Gobbie Annex!

[Auriel]

First of all I wanna say this, since Eric asked me...no, I don't think it should be toned down.

This just gives us something to figure out!

Things of note.
-you have to destroy the crystals in a certain time period
-if you miss one or they respawn, the chest in the boss room will tell you how many you are missing
-the chest also does not open. Your loot will appear in your pack. Everyone gets thier own loot.
-you can only get loot from a chest once per hour.
-you might want to walk instead of run
-even if you have a dedicated healer, DO bring your own heals. There really aren't enough heal other spells, unless you are only healing one person. What seemed to work best for me is having a Battle Chemistry Gollum spam heals Always and using mentalism buffs, either armor or health depending on gear.
-have a clear leader and stay together
-if you decide to split up, put a healer in both groups
-remember, heals do not go through walls
-if you are lost, click your leader on your group panel and cast a spell. It will path you to your leader.
-use your group chat tab, and watch chat as best you can
-while using your group tab, realize you will not recieve PMs there

Eric mentioned something to me about a Battle Chemistry thing called Healing Injection. Does anyone know what that is?

And....this dungeon is forcing me to make hot keys and work on gear.

Discuss?

 

[Cowinator]

Hard is good. I tried it solo and I didn't get very far which is different from ALL the other dungeons.

 

[Auriel]

13:50:12 GMT-0500 (CDT) [GLOBAL] nimor: so i think for a large group this can be done 4 lvl 50 can do it hands down and if they have a strong deer player or rage control


and as fat as I know, nimor is the only one to solo the Red side!

 

[awollsd]

i would really like to say this dungeon is announced to be for lvl 30's players... that said I really don't vote to tone it down CURRENTLY as capped players needed and now have something to do... however if 2-3 capped players with good gear have extreme trouble with it then it most certainly be toned down as it is certainly NOT geared towards lvl 30's

so either change the description and claim it to be for lvl 45 (and put a warning in the dungeon as you enter that part so players doing regular gobbie's don't mistakenly wonder too far in)
OR
Leave it as is for now but once some lvl 50 content is added then work towards fixing the difficulty to be more for intended player levels.

 

[ErasmusPrime]

I will be on for much of this evening if anyone wants to put together a group and work on this dungeon a bit.

50fire/50psychology

 

[Nimor nim]

some tips:
red side:
Auto run is death: running in combat can kill you power fest very fest, never use auto run in combat!.
moving slowly : monsters are always spawning, so move... stay and kill... move, dont try to run ! u will run out of power and get 7-10 monsters attacking u at the same time, no healer can save u from this.
i can heal myself you know: use items that give + power, health , armor while using a skill.
loot **** the loot im not touching this corpse: dont try to take loot while doing a run, the point is killing the boss and getting the good items, stay true and you will get reworded .
first hit hard then hit low: monsters armor mean that you need to create a dent first with high dmg skill before you can hit there hp with lower dmg skills.
Im sorry frosty?: been stack in ice is no fun, if you see frost element try to control its rage or kill it fest.
From the back???: its nasty but monster will attack you from the back once u attack the boss so be ready, getting ice on u while in torrent range can really mean death.
Did anyone say DR ?: there is a necklace that give 5 DR to all that like 100 armor that will always stay, now it comes in colors.
Stay away from me: fire blast/ trow are good CC skills and can help you in hard times.
60 sec skill??: this will help vs the boss but vs other monsters it will be a no go.
I can hit everyone mohhahhh ho crap...: hit every one only if u can do dmg to every one and stay alive after everyone hit you back , monsters in rage are not nice.
Fire vs frost, i can win this ...(after 3 sec)... plz let me live ?: fire dosnt work well vs frost elements, try to target other monsters , raged frost elements like to detain you.
kill the crystal !: not 100% sure but 99% that if you kill the crystal in the room then no more monsters will spawn there for a short time.
ahfdoiahfe or did i say revive?: craft some lvl 5/3 power words, 2 revives per person can save you allot of pain.

green side:
test run: do the maze until the boss room but dont really try to be fest or kill crystals, try to kill the big mob groups and the boss.
real run : after you did a test run clear the room in this order: torrent room, then every thing else.
boss curse: well i will not tell it but its evil, and it work when is raged , and its work on everyone, and its evil, i think that lvl 30- have more chance winning vs him then lvl 50, u just need a strong skill that dosnt use items in you hands on your lower bar.


fixes needed:
armor on monsters and boss is too high, i dont know if lvl 30 can even dmg a monster with 600+ armor, even 300+ armor is allot vs lvl 30
other then that its fun and a real challenge, the green boss is a real challenge.

side note:
this place is hard for lvl 50 only because of the tricks, once you learn them you can do it with 2 players or even one. (green and red) (hardest rooms are green torrent room and green boss room)

 

[Auriel]

side note:
this place is hard for lvl 50 only because of the tricks, once you learn them you can do it with 2 players or even one. (green and red) (hardest rooms are green torrent room and green boss room)

Thats why I say it should not be toned down. Once people figure out a good stradegy and do a walk through, it will be accessible by anyone. Its a crazy fun time!

 

[rhonen]

We'll, what can I say... When we fist went through the new Gob area it was not a pretty picture. I cannot tell you how many times I died but it just may be comparable to the number of grains of sand you may find in a large beach. All this occurred before they "adjusted" the new area a bit and before Nimor did his run. Thinking back on our run through the new area I learned a few things. Things that I normally would have done in another game but really did not have to do in Project: Gorgon until that run. Our group was small, WAY under geared, no one that I know of ate or drank anything to help with health/mana/armor reign and I don't know if anyone else did not have all their spell tiers maxed out but I know mine was 4 tiers below what I should have had. I was running a Necro/Fire Mage but while my Necro side had all of it's upgraded spells my Fire Mage side was lacking mainly due to me not being able to find the required Fire Dust, Sulfur and Saltpeter needed to craft my spells. (Crafting components that are required should be found we're a class of that level can hunt). That all being said... IF I/We were properly prepared for that area we may have done a lot better. We went to an area where we really had no business being and the results were predictable. Given a group that is properly prepared I think that area would be a lot of fun to do.

Overall I really enjoyed that run for it reminded me of runs we used to do in years gone by. It brought Mack many memories.

Cya in game.

Ratero.

 

[seasidelion]

took a group thru red and green (not in time), not tuned for 30s! videos soon.

nimor you still rocking battle chem/mentalism in the new dungeon?

 

[Nimor nim]

fire/mentalisam, red one can be done by a group of 30s
tactic :
red:
use food and healing signs,
dont use aoe attacks most of the time , every one will target the one that cast it and it will a pain.
if you have a pet then get 1 more, if you pet get low then dismiss it and call the other one, dead pet is no pet.
if the enemy have more then 700 health then is a guard killing it will only spawn a new one.
killing the crystal in the room kill all the guards
use the door to take cover after you pull some
after you kill all the lowbies, some of you need to tank the guards while others kill the crystal,
guards in each room are of the same type ( 99% sure) so u got nather, frost , electro and random lowbies that dont spawn after they die.
there are 1-3 guards but always 1 will be alive.
mental users with amulets or items of + to armor of every one when using armor wave can heal you armor very fest
+ to health on health wave also.

green:
well we did it with a 2 man team and was a little harder then the red, same concept but almost no guards .


eric did a great job of building a place that for the first time make you use tactics and not just hack your way in it.

 

[seasidelion]

didn't get that about guards thanks. thoughts on animal handling, battle chem or necro in here?

I still maintain it is not doable by 30s, red maybe but i highly doubt it. our 35/40 ppl were dropping like flies, there's only so much dedicated healing you can throw at them. also people truly in their 30s leveling up aren't going to have the gear we all do that are doing it right now (I would assume, as we have farmed stuff, they'll be leveling and this is 1/3 of the way thru the cap... maybe I understand the designed level system wrong).

I sent a suggestion on this but as far as I can tell you aggro things thru the walls in there, which makes many parts much much harder. Doable, but again, lets think of the 30s? I have it on stream but there's a couple points, especially in green, where we go into a crystal room and everything already ran out and fought us in the hallway, when the room with the crystal is far enough away (assuming walls block aggro!) to be out of aggro range. Or in the red side when you get near the wall of a room with a crystal you aggro the mobs on the other side of it (does let you pull with some uh interesting ability when you know how to use it). I'll comment again with vod in a bit.

Loot is not worth it imo for 30s to tackle that, definitely doesn't seem worth for 50s now (not that we won't do it)

ALSO: the 'red' side looks purple. change name or hue?\

edit: I'll follow nimor and not spoil green, let me say: have ur primary damage skill bar on bottom (primary action bar).

 

[Citan]

Thanks for the feedback guys! Seas, what group size were you running with?

In terms of aggro - there are two stages to the aggro system. First is sight -- a monster can't see through walls. But the second detection phase is hearing. Monsters can hear their "friends" fighting through walls, and in this dungeon their listening skill is cranked pretty high (to make sure that all the monsters in a room get in on the fight at once, instead of standing around in clumps). The main way I balance this is by setting who is a friend of whom. I set this manually in dungeons, and in a lot of places it's set very broadly right now.

My first thought is that wandering monsters in the hall are getting help from everything in nearby rooms, which I can fix. Will see if that helps! If there are specific rooms that are having trouble, please let me know the rooms and I can see what I can do about tuning them.

 

[NevrWin]

I grabbed this from the death-bug thread and tossed it in here because I think it's where it belongs. Ciervos was kind enough to kick me in the udders so hard last night that I was sent to purgatory again.

My whinging:

Slightly frustrated tester commentary:
Now all of my abilities, that I had spent considerable time arranging earlier, are jacked up since I was unable to use any of them and had to hastily switch them all out when I got cursed and died (In order to be semi-useful in the next attempt so that I wouldn't be a deer anymore). In my opinion, many players would find this extremely annoying because it happens in the first few seconds of a boss fight, when you can't even move abilities around, and he casts it so many times (which FORCED my hotbar/skills to change each time, mind you) that potions and other counters to the curses (like getting your bar ready beforehand) seem like a waste of councils and time. Eric, is there supposed to be a counter to this? If not, can there please be one?

Eric's response:

RE: Ciervos - he's intended to either be tanked by a willing deer volunteer (and the rest range attack, since he only procs within 10 meters), or more reasonably, to be rage-managed by a couple of swordsmen with rage gear/abilities. I don't know if he can really be rage-managed well or not. Frankly he's the first monster dangerous enough that players might bother doing rage management, so I have literally no feedback on how well rage management builds work! But I'd like to fix that, if it's broken, rather than change Ciervos. There will be lots more uses for rage management over time -- I just have to figure out the sweet spot for it.

One of the reasons Sword does less damage than Fire is because sword can reduce rage, while Fire dramatically increases rage. Rage has to become a working mechanic for a large percentage of the game for this differentiation to make any sense!

Ok, now that you've pointed out some mechanics I can totally understand what your vision is for this one! In the death bug thread I almost suggested a sort of "volunteer deer" situation but under the terms that Ciervos' rage ability only turned his one current target into a deer while still maintaining that AOE knockback and perhaps a 6 second or so temporary deer form, or stun, for the others. I'm not sure if that's practical or not, but I feel like it would be more appropriate for a level 30s/40s boss encounter than it currently is.

I also imagine a cookie-cutter situation one day where everyone must meet some specific ranged standards that leaves the majority of casual players who love to melee excluded from dungeon runs like this. If a certain method is 100% effective with all but 1 range players, then why bother bringing any other melee characters along to slow you down and risk getting your party cursed? Surely I'm thinking way too far ahead and our awesome community currently prevents things like that from happening but one day that may not be the case. *shrugs*

If in the end Ciervos' rage ability stays the way it is then I think some of the following ideas might add some flavor, versatility, and sanity to this and future similar encounters:

• Words of Power - I'm thinking WOP 5 or higher for something that would prevent you from being cursed for a limited time. Some already exist to remove your curse but that still won't be useful during a fight when it can occur over and over. I wouldn't be surprised if something like that is already in-game.
• "Expensive" Anti-Beast Curse Potions - Last a very limited time, perhaps 30 seconds. Would be expensive and require multiple fields of mid level harvesting/crafting to fabricate. A group of level 30s friends should be able to work together to have their alchemist brew one, which could be given to their "tank" and open up some more encounters for them (without requiring them to spend hardcore amounts of time grinding combat skills they don't already have).
• Give beast-players a chance to resist curse forms - Based off of their beast level versus the enemy beast's, perhaps how long they have actually been in that form (At least 1 hour for your form to "lock in"), and only work when they are in a beast form. It just makes sense to me that if my blood is already bovine fortified that it would be much harder for another beast to infect me with a different beast-form.
• A new resist skill or ability - Curses and spells should never be completely preventable but I firmly believe that players should have some tools to fend themselves from them, with considerable effort of course. Would require a lot of balancing which might be more trouble than it's worth at this point.
• Some more Rage signals and information - So far I have not seen anyone bother with rage managements in groups. I personally try to stun or kick a mob if i know it's about to let loose on me but in a dungeon with 6+ players casting spells it's impossible to keep track of all that. Perhaps with more indications of what's going on with rage, and what to do about it, we'll have more players utilize it as intended.
• Some Rage countering benefits - Instead of just preventing a severe arse kicking, managing Rage should have a beneficial effect for players if they can manage to beat a mobs Rage to 0. It could open up the mobs vulnerabilities, prevent the the mob from building rage for a limited time (So those mages can finally toss their fireballs), or even in some cases cause an event to occur (Like a mob changing his tactics up since obviously rage isn't effective against these players!).

Now, if the rage mechanics and their counters are properly implemented then I can see enormous potential for this fight and many others regardless of my suggestions. As it is now though, I don't think that rage is being built up and reduced as intended and especially not so for these particular battles.

Alright this post is huge so that's enough from me for now. Before we go any further I think that we really need to just set up a date and time to go through these encounters together with Eric soon. First on our own with Eric watching, so that he can witness how players will react when they meet these challenges, and then do the following runs based off of Eric's input. We could try different tactics(Ranged vs Rage), speeds, builds, and group make-ups to establish some boss encounter standards for the devs and players. Most importantly however, I believe that we need to get down, dirty, and very messy with the rage mechanics so that Eric and the rest of the dev team can gauge how well it's performing.

TLDR: We should test the boss encounters and rage mechanics in the Gobbie Dungeon WITH the devs in order to fill that feedback void that Eric mentioned. This wouldalso prevent me from spamming more crazy ideas on this thread. =P

 

[Citan]

Would love feedback on rage management! One easy test is for a solo swordsman to see if they can build up enough equipment to keep an Ice Elemental from freezing them. It should be possible to keep it from freezing you, but fairly tough. (If it was too easy, then all monsters' rage attacks would be easily nullifiable, so there's a tricky balance to figure out there.)

I like the idea of having rage stop building up when you get them below zero. Or something like that. There definitely needs to be another piece to the puzzle, to make this mechanic work out.