Raid Feedback: Caught in the Web

[patang01]

At full health, with the entire raid dead, Ana can tank the whole instance, Lolth beams and traps and all, for ten minutes all by herself.

If you see any spots where her AI is having issues (stuck? unresponsive? leashing? despawning?! wait, what? how?) please submit bug reports with /locs or post them in this thread, although bug reports are better. Saves me time from putting them into the system myself. The /locs are crucial.

Extra chest for breaking x amount of artifacts; Okay.

Extra chest if she doesn't take damage?

That's not a motivator.

[FlimsyFirewood]

she is a metaphor for raid loot. She doesn't die, but the raid loot does.

qft

[Xaxx]

well the main feedback since the loot mechnic was mentioned has been *this is a horrible idea* and yet they seem to be headed down this track where you could do the raid every 3 days and NO ONE gets loot (and not because of the horrible loot drop rates sometimes and the weighted drop rates of some items) for an entire month of raiding after hitting it 9 or 10 times because of the idiotic ai of NIC20 (aka coyle jr).

So they dont want to listen to the main feedback their getting and dump this idiotic idea... and they still want feedback on the raid... hey guys... why is anyone bothering to continue testing on something when they dont wanna listen to the feedback they've already got?

[Captain_Wizbang]

qft

Oh boy, the meter is in the red zone!

[MrkGrismer]

Everytime she gets hit there should be coins flying off her and 'tinkling' accross the ground.

Maybe some broken sword hilts and twisted shrapnel from the mega-armor that just went 'bye-bye'.

Some shattered goggles also.

Maybe some marbles as well, because any DM that thinks the players like the idea of having loot destroyed before their very eyes might have lost some of those...

(no offense meant)

[redspecter23]

Escort quests suck.

Raid loot dependent on escorted NPC's health also sucks.

Put them both together and it's a recipe for suck squared.

On to slightly more constructive thoughts. Is it or is it not common knowledge in the dev world that players don't like escort quests? If it is common knowledge, then why design a raid with an escort and tie your chance of raid loot into the health of that particular npc? This quest is getting massive negative feelings from the players with regard to the escort mechanic involved. Is this mechanic absolutely necessary in this quest or can it be retooled so it doesn't make me feel like just not playing it at all? Anything that even remotely reminds any player of Coyle in any way should be avoided at all costs. Perhaps the dev team can sticky that on a wall in the office somewhere for future reference.

[Drwaz99]

So they dont want to listen to the main feedback their getting and dump this idiotic idea... and they still want feedback on the raid...

Bingo. It's all a facade, but really can you expect more?

[Cauthey]

well the main feedback since the loot mechnic was mentioned has been *this is a horrible idea* and yet they seem to be headed down this track where you could do the raid every 3 days and NO ONE gets loot (and not because of the horrible loot drop rates sometimes and the weighted drop rates of some items) for an entire month of raiding after hitting it 9 or 10 times because of the idiotic ai of NIC20 (aka coyle jr).

So they dont want to listen to the main feedback their getting and dump this idiotic idea... and they still want feedback on the raid... hey guys... why is anyone bothering to continue testing on something when they dont wanna listen to the feedback they've already got?

Easy, there. Please consider the forum rules. And also please consider that your feedback will be better accepted if you are not belligerent or demeaning in your format of providing it.

They have precious little time to make adjustments here. Much of the feedback has been "go back to the drawing board," but the drawing board, along with chalk, etc., has all been loaded into the delivery truck.

Provide your thoughts for making the raid "do-able," or your ideas for improving it. Flimsy and other Turbine Devs will either 1) summarily dismiss your idea because a) it's not a feasible option with the time remaining or b) they believe that the mechanics they have designed are just fine, or they will 2) consider your feedback, and either implement your bright idea, or 3) use your idea as a springboard to come up with their own original improvement.

Right now Flimsy is looking for stick-points, and other specific problems with Ana's AI. Provide those to him, or provide what you think would be a reasonable workaround solution that would improve the raid and add to (or not take away from) Turbine's objectives with this raid.

Turbine DOES listen. Sometimes they are just not terribly vocal with what they like, what they dislike, what they've noted, and what they've saved for later.

[Cyr]

Anything that even remotely reminds any player of Coyle in any way should be avoided at all costs. Perhaps the dev team can sticky that on a wall in the office somewhere for future reference.

I actually think the bar should be that if you think you need to have an escort NPC in a quest/raid your name should be used for that NPC.

No one wants to be called the new coyle after all.

[Eladiun]

I actually think the bar should be that if you think you need to have an escort NPC in a quest/raid your name should be used for that NPC.

No one wants to be called the new coyle after all.

Quote of the Week

[Eladiun]

Escort quests suck.

Raid loot dependent on escorted NPC's health also sucks.

Put them both together and it's a recipe for suck squared.

On to slightly more constructive thoughts. Is it or is it not common knowledge in the dev world that players don't like escort quests? If it is common knowledge, then why design a raid with an escort and tie your chance of raid loot into the health of that particular npc?.

Even better questions...

1) Do the devs realize and accept how bad their NPC AI code is? As in I've seen better AI in original Nintendo games.
2) If yes, is it logical to base a major piece of your first Expansion on what is arguably the weakest point of your game?

...acceptance is the key to understanding.

[MrkGrismer]

Well, to be honest how Kylea works in Power Play I think is fine. When she gets attacked she turtles up and can't be damaged, all it does is slow the group down.

Now, if getting all of the artifacts destroyed gave you a bonus raid chest AND you got another bonus raid chest based on Ana's health at the end maybe it would not be so bad.

But I think if the raid loot reward is to be based on Ana's health at the end of the Raid there needs to be a reasonable way for the Raid group to ensure full health, or at least enough health to overcome the threshold to max the raid loot (if the two are not the same thing).

If one or two people could be assigned to 'stay by' Ana and it would virtually guarantee that she takes no damage so long as they are within so many feet of her it would probably work (might still be somewhat annoying). Certainly ranged characters and/or casters might be able to be assigned to such a role. Possibly it would also make a lot of sense if somebody could shield-block for her to all but guarantee her safety, it certainly would look nice.

I can picture a Full Plate wearing Paladin with a Tower Shield blocking all damage coming her way. The only thing is that would not be my Paladin, as she is a TWF Hunter of the Dead.

[Aelonwy]

Is it too late to add an "Ana Control Stone," an "Ana Speaking Stone," or an "Ana Get Your Bum Over Here!" item that lands in inventory when the first player speaks with her?

Click on it, and it opens a sub-menu of options (all hotbar-able, I'm thinking like Resist Energy here) for interactions with Ana. Heck, you could do it up and make the converstation bubbles that appear over the player's head like the conversation text that appears when one reads the lecturn thing aloud in Caverns of Korromar. (I saw this recently - text appeared over top of my characters head, as it often does above NPCs.)

Something a little like this:



Would this not be the solution to our NPC control woes?

OMG must give you a +1 for this but Cauthey have pity, baby is due in 9 days, you must NEVER EVER make a pregnant woman laugh this hard this close to delivery time EVER AGAIN!

On a more relevant note, a hireling bar with directions for escort NPCs would be an awesome improvement.

[Thrudh]

Having lost my motivation to test I haven't run the raid so I can't speak to it directly. However, I find it an odd choice to build the centerpiece of the new Expansion around the most hated quest format in all of MMO history. Escort missions are universally despised. Escort mission where you cannot heal the NPC are the devil.

If the NPC is tough, escort missions are no big deal. Ritual Sacrifice doesn't bother me... That guy is pretty tough... I never even check his health.

Hound is somewhat of an escort mission (gotta keep the dogs alive), but many people enjoy that raid and play it often.

[Thrudh]

Sink the ship. Start over.

The abbot raid was the last raid with this amount of bad PR early on. It wasted countless dev hours due to the badly thought out mechanics it employed. Sometimes an idea is so bad that it will require more work then doing everything over to make it work well. This is one of those cases.

How many hours have you spent in the raid before you decided it was hopeless and should be deleted?

Almost every hard raid becomes trivial after a few months. You guys are giving up while it's still in beta?

[Eladiun]

If the NPC is tough, escort missions are no big deal. Ritual Sacrifice doesn't bother me... That guy is pretty tough... I never even check his health.

Hound is somewhat of an escort mission (gotta keep the dogs alive), but many people enjoy that raid and play it often.

Hound doesn't count and Rit Sac is escort for maybe 5% of the total quest time.

#strawman on fire

[MrkGrismer]

Hm, seems appropriate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkQR1...eature=related

[redspecter23]

If the NPC is tough, escort missions are no big deal. Ritual Sacrifice doesn't bother me... That guy is pretty tough... I never even check his health.

Hound is somewhat of an escort mission (gotta keep the dogs alive), but many people enjoy that raid and play it often.

That's the problem with escort missions. If the NPC is tough enough to not be annoying, he might as well not even be there. If the NPC is actually in some real danger, then you do run the risk (in this case at least) of coming out of the raid with no loot. So which is it here? NPC so uber that you might as well remove her from the equation? Or will we just have to accept that sometimes we will complete with no raid chest?

[Spartywinz]

How many hours have you spent in the raid before you decided it was hopeless and should be deleted?

about 16 hours.

[FlimsyFirewood]

Is it too late to add an "Ana Control Stone," an "Ana Speaking Stone," or an "Ana Get Your Bum Over Here!" item that lands in inventory when the first player speaks with her?

Something a little like this:



Would this not be the solution to our NPC control woes?

We all got a chuckle out of this picture, thank you. Something like this could've been implemented a couple weeks ago. Right now, don't have enough time for it, because of all the bugs/lag/stability fixes that need to be done.