Named Difficulty

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Rykear, May 7, 2013.

  1. Rykear Elder

    All,

    I just started into T2 progression and named hunting for gear. The progression(partisan) lines seem reasonable as far as length and difficulty but, the missions and named mobs seem a bit out off.

    The missions difficulty seemed off in most of the T1 zones. There were many emotes requiring movement or responses making the missions very hard. I do box toons so understand there would be difficulty. It just does not seem to allow for appropriate times to respond of perform certain tasks or the special skills just are too difficult.

    The named in T1 were on the easy side;however, the named in T2 seem unforgiving as they have DDs, dots, and add generation at the same time. The hit points on these mobs also seem to make the fights extremely long leaving room for error to a minimum. I do understand that the same size is a bit small here as I am in Grelleth but, as I scan the named, it seems to be consistent throughout the T2 zones.

    I understand that this is a MMO but, it does not change the fact that groups full of real players are a rarity. Taking a long period of time to form a full or near full group can help alleviate the difficulty but, with playtimes being small(3 hours as an example) and more limited as I get older, does it make sense to spend a third(hour) or more of my time to form a full or near full PC group? Does it make sense to design missions, named, and tasks with this difficulty and time consumption?

    What are your thoughts?

    Rykear
  2. Rykear Elder

    P.S. should have changed title to include missions and tasks but can not edit it.
  3. Tobynn Augur

    What was once exclusively raid mechanics (do this, do that, move here, move there, and all varieties of emotes requiring player reaction) is now liberally applied throughout the group game to both missions and named encounters. After a dozen years of development, using the Simon Sez Heads Up! approach has become the Go-To design methodology. Encounters designed as straight up Tank 'n Spank are now the exception, no longer the rule.

    As new blood continues to rotate into the dev team over time, I simply expect more complex and more intricate encounter design -- particularly in the group game -- because that's typically where new blood is first turned loose.
  4. sojero One hit wonder

    They added those mechanics to the group missions so that groupers could get the story line as well. Where in the past only raiders got to see that aspect of the game.
  5. Sirene_Fippy Okayest Bard

    I box a group geared bard + cleric and was in your position a few weeks ago. Progression feels slow but things will get better as you get more AA and small upgrades.

    At first T2 named felt very difficult. Some of them I still can't do (especially named that spawn adds), others I win ~50% of the time (charm & fear I just have to get lucky).

    My progression went like so -
    - grabbed all tasks for a zone, worked through partisan & finished mercenary quests after
    - killed named I encountered as I went, wiping multiple times on some and skipping them
    - move on to the next zone, picking off the few named I could kill as I found them
    - after quests are all done, picking specific loot I need and camping those named

    Slowly getting upgrades and exp made things easier, and working through the zone quests made it feel like I was working toward something without getting discouraged by the amount I was dying to group named. You might also hang around in general chat - although it can be annoying at times, every once in a while people call rotting loot.

    I've found most Grelleth named to be very difficult. There are a lot that I still can't duo. BG and Evantil were the easiest T2 zones for me, and PoShadow may be worth a try. If you're having trouble, there might still be some things worth camping in T1 zones while you gear up a little.

    After trying Zeixshi-Kar I stopped doing group missions completely without having more people. Exp and loot rewards are nice, but simply not doable for me in most cases. A little harder than I would have liked, but something to work towards. Although some named have reamed me 3+ times, I've been able to return and kill a few of them. I find this a lot more rewarding than steamrolling all of it the first time around.
  6. NaVi7512 Elder

    How is that? You can tell the story line WITHOUT the annoying raid mechanics ...
    Axxius, Dre. and Kelefane like this.
  7. Deveryn Elder

    Both EQs are doing that these days. It's a great idea, as only a few people got to see all of the work the devs put into the stories.
  8. Rykear Elder

    Tobynn,,

    The post has some very interesting insight. I do agree with newer individuals and tank n spank being a rarity now.

    Rykear
  9. Rykear Elder

    I do like the change to see some of the raid mechanics to get the storyline to feel more immersed in the game. I, however, think a little more scaling down would be better as far as group make ups seem to be less than 6. My playtimes(2200-0200 ish) seem to have the normal group makeup in the 2-3 PC members with 2-3 mercs filling in the rest.

    Rykear
  10. Rykear Elder


    Thanks for the information and tips. Might be worthwhile to follow the BG/Evantil path.

    I also breakup my game play a bit. I box either a SK/Sha or Clr/Sha setup. I have been splitting it between alt play/leveling, named hunting, and partisan tasks. The mercenary tasks I have mostly left alone minus SL.

    Rylear
  11. Rykear Elder

    I also stopped doing the group missions. I did the two in SL but, the rest that I tried seem to be too difficult to manage with less than a certain number of PCs.

    I do think T1 was a "steam rolling zone" and do not particular like steam rolling myself. I do, however, think T1 should be easier to entice the less than advanced players a reason to purchase the new expansions.

    Rykear
  12. savrin Augur

    Many of the group missions in rof are not meant for most groupers. I simply mean most groupers will not be able to do them without raider help.

    Grelleth, ew, feast of zalikor, to name of few of them are to help raiders learn the encounters (my opinion). Without the perfect setup of knowing the encounter well and having a perfect group of the right classes and very skilled and geared well players much of these missions are not doable by groupers.

    The main reason is the script is too close to the raid counterpart. They mob dps may be tuned down to group level the simon sez and adds spawns are still there.
    Kelefane likes this.
  13. NaVi7512 Elder

    Totally agree ... so most groupers not going to see the "story line" anyway. Bring raid mechanics to group game is just wrong.
    Kelefane likes this.
  14. Falos Augur

    Most groupers... heck even many raiders are sick of this raid copy and paste stuff in the group game, in some cases the group versions are harder than the raid versions lol (less room for error). I really doubt the devs ever stop this copy and paste stuff that no one likes though simply because it's an easy way for them to "give" more content to players at minimal effort (since it's mostly just adjusting spreadsheet values).

    I'm not saying it's a trivial amount of work, it still does require a fair amount of work on their part to copy / paste these group missions and retuine them but its far less than if they designed something else in its place. I personally would be content getting less missions though if it meant we (groupers) didnt get tossed these unpleasant missions that you do once for win credit and then never have the desire to do it again even if you have gear locked behind it.
    BoomWalker likes this.
  15. Nenton Augur

    So are you grouped with other people or just either of those 2 sets of chars and 2 mercs? That has to be some woefully low dps which is definitely the problem when you're fighting 7-9 mil hp mobs. When you actually throw a dps class or 2 with burn discs into the mix a lot of the named fights become trivial again. Though, after the RoF:SoF patch I'm probably as out of touch with the plight of the casual grouper with my now absurdly OP wiz/rogue/enc/druid group as Falos has always been with his double mage group.

    Chandrok said the retunes of the RoF story missions will be going in with the next patch so we'll see if those become more accessible to more groupers.
  16. Kelefane Augur

    Raid elements and raiding mechanics should not be a part of the group game, period. End of story. Groupers and casuals are groupers and casuals for a reason. If those folks wanted to raid, they'd join a raiding guild.

    Raiding and the group game need to always be kept separate.
    NaVi7512, Dre., Marton and 1 other person like this.
  17. Rykear Elder

    Depends if you average from when I first transitioned. I was more active in the search for more players having general chat open and checking LFG. As I have improved on boxing, I tend to log on and move to get done what is next on my agenda whether progression and named hunting adding more people as they run into me more often than not.

    Does it affect the difficulty: yes. I can say that waiting for the extra players has gotten increasing tiresome to where VOA brought on the second account. Should I look for more players, more often: probably.

    Thanks again for all the replies,
    Rylear
  18. Rykear Elder

    I agree somewhat.. Some of the new challenges have been fun; however, when the events become unbeatable or extremely difficult, the fun is lost. A few difficult named and events here and there are not a problem. When the named and missions are both on the hard side or impossible, the frustration sets in.

    I finally took out Pollutor Slaunk after about 8-10 attempts. The victory was through determination and would not really be called a fun thing. On top of that, a visible armor piece was not even in the loot.

    Rylear
  19. Kelefane Augur

    Its one thing to blur the lines of the classes, but its another thing entirely when they start blurring the lines of actual game play.
  20. krozman Augur

    There is so much information out there, that you can literally game plan any named fight before you even engage. It's bad form to complain about a mob that has mechanics that are clearly public information should you bother to tab out and actually do 10 seconds of research.