To Developers: Amrath needs your attention

[Angelus_dead]

I'm not so sure about that, I've never seen one of those things killed. They regenerate pretty strongly are very hard to hang with (for most dps types) and they move a bit too fast to damage kite them effectively.

Their regeneration is stated as contingent on proximity to allies, so the apparent intent was that players would have to be pulling them apart from the swarm and killing them one at a time (like what you do in Shroud2). If you weren't meant to be killing them, why would the devs have bothered to give them a situational vulnerability, and not just made them ultra-regenerating at all times?

I suspect the goal was that you'd need to send away around half the party to work on killing the shadowfiends, which would more than double the time spent killing the boss. Since the current time to kill him is weirdly low, it would make sense it was supposed to be slower.

[MrWizard]

I'm not so sure about that, I've never seen one of those things killed. They regenerate pretty strongly are very hard to hang with (for most dps types) and they move a bit too fast to damage kite them effectively. Also if you consider the room where you fight... its size and shape makes a lot of sense for playing keep away with the shadows. I'd wager kiting is part of the design, or at least intended as a reasonable option.

They can be tanked, you just need the means to reduce the cold damage to a point where it won't one shot you and you need a pretty steady source of significant healing. If you have the right character/gear its actually really easy to tank them, far easier than kiting which can be tricky.

I think they are there to distract the party and force you to come up with a solution to the problem. Killing them clearly isn't very viable so that's likely not what the dev's had in mind.

if you had a few people who could hold their aggro and not just one, the beat down would be easier...

[sirgog]

I'm not so sure about that, I've never seen one of those things killed. They regenerate pretty strongly are very hard to hang with (for most dps types) and they move a bit too fast to damage kite them effectively. Also if you consider the room where you fight... its size and shape makes a lot of sense for playing keep away with the shadows. I'd wager kiting is part of the design, or at least intended as a reasonable option.

They can be tanked, you just need the means to reduce the cold damage to a point where it won't one shot you and you need a pretty steady source of significant healing. If you have the right character/gear its actually really easy to tank them, far easier than kiting which can be tricky.

I think they are there to distract the party and force you to come up with a solution to the problem. Killing them clearly isn't very viable so that's likely not what the dev's had in mind.

Nuker specced Sorcs often accidentally kill them while kiting, which is quite a nuisance. Any group that actually tries to kill the Shadows will, but they nearly instantly respawn.

I assumed the Shadows were meant to be tanked in small numbers by different people, perhaps one 'tank' per 2 shadowfiends. Keep the fight short and you'll only see four fiends; but if it gets long (and on Hard/Elite it often does) then you'll encounter six or eight, and thus more DPS'ers will be tied up tanking them.

It didn't work out that way, however - much easier to have a favored soul kite them (a Wizard or Sorc can even do it if you don't have access to the FvS 'easy button', but it's ten times harder on an arcane)

[sigtrent]

I suspect the goal was that you'd need to send away around half the party to work on killing the shadowfiends, which would more than double the time spent killing the boss. Since the current time to kill him is weirdly low, it would make sense it was supposed to be slower.

Thats a good theory... but while they can be survived in melee, there aren't many characters that can manage it, especially not each on their own without support. Is there anywhere you can just buy fire shield pots reliably? There are the winter games ones but typically pots are limited to level 3 spells (though from any casters list). Still, wouldn't be the first time a dev might have misjudged party makeup and tactics.

I actually like the kiting pretty well, its fun and tense, though its a bummer when you make an error and wipe the raid :P High risk/reward strategy as where just tanking them is really pretty simple.

[TheDearLeader]

No, it is not working as intended that you can get Dungeon Alert from rooms you haven't been to yet.

Dungeon Alert should only ever trigger if players are splitting up or leaving live monsters behind them. If you get DA from monsters you can't reach yet, then that is a bug.

Dungeon Alert is (supposedly) about Mobs seeing you, a player character, somewhere you should not be - such as in their house. If I'm a tiefling guard, and I see something that is *not* an Orthon, Devil, or fellow Tiefling wandering around, I'm going to sound the alarm. Mesh floors that we can see *up* through means they can also see *down* through to us.

So, unless you can produce a Dev quote stating specifically that these mobs, in this quest, in a situation of vertical aggro due to transparent floors is a Bug and not WAI, I think you're being a bit presumptive.

Genesis Point
The easiest, but also the most boring!
The extraneous levers are decorations, and represent that the Devils have some machines to operate that don't do anything helpful to player characters.
It's a bug that using too many upper-level levers can leave doors perma-closed.

Again, it seems that we have some differing opinions about "Bugs".

Genesis Point - the levers have two options - Open a closed door, and close an open door. The doors being opened/closed can be seen from the lever in question.

This probably isn't a bug, its Darwinism. Close one door that's already been opened? "Oh, its cool. I just won't do that for any more doors, and go around." Close a second? Well then, someone left their brain back on the Prime Material.

Sins of Attrition
The blade traps are immune to Spot, Search, and Disable, which is a bug.

Again, Dev quote on this? I've never noticed this on "Known Issues", nor seen a thread stating it. Otherwise, calling it a "Bug" that Devils, who can easily teleport to the areas between traps and keep going with their day, is rather arbitrary.

Tower of Despair:
Clearly room 2 wasn't meant to be a kite-fest, and the devs instead wanted you to nuke down those shadows with caster/ranged damage. There are several ways to produce the desired result (such as having Shadowfiends share 50% of Nythrious's hate), but at this time it'd probably be better to leave it as-is for the sake of nostalgia.

Clearly based upon what? Again, do you have a pocket Dev you keep summoning to come to such conclusions? As one who "Kites" these Shadows, I can't see nuking them down to be a viable option.

[sigtrent]

It didn't work out that way, however - much easier to have a favored soul kite them (a Wizard or Sorc can even do it if you don't have access to the FvS 'easy button', but it's ten times harder on an arcane)

I actually haven't seen FS kite them often, the placing of the BB seems less reliable (the shadows will skip the edge and such sometimes, but I suppose thats part of the skill of it.

I've only done it on my WF wizard and the main challenge tends to be getting the second wave settled in and not getting caught between them as they train up. Of course my observation is it's far harder the longer the beat-down takes. If the crew can drop him to half in one extended firewalls time its very easy, if not it can be a fair bit trickier on the second half.

[sirgog]

I actually haven't seen FS kite them often, the placing of the BB seems less reliable (the shadows will skip the edge and such sometimes, but I suppose thats part of the skill of it.

I've only done it on my WF wizard and the main challenge tends to be getting the second wave settled in and not getting caught between them as they train up. Of course my observation is it's far harder the longer the beat-down takes. If the crew can drop him to half in one extended firewalls time its very easy, if not it can be a fair bit trickier on the second half.

Even after dropping Extend Spell (meaning I need to cast BB every single pass), I'm so far ahead of the shadows that I only ever take damage when one of them makes an unexpected turn; and between the extraordinary HP and cold resist a FvS can get, and UMD'd Fire Shield, I can survive being hit 12 times by the Elite fiends with only one heal in there (no Cold Absorb item, although I'm thinking of blowing 9 trophies to turn a ring noone wanted into a cold absorb item, and yes Ferrumrym, I did test this in the elite run you led for your 20th ToD yesterday...).

[Spookyaction]

'[QUOTE=TheDearLeader;3641171]Dungeon Alert is (supposedly) about Mobs seeing you, a player character, somewhere you should not be - such as in their house. If I'm a tiefling guard, and I see something that is *not* an Orthon, Devil, or fellow Tiefling wandering around, I'm going to sound the alarm. Mesh floors that we can see *up* through means they can also see *down* through to us.

So, unless you can produce a Dev quote stating specifically that these mobs, in this quest, in a situation of vertical aggro due to transparent floors is a Bug and not WAI, I think you're being a bit presumptive.
Again, it seems that we have some differing opinions about "Bugs".'



Dungeon alert was an after thought. You can spin it any way you want but it was put in play to stop lag not to enhance game play. It has nothing to do with the roleplay scenario you describe above. I dont think the dev intentionally made this quest so you would have red alerts with no way to clear them.

[TheDearLeader]

Dungeon alert was an after thought. You can spin it any way you want but it was put in play to stop lag not to enhance game play. It has nothing to do with the roleplay scenario you describe above. I dont think the dev intentionally made this quest so you would have red alerts with no way to clear them.

Cleaned out the quote. you need a [ / quote](take out the spaces) at the end to close a quote if you're going to truncate it in some manner.

Replace the words "dungeon alert" with "mob aggro" in my statement, then. Forget we're talking about dungeon alert. A_D calls it a "bug" that mobs can see you through a semi-transparent floor. I merely want to see where this was confirmed or denied by the person that coded it. If it has not been confirmed, we cannot accurately say that this mechanism is operating outside of Developer intent.

Getting to DA Red? Perhaps not what was in mind, no.

[Angelus_dead]

A_D calls it a "bug" that mobs can see you through a semi-transparent floor.

No, I did not make a claim like that, as reading this thread would demonstrate. My statement was about Dungeon Alert; if you decide not to talk about Dungeon Alert, then you're no longer talking about anything I wrote.

[TheDearLeader]

No, I did not make a claim like that, as reading this thread would demonstrate. My statement was about Dungeon Alert; if you decide not to talk about Dungeon Alert, then you're no longer talking about anything I wrote.

No, it is not working as intended that you can get Dungeon Alert from rooms you haven't been to yet.

Dungeon Alert should only ever trigger if players are splitting up or leaving live monsters behind them. If you get DA from monsters you can't reach yet, then that is a bug.

Maybe another person logging onto your account, then? The second quoted post is your response to me, and another, specifically mentioning the meshwork floors of Bastion of Power.

I've read this thread. Been keeping my eye on it, as I was the 3rd and 5th posts in it. I guess you haven't caught up to post #25, where I've asked that you back up such claims of "this is a bug, that is a bug".

[Angelus_dead]

I guess you haven't caught up to post #25, where I've asked that you back up such claims of "this is a bug, that is a bug".

The main reason I haven't been replying to those posts is that they are in violation of the forum rules.

[TheDearLeader]

The main reason I haven't been replying to those posts is that they are in violation of the forum rules.

I'm asking you for reference material to back up your claims. Either they are Bugs (as noted by a Dev/Dev Team), or they are unconfirmed but suspected.

I'll make the assumption, then, that if you will not respond, it is because you have nothing clearly evidencing these mechanics are operating outside of developer intent.

[donfilibuster]

Flaws aside Shavarath is a good rendering of the Plane of Battle.
As it is canon in any d&d world the devils are in eternal fight with the demons for control of the outer planes.

The celestials won't give quarters to either side least the hellish war spills to the material world.
The devils may have won the recent battles, but the war will go on forever.


About some of the things OP mentions:

The golems going mad are right and nice, despite the pathing issues, same with the cube the cubes are awesome.

The shrine in new invasion looks random, it isn't always in the lower corner of the map as per usual.
Sometimes is by the chest, sometimes is a little to the side. I have at least seen it in three different spots.

Being able to pilfer the chest in new invasion is a nice touch. Closed by the unwilling will of the unwilling my underpants!
Hope the laughter echoes till the prisoners ears.


As for favorite bugged stuff, it's hard choice since there seems to be plenty.

One that makes you wonder is that the scaling seems to be a bit rough.
There's always some player saying 'i can solo this on normal', just to find the going gets tough with more people.
Specially for the new invasion boss, you can flag in casual in pairs of two and save time compared with going all together.

Oh and one that never fails is that since my computer is slow loading i am always dead upon recalling from new invasion.
What it'd take to move those few devils just a little further?

[TheDearLeader]

One that makes you wonder is that the scaling seems to be a bit rough.
There's always some player saying 'i can solo this on normal', just to find the going gets tough with more people.
Specially for the new invasion boss, you can flag in casual in pairs of two and save time compared with going all together.

Oh and one that never fails is that since my computer is slow loading i am always dead upon recalling from new invasion.
What it'd take to move those few devils just a little further?

Scaling is rough. Soloing is pretty easy, though. If I'm bringing others in for completion (say, like, Sins), I just ask them to hang outside until its completion time. I will say soloing the end boss of New Invasion with a 6-man on a melee is a little tricky. I think it'd help if any of my toons had this "AC" thing people keep telling me about...

Recalling from New Invasion.. its about half and half for me whether or not they aggro on me. As there are different mob layouts (sometimes Barbazu, sometime Orthons), I'm thinking it might depend on which ones are outside when I zone.

[donfilibuster]

Recalling from New Invasion.. its about half and half for me whether or not they aggro on me. As there are different mob layouts (sometimes Barbazu, sometime Orthons), I'm thinking it might depend on which ones are outside when I zone.

Speaking of this layouts thing, i once got a layout where the maze was connected by the middle.
The maze connections i believe are random, but tipically you may see the three sides on the first floor disconnected.
So big was my surprise when i got a little too close to the antimagic and my invisibility vanished.
Every monster in the floor converged on me without having to go too far around the walls.

There was so many of them that i jumped and never landed, i was standing on top of a bunch of thiefling melees, and you know you never meet but a couple melee/archer/caster in any given spot.
Then took a screenshot and lag went nuts so died from it, and so did my party members one by one that walked in nonchalantly for the rescue.
Red alert never went away, there were thieflings everywhere, not to speak of summoned spiders, clearing that path took quite a bit.