High Keep:The Bloodless Incursion [Contested] now on Test and Beta!

The theory is good.. but the mobs have crazy social aggro. It is very hard not to pull multiple encounters.

I just spent two hours in there. I'm not going back any time soon. We couldn't get further than the second floor rooms. We were getting aggro'd from upstairs and downstairs. By the time we got momentum, the trash respawned.

I body pulled a mob and they socialed 6 other encounters en route to the group. 4 detriment counters explode the group, everything else is just overkill. I ran with a group that farms Dom with no issues. This was the pits.

If the idea was to slow people down through the zone, congrats. it's slow. To the point that it's at a standstill.

I don't intend to be mean, but it seems to me many "new" players to this game have a very different vision that the eq1 veterans. I am really happy with what i saw of this zone.
We went there yesterday and killed 3 or 4 nameds, and had much fun in the process. I did miss the feeling of being forced into paying attention, being scared of wiping because that'd mean reclearing for a while / restarting from scratch.
I do not want smaller social aggro range. I do not want the trash to be made easier. It's much more fun this way.
Many tanks believe that quick pulling, rooms pulls make them good, in fact i've never seen so many bad tanks than lately. Knowing how to pull should be tank basics. Pulling is a whole area of the game that has been pretty much ignore for a long time in this game. The groups will also need to learn or relearn when to cast or attack this should also be basics but it's currently not... the game is way too forgiving about this, way too easy mode on grouping. What spell can i precast without triggering something that will make social mobs to aggro, what can i do not to pull aggro etc...
Many peoples believe they are good because they press autoattack button or start casting as the tank is still pulling, and call tank bad because they die. With this zone trash, they will die - if not wipe their group, this is good. The game mechanics made is so there is barely any hate management to be done in the game. Dpsers can sit there, spam buttons and compare epeens. I mean wtf... can't say i like this. I miss the time you had to time your spells, take care of not hitting too hard twice in a row or the mob would aggro and kill you... and i really hope that this new zone will not be forgiving about this either.

With all due respect the design of the zone sucks....pass gas anywhere near trash even through walls bamm your facing 4-6 mob encounters with 4-6 increments...from soloing to tandem to triple heal groups spent 6 hours there and not overly happy with the lost time. For the most part groups that made it down deeper into the zone did so following or working with another group leapfrogging. Gear is ok the fabled healer charms pretty good (if you could get them to drop) but currently its either one of 2 options left to address if the zone is going to have any interest to anyone in running it due to the time involved in what has fast become the worst dungeon crawl I can remember.

• Way too much trash mobs in the zone with extremely high social/proxy agro...it is not hard to pull through walls/floors/ceiling with body pulls let alone a bow shot/etc. Players don't mind a dungeon crawl but the zone in its current state in no way resembles that. With the excessive trash in the zone group dps is down least we pull a trash encounter or 2 or 4 or 6 while we try and kill a named.
• Undead Army as a stacking det especially in this zone is out of control...as stated about its not entirely too hard to wind up have 4 or more encounters (which vary depending on the group of trash 2-4 adds each) thus ending up with the group dying. I will agree if you try and charm any of the trash you wind up more often than not with 1 or more Undead Army dets on you (one of my groups that I ran the zone managed to find themselves with 6 repeatedly which didn't drop off until charm add was dead and we all dropped group).
• Lack of rez points in the zone especially as it is on live is another design flaw. Hey we get it your trying to slow people from farming the names (though I never saw trash drop any chests so doubt that's an option) but any one of these three make the zone a pita. Add in all three and you have a ready made recipe for disaster.

The players in my assorted 4 groups I ran this with were no pug newbs wearing cryptic gear they were T1/T2 raid geared and good at their class and most pretty much stated they'd rather raid ToV in cryptic gear than to endure the zone.

• If you intend to keep the poorly thought out Undead Army mechanic than you really only have 1 option available to make the zone more manageable...reduce trash in the zone by 1/3 current amounts. In addition you may want to look at the adjusting the trash mobs agro mechanics as its a nightmare in its current form.
• If you intend to keep the amount of trash as is than the Undead Army mechanic seriously needs reworking.
• Either way a few rez points in the zone would be nice regardless.

I will state that as a healer you would as a dev not have liked to be in my vent channel for 6 hours and I'll leave it at that.

Any plans on adding a guild achievement on the X4 in here? I only see a personal achieve for it at this time.

A guild achievement for defeating Exarch Lorokai the Unliving (the x4) will be added tomorrow morning.