U60 Lammania Preview 1 - Dungeon Alert Changes

[Fisto Mk I]

The devs have said they will be adjusting these situations to ensure people are not penalized for good play.

What developers are trying to impose on players as a "good play," that is, slowing down the gameplay, in reality for mostly players is "very bad play" in itself and already penalized all peoples. Include you too.

 

[Arkat]

just saying it proced in a raid and shouldn't have so maybe they should look into that if they are doing updates?

There's not supposed to be DA in raids?

 

[Kortar]

Players can't kill mobs if they are dead, if this is really about preventing lag you should not be buffing mobs if they are harder to kill then it's harder to fix the lag that's been created. Debuffing players run speed is okay (mind-numbingly boring but okay) but don't make mobs harder to kill if you want players to actually kill them. Reducing players and increasing the mob's run speed is all that should be necessary here, the mobs will catch up and will have to be killed to get back to normal speed.

 

[Natashaelle]

I'll repost something a bit tongue-in-cheek I put in another thread, though there's a serious element to it :

Maybe instead of the insane crazy buffs for mobs during DA, it would be less onerous to debuff the player characters in instances where they trigger it ? Lower movement and attack speeds, increased cooldowns after spell casting, penalties to mêlée, ranged, spell power and so on ?

Wouldn't change much in favour-farming by very over-level characters, but it would penalise the deliberate or careless gathering of huge groups of mobs at level in a less artificial manner -- just "explain" it by saying there's so many mobs in the encounter that it takes the DM much longer to do all his dice rolls, as a tabletop reference to what actually happens in D&D in these sorts of circumstances ... individual combat rounds can get painfully slow to play through. Maybe change the name from "Dungeon Alert" to "DM Overtaxed" or something ?

 

[apep]

1. Monsters movement speed bonuses have been increased for all dungeon alert levels by about 20% because players have access to a lot more movement effects than they did back in the day.

Does this include green alert? Imo, green alert shouldn't include too many gameplay changes since it's the first indication to the player that there's an issue. If the green alert is above the level of activity that is desirable, perhaps adding another warning tier before it without gameplay changes could help prevent the player from unexpectedly shooting themselves in the foot.

I like these changes. The thing to keep in mind is that the vast majority of gameplay has no dungeon alert, and especially no red dungeon alert. And even then, it's not like these changes are that strong.

The main focus of course should be nailing down the unintentional dungeon alert situations like Inferno of the Damned, where enemies can aggro from behind the flame walls and will constantly try to path to you, even if you have gone through a teleporter, or in ToEE where the mob density is so high that aggro'ing one pack of enemies can aggro several packs leading to an instant red alert.

Adding to the details for Inferno's issue, the north torch area is usually what causes it for me. When you're on the east side of the pit, monsters from the west side will path around the dungeon and pick up other monsters along the way.

 

[Lotoc]

On red alert monsters who have been Crowd Controlled will break free in 6 seconds, and will break free faster and faster for every time that particular monster is CC'd.

Question; Will effects which apply multiple CC effects at once such as Exalted Angel's upgraded epic strikes and Stand and Be Judged build up this CC resistance even faster?
Did you really find a way to nerf Sun Pillar? Isn't it bad enough?

 

[The Narc]

Torc and Cordovan,

Throughout all these new discussion theeads, i read the same threat over and over how the players will not accept these changes and intend to make things even worse by doing certain actions.

To clarify;
There are constant threats of AOE caster nukers planning to gather even larger groups of mobs putting greater stress o the servers to blast them i order to maintain some precious amount of xp/min at the cost of lag for all others on the server.

My suggestion(one i think will be necessary in order to prevent these constant threats from becoming a reality in game);
Heavily impact spell caster dc and spell power and spell critical when DA is active especially red DA. If these casters are unable to do damage and can be killed during this time it will make this playstyle not optimum for xp/min

Thanks for reading this.

 

[Xandrah]

Torc and Cordovan,

Throughout all these new discussion theeads, i read the same threat over and over how the players will not accept these changes and intend to make things even worse by doing certain actions.

To clarify;
There are constant threats of AOE caster nukers planning to gather even larger groups of mobs putting greater stress o the servers to blast them i order to maintain some precious amount of xp/min at the cost of lag for all others on the server.

My suggestion(one i think will be necessary in order to prevent these constant threats from becoming a reality in game);
Heavily impact spell caster dc and spell power and spell critical when DA is active especially red DA. If these casters are unable to do damage and can be killed during this time it will make this playstyle not optimum for xp/min

Thanks for reading this.

Please give examples of the other threats these AOE casters are planning on doing in dungeons.

 

[rabidfox]

Please give examples of the other threats these AOE casters are planning on doing in dungeons.

I've actively said I'll split from the group and zerg side sections of quests (agroing mobs I normally don't see & normally skip) to hit the new conquest XP while others should zoom to the end of the quest. I'll split any quest I'm in the way people split the towers for wizking so we can optimize XP/min with getting conquest as fast as possible. It's the logical best way to get XP with proposed upcoming changes. But I also don't play a caster and kill packs just fine so I don't know why they get all the hate...

 

[The Narc]

Please give examples of the other threats these AOE casters are planning on doing in dungeons.

Feel free to read thru the official discussion xp changes threads and danger alert threads, you will find many of them. I will not single out or attack any one person by name as that is against forum guidelines in case you werent aware of that.

 

[JaynChar2019]

Players can't kill mobs if they are dead, if this is really about preventing lag you should not be buffing mobs if they are harder to kill then it's harder to fix the lag that's been created. Debuffing players run speed is okay (mind-numbingly boring but okay) but don't make mobs harder to kill if you want players to actually kill them. Reducing players and increasing the mob's run speed is all that should be necessary here, the mobs will catch up and will have to be killed to get back to normal speed.

look at my new thread DA's in raids are real and it has been chronicled.

 

[Xandrah]

Feel free to read thru the official discussion xp changes threads and danger alert threads, you will find many of them. I will not single out or attack any one person by name as that is against forum guidelines in case you werent aware of that.

I will decline. Seems pointless at this rate.

 

[Spook]

If mob pathing is causing significant system problems stop making us run through mobs to get to quests

 

[Bjond]

Seems like y'all are dead set on making AE zerging the one and only viable play style.

 

[gravisrs]

I feel the new DA will be a new way to annoy rookie party members on HC Just make red alert and watch them die mwahahaha

 

[Misadventure]

https://imgur.com/a/oU6mlCX

It has happened twice in FOTP and I believe it is happening in others but the tells are not displaying. I am gonna reiew 2 babas instances side by side to see my damage reduction and other things.

 

[Fhrek]

Will be fun to play Slave Lords chain with the new DA system.

Enter one room - Red DA pop
Enter another room - Red DA pop
Enter the next room - Red DA pop

The chain is pretty short will be a cakewalk

 

[Ahpuch]

Does this include green alert? Imo, green alert shouldn't include too many gameplay changes since it's the first indication to the player that there's an issue. If the green alert is above the level of activity that is desirable, perhaps adding another warning tier before it without gameplay changes could help prevent the player from unexpectedly shooting themselves in the foot.

I think that earlier warning is called "Logging in". But you are right, green alert should not cause any changes to game play for the DA system to work.

And thanks for info on Inferno. I will watch for that next time I run it as that quest always gets me despite killing everything I can reach

 

[Redoubt]

The changes to Conquest alone should (hopefully) help with zerging.
I totally agree with the movespeed bonus too. It pairs well with monsters simply stopping chasing you once they've lost your trace from the AI thread.
So the monsters that think they can still get to you chase even harder, and the ones you've lost get to catch their breaths.

Actually the changes to conquest will have the opposite effect. Conquest is already an iffy proposal (that is, its only available in about half the quests and many of them require waiting on respawns and running down optional tunnels) players will simply go back to running dailies with AOE builds. Run to red alert and kill.
It will also just push more leveling into slayer zones which are often run at orange to red DA already.
My current leveling method is to run quests once. Yes, just once. Then legendaries once. With this change, I will push a ton of my questing over into slayer zones instead. I was already taking longer by questing as much as I do, but the loss of xp from the xp changes related to conquest will push me into the slayer zones. This will result in more time with red DA (not less.)

 

[Redoubt]

I forsee disaster.
A lot of game mechanics are already poorly implemented creating DA for no apparent reason and I have no confidence that SSG has or will fix these in a reasonable manigful timeframe which results in players being screwed over in current play.

~ DA is triggered in a lot of quests without active action by players.
~ DA triggered without line of sight to players.
~ Red DA screws all party members not the individual party member, hireling or pet that may be the cause of the issue.
~ Reapers aggroing on mobs often cause DA aggroing a alrge aoe of mobs before players would have activated them.
~ Jumping in some quests with floors often causes DA by aggroing mobs on other floors that are not even accessible yet.
~ Many quests have had DA issues for years that SSG has seemingly ignored player feedback on, player confidence that they are being addressed is already poor.
~ Wave spawns of mobs often cause DA


1. mob speeds and pathing are already unevenly applied, some mobs are way faster than they should be, others area idiots that just stand there swinging around at empty space or shooting at walls... meanwhile we have blinded mobs direct pathing to in-motion players at 2x movement and attack speed...
2. why go right to TS instad of a % increase to mob observation skills.
3. This doesn't help players to deal with DA mobs, it is just going to get players killed and drive more party wipes .. is it SSG's plan to try to sell more rez cakes?
4. Again.. not helping players that may already be trying to manage DA, just forcing struggling players to waste resources to recover a DA mess. Uber players wont care much.


We don't need mobs to become tougher and harder to deal with when there is DA.. especially when it is beyond player control.

Would rather see increase to other area's to deter DA.
~like increasing skill requirements to unlock doors and disable traps, open chests.
~magic enforced barriers at key transition points based on DA that force players to clean up before they can advance.
~Locked end chest until DA is below a certain threshold... no loot and scoot.
~decrease named loot drop % if quest is in DA at completion.
~XP % penalty if completed with DA.

this is a great summary of the situation. If the dev really want to reduce cycles (system load) the first focus should be on mob chain agro and mob agro through solid object. Reapers and unthinking mobs with tremorsense etc could have less chain agro and result in a lot less server load.


Jotmon's alternative ideas are way better. If server load is a concern, bringing more mobs from farther away at higher speeds is the opposite of what you need. Locking doors, putting up wards and barriers could be done with much less load on the server.