Test Discussion Episode 44: Infernal Kahndaq (open world)

Discussion in 'Testing Feedback' started by JackFrost, Oct 12, 2022.

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  1. JackFrost Developer

    Hello!

    With the new episode launching on PCTest, this is the thread we'll be most closely monitoring for feedback about Infernal Kahndaq, where the daily and weekly missions can be tackled.

    Please chime in here if you have any questions, find any bugs, or have any feedback about the open world content, or the "Sins of Black Adam" over-arching 'pointer' mission.

    We appreciate your assistance in helping test the new content, and I want to give a special shout out to the advanced testers!
    • Like x 6
  2. Wonder Boi Well-Known Player

    Those Animal Headed creatures hit like Injustice. Are they supposed to?
  3. Cordelia Well-Known Player

    There are regular ones that are as weak as other adds, and there are monstrosities that hit MUCH harder and are worth 10 of the others in the counter feat.
  4. myandria Item Storage

    I had a chance to test this the other day; very interesting.

    I am not sure how lower leveled buffed characters are going to handle the harder animal headed lead henchmen; they can break your blocks and ignore part or all of your shields, depending upon a character's stats and CR level.

    Kandaq is a smaller map with tight causeways and spaces on the ground. I found it easy to accidentally kite enemies behind me if I were passing through; the enemies follow you for quite a distance and that will attract another group. Is it intended for the groups to "ally aggro" so quickly and easily? If so, then I can see players getting into trouble very fast just by taking out one group only to aggro another one and with very little room to get out of the way if they are not flying.

    Although Infernal Kandaq is bigger than the lower level 8-main raid, it is still smaller and feels 'tighter' in space as far as moving from place to place.

    Also to note, if two groups/solo players are in the same area they could accidentally cause a wipe if they aggro too many mobs and can't take them out quickly. Using trinket/artifact pets and henchmen/sidekicks will attract aggro other mobs, so they must be used with caution and experience.

    In my opinion, I think the entry level should be CR 30 for this one; the struggle is going to be very real for those who do not have access to all of their powers, with or without artifacts or allies.

    Note: I was using a lower level characters, (CR 275, CR 300) and a higher level character (CR 373) to test the differences in difficulty between them. Conclusion: I would not bring a character lower than CR350 into Infernal Kandaq; but, that's just my opinion.
  5. Catastrophic Repercussion Dedicated Player

    We need the teleporter for Injustice to be separate from the HoL one. It's been done before, surely you can do that again. Convenience for everyone.
  6. moonstone New Player

    Not much i know, but felt like the ceiling is a bit low in that one.
    Obvi that made sense for the 8 players raid, but for an open world it would make it more immersive, less like a restricted area. There was some work on the dust and atmospheric perspective.
    Just a suggestion passing by, i loved that it was raised a bit in the previous episode. Anyways that's just my personal opinion :)
    • Like x 3
  7. Regan LadyMastermind New Player

    I would be 100% happy if you could raise the ceiling, (and/or) slightly play with the borders limits to reach the desert level. Even if it is empty it would give sense of freedom and not give the feeling of being stuck in an area where we hit corners and top. We could escape mobs easily too, after farming intensively it would be life changing. Other than that, i love it :)
    • Like x 2
  8. Catastrophic Repercussion Dedicated Player

    So I tested out the Injustice Bounty by soloing:

    My only suggestion is to have a 24/7 grounding area effect. That one grounding move is near useless and flight users can easily cheese Burning Injustice.
    Otherwise, my complaint would be everything blends in with each other but I doubt there's anything good that can be done with that.

    The teleport to the bonus bounty pops up from time to time.

    and while we're on that, I'd like to see a separate teleporter for House of Legends.
    People can easily misclick when they're going back to the mission hub.
  9. BumblingB I got better.

    Please don't add a permanent grounding effect to an open world area.
    • Like x 5
  10. GermanM Committed Player


    No
  11. Cordelia Well-Known Player

    I agree with this. If cheesing via flying is an issue, give the boss a few more grounding attacks. But don't make it permanent.
  12. BumblingB I got better.

    Yeah, I agree with this. A good example of them adding grounding/pull down effects would be the Brine Hulk and Swarm Mother. Both knock you out of the sky and ground. It really didn't change a whole lot of difficulty for them.

    The only bounty i know of that is strictly flying cheese is the Conquerer Starro. As a flyer can just stay flying the whole time, while the other 2 movement modes have to fend for themselves at ground level.

    Having a permanent ground effect just makes that area terrible to explore. There should not be a permanent grounding effect in anything. (Not to be confused with permanent no movement mode, like that JLD or 31st raids. More like how they "fixed" Paradox Wave. -_-)
    • Like x 1
  13. Catastrophic Repercussion Dedicated Player

    If you watched the video or even played it yourself, they have already installed your "good example".
    They does next to nothing to prevent players from avoiding melee or floor mechanics.

    And don't get me started on Mother and Hulk being some of the most "flight" cheese friendly bosses in the game, where compulsory swimming makes everyone benefit from that . It's in the past, I won't ask for them to update the mechanics.

    It's a near empty boss stage. There's nothing to explore but boss there. You don't like the effect is your business, but it's the most straightforward solution to the hole the Devs drugged in regards to mechanics.
  14. BumblingB I got better.

    Do you think rocket jump or back flip out cheese too? I saw your video and players can do that as well.

    It's an unnecessary environmental element that does nothing but cause problems for the average player. This is a shared space that can have around 35-40 players at one time. Especially when the DLC is new, it wont matter if you are cheesing at a distance or standing right next to it, it will be dead rather quickly. So all the spammers that do it week one will have the grind on it, while anyone who starts later and has to go backwards will just be SOL I guess. Make sure we have the ability to have artificial difficulty in an open world area. Gotcha! Understood.
    • Like x 1
  15. Catastrophic Repercussion Dedicated Player

    False equivalence. I'm actually on the ground. The jump can fail to activate. You can dodge and kite to achieve the same effect, whether you have the skill to do that I don't know.

    You can't even name what problem it will cause other than just because.
    The boss is already ridiculously easy as it stands, the fire doesn't last that long and adds die ridiculously quick even with a small group.
    Just making the boss a little more meaningful to fight and you all throw a hissy fit.

    You don't want difficulty? The boss doesn't even have the correct episode CR. I could have just not let the devs know that but since you irritate me for daring to expect the boss to be more than a pew pew pew fest, now you'll have to spend maybe 30 secs more to finish the boss fight. Poor you.
  16. BumblingB I got better.

    Yes poor me. Poor poor me.

    And yes, it will cause problems. If you like that, good for you, but I would say you are probably in the minority. Having your movement turned off immediately when you enter an area is by far the most frustrating element they introduced in the game. It is an artificial method of adding difficulty that is not necessary for open world. A player exploring the map would not understand why they suddenly dropped in an area. This makes newer and returning players get a negative effect for the DLC. Not everyone is OP like you, who can rocket jump out of danger and built your character around survival. This map will be level agnostic, meaning anyone above 10 cr will be able to enter it and do everything in it. It's not a place to add artificial difficulty. Leave that for instances, like COU.
    • Like x 1
  17. Catastrophic Repercussion Dedicated Player

    It's literally the edge of the map.
    Grounding itself is not a difficulty.
    If there's a giant skull on the minimap and you decide to still go stand right on top of it, that's your problem.

    I don't like suggesting this. I think the fight needs significant rework, to put it mildly.
    I offered the path of least resistance to make the boss not completely trivial when encountered in a normal manner.
    It was a "This is me being reasonable" moment, but if you all want to complain about it, let's get nuts.

    Want more grounding attacks instead? Have Cheetah style airborne-targetted practical one-shots. Let's see how you all like that being the norm.
  18. RTX Well-Known Player

    Hey Jackie!
    some advanced testing and feedback!

    NPC´s not movable this time, no clipping gaps within Infernal Kahndaq, all teleporters working correctly, mission scripts work without issues.

    Now the more advanced/development feedback/suggestion,
    checked the overall draw calls which sit over 2300 (0 to end), which gives me a hint that game objects aren´t combined (static batching) aswell as dublicate models loading the same texture seperate for each object, this and the unnecessary collisions outside the playzone (area clip) like palms and parts of the grid which players won´t see reduce the overall performance massivly, and increases loading times, if not freezes when entering the zone. This costs performance, which could be used to increase model detail and or place more models in a map which then would be running same on lower end hardware. Even if the intention is not to increase the overall graphics with higher detailed models, then we have the factor of less power consumption for the same fps, which is a heroic task for our earth.

    Visualisation of unnecessary vertices.
    [IMG]


    Now the overall look and feel (my opinion)
    The light is slightly to red and to much, it makes me not wanna stay there for long, palms with slightly more green leaves would have also helped to avoid having nearly no color deferences. I also would update the water shader, and giving more natural aspects to the zone. I know that we talk about a fictional place, however...humans will feel better if there are parts which relate to nature.

    Reducing the "over red exposure" could also help slightly
    [IMG]

    Overall the content is working as it should, some things do need optimization and fine-tuning, but that obviously require more people working on it. If you need someone for those aspects, let me know.

    From the gameplay side, the boss "Injustice" is a piece of cake, health and damage output could need an increase.
    All other NPC´s seem to be in a good state in this zone.
  19. BumblingB I got better.

    The path to least resistance is almost never the best path. This is why Paradox Wave was such a problem for a very long time. With the flying cheese "fix" that they introduced the grounding effects, to the door glitches and other "fixes" that just made it harder than it needed to be.

    Honest question, did I do something to you to be so heated with me? All I said was "Please don't add a permanent grounding effect to an open world area." Yet, I get responses that were personal in nature.
    • Like x 1
  20. Catastrophic Repercussion Dedicated Player

    I guess I should remind you all of this:
    I also recommended Cheetah have a grounding arena when there were so many flights cheesing on live.
    That's how they introduced the much worse "Fly and Die" attacks.
    Be careful what you wish for, or maybe, when you never even did the testing yourself, listen to people who actually did the work.
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