Devs- How tough are the new Quests supposed to be?

[moops]

i disagree end game is EPIC difficulty this is elite difficulty, if he's running around on a multiple tr toon geared for epic quest well i imagine itll be not so difficult BUT that because his toon is overpowered and too over-geared for him to be able to give an unbiased assessment or accurate beta test

see what nivarch posted a 2 posts before me

However, a normal Bastion of Power in a group of pugs is much harder than 99% of Epic content with pugs--on elite it's crazy hard with pugs, and sins elite can go this way as well if the party does not employ any strategy.

All the Amrath quests were pretty much solo'd at first using strategy more than gear. Did your group employ strategy? Or did you all just try to brute force your way thru? Was it a balanced party? I know when I've grouped on Lamania, the groups were not the best overall--for instance many were not self sufficient at all yet we had no healer or no cc in some.

[Ryiah]

It tooks weeks/months for people to figure out how to solo the amrath stuff on NORMAL. and were knocking this all out on day 1 on elite..

It's far too easy.

Try running it with the level of gear of your average pug. A fair number of players I've run into lately in Vale and Reaver's Refuge have had low HP, low fort, or both. The worst example was a level 15 sorcerer with 130HP and no fortification.

I'm not saying you have to gimp yourself before running them. But as others have said, Amrath came before epic gear existed. Prestige lines like Archmage that made landing attacks or spells easier weren't implemented.

[Mjesko]

Try running it with the level of gear of your average pug. A fair number of players I've run into lately in Vale and Reaver's Refuge have had low HP, low fort, or both. The worst example was a level 15 sorcerer with 130HP and no fortification.

I'm not saying you have to gimp yourself before running them. But as others have said, Amrath came before epic gear existed. Prestige lines like Archmage that made landing attacks or spells easier weren't implemented.

Yep, i think the difficulty of the quests is ok for normal geared characters.

Turbine should develop end-game content, where you need level 20 characters with very good gear. This content should reward the players not with better gear to play the same content easier. Instead it should be competive PvE with a ranking system for players and guilds.

[Khurse]

Shav also has GH on everything. So, duh on the saves.

Uh yeah.
In these we can cast GH on ourselves,Mobs don't get to.
Which makes them easier.

Which was kinda my point.

The WF don't have very good saves, the Paladins don't seem to have any of a Paladins immunities or save bonuses, the Tempests don't have ranger spells cast (no freedom, no resists that I noticed) nobody bothers casting Dward, the little patrol things (can't remember the name) are vicious- but since they can't take any damage it's pretty easy to toss an AOE down and wipe large numbers of them out.

If the Paladins had Paladin like saves, did extra Evil damage, used smites(but evil smites), if some Mobs present cast Dward, if some had freedom, if those patrol drones were immune (or at least highly resistant)to elemental damage it would make things tougher.
It would be pretty cool (imo anyway) if the WF Paladins did some kind of massive "flesh smite" thing. Something that did large amounts of damage to non WF toons.

But as I said- it's not clear what the Devs are looking for. Is it supposed to be a harder series like Amrath or something easier.

[stille_nacht]

without ToD gear, this is still leagues easier than amrath was. decently geared characters (no ToD stuff, minimal greensteel) will still be challenged a lot by what they face in amrath, decently geared characters are not challenged a lot in the new chain

im not sure if it was intentional though, maybe this is supposed to be the "easier endgame before amrath devils" or something....

[Clownpuncher]

And on elite.. We want them to be MASSIVELY harder.

We do? Thanks for letting us know. You wouldn't happen to know what we want for supper, too? We need to stop at the grocery store on the way home.

They shouldn't all get easily solo'd on day 1. (and yea they are all soloable on elite, by any class, several people have already done so today)

Soloed by who? An extremely well geared, multi-TR'ed, 5 year veteran or someone maybe plays a couple hours every night and hasn't farmed Shroud, Shavrath, and all the Epics to death?

[Khurse]

Try running it with the level of gear of your average pug. A fair number of players I've run into lately in Vale and Reaver's Refuge have had low HP, low fort, or both. The worst example was a level 15 sorcerer with 130HP and no fortification.

I'm not saying you have to gimp yourself before running them. But as others have said, Amrath came before epic gear existed. Prestige lines like Archmage that made landing attacks or spells easier weren't implemented.

Again that's the point.

New content should (in my opinion) reflect what gear is available when it's released. Releasing a level 19 quest chain these days and balancing it against people with zero endgame gear seems kinda odd to me.

But I'm not sure the Devs agree,which is why I asked.

If they wanted to create easy endgame content that new players with no gear should dominate relatively quickly and easily, they've done it, the quests have a few bugs,but the story and idea are entertaining enough.
If they want the quests to be something of a challenge to decently geared (not Shade level geared) players, they need work.

[patang01]

They should be as hard as we want them to be.

And on elite.. We want them to be MASSIVELY harder. They are a joke now. They shouldn't all get easily solo'd on day 1. (and yea they are all soloable on elite, by any class, several people have already done so today)

It tooks weeks/months for people to figure out how to solo the amrath stuff on NORMAL. and were knocking this all out on day 1 on elite..

It's far too easy.

The only tough part of the whole lot is the optional fight in Schemes of the Enemy Elite - which is very disporportionately hard due to the fact you have to face off versus 20-40 mobs at once which respawn at an incredible rate. That and its not really an optional, so much as an alternate route that no one will really use since it has no reward.

Really the main issue is saves.. They aren't balanced to challenge average geared players, let alone max ones. And the complete lack of deathblock (only saving grace there is some contructs are innately immune to death effects, tho the quests are primarily living-constructs, which are not)

Amrath has good saves, and infrequent spattering of deathblock laced around to prevent this.

I'll post some more detailed feedback on elite and whats needs buffing tomorow.

We also didn't use the gear we have now. The first time I ran Amrath with my FvS it was a pain; now the same quests are not much challenge at all. By increasing difficulty to insane based on the gear and skills you have only makes it impossible for first timers to stand a chance - simply because well geared toons are hard to challenge.

[grodon9999]

I ran them on normal last night and they were very easy, like IQ easy. Maybe they scale up? i don't know.

[grodon9999]

We also didn't use the gear we have now. The first time I ran Amrath with my FvS it was a pain; now the same quests are not much challenge at all. By increasing difficulty to insane based on the gear and skills you have only makes it impossible for first timers to stand a chance - simply because well geared toons are hard to challenge.

it's not the gear as much as the gear + metagaming. I solo'd sins at 16 on my last TR because I knew where everything would be and knew how to prepare for it.

These new ones . . . running in blind and half-cocked were still easier. At least on normal.

[Hellllboy]

I solo'd them last night. I would say they are on pace with the Inspired Quarter regarding difficulty. I really enjoyed the quest line-great job Turbine!

[Grosbeak07]

What is this "End Game" and is it really "End Game"

Tempest Spine Was End Game.
Desert was End Game.
Gianthold was End Game.
Orchard was End Game (ok, maybe not. )
Vale was End Game
Sub T was End Game
Reavers Refuge was End Game

None of these are considered End Game now, but are still fun to play. Are these new quests fun to play? Does anything else really matter?

[Eladiun]

Hello. Remove all your epic and ToD/amrath gear, ship buffs and yugo pots. Then try running the new quests again. You'll thank me later.

I would be a neat trick for him to have ship buffs on Lam already.

That being said I would like to see the difficulty bumped up a bit.

[Aerendil]

I can see both sides of the argument here. And, to an extent, everyone has valid points. I think epic gear is a HUGE factor here that can't be ignored. Keep in mind these are level 19 quests, which will probably be run by 17-20 folk, some of which are just getting their first greensteel weaponry, etc.

That said, some of the content is incredibly easy. Blown to bits, aside from that optional end fight, wasn't too hard at all. Power Play wasn't too bad either, although a bit tougher.

There were parts of Schemes, however, that could easily wipe a group (I'm looking at you, room with ever-spawning magefire cannons, drones, and dogs).


I think one's class is a big factor here as well. I'd much rather face Amrath on my Rogue than an army of constructs; however, my FvS just walked through these new quests giggling. His DR 10/silver negated any artificer or assassin x-bow damage, and his blade barriers made short work of nearly everything else. And with the plethora of shrines in most quests, it wasn't an issue to maximize most of my BBs either.

[Shade]

Try running it with the level of gear of your average pug. A fair number of players I've run into lately in Vale and Reaver's Refuge have had low HP, low fort, or both. The worst example was a level 15 sorcerer with 130HP and no fortification.

um aside from myself I did just that.

I took along a wizard with 250 hp. I took a rogue who told me who couldnt disable traps (tole me he spent all his skill points in umd. He didnt carry gh scrolls or much to umd).... A sorcerer with an impressive 32 DC on most of his spells..

None of them had any major issues.

And elite is not meant to be easily beaten by "average pugs" anyways. Thats what normal and hard are for.

Fas the nonsense about only epic being endgame content, Thats incredibly illogical. THERE IS NO EPIC. This is all we get, this IS the endgame content, so it should appeal to endgame players.

Armrath elite is endgame content too, and its also lvl18 while this is lvl19, yet amrath is ton harder. Bottombline is elite needs some tweaking.

[grodon9999]

has anyone run this on Elite yet or are we all just talking about normal? if this scales up like how say the Lordsmarch stuff does then it might be fine.

I just found it odd that the recent releases have all been harder than older content in the same level range, yet these level 19s are significantly easier than the other level 19 quests.

[grodon9999]

Armrath elite is endgame content too, and its also lvl18 while this is lvl19, yet amrath is ton harder. Bottombline is elite needs some tweaking.

So i take it the challenge doesn't scale up much on elite?

[Hellllboy]

I think one's class is a big factor here as well. I'd much rather face Amrath on my Rogue than an army of constructs; however, my FvS just walked through these new quests giggling. His DR 10/silver negated any artificer or assassin x-bow damage, and his blade barriers made short work of nearly everything else. And with the plethora of shrines in most quests, it wasn't an issue to maximize most of my BBs either.

Yes, if there is any suggestion on bumping up dmg. I would recommend that the x-bow combatants do more damage.

I went afk standing next to one of the assasins and came back 5 min. later w/o any damage-listening to the "tink, tink, tink...tink, tink, tink" (0, 0, 0...0, 0, 0) lol.

[Shade]

has anyone run this on Elite yet or are we all just talking about normal? if this scales up like how say the Lordsmarch stuff does then it might be fine.

Ran them all on elite. A couple twice, last one being 2man with a friend (see achievements, which was actually easier the running it with 5 puggers partly due to scaling)

First time on elite too, so we had no idea what to expect.. Which adds a lot to difficulty.

Know at least 5 players thaht solo'd some of them on elite on their first run and havent bothered ot mentioned it as doing it doesnt even feel like any major achievement. And no they were not all max geared multi TRs. None TRs even. Even if they were tho, they should still pose a challenge.

[grodon9999]

Ran them all on elite. A couple twice, last one being 2man with a friend (see achievements, which was actually easier the running it with 5 puggers partly due to scaling)

First time on elite too, so we had no idea what to expect.. Which adds a lot to difficulty.

Know at least 5 players thaht solo'd some of them on elite on their first run and havent bothered ot mentioned it as doing it doesnt even feel like any major achievement. And no they were all max geared multi TRs. None TRs even. Even if they were tho, they should still pose a challenge.

meh . . . . hopefully the raids won't suck.