ToF CM may need some adjustments

[Drag You Down.2615]

Still don't understand why are you so obsessed with DPS check. This is a very difficult dps check, you need almost 30k dps MINIMUM on 8 dps people. This is crazy, this is harder than any PvE instanced content ever, but is this fun? NO! We have no time to paying attention to the interesting mechs, no matter how wonderful they are designed. 

The high health will just prompt people to ask for even higher dps, and you guys as designers will need to buff the numbers again and again and again, and there is no way to solve the power creep anymore. So please, stop this. Just put more weight on interesting and complex mechanics, stop this boring dps check.

Please remain the damage and other things, but tune down the boss and adds health for 20 to 30%. 

Edit: Probably even more than 30%, since there is only very few classes can maintain dps in this situation. But the mechanics are cool, especially when I see the embodiments come out and help the boss to fight, that is a wonderful idea, please don't lose something like this, don't reduce the mechanical complexity.

Edited February 28 by Drag You Down.2615

[Dean.3056]

The CM already solved "method wise" so the only thing left behind a gate keep kill door is DPS check which obviously they over killed it. Once they nerf it will get beaten.

Anyhow I agree with OP, the biggest issue in my opinion the environment serve no mechanics, it's all in on the boss. If the boss is everything then it should be one hell of a boss otherwise it should sync up with environmental mechanics.

Good examples are: Sloth mechanics + poison arena , Sabetha + Cannons.

[Drag You Down.2615]

49 minutes ago, Dean.3056 said:

The CM already solved "method wise" so the only thing left behind a gate keep kill door is DPS check which obviously they over killed it. Once they nerf it will get beaten.

Anyhow I agree with OP, the biggest issue in my opinion the environment serve no mechanics, it's all in on the boss. If the boss is everything then it should be one hell of a boss otherwise it should sync up with environmental mechanics.

Good examples are: Sloth mechanics + poison arena , Sabetha + Cannons.

Yes, Sloth, Sabetha, both are really well designed. I also love Mursaat, Largos, and Adina. In strikes, OLC is also very good.

The problem is that you need to make sure there is a certain amount of people can enjoy your design. The DPS check is a way to create difficulty, I didn't mean that there should be no dps requirement at all, but dps check is something basic, it does not making the game interesting.

And this one is insanely high. I am sure that more than 90% (probably even more than 99% won't make this dps check in that specific condition, they probably can do it with golem.) PvE players won't even be able to try this fight.

 Anet, are you trying to block more than 90% of your customers from even entering a game content? 

Besides, I think ToF does have some very nice design in CM, this DPS check is just purely disgusting. Feels like a childish response to player comments on CO CM, which is still dull and boring.

Edited February 28 by Drag You Down.2615

[luigiormario.7305]

3 minutes ago, Drag You Down.2615 said:

Yes, Sloth, Sabetha, both are really well designed. I also love Mursaat, Largos, and Adina. In strikes, OLC is also very good.

The problem is that you need to make sure there is a certain amount of people can enjoy your design. The DPS check is a way to create difficulty, I didn't mean that there should be no dps requirement at all, but this one is insanely high. I am sure that more than 90% (probably even more than 99% won't make this dps check in that specific condition, they probably can do it with golem.) PvE players won't even be able to try this fight.

 Anet, are you trying to block more than 90% of your customers?

Whilst yes it probably is abit out of reach of everyone right now, as a challenge mode it doesn't have to be accessible to 90% of the player base. One of the common complaints with CO CM was it was too easy - cleared in 1 pull. I think it's good if the fight remains one achievable only by the top few percent, as most content in this game appeals to the other 99% (similar to HTCM). 

[Cyninja.2954]

They are going to nerf it. The fight is near impossible currently. The question is only, how hard will it get nerfed.

Also it's better to implement a fight this way, THEN tone it down. Making it to easy on day 1, then increasing the difficulty, only puts pressure on players to "get it done before they make it harder".

The fight is challenging enough that anyone enjoying it can have a good time working on the mechanics already, then clear it once the hit points have been adjusted.

[Drag You Down.2615]

4 minutes ago, luigiormario.7305 said:

Whilst yes it probably is abit out of reach of everyone right now, as a challenge mode it doesn't have to be accessible to 90% of the player base. One of the common complaints with CO CM was it was too easy - cleared in 1 pull. I think it's good if the fight remains one achievable only by the top few percent, as most content in this game appeals to the other 99% (similar to HTCM). 

Let me tell you, ToF is not difficult, it is IMPOSSIBLE to most people. And if a content is not only difficulty but straightly impossible for more than 99% people, it is a failure, will be forgotten like what the raids used to be. This one was even worse than the raid.

Did you try it today?

Oh, and they even put that into the wizard's vault XD.

Edited February 28 by Drag You Down.2615

[Drag You Down.2615]

19 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

They are going to nerf it. The fight is near impossible currently. The question is only, how hard will it get nerfed.

Also it's better to implement a fight this way, THEN tone it down. Making it to easy on day 1, then increasing the difficulty, only puts pressure on players to "get it done before they make it harder".

The fight is challenging enough that anyone enjoying it can have a good time working on the mechanics already, then clear it once the hit points have been adjusted.

This requires some serious calculations. They need to know the current overall dps for most people, and calculate the percentage of how many people they want them to be able to pass, and how many people can join but will likely fail, and how many people could not enter this, then decide the difficulty of dps check.

Of course CM is not for everyone, and people love challenges, but people love it because they believe they can overcome it by paying efforts. When the difficulty is excessive, that will not arouse interest anymore.

The current DPS check is like yelling NO! GO AWAY! to most people. Very childish and immature, if this is the only way they can think of to avoid being CO CM 2.0.

Edited February 28 by Drag You Down.2615

[luigiormario.7305]

1 hour ago, Drag You Down.2615 said:

Let me tell you, ToF is not difficult, it is IMPOSSIBLE to most people. And if a content is not only difficulty but straightly impossible for more than 99% people, it is a failure, will be forgotten like what the raids used to be. This one was even worse than the raid.

Did you try it today?

Oh, and they even put that into the wizard's vault XD.

I did give it a go, and yes that's why I said it's out of reach of everyone right now. But I don't think it needs to be made to be as 'easy' as existing challenging content. Plenty of content has been trivialised or made easier by power-creep, I think it might be good to have a fight now and then that is borderline unachievable to keep the hardcore gamers interested.

 

But yes, it does need to be taken down a peg to be achievable in the first place. 

[Drag You Down.2615]

6 minutes ago, luigiormario.7305 said:

I did give it a go, and yes that's why I said it's out of reach of everyone right now. But I don't think it needs to be made to be as 'easy' as existing challenging content. Plenty of content has been trivialised or made easier by power-creep, I think it might be good to have a fight now and then that is borderline unachievable to keep the hardcore gamers interested.

 

But yes, it does need to be taken down a peg to be achievable in the first place. 

I agree the part that it does not need to be easy. But I would disagree that increasing the DPS check boundary is the correct way to deal with powercreep and keep the hardcore content interesting. It's like drinking poison. 

Especially when they have the ability to make better content and more complex mechanics. Complexity increases the difficulty, rotation does not, dps check is just a straight no to the player, without even giving you possibility.

[Linken.6345]

1 minute ago, Drag You Down.2615 said:

I agree the part that it does not need to be easy. But I would disagree that increasing the DPS check boundary is the correct way to deal with powercreep and keep the hardcore content interesting. It's like drinking poison. 

Especially when they have the ability to make better content and more complex mechanics. Complexity increases the difficulty, rotation does not, dps check is just a straight no to the player, without even giving you possibility.

Well they did  before yea sadly they fired the one guy that did the good fights we got back in the day.

[luigiormario.7305]

26 minutes ago, Drag You Down.2615 said:

I agree the part that it does not need to be easy. But I would disagree that increasing the DPS check boundary is the correct way to deal with powercreep and keep the hardcore content interesting. It's like drinking poison. 

Especially when they have the ability to make better content and more complex mechanics. Complexity increases the difficulty, rotation does not, dps check is just a straight no to the player, without even giving you possibility.

I'm not saying it's the correct or best way, just that it does the job. I too would prefer more complex mechanics than a dps check. They both require pressing the right buttons at the right times/more frequently, but yes a dps check focus tends to be less engaging. 

 

For me personally I think the mechanics in this fight are good - especially if chasing the title. I would rather have this fight with the dps check included, than have a repeat of CO CM which can be completed with relative ease.

[Drag You Down.2615]

6 minutes ago, luigiormario.7305 said:

I'm not saying it's the correct or best way, just that it does the job. I too would prefer more complex mechanics than a dps check. They both require pressing the right buttons at the right times/more frequently, but yes a dps check focus tends to be less engaging. 

 

For me personally I think the mechanics in this fight are good - especially if chasing the title. I would rather have this fight with the dps check included, than have a repeat of CO CM which can be completed with relative ease.

I fully agree, even there is dps check (I'm not against dps check, I just hate when it is misused), I prefer this one rather than CO. That is just purely lack of creativity. I'd rather to pay to play this impossible version of ToF cm than playing the boring CO cm for free.

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

They could have easily made the Empowered version of the attacks from normal mode as baseline attacks in CM (bigger orbs over head, 2x spinning walls, unavoidability, 3 Shadows instead of 1, etc.), and come up with even more powerful Empowered versions of these attacks:

Hunger orbs: Extra large orbs that give Cerus more barrier and a lot of Empowered stacks.

Exploding AoE: Explode twice. 

Orbs on head and death puddles: larger puddle radius, maybe last the entire fight so strategic coordination is needed to not make the arena messy.

Spinning walls: 3-4 walls maybe?

Green: still 3 players are targeted, but must not over stack and must spread to 3 different groups of 3. 

Shadows: 10 for all squad instead of 1-3.

Bigger DPS check is just boring and encourages more powercreep. 

[Salt Mode.3780]

I mean at the moment with simple calculation the boss hp is way too high as well as the boss max HP increases per split phase so currently its physically impossible to do it even with benchmark dps.

The philosophy of higher hp = harder raid boss is pretty null when the best strike missions are in EoD where bosses hp may not be extremely high but had more mechanical challenges.

Edited February 28 by Salt Mode.3780

[Biziut.3594]

Don't worry. On other thread with similar topic, Rubi responded that They are already working on the fix and that it's not intended. ^^

[Sobx.1758]

17 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

There is a currently a bug that causes Cerus to gain more max health at the end of the 80% split phase, and we're working on getting a fix to you as soon as we can. We'll be increasing Cerus' total health at the same time to preserve encounter balance and will continue keeping an eye on this encounter to see if other adjustments are needed.

[Salt Mode.3780]

47 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

18 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

There is a currently a bug that causes Cerus to gain more max health at the end of the 80% split phase, and we're working on getting a fix to you as soon as we can. We'll be increasing Cerus' total health at the same time to preserve encounter balance and will continue keeping an eye on this encounter to see if other adjustments are needed.

1. Did they see the actual benchmarks for Cerus normal?

2. Do they know how to calculate the DPS for a 10-minute fight to see if it was possible?

3. Have they tested this fight out to ensure that this fight is possible and killable? 

4. What statistics are they using to make this fight, golem dps? Or are they using usable data from ACTUAL encounters?

5. Who was in charge of the EoD strikes and CMs and they can be rehired?

The problem with the boss even without the current bug has way too high of an hp bar for the amount of time needed to fight it. Again I don't understand the philosophy of higher hp = harder boss.

Another thing to consider, achievements locked behind Cerus CM is it even doable if you are going to increase Cerus' total health, as if the current total health isn't already requiring high benchmark dps.

Edited February 28 by Salt Mode.3780

[Drag You Down.2615]

1 hour ago, Sobx.1758 said:

19 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

There is a currently a bug that causes Cerus to gain more max health at the end of the 80% split phase, and we're working on getting a fix to you as soon as we can. We'll be increasing Cerus' total health at the same time to preserve encounter balance and will continue keeping an eye on this encounter to see if other adjustments are needed.

Tbh, even it is caused by a bug, it is not very convincing since she mentioned to increase the total health, that is the thing we need the least so far. Also, not only the boss, but adds, which are shadows, also have really high health. They require 4 pure power dps to get them and this will greatly reduce the damage output to the boss. 

Again, the dps check should be designed around your current combat system, it requires calculations. And only less than 1% players can have the ability to achieve content can hardly be considered successfully. Even they need to be hardcore and exclusive, using dps check to reject people is very unpleasant and harsh. 

Edited February 28 by Drag You Down.2615

[Jedrik.3109]

Time to trigger the confused reacts.. based take incoming.

Drop the hp all you want. 99% of this player base couldn't do it nor will try or want to improve to try.

The entirety of this conversation is moot. Instance content players, by the dev assessment, do a tremendous amount more dps than open world play. Add to this by the most reasonable estimates, since we have no official data, that at best 5% of the community engage in structured group content. So by the argument presented above, it was never going to be "successful" from the start.

The dps check is a red herring, they are the inherent conclusion to difficult mechanics. Everytime the complaints come about a dps check all I see is a fundamental misunderstanding of the interlocking nature of mechanics and a fail state that leads to overall difficulty. 

It comes down to this, do we want any hard content for the small portion of the player base that will engage in it or should this be completely written off as wrong content for this game. Either is fine personally, it's not my game to develop. But this silly pandering to, that difficult content should be accessible to the majority, that do not engage anyway, is laughable at best and fundamentally oxymoronic.

Is it overtuned? None of us know, it's bugged. But from my rough math from grinding on it last night, after the bug fix, it looks like a 24k dps average to beat it. In this age of 40k benches plus the mechanics seems reasonable for a CM. But honestly at this point in the games life...whatever.

 

[ZenDrake.8316]

17 minutes ago, Jedrik.3109 said:

The dps check is a red herring, they are the inherent conclusion to difficult mechanics. Everytime the complaints come about a dps check all I see is a fundamental misunderstanding of the interlocking nature of mechanics and a fail state that leads to overall difficulty. 

The fight is incredibly punishing already. The smallest mistake will cost you the whole try. The amount of on the spot coordination required to handle the 3 green AoEs (Killing Envy is the tactic right now because the double wall can overlap with all the other mechanics and is very hard to deal with) is insane.

The difficulty spike from Dagda CM is ridiculous, really. They talked about something on the level of KO CM in the past, but this is HT CM, if not worse.

And once again, it's a fight designed for a single DPS build: Condi Virt. Boring.

[NovaanVerdiano.6174]

22 minutes ago, Jedrik.3109 said:

Time to trigger the confused reacts.. based take incoming.

Drop the hp all you want. 99% of this player base couldn't do it nor will try or want to improve to try.

The entirety of this conversation is moot. Instance content players, by the dev assessment, do a tremendous amount more dps than open world play. Add to this by the most reasonable estimates, since we have no official data, that at best 5% of the community engage in structured group content. So by the argument presented above, it was never going to be "successful" from the start.

The dps check is a red herring, they are the inherent conclusion to difficult mechanics. Everytime the complaints come about a dps check all I see is a fundamental misunderstanding of the interlocking nature of mechanics and a fail state that leads to overall difficulty. 

It comes down to this, do we want any hard content for the small portion of the player base that will engage in it or should this be completely written off as wrong content for this game. Either is fine personally, it's not my game to develop. But this silly pandering to, that difficult content should be accessible to the majority, that do not engage anyway, is laughable at best and fundamentally oxymoronic.

Is it overtuned? None of us know, it's bugged. But from my rough math from grinding on it last night, after the bug fix, it looks like a 24k dps average to beat it. In this age of 40k benches plus the mechanics seems reasonable for a CM. But honestly at this point in the games life...whatever.

 

Except it's not bugged anymore and we now know that Cerus is sitting at a cushy 130mil HP. The DPS check is crazy and while this would be fine in itself, the encounter design also heavily pushes DPS players towards Virtuoso, particularly cVirt, yet again. Yes, obviously once the DPS check gets tight enough you will simply stack whatever is strongest and that in itself is also fine, the real problem arises when you can't even bring much else because nothing can compare to the versatility and freedom of this one build, while even *that* one struggles with meeting the check (skill issue in a way for sure, but even once squads will perform insanely well consistently this is going to be tight)

[Drag You Down.2615]

47 minutes ago, Jedrik.3109 said:

It comes down to this, do we want any hard content for the small portion of the player base that will engage in it or should this be completely written off as wrong content for this game. Either is fine personally, it's not my game to develop. But this silly pandering to, that difficult content should be accessible to the majority, that do not engage anyway, is laughable at best and fundamentally oxymoronic.

This is about their marketing strategy. I am not very familiar with that part, but I am familiar with design. 

Who is this content designed for? As what I said, I agreed that it is not for everyone and it needs and must be exclusive for some players. But the question is how many people. This really does a matter because it will directly affect the engagement of community and the profit of the game. And they put this cm in wizards vault as well, it seems like they are encouraging everyone to try this. But the content they provide is not very encouraging. I wonder if they considered the side effects of this. 

I actually agree with a lot of things you said. But my concern is that the boundary of DPS check has been pushed again and again. Won't this further increase the chaos of combat system and numbers? 

Edited February 29 by Drag You Down.2615

[Drag You Down.2615]

I was thinking why don't they push the mechanical complexity to the extreme. 

For example, let Cerus and its embodiments use empowered version of all 6 skills from the very beginning and reduce one per split by killing it. 

The placement of the embodiments becomes totally random and changes every time.

Remove the timer, but Cerus gain 1 stack every 15 seconds after 50%.

In this way, they don't need very high dps check to stop most people from completing it and most people will want to or at least, have the ability to try it, even they 100% cannot complete. 

Edited February 29 by Drag You Down.2615

[Drag You Down.2615]

Wrong quote XD

Edited February 29 by Drag You Down.2615

[Salt Mode.3780]

5 hours ago, Jedrik.3109 said:

Time to trigger the confused reacts.. based take incoming.

Drop the hp all you want. 99% of this player base couldn't do it nor will try or want to improve to try.

The entirety of this conversation is moot. Instance content players, by the dev assessment, do a tremendous amount more dps than open world play. Add to this by the most reasonable estimates, since we have no official data, that at best 5% of the community engage in structured group content. So by the argument presented above, it was never going to be "successful" from the start.

The dps check is a red herring, they are the inherent conclusion to difficult mechanics. Everytime the complaints come about a dps check all I see is a fundamental misunderstanding of the interlocking nature of mechanics and a fail state that leads to overall difficulty. 

It comes down to this, do we want any hard content for the small portion of the player base that will engage in it or should this be completely written off as wrong content for this game. Either is fine personally, it's not my game to develop. But this silly pandering to, that difficult content should be accessible to the majority, that do not engage anyway, is laughable at best and fundamentally oxymoronic.

Is it overtuned? None of us know, it's bugged. But from my rough math from grinding on it last night, after the bug fix, it looks like a 24k dps average to beat it. In this age of 40k benches plus the mechanics seems reasonable for a CM. But honestly at this point in the games life...whatever.

 

Don't know where you are getting your numbers from but no 24k dps is not the average even if all 8 players excluding healers but lets say they did 5-8k dps were to perform it you will not have enough dps to kill the boss. Hard content does not mean higher HP as EoD cm strikes were not like that. Those 40k bench are also often retaken over and over again to get magic numbers to get the highest record damage on a golem that has every debuff and personal buffs up at all time so golem benchmarks should never be taken seriously. Again if I recall the highest bench on Cerus normal was 33k.

Adding the fact that the comp requires cvirts as the only dps to cleave malice is also an issue. The problem is the fight at its current state isn't meant for the 5% it is meant for the 0.1%. 

Nothing about your post is "based" or "triggering" its just factually wrong. 

Edited February 29 by Salt Mode.3780