Test Discussion Episode 33: Silent School (Alert)

Discussion in 'Testing Feedback' started by Charon, Oct 24, 2018.

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  1. Penryn The Gadgeteer

    Question
    For the lobster soccer ball room, how is the group supposed to know which shark goal to use? If you have an extremely uncooperative group, they will keep trying to push it into the same goal over and over.

    Along those lines, my trinket icons were glitched after exiting Lobster form. All of my Trinket icons had a purple Battle Drone icon. I saw that bug happen during the Titan Island mechsuit mission too.
  2. Penryn The Gadgeteer

    Question
    About the mind control mechanic on the last fight, will Rage players have to worry about Rage Crashing if they get mind controlled?
  3. Charon Lead Content Designer

    That trinket bug is fixed internally. Had to get Engineering involved and they put in some code magic to fix it.

    I'm thinking of adding a quick visual hint for whichever shark mouth is the correct one each time the encounter ramps up. It is random which one it is. Ultimately, the orbs will break until only the real orb is left and then there are three choices. Having a sign over the correct shark mouth isn't going to happen and defeats the purpose of the challenge. This is a communication and coordination challenge.

    I *may* put in a timer to advance along if people can't get the right ball in after X amount of minutes, with a penalty for not doing so - the guardian will be stronger. Or I may just do that in Event mode, without the penalty or much of one.

  4. Charon Lead Content Designer

    Not when this goes Live, no. ;)

  5. Penryn The Gadgeteer

    For Event mode, I think having a timer without a penalty seems appropriate. I have mixed feeling about what to do about Normal mode. Perhaps a 2-3 minute timer with a boss buff might be good?

    One guy in my group was insisting there was a hint for the current regular version, but I wasn't seeing it.
  6. Charon Lead Content Designer

    Yeah, he was wrong. :p

  7. Penryn The Gadgeteer

    Bug Report
    I was able to get the "Nobody Burns Me" feat in the Event version of the instance.

    I don't think that is intended.

    EDIT:
    It looks like all of the feats can be earned in the Event Version.
  8. Penryn The Gadgeteer

    Question
    I noticed while playing the Event version that the Nameless One has an encasement ability. Will Rage players have immunity to Rage Crashing if they get hit by this cube encasement attack?
  9. Penryn The Gadgeteer

    Feedback
    I'm not sure what I was supposed to do here in this fight against the Faceless:


    The Faceless One was healing up faster than we could damage him. We couldn't destroy any of the Artifacts. The Artifacts were all surrounded by a green aura.

    This fight went on for 10+ minutes before we decided to wipe.
  10. Penryn The Gadgeteer

    Feedback
    One of the problems with the Crown of the Thorns Golem fight is that it is very difficult to see the skull chevrons due to the boss's height. Even if you are zoomed all the way out, you will still likely miss the skull warning. You have to keep a very close eye on his lifebar to know when to dodge.
  11. PunkGeekFuse New Player

    There was a bug when 2 members of my group stood in the first challenge room and the other 2 went on to the adds room. After about 30 seconds when the other 2 went into the portal, they ended up in the next challenge room, skipping the adds room and started the challenge room by themselves. When we all died, we went into the portals together we were all in the adds room, but when 1 of us died and tried to get back into the adds room after fleeing, they found themselves back in the second challenge room, which wouldn't start up again.
  12. L T Devoted Player

    Fan the alert a couple of times yesterday. was kinda fun. it's the Alert version of LoLS.

    Mechanics feedback:
    We didn't have microphones and used text to communicate. At least one of us had been through it before a couple of times and could coach the others.

    In general, messaging could be better. I didn't realize I needed to smash a crystal at one point, and the soccer room was very confusing.

    There didn't seem to be any controller mechanics in the alert-- pretty sure our troll stayed dps the whole time.

    Team mates got ko-d in the soccer room. I don't see how. It seemed really easy to me -- Kicking the ball into the net was more or less impossible for me though: after a few failures I decided to leave that to others. 3 years playing soccer as a kid and a decade playing fusball... all for nothing.


    Fights:
    We had a healer through the whole run. I was switching between tank and dps as needed. In general it seemed really really easy, despite the mechanics.

    It seemed like there was a medic/healer add in there, but I didn't notice them healing anything. Certainly not like the HIVE adds. That might have contributed to how easy the alert felt. If there were any other special adds, I didn't notice them.

    The sub-boss fight seemed straightforward and very easy. The last fight had a ton of mechanics but they didn't seem terribly difficult to figure out, and the fight itself was easy. Running as a Fire Tank I mostly used Engulf, Backdraft, and occasionally Immolation.

    Narrative:
    The lip syncing was off in a couple of places but especially at the end. King Sharks closed captions had an extra word in them that he doesn't actually say. And who exactly is the guy who thanks us at the end? Someone from the Silent School that we freed?

    Other Thoughts:
    If you threw in an add who drained power and removed defense unless he was attack debuffed, you'd have a controller mechanic.

    If, on top of that you upped the boss damage and threw in a bunch more adds, you could have an Elite version, which would be fun.

    Thanks for listening.
  13. spack2k Steadfast Player

    Can we remove wasting SuperCharge during mind-controlled state? that is very annoying , to collect a bar just to get wasted by the NPC.
  14. Charon Lead Content Designer

    Sorry for the radio silence. The following has been pushed to Test.

    Silent School
    • Controller Heal Debuffs will now affect the Faceless One's artifact healing mechanic.
    • The Faceless One will not start his artifact healing mechanic before the artifacts can be interacted with.
    • Fixed issue with Pisces Challenge resetting.
    • Fixed double portal spawning and stray path possibilities.
    • Barnacle Golems will not run out of respawns before the War Crystal is destroyed.
    • Barnunculous will do his AoE Belly Flop less often.
    • Added particle FX to the Barnunculous' secondary ranged attack.
    • Changed portal names to be more reflective of where they teleport you too.
    • Portals now have an extra visual component to help draw attention to them.
    • The Faceless One will only spawn two sets of adds for the time being.
    • Feats can no longer be completed in Event Mode.
    There are some additional things that didn't make it but are implemented:

    A visual tell for which Shark is the right Shark for destroying the Moonstone. This is on all the time after the mirror image spell takes place and they split into three. It's only on for a second or so for Normal mode. People will need to be communicating and watching which Shark played the tell.

    Added a tell placed on the ground for the Timber attack from the Thorn Golem.

    Mage pet summons are now more difficult and I increased the assist radius and aggro a bit for basepop so they will be a bit more aggressive and not as focused on their rituals if you get too close. I plan to look at their difficulty overall some more later.

    We're looking into making Mind Control no longer affect Super Charge. It'll take some code intervention for it to work but it's being discussed and seems "likely" but that's not a promise. Things may change.

    Three more feats to add but some of these will be removed and/or downgraded to keep Feat Points within a given range for a new episode (lots of points, just not tooooo many points).

    Still think I'll add a timer for the Moonstone mechanic but may see how it plays out over the next push to Test Server.

    Will still be splitting up the Faceless One fight for aid in messaging. Will also be working on message pacing and improvements overall. Some of which made it in today I think (War Crystal Smashing bulletin stays up instead of switching to another bulletin after doing the smash correctly once, etc).
  15. ObsidianChill Community "Trusted"


    Hi there Charon :p

    Did the difficulty passes make it in the downtime today? I did the alert after the downtime and for the Faceless One fight it seemed to have gotten even easier. We didn't touch any of the mechanics and just kept dpsing through everything. I did notice some more adds and the adds dealt more damage to me but I and no one in the group was ever mind controlled, I never felt the need to use any of the room mechanics and just kept dpsing away. I also didn't notice his healing mechanic as much as I did before the downtime. The alert is really cool and the mechanics are interesting I feel like there just needs to be alot more emphasis on completing them.

    • Like x 1
  16. Al Bundy Well-Known Player

    I agree with Chill. There needs to be more enphasis on using the mechanics in the rooms to make the fight less difficult. As it stands right now a group can simply ignore the mechanics with no issue. You the 50 pt feat in the faceless one’s fight...it should be really difficult to get that feat especially with a group setup with 3 dps and 1 healer. That should be the type of fight that would require at least a tank to get that feat. No need to just buff the NPC’s damage but just make the artifacts/ mechanics of the fights an emphasis. Great work and keep it up!
  17. Charon Lead Content Designer

    Hey guys!

    That stuff is not in yet and will be in for this weekend for one last round of feedback and another push early next week based on that feedback. Basically the gist is the artifacts will be in the first half of the fight, have a larger incentive to do the mechanics (and a feat for not doing them). I have a few ideas in mind. There has been an ability overhaul on the Faceless One that will go up in the next build but that'll be before the encounter adjustments. Let me know how his abilities feel.
  18. Charon Lead Content Designer

    Expected notes coming in soon:

    • The Faceless One has had an ability pass.
    • There is now a visual tell as to which Shark the Moonstone should go into. This tell only lasts for a very short time in Normal Mode but is always up in Event Mode.
    • Silent School Mage summons are tougher now.
    • An ability pass has been done to Silent School Wraiths and Ghosts.
    This is not a final pass for the Faceless One and his mechanics are still being split and being set up for motivation to complete them.
    There are a couple known issues for some client stuff not getting synced in time with data:
    • Portal FX are missing a material
    • Ghost and Wraiths are missing some visual FX for their new abilities
    • Ghosts and Wraiths are missing their invisible weapons (before they get revealed) so will often sit there since they can't use the weapons (this is not a blocker)
  19. Penryn The Gadgeteer

    Bug Report
    1. After completing the Crown of Thorns fight, the group was stuck in combat. Even after going through the portal, the group was stuck:


    2. At the conclusion of the Faceless One fight, two party members had constant laser beams:


    3. Several of the matinee scenes in Silent School alert are bugged at the moment. I posted some videos for that in JohnnyDC's thread.
  20. Penryn The Gadgeteer

    Feedback
    One problem I keep seeing in the Barnuculous fight is that people try to throw the crystals at the center crystal. Some people just don't appreciate that smashing is a separate action from throwing. It is only after you explain that you need to "smash" it on the center crystal and show them that they understand.
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