Rift mob feedback

[Ekcin 2,407]

Quote

we didn't have *too* much of a problem with it using BT+venom weapons

 

BT+venom?

 

Wiki says that BT and venom do not stack.

Beyond that, ok, BT weapons may be a good idea as it is, if i am informed correctly, the only weapon causing damage over time (or does venom, too?), so could halt or slow down the WM's healup.

 

Generally, very interesting informations, thank you. Yet some of the notes sound bit outworldly (won't blame for arrogance). Most players participating in rifts come with their usual PvE equipment, mostly comprising of weapons with LT (lol or not). I think that it does not necessarily need 8+ participants to take down the WM, but it needs some 3-5 participants with sufficiently high and sustained damage dealt.

 

I managed to hold the WM at bay with his health at least not significantly rising when tanking it alone with elemental immunity. My drawback was the relatively low CR (82FS at that time), and prolly imperfect weapon (huge axe ql80 nim77 and, yes LT). With a second stronger player sustaining pressure, and a few other participants avoiding the AoE we might have taken him down.

 

As to people "running like headless chickens" I can't totally blame them to run when taking 5%health dmg per second. Yet I agree that they should try to retreat in the same direction and regroup as fast as possible.

 

Edited October 19, 2019 by Ekcin
addendum

[Madnath 3,113]

2 hours ago, Ekcin said:

 

BT+venom?

Wiki says that BT and venom do not stack.

Beyond that, ok, BT weapons may be a good idea as it is, if i am informed correctly, the only weapon causing damage over time (or does venom, too?), so could halt or slow down the WM's healup.

 

As to people "running like headless chickens" I can't totally blame them to run when taking 5%health dmg per second. Yet I agree that they should try to retreat in the same direction and regroup as fast as possible.

I had a BT staff, he had venom. Not sure what the other two had. As for the headless chickens we had a few times on one rift where people were running away from WM despite still having like 75% health and rather than just leaving the rift zone, just ran in circles so nothing happened other than people losing their focus. This was the first rift that I got hit that hard that often from AoE's

[Ekcin 2,407]

45 minutes ago, Madnath said:

I had a BT staff, he had venom. Not sure what the other two had. As for the headless chickens we had a few times on one rift where people were running away from WM despite still having like 75% health and rather than just leaving the rift zone, just ran in circles so nothing happened other than people losing their focus. This was the first rift that I got hit that hard that often from AoE's

Ok, so one BT, one venom. If I understood right, BT does DoT, and venom is stacking so in a way does damage over time as well. I got the point that they are more helpful against WM than demise spells. 

 

A problem is that when the WM took agro on a player, he will attempt to pursue even beyond the rift area, and yes, I don't appreciate either when people disrupt my focus, but try not to be arrogant as I am often protected against AoE by elemental immunity. The main problem with "headless chickens" is missing leadership or common strategy. My impression is that the more participants, the higher the likelyness that people behave in unpredictable ways.

[Galatyn 438]

Jackal mobs are so easy to kill.  You can "freeze" them in place, where they don't move, and then slowly back away from the one designated target until just out of combat range and they will continue targeting you while everyone else kills it.  Ogres are the exception in that they have a long, 2 tile, frontal aoe kick.  However, those occur infrequently and can easily heal between them.

[Ekcin 2,407]

10 hours ago, Galatyn said:

Jackal mobs are so easy to kill.

Sure, but that is not the question. Before the changes, they only pursued a few tiles beyond the rift area, then returned or stopped. Now, they are running far out of it (up to 100 tiles as observed). That is true even for the WM who arguably is not that easy to kill. Such behaviour is irregular.

 

The mobs are agro only towards the player they are pursueing who nearly always may escape, so that is not a QoL complaint. Pragmatically, you may enter a secure pen if there is any where those mobs cannot follow.

 

One of the unwanted consequences is that those mobs, on their path back to the rift area, may cross player camps where they are agroed e.g. by hitched hell horses. This may result in the death of these animals. Further on, if it deals with the WM or an ogre mage and he is stuck near a pen or camp and attacked there, his AoE may kill hitches in the neighbourhood.

Edited October 30, 2019 by Ekcin

[Galatyn 438]

I specifically mentioned Jackal mobs, not Rift mobs.  

 

From Retro:

This thread is for feedback on the Rift and Jackal mob AI update and general feel of the new rifts in general. So leave your feedback below! 

 

Even if the AI behavior is the same for Rift and Jackal mobs, because of the focused smaller scale, the Jackal issue highlights the broken mechanic of the mobs freezing in place and staying focused on one particular player when slightly out of combat range.

 

As far as the Rift mobs, imo the problem is with player coordination, not mob power.  You could encourage players to setup tents in one area (for example North of the Rift) while attacking/retreating in a different area/direction (for example South of the Rift).  In other words, tell retreaters not to cross player camps.   I've also seen where players don't focus on mobs close to the WM first, but rather spread out and attack all of them.  So far, I've always seen success with the "divide and conquer", but this methodology results in taking much longer than necessary to down the WM and makes him harder than he has to be.

Edited October 30, 2019 by Galatyn

[Ekcin 2,407]

Concerning stunned condition on rift mobs I failed to see any effect so far. In fight with the warmaster, I sent him sprawling to the ground, or repeatedly hit with low rider attack having him spamming AoE spells uninterruptedly. Similarly, casters and summoners used to teleport off directly after having sent sprawling, hit senseless, or stunned. Losing concentration/stamina from cold clouds or back breaker also left all of them unimpressed. In my opinion, those attacks should delay or impair their ability at least to cast damage spells.

[Wulfmaer 413]

It is quite beyond me how the rifts scale for low numbers... currently at my second rift after coming back from Jackal, and the rifts have become so tedious... With small numbers during the week we seem to be looking at 5 hours plus... Something is very wrong.

 

Only 2 of us here after the earlier restart for the first and second waves. Another joined for the start of the third way, and I have lost count of the number of summoners and ogres  the third wave has spit out.

 

Hopefully there are some stats being collected on the servers, so the devs can see for themselves how hopeless the size of the mob spawn is scaling when very low numbers attend a rift.

Edited January 16, 2020 by Wulfmaer

[ArthurHawkwing 176]

would like to see more unique rift loot we can buy, helms, heraldic shields,  weapon skins, maybe armor skins, potions, fragments of new statues or some such

[Ekcin 2,407]

@Wulfmaer: I fought in very low team numbers against rifts before the changes following Jackal opening, mainly on Exodus and Pristine, but also once on Xanadu O16, where Nestangol and one other player (sry forgot the name) fought in waves 1 and 2, and Thorin and Kindra joined in the (then last) wave 3. All these battles took 5-6 hours as well, and to close them needed some tricks like leaving a couple of creatures alive (not the warmaster at that time as that one was pretty weak) when saccing hearts.

 

The problem rather is low participation. Less people will take the pains to travel to a rift, even more in the inlands of Xanadu, though this one was not hard to reach at all.

 

Generally, I do not object the scaling of mobs, it looks to some extent matching the number of participants. Again, I want to point out that strikes which should work in a disruptive way against opponents like shield bashing, low rider, back breaker etc. as well as stunning with 2h weapons (mainly blunt weapons) have no effect to their magic like teleporting, casting, esp. normally interruptible spells like AoE etc. A more funny side note is that beasts are now able to spellcast: "A venerable rift beast burns you" .

 

Edit: Note to myself: Bring priest to site next time for summon

Edited January 17, 2020 by Ekcin

[John 254]

Seems to me like the rift only scales to the amount of players, not taking into account whether they have 50FS and 23 body or 95fs and 80 body.

Also please turn down the sounds of the rift mobs so they are as loud as other mobs.

[Craft 75]

Any chance of improving the point system?

I'm guessing the decision to use "how many mobs you hit "tag" = points earned" was a way to reduce server lag?

Any chance of changing this to damage done?

So many people focus on running around like rabid chickens pecking the rift mobs once and running off to find another. Bit silly and unhelpful for the purpose of clearing the rift.

Edited February 6, 2021 by Craft
ma splling soux

[Finnn 3,303]

On 1/17/2020 at 6:52 AM, ArthurHawkwing said:

would like to see more unique rift loot we can buy, helms, heraldic shields,  weapon skins, maybe armor skins, potions, fragments of new statues or some such

how about new crafting recipes.. and craftable skin recipes(converting existing gear into just new model, retaining rarity, stats, casts, etc) - by using rift materials and basic gear or bits like metal sheet + other ingredients to create a new shoulderpad or armor piece?

[christopher 207]

On 10/6/2019 at 9:38 PM, darthryan said:

Inde warmaster seemed fine with 7(?) people. Most of those were hypercompetent though.

exactly ,indy rift straight after had 17 but u look around and theres 5 hitting here and 5 over there and dont no were the rest are ? .thats why it takes longer and the wm is hard cause theres not everyone on him ,if u group u can mow them down fast as , wave 1 is the one to lose if u have to , but id like it to stay the way it is add some (more creatures ),yes it drags on a bit but thats why i go to the rift , u can stay home do some farming or something if u not up to it or go kill a troll or 2 thats a 5 min thing,id like a war and its not up to me when the war ends ,pity u cant go in the pen if its to long and u can log , then get something for what u did when it does finish

[Zuelatak 235]

 

On 1/27/2020 at 7:46 AM, John said:

Also please turn down the sounds of the rift mobs so they are as loud as other mobs.

  Everytime I go to a rift I have to lower my game volume by 15 decibels, and I'm sure most just mute the game. Would still love to see this.

 

On 9/24/2019 at 7:35 PM, Retrograde said:

there is no way i will go close to a rift unless its in the end of the 3rd wave or into the 4th because the worst thing about the rift system as it is now is that there is zero point in participating if you can't be online for the end of it to earn the points and credit for finishing a rift. If it ends up taking to long and you can't be there for the end you get no rewards.
The game tracks your points/participation but its coded so it only gives credit for whoever is there in the rift at the end

 THIS. This is by far one of the BIGGEST things to me that must be changed for rifts. Besides the lag at rifts it is awful to see players rushing rifts to be done so they don't need to commit to 4+ hours at every rift. For those that can dedicate the time they miss out on so much skill and points. If players could just leave whenever they have to and still get the rewards I'm positive you'd no longer see people complaining about how long they are. I'm so tired of seeing less and less people showing up to rifts and people being HAPPY about it. How are we supposed to grow if people are happy when its dying. 

 

On 9/26/2019 at 8:05 PM, MrGARY said:

the ones that randomly teleport away from you add nothing to gameplay or excitement and is just a bother

I'd love to have this be polled because I also feel like this mechanic is pointless and just creates frustration and unnecessary AI.

[Ekcin 2,407]

That is not fully true. It is indeed true that rift participation is not awarded unless you are online on the same server when the rift closes. And it would be good if that were changed, and should not be that hard as participation is recorded. I recall that I had gone to a rift on Indy, was terrible to get to, and shitty terrain to fight, and some players I detested on the spot adding to my bad mood. So, after a few brawls with the mobs I just travelled back to my ship. I was fairly astonished that short before I sailed off  I got a ql27 serryl lump .25 weight or so, and some low ql wood and stone .

 

But your 4 hours will soon be down at least a bit. I see that on Harmony and Melody already. 2hrs and a bit should be standard unless there are very few participants.

[Magg 46]

With time restrictions being an issue.  Could server maintenance be scheduled around rifts?

Had 3 of us at the start of the last Indy rift and 5 minutes after it starts, we get a maintenance message.

What happens?

People on their way, stop.  

Also, sometimes a maintenance takes longer than expected.  

Coupling this with not receiving rewards if you are not online, either try to reschedule your maintenance or allow people to receive rewards when offline.  

[Ekcin 2,407]

I second that. I have experienced a couple of bad surprises when reboots interrupted rifts. Honestly I understand that server maintenance takes precedence over player events. But rift dates are known 9 days in advance, and routine maintenance is usually Thursdays around 2-3pm GMT. So it can't be that hard to reschedule a Thursday afternoon rift so that it does start after server maintenance. Of course server admins cannot care for rifts starting more than 2 or 3 hrs before maintenance time even if the combat lasts so long. And hot fixes cannot be expected to wait for else respect rift dates.

 

But it boils down a bit to an attitude of ruthlessness towards the players, like the imbue nerf. Bit I boss you sh*t attitude, or is felt that way at least. No good PR or customer service, and should be improved.

[Zerobyte 286]

On 2/6/2021 at 1:43 PM, Craft said:

Any chance of improving the point system?

I'm guessing the decision to use "how many mobs you hit "tag" = points earned" was a way to reduce server lag?

Any chance of changing this to damage done?

So many people focus on running around like rabid chickens pecking the rift mobs once and running off to find another. Bit silly and unhelpful for the purpose of clearing the rift.

This please!

[Finnn 3,303]

LOL, how often do you hit rift mobs?

 

eventual change for hits.. will make things laughable.. with lib/mag passive buffs for cr.. you'll beg for a revert after 1st rift change

 

[Zuelatak 235]

On 2/9/2021 at 7:14 AM, Ekcin said:

But your 4 hours will soon be down at least a bit. I see that on Harmony and Melody already. 2hrs and a bit should be standard unless there are very few participants.

From my understanding with rifts ranging from 15-170 players. The reason the times are going down are because people have better skill, gear, and understanding of the mechanics. The fight should scale properly to the # of participants and it should be encouraged for their to be more. Varying participants haven't shown much effect except for maybe potentially helping with lag though that's maybe possibly been disproven. 

On 2/13/2021 at 5:14 PM, Zerobyte said:

Any chance of improving the point system?

I'm guessing the decision to use "how many mobs you hit "tag" = points earned" was a way to reduce server lag?

Any chance of changing this to damage done?

So many people focus on running around like rabid chickens pecking the rift mobs once and running off to find another. Bit silly and unhelpful for the purpose of clearing the rift.

I'd love to see this be changed too because you don't actually need to hit. You just need to attempt a hit and you'll get a tag.