Menace of the Underdark, Update 14 Patch 1 Event

[KookieKobold]

Howdy everyone!

We've opened up Lamannia with Update 14 Patch 1!

We're looking to get a bit of feedback on the updates we've made to the raid, Caught in the Web.


From 7pm to 10pm Eastern (GMT-4) Tonight, July 1st, There will be devs online looking to observe raids being run as well as assist in getting people into the raid itself.

[eris2323]

Please define "assisting"

As last time, the in-game devs were not HELPING anyone. They were only mocking, and occasionally removing experience points. Asking to be raised to level 20 to participate was met with mockery or outright no's.

I do not want to waste my or my guilds time coming to your betas if this is the treatment we can expect.

Or, you can bribe us again. After all, you are asking us to beta test something for free; when we are already beta-testing the live code for free.

[smatt]

Release notes?

[Wulverine]

Looks like FvS wings still aren't recharging.

I'm curious about the patch notes as well.

[XbaileyX]

Will be there Dibs on Kookie!

[KookieKobold]

Release notes will be posted tomorrow (Monday) at the earliest, sorry for the delay.


Additionally, devs will be assisting by teleporting groups into the raid in order to bypass the required quest flagging.

[eris2323]

Release notes will be posted tomorrow (Monday) at the earliest, sorry for the delay.


Additionally, devs will be assisting by teleporting groups into the raid in order to bypass the required quest flagging.

Thank you for the clarification!

Have fun!

(will be on live)

crossing fingers some of these major bugs get fixed in the meantime and it's not all just raid garbage

[Buttkierownsmade]

Character wipe?? Kookie?

[PNellesen]

Character wipe?? Kookie?

Good question. I'd love to copy my newly-21 Cleric over to try it, rather than the one who was there when Beta ended...

[smatt]

Character wipe?? Kookie?

VERY unlikely considering the amount of time that takes, and a good number of people had HUGE problems getting characters tranferred last time. Many tried a few times and gave up :/

[mons]

Just completed, being sent back to start if someone falls off/gets knocked off by hand was really annoying especially when at last fight. Perhaps a rez shrine or even a different penalty would be better suited. Dont know if working as intended but those that were back at the start were not able to get through portal to the chests was also kinda lame.

[protokon]

Raid feels much more reasonable now. Still have a few nit-picks on annoying/obnoxious mechanics, but now the raid feels workable with the changes. We are going to run it a second time, so I will save my detailed feedback and comments until after the second run.

I will admit there were some changes that actually made me feel like the raid could potentially be fun now.

[Rauven]

Release notes will be posted tomorrow (Monday) at the earliest, sorry for the delay.


Additionally, devs will be assisting by teleporting groups into the raid in order to bypass the required quest flagging.

So about those release notes, any chance they'll go up today?

[danotmano1998]

I uninstalled Lama since the beta is gone and the big changes are now live.

(Which, incidentally destroyed my live version of DDO as well and had to be completely reinstalled from scratch. Yay. )

Good luck to you guys, and big thanks to the folks that are still bug testing and helping out!

(I found the experience to be fun but moderately frustrating with constant wipes, resets, down time, unplayability issues, bugs, etc.. So I am opting out of Lamma land for the foreseeable future to ensure my continued enjoyment of the game.)

REALLY looking forward to the patch notes, though. And of course, for the changes that inevitably occur without being noted anywhere that the players inevitably find and bring to the forums.

[cdbd3rd]

The burningest question - is Poincalot fixed now?

Gotsta have my TPs fix.

[Grosbeak07]

The burningest question - is Poincalot fixed now?

Gotsta have my TPs fix.

addict.

[nivarch]

Will you be able to hand xp? I'd like to give it a try but my main is still level 18 on live.

[protokon]

Here are some updated notes from our run last night. WARNING! SPOILERS!!!!

Enter Lolth

The first big fight when you find Anna in front of Lolth is great. You feel like you are in the presence of a God with Lolth's enormous image overlooking the fight. There are a few things that I have to critique though:

-We can now melee Lolth. This was a much needed change, glad to see it.

-Lolth's "laser beam" attack still feels super cheesy to me. I suppose if I was a god I would probably shoot laser beams out of my eyes too at little people trying to attack me, but...still feels cheesy when seen.

-Instantly dieing if you fall off the platform. I have mixed feelings about this mechanic. On the one hand, I'm super happy we are not just tossed somewhere randomly on the map, lemming-pugs on live would never find their way anywhere and would make it a nightmare. On the other hand, getting placed back at the beginning if you fall off is an absolute horrible penalty. I'll expand on it later.
-Anna's AI has vastly improved. Bravo devs, this really could've killed the raid and it appears she is now "smart" enough to tolerate.

One other note, on our second attempt through we got stuck at the encounter with Lolth at the beginning. as we turned to start, the barrier was up and nothing was spawning - no legs of the goddess, no bebiliths, nothing. It was completely silent, we ran around for 5 minutes trying to figure out if there was anything else we could do. We are assuming the raid just bugged out.

OK so a few other notes about the various encounters we dealed with:

Hand of the Goddess - this needs to be changed to not knock people off the platform randomly, especially with the new penalty for falling off. We easily added 10-15 minutes onto our raid because the hand knocked a few of us off while we were fighting waves of trash mobs. Having to send someone all the way back to start, especially when we aren't allowed to use things such as D-door is...painful. and annoying. and seems like a deliberate timesink that penalizes us for no real reason. If we really need to keep this in the raid, I would suggest we give the hand a different set of abilities/attacks, because honestly as it was, it is cheesy. It followed us around and while we were moving, 99% of the time did nothing. Occasionally it would shine a bright purple light in which I thought I was about to be abducted by aliens. I would much prefer to see it knock players down rather than smack them around and throw us off the platform. I would also really like to see a way for the party to deal with the hand to drive it away / get rid of it completely.

Break The Orbs (optional) - Very impressed with this change. I like how we zone to different areas through the "waypoints" along the way to the end so the optionals are really not far out of the way. I also really like that the orbs are now guarded by purple named mini-bosses. This is what I felt the raid really needed, to make it less monotonous.

The end fight - This was a huge disappointment. Don't get me wrong, it is vastly improved - with DM text hinting us on how to complete it. What I didn't like is two of our party members fell off the edge during the fight and were knocked back all the way to the beginning. adding insult to injury, after we got Anna through the portal, the barrier went back up. We found that in the cave following the fight with Lolth (where the loot is), we could then use ddoor. unfortunately even after using ddoor the three guys stuck behind the barrier had no way of going back through to get to the loot. My suggestion is if we have to have a death penalty like this, please go oldschool and make it like reaver/tod. give us a penalty box and move the soul stones automatically to the end room with a res shrine after the raid is completed.

I liked how the raid is much more linear now and less maze-like. That will make it much friendlier to run on live. I felt the very last animation of Anna pushing back Lolth was very cheesy too. Good concept, just cheesy.

I think with just a little bit more polish the raid could be very popular on live, great progress.

[GoldyGopher]

Any word on the Release Notes?

[whiteline]

I missed it this time