Test Discussion Episode 37: The Clock Tower (Raid)

This is the testing feedback thread for the The Clock Tower 8-player raid in Episode 37: Birds of Prey.

Sick of Oracle's interference, Lex has launched an attack on her in the one location she thought was safe: her Clock Tower base of operations. It's up to you to rescue her! Even Calculator is on board, though only because he insists on being the one to take Oracle down. How dare Lex try to rob him of that!

Please post comments and feedback for this raid, and be sure to let me know which version you were playing: event, normal, or elite.

Thank you!
- Quixotic


Known Issues:
- Cutscenes are not final
- Feats are in progress
- Continuing difficulty tuning across all versions

Still trying to identify the exact mechanics of the last boss fight. Oracle spawning circles of your opposite color underneath you every 15 seconds or so once she starts spawning them is a disorienting. All that being said there is some random bug where the boss will just outright die for no apparent reason. I will post the video once my league mate gets it to me or he can post it tomorrow.

What happened was we got the boss to about 50% or so and wiped due to 2 players getting to close together exploding and sending the shockwave through the group. However, when we wiped...so did Oracle. lol. We were dead and got loot for beating the raid along with the cutscene showing the ending.

Here's the video.

Our leaguemate was KO'd and she still had the transformation effects which triggered the tether, knocking out Oracle.

I'll post my full feedback after we complete the raid without it bugging out.

Feedback regarding on-screen messaging.



The on-screen message is too intrusive and distracting. The first message that says "They're defensive when they're close together, separate them" remains active for at least 40 seconds during the opening fight. Either move the messaging to another location, or reduce the prompt to 5 or 10 seconds.

At the 0:35 mark in the video, Poison Ivy goes into her "Fighting Frenzy" mode which KO's the tank, This message appears after her initial attack. In other words, there isn't a warning or skull to alert players, specifically the Tank of her impending 1 shot ability. The prompt for this behaviour appears after, and not before, which takes the tank by complete surprise. I'm not sure if this could be a CR check for Tanks or an ability that requires a skull or a cog to visually warn players.

Feedback for the last Bossfight in elite:

We ran it yesterday with a fairly coordinated Group.
It is almost impossible to complete it in elite.
The AoE's are very large and the room is very Tiny.

The way we approached it was, trying to always run into an Aoe that matched your own character Color and leave it, as soon as the next Aoe got deployed - deleting the Prior one.
This works fairly well, if there wouldnt be the changing Color of your own character and also an uneven number of Red's and Blue's.
Meaning that there are sometimes 2red's and 6 blue's.

So we ended up, just trying to avoid the opposite Colors and wrong AoE's, wich is a total mess with that many Players. But it went better than the other Strategy.


Question:
Is the uneven number of Colors intended?
Is the amout of Aoe's getting spawned intended?
Is it intended that the AoE's never stop spawning until the fight is over?
Is it intended that, even when youre dead, the Color doesnt disappear? - this results in a very limited choice when it comes to pickups, since a red one would trigger a wipe, trying to pick up a blue one

Also, we had a massive Black circle on the Ground that would cover almost the whole boss room. I cant tell if this is always the case, but it looked odd and out of place. As if there was a missing texture.

the last boss in reg the damage done for standing in wrong pools is too strong for a reg raid
for elite its fine but for reg it one shots everyone maybe have it tuned down?

And there was me hoping they would take it a little bit easier on us this time. The last few months have been pretty rough.

This anlysis is from a tank perspective. [Elite]

Before First Boss:
The adds were boring. There was some cc and anoying supressors. It got to the point where we just skipped the adds.
I dont like very much the supressor mechanic due there is no counter for it and the RNG.

1st Boss:
I was tanking Catwoman, in this boss u have to split and also bring them together. Seems and easy mechanic. While tanking catwoman I always dodged her skulls However for some reason the powers of npcs like Black canary were also damaging me(sonic cry, scream, etc.)

2nd Boss(Consoles)
Im not sure if this is considering a boss since I dont remenber getting loot, but i will treat it as so.
In regards of dificulty is very easy, compared with SSe where this trend started, there is little to no risk. I dont belive im saying this, but "It needs supressores" for each console hit right or something like that. In order to limit the amount of people that can actual hit consoles.

Last Boss:
I really enjoyed the concept "Blue vs Red Team", it required some group coordination. I didnt had the oportuntity to test propely the ground phase but seemed fun. I think the boss should be abit more threating to the tank(she wanst hitting that hard in my opinion)

That first boss encounter is by design. The Red messaging warns you that "your allies are getting overzealous" so their attacks will damage the group. Prep for Shielding, healing but almost avoidable perhaps

Bug:

Cant use the Elevator, while in Combat mode

Possible bug:

The Trap drone's deployed Gas is not dealing any Damage. It just stuns.
Intended?

Feedback:

I've been at the Last boss for a very long time twice so far. (5h in total)
The best method to beat this boss is to 4 or 5 man it.

The room is simply too small for 8players with all their AoE's spawning and the rather large distance they have to keep in order to not trigger other AoE's.


If everything currently happening in that fight is working as intended, one of the things has to Change to make it playable as an 8 Player Team.

• AoE's Spawning every 15seconds
• Random color changing after some time and an
  Unequal number of colors (E.g. 3Red and 5 Blue)
• AoE's having a rather large area and a pretty large distance you have to avoid while running past different colored teammates

If just one get changed, the other 2 can remain unchanged to make this work as a 8 Player instance and still be challenging.
Examples:

• AoE's Spawning every 15 seconds -> AoE's Spawning every 30 seconds
• Random color changing after some time and an
  Unequal number of colors (E.g. 3Red and 5 Blue)
• AoE's having a rather large area and a pretty large distance you have to avoid while running past different colored teammates

This would give the Group more time to set up and coordinate the next Areas to spawn the AoE's (would still be very Pug unfriendly).

• AoE's Spawning every 15seconds
• Random color changing after some time and an
  Unequal number of colors (E.g. 3Red and 5 Blue)
  -> Always have an Equal number of Players get

  different

  Colors and not changing the Color after the inital Color spread
• AoE's having a rather large area and a pretty large distance you have to avoid while running past different colored teammates

This would lead to a Team based boss fight with some communication needed to build pairs of 2 or 4 in order to avoid random AoE's all over the place.
Right now 2 blues cant even stay next to each other in fear of one of then changing to red and wipe the Group because they touch each other then.

• AoE's Spawning every 15 seconds
• Random color changing after some time and an
  Unequal number of colors (E.g. 3Red and 5 Blue)
• AoE's having a rather large area and a pretty large distance you have to avoid while running past different colored teammates
  -> AoE's having a 50% smaller Area and the distance to trigger the damage burst by touching a different colored Player also halved

This would be the most Logical Change imo, since the Bossroom is simply too small.
The pull attack of the Boss could see a little tuning too. Its a great mechanic to force tanks to use immunity. The timeframe for the Tank to react could see a small increase of 1 or 2 seconds, since the Tank has to keep track of the Boss' Animations AND his/her surrounding because of the AoE's.

In the Boss fight Catwoman/Poison Ivy if a rage tank gets trapped( no abilities) one can rage crash.

I like the mechanic (red/blue) in last Boss fight however the room is very small for 8 players, now if its intended for the group to choose 4 players to fight Oracle while the other 4 are cheerliding its fine if not it needs some adjusting.

Regarding the first boss of the Clocktower raid, I would look into a buff as nothing really threatens/kills the group. Catwoman needs a buff in the first fight. Her Caltrops require a buff as the damage is too low and her skull where she jumps at a random player needs to be buffed to the point where only blocking means the player survives, otherwise it will one shot. Maybe buff Poison Ivy too. The drones in the fight are a nice addition, and keeping them the way they are is good, as with the ability to deactivate drones with the augments, rage tanks will be fine as they don't need an extra gift from heaven, it should be a risk for that power set.

For the last boss, the difficulty is good, however we need to look at it realistically so it is doable for all "elite players." I would recommend a few changes.

1. Stay the same colour for the rest of the fight so that you can stay next to people with the same colour as yourself.

OR

2.Keep it the same way but the pools spawn every 25-30 seconds.

Another recommendation could be making Oracle's skull where she pulls the whole group to her a one shot if not blocked (but make the reaction time for it slightly longer). Also her skull cone attack should do more damage (only 35k on the tank) and be able to hit anyone in its line of sight as during the raid, there was a person in the skull's line of sight and they did not receive any damage.

These changes seem fair to me, the fight still feels elite, takes skill and communication and you would feel a slight sense of accomplishment once finishing it, something the community has been asking for.

Bug Report
- If someone dies at Oracle Fight, he still belongs to a specific group (red/blue), so if someone of the opposite wants to pick up, group dies. (Is that intended)
- As an atomic tank you're screwed, i've had always a problem to find out which colour i'm, because of the atomic shield/supercharge shield/aura (Oracle Fight)
- Well, pool spawns are maybe too much? If it stays like this, i guess it's easier to win the fight vs oracle as 4man-group instead of a 8man group.
- In General, i guess the "Normal" Version of this raid is way too difficult.

Suggestion
Put a repair vendor outside the last boss room. It takes a long time to fly back to the start if no one has a repair bot handy.

The respawn after a wipe at the last boss spawns you, facing the wrong direction.

Hello all and thanks for the feedback! Here is a quick round of responses. If you want more info on anything, let me know.

• Oracle-Bot Boss died suddenly even though she still had noticeable health left.
  • Looking into this. I don't have any good leads on what caused this yet.
• On-screen message for the first bosses being defensive when close.
  • Problem ended up being that it would send that message multiple times. Should be fixed in next update to PC Test.
• Message for "Frenzy" mode in first boss fight is shown after they already have the buff.
  • Message for first bosses going into "Frenzy" mode will appear and they will get the red aura a few second before they get the boost in dps. I can adjust the timing further as seems best. This should be in next update to PC Test.
• Exobyte Overcharge - this is the ability that causes red and blue fields to be dropped in the room.
  • I reduced the frequency with which this ability is used to 30-35 seconds
  • One note: If you stand in the field that matches your color, you should be immune to the raid-wide AoE that results when someone stands in the opposite field or too close to an opposite color player.
  • Also reduced the damage from the resulting AoE in normal mode.
  • These changes should be in next update to PC Test.
• Oracle-Bot Boss will attempt to split the raid more evenly between red and blue.
• Added more enemies to the server room event for the elite version. Should be in the next update to PC Test.
• I will look into some ways to make the bosses more threatening to tanks.
• Not being able to use the elevators while in combat makes sense to me, I think.
• The trap drones don't do any damage, including the gas version. They are part of Oracle's security system and she's more into deterrence than fatalities.
• I'll add rage crash immunity to the Nullifier trap.
• I slightly increased the duration of the tell for Oracle-Bot's pull attack. Should be in the next update to PC Test.
• I'll look into her cone attack and make sure it can hit anyone in it.
• Dying in the Oracle-Bot fight and keeping your polarity (red or blue) is intended. You will need to be rallied by someone with the same polarity (color).
• I fixed the facing of the rally location just after the server room. Should be in the next update to PC Test.

I think I hit most of the major points. If I missed something, let me know.
- Quixotic

Well, i like those changes, but what about atomic? Can't there anything be done so i can see my colour while my shield is active?
What about when two people die, because they were too close to each other for only one second? I can't pick up any then, because even if i want to pick up the one, who matches my colour, the other dead player is nearby, with the opposite colour.