Dev Discussion Episode 37: The Clock Tower (Raid)

Doesn't removing the difficulty of the raid on normal defeat the purpose of having raid content? In other MMOs raids are meant to be difficult; they require coordination and communication.

IMO, the developers should make some adjustments to the raid, but not yet. Make the adjustments, if any, toward the end of DLC, not week one. Does anyone here remember Nexus and Paradox upon release? Even DWFr/e? Please give it some time before adjusting the mechanics as this will result in the same perpetual issue that happens upon release of every DLC.

Have the mechanic on normal for sure, just with a generous reaction time of 4-5 seconds. Normal should push back just a little.

What do y’all do about the 15k damage over time

I increased the frequency with which she can use Exobyte Overcharge in Elite so that the fields will generally overlap for a short time. I think this will be in the next hotfix.

I also found the cause of shielded Pulse-bots in Elite being crowd controllable. I should be able to get the fix for that in an upcoming hotfix but not yet sure how soon.

- Quixotic

Yeah I remember those raids being a no go area. Difficult normal raids are nobody’s friend. Go do elite if you want a challenge. That said, there was (probably, I haven’t actually tried the raid myself) no need to remove the mechanic altogether. Just give us 4-5 seconds to notice and potentially cancel any animation.

I wouldn't want to see them removed even in event mode as I do enjoy the mechanic, kinda reminds me of the mechanic in Nexus with the shield with the coordination with that. Maybe toned down to be ignored in event to give players an idea that it's there, and the time increase for reaction time for normal should be fine. I haven't played normal yet so can't really comment on that for real but imagine the reaction time was the biggest sticking point.

I run elites, I like difficult raids, but elites are less fun as sometimes masterful pick ups are part of the game and its tough in Elite if a Tank or heal goes down twice you have to just wipe. I love difficult raids not ones you need to be basically perfect. People still talk about the Prime days as glory days. There is nothing wrong with having it where one reg raid gets beat very easily like Brimstone and Gates and having another that takes some logic and planning like Prime or Clocktower. I don't think its fair to make content blow thru because people can't be bothered to learn to save their orbitals on the adds.

Then ask for the rally limit to be removed from elite or something, rather than trying to shut people out of normal. I don’t even necessarily think the mechanic should be dropped from normal, though I certainly won’t lose any sleep over it if they do go ahead with removing it altogether.

No one is shut out of normal. Anyone can beat it if they learn where to stand and learn their spot to roll to and to kill an add before the floor gets colored.

When the first 2 operations came out, i did them day 1, with the league i was in, however this was not normal, they were very hard compared to the new raids, PBG from dlc 3(?) was even harder, GoT was hard but everyone could do them, there was no elite then, but you did GoT and Op1 to gear and learn towards PBG and Op2.
When Throne of the Dead was new, most people struggled at normal one, it took many people weeks or months to complete it first time, elite was a lot harder, and most wouldn't complete it before 2 or 3 dlcs later.
It used to be normal that some gearing and learning was normal before you would complete content (GoT, Op1, ToTD normal as examples above)

The bossfights from BoP are fun, but out 10 (if i counted correctly) bossfights in normal instances only 2 gives a random pug group any problems in my experience, Lex in the Volcano Mining Facility alert, and the last bossfight in the Clocktower raid.
An elitist league with players in sync shouldn't have problems doing normal versions after they figure it out, but weak pug groups with many not doing mechanics should. Thus far Metall 2 normal content provided more challenge in every bossfight except from the 2 mentioned above.
Please give us 1 more second to react too mechanics against the Oraclebot, buff the damage slightly from rest of the bosses in normal versions but keep all mechanics.
Before the "if you want a challenge run elite" comments will come i will say the jump is far to high, not necessarily because elite is too hard but the normals are too easy.
Getting into elite groups are not always easy, and the ones you do get into are often not ready for said content, much because way too many boss mechanics are negligible or as what seems to happen in this case, removed from normal versions.
#mechanics_matter #normal_is_content_too

finally someone said it. What upsets me the most is that this person came on here asking for mechanic extensions right before telling us they haven’t even tried it themselves yet. I’m exhausted.

As long as an average player gets enough time to do that, then fine. Like I just said, I’m not really in favour of removing it altogether, I just don’t particularly mind if it is.

I was not the first person to ask. Other people asked first, and I overheard someone ingame saying that FBe is easier than CTn. That absolutely should never happen. Also I know what I’m capable of doing in 2 seconds, which is pretty much nothing. Especially when the inevitable latency of an online game is involved.

1st boss FBE is. Last boss, nah. But 1st boss DME was easier than the rest of the dlc as well so its not unprecedented. 1st boss Zooe was was easy when that came out, the rest was really hard when it came out. There is usually an easy 1st elite boss somewhere in every dlc. It's there so everyone can get elite gear. Some just happen to get elite gear quicker than others

Nah. elite content should always be elite. I hated those welchers doing that card game like that, they should have stopped that. Your complaint seems to boil down to, “elite has too much of a learning curve”. Well guess what? Unlike Reality Crisis, you have the choice to not bother with that learning curve and do normal now. Either you want a challenge or you don’t. Stop trying to upend the game for people because you can’t commit.

I’m going to explain the removal of the pools mechanic in the Normal version. When examining both the data and the feedback from players I saw that this was a serious issue in the Normal version as well. Unfortunately, the current circumstances of development make it more time consuming for us to tune certain types of mechanics. Obviously we can tune, and will continue to do so but I had to make a quick call to handle the issues with this specific mechanic. Given the lag issues, and a few other variables that would make tuning that mechanic difficult to get right in one shot, I made the call to remove it in Normal so that more people could successfully complete it this weekend.

Normal is not meant to be a cake walk. This wasn’t an easy choice for me to make, but I hope you understand. Please keep on with the feedback! I just wanted to be completely transparent about this very specific change.

Thank you all!

Leave normal the way it is, the only thing that should be a cake walk is the event version. If people complain about a T10 raid being too difficult, maybe they should look to another game.

Just out of curiosity, are you planning on reinstating it at any point?

The only first boss elite runs I ever really did was Zooe. I think I did DMe once or twice cuz I was bored. I spent 6 hours in SGe the first week so I am not one of those players. But let's not pretend that they don't exist and its gone on for years. And players have an easy mode its called Event, and I did back the devs nerfing that. I haven't been in there but could see why the mechanics being hard. Clock Tower shouldn't even be compared to Origin Crisis. Origin Crisis was way harder. I think the last boss of Clock Tower is more similar to Hive reg then anything. Just a few nuanced mechanics that you need to learn.

Kind of disappointed. Me and my league enjoyed it a lot. You need good communication and you'll get through. Just don't say in one place, decide how to split colors, etc. Not everything hard needs to be removed, but I understand the decision behind this.

Edit: My league gave the idea of returning the novice - expert to raids. So there will be novice version, expert (regular) and elite. Less rewards for novice, lower gear, etc. Not event, novice. In raids tab.