Feedback - Quest - The Sane Asylum

[Crazyfruit]

Elite
Ratchet put up a good/fun fight, 12 deaths down there
3 of the 4 us did the quest already & knew what to do.

[Saaluta]

Getting 2 chests and all optionals: get Nightmare vision, open doors to beholders, clear paths but don't go in yet...go solve puzzle, get Fred chest, go back and kill beholders, get extra chest....this is for anyone who loot farms..getting greater essences, so seems good to me...took me about 5-10 minutes to do puzzle, 5 minutes each for beholders on human fvs with max/emp bb's and searing lights Still can't seem to open the 3rd daydream passage. Fred chest seems to spawn between the angle of the floor tile, not sure if affects loot though, still testing. On now on Tabora if anyone wants to join my tests, just running this one for now

Saal

on norm^^

[FlimsyFirewood]

Please See Image Here:
http://img848.imageshack.us/img848/5268/puzzlew.jpg

Is This Wai?

Yes Wai!

Solve harder!

[RandomKeypress]

Thanks Flimsy - can you confirm the sole remaining tile that you sometimes see after killing the eyes is also WAI?

[FlimsyFirewood]

Thanks Flimsy - can you confirm the sole remaining tile that you sometimes see after killing the eyes is also WAI?

Nah, that's a bug. Pretty harmless though... the tile doesn't do anything. Just sits and spins.

[Saaluta]

Nah, that's a bug. Pretty harmless though... the tile doesn't do anything. Just sits and spins.

Darn, was hoping the tile was vast and mysterious...errr...small and inconsequentional

Saal

[RandomKeypress]

Hmmm - did another run with my level 20 repeater rogue with lev 20 FvS hireling, this time on elite.
Died three times. Every single one of those deaths was due to a mindflayer sucking out my brain. I hope that whoever decided to give the mindflayers about six different methods of crowd control gets a laugh out of it. I will be laughing with them when I've cooled down. At the moment I'm just really irritated. Loosing control over your character for thirty seconds or so is REALLY annoying.
Well, okay, I'll be fair. Losing control over your character while your summons and your hireling all batter on a closed door trying to attack a relatively harmless mental patient who's never even been in line of sight while you're getting your brains sucked out by a mindflayer is REALLY annoying.

Yes, it's a lev 19 quest. Yes, it's elite. It's supposed to be difficult and all that. Fair cop. But it does expose the simple fact that summons and hireling AI is bad in this quest. They attack distant threats while ignoring stuff at home. If set aggressive (as I think summons are), they run off to the nearest cell and futilely bang on the door. Even to the extent of ignoring their master getting his brains sucked out.

Of course the hireling got his brains sucked out a couple of times too, so it does balance out a little.

[FlimsyFirewood]

We're not balancing elite for solo play.

Otherwise it won't challenge parties at all.

Can't help ya there.

[MrkGrismer]

We're not balancing elite for solo play.

Otherwise it won't challenge parties at all.

Can't help ya there.

And as well you shouldn't. If it can be solo'd on normal I think that's plenty good. If it can possibly be solo'd on hard if you are really good then that is icing on the cake. I don't expect to be able to solo elite unless I am really over-level or 'dag-nabbed-good'.

[Schmoe]

We're not balancing elite for solo play.

Otherwise it won't challenge parties at all.

Can't help ya there.

Hey there good-looking, I like what you're selling.

[RandomKeypress]

We're not balancing elite for solo play.

Otherwise it won't challenge parties at all.

Can't help ya there.

Oh, glad to hear it, I assure you. Just getting continually paralysed annoyed me. Sorry about that.

I've now done another six (I think) runs, solving the puzzle each time. I've come across five unique puzzle combinations, so I suspect there are at most seven (more likely five or even six) possible puzzles you can encounter. Gotten two symbiants - one on elite, one on one of the normal runs. Fred's chest, both times. Also gotten three Xoriat tokens.

On normal, zerging with hireling, I managed to get the last two runs down to 9 minutes each, and the last one was a bit longer because I forgot to speak to Durk at the beginning (done that twice now).
I suspect that someone with haste and whose damage is not backstab-dependant could run this at the magic 1k xp / min level, with a little practice.

I love the xoriat token thingy. Nothing really useless drops out of it, and sometimes you hit jackpot and get the mindflayer mage. Stunning is wonderful when the boot is on the other foot :-D

[Trillea]

We're not balancing elite for solo play.

Otherwise it won't challenge parties at all.

Can't help ya there.

Bravissimo!

[Saaluta]

We're not balancing elite for solo play.

Otherwise it won't challenge parties at all.

Can't help ya there.

+1 !!!1eleventy-eleven

Saal

[voodoogroves]

We're not balancing elite for solo play.

Otherwise it won't challenge parties at all.

Can't help ya there.

This is the new hotness.

[sirgog]

We're not balancing elite for solo play.

Otherwise it won't challenge parties at all.

Can't help ya there.

Excellent.

Now, all that we need is actual rewards for running things on Elite.

As it stands, flawlessly executed Elite runs of almost everything offer less XP/minute and less loot/minute than just farming Normal more times.

[Shade]

Excellent.

Now, all that we need is actual rewards for running things on Elite.

As it stands, flawlessly executed Elite runs of almost everything offer less XP/minute and less loot/minute than just farming Normal more times.

Seems fixed in acute delerium at least on the loot side, ton more chests. Think 4 more then normal if you figure out which one is the mimic, and at least a couple have named loot too. Took me signifiicantly longer to beat it, but im pretty sure the time difference in a "flawless" group wouldn't be too much to negate the extra reward.

iirc a couple quests in the u9 pack had more chests on elite too, tho not al.. so there starting to move in the right direction far as loot goes.

XP wise it's likely not worth it, given with non lvl20s, it would be very tough and take a while.. But still the first time +50%, along with a much easier time of getting conquest, and the favor, may make at least 1 run on elite worthy for some TRs.

[The_Phenx]

Hmmm - did another run with my level 20 repeater rogue with lev 20 FvS hireling, this time on elite.
Died three times. Every single one of those deaths was due to a mindflayer sucking out my brain.

Try running with a light monk. Grasp of the earth dragon prevents this.

Also try using tactics, when mindflayers are tripped... or cometfalled they are easy prey.

Another method is to run with a summoned pet, let them grab aggro, and then come in on the backside of the mindflayer, as their control spells are not 360 degrees... and do not work behind them.

Another method is not to use a repeater rogue solo

[The_Phenx]

We're not balancing elite for solo play.

Otherwise it won't challenge parties at all.

Can't help ya there.

While your at it, can we make elite a lil harder?

[voodoogroves]

Seems fixed in acute delerium at least on the loot side, ton more chests. Think 4 more then normal if you figure out which one is the mimic, and at least a couple have named loot too. Took me signifiicantly longer to beat it, but im pretty sure the time difference in a "flawless" group wouldn't be too much to negate the extra reward.

iirc a couple quests in the u9 pack had more chests on elite too, tho not al.. so there starting to move in the right direction far as loot goes.

XP wise it's likely not worth it, given with non lvl20s, it would be very tough and take a while.. But still the first time +50%, along with a much easier time of getting conquest, and the favor, may make at least 1 run on elite worthy for some TRs.

Now if they can just tweak that so multiple elite runs still give good XP.



There's been a fair number of threads in the normal forums around builds, achievements, etc. and I think folks are losing sight of the fact that what someone with multiple TRs and supporting gear can do is NOT what the normal person can do. I don't want Turbine to balance the game entirely around either end of the spectrum, but I'd love to see Normal be a challenge for newer players, hard for those with BTA gear and elite still kick TRs butts ... but with a commensurate reward.

[Cyr]

Excellent.

Now, all that we need is actual rewards for running things on Elite.

As it stands, flawlessly executed Elite runs of almost everything offer less XP/minute and less loot/minute than just farming Normal more times.

This. It is next to meaningless to have challenge only reside in elite settings if there is not very strong incentives to run it.

The basic rule of thumb should be that elite should offer the best xp/time ratio and the best loot/time ratio of any of the standard settings (non epic). If it offers inferior ratios then people will rarely if ever run it. The path of best rewards also being the path of least resistance makes the path of most resistance very unappealing. Oh and by best ratios I don't mean by a meaninglessly small percentage...it should be a noticable margin.