CITW whose idiot idea was this game mechanic anyway?

[Talon_Moonshadow]

12 people working together have many options.

[JOTMON]

12 people working together have many options.

Indeed.
like not running CITW.

[Rys]

Indeed.
like not running CITW.

Best option ever

[Vulkoorex]

They should increase xp to around 100k xp. Especially with the new xp curve.

As for the sp drain, they should make a raid where there's an attack that breaks all weapons currently held by range and melee. Perhaps that can provide the challenges that so many players seek.

[Faltout]

Sorry Fallout, Hobgoblin is right. Her aggro does seem random and it does not matter where you stand or if you ever move to attack her, she will drain you. I have tried it all, and she gets me no matter what. So to the OP, you will get drained. As far as I know, there is no counter measure against it.

As far as the mechanic is concerned, it is not the best. Mana drain with no counter is again a lazy way to introduce challenge. I realize that Lolth is a god, and if that is the angle then, I understand, but still don't like it.

Sorry Pnumbra, Hobgoblin is wrong. Proven again and again wrong from experience. How is it that the only ones standing alive were my cleric and a paladin and my cleric never got drained? Was it random aggro that chose the paladin over and over again for the duration of 10 minutes? No, her aggro was on the paladin. Of course, when she went to her special orb attack, I hid from her sight to avoid being cursed and drained and killed. Her special attack does not come as often though. It's like once per minute, no big deal. But not everyone is as perceptive. Of course people will just mindlessly attack anything on sight and then wonder what happened.

[blerkington]

Sorry Pnumbra, Hobgoblin is wrong. Proven again and again wrong from experience. How is it that the only ones standing alive were my cleric and a paladin and my cleric never got drained? Was it random aggro that chose the paladin over and over again for the duration of 10 minutes? No, her aggro was on the paladin. Of course, when she went to her special orb attack, I hid from her sight to avoid being cursed and drained and killed. Her special attack does not come as often though. It's like once per minute, no big deal. But not everyone is as perceptive. Of course people will just mindlessly attack anything on sight and then wonder what happened.

Hi,

From what I've observed, the SP drain doesn't seem to be random, so I'd have to agree with Faltout here. It may seem random in very chaotic groups where people are dying a lot and/or pulling aggro from each other constantly, because it is switching around and people are too distracted to see how it works.

So while it can be played around to some extent, it's still a mechanic I don't like and am very glad not to see repeated in other content. If nothing else, the amount should be toned down so it's not a one-shot for a caster who happens to be caught in it. A smaller SP drain and/or a beholder-like temporary anti-magic effect would have been better and still challenging too.

Thanks.

[Grace_ana]

They should increase xp to around 100k xp. Especially with the new xp curve.

As for the sp drain, they should make a raid where there's an attack that breaks all weapons currently held by range and melee. Perhaps that can provide the challenges that so many players seek.

They did that. The fun Abbot bug where you could accidentally throw away your weapon, never to be seen again, if you were on asteroids. And that was during a time when the customer service reps would tell people, "Oh, sorry, can't fix it, part of the risk of the game even if it's a bug."

[gravisrs]

Apart from mechanics in this particular raid.

There should be some load-balancing changes in all of the raids. Coz each update with a new raid - older raids get voided/forgotten.

Turbine should look at global raid completions for individual raids and get those lonely some love (make em worth running).

Last few weeks of LFM's bites - only new legendary raids matter, some DoJ and MoD, some thunder peaks, VoN for XP. But raids like LoB & MA, Abbot, VoD, ToD, CitW, Chrono, ADQ, titan, even FoT - noone runs nowadays (maybe one LFM monthly for each, but that's just sentimental)

[Feralthyrtiaq]

this has been the case since day one. I had always ran this raid with an Arti, Monk, Monkcher or Ranger when looking for gear many many lives ago. Then it wasn't so bad to drink a MAJOR (chest dropped) Mnemonic pot or 2.

This time though was toward the end of my 3rd Wizard life on this toon. Was casually cruising through EH GH and saw the LFM for EE Citw and thought "Oh that could be fun".....(if fun is waiting 2+ minutes between each use of Villager comm Sparkling Apple Cider)

Oh yeah and missing the second Anna shrine because it disappeared before another death timer ran out.

I just didn't expect to get hit with a SP drain immediately WHILE RUNNING TO THE GD SAFESPOT.

I may catch this raid again on a ranged/melee or warlock at some time in the future. However, it's horse-s like this that completely turns me off to playing any kind of caster ESPECIALLY healers in this AND JUST ABOUT every other raid.

I used to have both a cleric and a FVS specced nicely for healing before Divine Punishment was added.

I miss the good old raid train days before the devs became snarky twits and decided to (either directly or indirectly) punish players for playing certain classes (or punish the community as a whole for those who duped).

Done with that life. Now getting a 3rd PDK (and 2nd Lock) life on a 1Ftr/1Wiz/15Lock atm with 3 of each Wiz/Cleric/FVS/Sorc.

Will probably do a bunch of ETRs as a 'Lock. Enjoy every flipping second of it and look fondly at the past when this toon was not only needed but also appreciated as a party healer when he was my first FVS ever built.

#Selfish&grouchy

[Faltout]

this has been the case since day one. I had always ran this raid with an Arti, Monk, Monkcher or Ranger when looking for gear many many lives ago. Then it wasn't so bad to drink a MAJOR (chest dropped) Mnemonic pot or 2.

This time though was toward the end of my 3rd Wizard life on this toon. Was casually cruising through EH GH and saw the LFM for EE Citw and thought "Oh that could be fun".....(if fun is waiting 2+ minutes between each use of Villager comm Sparkling Apple Cider)

Oh yeah and missing the second Anna shrine because it disappeared before another death timer ran out.

I just didn't expect to get hit with a SP drain immediately WHILE RUNNING TO THE GD SAFESPOT.

I may catch this raid again on a ranged/melee or warlock at some time in the future. However, it's horse-s like this that completely turns me off to playing any kind of caster ESPECIALLY healers in this AND JUST ABOUT every other raid.

I used to have both a cleric and a FVS specced nicely for healing before Divine Punishment was added.

I miss the good old raid train days before the devs became snarky twits and decided to (either directly or indirectly) punish players for playing certain classes (or punish the community as a whole for those who duped).

All you with bad experiences, you should strive for better raid leaders (or become better raid leaders yourselves).
What I mean by that is that when I was leading, I was using tactics to the benefit of the group's resources and safety. However, many people wanted just to get on with the mindless running ahead and killing stuff. Not very supportive towards my leadership even though it was an EE run with minimal deaths (under 6), 6 chests, average run time (1 hour) and no resources like sp pots used.

But you know, people don't want to play it safe. As soon as things up top are clear at the end fight, some run to the safe spot facing hezrous, dretches and spider souls trying to have ana repositioned so she'll drain the orb and the other half go against lolth without healers, support, buffs or anything. Plus, casters are already drained of sp due to the earlier fighting (from 2nd orb to end fight).

If you were running to the GD safespot and got hit, it means that you weren't patient enough to let the tank go in first and be the first to enter lolth's line of sight.

Missing a shrine due to timer on? What kind of leader did you have? Before summoning a shrine we always make sure everyone is alive and safe. And if it happened by accident, have the leader summon another shrine. Ana can handle at least 5 shrines without losing the 6th chest. Don't blame the raid mechanics, blame the leaders you run with.

[JOTMON]

Stupid thing is all they had to do was give us an option to regen the mana.. like when we beat Lloths legs have them release mana (similar to the eggs in Elite Von6).

[KoobTheProud]

Not the best way to get a positive response. However, I would say the idiot who thought this was a good idea did so in response to all the power gamers constantly saying how things are too easy, and they needed a challenge. So the rest of us, suffer, more and more with each update and by every quest they are now balancing out, so that it is only completionists and power gamers that can survive on Epic Elite, and slowly any elite in the game, so please feel free to thank them for your power drain.

Just an note, notice how the SP pots are not dropping much, if they do they are lessers, more challenge I guess.

They probably should take Normal, Hard and Elite out of the game altogether. Make it a selectable challenge number, like the challenges, so people can run at the difficulty level they feel challenges them best.

This would soothe the hurt feelings people get when they can't run something on Elite (there are lots of things I can't run at level on Epic Elite, BTW, except on a Warlock) and somehow feel that their "Eliteness" has been removed.

Labeling the difficulty levels just creates another way for players to classify themselves and each other. That shouldn't be part of a social gaming system. It makes the game not fun.

So instead of solo, normal, hard and elite just have each quest raid start at CR -5 for the level of the quest/raid and then ask the players what number they want to add to that at quest start. Make the number added a three digit integer and let players go wild.

-5 = solo/casual/Disneyland
0 = normal
1-4
5 = hard
6-9
10 = elite
11-14
15 = elite+
16...
999 = the portal in one shots you and then teleports your corpse to 5,000 meters above the Marketplace where it slowly falls to ground right in the middle of the trainers.

Have each increment of difficulty add or subtract 5% to mob hp, 5% to mob damage, 1 to all DC's, 1 to Spell Resistance, 1 to trap saves, 10% to trap damage, etc.

At set intervals implement new features/challenges: 5 - Champions, +1 mob in spawns, debuffing mobs, 10 - Multiple Champions in a spawn possible, disjunction areas where buffs fall off and cannot be reapplied while in the area, 15 - All mobs are champions, +2 mobs in spawns, areas which are nullmagic and only melee/ranged and divine magic function, areas which are devoid and only melee/ranged and arcane magic function, areas which are perma-slow for everybody except the mobs, areas where mobs port in randomly with a specific player as the target and if they touch her/him auto-kill, etc.

Above 19 you get into the realm of random mobs where a given archetype can have features commonly seen in bosses, like death touch (no save), spell point drain, total immunity until all the other mobs in the spawn are killed, total immunity (you just have to find a way around them because you cannot kill them and they cannot follow you once you've gotten to a certain safe point), etc.

The only limitations in the system would be engine related, a cap on total mobs in a spawn or in range of the party, a cap on hp and other numbers based on whatever the integer cap built into the system is, a cap on the number of mobs with unique AI in each encounter, etc.

Now we've got a totally open-ended system in which nobody could ever complain there was no challenge and nobody could ever complain that X difficulty was too tough, because you can always just play on x-1.

[Aliss7]

The tell is pretty easy... when Lolth raises both her hands up, you need to be out of sight of her or she may hit you with that SP drain.

The problem is, it's pretty much unavoidable for melees that are fighting her belly button. IMO, melees having to fight her belly button actually annoys me more.

[Faltout]

The tell is pretty easy... when Lolth raises both her hands up, you need to be out of sight of her or she may hit you with that SP drain.

Her normal eye beam attacks can also drain sp. But they are focused on the person with aggro.

The problem is, it's pretty much unavoidable for melees that are fighting her belly button. IMO, melees having to fight her belly button actually annoys me more.

Well, the melees don't have sp to worry about so they don't really care about the normal eye beam attacks. Just have some healing (like consecrated ground) and they are fine. They have 2 problems with the orb attack. 1. They can't see it coming because they are focused on her bellybutton and they need to see damage die rolling. 2. From the time someone in the group sees the tell and informs the group, they will get hit with at least 3 beams till they are all safe behind cover.

Problem 1 is solved by having someone ranged identify her orb attack and problem 2 is solved by having more than 1 melee alive. That way the beams will hit different people and everyone will probably survive.

[Cordovan]

It's fine to criticize content, but insults and personal attacks are not okay.