[Silirrion]

Having gone through the current status with the content designers responsible for the raid content over the last week we wanted to provide you all with an update on the status of the changes to this content and get some additional feedback.

As you know we made some updates to the raid encounters in the latest update, and the combined effects of those with recent changes have altered the difficulty of the raid content, in some cases significantly.

Our goal is that they should all provide a decent challenge to players in first tier raid gear, and be difficult for under-equipped players.

There are of course some issues to still be ironed out, and we are working hard at them, but we are now in a position to do so much more easily now that a couple of more significant issues that were affecting them are resolved. The bosses were previously not activating all their scripts correctly and combined with the game effecting issues with pathing and line of sight meant that we were not in a position to correctly judge the difficulty and balance the encounters.

We are aware several of the second tier encounters have been trivial, or at worst quite easy, up till now due to this combination of bugs and balance issues. Now that we can see that the bosses are using their abilities we will make sure that they are working smoothly, resolve any bugs with their behaviour, and follow the feedback to identify any areas where the encounters might need to be tweaked in scale of difficulty now that the bosses are using their full repertoire of tricks and tactics.

So you will see further tweaks, fixes and balance adjustments over the coming updates. The encounters though will remain harder than they were before. They were always designed to provide much more of a challenge than they have done so far.

Once that has been done we will focus on the tier three raids and get those out as soon as we can. We have been holding them back because of the general balancing issues, we will not intentionally release trivial raid encounters. We can't give any exact date just yet, but we will be sure to let you know as soon as the content is ready for the test server.

We would appreciate feedback from you in this thread.

If you want to comment on e.g. the damage output of a mob it will make it easier for us if you include an approximate overview of your gear (if nothing else: if you're mainly wearing t1, t2, crafted, or something else). Feel free to include as much information and opinion as you wish (just remember to keep it constructive!)

[Rundjuling]

My BRC experience from last week (guardian: 4 pieces tier 1, 4 pieces tier 2, epic BRC quest sword and world epic shield):

Wing 1:
- Excorant seems fine now, no longe the complete pushover he was.
- Yaremka: The one thing that annoys me on this encounter is when he enrages then instantly applies dot to offtank. The offtank always gets a melee hit and without gems that hit does 9k dmg which together with the dot is a nice oneshot even on a tier 2 geared guardian. Enrage did 4-5k with gems now they do 9k, maybe tune down a bit?
- Sabazios: Before he was impossible, but now he is way too easy.

Wing 2:
- Ahazu-Zhagam: Probably easier than before. Still a encounter with decent difficulty where small mistakes can lead to wipes. Keep it as it is.
- Incubus and Succubus: Run faster now so kiting is not really an option anymore but that's ok I think. Maybe tune down the enraged hits slightly so they don't do 10k+ on tanks when we do get the occasional enraged hits because it is dangerously close to a oneshot on a guardian tank.

Thats all we got to try this week, dunno if its Warhammer or what it is but our biggest challenge is actually getting enough ppl to raid.

And please DO NOT make tier 3 raiding available before you got all exploits ironed out AND can follow it up if some players exploit. All the reset timer exploiting, wing 3 exploiting and exploited boss kills made the PvE progression in this game completely meaningless. As an example players currently run around with tier 2 helmets from free kill bosses in a wing that was never supposed to be accessible. This is unacceptable.

[Gwartisan]

First off thanks for posting here,some reasurance that FC will listen to the raiders.

Aside form bugs that i report elsewhere,the only real thing i can say about t1 encounters post patch is Vistrix just randomly resetting mid fight.

Will post more if wthe Guild encounters anything worthy of noting here.

[gargarinio]

the first poster said everything i thing for t2 raids!

for t1 and all xp after patch!

kyliki crypt

champion: went smooth(no problems like alot guilds said for some reason it happends to em)

kylikki:the encounter is good and maybe more chalenging not found any bugs there too!

Vistrix:also killed her post patch 2 times actually!never reseted for us but all complain for that!some bugs or maybe they arent!

vistrix for some reason dont like following tanks inside cave and loose agro so she goes crazy !and sometimes wich maybe my impression the timers of her stun are little messed up!

Yankmar:buged as hell..the only thing i have to add is that he attacks dead bodies...i thing that says it all

[whip5phara]

Tier 1:

Vistrix :
Though she resets we found if you follow the presumed intended strategy using Bane..its doable..but her resetting needs to be fixed, appears to do so when it cant path to easily to her 2nd aggro target.

Champion of the Honourguard :
good difficulty level now...but the mob doesnt reset properly..the dot stacking is insane if it doesnt reset.

Kylikki :
Very smooth encounter and the most fun boss in AoC

Yakmar:
Ugh...bugged to hell, was working fine until last patch. Now it gets stuck aggoring on a dead person and adds dont always spawn.

Tier 2:

Gargoyle Master
good encounter since patch, but please when he is killed can the 15 min petrify buff wear off..we stand around waiting for people some time for this to wear off to proceed to next area.

Yarekma the Soul eater
one of the electic balls on the right side (as you enter room..cloest to door) does not function correctly sometimes, the cog icon doesnt appear for people and it gets stuck and cant be "used".

Doing tier 2 raid tonight hope to give feedback on boss after Yarekma if we down him!

..
as has been mentioned the biggest raid struggle right now is player apathy and players quitting AoC ..this makes keeping any form of consistent raid staff..as easy as it is to fill jobs at mcdonalds

[stage]

Vistrix:

Minions and adds don't reset with Vistrix.
they stay even if V resets.

Kylikki Chamber:
Trash dont reset properly.
Staying where they killed last person.
Also sometines they stay at HP% they were before the attack.

You could go in even if there is fight still going on. At least for some time dont know how its bugged and when... that i think happens to other instances as well like Atzel's Fortress lets say.

And request for mobs:
Separate mob buffs from the debuffs of the players.

Yarekma the Soul eater one of the electic balls on the right side (as you enter room..cloest to door) does not function correctly sometimes, the cog icon doesnt appear for people and it gets stuck and cant be "used".

Yes. Its the second orb on the right side from entrance. This bug is for years.

Gargoyle Master good encounter since patch, but please when he is killed can the 15 min petrify buff wear off..we stand around waiting for people some time for this to wear off to proceed to next area.

Stun should reset with GM as well.

[jameshillsavery]

Thank you so much for making this post.

It means a lot to players that some one has taken notice of what has been said.

It is just a pity this was not said about 4 weeks ago and a lot of players would probable have stayed instead of going to Warhammer but saying that word of mouth is a powerful tool. After this thread I can see a lot of people coming back.

[SpOO]

Words means nothing, actual work does.

Our guild got around 40 players every night, we were raiding 3-4 times a week and now we are having around 10-15 players max online at night and even cant get a half raiding group.

When and if things change in some good way and we will have 5 ppl online or less...will be already useless.

[spellshaper]

I agree that raid bosses should be challange. It should be hard but possible.

Maybe I am wrong, but I cant see T1 bosses to be any harder. Only thing that make them harder was gem nerf and of course bugs (but I dont count them).
I dont know about T2 bosses, but there were very easy before patch and you can kill them without full raid and without T1 equip pretty easily.

Kilikky
pre-patch: The easiest boss from T1. Even if she require some tactic, it can be done with good PUG.

after-patch: I think tactic and behavior is almost the same, but its not the easiest boss now.

Yakhmar
pre-patch: The hardest to kill from all the T1 bosses. It was especially its minions what makes this boss difficult. Onther than that he is very dull.

after-patch: Minions was nerfed so he now take position of the easiest boss of them all. It requires no tactic and any PUG can do it. Its probably also bugs, but its not that obvious


Vistrix
pre-patch: He was like example of good T1 boss. Maybe it could be just a little harder. But it require good team, coordination of banes, good timing. Quite hard with PUG, but for premade raid teams piece of cake.

after-patch: He didnt change that much. There is more fire breaths but nothing radical. What is the most important after patch are bugs!
One that remain from past is path finding bug and the second (new one) is reseting to full health. Its important to prevent exploits, but this is too much, he resets almost every time he kill someone.

Just my oppinon.

[Gwartisan]

Gargoyle Master-Players getting stunned whilst being stunned.

So a few mins into the stun you are stunned again and the stun resets from 15 mins.

One guy was stunned for four times,me twice and several others more than once also.

Just seems a bit like overkill,not sure if it is intended.

Boss died in the end though.