Unpopular Opinion

[KardKing]

As being one of a handful to already complete 5K this season, I feel that I should say something. This may be an unpopular opinion.

The hounds are to strong from level 1-3. Although somewhat manageable, they definitely shouldn’t just auto attack you 1-2 times and kill you. Once we were past level 4, the hounds were easily 2 manned, until level 9 quests(BASE 9, AKA VON 3). The hound HP scales a lot at this level, once you into level 12 and into epics, they were a walk in the park.

The hound bug is ridiculous, although doesn’t happen often, I only had it happen in all of my 5.5k journey this season one time. We were able to escape.

To the people complaining about the hounds in the water. Pay attention to the timer between spawns, and wait if necessary. You aren’t on soft core zerging like normal. Hardcore is intended for group play, and as Tilchian has proven in his 6.2k+ Favor journey solo, it can be done.

This season hasn’t been any scarier than other seasons, as long as you follow the general rules of group play, and don’t make stupid choices. The hounds scale dramatically depending on difficulty. Some quests I would definitely recommend bumping the difficulty down. There is over 6000 favor that is easily obtained, make better choices.

[Dark_Lord_Mary]

congrats on 5k that's great! Well done!

[C-Dog]

I think anyone who would have a problem with that opinion isn't "hardcore".

And grats!

[Aelonwy]

The hound bug is ridiculous, although doesn’t happen often, I only had it happen in all of my 5.5k journey this season one time. We were able to escape. [/B]

Congrats! And thank you for sharing your experience and your opinions, they are absolutely valid. But your experience is just as anecdotal as the next person's and appears to be somewhat atypical as well. By contrast to your experience I've only made it to level 5, still doing level 3 elites with my family and we've had the hound bug out several times already. Once in Misery's Peak, spawned in yellow, unmoving, non-attackable still stacking vulnerabilities on us. Once in Rest for the Night, spawned on one of the little bridges as we were backtracking to somewhere safe to fight it - again it spawned in yellow, unmoving, non-attackable still stacking vulnerabilities on us and once in the Saltmarsh wilderness as we were running to a quest entrance - same deal. Luckily, the vulnerability alone does not kill you but it happening at all does not increase my confidence in the game or the game designers.

[slarden]

Congrats, the issue is the bugs and if you didn't encounter it great. I saw the hounds not spawn and stay yellow but continue debuffing or dotting the party 3 times. I didn't see any behavior that would cause this, but it's possible it's a lag issue and someone's connection was the issue - who knows.

The bug should be fixed and that in no way diminishes anyone's achievement. Some people used rod of teleport to work around the bug to get their favor and that is perfectly valid, but shouldn't be a thing.

We don't have enough information to say it's caused by behavior vs. other uncontrollable things, although I know some people do believe it's based on player actions.

I saw a dog not turn yellow and debuff the party in kobold's ringleader in the middle of the hall - no water, jumping, zerging, moving. Not a big deal there, but in a level 5 quest that is a death sentence. Still if a player action caused this I have no idea what it was and certainly nobody did anything wrong.

[Traianus]

Disagree, all the original poster is saying is that he got lucky.

I survived two water bug hounds, appeared early interval, then the third water bugged hound called up his pal lag and I was snotted.

The program is not working as intended and entirely possible to achieve 5k favour without any swim quests, so my advice is to avoid all swim water quests above quest normal lvl5. The issue can also arise with jumping puzzles, so be careful there as well.

Hopefully, a fix will occur soon.

[vryxnr]

... and wait if necessary.

This is the most important thing in my opinion. This is also what my static group is doing. If there is an area or encounter coming up that we know is risky and we haven't seen a hound for a while, we elect to wait until the hound spawns before going in, so we get the few minutes of hound free time to deal with the troublesome area/encounter. Yeah it's no guarantee, but it helps a LOT.

With all the bug reports coming in, we add watery areas to the list of troublesome areas to wait before going into to make sure it is traversed hound free (quests where water sections are extremely extensive/take longer than 3 minutes to get past we will probably skip and get the favor elsewhere).

I'm not saying everything is fine. The bugs should be fixed ASAP. But mindfulness still matters, and zerging isn't always the answer.

[Mindos]

gets over 5k in 5 days (with a maintenance day in there to boot!)

advice is to slow down

i am the confuseded

[Kayze]

gets over 5k in 5 days (with a maintenance day in there to boot!)

advice is to slow down

i am the confuseded

Your reading comprehension needs improvement. He does not even mention that word once.

All he is saying is that there are certain level ranges wherein hounds are disproportionately dangerous and that you should not zerg.

Not zerging != slow.

[ekaterina]

"This season hasn’t been any scarier than other seasons, as long as you follow the general rules of group play"

This is one of the cores of my objections to the hounds. We shouldn't need to do every dungeon in a group in order to play on this server and the hounds at certain levels are much more dangerous to someone doing a dungeon solo.

I have no objection to having a server with only group content - in fact that would be a good idea in many ways. But this is not that server.

[Kayze]

"This season hasn’t been any scarier than other seasons, as long as you follow the general rules of group play"

This is one of the cores of my objections to the hounds. We shouldn't need to do every dungeon in a group in order to play on this server and the hounds at certain levels are much more dangerous to someone doing a dungeon solo.

I have no objection to having a server with only group content - in fact that would be a good idea in many ways. But this is not that server.

The highest favor on the server has mainly solo'ed. Soloing is definitely viable and has been the playstyle of many on the server.

[Zuldar]

I didn't find the hounds too difficult to deal with but for the first few levels I used a hireling to grab the aggro which worked pretty well. One change that might be good though would be to not have them be red named for the first few levels which would let cc be effective at mitigating the early danger. Also maybe tone down the massive hp jump at 10, have it be a bit more granular if possible. Other than that the hounds were relatively easy compared to the real danger, having to run elite at level.

The highest favor on the server has mainly solo'ed. Soloing is definitely viable and has been the playstyle of many on the server.

I hit 5k solo, think that was actually easier than in a group since I never had to worry about the hounds going after someone else and them running off.

[ekaterina]

My luck solo hasn't been as good. Quite likely because my skill hasn't been as good. But I am still trying. Knowing from other threads that the hounds seem to get significantly more difficult at level 9 but only for a few levels may help - I will cowardly avoid even "hard" difficulty which at lower levels I have no problems at all with. I am also focusing a lot more on high dps builds since only the hounds are a threat if I am careful in my choice of dungeons and a slow fight with a hound ...does not end well.