Amun now open! - Dragon Caves

[Slartibartfast]

I wonder if anyone from NGD ever do basic testing before releasing test version to the public.

I went to Alasthor cave entrance and:

1. Bunch of people there not even a clue what to do
2. At some point, someone told me to talk to some dwarf guard which I even didn't see in the crowd
3. Text length which can be entered in friend name field is limited, many toons have long names
4. Ok, I realized i need to invite people to the party (WTF! ANOTHER CHAT TAB!) and started clicking on players inviting them.
5. How many of us need to be in party to enter? Where I can see this info?
6. In the end, I got this error message and logged off of the test server:



Really, would it be such a problem to write some instructions how to use some new feature? Would it be such a problem to spend few hours on testing the basic features before releasing not beta, not alpha but early pre-alpha version to the public?

[bois]

Definitely a raw beta (alpha?) version.

Party of 15. ( I am thinking this is too low)

What is not mentioned is that you will probably need maybe 8/9/10 of 15 level 60 barbs to get past the last ~30% HP as the regen is quite robust at that point. we went in with 5 level 60 barbs. They could not overcome the dragon's HP regen once it hit around 30%.

We did not have a really good chance to check but there is a suggestion that CC is ineffective. It is questionable if debuffs work either. Using many debuffs and CC at the ~30% dragon hp mark yielded no gain whatsoever. All is left is to keep buffing the barbs so they can deliver more DPS. Five support classes and one damage class is what it is looking like.

Equal chance of dropping NGD says. However, unequal chance of getting picked into the raid party unless you are all damage barb. This needs to be revisited quickly.

When I went in with the haven party , we encountered a dragon spinning around in the centre of the lava bed. That needs a fix.

It seems that you can enter instance once per day. I am not sure if this applies whether you succeeded or not and if it applies to account or character. This needs to be clarified.

In any case, this one is is not close to being ready to go live (imo). I'll check back when some new iterations get put in.

Personally, I think some basic explanation is needed as to what NGD is hoping to achieve and a quick overview of the mechanics. Without any guidepost how can the player base get a feel for what these instances are all about?

[-Aniara-]

I like it )

Was the allready mentioned obvious bugs but the concept seems fun. If just the drop chanse is fair for any class it will work just fine. Was nice to see a new instance i hope we get more of em, as it seems we aint getting any new stuff in the biggest one (the wz) any time soon.

Why u hide away the champion statues at central island is a mystery to me. It be cooler to have em at the bridges lotr style. (Not that tdm is much of a success at Haven ;/) And i havent even seen the CTF map

I also find it a bit hard to grasp why Ala helps invade other realms when we kill it? It would be nice with some kind of logic even in a fantasy setting

Anyway! Good job, looking forward to see it go live when the bugs are fixed!

Best Regards!

/A

[Raindance]

When you die you should be able to respawn back into the instance, instead of being kicked out. Which leads me to say... either the dragons hit too hard or 15 players is just too little.

[pauluzz]

My dragon experience:

My loading screen got stuck. When i relogged, I was back at cs and it said 'You cannot enter this instance more then once a day'

[Phlue4]

I like the idea of having the dragon be inbalanced.
If there actually IS a possibility to kill it without bugging, just with three knights and some ppl, it should stay like that.
The more challenging, the better.

----

can anybody tell me what I am doing wrong?

[korag082007]

i guess 30 mins timer is just too less to kill the dragon...

[V1r14]

Originally Posted by Phlue4

I like the idea of having the dragon be inbalanced.
If there actually IS a possibility to kill it without bugging, just with three knights and some ppl, it should stay like that.
The more challenging, the better.

The harder the dragon is, the possibility of being picked as a Warlock, Hunter and Marksman shrinks, thanks to the 15-People-Limit.
It is a huge disbalance compared to the past Dragon. In the past you could at least visit the dragon.

[bois]

30 mins is more than enough time.

Just as an example, my group went in with 5 barbs, 3 knights (all 60), 3 conjus and at least 2 locks. I can't remember the remainder.

We did not succeed. The dragon was bugged and was not hitting us much. Still, we could not overcome the hp regen when it hit ~30%. The regen gets faster at that point. With that crew, we were not doing enough damage to overcome the regeneration. Debuffs were ineffective and provided no traction.

Now, when you approach the instance entrance, as far as I understand it, there is a NPC there. You interact with it and then you are allowed to form a party ( called dragon raid or something like that) . The party is 15 and once you fill it, you are transported in. You can pick anyone for the party. Note that you get another chat tab for the raid.

Of course, early days yet but, NGD should say whether they intend to have different levels of the instance. For example, a level 50 capped one and a level 60 one or, offer a dynamic levelling system (yeah right).
Let us not forget that there was a quest joined to killing the dragon and the way it is now, level 50's have little prayer of getting a party invite. If all level 50's go in, they won't be able to kill the dragon as is now.
Optionally NGD can take the easy way out and move the quest to the next boss down, such as Krontaron.

Everyone knows I am nuts but I would have gone with a radical system for killing the boss. That is, HP and mana bars are visible. You will need to take down mana bar (to some extent) in order to be able to do more damage or better range damage to dragon. In this way, locks, conjurers have more impact and are more desirable in party ( yes I thought about rend). This would make it more than just a DPS game. When mana goes down, range attacks work better.
Optionally, damage for rangers become better when dragon HP is 30% and less and melee damage is weaker. During the first phase, melee damage is better while ranger attacks remain normal.

NGD is going to want to instance the WZ bosses if this succeeds so they need to think outside the box.

[kmdk]

I'm sorry but i will be very hursh about :

1.)Lack of infos how to do it ,not even on initial forum thread,infos in game are horrible from begin of the game now again:
-"Go on Amun and test"
-"I'm on Amun but how,where to go ?"
-"Who cares it's your problem ,just do it"

2.)Bad implementation from design ,from my point it's fail in Haven case from born.

How this ?... sample:
-Very difficult to join that instance process(if TDM was a fail where need to press just a join button ,but this complicated process that dunno when is happens and where )

-Party are selective : people will complaint that they are not alowed to join some "pro partys"... so bye bye fair drop chance ...and here will be rain of complaints...

-Numbers of players online by time zones, Haven average ppl online last weeks was like 70.... in alll realms

-Chat will be spammed with join x party or wtv .... and RvR will be killed once again ...

Yes sounds like a complaint about implementation .... in Haven case.

-I think put instances with unlimited numbers of players or lets say 30..(lvl 50-60)
-Make join instance in TDM way ,just pressing a button.
-Make this dragon instances available 3 times in 24 hours to cover all time zones(for 2 hours or so ) in this style at least RvR will not be killed all this 24 hours only certain hours ....