Test Discussion Episode 34: "JLD: Darkness Rising" 4-Player Operation

Discussion in 'Testing Feedback' started by Charon, Mar 15, 2019.

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  1. Charon Lead Content Designer

    Thanks for the feedback everyone.

    The Saturday build fixed the Turrets reactivating and the Player positioning after the Etrigan outro matinee.

    The next build should have the following:

    - Thinned out basepop in the Black Room and the European Castle.
    - Removed ARGUS Medics from the Black Room Wave Event.
    - Lowered the amount of adds slightly from the Black Room Wave Event.
    - Lowered the damage from the Turrets in the Black Room Wave Event.
    - Moved the Heal Barrel in the Vampire Lord fight to a less damage proned area.
    - Fixed issue with the Heal Barrel in the Vampire Lord fight not respawning in Event Mode.
    - Otherworldly Essence now stacks to 999.

    I'll look into addressing some client feedback such as the Pools of Darkness and Gadget effects.

    The Lamp is optional content that can help with Feat runs or general usefulness in the content. The food can be put on the Marketplace. Modular Auras also have a chance of dropping from the Lamp when you rank up and use it. These can be placed on the Broker as well.

    I'll look at the consumable cooldowns this week. I'm thinking of separating out the more powerful abilities to have a different cooldown than the more common ones. Meaning, potentially reducing them all most likely but some more than others.

    I tried for UI support like with the Artifacts to point this item out but those resources are currently tied up. I do plan on adding additional UI support to it once we get it. A matter of when, not if.

    I also tried to have the food only drop if you have the Lamp in your possession but there are technical issues doing that unfortunately. There is money to be had for the food and auras for those who utilize them on the Broker.
    • Like x 2
  2. Penryn The Gadgeteer

    Feedback
    The flavor text for the consumables makes it hard to figure out exactly what they are supposed to do. Here is an example:
    [IMG]

    Is Lycanthropy supposed to be a reference to the Werewolf Shadow Monster or just the regular Werewolf NPCs? Does this consumable just setup a small AoE field? Will it instantly kill the werewolves (shadow or regular) or just damage them?

    From what I've seen so far, the consumables all seem to be highly specific with short durations and long cooldowns. That makes it hard to coordinate strategy going into a fight, especially if the fight drags on for a while.
  3. Charon Lead Content Designer

    I'll work with Systems on getting more details in the item information.

    I've changed the cooldowns for the next build. They were all set to 120 seconds initially. Now the stun and damage field have their own at 60 seconds and the 2 passive/auras at 90. We can tweak them further if needed after they've been tested.

    For testing info:

    Righteous Pyre - basically an orbital strike that only damages werewolves, vampires, shadow monsters, etc. in the content. Currently it will remove the Lycanthropy curse that the Shadow Werewolf puts on players if they are hit by the magical flames. It does nothing for the other cases of Lycanthropy in the Alert other than damage them.

    Radiant Light - a very large area of affect stun that stuns shadow creatures, vampires, etc. for 10 seconds.

    Illuminating Touch - an aura that allows you to destroy the Pools of Darkness.

    Pious Aura - protects you from the damage and debuffs received from the Pools of Darkness, removes and/or provides immunity to Lycanthropy from the Shadow Werewolf, protects from Fear effects in the DLC. For 90 seconds.
    • Like x 1
  4. Penryn The Gadgeteer

    Feedback
    I swear you can't see anything in this room:


    It is almost like the entire room is black and you're looking for black pools in a mostly black room. All of the visual FX going off probably doesn't help.

    What brought the Vampire Lord back to full health at 3:09?
  5. ObsidianChill Community "Trusted"

    Feedback
    • I'm assuming the last build changes made it as of 03/19 because of the essence stacking, the amount of adds in the Alert I feel is reasonable at this current level, we have plenty of Alerts that have more and less than what this is and the only driving factor behind wanting quick alerts like in Deluge and Atlantis was the most expensive OP collection always dropped in the Alert. Now with that collection concept removed there's no reason to complain about an alert that will take 20-35min on average etc
    • Mechanics of the 1st boss are fine, most set ups probably wont have a tank so healer in the middle and dps on each turret kill the adds on each side that auto aggro to them. While the Asphyxiation Gas would be similar to other gadgets players I don't think the 1% of time that could happen is worth changing FX over it and the existing grenades aren't one shots so you can tell pretty quick if you are in a DOT
    • Etrigan Fight doesn't have any issues that I have witnessed so far, damage on the fireburst will be troublesome in groups without a healer at nearly 20k a tick but if that group has a tank can face the flame in the other direction etc
    • Most of my feedback revolves around the Vampire Lord fight I guess it's important to find out firstly how much importance you want to put on the Lamp of Van Hesling. I understand it will be required for feats but besides that in my runs you don't need any of the consumables to remotely clear the content and can be largely ignored. If this is something going forward to adopt this type of mechanic there should be slightly more of an importance to where it would make a noticeable impact using them over not.
    • Also when I used the Torch in this run I could only close 1 pool and the cog disappeared afterwards, now this could just have been incorrect timing on my part but I opened about 20 of the lamp fortifies and only got 1 Torch because of its rarity so I would have thought it would be multi use rather than 1 pool.
    • The distribution after opening 8 fortifies of 10 essence each was 3 Radiant Light 7 Righteous Pyre 7 Pious Aura and 1 Illuminating Torch.
    • When I got a Shadow - Head, Hands, Feet Aura it did not show up in my Aura list nor was I able to equip it as shown at the end of the video.
  6. Charon Lead Content Designer


    I've stated that I will look into the visual aspect of the room. Art has done a lighting pass, which is not on Test yet, and if that's not sufficient, I'll be upping the purple on the pools. That will be the extent of the changes however.

    Occultists are healers. They shouldn't be healing that much on bosses however so I'll look at that and reduce it greatly.
  7. Charon Lead Content Designer

    The rarity and one shot use of that consumable is intended due to the Feat rewards. Pious Aura should be more rare actually. I've conveyed that, and the aura equipping issue to the Systems team. Of course it works internally, so we'll have QA test it on other production servers. I'll make sure the new text for the consumables gets updated for the 1 shot functionality (which won't be on the next build).

    EDIT - The shadow aura rewards are broken for Striker builds only. The issue has been found and resolved in an upcoming build.
    • Like x 1
  8. Jay Smeezy Dedicated Player

    Hey i didnt sign a release waiver for the use of my likeness...lmao!
  9. Charon Lead Content Designer

    Tomorrow's client build will have lighting/fx changes for the Vampire Lord fight.
    The Pot of Gold orbital strike has changed as well.

    Anyone who commented on things being too easy, please see this thread and provide the requested feedback:

    https://forums.daybreakgames.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/episode-34-difficulty-feedback.301265/

    I don't want to change the Vampire Lord encounter to make the consumables more necessary if system wide changes will be made to address NPC difficulty in general.
    • Like x 1
  10. Telnano Active Player

    I was on this Alert today, think in Black Room the Adds from Upper side dont come to Downside aswell if we do the feat from the Turrets.
    I'm also not sure if is the Rejuvenate Healskill (Sorc) is bugged vs Vampire Lord, CD was over, had Mana, but can't use em.
  11. Penryn The Gadgeteer

    Feedback
    1. Do the Turrets in the Black Room block line of sight? That has been an issue on some of my runs.

    2. I finished a run today in 17 minutes 30 seconds. It was a 3 DPS/1 Healer group. The other DPS in the group would run ahead to gather up 3 mob groups and then finish them off.

    3. The pools in the last fight are easier to see today. The sides of the room are still black though, so you want to fight near the center if possible.

    4. Can Etrigan's flame breath attack be interrupted? Attacks like that could be interrupted in the past on other bosses, but that didn't seem to be working when I tried it today on Etrigan.
  12. Charon Lead Content Designer

    I've added an interrupt to all versions of Etrigan's Flame Breath (mirror images included).

    The turrets are like any other NPC so they do have collision and must retain collision, otherwise players and enemy NPCs will not be hit by the turrets if players hide inside them. There isn't any other settings on these NPCs that would cause them to block line of sight.
  13. Penryn The Gadgeteer

    @Charon

    Does Etrigan have any special aggro rules in his boss fight? I noticed that Etrigan and the Mirror Etrigans have often completely ignored my Holographic Decoy power in my last couple of runs. Based on the team composition, Decoy should have been at the top of Etrigan's hate table. It felt like the Etrigans were attacking random players regardless of the current hate tables.
  14. Charon Lead Content Designer

    Etrigan attacks players only, by design. His copies attack anyone with their primary basic attacks as to help with the alpha strike damage to some extent when they are summoned. Their specials they can attack random targets, not restricted to hate. I talked to Engineering and it sounds like with the code the way it is, the copies should attack the Decoy with their basic attacks.

    The Decoy could be another way to figure out which is the real Etrigan as only the copies would physically move up to the Decoy with their follow strategy.
  15. Penryn The Gadgeteer

    @Charon

    How should Etrigan respond to a tank? Will Etrigan stay with the tank?

    Should the "Artifacts" like the Leprechaun Bowl have collision detection in the Etrigan fight? It looks like it is possible to use the bowl to block Etrigan's attacks.
  16. Charon Lead Content Designer

    Etrigan himself is player foe most hate so he should focus on tanks. His images are a bit more chaotic.

    I'll look at that for the artifacts. I put a push back thing there to keep people away, intending to remove collision on the items but have to double check.
  17. Penryn The Gadgeteer

    Can any details be provided on what has changed? Just wondering what I should look for when I'm running the alert again.
  18. Penryn The Gadgeteer

    @Charon
    For the mechanic in the Vampire Lord fight where a player can be transformed into a Werewolf, is there any possibility that could lead to an unintentional Rage Crash death for a Rage tank? That is very difficult to test.
  19. Charon Lead Content Designer


    A lot are just overall higher damage values for Normal mode on most of the Boss specific special abilities.

    - Increased the damage from Etrigan's Sword of Damocles in Normal Mode.
    - Increased Etrigan's Breath Attack Damage in Normal Mode.
    - Stats for all NPCs in both fights (Etrigan and Vampire Lord) in Normal Mode are increased to various degrees.
    - Pools of Darkness penetrate Shields in Normal Mode.
  20. Charon Lead Content Designer


    Sorry to disappoint you, seeing your post in Millbarge's thread about wanting Rage Crashes, but no, it does not cause a Rage Crash. ;)
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