Hound Spawned under Water - Practically Party Wipe

[GoldyGopher]

August 14th - IoD - Stone Crypt

We had a hound spawn underwater on us in Stone Crypt Chronicles, level 7 Elite, and it dotted the party, two characters died, a third survived by Alt-F4, two characters teleported out and survived; however one character was unconscious on arrival in Sharn but survived.

Heard from another guildie they had a similar problem, accept they all survived only to be party wiped by StoneJaw (cr20 in a Level 7 wilderness) when someone triggered him.

[FengXian]

And here I thought the bugs had been fixed. Thanks for sharing.

[Steelstar]

August 14th - IoD - Stone Crypt

We had a hound spawn underwater on us in Stone Crypt Chronicles, level 7 Elite, and it dotted the party, two characters died, a third survived by Alt-F4, two characters teleported out and survived; however one character was unconscious on arrival in Sharn but survived.

Heard from another guildie they had a similar problem, accept they all survived only to be party wiped by StoneJaw (cr20 in a Level 7 wilderness) when someone triggered him.

Sorry, that experience sounds frustrating.

That said: It is intended behavior that the Hounds can spawn underwater, and that they do use their DOT when underwater until they have lost sight of their target for a while.

The bug we fixed in the last patch was connected to a specific situation where falling into deep enough water could cause them to respawn constantly, racking up many stacks of the DOT far more quickly than intended. They no longer perform that fall/water behavior. They will often, but not always, try to teleport to their target in water, and in most cases can be brought up to land that way.

[Oxarhamar]

Sorry, that experience sounds frustrating.

That said: It is intended behavior that the Hounds can spawn underwater, and that they do use their DOT when underwater until they have lost sight of their target for a while.

The bug we fixed in the last patch was connected to a specific situation where falling into deep enough water could cause them to respawn constantly, racking up many stacks of the DOT far more quickly than intended. They no longer perform that fall/water behavior. They will often, but not always, try to teleport to their target in water, and in most cases can be brought up to land that way.

Best solution would be to not have them dot in water at all if they are going to follow to land let them dot when they get there

[GoldyGopher]

Sorry, that experience sounds frustrating.

That said: It is intended behavior that the Hounds can spawn underwater, and that they do use their DOT when underwater until they have lost sight of their target for a while.

The bug we fixed in the last patch was connected to a specific situation where falling into deep enough water could cause them to respawn constantly, racking up many stacks of the DOT far more quickly than intended. They no longer perform that fall/water behavior. They will often, but not always, try to teleport to their target in water, and in most cases can be brought up to land that way.

Hound Damage Over Time and Vulnerability effect stacking now has an internal five second cooldown, which will prevent stacks from accumulating more quickly than intended.

To me it sounds like something about this spawn spot is affecting the Hounds Scripting.

In our case, we heard the hound cry, exited the water as a party and waited. The hound had targeted my character and I wasn't in the water when it spawned, I had moved a decent distance away from the water, pretty much as far as you can in that spot. The hound spawned back where I was, underwater. In seconds from it spawning, under 5, everyone had multiple dots. The two players who used Con as dump stat were dead in seconds of the hound dropping, before we even realized we were dotted. Think; whack, what, dot, dead. The Druid bear jumped into the water to see where the hound was and Alt-F4'd after seeing it, I teleported along with another player almost immediately at that point, with multiple stacked dots. I am a dwarf, cleric, con is not a dump stat...

[fatherpirate]

May I suggest (again) that the generic DOT be removed and replaced
with something else.

Perhaps a SPECIFIC DOT

You get a DOT if you attack it and hit or it hits you.
very specific
less chance of it having unintended issues.

just a thought.

[LT218]

Sorry, that experience sounds frustrating.

That said: It is intended behavior that the Hounds can spawn underwater, and that they do use their DOT when underwater until they have lost sight of their target for a while.

Yeah, allowing a randomly spawning mob to spawn in an environment where the players cannot even attack it, much less kill it, while it stacks up an unavoidable DoT on a permadeath server sounds like great game design to me. I don't see what everyone is all worked up over... /s

Beating the bugs and poorly thought out game design shouldn't be the toughest challenge on HC. That ranks pretty much near the bottom on the fun scale.

[adamkatt]

I thought we learned that if its been a few min wait fo rthe next hound before a swim.. thats whats been happening in every grp ive been in. Mabey some are so much in a rush... well i should know i lost a lvl 5 early on to the deep water bugs with hounds.

[Seph1roth5]

That's a horrible design decision. There are multiple quests, such as necro 2, crucible, another man's treasure, etc., where you can't just hop out of the water in a couple sec. Hounds shouldn't be speedbumps that grind every quest to a halt every 5 min.

[Kayze]

That's a horrible design decision. There are multiple quests, such as necro 2, crucible, another man's treasure, etc., where you can't just hop out of the water in a couple sec. Hounds shouldn't be speedbumps that grind every quest to a halt every 5 min.

Having done all three of those quests, hounds really weren't a speed bump and were pretty well timed for it. In necro2, with merfolk's, it was swim 3 lengths, wait 30 seconds for the hound, swim 3-4, wait 30 seconds, finish quest. In another man's treasure, if you do the swim portion first, the hound timer would not be up yet. Finally, in crucible, the hound usually has just spawned right before you start the swim, which should only take a minute or two.

[FengXian]

Having done all three of those quests, hounds really weren't a speed bump and were pretty well timed for it. In necro2, with merfolk's, it was swim 3 lengths, wait 30 seconds for the hound, swim 3-4, wait 30 seconds, finish quest. In another man's treasure, if you do the swim portion first, the hound timer would not be up yet. Finally, in crucible, the hound usually has just spawned right before you start the swim, which should only take a minute or two.

Yeah, we should be the ones working around horrible design and bugs some people literally wasted tens of hours to find out, instead of demanding a fix.

At least SSG apologized for the many inconveniences they caused to the players. Oh wait...

[Mithrielwielder]

Does anything mitigate against the DOT? PRR? MRR? AC? Or just hp?

[Kayze]

Does anything mitigate against the DOT? PRR? MRR? AC? Or just hp?

The relevant resist and absorb for the damage type and MRR for all except force.

[Dendrix]

Sorry, that experience sounds frustrating.
That said: It is intended behavior that the Hounds can spawn underwater, and that they do use their DOT when underwater until they have lost sight of their target for a while.

My only thought about that is "unprintable"

[Oxarhamar]

May I suggest (again) that the generic DOT be removed and replaced
with something else.

Perhaps a SPECIFIC DOT

You get a DOT if you attack it and hit or it hits you.
very specific
less chance of it having unintended issues.

just a thought.

Yeah that’s fine for solo players but for groups that is not going to be a good solution

[drathdragon]

my suggestion, to solve the problem once for all, is simple and dirty:


The hound once touches the water, dies immediately.

[balvix]

My only thought about that is "unprintable"

I really don't think they care what anyone thinks. Over the years I have watched the response times and actual responses to players get worse and dwindle. Used to be you could put in a ticket in game and get an actual response. Now, if you get a response within a few days even, its merely some copy paste response with no actual help offered. This alone should show you how much they actually care. And in response to anyone who wants to rebut my point, give it up, I understand funding has probably been cut, and people have been fired, and the team is probably super small now. I couldn't care less, basic customer support should be paramount to a company that needs those customers in order to continue to function. You cant even call the company any more to get help when something goes wrong with your account. You have to email them and you get exactly 1 response per day. I had an issue with a new pack once, took me a week to get it sorted, and the person I talked to was a snotty jerk over the name I had selected for my account. They were annoyed that I hadn't used my real name. Bottom line, they don't care about your opinion.