LET'S TALK: The Shroud

[Hafeal]

+1; an excellent observation and one that has been understated in conversations about the new Shroud.

My argument for leaving it as was on all difficulties but with the increased loot returns is that the shroud really isn't supposed to be fun for players like you and me anymore. We should be playing the shiny new super hard content, and the only reason we're running shrouds is to reslot an item we've replaced with an Epic item, or kit out a new character we're leveling. Leaving the difficulty alone but increasing loot means you spend less time in there at all... you pug out elites get faster returns and get back to the fun content. It also means first character first lifers and casual gamers can acquire greensteel quicker by learning (and enjoying) the shroud as is with better returns. It helps them catch up, essentially, getting more people to the newer end game, which provides impetus to the devs to continue focusing on new more challenging end game content.

[Nataichal]

How's this for a solution:

Shift the difficulty down one tier.

Thus, old school normal blade damage Becomes Normal blade damage.

Current normal blades damage becomes Hard Blade Damage.

Current hard damage becomes elite blade damage.

[Lifespawn]

revert normal or make blades not follow as in blades spawn and go in 1 direction till dispersing

[sirgog]

My personal suggestion:

Leave blade damage exactly as-is BUT consider removing heat-seeking blades from Normal altogether. Dealing with those blades requires more complex tactics than 'avoid the obvious trap that moves in a clearly predictable pattern', and IMO this isn't called for in a Normal difficulty raid. (Hard/Elite kid gloves are off, you should go out of your way to code Hard and Elite to kill us).

The blades change (and the U11 20% HP buff to Normal Harry) combine to make the fight generally last 2 rounds, which means players actually see the gnolls. The gnolls are, IMO, a major strategic part of the encounter that makes part 4 different to every other fight in the game.

I highly support the reward changes to dissuade 1-4 farming. It's bugged me that if a veteran and a newbie group together in Shroud and the newbie recalls before the altar is hit, they put in the same effort as the vet but get ~70% less XP and ~65% less large ingredients than the vet does.

One change I'd consider is tweaking Harry's stats to make melees a little more effective in part 4 (as they now can safely attack for what, 55 seconds per round while casters can DPS him for ~80 seconds). Specifically, I'd drop his hit points a smidgen, but give Harry 25% elemental absorption to Cold, Acid and Light. Particularly on Elite, the raid is presently a lot easier to beat if you do not invite any melees at all.


Edit: Oh and Harry really should learn Black Dragon Bolt on Elite, so that he can do something a little different. DBFs and Meteor Swarms are doing the same damage on each difficulty, and while they slaughter newbies left right and centre, they just don't do very much to players with Fire Absorb 33% and decent saves.



One final alternative suggestion. You could consider adding an Epic difficulty to the raid.
The new Normal would have the live version of Normal Harry, with weaker blades (think 15+2d8 damage, getting hit by that 5 times hurts but anyone can survive it)
New Hard would take the blades from live Normal, with the versions of Arraetrikos from live Hard
New Elite - blades from current Hard, versions of Arraetrikos from current Elite
and Epic would take the blades from current Elite, and add the already-in-game Epic Arraetrikos after 'modernizing' his stats a little. Think of part 4 with 420k HP, 80% Fort, 130 average melee damage, 70 AC, Chain Lightning, Meteor Swarm, Horrid Wilting, Black Dragon Bolt, Divine Punishment, and maybe part 5 having 550k HP and 140 average melee damage.

An Epic version of Shroud could just have a 'good stuff' chest like Epic Devil Assault has, with no shards/seals/scrolls/exquisite greensteel items, but some subset of +4 tomes, cleansers, time-limited +8 red and blue augments, Silver/Good timed red augments, Adamantine/Good timed red augments, +7 and good timed red augments, metal-threaded handwraps and 'blank' unbound Large Guild Slot items that come pre-loaded with 'Craftable +15'.

[die]

I vote leave the blades as they are, 20's running a lv 17 raid dont need it any easyer, even with one or two noob's

and this wont be very popular, but make harry fly around and jack people up not just stand there in one spot and take a beating .. maybe grab a barb by the throat and fly into the air and bite he's arm off .. that would be diffrent.. you get my point

[grodon9999]

The blades do too much damage, cut the damage in half on all difficulties and it's fine.

Unless of course you intend for Elite Shroud to be harder than Elite ToD.

[bbqzor]

Same format as I've used in the previous threads.

This thread assumes you are familiar with the Shroud and are aware of how it played before and after recent changes.

I am... over 500 completions total, with plenty since the change.

Designers had noticed that more often than not, players weren't completing all phases of the Shroud and in the spirit of 'making things better', it was decided that more incentive was called for. Loot changes were made.

And, with the recent tuning to end reward lists, I think this was a very well done and much needed change. There are now reasons to do higher difficulties, and the event is weighted more towards ingredients and less toward vendor loot (as much as it can be, really). Also, it continues to benefit people not recalling out, which is, and always has been, a rather foolish way to do things (although I understand why people with only one lv20 guy might choose to do so) and something I think is good for the game to move away from where it can.

However, while he was 'in there', the designer felt compelled to fix a longstanding bug with the blades.

Before I move on, let me point out something. Multiple times before, long standing "bugs" have been suddenly "fixed", kind of out of nowhere. At some point, when the game works a certain way for literally years (what, 3.5 in this case?), people kind of assume thats how it is. At some point, consider leaving things alone kind of like 'if it isn't broken don't fix it'. Now, this specific change isnt all bad, so I'm not trying to say this is one of those things. Only that it could easily have been one, and I hope that kind of consideration comes up more frequently than it does in the future when 'adjusting/fixing' things which have essentially become status quo.

Controversy ensued. It appears that we've taken what was a very pug friendly experience for pugs and changed it such that's it no longer - well - pug friendly.

Its still pretty pug friendly... what its not is new player friendly. Its still a safe bet to hit any old lfm and likely get a 25-40 min completion, while any guild/friends/etc run can easily do 15-25 (obviously those trying for speed can do better). But if you're new, and lack gear (specifically a good max hp total) this raid suddenly became pretty brutal.

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?

Overall some adjustments should be made, in my opinion. Not a total reversion, but some tuning. It'd be nice to see new players be able to learn how the event works on Normal, so that eventually they can feel comfortable doing the other difficulties without being surprise killed, or accidentally wiping the party. However, making it a bit more forgiving for people learning, or people not running top hardware, etc would go a long ways to making it more 'pug friendly' in your words.

On Normal, in part 3 the blades could do a bit less damage so people who lag (and some folks do) aren't immediately killed. On Normal, in part 4, the green devil spawned blades should perhaps move slower. Realize that this is essentially a unique mechanic, nowhere else in the game does a mob hurt you for killing it. Here it does that, and does so quickly. Tuning down the damage some (as in part 3) and slowing the blades down (so that you can safely run away even without striders, or if lagging) would both make it less punitive to folks who may be a bit green and react slower, or folks who are lagging and don't realize they're in a blade right away, or folks in groups suffering heal lag where it may take a second to get topped off. Right now, those are all things which have become punitive, that previously weren't, and which shouldn't really make or break a Normal level run. On Normal, in part 4 when the circle blades come in, and again if they show up in part 5, Id also like to see slightly less damage so people clipped from lag jumping out, or with heals lagging slightly, people aren't torn up so bad.

Basically, consider blanket lowering the dmg per 'hit' on the blades in parts 3/4/5 and consider slowing down the move speed of the devil kill ones in part 4 for Normal difficulty. This is aimed at making it more learning friendly, more accommodating towards different system specs, and more forgiving of lag. All things which shouldn't really be potentially preventing completions on a regular basis for the general population.

On Hard/Elite, consider leaving things how they are. People going in on hard should know what to expect, and at least have enough gear to withstand the raid they're in, if not other endgame events. For Elite, they should be pretty ready for other end game events. With people knowing the event and bringing the right tools, it really is pretty manageable.

On Casual, should casual raids ever be implemented as suggested by some in the previous thread, that is a scenario where reverting the changes totally would probably be well received. Anyone there for the story, and to learn the event for the first time, almost assuredly does not have gear, nor the desire to die some learning event scripts. They probably want to go in on their first characters first life and feel like they have a reasonable chance to win and see what the dungeon looks like and how the story plays out, and to do that they probably shouldn't get hit in the face with unique and 'sudden death' like mechanics.

Thanks for the opportunity to post my 2 cents, I hope it is helpful. Cheers.

[Calebro]

20's running a lv 17 raid dont need it any easyer, even with one or two noob's

The problem with that line of reasoning is that the level ranges that the raid was designed for are now left behind.
It's like the 500 point Disintegrate in Reaver, which no level 14 character can survive.
Running these raids at level should be a challenge for a newbie. It's shouldn't spell certain doom for that newbie.
That's what higher difficulties are for.

[Kushiel]

I have never run it. Only a couple of my lives have I even been flagged to go in, because I find various aspects of those flagging quests completely unfun.

If that series is meant to provide key gear in the form of Greensteel items that then make taking on certain Raid content or the newer/harder House C content (or standing a chance at enjoying Epic and accumulating Epic items), then the mechanics and the monsters of the quest would be best served by making the content accessible to *more* players.

[BladeTricks]

New Shroud is still very PUG friendly. Not failed a normal run yet, and my toons are from uber.

With that said, I would tone down the blade damage a little bit. Reason being: they are now a bigger threat than Harry itself, which is in and of itself ridiculous. Don't put them back to pre-update damage level though, they made things a little bit more interesting.

[MartinusWyllt]

..
It's like the 500 point Disintegrate in Reaver, which no level 14 character can survive...

Another raid where a longstanding bug fix...air elementals...knocks the whole experience up another level.

[FrancisP.Fancypants]

I'll echo this: The Shroud is getting back to PUG friendly, provided that a few of the players have a clue. Lag is the bigger issue- it happens; it's not just a phantom excuse, and it doesn't care how experienced or prepared you are. Suddenly you're down a healer and half your DPS.

Toning down the damage would be fine, even in hard and elite. I don't think anyone would cry over that.

*As an aside, I have trouble seeing the blade paths under normal circumstances. I can usually avoid them but I still have trouble figuring out when they've paused for a second, and I think it has to do with not being able to judge the depth of the blades to the environment. I haven't heard this from anyone else though, so it could be just me.

[QuantumFX]

When the shroud was released the designers also stated that they figured people would not complete the full raid. REMEMBER this fact. Players were told point blank it was ok not to finish.

The issue with the blades is that they allow for ZERO chance of not being hit which is frankly a #$@#$#@@$ in the world of DnD. (save when you tick off the DM) By PnP rules they should be rolling to hit us via our AC score.

Given the auto hitting and the fact that the it just an area check so client server issues exasperate this 5 fold.... The blades have always been, frankly, a really petulant jerk move by Turbine.

There are several ways to fix this.
1. keep the auto hitting but make it like a charge such that they can only strike once every second max.
2. Make it roll an AC check.

Heck, just thinking about it, given the fact they are constantly doing area checks, no wonder shroud lags like crazy at times. Eladrin stated that area checking his heavily expensive. Those things are roving area checks in a concentrated area.

I can appreciate the fact that the blades do more damage and are deadly. I have zero issues with this. Infact I'm in the group that applauds that. However, I have major issues with how they were designed as listed above.

This. And Mad, FYI, the problems with the blades cause the exact same problem with Air Elementals.

[Mellkor]

I think it should be changed back to what it was on normal difficulty. Hard and Elite are just fine. If it is for no other reason other than to encourage casual pugs again, then do it!

[blkcat1028]

Most level 20s don't run the Shroud for a challenge or fun. They run it for easy green steel ingredients. That's why there's been such an uproar over increasing the blade damage. It's no longer worthwhile to ransack parts 1-4.

It's a level 17 raid on normal and therefore a party of level 17 first lifers should be able to complete it. (and they still can)

The two options that I see are as follows;

1. Revert the raid back to the snooze fest that it was but remove the chance of large ingredients at the end of part 4. Add another chest with a 50% chance of larges upon completion. Leave the end reward as is.

2. Make the blade damage scale based on the CR of the party. If it's possible have the scaling take TRs into consideration as well.

[Calebro]

Another raid where a longstanding bug fix...air elementals...knocks the whole experience up another level.

Yes, but that bug appeared when Gust of Wind didn't exist.
Air Elles ridiculous knockbacks made that raid fun. When they stopped knocking us around it became boring.
Gust of wind introduced a mechanic that allowed the Air Elles a way to remove persistant AoE that we'd laid out, which added a bit more challenge once again.
Now that the bug has been fixed, the combination of No-AoEs-Allowed and constant knockbacks just make that raid annoying.
And that's not even commenting on the instakill nature of a 500 pt Disintegrate on a level 14 toon.
But that's another topic for another thread.

[toaf]

the blades are abit nasty on normal.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I think the easiest fix is to adjust the blade damage, down. Mostly on normal.


But... what I would really like is for the blades to work differently.

They should need attack rolls. Or Ref saves (evasion )
DR should work against them.

Maybe they should be destroyable.

Anyway, yes. the current blade damage has made the Shroud very un-PUG friendly.
And as much as I enjoy trying to solo Harry in part 4 I do think that other players are being hurt by the current blade damage.

[karl_k0ch]

Before the changes, I pugged shrouds on a casual basis. Now, I'm too scared to run into a wipe at part4, and consequently run this on a more sparse schedule, often only with people I know.

Also, I've stopped to lead shroud completely on a pug 2 healers + 9 other guys, first come first served basis.

I think the blades need to be toned down on normal at least, and at least allow a reflex save to mitigate damage across all difficulties. The reward to run the more challenging parts is already there.


Yes, I am a chicken.

[dunklezhan]

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?

Its' still pug friendly, but there's a lot less of them than there used to be. Please don't *revert* the changes. But if you could tone down the damage output on normal only a little so totally random death isn't quite so unavoidable, that would be awesome.