It just takes waaaay too long, the chain pop of little squel is VERY boring. Tbh next time you get an idea like that for missions, might just stay at home instead.
Thank you all for your detailed feedback. I agree that this mission currently has several issues, including a balance problem and at least one critical bug. To solve these, I've made some changes/fixes to the Mission on our beta server based on the feedback here. These will need to be tested by QA before they're pushed live with a hotfix. I'll keep you updated with an ETA when I have one. 1. Seers Casting DeathTouch: [Change] Instead of Deathtouching the player, the Seer will teleport the player back to Sheriff Knotter Botter, so they have to start the run over. Same gameplay rewards, but with a more reasonable penalty for failure. 2.Seers Aggro Radius: [No change] I confirmed Aggro radius is the correct, standard size. You have to get fairly close to draw Aggro. I'm not sure what you were experiencing, Dendrophobic, but let me know if it happens again. 3. Trap Spam: [Bug Fix] There was a little overlap with the trap procs (it would proc once for every giant skeleton in the area and apply the debuff to every giant skeleton in the area for each proc). Added a check to see if that unit already has the debuff. If it does, it skips it. 4. Trap Effect Spam: [Change] I removed the spell effect on Giant Skeletons from trap procs and gnome skeleton procs. This should severely reduce (dare I say eliminate?) the crashing/lagging caused during these encounters. 5. Trap Respawn: [No change] I could not reproduce the traps failing to respawn at the gate. Both traps respawned on Live for me infinitely. Please provide additional information if this happens to you. It will take roughly 40 seconds for a trap to respawn. 6. Melee vs. Caster DPS: [No change] I think you miscounted the digits in your log, Uxtalzon. I confirmed damage outputs for the procs on live. Melee get 1 million damage per proc, and casters get 3.2 million (not 32 million) damage for proc. Casters are meant to be a bit higher since many melee can proc extra swings and hit at a faster rates than spell casts. Slow-swinging melee will be at a slight disadvantage, but that's unavoidable with the current technical limitations. 7. Requiring Quest to Zone In: [No change] Working as intended. 8. Takes Too Long: [Change] Most of the changes here should help reduce the time. I also did a flat cut to HP of the mobs in the zone to help speed it up. You still won't be able to kill them without the using the mechanics, but once you execute the mechanics well, the NPCs' deaths will come a little swifter. 9. Serums From Neringa: [Unchanged] The giant player fills a specific role in the group (Tank), that is explained in the buff's effect text. It's also mentioned a few times in task text. Mystery Serums are all working as intended (an illusion or small spell effect). 10. Gnome Skeletons: [Change] I removed the spell effect from these as well, to avoid crashing issues. I updated the messaging in the chat box and popup text to make it more clear that the Giant player is spawning the Gnome Skeletons by hitting the Shaky Skeletons, and that the giant player needs to hit the Gnome Skeletons to explode them. I also removed all damage dealt by the Gnome Skeletons so there's less of a penalty for not recognizing this mechanic.
Augur, when we did it this morning I was seeing a problem in that I would critical hit for 0 damage when I cast spells. It happened maybe 50% of the time I got a critical hit, which was rather frustrating. I was getting between 3 and 9 million damage on a non-crit, so I'm guessing the times I got the 0 error was when it was in the upper range, which would have been like 36million crit. The only thing I could think was maybe I went over the maximum allowed damage and it reset to 0 or something?
Can you provide a screenshot or exact scenario when the damage occurred? I will log back in and triple-check this. It could be related to character level.
Swinging faster, or slower, does NOT make you proc more, or less. You proc the same regardless. Anyone who can cast spells can do literally 7 to 8 times more damage throughout the event. Since you aren't getting Melee Strike to go off with every actually hit pure melee damage is awful on this. On Gogmagog I swung 203 times, and got 38 Melee Strikes, compared to a Beastlord that was with me got 168 Melee Strikes on the same exact mob.
Melee Strike (and Magic Strike) only procs while the debuff is active on your target. It's based on the debuff it receives from mechanics (signaled by the "X is vulnerable to melee/magic attacks. Strike now!"). That part is intended. Edit: If those 203 swings were all swung while the debuff was active, then that's a problem. Can you confirm? That said, there does appear to be variation in the damage NPCs are taking from spells, allowing spells to sometimes deal more damage than intended. At this point, I'm not sure what's causing this, but I will try to stabilize it to the intended 3.2 million. Any information you can provide me with about which spells hit for the most damage, and which hit for the least, would be very helpful. Please include your character level as well. If I can't root out the problem on this, I will lower the magic proc damage across the board. That will not stabilize the damage output, however. So I hope to find a better solution.
Mob hit points are already nerfed in the build being tested by QA right now. Giant Skeletons in particular dropped a fair amount since they're the first real fights in the Mission.
Did not see even one Magic Strike cast through the entire mission, 8369 Melee Strikes were cast. Spells are procing " Melee Strike "
That is correct. I was using the phrase "Magic Strike" to keep the language similar so it's clear what I was referring to. On a technical level, the bonus damage for spells is handled via the vulnerable debuff directly. I believe I've uncovered the source of the magic damage discrepancy. It appears to be coming from items that modify spell damage by a flat percentage, such as Boreal Sleeves of the Warden, adjusting the spell damage after the bonus is applied, instead of before. I will talk with code to see if there's anything we can do about this, but my guess is that the best solution will unfortunately be to lower the bonus damage to spells in the zone. If that's the case, the change will require adjustment to Spells, which cannot be hotfixed. It would go live in the next patch. I'll continue to work to find a hotfixable solution.
For the entire mission here was our " Ranged Strikes " [Fri Mar 15 06:14:38 2013] Poac begins to cast a spell. <Ranged Strike> [Fri Mar 15 06:14:39 2013] Poac begins to cast a spell. <Ranged Strike> [Fri Mar 15 06:14:40 2013] Poac begins to cast a spell. <Ranged Strike> [Fri Mar 15 06:14:42 2013] Poac begins to cast a spell. <Ranged Strike> [Fri Mar 15 06:14:43 2013] Poac begins to cast a spell. <Ranged Strike> [Fri Mar 15 06:14:44 2013] Poac begins to cast a spell. <Ranged Strike> [Fri Mar 15 06:14:45 2013] Poac begins to cast a spell. <Ranged Strike> 7 total. Compared to 8k+ Melee Strikes
Just to clarify, Ranged Strike functions like Melee Strike: it adds a tiny spell damage proc to all ranged attacks, and does not apply to spell casts. When your ranged attack hits the NPC, its defensive buff absorbs most of the natural damage. But that tiny spell damage proc goes through and the debuffs on the NPC add a hefty damage amount to it.
My guess is it has to do with this: [37932] Magical Vulnerability Target: Single Range: 500′ Resist: Unresistable Casting: 0s Duration: 5.00:00:00 (72000 ticks) Dispellable: No 1: Increase Spell Damage Taken by 10000000 2: Limit Type: Detrimental 3: Limit Min Mana Cost: 2 [37931] Melee Vulnerability Target: Single Range: 500′ Resist: Unresistable Casting: 0s Duration: 5.00:00:00 (72000 ticks) Dispellable: No 1: Increase Spell Damage Taken by 1200000 2: Limit Type: Detrimental 3: Increase Hit Damage Taken by 2% factor in various aa's and such that casters get and that is what is leading to the 32 million damage nukes.
