LET'S TALK: The Shroud

[protokon]

The blades need to be changed, one way or another. It's not only just for being "pug friendly", the bigger problem is being "melee friendly".

Currently my guild only runs elite shroud once a week at most - and when we do, we fill the group with casters/divines. It is the only practical approach. Why? because the blades screw over melees big time where they are needed the most, in parts 4/5.

I'll explain why. In part 4, while clearing trash mobs killing a devil will spawn blades right where it drops. If you were a poor soul meleeing the sucker down, like you were supposed to, you get penalized for killing it at close range and get torn up by the blades - and if unlucky on your rolls, are killed very quickly.

Same scenario, a caster walks into part 4. He uses power word kill on a devil across the map, the blades pop up far far away from him, and he laughs at how harmless they are to him.

Now we get to the Harry Fight. The melees surround him and beat on him, the blades form a very, very static circular pattern that does not affect casters - simply don't stand in front of the blades and they are harmless. the blades close in, if you are a poor melee soul who stays in a second too late - which is easy to do, the blades will start hitting you before they physically are toughing you in game, you get torn up and take massive blade damage + harry's physical damage. Everyone's natural reaction is to run away, it shotguns all melees in various directions and if your lucky, one or two of them might make it out alive, if your unlucky those few who did make it out will get hit with a meteor swarm in the back .

Part 5 is much, much less of a big deal. Part 4 is the extremely unforgiving part in which someone dies, they are out of the fight - too many deaths and the party cannot recover, you have nearly 25 minutes wasted.

The blades need to be changed - you don't necessarily have to nerf the damage they do, but change how they spawn and how they move - I don't know, give harry a tell so he calls the blades in on him, or has the blades shotgun outwards so that both melees and casters are in danger of them.

Either way, a lot of changes to the game recently have penalized playing melee characters - In fact, the only reason to play a melee at this point is to tank raid bosses, and even that is getting to be nearly pointless since anyone (including casters) can take the shield mastery feats for the DR bonuses.

[waterboytkd]

It's a level 17 raid that acts as the stepping stone for newbies to get into the other raids (VoD, Hound, eventually ToD and LoB). On normal, Newbies should be able to complete. As it is now, with the large blade damage, Newbies can't do this without veterans carrying them. I still hear about shroud wipes to this day (often when I put up an lfm for a quick normal shroud, and I accept someone with 300 hp--they're the ones with the horror stories about wipes in part 4).

I would say, return the Normal blades to the old damage (so newbies can handle the raid). On hard, I would set the blade damage to what Normal currently is (a tough challenge for those toons with raid gear, but still working on their first pieces of epic gear; not difficult for vets geared to the teeth). Leave Elite as it is.

Then again, I think the Normal/Hard/Elite difficulties need to be adjusted so that a level 17 toon that's geared to the teeth (probably a TR/multi-TR as well) should be able to contribute and complete a level 17 quest/raid on elite. It can be hard, but it shouldn't be nearly insurmountable.

[Standal]

The OP asks only if the changes to the blade section of the shroud should be reverted. If my only options are to revert the blade changes or keep them, I reluctantly have to choose revert.

I personally really enjoy the changes, and have no problems avoiding the blades. Barring obvious server-wide lag, I don't experience any serious lag in the Shroud. This leads me to believe that a huge percentage of the "Shroud lag" is client/IP lag.

Given that Part 4 is stay alive or fail, I think that the current mechanic is doesn't work. Failing a quest because a couple of key players lag and can't be rezzed is not an acceptable mechanic to me.

[DocBenway]

No. Please do not "revert the changes to the blade section". I'm not opposed to you tweaking the blades in some fashion I guess, but if you revert them wholesale you just bring back the original problem that you were seeing people purposefully not completing.

The only reason folks were purposely not completing was to farm materials, nothing to do with blades. Now people are accidentally not completing entirely due to blades.

[MrWizard]

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

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

Controvery 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.

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?

portal level is extremely boring, making it harder would be worse...less portals better.

blades less damage and that would be great. Make part 4 allow the boss to move around, maybe that will liven it up....or add one red named between each round that must be defeated or something.
Blades with no way to stop, 60-80 a hit, not fun.

[JasonJi72]

I can't really comment on the 'blades' since I have not been able to run it since the changes. I have been leveling a TR and one of the new moncher builds. I also don't really like playing my other high level toon that much.

FACT: You cannot join a pug lfm for the Shroud on normal under level 18 on Thelanis. I have tried every time I have seen one up since I hit level 17, but I do not even get a response, just an auto decline. All my characters have been flagged since level 15. They are not even MYDDOing me since there is no way they could do it that quickly. I know I am an elf, but I have over 350 hp at level 17, and I'm a decent player. This is absolutely ridiculous for a quest that you have to run several times in order to have any chance in the end game content.

FACT: It was boring before. That is why I don't have all of the items I need yet. I only ran it about once every other week before. Now I can't even get a few completions in as I'm leveling. Sad, but true. This means it will be even more of a grind when I can finally run it.

FACT: I will be less prepared for level 18-20 and Epic content than I would like. I only need a few more runs to complete a Lit II bow and then I can work on a Conc Op HP Item and a Crowd Control bow (What would you suggest btw? I was thinking earthgrab).

So anyway, if the blades are not that bad, and make it fun, then why do people only accept level 18 or higher characters for a level 17 normal raid?

The thing that really sucks is that this raid is required to farm.

To the devs: Please don't make required quests too difficult to run at level on normal.

To the players: Man (or woman) up, and allow level 16's and 17's into your Shroud runs.

Well, I am a quest away from 18, so maybe I'll finally get to see what all the ruckus is about... maybe... if I can get in with just under 400 hp on a first life level 18 elf. *sighs*

[Ungood]

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

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

Controvery 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.

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?

I would like to address this issue on several parts:

Demographic.

As it stands, even players that enjoyed the change openly admit that at-level players do not run this raid because it is currently over powered and well known to be designed for higher level groups, IE: 18 - 20 as opposed to the 16 - 19 that it was supposed to be targeted to.

That alone should be telling that this raid not scaled right for the audience that should be running it.

Should capped toons with epic gear run this raid expecting it to be a challange?

The short simple answer is No.

Is the problem at this point, the Blades?

In many ways, Yes.

They create an issue, mainly with how fast and hard they hit. If they hit slower, or even if they were reduced to mob status as opposed to this ambient indestructible moving damage thing that offers no save. As others have said, putting something like that in reeks of being cheesy.

Offering reflex saves, evasion saves, and other means to mitigate the damage would be a step in the right direction. In many ways. this would teach players who use Shroud as a Stepping stone the fine art of Damage Mitigation, and how to survive these kinds of situations.

But the warning bell here, is that players who seem happy about this change admit they over-level the raid when they run it. As a designer that is not a good review.

In fact to go a step further, as the Game Designer you have put the gauntlet down that Bravery is 2 levels above Normal. IE: You are no longer "Brave" if you are 3 or more levels above the quest.

In this token, is the Shroud really doable by a group of 19th level players? Well on Orien, we tried. We failed. We were going though the raid as intended with good time and a decent pace, up to those blades, at which point, they just tore us apart. And this was not a group of half-geared toons, all of were TR2+, breaking out the best we could have short of epic and some of us, were itching for 20th to get out Epics out our TR banks, only Elite Shroud was in our way. Well, it remained that way.

Irony was, We had no shortage of 20's willing to pitch in, but, when it was all 19's or less, it seemed no one wanted to jump on that wagon. That alone should tell you something was wrong here.

Synergy:

Most raids in the Game, do not Exist in a Vacuum. They have complex flagging procedures. Notable Exceptions are Tempest Spine, VoD, and HoX.

Thus every raid should work within the dynamic of the Pack/Flagging Quests it belongs to.

Flagging Quests:

The Flagging Quests should serve two purposes.

They should Cull the Herd.

Flagging Quests should, for lack of a better way to put this, serve as a Sieve to ensure that those not ready to run the raid will stopped while allowing those that are ready to pass though and move on to the Raid itself.

The Flagging should prepare players for the Raid the Follows.

The Second Purpose of the Flagging Quest should be to prepare the players for the Raid that Follows, as well as be indicative of their chances to overcome it. If a group of players can run the flagging quest on Elite, They should be able to run the Raid itself on that difficulty after completion of the flagging Quests.

Now, because of the Flagging Quests and how they should interact with the Raid that follows, you can't just slap a higher number on the Raid and call it a day.

You need to work within the synergy of the corresponding quests that liken to the raid itself. If a group is running the GH flagging Quests on Elite they should not walk in and get owed by the Reavers Fate raid. That to me would be common sense. You do the flagging and you should be ready for the raid. If you could only do normal. then maybe you should stick to doing the raid on normal, if you plowed though the elite, then you should be ready for an elite run of the raid.

Nor should they have to then go get 4 more levels before they come back and do the raid.

In this regard, I believe that Raids like Shroud and Abbot fail hard. They are disjunctive from their flagging quests, and that gives a feeling of poor coordination of the overall package.

It should be the acceptable way of the game that if 12 of the people who can do the elite flagging quests got together, They should be able to do the Elite raid. Perhaps, because Shroud is 17th, they may need to wait till they get to 19th, But, Such is currently not the case.

In that vein, I do not feel that this is a faulting on the players parts.

Final Note:

Now, I am open to admit I could be looking at it the wrong way, The Flagging Quests could be just there for pointless EXP grinding fluff, and if that is the case, or how you envisioned how they would interact, then that is your call on this matter.

Thank you for your time if you read all of this. Sorry for the Length.

[OldCoaly]

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

"Fixing" things that don't seem to need "fixed"

Even though we all saw the blades, nobody thought they were broken. The moved about, did things, and even though they weren't a danger to anyone who was aware of them, they were still exciting if you have less than 300hp or it was your first time in the raid.

The previous state of the blades didn't irritate anyone.

Were there really no threads or bug reports about the uncollectable collectables?

Every time someone new to the raid tries to pick one up, everyone who no longer looks at them is reminded of how long this open issue has been ignored.

The collectables LOOK BROKEN.

Why would someone "fix" something that didn't look broken instead of deal with something that does?

[Ytteri]

Since the changes I've failed 1 shroud out of about 15. It's still really not that hard provided you have at least 2 or 3 people who really know what they're doing and the remaining people who don't know it listen well. Success in shroud now depends mostly on group communication, and I think that's a good thing, it remains a good "introductory" for people.

One of the things I don't like about the blades though is that there's really no way to protect yourself from the blades other than high HP, and some/most people may be relying on a greensteel item to get them reasonable HP.

Maybe on normal only you could reduce the damage from the blades by 5-10 and allow a reflex save for half damage (undecided on whether evasion should apply to that reflex save)?

[Calebro]

Maybe on normal only you could reduce the damage from the blades by 5-10 and allow a reflex save for half damage (undecided on whether evasion should apply to that reflex save)?

If you want a reflex save for half damage on the blades, then evasion applies. That's what evasion does. That's evasion's entire purpose.
If you don't want evasion to apply, then you don't want a reflex save. You'd instead want an attack vs. AC, or something else entirely.
But reflex for half and evasion go hand in hand.

[Cauthey]

The Shroud is okay the way it is currently. Having to actively watch for blades makes things spicy, and spicy == GOOD!

If you soften it on Normal, I would not scream "EASY BUTTON!" But, I would probably think it.

If you revert the changes to the blades fully, I would cry "EASY BUTTON!"

[sweez]

Blade damage, as such, isn't an issue. However, blade damage coupled with latency issues, hit-box issues, and the fact they offer no save can make part 4 quite an unpleasant experience.

If you really want environmental damage like the blades to be dangerous, fix the underlying coding issues first. Otherwise they're just too random.

[TDarkchylde]

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

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

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.

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?

Normal, most definitely yes. All the "new" blades have done is further separated the haves from the have-nots and only made it harder for first-timers, fresh alts and most Rogues to get into what is now a staple raid in the first place. Everyone benefits from Greensteel - not everyone can get it now.

"Sorry, you can't get in without Greensteel." That's like saying you can't get into ATDQ2 without a Torc!

The below quoted poster nailed the proper solution for this square on the head:

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.

Powergamers still get their more difficult runs in, while those who are new to the raid, bringing in an alt for the first time or just don't feel like running Elite tonight can still run (and hopefully complete - that was NEVER as certain as some may have believed) without being complete liabilities.

[blkcat1028]

FACT: You cannot join a pug lfm for the Shroud on normal under level 18 on Thelanis. I have tried every time I have seen one up since I hit level 17, but I do not even get a response, just an auto decline. All my characters have been flagged since level 15. They are not even MYDDOing me since there is no way they could do it that quickly. I know I am an elf, but I have over 350 hp at level 17, and I'm a decent player. This is absolutely ridiculous for a quest that you have to run several times in order to have any chance in the end game content.

I'm sorry that you are having so much trouble getting into a pug, but to say that it is impossible for a level 17 character to get into a Shroud run on Thelanis is not accurate.

I've PUGed my squishy ranger in several Shroud runs since the update and haven't been declined yet. If I were you , I'd make note of the group leaders and see if there's a connection.

[Glenalth]

The blade damage was a new obstacle, most have figured out how to deal with it now. The one thing that would be nice would be a way to mitigate damage from the blades themselves by some method other than just dodging.

Some options...

Give the blades an attack roll, keep it somewhat low so that characters with a decent (ie non-dumped) AC could stay in with reduced damage and that high AC characters would have very little problem with them.

Allow blades to be debuffed via dispel magic or a similar spell to reduce their closing speed, attack rate, and/or damage dealt.

Allow blades to be destroyed in some manner, either through magic or physical damage. Allowing archers to clear out the blades a bit would give then an interesting niche role in the raid. This would also allow for the old "collect bladestorm pieces" quest to be completed.

Have some sort of optional during phase 1, 2, or 3 that reduces the number of blades for part 4/5.

[Ovrad]

The blade damage is fine, however the proc rate is off the chart. We need more time to react to it (easily 600-800 in a little more than 1 second elite). Considering there is no room for margin (death = penalty box), this is too extreme, especially with the usual slight lag.

Needs to be 0.5-1 proc per second. Right now, it's more like 3-4 proc per second.
Keeping the spinning circle of blades a little more dangerous would be fine, as it forces movement instead of tank and spank.


As of now, the boss of shroud is the blades, harry is just another trash mob. That ain't right.

[k1ngp1n]

I am of the opinion that the blade mechanic is fine, it is the extremely high damage output, especially if it coincides with a meteor swarm or lag. I see a lot of new-to-higher levels characters getting absolutely thrashed by the blades. Just a bit of a dip in damage (drop it to 2/3ish of current) would even it out perfectly - we'd still have to avoid them, but it would be a bit easier on lesser geared characters.

Either that or Ungood's call of adding some method of damage mitigation - DR, evasion, displacement - whatever. As it stands the blades do just a bit too much damage on normal.

Everything else is butter.

[taurean430]

Do not revert to the way that it was.
The Shroud was boring, but necessary. It has become fun again.

With that said.... they're too unforgiving on Normal. Normal is the difficulty that newbies should be running. Newbies do not have the gear and/or experience to survive the blades as they are now. So you've created a situation where the targeted demographic for that particular difficulty is doomed to fail unless they have players from outside of that demographic there to carry them .
This is a poorly implemented mechanic, as it stands.

Leave the blades mechanically, but tone down the damage that they do on Normal.
And *only* on Normal. Anyone that wants to run anything harder should **** well know what they're getting themselves into.

This was essentially what I was going to say, but worded better. Therefore I steal and second this.

Newer players do not yet have GS hp items. Unfortunately, many of them are not wearing heavy fort, a con item, or a false life item either. This means that they essentially get one or two shotted when making a mistake. It becomes more problematic when the person making the mistake kites the blades into the party.

Best solution would be for players to learn to increase their skills a bit before attempting to run Shroud, even on normal. Yet this isn't going to happen. It's a struggle already trying to convince newbies that they need the aforementioned items slotted somewhere. I mean let's face it; new and old players waltz into that raid with the expectation that they can turn auto attack on and the party healers will keep them alive regardless of how many mistakes they make in the raid.

Normal should be more or less as it was. Please consider reducing the blade damage on that difficulty *only*. It offers no additional reward of value to run it. And newer players have opportunities at getting geared up. Hard and Elite should stand as they are. On those difficulties it requires players that have some idea on how to gear and run their characters. The disappearance of auto attacking the loot pinata while yelling heal me is a very good thing.

[Ninety]

I liked it the way it was, but leave the new chests/end rewards.

I would love to see elite shrouds more often due to that.

[pjstechie]

I say dont return the blades to where they were, its always been silly they been so ignorable.

Perhaps a more interesting idea would be for them to stack DoT style (each hit does progressively more damage). It would make them a touch more forgiving, but still very deadly.

The issue i see with them is more that this is the first i've heard of them being bugged (granted i dont pay that close attention, but i do casually and that should be enough) AND it took what, 3, 4 years to fix it?? I'm a firm believer that you guys do a great job in the dev pit - but at some point a bug becomes a feature doesnt it?