Focused Feedback: The Labyrinth of Fog

[Nutation]

I wandered around with a defender for 30 minutes or so. It is not solo-friendly (apparently by design) with hazard-zone numbers of enemies. Is the color conning off because of all the level shifts? Grey mob groups defeated me instantly, where they would normally miss a lot.

 

It's not just the standard groups that see through high-quality invisibility (stealth + celerity proc). Psychic Clockwork and some Circle saw me.

Encountered one guardian, who gave me an inspiration.

 

Found the Colonnade. There was a clickable swirl near me initially; I assumed it was the exit. Poked around a bit, but saw no way to map the thing. Maybe I can add a thumbtack and orient from that.

 

Found a pinata, but it took many minutes to reduce its hit points by 50%. Apparently not to be soloed. I was shunted back to the Midnighter Club during the effort - did the server think I was AFK for attacking but not moving?

[gameboy1234]

16 hours ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

Hint: From the starting point of the Endless Colonnade, use a Draught of Fog inspiration (or have somebody else in the zone use one, anybody using one anywhere will trigger it) and the path will become clear, but only briefly.

 

Stuff like this should be in-game.  (Is it?)  In a lot of "random dungeon" players can find items that explain things or give clues.  Maybe some stone tablets or pedestals that the players can click on to get hints or outright instructions?  Maybe make a glowie in the middle of some mob spawns so players have to defeat the spawn first.

 

And maybe a boss key too....

 

[Cobalt Arachne]

4 hours ago, gameboy1234 said:

 

Stuff like this should be in-game.  (Is it?)  In a lot of "random dungeon" players can find items that explain things or give clues.  Maybe some stone tablets or pedestals that the players can click on to get hints or outright instructions?  Maybe make a glowie in the middle of some mob spawns so players have to defeat the spawn first.

 

And maybe a boss key too....

 

I'll double check that the descriptive text on the inspiration alludes to it, it was something added later in development as response to asking for hints to the maze.

[Cobalt Arachne]

4 hours ago, Nutation said:

Grey mob groups defeated me instantly, where they would normally miss a lot.

There's a known issue right now, where mobs are not correctly displaying their actual Level Shifts until they are interacted with.

We're looking into a solution.

[Cobalt Arachne]

5 hours ago, ZorkNemesis said:

there's a new level shift inspiration that drops from several sources inside the Labyrinth that I assume can be used outside (can they stack with Ultimate?).

The Draught of Fog inspiration only provides a Level Shift while inside the Labyrinth of Fog; Outside of the zone, it cures and provides immunity to the Diseased debuff that all Minotaur enemies inflict with their breath attacks, so players could potentially use it while running ITFs if they really hate that debuff.

 

It cannot be stacked with Ultimates. The hope is that people will use Draughts of Fog instead of Ultimates, since the Draughts last 15 minutes each instead of 5, and are far easier to collect than to purchase/stock many Ultimates from Luna.

[Ukase]

The level shifts inside the labyrinth are interesting. As I understand it - the level shifts I have at one moment are earned by other players in the zone, in addition to the ones I earn for defeating a malevolent fog. I was thrown off by my first experience with the shifts, because I started at 10 shifts. It seemed odd that a 54+6 (or so) boss was surrounded by level 54+1 mobs. Typically, if I'm 5 levels above a minion, I can one shot them. That doesn't seem to be the case here for whatever reason. I'm relying on color, rather than the level ranks, because I don't want to take off my socks to do the math required. 

Entering the labyrinth earlier yesterday, I had no shifts. I look around for fogs to earn more shifts. But they are only temporary. 5 minutes if I'm recalling correctly. So, time of day (and the resulting population and objectives/goals of those other players) is going to factor in the shifts and how much fun/interest there is going to be for anyone that's there. 

I think an experience like this, if people want to get the most out of it - they're going to need to rely on groups. The lower populations are going to struggle with this, I think. 
I have no idea what a solution could be or would be, and I could certainly be wrong, but I don't see this getting a lot of play on those servers. 

The Malevolent Fogs (pinatas) seem to be randomly placed, which is fine, as it encourages explorations. Same with the gladiators. 
The problem with the gladiators is they are also randomly placed and the ability to fight them is also somewhat random. 
I think if you're within a 2-3 shifts of what they are, the potential to fight them should be a higher percentage. I only say that because I'm thinking of the badge. Anecdotally, I've had poor luck getting the option to fight them. I might rethink that if they spawn at 54+10 while I'm 50+1. 

I guess what I'm hoping for is more of a chance to tackle them while having somewhat of a challenge, but not a level playing field. 

I am thinking it might be better to increase the duration of earned shifts while the population of the zone is less than X, whatever fair value X might be. Maybe it's 8, or 10. Or 5. 
But if you're in a low population labyrinth, it might be helpful to have a little more duration. 

[lemming]

12 hours ago, Troo said:

+415.. seriously?!

I think there's a bug that shows the wrong numbers at first.  I've been seeing level shifts up to 18 and a few other oddities, but it drops to +10 once engaged.  So, probably just a display. (Looks like Cobalt explained, I should read entire thread first...)

Edited July 8 by lemming
ninjad

[Cobalt Arachne]

57 minutes ago, Ukase said:

I only say that because I'm thinking of the badge. Anecdotally, I've had poor luck getting the option to fight them. I might rethink that if they spawn at 54+10 while I'm 50+1. 

Gladiators ignore combat mods, so they always fight you at +0, no matter how many shifts are in the zone.

There's also a secret that can be discovered (more a solo player discovery) that will cause 100% of the Gladiators to become hostile to you every time, that's a trigger you can set with every trip to the zone.

It involves the motes.

[Ukase]

1 hour ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

It involves the motes.

Last night, a gladiator mentioned they got their power from the motes...6 motes, I think. Possibly 7.   And that "even you might be able to siphon some of the power". I suppose that mystery will be revealed when the time is right. 


(Side note: mote is a particularly obscure word. I haven't seen it anywhere outside of the Bible, in reference to something in the eye. Kudos for using it.)


I've been trying to keep an eye out for the gladiators and the malevolent fogs. Figured if I saved up 4-5, I might be able to get out of the fog...but even with the insp active, that utility is very brief. Maybe 5-6 seconds. 

And it was a bit saddening that I couldn't speed-phase through the maze. I need to take one of my tp characters in there and see how that plays out. 

 

[gameboy1234]

Been in the Fog a couple of times now, once with a small team (four folks) and once solo on a Widow with Mask Presence and Celerity Stealth.  Overall it seems OK, it's fun to explore and it's a difference experience than any content in game.  Most things seem to be working, I didn't find any obvious bugs.

 

However I'm thinking about the design and content, and I think it could use more work.  The random content makes me think of rogue-likes.  And those games are known to not actually be random.  There's selected patterns they use, and certain floors have more of these special patterns than others, which creates variety.  There's often side quests like the shopkeepers in NetHack and Crypt of the Necrodancer.  There's stuff to do as the players explore, it's not just "random stuff until you find the end."  There's ways of increasing power by successive runs of the dungeon (you have this, in the form of the Fog insp; I feel there could be more though).  Mapping is a big deal in many rogue-likes, the player start off knowing nothing but are able to figure things out (you prevent this).  Some games have a definite progression in terms of levels, when the player clear a floor and go down a level, it's obvious that they have done so (again, nothing like that here).

 

Overall it's OK but might need some more bake time.  If the current team wants to keep working on this, I think that would be fine.  It could be released now and magical "events" later could cause upgrades.  Providing a sense of progression for players while still keeping some of the random elements would be ideal I think.

[High_Beam]

It has to be done 🙂

[Cobalt Arachne]

2 hours ago, gameboy1234 said:

• (you have this, in the form of the Fog insp; I feel there could be more though)
• Providing a sense of progression for players while still keeping some of the random elements would be ideal I think.

I'd be interested in discussing elements like this, it would be a question of how and what in a way that works well with City of Heroes gameplay.

At one point I debated a currency only found in the Labyrinth, that corresponds to a vendor with rewards and Labyrinth-only powers as a means of 'progress' but I don't imagine that's what you're meaning with your suggestion.

Thinking now, how deep could we go with Inspirations to simulate rogue-like elements? Hmm.

At this point, with how close Labyrinth is to release, most of this discussion is likely to be applied towards my next big project (Page 3 or 4 at the earliest) since it is a structured, more accessible game mode that is much more built to support rogue-like mechanics.

[Nutation]

More solo exploration with a defender.

 

Freaks saw through my good invisibility. Two groups did; other Freaks did not.

 

I approached a gladiator with a full inspiration rack (not wise). Gladiator attempted to give me one. There's a timing problem here - I think I should have to click on any gladiator that isn't automatically hostile in order to get a response. Another I met just gave advice.

 

Orange - yes, completely random groups. Totally unnatural.

 

Found another malevolent fog. It seemed to take damage faster than yesterday. Maybe I was level shifted more (+4). Do these things have a level, rather than using Giant Monster code? Unfortunately, the minotaur showed up and ended that attempt.

 

I set a thumbtack in a particularly confusing room. Then I died. From the lobby, I had waypoints through the red portal and two other doors that, sure enough, brought me back to the thumbtacked zone.

 

Popped an inspiration in the colonnade and was disappointed at how little time that showed me the path (15 seconds?). Mapped my way through it afterwards, and I see I am not the first.

[Cobalt Arachne]

6 hours ago, Nutation said:

Popped an inspiration in the colonnade and was disappointed at how little time that showed me the path (15 seconds?). Mapped my way through it afterwards, and I see I am not the first.

Just doubled the time that the hint displays for in response to this, hopefully that should make them more useful as hints.

[lemming]

Any chance the "Choking" action that happens when you click Escape from Fog and the Core one will be changed?

[lemming]

Slight annoyance:  When you get level shifted, your knockdown powers send the grey mobs flying.

[BillyMailman]

I've screwed around in the labyrinth a bit, felt actively deterred from spending much time there, and have two big complaints:

 

Active hostility towards solo play

I entered the zone solo, having gotten the vibe from the description that this was a souped-up high-level hazard zone, effectively. A neat place to wander around, killing mobs, finding secrets, and getting rewards. Not someplace that would be great to explore solo, but at least somewhere where it would be possible. I didn't get that. Normal hazard zones have a mix of small and large spawns, and this place just doesn't - everything is scaled to x8, and with the up-ranking and things being 54+1, my main got wrecked every time I tried to actually fight.

 

So, I thought to myself "Okay, clearly actually fighting is meant for groups. I should just try exploring this place". After all, there's supposed to be secrets all over. I can go poking around looking for those. Except no, that's not really possible, either. Most of this place is extremely tight corridors, meaning exploration's impossible solo without specifically speccing into either the Stealth pool or the Speed pool. So any toon that wants to explore this place solo, is restricted to specific pools to have any chance to explore. And also there are multiple enemy groups in here who can ignore stealth!

 

But, despite all that, I persevered. I found one of the Malevolent Fog things! Neat! I'd explored, found a secret, and the secret was even a thing that'd grant an extra level shift, meaning I might not get utterly obliterated by enemies. Nifty! It then turned out to be a pretty darn tanky enemy, but whatever, I'm on my main - he can solo EBs no sweat, and AVs with some patience. But of course, now I'm not moving. And I'm the only player in the labyrinth. So about 3/4 of the way through the pinata, the Minotaur shows up. Its first attack put me at 1HP, and then it killed me easily with the follow-up.

 

So, what am I to do? I've been reading the various dev posts since this got released (was on vacation and couldn't get in until today), and I've read that this whole place is meant to be chock-full of secrets, lore, stuff that rewards exploration. That's not something I want to engage in with a large PUG-heavy group - those tend to be focused on rewards. But, having read the mechanics, I've got a solution - I'll solo while there's a league in the zone!

 

That's... not a great solution. Sure, it'll work - the extra level shifts should mean that the normal enemy groups aren't utterly obliterating me, and there'll be a 1/50 chance the Minotaur comes after me at any given moment, which'll rarely matter since I'll likely be long gone, and it won't keep hunting me. So I've got a way to actually have fun. But it means actively and deliberately entering a zone with an ongoing raid, using one of the 50 slots, and potentially impeding the raid league's ability to properly fill. Like, Homecoming added an entire instanced version of the RWZ Mothership Raid just to prevent this problem, and now it feels like it's actively encouraging me to grief a raid league by deliberately getting in their way.

 

So okay, fine, I'll only come in here with a team. I normally run with a bunch of people, some of them have badge toons like I do, so we'll run this stuff together. I might not be able to go poking for secrets or hidden areas all on my own when I have some spare time, but I'll still get to herd cats lead other people around and figure stuff out. Which brings me to my second big problem:

 

Not having a map is mean

...and probably mostly won't accomplish what I think you're going for.

 

Don't get me wrong - I've read the explicit reasons you laid out in another thread about why the zone doesn't have a map. I just don't think they're nearly worth the current implementation.

 

An open raid zone needs a map more than any other, so the team can stay together. Especially in tight, crazy corridors full of extremely difficult enemies - this is very much content where I (being the guy who's always leading stuff) need to be able to keep an eye on where people are. For hell's sake, I regularly team up with one of the most notorious scrapper mains this game has (when he's actually playing, at least. Miss you, Bill!), and he's somehow not actually meaningfully more prone to Scrapperlocking than the others. The map isn't just there for knowing where you are - it's there for knowing where everyone is, relative to each other.

 

Seriously, go run a Blueside respec trial, then run the last mission of Yin's TF. Same map, same lack of a map, but one of them hard-disables the in-game map, while the other just displays black. The latter is infinitely more useful for knowing if someone's lagging behind, knowing if someone's wandered off a side path, knowing if someone's scrapperlocked into another group, etc. Sure, the in-zone temp power thing helps fix it when that happens, but fixing the problem after it happens isn't nearly as useful as stopping the problem from happening in the first place.

 

And like, the lack of a map honestly feels like it's impeding exploration. I can't keep track of where I've been, when I've looped back to the same place, unless I use a lot of /loc and tracking things myself. That's doable, but tedious, and it feels bad when I know the game has an entire thing for this - exploring an open-world zone and having the map itself keep track of where I've been, give an indication of what's where relative to me, etc. Having the default in-game mechanic turned off in a zone that feels especially suited to it, sucks.

 

And like, I get that, per that other thread detailing the reasons, specific locations don't matter to the raiding. Except I kinda think they do. If I'm going to be running this content with 5-7 other people, we're gonna want to be able to say things like "should we head into the Crey Facility area up ahead next, or do we wanna stick to the Cimeroran Tunnels to avoid <Enemy Group>?", and that's a pain in the butt to talk about when everyone's perpetually lost due to lack of any sort of help from the game. The maplessness in a non-linear zone feels like it's demanding that players put a lot of work to learn the place, but I can't see most of my regular group doing that. Like, we all have lives, jobs, etc. and can only play an hour or two a day, and figuring out this place is gonna take a lot of work.

 

So okay, fine. I'll wait for other players to map the whole place out, post the maps, and then I'll use their maps to navigate. Hell, those maps'll prolly be available before the thing goes live. Except, why can't I just get those maps, in-game, the same as we've been doing with fan-created map enhancements for years? Like, even if the in-game map was pure black, just having it be an actual all-black image file would be fantastic, if it meant that A) I can see where the team is, and B) The community can create our own map replacement that actually explains the place.

Actually, where I think I just don't have a good suggestion for the first big problem, I think I have two for this part. I'd really love to see the zone actually include a map (maybe even lock Reveal out of working in the zone, so we do in fact have to reveal the map bit-by-bit), but have the default map be largely stylized and not include detail. Show general regions, rather than specific paths. Avoids the problem of having "no logistical way to realistically draw/map 40+ floors". Or, if a stylized map can't be included, just make it all black and let us all sort it out.

 

But at minimum, please give me back my ability to see when someone's wandered off.

 

Overall

There's this thing that happened with the DASF. It's a great SF in terms of pushing forward a story that was left unfinished, linking back to past stuff, using cool new mechanics, and the Hardmode stuff and the optional alternate-dimension stuff is really cool. But it's a lot, so after my regular group ran it a bunch at first for the badges, we've kinda just not bothered with it unless it's the weekly. Because, like, that thing's Synapse-level loooong. And sure, without hardmode, and skipping the optional bits as fast as possible, it's shorter, but it's still seven missions long, a pain to stealth in places, and honestly it kinda just feels lame to be skipping so much of it in the name of just completing it. Yeah, the rewards are good, but like, that just felt like it was rewarding the people who optimized the shit out of their builds. For a group that's sometimes below eight people, often has pretty suboptimal builds, and where everyone have jobs and lives and stuff (we all grew up a bit during the shutdown!), it's just kinda tediously long. So, it got slotted into the same category as the Shard TFs - we only really run it when it's weekly, and not even always then.

 

And that's what this feels like it'll be, at least for us. This is content that, at least to me, seems to be requiring everyone to pay attention fully, learn the map by heart to not get lost, keep track of the group yourself so you don't get left behind, keep a constant vigil for the Minotaur until we're shifted up, just a lot of work, instead of actually getting to enjoy the game. Or else, we'll skim the surface of the content, and not really engage with it, because yeah, it's asking a lot.

 

Don't get me wrong - I love the new content. The labyrinth is cool as hell, and I'm exactly the sort of nerd who wants to be in there on day 1 looking for secrets, lore, connections, all the nifty hidden stuff, just like I was in there on release day of the DASF reading every goddamn dialogue and loving it. But like, we've got maybe ninety minutes on the good days to get a team formed up and run something. And it feels like the direction new content's going in, is the opposite of where things were going at the end of live. Instead of smaller, manageable things (Yin vs. Sis P, new Posi vs. Old, etc.), the content's going entirely the other way.

 

...it's 1AM, I'm rambling trying to finish this off, and definitely repeating myself, so I'mma just stop here, post this, and hope at least something in there was useful feedback.

[lemming]

Thanks to guidance, got all seven motes and became worthy.

However, going thru the black portal I got a black screen

Then after a bit, my screen came back and I had a view of the portal and I could click on stuff, but nothing happened.  No movement ability.

Also, no body shown.  My teammates went by and I saw their auras.

Then a few more minutes, I freed up.

 

I haven't figured out what may trigger it.  All of us hit the bug, but did free up after a bit.  But sometimes could go thru.

[Nutation]

On 7/7/2024 at 11:26 PM, Nutation said:

Found a pinata, but it took many minutes to reduce its hit points by 50%. Apparently not to be soloed. I was shunted back to the Midnighter Club during the effort - did the server think I was AFK for attacking but not moving?

More on this. I spent 20 minutes damaging a pinata down to 1/3 health. At 10 minutes, the server shunted me (not 15). I deliberately didn't move, so that is what the server is checking for idle state. I gave up after 20 minutes as I was going to be shunted again. Obviously, I could have moved my feet. These are not easy solo targets, do they have too many hit points? A team would take only a few minutes, obviously. They do not regenerate, so anyone will eventually kill the thing.

[burneden]

10 hours ago, BillyMailman said:

I've screwed around in the labyrinth a bit, felt actively deterred from spending much time there, and have two big complaints:

 

Active hostility towards solo play

I entered the zone solo, having gotten the vibe from the description that this was a souped-up high-level hazard zone, effectively. A neat place to wander around, killing mobs, finding secrets, and getting rewards. Not someplace that would be great to explore solo, but at least somewhere where it would be possible. I didn't get that. Normal hazard zones have a mix of small and large spawns, and this place just doesn't - everything is scaled to x8, and with the up-ranking and things being 54+1, my main got wrecked every time I tried to actually fight.

 

So, I thought to myself "Okay, clearly actually fighting is meant for groups. I should just try exploring this place". After all, there's supposed to be secrets all over. I can go poking around looking for those. Except no, that's not really possible, either. Most of this place is extremely tight corridors, meaning exploration's impossible solo without specifically speccing into either the Stealth pool or the Speed pool. So any toon that wants to explore this place solo, is restricted to specific pools to have any chance to explore. And also there are multiple enemy groups in here who can ignore stealth!

 

But, despite all that, I persevered. I found one of the Malevolent Fog things! Neat! I'd explored, found a secret, and the secret was even a thing that'd grant an extra level shift, meaning I might not get utterly obliterated by enemies. Nifty! It then turned out to be a pretty darn tanky enemy, but whatever, I'm on my main - he can solo EBs no sweat, and AVs with some patience. But of course, now I'm not moving. And I'm the only player in the labyrinth. So about 3/4 of the way through the pinata, the Minotaur shows up. Its first attack put me at 1HP, and then it killed me easily with the follow-up.

 

So, what am I to do? I've been reading the various dev posts since this got released (was on vacation and couldn't get in until today), and I've read that this whole place is meant to be chock-full of secrets, lore, stuff that rewards exploration. That's not something I want to engage in with a large PUG-heavy group - those tend to be focused on rewards. But, having read the mechanics, I've got a solution - I'll solo while there's a league in the zone!

 

That's... not a great solution. Sure, it'll work - the extra level shifts should mean that the normal enemy groups aren't utterly obliterating me, and there'll be a 1/50 chance the Minotaur comes after me at any given moment, which'll rarely matter since I'll likely be long gone, and it won't keep hunting me. So I've got a way to actually have fun. But it means actively and deliberately entering a zone with an ongoing raid, using one of the 50 slots, and potentially impeding the raid league's ability to properly fill. Like, Homecoming added an entire instanced version of the RWZ Mothership Raid just to prevent this problem, and now it feels like it's actively encouraging me to grief a raid league by deliberately getting in their way.

 

So okay, fine, I'll only come in here with a team. I normally run with a bunch of people, some of them have badge toons like I do, so we'll run this stuff together. I might not be able to go poking for secrets or hidden areas all on my own when I have some spare time, but I'll still get to herd cats lead other people around and figure stuff out. Which brings me to my second big problem:

 

Not having a map is mean

...and probably mostly won't accomplish what I think you're going for.

 

Don't get me wrong - I've read the explicit reasons you laid out in another thread about why the zone doesn't have a map. I just don't think they're nearly worth the current implementation.

 

An open raid zone needs a map more than any other, so the team can stay together. Especially in tight, crazy corridors full of extremely difficult enemies - this is very much content where I (being the guy who's always leading stuff) need to be able to keep an eye on where people are. For hell's sake, I regularly team up with one of the most notorious scrapper mains this game has (when he's actually playing, at least. Miss you, Bill!), and he's somehow not actually meaningfully more prone to Scrapperlocking than the others. The map isn't just there for knowing where you are - it's there for knowing where everyone is, relative to each other.

 

Seriously, go run a Blueside respec trial, then run the last mission of Yin's TF. Same map, same lack of a map, but one of them hard-disables the in-game map, while the other just displays black. The latter is infinitely more useful for knowing if someone's lagging behind, knowing if someone's wandered off a side path, knowing if someone's scrapperlocked into another group, etc. Sure, the in-zone temp power thing helps fix it when that happens, but fixing the problem after it happens isn't nearly as useful as stopping the problem from happening in the first place.

 

And like, the lack of a map honestly feels like it's impeding exploration. I can't keep track of where I've been, when I've looped back to the same place, unless I use a lot of /loc and tracking things myself. That's doable, but tedious, and it feels bad when I know the game has an entire thing for this - exploring an open-world zone and having the map itself keep track of where I've been, give an indication of what's where relative to me, etc. Having the default in-game mechanic turned off in a zone that feels especially suited to it, sucks.

 

And like, I get that, per that other thread detailing the reasons, specific locations don't matter to the raiding. Except I kinda think they do. If I'm going to be running this content with 5-7 other people, we're gonna want to be able to say things like "should we head into the Crey Facility area up ahead next, or do we wanna stick to the Cimeroran Tunnels to avoid <Enemy Group>?", and that's a pain in the butt to talk about when everyone's perpetually lost due to lack of any sort of help from the game. The maplessness in a non-linear zone feels like it's demanding that players put a lot of work to learn the place, but I can't see most of my regular group doing that. Like, we all have lives, jobs, etc. and can only play an hour or two a day, and figuring out this place is gonna take a lot of work.

 

So okay, fine. I'll wait for other players to map the whole place out, post the maps, and then I'll use their maps to navigate. Hell, those maps'll prolly be available before the thing goes live. Except, why can't I just get those maps, in-game, the same as we've been doing with fan-created map enhancements for years? Like, even if the in-game map was pure black, just having it be an actual all-black image file would be fantastic, if it meant that A) I can see where the team is, and B) The community can create our own map replacement that actually explains the place.

Actually, where I think I just don't have a good suggestion for the first big problem, I think I have two for this part. I'd really love to see the zone actually include a map (maybe even lock Reveal out of working in the zone, so we do in fact have to reveal the map bit-by-bit), but have the default map be largely stylized and not include detail. Show general regions, rather than specific paths. Avoids the problem of having "no logistical way to realistically draw/map 40+ floors". Or, if a stylized map can't be included, just make it all black and let us all sort it out.

 

But at minimum, please give me back my ability to see when someone's wandered off.

 

Overall

There's this thing that happened with the DASF. It's a great SF in terms of pushing forward a story that was left unfinished, linking back to past stuff, using cool new mechanics, and the Hardmode stuff and the optional alternate-dimension stuff is really cool. But it's a lot, so after my regular group ran it a bunch at first for the badges, we've kinda just not bothered with it unless it's the weekly. Because, like, that thing's Synapse-level loooong. And sure, without hardmode, and skipping the optional bits as fast as possible, it's shorter, but it's still seven missions long, a pain to stealth in places, and honestly it kinda just feels lame to be skipping so much of it in the name of just completing it. Yeah, the rewards are good, but like, that just felt like it was rewarding the people who optimized the shit out of their builds. For a group that's sometimes below eight people, often has pretty suboptimal builds, and where everyone have jobs and lives and stuff (we all grew up a bit during the shutdown!), it's just kinda tediously long. So, it got slotted into the same category as the Shard TFs - we only really run it when it's weekly, and not even always then.

 

And that's what this feels like it'll be, at least for us. This is content that, at least to me, seems to be requiring everyone to pay attention fully, learn the map by heart to not get lost, keep track of the group yourself so you don't get left behind, keep a constant vigil for the Minotaur until we're shifted up, just a lot of work, instead of actually getting to enjoy the game. Or else, we'll skim the surface of the content, and not really engage with it, because yeah, it's asking a lot.

 

Don't get me wrong - I love the new content. The labyrinth is cool as hell, and I'm exactly the sort of nerd who wants to be in there on day 1 looking for secrets, lore, connections, all the nifty hidden stuff, just like I was in there on release day of the DASF reading every goddamn dialogue and loving it. But like, we've got maybe ninety minutes on the good days to get a team formed up and run something. And it feels like the direction new content's going in, is the opposite of where things were going at the end of live. Instead of smaller, manageable things (Yin vs. Sis P, new Posi vs. Old, etc.), the content's going entirely the other way.

 

...it's 1AM, I'm rambling trying to finish this off, and definitely repeating myself, so I'mma just stop here, post this, and hope at least something in there was useful feedback.

Just wanted to mention you can get stealth w/o picking a pool power, celerity stealth IO in sprint gives some, otherwise solid post and agree, if its said on the patch notes it can be braved solo it should mean you can at least take 1 group down and not be instantly smashed the instant you attack even with T4 fully kitted out toons with all the best sets, think my lores died in there within 5 seconds testing their survivability, my toons on live that I copied with bougie builds didn't last 1 minute in there solo and an MM I made on beta lasted maybe 1 min 20. 

[Cobalt Arachne]

16 minutes ago, burneden said:

if its said on the patch notes it can be braved solo

This was more intended to be 'You can explore the zone by yourself and find secrets without a team.', it was not meant to be read as 'the League raid mechanics are designed to be soloed', they're not... They're designed for a League, players will find them very dangerous solo.

Perhaps that patch note needs clarifying if it's being incorrectly read and people are taking it as the raid was meant to be soloed, which is entirely contradictory with it being a raid.

[Cobalt Arachne]

9 hours ago, Nutation said:

These are not easy solo targets

I'm thinking perhaps a scaling-HP solution for the Malevolent Fogs, so they're very chunky with a huge group, and reasonably lean if solo.

I want them to be doable solo, but they need to have enough thickness that they survive long enough for Leagues to get everyone in for credit.
I'll look into this.

[burneden]

Just now, Cobalt Arachne said:

This was more intended to be 'You can explore the zone by yourself and find secrets without a team.', it was not meant to be read as 'the League raid mechanics are designed to be soloed', they're not... They're designed for a League, players will find them very dangerous solo.

Perhaps that patch note needs clarifying if it's being incorrectly read and people are taking it as the raid was meant to be soloed, which is entirely contradictory with it being a raid.

Yeah that's my main thing, I don't mind it not being soloable in the traditional sense but its the wording really makes it seem like you can reasonably contribute to the effort even slowly solo, I mean I never expected to take mino solo but trying to even take one group on any toon is basically instant death regardless of level shift.

[Cobalt Arachne]

3 minutes ago, burneden said:

Yeah that's my main thing, I don't mind it not being soloable in the traditional sense but its the wording really makes it seem like you can reasonably contribute to the effort even slowly solo, I mean I never expected to take mino solo but trying to even take one group on any toon is basically instant death regardless of level shift.

The idea was that solo players could find Malevolent Fogs and contribute; But the Malevolent Fogs are over-tuned when I made them chunkier so that Leagues didn't make them evaporate just by looking at them. Will look into a better balance here.

With solo-able Malevolent Fogs, their being worth Reward Merits, a Draught of Fog inspiration, and a zone-wide Level Shift, should allow solo players to contribute more and get rewards more reasonably for their time.

[burneden]

18 minutes ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

The idea was that solo players could find Malevolent Fogs and contribute; But the Malevolent Fogs are over-tuned when I made them chunkier so that Leagues didn't make them evaporate just by looking at them. Will look into a better balance here.

With solo-able Malevolent Fogs, their being worth Reward Merits, a Draught of Fog inspiration, and a zone-wide Level Shift, should allow solo players to contribute more and get rewards more reasonably for their time.

Alright that makes more sense now, soloists could be runners for the league making sure level shifts stay up when things get hectic. I appreciate you getting back to everyone clarifying things, makes it a lot easier than trying to piece together what you guys are thinking. I just like being able to contribute without being forced to be on a team, not that I don't like teams, I like teams it's just the option to not be tethered to others is nice.

Edited July 10 by burneden