TBL : the most stupid and absurd extension

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Merlein, Dec 26, 2018.

  1. Aurastrider Augur

    I honestly think we are at the point with lack of developers that this is going to be the standard moving forward. Obviously it would be nice to have more than 6 total zones so the first two entry zones could be more casual friendly but I think we might be at the point of abandoning the idea of T1 zones and jumping right into T2 or T3 from the start. There are two sides to this design flaw that we will have to deal with. If they do make T1 type zones with such a small expansion those with ideal group, raiders, and those who would not consider themselves "casuals" will blow through the content to fast and have nothing to do which is bad. On the flip side casuals, those with less than ideal groups, and those not as skilled might stop buying expansions moving forward or at least during the initial period which is also bad.

    The reality is the developers will have an easier time justifying tuning content down after launch than tuning it up. Once those who are not experiencing difficulties progressing have managed to work their way through the expansion I imagine the developers will tune it down a notch or two so others who are struggling can make their way into the expansion. By doing this they will hopefully get those who say they will never buy another expansion to buy next years and hopefully get those who have been on the fence to pony up the funds and buy it knowing things are a little more manageable.

    In the end I think everyone needs to come to terms with this type of design moving forward in terms of upscaled from the start and tuned down as time passes. I am still not a huge fan of forced progression but this also presents an artificial roadblock to keep players engaged in the content longer with hopes that they will keep buying a sub as they try to get into that next amazing zone. I am not saying its right or wrong but it just is unless they can somehow find a way to get more developers, artists and all of the other people that pump these things out year after year.
  2. Vdidar Augur

    Let’s not pretend like the only thing slowing people down is content. The only check on people being done with this expansion are lockouts and clicks from beating raids. I’d imagine most raiders are down to collections and hunter at most lol.
    NeverPayForLag likes this.
  3. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    So it doesn't ruin your emerson that you are being hit by an NPC that you cannot see or on a different island? Why would I be hit with an AE from a named that thinks I'm gods gift, if I haven't done anything to upset it?

    When did walls not stop AEs hitting you? Mearatas is aweful for this, a group killing the nonstop spawning named in the centre of the zone pretty much puts other groups at a snails pace to get other things done, you cannot even talk to the Merc Quest giver without being hit by an AE. Aweful design. They could at least move the quest giver to the outer edge of the zone. Though I'm not sure the named here are supposed to be spawning every 1 - 10 minutes.
  4. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    Pretty much and waiting for broken achievement to be fixed!
  5. Tappin Augur

    People keep talking about skill and strategy, but the new and improved version of AEs eliminates both.
  6. So Happy Augur


    Exactly. In the same same light, the developers should have no expectation for people, behind the curve, to buy the expansion. This is the main reason I haven't bought it. There is simply nothing for me to do in it the way I choose to play.
  7. Endaar Augur

    I'm curious as a hypothetical...if we had another round of server mergers (assuming they went well), would that alleviate most of the complaints about TBL? Clearly this is an expansion that needs specific group makeups and actual humans rather than mercs. Higher server populations make this significantly easier.
  8. Gonobtik New Member


    It likely would not help those that play at odd hours like 2AM PST
    Aurastrider likes this.
  9. Aurastrider Augur


    I never said I like the design or that it was actually working as intended by the developers but this is the method of choice for trying to slow down progression and keep players in the expansions longer. ROS was no different with the complaints about OT and how difficult it was for a T1 zone the only difference this time around is the forced progression aspect. I highly doubt next years expansion will be any different if anything it might be even more brutal considering lots of people are already done with progression with less than a month in. I am sure the developers would love to hear some creative ideas on how to slow down progression while also not killing off the bottom half of the player base but until then this is going to be the trend moving forward.
  10. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    Unless there is a server with more tanks and healers than DPS, it won't make any difference, it is a lack of people playing key classes that is the issue, not the number of players on a server. Merges could possibbly make things worse instead of better
    code-zero likes this.
  11. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    Unless they put in more quests and missions you will never slow the players down. There are people who took a few days off work to play all day and all evening to get their progression done, if you build it they will come! :p

    I used to work on completing a zone a night on all previous expansions, some were a little slower than others but most expansions you could get all quests and missions in a zone done in a night, 2 at the most if there was a lot to do, Dead Hills took a longer to do as there are so many HAs! This expansion has been a little slower than some as it jumps all over the place, so a lot more traveling back and forth and progressing a bit slower but some of those quests are very very quick, you know like 5 minutes quick.

    This expansion had 24 tasks to complete (solo quests, group quests and missions), that includeds the 5 trials, that doesn't include the mercenery quests and non progressive partisan quests and missions which are normally a lot simpler. We knocked out all 3 Mearatas merc quests in around 15 minutes, and maybe a little less for the non progressive partisan quest.

    We are now 2 and a half weeks into the expansion, so any players who have 3 or 4 hours to play a day could be knocking out 2 of those progression tasks along with some mercenery quests each day and would be finished round about now.

    The only way I think they will ever slow players down is to not release the expansion in one go, as I don't see us ever getting more than we got this time round.
  12. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    These are 'Game Features' (tm).
  13. Whulfgar Augur

    My grp geared T1 RoS alt's who had less then 150k hps had no issue surviving those AE's from the Stratos named on the same island they were on.

    This entire mission is not about tanks. It is 100% completely CC reliant.
    Druid's AE root ..
    Rangers AE punt/root..
    Shammy's VP ..
    Wizards / chanter's roots ..
    Chanter's mezzing ..

    the mobs in this mission are 100% every single player based system enabled in game CCable.. This mission does in fact not require a big ol tank .. it requires group Co-Ordination .. an the ability to root at the very LEAST ..


    Whats the perfect grp for this one ?



    all 3 of those "guards" are 100% completely CC'able by any / all mean's of CC available to every player in the game. Root ? Yes, Mez ? Yes, Puntable ? Yes.

    Trash in Empyr have frontal conal AE's .. if your grp does not catch onto that fast thats more of a reflection on your grps in game awareness then of content being over tuned..



    Yes I agree the being dead part should not matter if all are in quest.. I can happily agree with that.

    Also happily give this point to you.



    And in each of them.. You can easily wait for your burns to be back up .. bring a tank and a CC'er of absolutely any type .. ranger, druid, shammy , enchanter .. literally ANY class that can root can handle CC'ing these..



    I 100% completely disagree the hardest part of this mission was actually killing for the heads..


    I do agree, that I absolutely LOVE this expansion. I've pointed out my own strats for some of the quests.. I've also stated that I've done this with alts who prior to new gear in TBL were at most 180k raided out hard buffs ..

    Are there some aspects of the expansion that are harder ? Absolutely .. are there some aspects that I personally feel should be tuned down ? Absolutely not. Almost every single thing in the entire expansion is rootable, snareable, mezzable , stunable .. yadda yadda yadda .. Malo / Tash .. an 95% of all the content is good. Even a grp geared box grp could do this stuff.
  14. Zhaunil_AB Augur

    *sigh* and we are back to that, are we?
    Noone says that people are not of different "skill".
    What people DO say - especially in this thead and in the OP - is that the baseline for this expansion, like so many others is simply off.
    "skill" is relative, a "soft fact". But you design stuff around "hard facts" - e.g. the AAs you mentioned.
    To say that one server's population is more skilled than another's is... farfetched imo.
    If you look at the leaderboard, i see guilds from all (or well, most) live servers progressing steady.
    So you have players, that by YOUR definition would fall under "skilled" category on every one of them.
    For example, this last summer we have had a WAR servermove to RoI who passed his trial - i would call that "cutting the muistard" then as you use it, and i would think that yes we CAN compare to "the best" on every server.

    But that is not the real question in the context of a thread such as this, is it?
    The question is: who beats certain elements of this (every, really) expansion - and HOW.
    If just TWO pickup people in a group of 6 (see above where i describe what has happened immediately prior to the OP opening this thread, and also note that the OP is probably frustrated for longer than this, that something has built up to make him turn to the forums...) can bring the DPS down enough for seasoned raiders to fail the more easy ones of the trials (not that i would place blame on those players, mind you, but for sake of discussing your point only!) , then something can't be right.
    It looks to me as if expansions were designed around only a small portion of the whole population. And those who do not fall into this portion have (sometimes very serious) issues and complain, rightly so. Theres always the people who think they're "elite" but MMOs live from the variety of their population.

    Did it ever occur to you that the reduction of population over the years might be due to something else but JUST the competition?
    In MY experience, frustrated players do not exactly make loyal customers. The number of failed open PvP games tell a clear story there. And look at the games that thrive, that are able to churn out big(ger) expansions and retain a large playerbase, what do they do differently - from a design perspective?
    They cater to a wider range of people and "skill", unlike EQ. And that has to change. Yesterday.
    NeverPayForLag likes this.
  15. NeverPayForLag Augur

    lol... always the same.. I ask myself if they really believe what they are talking.
    If you have only one DPS class who can use Alliance then you are far ahead of the usual group layout.
    If you have raid weapons and may it be EoK Ultrarare then you have a big advantage.

    I know somebody who does it with 3 berzerkers - he adds the alliance and then nothing stands very long in his way. So every part of the Trials seem to be tuned around a special combination which is only the norm by the typical elite player who chooses a new class if in need, levels it - like it is said here - after buying heroic from 85-100 in a couple of hours and in 2-3 days from 100 to 110. Then makes another couple of days for the most important AAs (DPS/Mitigation) and slaughters everything - like somebody explained to me. Nice - I played more than 10 years on my toon. Yes there is a difference....if that is the new way to go for the future then DGB is crazy :p

    Due to stupid jumps to and fro in the expansion I need to do again these god forsaken trials and thought I take the "easier" ones, according to some here

    Beefed up the Tank - so that should not be a problem anymore.
    Wending Ways.....easy.. they said...yessss.....eeeasy....

    At moment I am sweating on the Fire Mob. About 6 wipes now. Mobs have insane HP but I assume also insane other things. Cactiicii is dirt under the fingernail against them.

    I am still searching for the trick. But pure DPS/HP is the thing which seems working most.
    Earth was the easiest.
    Water was simply crazy. Nearly everything OOM after put them down.
    Wind was a challenge.
    Fire is a questionmark. Dragging him to a firepot let him go "solid", so I thought I need to drag him to another, but which one is unclear. Got him down to 74% and wiped again.

    What is the trick on that one?

    I assume that every mob has a very special which he is vulnerable too.
  16. Zhaunil_AB Augur

    Yep, there are always those that find it "not hard". In the far majority of cases, those fall into a rather tiny portion of the overall population though: One where AAs are perma-maxed a month after release, where gear is not an issue as well as resources in terms of being able to build optimal groups.
    The sad truth though is that most groups are NOT optimal, and that therefore - when you lock - there HAVE to be multiple approaches to win an encounter, beyond "you need a beefy tank" or "you need an ENC or SHM for CC".

    Perhaps. I for example box regularly, but i only box two accounts. 3 perhaps, sometimes.
    It is simply stating the obvious that with each box my "skill" (i.e. attention) has to be divided and overall performance goes down when compared to live players, even "mediocre skilled ones".
    I would say there is a reason why the use of banned software that automates characters is so rampant in this game...

    I do not know about tanking all 6 or 7mobs in this task.
    But my group usually only has a SHM for CC, if that (depending on fellowship activity). Most often it is currently just me (WAR+CLR) and a BST with our mercs. See an issue with that group and the weaknesses you mention?
    I am not complaining about that task at all, but when tasks REQUIRE certain things and you can't provide them, you are screwed and THOSE people rightly complain imo.

    LOL... Sorry, but this is just laughable.
    If YOU, ith your resources say this particular task is overtuned but the rest is fine...
    What do you think are people experiencing and feeling like that "have less than you"?
    That perhaps can't provide the needed classes, or the required DPS or the beefy enough tank?
    You admit here that one task is overtuned.
    The OP claims (and i agree, to a point) that this expansion is overtuned...
    Looks to me as if both are right, from their perspective
    .
    Right, it's not the main complaint. But it's part of the OP's complaint, and adding to the total.
    In the end, it does not matter how the total amount of frustration is made up (it's different for each player i'd reckon), only the grand total is of interest when it comes to the point of calling an expansion "good" or "failed". Or when it comes to the decision to abandon the game alltogether, which would diminish us all.
    (yes i may not like certain players, but i DO think that EVERYplayer that turns his back on the game is a loss to us all)

    I haven't seen thoise posts you refer to, don't think they're in this thread's context (so no reason to cross-reference them here) and yes i'd think such an expectation is unrealistic and such a complaint because of that would be.. neglectable.
    But the 3-boxing thing.... No, that's not even what i see people complain about.
    Speaking only for myself:
    i DO expect being able to beat Trials with a pickupgroup of 6 max-level charcters, regardless of their gear (well, within reason) such as the pickupgroup we had before Merlein made this thread.
    Or, alternatively, 4raiding characters of which only one is boxed at most.
    I certainly expect group stuff to be beatable by ANY combination of 4 "capable raiding characters" (and two mercs) when noone is boxed. That is my personal baseline and expectation only though, i do mind if others have their own and post them.

    Yes, "make friends with an enchanter" helps, ENCs make a lot of stuff easy across many expansions.
    So does "call in a raid tank" or "call in raid DPS". I have been lucky enough to eventually find all i needed so far.
    But EXPECTING (from a design perspective) groups to do this or have certain abilities is.. carrying it too far, imo.
    I know people that are not able to find what they NEED, i see them in general chat for example...
    Graves likes this.
  17. Zhaunil_AB Augur

    That's the question, isn't it?

    Above i have said that missed mechanics might be a reason for us to having failed, perhaps THE only reason.
    That'd be fine. In that case i would expect people to post such and not "it is a skill question" or somesuch as i see above.

    Wulfghar's recent thread go in that direction, and while i am not much a friend of his postings usually, i welcome that.
    I still maintain though that there's some serious design flaws (e.g. in the baselining of things) involved.
    Over time, these will become less... relevant perhaps, yes. I fully expect to being able to 3box the whole expansion in 1 or max 2years down the line.
    But the crucial time is ALWAYS release and directly after. It did not help much (quite the opposite really) that they did, for example, "fix" the VP faction half a year into the expansion. Similar is true for this one, and for every expansion out there.
    This type of shoddy worksmanship has to stop, and stop now.
  18. Zhaunil_AB Augur

    THIS (and the whole post this comes from) is a gem, and i qft.
    That's why i speak regularly about the (imo underlying) design issue, not just the symptoms.
  19. NeverPayForLag Augur

    no trick it seems.. crappy design...:confused:
    I did it.. you know how?o_O

    I simply excluded every kind of strat and pulled him into the middle fire, ignored every emote and zerged him down - endless fight, I should say, every bit of buffing/tuning activated, even rotate with rejuvenation and an endless buffing and waiting for the cooldowns of these 1min spells to boost everything 21k up - casting alliance on all (healer rotation) which i normally don't do - so much wasted time to look at the cooldowns to fire again to only prepare.. how darn boring...

    Gameparse has either some serious issues or my toons still suck for this xpac... but I think it is the long fight and the average DPS goes down into the cellar.

    48 Mill. HP - I remember in EoK I slept in Beta while killing that big one - Bridgekeeper - felt the same - needed so much time that I slept over the keyboard. Only difference - this one keeps you at bay because one error and 4 hours of darn playtime on this darn Trial goes down the drain.

    So the strat was after every kill of the 4 named to wait endlessly until ALL cooldowns are back and to be able to get the next guy - what a timesink and what stupidity... gosh...how in the world can somebody have fun with such a crap? :confused:

    I ask myself if DGB ever got this concept of small milestones for having fun?
    And how in hell can anybody with a job and a life exclude 4 hours without a break without having christmas vacation do such things?:eek:

    Yes it is possible but this is not a game - this is stress and work. :confused:
  20. Nniki Augur

    No trick besides placing him on those raised platforms. Watch the color of the decal change.

    Here are the text entries:
    Blazing Triumphant Bulwark gains solidity.
    Blazing Triumphant Bulwark becomes insubstantial, locked into his current form.
    NeverPayForLag likes this.