Forays: A Review.

Armali

A serpentine passageway. (indoors)

This room has not been mapped.

Narrow and claustrophobic, this angular passageway stretches briefly to the north before turning sharply to the southeast. 

Hundreds of tiny snakes form relief patterns upon the stone walls, a thousand yellow eyes that glow with an eerily lifelike glare. 

Faint hissing frets the edges of your hearing, and long shadows writhe in ominous black patterns in a flowing dance along the 

ground. The floor is entirely dominated by a mosaic of pearl white tiles that surround a circular black disc. Miraculously 

unmarred by the dust ravaging the rest of the tomb, the mosaic's main image is that of an emeraldine serpent engaged in the 

process of consuming its own tail.

You see exits leading southeast and southwest.

H:7550 M:6671 E:31395 W:25965 kdbex ( [] [0]) 21:05:49.16-

(Party): Minkai says, "Hit and run is okay."

H:7550 M:6746 E:31445 W:25971 kdbex ( [] [0]) 21:06:03.76-

With an enormous CRASH, an immense granite boulder falls from a gap in a nearby ceiling. It immediately begins hurtling through 

the tomb, rumbling with the promise of death for all who bar its path.

H:7550 M:6746 E:31445 W:25983 kdbex ( [] [0]) 21:06:06.84-

Your queues are already empty.

Vulkuz, Barrow-lord of the Darkenwood stops you from moving that way.

H:7550 M:6746 E:31465 W:25995 kdbex ( [] [0]) 21:06:08.42-

[--[LOST INSULATION]--]

[--[AFFLICTED SHIVERING]--]

Waves of cold radiate from Vulkuz, Barrow-lord of the Darkenwood and you feel your body instantly lose all warmth.

You have been afflicted with shivering.

H:4872 M:6746 E:31465 W:25995 kdbex ( [] [0]) 21:06:08.78-

Vulkuz, Barrow-lord of the Darkenwood's wails ominously and the air around him shimmers. Waves of pain overpower your mind.

H:937 M:6746 E:31465 W:25995 kdbex ( [] [0]) 21:06:08.79-

I'm sorry, what the fuck.

Astarod

Armali said:

A serpentine passageway. (indoors)

This room has not been mapped.

Narrow and claustrophobic, this angular passageway stretches briefly to the north before turning sharply to the southeast. 

Hundreds of tiny snakes form relief patterns upon the stone walls, a thousand yellow eyes that glow with an eerily lifelike glare. 

Faint hissing frets the edges of your hearing, and long shadows writhe in ominous black patterns in a flowing dance along the 

ground. The floor is entirely dominated by a mosaic of pearl white tiles that surround a circular black disc. Miraculously 

unmarred by the dust ravaging the rest of the tomb, the mosaic's main image is that of an emeraldine serpent engaged in the 

process of consuming its own tail.

You see exits leading southeast and southwest.

H:7550 M:6671 E:31395 W:25965 kdbex ( [] [0]) 21:05:49.16-

(Party): Minkai says, "Hit and run is okay."

H:7550 M:6746 E:31445 W:25971 kdbex ( [] [0]) 21:06:03.76-

With an enormous CRASH, an immense granite boulder falls from a gap in a nearby ceiling. It immediately begins hurtling through 

the tomb, rumbling with the promise of death for all who bar its path.

H:7550 M:6746 E:31445 W:25983 kdbex ( [] [0]) 21:06:06.84-

Your queues are already empty.

Vulkuz, Barrow-lord of the Darkenwood stops you from moving that way.

H:7550 M:6746 E:31465 W:25995 kdbex ( [] [0]) 21:06:08.42-

[--[LOST INSULATION]--]

[--[AFFLICTED SHIVERING]--]

Waves of cold radiate from Vulkuz, Barrow-lord of the Darkenwood and you feel your body instantly lose all warmth.

You have been afflicted with shivering.

H:4872 M:6746 E:31465 W:25995 kdbex ( [] [0]) 21:06:08.78-

Vulkuz, Barrow-lord of the Darkenwood's wails ominously and the air around him shimmers. Waves of pain overpower your mind.

H:937 M:6746 E:31465 W:25995 kdbex ( [] [0]) 21:06:08.79-

I'm sorry, what the fuck.

Lol, 4K is nothing. Wait till he does 9800 damage

Armali

Look at the timestamps, please.

Big Papa Jomi

Damn, over 6000 in 0.3s. 

So that’s ~21K DPS? Is my math right? 🧐

Astarod

Big Papa Jomi said:

Damn, over 6000 in 0.3s. 

So that’s ~21K DPS? Is my math right? 🧐

awful!

@armali you right

Armali

Big Papa Jomi said:

Damn, over 6000 in 0.3s. 

So that’s ~21K DPS? Is my math right? 🧐

It was over 6k in 0.1s. So more like 60k DPS.

Big Papa Jomi

Oh I accidentally counted the prompt where he blocked you.

Damn. I doubt anyone has the ping for even scripts and triggers to react to that type of damage and save you.

Armali

That foray has a lot of interesting mechanics, and I think the whole running around frantically disarming traps thing can be pretty cool, but it does feel a little overtuned when you compare it to Aran'kesh, Fortress, or even Mirrortower. It doesn't even give an honors! (I've never done Margam, but I think it's fine to be so hard since it does give fame).

The above attack speed I think was clearly a bug, though.

Phaestus

Pretty significant foray damage bug fixed, bosses should be far more manageable now.

Astarod

Phaestus said:

Pretty significant foray damage bug fixed, bosses should be far more manageable now.

Hey, the gold drops on some of these forays with 4-5 people is a lot more. Is this a bug?

Icarius

What the hell have happend. Now you can just steam roll Aran'kesh? Please change back as it was yesterday! Can people stop complaining and whining, no wonder Phaestus got tired. I hope this change does'nt last.

Me and Amelyn have been banging our head against the Margam foray for weeks now coming up with new ideas and tactics that we're trying out.

Some of the mobs in there hit so hard that we where'nt able to tank them and with no crits against them you need to do be able to but we found a way to keep them chasing while we regained health now we've been stuck at Horald for quite some time. Getting lower and lower on his health for each try.

Minifie

Ironic that you’d whine while complaining about whining, add a bottle of red and you’d have w^3.

Phaestus

Non-boss foray mobs were eventually tweaked downward to offset the earlier scaling which had them a bit too powerful, we've gone ahead and brought them back up a bit.

Caelan

@Phaestus I don't envy your job here, but appreciate that you're working on it and listening to everyone, even if they shouldn't be listened to.  This makes me want to try a foray finally.

Icarius

I noticed something in Margam today. Everyone know that you need to keep the top rooms balanced.

But when two people go out on each side. If one of them goes back to the middle again and you've balanced the boat nothing happends and the other person can kill whatever needs to be killed on that side. Not sure if this is intended because it kinda feels the boat should tip over right there.

But when the other person comes back and enters the room next to the one in the middle the boat tilts again, and then the other person has to go over to the other side.

Atalkez

Going middle resets the balancing. This function is what you need to pass the final stage of Horald, otherwise you’ll have a terrible time at the end.

Icarius

Not exactly what I meant..

Player 1 goes east. Boat is about to tip over.
Player 2 goes west. Boat is stable again..
Player 1 goes back to the middle. Nothing happends.
Player 2 continues west two rooms.
Player 2 goes back towards the middle. When he enters the room right next to middle room all the sudden the boat is about to tip over again and player 1 has to go back east so it does'nt tip over.

Seems odd to me.

This happend our last attempt, https://imgur.com/a/zhbZZRt I did'nt think he threw you that quickly. Amelyn had no chance to stabilize the boat that time before being thrown the same way.

Gonna go back and see if icewalls help, but I believe he threw you past them.

Austere

Margam feels more mechanically oriented, and I like that.  We did two runs with strats we'd worked up when it first came out, and despite dying quite a bit, it all felt incredibly fair.  10/10 would redo

Atalkez

Don’t attack while the boat is off balance.

Astarod

Atalkez said:

Don’t attack while the boat is off balance.

Is the boat being off balance something that draws from a bank? It seems if you have 3 seconds the boat is off balance to the right, for instance, if you do that a couple of times, if it is off balance at all, it just falls over. 

Icarius

Atalkez said:

Don’t attack while the boat is off balance.

We did'nt. If you look at the image the boat became off balance from me being thrown away then 0.2 seconds after Amelyn was thrown the same way.

Atalkez

In the image that you posted, he's taking DoT damage, and the deck is lurching (ship is off balance) from you getting thrown. Partner looks to be off balance (assuming the regain balance line is that) and they hit Horald with rage - which makes them get thrown and boom you both die because you're both on the same side. Welcome to correct me otherwise, but that's what I'm looking at.

Armali

I gave Margam a go, and besides unfortunate deckhand spawn RNG and bad IRL reflexes on the part of one of my teammates, I think it's easily flawless-able. There's nothing that I don't think can be safely handled, and you can even just have only one person attacking if you want to play it super safe.

Iakimen

Armali said:

I gave Margam a go, and besides unfortunate deckhand spawn RNG and bad IRL reflexes on the part of one of my teammates, I think it's easily flawless-able. There's nothing that I don't think can be safely handled, and you can even just have only one person attacking if you want to play it super safe.

There is more near the end.

Rackham

Having little to no idea how forays work, I've been enjoying Aran'kesh.

Just finished it with one person tanking (me) and one person harpoooning. Unsure if this is reasonable, or if he'll be tweaked back up, but it seemed very easy compared to the three man I did recently, and WAY different than the 5 man I did weeks ago. Did not even have to fly once.

Armali

I really like the more mechanical focus of barrow and margam, and after having gone through mirrortower and realizing how shallow it is once the damage was nerfed, I was brainstorming ideas on how to bring the other forays up to their level. These are just idle fantasies!

ARAN'KESH--

This foray already has some built in mechanics in the form of the harpoons, but they're pretty simplistic, and there never really seemed to to be a reason to use more than one harpoon even though three are provided. So why not have them be a bigger part of the fight, and why not make them more interactive to use?

- Fishing for Aran'kesh: Aran'kesh no longer flies at set percentages except right at the beginning, where he'll fly at 80-90% health. When he flies, your harpoonists will start seeing messages of Aran'kesh lifting off and coming back around for an attack on your fight team. He'll rise up, do maybe four or five 'flying' messages of varying types (banking, flying straight, flying evasively, etc.), then finally dive on your attack team and hover in place before delivering a punishing series of AoE attacks that might wipe your fight team.

- The harpoonists will ideally shoot him down before this happens. Shooting him down will be like fishing. You bait your hook/load your harpoon with PUSH HARPOON. You react to nibbles/Aran'kesh banking or flying straight with TURN HARPOON, taking aim. Just like in fishing, the best time to turn your harpoon is an arbitrary amount of time after you see the nibble. It might even be different depending on the specific thing Aran'kesh is doing, and the timing window would be bigger the further along Aran'kesh is in his attack run - this way, you can either try for early, harder shots, or wait until the very end and guarantee a good shot - but you'll be winding down the clock if you do!

- A bit of time after you finish aiming, you'll know whether you got a chancy shot, decent shot, or good shot on Aran'kesh, and you'll get feedback on whether it was because you were early aiming or late aiming. This will let players who repeat the fight eventually pinpoint the best time to aim. Once you know your shot, you can then PULL HARPOON to take it, or you can keep TURNing your harpoon to try and get a better shot - in this regard, knowing your shot is like a fishing strike, you can jerk now, or you can tease the line, and maybe get a better shot/strike. 

- After taking the shot, you can either hit, graze, or miss. Missing will obviously just miss. Hitting will bring Aran'kesh down. Grazing will slow him down, and enough grazes and you'll bring him down anyways. This is both to reward having multiple harpoonists and to give players who aren't as mechanically adept a chance to still bring Aran'kesh down - you can have one master harpoonist manage this phase, or you can have three mediocre ones bring Aran'kesh down by weight of numbers. 

- Once Aran'kesh is grounded, you can hit him, but you need to still keep him there! Harpooners can PULL on their harpoons to tug on the ropes anchored to the boss, while Aran'kesh will periodically struggle and try to free himself. A shootdown would have a base amount of time, say 30 seconds. The more people on the harpoons PULLing, the longer that time extends, so there's a trade-off between damage and time, and finding the best balance would vary depending on the group. Maybe whenever he struggles for example, the amount of harpoons pulled within one or two seconds is measured, and that determines the chance that he breaks free and takes flight again.

- A skilled group of three or more could even rotate people between the fighting room and the harpoons, swiftly swapping three people onto the harpoons to bring Aran'kesh down as fast as possible, then heading back into fight. It wouldn't be necessary, and you could probably just do it with two and one static, but it would be a possibilty and it would be faster, offering groups that have mastered the foray a way to show off their skills.

- Actually fighting Aran'kesh would be much the same, though given the (probably) smaller windows to hit him with, you may need to focus more on optimizing damage with the appropriate battlerages and battlerage synergies.

- Once Aran'kesh gets low enough health, he won't take flight again, just like in the current foray. At this point, you can just have everyone dogpile him! He'll also stop flinging people away with his attacks, so that everyone can hit and get experience.

Astarod

Phaestus said:

Pretty significant foray damage bug fixed, bosses should be far more manageable now.

I think RN the bosses are fine. The minions could stand to be less tanky. The damage per minion is a bit high, but the time it takes for 4 people to actually bash down a minion is a bit overtuned in my opinion. Possible con scaling bug?

Kog

Duo and trio feels fine. I'm pretty happy with everything on the lower end, though I know a lot of you are doing max numbers or have more arties than I do.

Astarod

Kog said:

Duo and trio feels fine. I'm pretty happy with everything on the lower end, though I know a lot of you are doing max numbers or have more arties than I do.

They're back to doing 3K damage and have the con of the bosses in some cases (only doing like 1-2% damage). Fortress also doesn't lower the # of mobs like aran'kesh when you add more, which might help when you have only 30 minutes. 

Kog

Astarod said:

Kog said:

Duo and trio feels fine. I'm pretty happy with everything on the lower end, though I know a lot of you are doing max numbers or have more arties than I do.

They're back to doing 3K damage and have the con of the bosses in some cases (only doing like 1-2% damage). Fortress also doesn't lower the # of mobs like aran'kesh when you add more, which might help when you have only 30 minutes. 

I've been on Fortress, Margam and Barrows so far since the changes, and I've been able to chew through the adds with about 20m left with Nephiny/one other (once sub 80, once dragon). Might be a specific foray issue, or a bad combination of mobs?