Nights of the Dead 2022 - Feedback and Bugs

Ran Hedge Hollow, the cut scenes are not working properly for me. Is there any information I could provide that might help figure out why?

Gnome cut scene: Blipped in for a second and then closed itself like I had hit escape, though I did not.

Last boss cut scene: Was a minute of black screen, followed by a picture of the moon and the various weird closeups of the gigantic werewolf, then finished and boss was killable. No problems killing him.

One thing I did notice was that the regen was far lower than I anticipated, but that could've been the fact that she was only in her low 30s, level-wise (even with being killed way too many times and mentoring down, she still overall went from 28 to 35 in her attempts). On the other hand, iirc from previous years, even lowbies were practically gods between wolfing out over the Piece of Eight and having to tangle with Raven, whose bats weren't ever that much an issue because you could kill her long before she summoned them (almost died again this time, but at least I got a Raven plushie out of it! ). :-/

I tried again on my souped-up Win10 laptop, just in case it was the fault of my old Win7 bugger, and nope, that didn't help a bit. With the Gnome and Co., the cut-scene went a little more as per usual, sort of; it ended with a helicopter camera view (overhead, looking down) at the side of the house where the gnome cowers, but there wasn't anything there. Then the screen went black for like 20-30 seconds, and only seemed to come back once I started flailing around at the attack buttons on that hotbar. Then I found myself knee-deep in a fight that had already started without me, with the critter that hadn't gotten anywhere near the side of the house yet; apparently my Beastlord pet and I had intercepted him again while he was still coming out of the "corridor" in the hedge maze.

As to Altius, when I stuck my toes into the center, the Black Screen o' Doom you get after you get a flash of him and you in the center, then go to the cut-scene? That lasted for, and I timed it, 40 seconds. By the time the full moon was visible from behind the departing clouds, the "subtitles" had him telling me, "And now...you die!" and the screen depicted him as fully Wolfzilla, even though his word balloons were still the usual lines from the script read room. ;-> Then the screen went black again, and once again, once it finally came back, I was knee-deep in something difficult, using every ability I had available, and nothing was doing much of any good at all until I died again.

So, good news is, it's not my poor old desktop!

Bad news is, I've had fun before, and this isn't it. Between Manafizzle's experience and mine, there's all the more reason to despise cut-scenes, and definitely all the more reason to go after them with a war hammer in one hand and an axe in the other.

Uwk

Sweet... :-/

Uwk
who wishes your problem was still common across the board... ;->

P.S. I still have her original pet, a Bat (that was only 1 level below her, and this time, didn't die before she did); would that have anything to do with it? Should I have tamed the Strawberry Meatbeast in Sinking Sands instead, or maybe King Kong? :-/

HEY! I know what it is!

Altius wasn't where he was supposed to be at the start of this holiday release on Test; it's all his fault!

He corrupted everything! Considering I haven't had any problems with any of the rest of the things I've tried, including the Loping Plains Mansion, the races, getting the Zombie Notes from that other version of the zone (which is the only reason I do that quest), etc., it's gotta be his fault!

Uwk

Ran it on a level 14 conjuror who is half dressed. (she has no jewelry...reasons...) Made it through the zone for the quest.

Tried again in the non-quest version and couldn't get the Altius fight down. The rest of it was okay, and this alt is not properly geared so I don't know how helpful that is.

Okay, I took a run at this with a 55 necro. Level 52 MC gear, expert spells, was romping through most encounters with no trouble but yes, she's struggling with Raven. I remember this as a tough encounter from years ago and could easily be lethal if you weren't paying attention but I never had this much trouble with it before. I couldn't see anything specific in the log, just a steady stream of damage that I couldn't offset and it builds up until the health bar is empty. Raven is spawning as white++ and her adds are yellow--.

Then I tried my 74 Shadowknight. Also romps through the first half, has no problem with Raven using multiple AEs. Snacks are fine when pulling them properly. Ganking them all as a group for AE and catching the Harpy as well doesn't go so well but that's not exactly unexpected Altius is a problem. I hit him with Harm Touch for openers and restrict myself to direct damage only so there are no dots running when he goes red but I don't seem to be able to even get him to the point of glowing red before he trounces me.

Couple of things to bear in mind. I haven't done this event at level in years (normally I mentor down to get large numbers of toons through it wirhin the limited timeframe of the event) but I did use to manage it on most classes without this amount of difficulty. But since then both my eyesight and reflexes have deteriorated which certainly adds some additional difficulty from my end but I wouldn't have expected this much. The only thing I can think of: do any of the newer mechanics kick in to any extent at lower levels? Since I never play past 100 and don't usually have any problems killing most things for quests I've never paid any attention at all to the new things like Resolve and Fervour stats and the like so my lower levels are all running around with 0 resolve and probably precious little of any other new mechanic stats that are in there. Could this be an issue?

Cur scenes - I hadn't seen the above posts when I ran this so I'm afraid I escaped out of the gnome one but it didn't cause any problem. The gnome ran past me, mob follwed and gnome gave quest after I saved him. Altius cut scene I know better than to hit ESC because of the background setup and it seemed to play through fine. The only point of interest is that on the first time through the black screen was actually up for a while before it coninued whereas on each repeat attempts after dying it went past that much faster. Something cached to speed it up?

And running this brought up an unrelated issue. For next year is it possible that we could have some nice sparkles on the 4 items needed for the gnome quest please? I know from long practice exactly where these things are but my aging eyes had to work very hard to spot them. The journal in particular was all but impossible to see and I only ever got it by slowly running my cursor across the gound until the icon changed. Sparkles would be very appreciated

Yeah, I did a feedback there for Leu too, I had to redo the maze because the Altius cut-scene didn't start at all on the first run and he never became aggro after I finally got out of blackness. It got late but DID finally start on the other runs but it was painful. There's something weird with cut-scenes for the maze this year, they don't behave as they should.
As a 125 char, I didn't have any fighting problems along the way (and all my chars are 120+ so I didn't check lower levels) and one-shoted everything as usual. I did have a scaling problem with the phantom quest ("Broken Mirrors") that seemed harder than usual at max level. I didn't optimize but I have most of my armor pieces from Kurn Tower/Awuidor, so 315-320 resolve per piece.


Trick or Treadskiller works perfectly now, Leu could complete the quest without problems (and didn't even had to delete/retake!)

Not sure what it is about me, maybe the game just hates my toons ("You have too many. Die." "But, but, but...I've had over 100 for years now..."), but with this new one (started as 49th Monk, dinged to 50 in maze before Raven), I have NOT seen the lovely green +numbers indicating my new lycanthrope infection germies are healing me to the best of their ability, and my stats HAVE NOT CHANGED. By this point (just got past Raven, barely), they should be through the stratosphere, but they're not anything more than what I'd expect from my new gear and AAs. X-P

I think my toons' antibodies are being way too effective... Maybe they're toughing up due to all the crowding. :-/

Uwk
who, basically, isn't doing this as a werewolf (no matter what my Illusion is indicating), but rather as a Fae Monk of level 50 :-/

P.S. Hmm...I've been noticing the various critters I've been killing have been "healing" me in the Combat window according to something called "Spirit of the Night." It does VERY little for me compared to what the original werewolf infection used to do. Is this the way it works now? --U.

Ah! Couldn't get Altius to interact with me, either. I went into the center, there was a brief flash of us both standing there (fairly common over the years, before you get to the Gasp! Academy Award-Winning Scene Change! ), a brief glimpse of the full moon overhead, with the last three lines Altius says in the "subtitles" black area at the bottom of the screen, then an immediate return to the center, with me...and him...just standing there, staring at each other, a minute after the cut-scene supposedly started. Finally, I went back to the creepy skeletal monk statue that lets you out, that isn't supposed to work (? I've never tried it, usually being too busy with a rabid Wolfzilla in my face), and it let me out back to the maze entrance, so I figure I'll just get the scaredy-gnome's stuff instead. /shrug

Uwk

EDIT: Welp, went back to help with the gnome's stuff, found it all, got back to him, got the quest reward (and dinged 51! ), tried going back into the center...this time, we got black screen, then right back to Altius ("There's the moon, now let's see his face."), at the start of his "dialogue," but he never changed, just stood there being all human and not even acting this time (no barfing, which is always a plus not to have to see that), then he threatened me ("And now...you die!"), then black screen again, then he and I in a staring contest, and nothing else. Human eye (his) to wolfy eye (mine), close enough to kiss, and nothin'. Left via the statue again, back to the entrance, bored. X-P

But at least not suffering from regen sickness and needing to repair my gear...again. X-/

It's just that, none of my new toons will be able to get the Necklace, I think (or be able to finish the Return quest for the cool house item rewards there :-/). Ah, well; those of us who have it already can just get them the house stuff in Loping Plains. :-/

fur future reference, kins me'es request a new Until Cancelled costume fur 2023NotD in form of a Ratonga GHOST?
pwease, pwease, pretti PWEASE
me'es Tankies fur the kind konsideration

Okay, retraction time: it turns out my stats did improve, a tiny bit, as a werewolf. Sort of. X-P

My STR and STA did go up, by little bits (about 30 points), but my Regen gains were minuscule compared to what they'd been in prior years as a werewolf, and I never saw the reverse "rain" of lovely green health point numbers fluttering over my head on this toon (on the other, they were very smol). Whatever incremental gains were taking place, it was not apparent at all in the Combat window, except for those few and far between "Spirit of the Night" things, which may or may not have had anything to do with it.

My Avoidance and Block Chance(s) hadn't changed a fraction of an inch, which I think would've been especially helpful, but I'm not a professional raider, so I still don't know what all the lower numbers mean beyond the obvious ones. It would've been interesting to see if I could've had a chance against Altius with this toon, but that never happened. :-/

My resistances did go up a fraction, but again, not with the gains in prior years, iirc.

Potency didn't bat an inch, nor an eye; nor did Fervor nor Resolve. Again, I'm not sure if those are supposed to change, but they didn't. Reuse Speed and Casting Speed went up a little.

DPS, Haste, and Multi Attack probably changed the most, with nothing else under Autoattack changing at all, even if they were supposed to. [/shrug] Although, Primary Weapon and the others (Secondary, Ranged) did improve a little. Again, I'm not sure how much better they were supposed to get from prior years, so I don't have much to compare to, but it did seem I was far more of a combat god back when.

For those of us who are merely casual players, this may be the one time (okay, two, since we have to do it twice in a row ;->) of the year we can feel like proper unstoppable kaiju stomping through Tokyo, with the only thing that could maybe threaten us being another giant monster That Should Not Be. I really do hope it's something amiss with the cut-scenes or maybe something creeping over from the Lore and Legend server that needs to be nailed down before it creeps anywhere else; I hope it's not the result of Kaitheel trying to do something nice to help us out!

Uwk

Like the Ratongas that show up in the digging up the graveyard bits?

Uwk

BUG: Tiny little thing in comparison, but my Evil Beastlord has done the Ghost Hunter races in both The Commonlands (at least 2x, iirc) and Antonica, and she's only gotten credit for the Antonican races, long before I got anywhere near Antonica. ;->

I re-checked the Live Events->Nights of the Dead Achievements after she actually did the races there, and there still wasn't any credit for having done The Commonlands (do you have to get a certain level of points? I never broke 90 there :-/), so consequently, there wasn't any achievement title.

Uwk

me'es no gots gud memory,...
sew me's no kin tink wat yu's refer to,...
mehbees yu's gib SCREENSHOT fum Test?
pwease

Ran Hedge Hollow again on a 52 conjy to check numbers. She started out with similar stats and gear to the 55 necro, iced Raven with no trouble and almost beat Altius the first time through. I picked her deliberately expecting to get a similar performance to the necro. Go figure. She was gettinjg boosts to health & regen, power and regen, stamina and mitigation from her kills as she went through right from the start. When she picked up the Piece of 8 she got the growth spurt visuals but no boost to any of her numbers. Shouldn't that buff up the numbers considerably? She then continued to get boosts from all the remaining kills all the way to the centre of the maze.

Cut scenes do have issues. Ran the gnome one this time and it was fine after a rather lengthy black screen start. The Altius cut scene is almost different every time through!
First time throguh: long black screen intro, moonshot, dialogue screen where Altius stayed human, on exit of cut screen he was transformed and went agro.
2nd time: no blank screen, moon shot cut short in a blink-and-miss-it fashion, dialogue screen shows transormation and he's agro on exit
3rd and 4th times: no blank screen, no moon, stays human through dialogue, still human and non agro on exit
5th time: blank, moon, transorms in dialogue and agro on exit.

One other thing I noticed - on one occassion when he agroed I clicked out to restart and see the cutscene again. I went back to the entrance but my pet didn't go with me and carried on fighting. Backoff command didn't do much presumably as pet couldn't now get out of the centre and when it dies Altius ported out to the entrance to keep on beating on me! Not sure if this bit is a problem or a feature ...

It can be random, which race's ghost shows up, but I have seen distinct long tails and snouts on occasion!

There's two types of ghosts, as well; one that insists you fight it (you can talk it down, but if you fight it, you do get XP and a chance to get a Marshmallow candy drop), and one that you can dance with to celebrate the season.

Uwk

Tonight I had Altius not change from after the cutscene. The first cutscene was skippable (train to the zone) but this one was not, fwiw.

I think that's what happened with my gal, no big boosting, though I wasn't watching the stats before the end. My apologies; I should've been for a proper study. :-/

Wo! I was a little concerned that Altius might follow me to the entrance, but he never did in all those times. I was always under the impression that he couldn't leave the center, one way or another, and was just as stuck there, if not more so, than we are until he's dead. :-/

Uwk

/sigh

Okay, now what...I've got a baby level 21 Coercer, geared up to the teeth with the best my fellow crafters can do for him, everything that can be Imbued is, and he dang near gets killed by a mere decaying resident while digging up graves? I shudder to think what the city Haunted House will be like... X-P

Uwk
whoops; teach me to run a toon I'd just cranked up to the early 20s from just Collection quest turn-ins...we'll see how he does now...

EDIT: Nope, still having a tough time of it. If you're going to make it way harder, o devs, how about giving us some XP for these things? :-/