Hello.
This is going to be a long thread full of my thoughts on the TG raid (and it's impacts). The intention is to provide some feedback and potential suggestions for improving the raid and hopefully having a positive impact on the game and realm as a result.
I've been on the server since it started and originally rolled on Mid, then changed to Alb and after taking a long break, moved to Hib, my original main realm on live.
Point 1
The main and biggest point I wanted to cover, and gain some feedback on, was the AoE cold damage reflect on TG trash.
I originally started on Mid so ran TG a lot back when the server first started and I've noted an apparent change in raid encounters, so much so that I have to guess that this was altered for a good reason OR I am remembering incorrectly. My first char was my Skald, I worked through a number of TG clears in order to gear him up and I never recalled the cold reflect mob mechanics, I was/am still using a cold proc weapon in my Skalds template. I would have thought I'd have recalled more discussion about cold damage procs and seen the slaughter I've been witnessing the last few raids due huge reflect and AoE damage that they dish out.
After leveling a Savage in the breach event I attended 2 TG raids on it. I was grouped with healers/shamans in both raids and found the raid unreasonably frustrating. The combination of new players who have no idea that cold proc weapons/spells reflect the damage to everyone in the raid meant that most people in the raids died several times before this started to tail off. I spent most my time running in to tag the mobs and running as far back as possible before I died. This is with capped stats and resist buffs from the group. With my templated Skald, with group buffs and resists, the damage hits for 25% of my total health, the poor people without templates must be having a hell of a time in there.
Considering that the Albion and Hibernia counterparts don't have anything equivalent either makes their raids a lot easier or the TG raid a lot harder, in my opinion harder than is necessary.
If the intention was to remain true to how this was on live (if this was the reason for this mechanic) then I feel I need to ask the following questions:
***Why is the damage so severe?*** People attend these raids to get templated. Their stats wont be perfect so there is a good chance that they'll be dying fairly often which has a knock on effect for their feather count per raid. In my personal experience on the Savage, it's very frustrating, healers are out of power from heals and resses, so you can't keep up with the raid often. They also can't rely on fires like the other realms as the damage flags them as in combat.
***Why is there no way of telling who is the cause of the damage, such as a broadcast message so people know who is causing the raid to take unnecessary damage?*** This would be the most ideal and easy fix, so people can notify the players either in raid, group or PM to change their abilities/weapons.
I know the realms aren't mirrored by any means, though having attended both Galla and Sidi a lot, to gear the toons I have on both those realms, they're a breeze with no mirrored reflect mechanics which can cause a lot of players to die so frequently. This isn't as a result of bg numbers, though as the player count increases the problem is exacerbated on Mid whereas raids become easier with Hib and Alb. ***Is Hib/Alb supposed to have some sort of reflect mechanic and it's missing or is it just Mid that has this reflect mechanic? And why?*** For example, imagine that energy was reflected in Galla considering Eld/Enchanter PBAoE is this damage type.
As you can't identify the source of the mechanic, ***what is to stop people intentionally triggering the effect in order to troll the raid?*** People already get upset with the fact that people are using cold based attacks as it is and have to spam "Remove cold proc weapons!" all raid before the deaths become manageable.
***Would the reflect being reflected back to just the caster be a suitable change?*** This way you're not punishing the whole raid for a few people's mistakes. They'll soon find out why they're getting hurt/dying and correct the behaviour accordingly.
Mid is also considered the "Melee Realm" meaning more people comparatively to the other realms will be hit by this mechanic.
My main concern is that this might be indirectly impacting on people's overall interest to play on Mid and calling that their home realm. I notice that so far only Decs runs Mid raids for PvE content and at times his tonality in raids reflects that of someone who is, at times, frustrated, I don't see that much at all with the other raid leaders. If new players are being enticed to the server with events such as the demon breach, then if they were to play 1 char of every realm, I'd expect purely because of TG when compared with Galla and Sidi (unless they really like the class they're playing) they'd have a bias towards Hib/Alb. This is of course my opinion, however it is founded in some self collected data and reviewing it in the most neutral way I can. TG is a staple requirement for any new/current player, DS is an option but without a lot of investment in a character you're not likely to just jump into DS immediately.
Point 2
From this point forwards the following points are more minor but they're still a point for discussion.
Hurika/Torst - I recall the adds for these bosses being way lower HP, to the point where you could blast through the boss by standing on top of them and AoEing the whole lot down. Mid obviously have the very useful ability to stun monsters so that will have trivialised the encounter, probably more so than the team wanted. So I respect the change, though I feel they have a lot more health than they actually should. Raids in TG tend to have a lot slower overall clears when compared with Hib and Alb due to what I believe are changes from how they originally worked (again I could be wrong but I do recall these being quick bosses, nothing like they are now).
***Would the team kindly clarify the reasoning behind the boss being like it is currently?*** The fact that they're mirror copies of each other back to back and the adds have so much health makes these encounters very time consuming This may also help to standardise the times for completing the raid in the same time frame as the other realms.
Point 3
Monster leashing.
Whilst I expect that monster leashing is implemented to avoid people taking advantage of exploits to achieve unintended mechanics of the raids, the leash range appears to be a lot lower than I feel it should be. TG, as it's so open, often has trash monsters reset constantly because people are pulling packs back to the raid. It's not so much a troublesome thing but it's relatively frustrating to be close to killing a monster or have tagged it for feathers and it is moved to a position in which it resets.
This isn't anywhere near as prevalent in Hib or Alb because of the enclosed nature of the setting and you will barely ever see any mobs reset because of this in either of these realms. With Mid it happens every raid very often without fail.
***Is the range on leashing intended to be so small?*** If it is addressing a specific bug or abuse of game mechanics then I completely understand. ***If not is it possible to extend the range on the leashing mechanic by to somewhere between 1000 to 1500 units?*** This would all but remove frequent leashing in standard raids and only reset after an excessive amount of kiting has happened.
I want to take the time to thank the team for all their hard work and efforts. This server is far beyond the most enjoyable DAoC server I've ever played. Despite my apprehension of the change from OF to NF, I'm actually enjoying this version of NF a lot more than I thought I would. Also thank you in advance for looking over the thread and responding.
TL;DR
Cold reflect Aoe in TG - what can be changed? I feel it's having a negative impact on Mid raids, it's newer players and potentially it's representation in RvR.
Hurika/Torst - Some changes would be welcomed as they're very slow in comparison to other bosses. Some change in the HP value of the adds would bring the overall clear times down and more in line with Hib/Alb
Monster leashing - increase the range so resets aren't so common in Mid as they are rarely seen in Hib/Alb
Thanks for reading
Actionpigeon
P.S. Had to delete and edit the thread several times as the underline coding was murdering the positions of the points in the post. Sorry if the questions aren't very visible as a result. I've tried to identify questions easier with "***"
This is going to be a long thread full of my thoughts on the TG raid (and it's impacts). The intention is to provide some feedback and potential suggestions for improving the raid and hopefully having a positive impact on the game and realm as a result.
I've been on the server since it started and originally rolled on Mid, then changed to Alb and after taking a long break, moved to Hib, my original main realm on live.
The main and biggest point I wanted to cover, and gain some feedback on, was the AoE cold damage reflect on TG trash.
I originally started on Mid so ran TG a lot back when the server first started and I've noted an apparent change in raid encounters, so much so that I have to guess that this was altered for a good reason OR I am remembering incorrectly. My first char was my Skald, I worked through a number of TG clears in order to gear him up and I never recalled the cold reflect mob mechanics, I was/am still using a cold proc weapon in my Skalds template. I would have thought I'd have recalled more discussion about cold damage procs and seen the slaughter I've been witnessing the last few raids due huge reflect and AoE damage that they dish out.
After leveling a Savage in the breach event I attended 2 TG raids on it. I was grouped with healers/shamans in both raids and found the raid unreasonably frustrating. The combination of new players who have no idea that cold proc weapons/spells reflect the damage to everyone in the raid meant that most people in the raids died several times before this started to tail off. I spent most my time running in to tag the mobs and running as far back as possible before I died. This is with capped stats and resist buffs from the group. With my templated Skald, with group buffs and resists, the damage hits for 25% of my total health, the poor people without templates must be having a hell of a time in there.
Considering that the Albion and Hibernia counterparts don't have anything equivalent either makes their raids a lot easier or the TG raid a lot harder, in my opinion harder than is necessary.
If the intention was to remain true to how this was on live (if this was the reason for this mechanic) then I feel I need to ask the following questions:
Mid is also considered the "Melee Realm" meaning more people comparatively to the other realms will be hit by this mechanic.
My main concern is that this might be indirectly impacting on people's overall interest to play on Mid and calling that their home realm. I notice that so far only Decs runs Mid raids for PvE content and at times his tonality in raids reflects that of someone who is, at times, frustrated, I don't see that much at all with the other raid leaders. If new players are being enticed to the server with events such as the demon breach, then if they were to play 1 char of every realm, I'd expect purely because of TG when compared with Galla and Sidi (unless they really like the class they're playing) they'd have a bias towards Hib/Alb. This is of course my opinion, however it is founded in some self collected data and reviewing it in the most neutral way I can. TG is a staple requirement for any new/current player, DS is an option but without a lot of investment in a character you're not likely to just jump into DS immediately.
From this point forwards the following points are more minor but they're still a point for discussion.
Hurika/Torst - I recall the adds for these bosses being way lower HP, to the point where you could blast through the boss by standing on top of them and AoEing the whole lot down. Mid obviously have the very useful ability to stun monsters so that will have trivialised the encounter, probably more so than the team wanted. So I respect the change, though I feel they have a lot more health than they actually should. Raids in TG tend to have a lot slower overall clears when compared with Hib and Alb due to what I believe are changes from how they originally worked (again I could be wrong but I do recall these being quick bosses, nothing like they are now).
***Would the team kindly clarify the reasoning behind the boss being like it is currently?*** The fact that they're mirror copies of each other back to back and the adds have so much health makes these encounters very time consuming This may also help to standardise the times for completing the raid in the same time frame as the other realms.
Monster leashing.
Whilst I expect that monster leashing is implemented to avoid people taking advantage of exploits to achieve unintended mechanics of the raids, the leash range appears to be a lot lower than I feel it should be. TG, as it's so open, often has trash monsters reset constantly because people are pulling packs back to the raid. It's not so much a troublesome thing but it's relatively frustrating to be close to killing a monster or have tagged it for feathers and it is moved to a position in which it resets.
This isn't anywhere near as prevalent in Hib or Alb because of the enclosed nature of the setting and you will barely ever see any mobs reset because of this in either of these realms. With Mid it happens every raid very often without fail.
***Is the range on leashing intended to be so small?*** If it is addressing a specific bug or abuse of game mechanics then I completely understand. ***If not is it possible to extend the range on the leashing mechanic by to somewhere between 1000 to 1500 units?*** This would all but remove frequent leashing in standard raids and only reset after an excessive amount of kiting has happened.
I want to take the time to thank the team for all their hard work and efforts. This server is far beyond the most enjoyable DAoC server I've ever played. Despite my apprehension of the change from OF to NF, I'm actually enjoying this version of NF a lot more than I thought I would. Also thank you in advance for looking over the thread and responding.
TL;DR
Cold reflect Aoe in TG - what can be changed? I feel it's having a negative impact on Mid raids, it's newer players and potentially it's representation in RvR.
Hurika/Torst - Some changes would be welcomed as they're very slow in comparison to other bosses. Some change in the HP value of the adds would bring the overall clear times down and more in line with Hib/Alb
Monster leashing - increase the range so resets aren't so common in Mid as they are rarely seen in Hib/Alb
Thanks for reading
Actionpigeon
P.S. Had to delete and edit the thread several times as the underline coding was murdering the positions of the points in the post. Sorry if the questions aren't very visible as a result. I've tried to identify questions easier with "***"