Survival Mode easier. It comes down to not the players own abilities completing the rounds its just using consumables off cooldown to make the fight easier because it can be completed without the consumables. The only way to justify the consumable use would be to make it so that the NPC continually respawn throughout the encounter besides just the 3 times.

Tank stuns the NPC for 10 seconds with radiant light and the other 3 group members spam Pyre until it dies

Test it out and get back to us with the results. Values of said stuns, or even whether stuns work here or not, etc. are all things that can be changed based on actual test result feedback/videos.

We've already turned off one Van Helsing consumable here. Currently the values stand as on Live but are subject to change, as is anything in this Survival Mode.

I'll certainly take a look and let you know their impact. My fear is that I shouldn't have an "advantage" just because my inventory looks like this.


Even in past SM's Chronometric Emitters stopped having the stun effect after certain rounds and to make matters worse Round 25 which is Vampire Lord is the round lockout for the Shadow Bat trinket pet so we have outside consumables possibly making it easier to reach the round lockout for the pet damage trinket instead of said group relying on their own abilities.

Why shouldn't you have an advantage, did you not earn those consumables? Are other people prohibited from earning them too?

Thanks for the clarity, much appreciated i agree with the decision and will try to get time to check it out

I assume his point is that the same argument can be made for Qwa-bombs. You earn those as well.

You do but read the tool tip for them, last i checked it says they damage all adds but have no effect on bosees. They also do additional damage to qwa NPCs etc. There's actually no legitimate reason to suggest people can't use them other than people in certain circles suggesting they're cheese.

They also are a finite resource obtained only in one piece of content, the anniversary event, they also have diminishing effect as intended.

Teekl was an example of a broken effect though cause obviously he is a boss.

People need to spend a bit of time reading tool tips, if the item says it does something then it does something regardless of what people think of them subjectively, they're a part of the game to be used as they state so long as their use doesn't fall outside of the description.

Im only addressing this for the sake of addressing it but won't discuss it further lest it derail the thread