[Bug] Some of the NPCs randomly complain about the gehein and ethershades, but it is inconsistent. This may be why none of them are giving us any background information on why we're building monuments, and feel like we've just been dropped into a conversation halfway through. Ziyuh Farijinyi, vendor in CL was the most recent culprit with: "It is not just the Gehein that hinder ... " and you telling him you will cull their (ethershades) numbers. Periun Wehn has done this same conversation path as well more than once (fuel vendor) I'm guessing repurposed NPCs with copy pasta errors I haven't caught the Antonica ones doing similar yet, but my skills at being in 2 places at once have failed me tonight, so no longer 2-boxing edit: Fendi Wehn in Antonica does this as well as does Fiami Ken'thia [Feedback] Is there any chance of getting Breeching, Stirrups and Shoes along with the other mount slot love?
Hi all, first time posting. I have been playing on and off since EOF expac though. PQ dragons in Everfrost Fayren Icefang and Arcanax in Nek Forest seem to be lasting about 15 mins fighting with about two groups of players on test boxing with mercs. Loping plains Dragon Toxyca Vile lasts well over a half hour we believe do to a stack of 9 buffs of a 10% damage reduction, we noticed at one point it ticked down to 8. As Naimi posted above TS dragon is not epic like the others so it shows only 200 million Hp roughly with Assassin's ability detect weakness vs 730 million for the other three dragons. Honestly for test or low population servers the LP dragon might not get many wanting to participate but the others may be a bit too weak to live long on live. The TS one especially just takes a few to kill it in a few minutes even on Test.
Thanks again for tanking so much for us today Randiom! Good to have you back! The TS one (Graw Maul) took under 30 seconds with 5 level 110s, two epic 2 pets, 2 mercs. (3 players and very small entourage). So yes, we're assuming it's an oops
Graw Maul in The Thundering Steppes should spawn as an epic encounter as soon as the configs for the server are updated by code.
Why the spires in the Loping Plains? Why not Antonica, Commonlands or the Enchanted Lands. The spires in the Loping Plains is surrounded by aggro, low level characters will have a very hard time taking part in this event.
Stay closer to the spire and should be mostly ok. I've taken low levels into LP for the kill. The only time I had an issue was because I wasn't paying attention when the dragon kicked me and I ended on top of aggro mobs. Once they get credit for that dragon don't take them there except to harvest the downed dragon body.* As with anything in Norrath, depending on your level you have to be careful! As an example, harvesting in danger zones for lowbies. You can do it but not without risks. * Obviously this is a suggestion and not telling you what to do
It is doable with lowbies, you just have to watch the emotes so you're not hit by wing buffets or tail sweeps. Group up with higher levels that are there, and you're likely to have buffs and folks AEing any aggro that happens to wander into the wrong spot. Antonica and CL already have Heroes' Fest dragons (overlapping events) and monument building, so reallllly don't need yet another scripted thing going on there. EL is a bit too hilly next to the spires to be much good for a fight and these ARE 110 epic x3 dragons. The crafting side can be done by any level 20+ crafter by the way, and anyone can gather from the dragon corpse while it is up, so it isn't totally exclusionary. Please don't think I am trying to pooh-pooh your concerns, but just trying to let you know things that can be done to make it less of a chore if all you have is low-level folks, or one of your low-levels decides they NEEEEEED the achievement mount. And with almost a month of run-time, even low-levels should be able to find a high-level raid taking one out and be able to plink away at the edges for credit.
I'm about to post several long brain dumps here with dragon feedback. Before I do ... THANK YOU Thank you to the devs who have been working on this - I know this must be a crazed time with this and Heroes' Festival, and beta, and normal stuff for players, etc. Thank you to the players who have stepped up and have helped/are helping with testing this. We're under a time-limit to get feedback in with time for the devs to make changes, and we're getting exhausted and frazzled already. But that help, and the feedback make a huge difference. You folks rock! And thank you all for putting up with an increasingly snappish old redhead. This is a lot to sort through, and the stress spikes the pain, the pain spikes the grumpy or the whiney ... or both ... and so on. This too, can be survived, and we ARE making some good progress on shaking issues out.
Toxyca (Loping Plains). Now that we know what the portals do, and the number of them has been reduced, this lady is STILL slow to go down (they all are, with the Test population), but she's far more manageable. She's also relatively easily explained as folks show up to help, and I think this is a REALLY important thing to keep in mind with these, since special events pull in a lot of our more casual players. With care, they can feel like they're participating, and this is a very good thing. Personally? Yeah, I'd like to see her health go down a bit faster, but that's true for all the dragons. I'm worried about low-pop places like IoR, but if Test can get organized and take her down, IoR "should" be able to as well.
Graw Maul - Thundering Steppes Now we get to one that needs tuning, in my personal opinion. He spawns WAY too many totems (and yes, many of us tried the "attack the totem" thing to see if we could remove any, and died for our troubles). We're getting bogged down in mechanics and if we are, then many casual players on live servers will be getting increasingly frustrated as they try for the dragon mount. (It is there, it is a special event, they are going to fixate on getting it, and get angry when they can't do it without a lot of frustration.) You need to find a spot to stand where a totem isn't damaging you and preventing you from hitting the dragon, make sure your merc isn't being killed by a totem at the same time, dodging 2 different types of wing and tail attacks* and trying to do damage at the same time (and not everyone can cast and run everything they need to throw at the dragon). The current guess on totems, which we can't count with all the time we're spending dodging around and being knocked clear across the crater when we miss something is 20-30. (Yep, the knockback is huge on all these) Raiders can get all the mechanics down in a heartbeat, I suspect, but if you want this to be more inclusionary than just them, it is getting close to the "too complex to be fun" stage. We have to expect a LOT of churn and a lot of explaining every few seconds as players hear about the event and need to be told things.
Arcanax (Nektulos) We've not figured out how to deal with the knock UP attack. I've been too swamped herding cats to figure out if running out of range will do any good or not. A lot of time spent flying into the air, needing more healing due to the detriment that hits at the same time, then the 2 kinds of tail sweeps and 2 kinds of wing attacks. It is a long slog, but not the worst of them ~~~~~~ Since I missed explaining above: tail attack one - stays facing the person it is angry at, and does the knockdown from there from the rear tail attack two (targeted) - spins towards whomever it mentions in the emote, you either need to know where you are in relation to that player and dodge accordingly, or simply start moving the moment you see it start spinning and pray wing buffet 1 - stays facing whomever has top aggro, everyone needs to get behind the wings, so expect some spinning once the buffet is done as the aggro holder either needs to get back out from under the dragon's butt or run back from being sent a considerable distance by the dragon wing buffet 2 (targeted) - spins to face whomever it mentions in the emote, and it could be anyone. Everyone around that player is going flying alllll over the place None of these are dire, but the sheer frequency of them with whatever other mechanic the dragon in question has is what is getting us frazzled.
Fayren Icefang - Everfrost Ah, Fayren, you're not *quite* defeating us in detail, because we're Test, and we're too stubborn for our own good. Wing buffets, check, we go swimming a lot because of some of the other mechanics make us miss warnings in time, or the dragon spins as someone runs back from being flung around, etc Tail sweeps, check - survivable. However, then we're adding in multiple blobs of ice enlarging until they explode and send anyone near them flying, and we're trying to keep mercs and squishies from being killed by ice prisons, and with the frequency of both, anyone that needs to be in melee range is spending half the fight just running back to the dragon because they don't have eyes in the back of their heads. Since the ice prisons don't seem to be taken down by AEs, and have to be manually targeted and destroyed (even if they are quick to kill once you target them, it is more time tab targeting around if you're trying to manage those at all) The ice blobs are basically throwing all the melee all over while the ice prisons are killing mercs and any squishy that we can't warn while dealing with all the mechanics. We even had our tank this last time get knocked so far away that he was sent into the water, under the ice, and drowned before he could find a way back out.
Summary: If the frequency of some of these attacks (and/or totem numbers) were cut down, it might be a "good thing". I think my most major concern is that I'm trying to put my mind in the head of the players who go "Whee, anniversary event, I want to join in! I want that dragon mount illusion!" We're not dealing with an organized raid force accustomed to dealing with multiple mechanics on a single mob. We're dealing with players of varying skills who will hear about the event and run in midway through and not have a clue what they are doing. While I fully "get" that it should be a challenge, and you don't want something players can faceroll through, finding that sweet spot for balancing between challenge and cakewalk is hard. I truly DO appreciate the effort put into making them challenging, but "challenging" can vary in definition, based on your target population. Most of us on Test are in the mindset of "holiday/special event means inclusion" Toyxca is now understandable and manageable, if slow Aracanax isn't "bad", but we've yet to figure out if there's a way to deal with the knock up, and yeah, slow with our population size. Graw Maul and Fayren Icefang are on my "I will not try to 2-box to help on these two again" list in their current state. There's just too much to juggle at once with them, and too much distance-running if you flub. It is worst on the folks that have to be in melee range, but even the ranged folks are having issues.
