Dev Discussion Episode 40: The Royal War (Alert)

I made a change for Elite Zoom that I think will go out with a hotfix Saturday morning, if all goes as planned.

• Each of the three phases of Speed Force healing rifts will only have to be beaten once each rather than all be repeated when Zoom heals above them.

You have to succeed on each of the three phases - meaning all 4 cogs must be used. But failing and allowing Zoom to heal only means redoing the current phase instead of all of them.

The challenge in this portion remains the same. The penalty for missing and allowing Zoom to heal is a bit less. Repeat the one phase you're on rather than resetting and repeating all three of them each time.

- Quixotic

Ehn.

If Zoom continues to stack mechanics and pull people during the phase to turn cogs, this will continue to be a broken alert.

-Tank Group Immunity
-Breakout Trinket
-Protector Serum

will be your friend for that, the cogs spawn in the same locations and you only have to turn the cog for 1 second to complete it. That is plenty of time to have one of the above in place to ensure the cog completion. There are counters to every mechanic

Tank immunity does not break the group out of Zoom's pull.

Protector serum... from SM??

There's simply not enough time to turn the cogs even with people camped on their own sides.

I appreciate the idea of addressing how messed up this fight is but the proposed fix isn't going to cut it

I've only run the Elite version so far, not yet beaten Zoom.

Here's a major glitch in the Aquaman fight: If Flash falls, the super Geo Pulse will persist, though then invisible, in any following attempt right from the start. Makes it more or less a gamble to win at that point. We disbanded and re-queued as a workaround.

The Queen Diana fight is my absolute favourite fight now. I love it, unironically!

Zoom is chaotic and his healing phases can be infuriating, but with some practice and tank's group breakout, it'll be cake before we know it.

About 2nd boss fight, "symbol" mechanic specifically, what do you mean when it turns red (the one on the ground or the one the head)? Also there is no way to know if we remove symbol in 4 seconds or less, maybe put a timer to it?

One more thing to add, sometimes you can get 2 symbols at once (the first appears 1s then switch to another, this is annoying when doing feat), 0 symbol and "invisible" symbol. I'm not sure if it's a feature or a bug.

At a glance, it looks like there may be a rare (I think) chance for a race condition as it cleans everything up...especially if the server is lagging a bit. I'll look into further for a way to avoid that.
If you were able to start a new fight with Aquaman and wipe again, did it clean up that damage effect after the second wipe?

- Quixotic

For the Scarlet Letters feat, the symbols on the ground must be red.
I don't think I have a way to add a visible timer on the symbol, but I'll take a look.

Having 2 symbols at once or having them switch during the curse definitely sounds like a bug. Any details on what else was going on when that happens? Like are all 4 of you still in the fight? Or did someone not get a symbol?

- Quixotic

Thanks for the info, but how can you turn them to red? We tried all the ways we think to make it work but none of them work.

For the bug, it happened to our gadget/mental players, symbol were invisible if you were in stealth during the mechanic (he told me so). About the 2 symbols, it happened to me as a tank (rage), 3-4 times, and i just couldn't figure it out. I think it was the server because we were in the alert for a very long time, but it was only me who got 2 symbols bug.

Thanks for the update!

Wouldn't surprise me if it was the server when you got two symbols. If it's running slow, it could delay just enough to not know you already have one. I have some ideas to try and safeguard against that. I'll look into the stealth thing as well...that's an interesting one.

As for how to turn the symbols red, I don't want to reveal how it works if I don't have to. I'd rather wait for someone to solve it. I feel pretty confident someone will discover the trick to it over the weekend.

- Quixotic

Waiting for the pull is the incorrect way to approach using tank immunity. It's supposed to be an elite alert, everything can't be easy. This isn't Wonderverse, its an actual real elite alert. The serum I had the wrong name I apologize

No one is asking for this to be "easy." Please don't mischaracterize what I said. I'm happy with RWE and its challenge. The bonkers Queen Diana fight is chaotic, tough and fun. But the Zoom fight due to the beyond unreasonable time window between turning cogs and Zoom's pull is actually broken.

Thanks for the correction on your mistake. I appreciate it.

No, on the first try we failed Flash and the super geo pulse just wiped us very soon after.
Then we wiped at least 5 more times before we decided to disband and re-queue. At different points, each of us made a chat tab with damage-in log to confirm we got killed by a(n invisible) geo pulse thingy most of the time; whenever it looked like out of the blue.
...if that's what you mean

Hmm...I may need to dig into this one a bit more than I thought. Thanks for the follow-up!
- Quixotic

I need help with where on this Bugs Report Forum to start a new thread,i use the PC version of DCUO, and the PC mouse wheel for this DCOU was used for like 10 DECADES without issues to scroll the inventory screen sidebar up and down,and had a dual function when off of the inventory screen, to control the camera Point Of View to zoom in and out whenever being out on the playing field,or out and about in your home base, well,during the test version of World Of Flashpoint,that decades old DCUO PC mouse wheel control function got YANKED/removed,and wasnt put back where it belongs when the World Of Flashpoint episode started up as the newest episode. for the PC version of DCUO,those mouse wheel button functions are really necessary to not have to manually place the cursor over the inventory sidebar and drag the thing >;(p

Tank immunity does work on the pull. It doesn't last very long, but if timed right, it's enough for the group to get the cogs. And if people use breakout trinkets too, there should be no problem getting the cogs.

I understand it's not an easy task, but when you have multiple people telling you they have no problem doing it, I don't see how you can keep claiming it's impossible or broken.

My group tried using the tank's group breakout, and it seemed to work 2/3rds of the time. This may be an issue with Ire (the ability used) rather than the cogs, though. Ire has been intermittently bugged in the past. I'm wondering if those saying that [Group Breakout] doesn't work -- also had Rage Tanks? Ire did not seem to affect me when Invisible. Grandeur seemed to work fine for this. Group didn't have personal breakout trinkets handy, so we did not finish, as Ire continually failed at the worst times.

RE: Red Symbols, I got one to turn, but I'm not sure how. It remained for the duration, thereafter.

For red symbols feat, it only happens during Circe phase. Basically Queen Diana will target you with the beam and place a "boom" under you (same mechanic as mordru's gem), all you have to do is place that "bomb" under the symbol, the explosion will turn it to red.

I have run this with only Rage tanks so maybe that's it?

Yesterday and today, LFG is filled with failed last boss RWE groups. High CR, experienced players with high arts and Augs are not able to complete this due to the ridiculous healing mechanic/ cog turn/ Zoom pull. What was done to address this in this morning's hotfix didn't help.

Please go back to the original proposal of giving at least three seconds of time between when cogs appear and when Zoom pulls. These stacked mechanics are cheesy, artificial difficulty and not really up to snuff with the fun, interesting, challenging mechanics of the alert's first two bosses.

I also notice the short duration of ire immunity, not working as intended?
One of Zoom pulling moves which everyone has to block ire doesn't work or at least that was my perception. (Some other rage tank please confirm this)

Regardless mechanics overlapping only happens if you decide to max burn the boss. Slow burn and coordination is the key to the portal phase.