Test Discussion Episode 43: Return to Earth 3 Alert

For this round of testing we're looking for feedback on mechanics, messaging, and overall fun for the content. Damage has been tuned a little but we'd still like thoughts on how hard/weak different attacks are. We are also trying out some new Icons to help message things, so we're interested in hearing your thoughts on that as well.

Elite is ready for some testing. Superwoman is the most complete for Elite, but every boss will deal more damage overall. Limited rallies should be enabled and the first two bosses will increase NPC levels by 2 after they are defeated.


Known Issues:

• Timing is tight from the point of warning for both Ultraman and Devastator's charge attacks

Okay ran the alert (Will upload a video soon) I feel like there is too much gas to absorb so It's hard for the short random time that someone is in the Doomsday form to get enough in time. So I am guessing they make him heal too, (He over healed when he was 50%)
so this is a confusing mechanic.

The rest was great, really enjoyed the Superwoman fight. (Ran on regular)

Is the red arrow supposed to do anything at the Superwoman fight ?
For us it didn't do anything.

What I dislike about the devestator fight is that after a while the yellow spore fields partially disappear by themselves rather than we having to keep removing them inside the form to not let the entire room overflow with fields. The form itself therefore does not really do much other than remove some fields that would be gone anyways.

Feedback for the Elite Version of the Alert:

1st BOSS : the Adds that spawn try to destroy the Turrets, they dont seem to be harmful at all, just keep pulling them and they are burned in a few seconds. Lasso Attack does not seem very strong.

2nd BOSS: Ultraman should have Block Breaks. Damage from the adds there is pretty low. His Freezing Attacks seems to do nothing at all right now.

3rd BOSS: Boss should have Block Breaks. Boss should have way more melee attacks on the Tank, right now you only have to keep moving around.

You're supposed to get away from your teammates or else they'll get pulled into you. I am going to re-work this mechanic since it's confusing and non-threatening.

Small feedback to the Ultraman fight that I forgot.

When he freezes the group with his freezing breath, he then proceeds to charge one member after the other freeing them one by one.
So while he does that, the group members are in no danger since he only does his cahrges towards the ones that are still frozen.
What I think would be more suitable would be him freeing only 2 of the 4 members and then starting to attack those rather than freeing all of them. Otherwise he freezes us just to free us afterwards ?

Text for the alert rewards is bugged

Feedback
I ran the regular version with a CR 358 DPS, CR 378 DPS, CR 371 DPS, and myself as a CR 368 Controller. The run took exactly 9 minutes. Here are some thoughts:

Superwoman

• Considering the daily images that are coming out of Ukraine, I keep wondering if it is a good idea to feature Johnny Quick's corpse so prominently here. The person that posed him did a really good job of making him look like he was dead.
• The group stun from the lasso mechanic can overlap with the add phase. So if you are standing in the wrong place, the adds can get in some cheap hits while you are trying to get through the skill test.
• This fight took 1 minute 2 seconds.

Ultraman

• No group I have ever been in on PCTest has bothered with the Owlman barrel mechanic. The groups always want to fight in the center of the room and you won't see the Owlman barrel doing that. It still feels like this mechanic is very poorly messaged.
• This fight took 1 minute 40 seconds.

Devastator

• The timing on the charge attack isn't great. You need to be standing beside the Doom spikes well before he charges for this mechanic to work. If you are standing away from the Doom spikes and you see Doomsday kneel down for the charge, it is already too late to make an adjustment.
• As long as you have a healer along, there doesn't seem to be much motivation to do the spore gas mechanic. Trying to perform the mechanic is usually more dangerous than letting Doomsday have a slight Defense boost.
• This fight took 1 minute 35 seconds

If anyone wanted to see the footage from the run