Focused Feedback: Rikti Mothership Raid

[Mikewho]

Apparition will probably provide more detail, but a couple notes from me from the test raid:

• enemies moved properly, and all enemies expected spawned properly
• the minimap worked for me and a few others, but I understand it was blank for a few people?
• the GM seemed to be getting healed by something at crazy rates (25% to full health in a few seconds). We think maybe a Rikti priest, but I didn’t see any nearby. Is it possible their range is off? Eventually we did kill him for what it’s worth.
• the alpha level shift didn’t work for any of us (level 54 minions appeared purple)

 

EDIT: see Apparition’s post for far better details

Edited September 23, 2019 by Kaylin

[carroto]

In addition to level shifts not working, the pylons are still level 54.

[swordchucks]

I confirm the findings 😉

 

For the priests, it is possible that the priests have a huge, long cast heal ad we just didn't notice them the first time.  He did go from about half to full very quickly, though our kill time was long enough that it could have been any of a number of issues.  I do like the addition of a mechanic to that fight that makes you have to pay a little more attention to the adds around him and would like to see those guys folded in to the zone MSR. 

 

The biggest request I heard in the group was for a Rikti kill counter. 

 

---

 

Outside of the above, I have a lingering concern about the trial format.  Namely, DCs.  DCs happen with some degree of regularity in MSRs, for a variety of reasons (and I had one last night on Everlasting along with about a quarter of the raid).  I didn't test this last night, but if a DC ends up locking someone out of the trial, it could be a serious concern. 

[Apparition]

1 hour ago, swordchucks said:

I confirm the findings 😉

 

For the priests, it is possible that the priests have a huge, long cast heal ad we just didn't notice them the first time.  He did go from about half to full very quickly, though our kill time was long enough that it could have been any of a number of issues.  I do like the addition of a mechanic to that fight that makes you have to pay a little more attention to the adds around him and would like to see those guys folded in to the zone MSR. 

 

The biggest request I heard in the group was for a Rikti kill counter. 

 

---

 

Outside of the above, I have a lingering concern about the trial format.  Namely, DCs.  DCs happen with some degree of regularity in MSRs, for a variety of reasons (and I had one last night on Everlasting along with about a quarter of the raid).  I didn't test this last night, but if a DC ends up locking someone out of the trial, it could be a serious concern. 

 

The beta patch notes stated that the Rikti Priests were added back to the zone mothership raids.

 

Now that I thought about it overnight, I think I recall Rikti Priests having a super-long reach heal.  I think I remember a couple of times when there were no Rikti Priests in the bowl, but the ones on the rim were healing U'Kon Gr'ai.  It's been at least seven years though, so I may be misremembering.  I agree that they add a nice mechanic to the U'Kon Gr'ai fight.  It was mostly just a matter of facing them for the first time in several years and only having six people in the raid.

 

I think the raid trial will help a lot with the DCs, actually.  The map is smaller than the zone, so there's less stuff that needs to be loaded up in your computer's memory.  And, your computer regains memory when the trial ends and you rezone back to Pocket D or wherever.  So that will help fix the memory leak from running multiple mothership raids.

[swordchucks]

43 minutes ago, Apparition said:

I think the raid trial will help a lot with the DCs, actually.

Hopefully, it'll help with the ones caused by the MSR itself.  MSR is still a little long to expect no DCs for other reasons, though, so it'll be a problem, just less of one.

 

I honestly don't know enough about the way trials work to comment further on that.  It may be something to experiment with in the future, though.

[Torcel]

I was sorry not to be able to attend the test this Sunday, but I know Leo confirmed last time that you would be able to add people to the league and they would zone in when they accepted the league invite even after you'd started the raid.  The league membership won't be locked as for an Incarnate trial or a TF/SF.

[Vanden]

League membership isn’t locked for incarnate trials, the leader can freely invite new players up to the trial cap. This is on the live servers, btw.

[Oklahoman]

Yesterday on Everlasting, Krow tried to run this via LFG and I wanted to give a little feedback. In short, it didn't work.

 

From a technical standpoint, only about half the league actually got transported into the trial. We were unable to figure out how to resolve this and ended up just moving to RWZ to run it as usual. I was surprised that the doors at PDH would open and take me back out of the trial to KW where we started, but I could go back into the trial through LFG. So, while I was able to bounce back and forth between KW and PDH, half the league couldn't get in at all. I'm not sure if the doors at PDH were supposed to function that way, or if it was a result of ToT.

 

From a more practical standpoint, it was very difficult on a Saturday afternoon to get a full league of 35+ WITH the Member of Vanguard badge. In fact, I think we started with just 5 of the 6 teams filled, after lengthy recruiting. While we could easily identify players that did not fit the LEVEL requirement, there wasn't an easy way to figure out who didn't meet the BADGE requirement. It would be wonderful if every player who signed up read and understood the requirements in advance, but alas, twas not the case.

 

The overall sentiment I heard from the group was "Why go to the trouble versus just running it regularly?" Most people seemed to understand the intent of doing the trial this way, but questioned whether it was worth the extra effort.

 

During the regular raid, we noticed Priests involved and do not believe they had been included before. The timer appeared in the Nav bar at some point, and sometimes would disappear. Time was still manually tracked by some players, and did seem to align with a 34 minute raid as indicated by the timer in the Nav bar. Overall, I think the sense was that the raid was harder due to the presence of the priests, but not overly so. Of course, at that point, we were primarily running with a 35+ team, compared to a normally recruited team that probably would have included lower levels.

 

Personally, I do not see myself leading a raid via LFG. The LFG system itself seems somewhat unreliable, and it would be more difficult to recruit a league given the extra requirements. While there might be additional benefits in terms of vMerits getting shared evenly among the entire league, and possibly higher rewards overall given the higher level of the NPCs, having to work harder to recruit and rely on the LFG system to work correctly outweighs that. Even if LFG worked perfectly, the additional recruiting needed would make me less inclined to lead one via LFG. Either way we have the timer, which is welcome. I also recognize that overall recruiting may be challenging at this point given the additional Halloween events going on. Lots of people are choosing to ToT.

 

I would really rather see the zone cap for RWZ raised to perhaps 60 - or perhaps a contact at PDH who can create a new instance of RWZ on demand from someone who intends to run a raid, if that's a possibility.

 

None of these comments are meant to imply in any way that I do not appreciate anyones work on this at all. I very much appreciate each day I get to play CoH, and I appreciate everyone who is investing time in improving it.

[Apparition]

Priests missing from Rikti mothership raids prior to the October 1st patch was a bug.  They should have been in from the get-go, and were back prior to sunset.  They should have been added to the regular zone mothership raids as well with the October 1st patch.  If not, that's a bug.

Edited October 6, 2019 by Apparition

[Gulbasaur]

 

On 10/6/2019 at 6:42 PM, ElPuerco said:

Yesterday on Everlasting, Krow tried to run this via LFG and I wanted to give a little feedback. In short, it didn't work.

 

I think I was part of the same attempt as you. We ran a zone-based raid, then all gathered in KW for comparison. 

 

I was 50+1 or +2, I had the Member of the Vanguard badge. I was a rogue (if that matters - you never know - could be a blue-red split or something in the LFG process). 

 

I was one of the 50% or so who didn't make it into the raid - I got the loadscreen (off-centre, I noticed), then the KW loadscreen and I and about 20 other people were dropped out of the league. 

[CU_Krow]

I am new to forums, did not see that this thread existed. Here's an on-going thread that has some results of MSR test-runs and feedback provided from them.

 

 

[EmperorSteele]

Feedback on a few things:

I miss the rock music when we get close to the ship. Can that be added back in?

Someone claimed their team was exemp'd to level 44 (Team leader's level), even though everyone is supposed to get a bump to 50. Maybe look into that?
 

Pi-in-the-sky suggestion: is there any way to make the drop ship actively hunt the players instead of flying to patrol points and just randomly shooting at whoever is nearby?

[Demon Shell]

I don't know how used this instanced version of the ship raid is, but what if there was an incarnate version with 54+3 or 4 enemies? I think this is one of the few instances where a simple level jump would be enough to make it challenging end-game content again, and give reason to queue for it (the other being Hamidon).

Edited November 15, 2019 by Demon Shell
Addendum, Clarification

[Apparition]

44 minutes ago, Demon Shell said:

I don't know how used this instanced version of the ship raid is, but what if there was an incarnate version with 54+3 or 4 enemies? I think this is one of the few instances where a simple level jump would be enough to make it challenging end-game content again, and give reason to queue for it (the other being Hamidon).

 

I run two to three instanced MSRs every week.  The instanced MSR is already a little more challenging because every NPC (including the Pylons), is level 54.  Making it Incarnate would lock out everyone level 35 - 49, even though they can get Vanguard merits.

[Demon Shell]

13 hours ago, Apparition said:

I run two to three instanced MSRs every week.  The instanced MSR is already a little more challenging because every NPC (including the Pylons), is level 54.  Making it Incarnate would lock out everyone level 35 - 49, even though they can get Vanguard merits.

The point of incarnate content would be to get incarnate rewards. That you'd also get another reward (V-merits) would be suitable incentive for how long it takes to complete to its end.

 

Attendance is a valid concern. If it were only say, 54+2, you could probably cap the incarnate version to 24 players to keep it difficult.

 

It's nice to hear someone uses the instanced version, though. Every time it comes up I just hear people complain about the level requirement/badge requirement and how it's more of a hassle than just using the open world variant.

Edited November 15, 2019 by Demon Shell
Grammers

[Apparition]

As far as I am concerned, the zone Rikti mothership raid died on September 30th, 2019.  I haven't done one since.  The instanced Rikti mothership raid is better in almost every way.

 

Between 2009 and 2012, and now in 2019, I've run at least several hundred Rikti mothership raids.  The level requirement for the instanced version doesn't bother me because I always restricted my MSRs to level 35+ in the first place.  The Member of Vanguard badge requirement is a little bit of a burden, but a friend of mine and I check the badges of everyone that comes.  Thankfully, it's relatively easy to spot.  If someone doesn't have the Member of Vanguard badge, I just send the person a polite request to go to the RWZ and run Levantera's first two missions.  It only takes five minutes.

 

The truth of the matter is that the instanced Rikti mothership raid is more difficult to recruit for than the zone MSR.  I've never had a full Rikti mothership raid league since switching to the instanced version, and occasionally can't even get enough people to start.  I've encountered a lot of pushback from various people over the past month and a half for trying to run it.  I've been told that I am the only person that runs instanced MSRs on all of Homecoming.  People are frightened by change.  But I run one every Thursday night on the Excelsior server, and I run one or two impromptu instanced MSRs on Excelsior server on the weekends to try to expose more people to it.  People are starting to see the benefits of it.  I've been told by multiple people over the past couple of weeks that the instanced MSR is the best way to run a Rikti mothership raid.  I wholeheartedly agree.

Edited November 15, 2019 by Apparition