HOH &DS changes - Phoenix Freeshard

Hi All,

I appreciate the thought of wanting to make some challenging PVE content, but it seems like we are seeing a lot of changes that make it more difficult for new players and really doesn't do anything to truely impact those who have already made a ton of money/items when things were easier. The changes are just increasing the gap and making it harder to farm new money/feathers.

I was hoping to offer a suggestion for HoH and DS farming. It would be nice to have the old HoH and DS mechanics and methods for a "normal mode" and decrease feathers to 5-10k per run, still decent rogs, etc. Then introduce a "challenge mode" HoH and DS that are worth 2-3x the feathers and double the rogs. Make it so only challenge mode qualifies for the leaderboards.

Fri 6 Dec 2019 4:01 AM by Forlornhope

This has, unfortunately, been the common theme with this server. Many people have said it, but they don't really listen.

Fri 6 Dec 2019 1:31 PM by

Uthred

Forlornhope wrote: ↑
Fri 6 Dec 2019 4:01 AM
This has, unfortunately, been the common theme with this server. Many people have said it, but they don't really listen.

There are trillion other ways to farm feathers than DS/HoH ---> https://forum.playphoenix.online/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=3216

Plus why do you think we put in this feather bonus during the whole december to different mobs/location? Maybe do give people that dont want to/cant run Ds/HoH give a possibility to get feathers too? Maybe to even help new players a bit?

New players can run DS / HoH, they just need some experienced players to show them. I wonder why this happens so rarely, even after we have put in the extra feather bonus for new players. Probably our fault too.

The only thing where we "really dont listen" is that we will not make DS/HoH that easy again as it was before. But we said from day 1, we dont want this to be easy.

Fri 6 Dec 2019 1:53 PM by Valaraukar

Uthred wrote: ↑
Fri 6 Dec 2019 1:31 PM
Forlornhope wrote: ↑
Fri 6 Dec 2019 4:01 AM
This has, unfortunately, been the common theme with this server. Many people have said it, but they don't really listen.

There are trillion other ways to farm feathers than DS/HoH ---> https://forum.playphoenix.online/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=3216

Plus why do you think we put in this feather bonus during the whole december to different mobs/location? Maybe do give people that dont want to/cant run Ds/HoH give a possibility to get feathers too? Maybe to even help new players a bit?

New players can run DS / HoH, they just need some experienced players to show them. I wonder why this happens so rarely, even after we have put in the extra feather bonus for new players. Probably our fault too.

The only thing where we "really dont listen" is that we will not make DS/HoH that easy again as it was before. But we said from day 1, we dont want this to be easy.

I'm sorry Uthred but the feather multiplier for Raids has only one result: No one is in frontier while the raids are going.
I believe that it is not the solution to cover the gap between people who could farm HoH before and new player who never did it. Because people who farmed millions (literally) of feathers in HoH when it was easy now keeps on farming them in x3 raids... So where is the balance?
Maybe a good solution would be to create a new instance, easier than HoH, that gives significantly less feathers (maybe 5k/hour could be a good number).
Anyway, if you say that you did not intend HoH to be so easy since day 1..... why have you waited months before making it so hard now? Do you understand that the gap that has been created could never be filled in this way?

P.S. The "experienced" players do not show how to make runs to new players because it is a waste of time. Before HoH changes they were more ready to have 1 or 2 new players in party, because it was not difficult to do it even with them, but now, that is quite impossibile to do and requires a lot of time more, they do not want to waste time with new players at all.

Fri 6 Dec 2019 1:54 PM by Sixin2082

The feather bonus to sidi/dr/legion is great. It makes it easier for less than optimal groups to earn feathers and it helps new players get credit by encouraging more raids. Thank you for doing that.

To answer your other point as to why groups still aren't taking new players to ds/halls though. With the way the dungeons are set up, even when they were 'easy', you had to have a specific set up and everyone exactly needed to have a certain level of RAs just to get through it. At least on mid, I saw a lot of people willing to try and teach someone new the mechanics of it, and even a couple who were willing to buy new players Respec stones, but there is no cure for not being the right RR other than to go out and get that first.

I'm not saying that ds/hoh being for elite pve'rs is a problem. I'm just surprised that since it is designed like that, that the people who designed it take issue with the fact that it isn't noob friendly.

But, thank you very much for trying to keep tg and the other things people need for credit relevant. This is better for new players than any halls bonus you could add.

Fri 6 Dec 2019 2:27 PM by Sepplord

Valaraukar wrote: ↑
Fri 6 Dec 2019 1:53 PM
I believe that it is not the solution to cover the gap between people who could farm HoH before and new player who never did it. Because people who farmed millions (literally) of feathers in HoH when it was easy now keeps on farming them in x3 raids... So where is the balance?

i am not getting this part of your complaint...
if they had left DS/HoH as it was, then those people would also still be farming feathers

The huge featherboni are also (imo) not mainly to provide new players with feathers, but with encounters by making these bosses a valuable target for everyone else too

Fri 6 Dec 2019 7:10 PM by Forlornhope

Well the problem was having a great way to farm feathers with a small amount of people for months, letting people stockpile them and then drastically increasing the difficulty making it difficult for newer players to get groups doing these methods. We're aware there are other, far less efficient ways to farm feathers like lb/Cf/raum bosses. But frankly, they're not even a fair comparison to running DS/HoH efficiently. I do commend the feather bonuses for the SI stuff this month, as it will allow players to get credit for things they will need later on but that's all they really do. It's still nowhere near allows new people to close the gap between others who have farmed ds/hoh continuously for months. I am aware that yeah, no one ever really will and that it's a common theme for basically all MMOs. But you're really moving in the opposite direction, since the people who have already endlessly farmed it are still more than capable of continuing to do so. So, while I can only assume your intentions of not having either of these instances be easy you still erred. The people who you were trying to make this harder for really aren't effected by this change, the people who aren't going to get groups doing these things because they lack experience however will. In the past month I have literally never seen anyone on hib not spam that they will only take player with expirience to do either of these dungeons. They are literally more willing to not run the dungeon and sit spamming in lfg for hours rather than teach someone. I can't speak for mid, which I hear is a little more excepting. But hey, In the end it's your guys' server and you can do whatever you want.

Fri 6 Dec 2019 7:29 PM by Hodge

I do not play much anymore since it is hard as a solo player to get feather credit so I can use them. Can an alternative be made for solo players to get items? Maybe a tad lower stat than the current ones so they are still attractive?

Fri 6 Dec 2019 8:08 PM by Wolfir666

The only thing i do not really understand is the "max 2 of each class"-rule.
You know why?
Cause that is an Anti-Midgard-Rule.
You wonder why again?
Hibernia got 3 Classes with PBAE (Enchanter, Eldritch, Animist)
Albion got 2 Classes with PBAE (Wizard, Necromancer)
Midgard got 1 Class with PBAE (Spiritmaster)

So while other realms can go easily by that rule (especially Hibernia, seriously, think of that...)...
Midgard only can place max. 2 Bombs no matter what.

That's kinda.... unfair, isn't it?....

Fri 6 Dec 2019 10:18 PM by Forlornhope

Wolfir666 wrote: ↑
Fri 6 Dec 2019 8:08 PM
The only thing i do not really understand is the "max 2 of each class"-rule.
You know why?
Cause that is an Anti-Midgard-Rule.
You wonder why again?
Hibernia got 3 Classes with PBAE (Enchanter, Eldritch, Animist)
Albion got 2 Classes with PBAE (Wizard, Necromancer)
Midgard got 1 Class with PBAE (Spiritmaster)

So while other realms can go easily by that rule (especially Hibernia, seriously, think of that...)...
Midgard only can place max. 2 Bombs no matter what.

That's kinda.... unfair, isn't it?....

It's really a nerf to all realms, it nerfed Hibs ds and they rarely do HoH. That was their general source of farming feathers. Alb can't do more than two theurgs and the only time necros are in group they're power batteries. True it hit midgard pretty hard, but it also hit hib just as hard.

Fri 6 Dec 2019 10:21 PM by Forlornhope

Hodge wrote: ↑
Fri 6 Dec 2019 7:29 PM
I do not play much anymore since it is hard as a solo player to get feather credit so I can use them. Can an alternative be made for solo players to get items? Maybe a tad lower stat than the current ones so they are still attractive?

They've been harsh on most forms of solo farming, although they decided to nerf things much to late creating to much of a gap between players. The only option for solo farming is shredders, which requires DF so it's not really reliable.

Sat 7 Dec 2019 1:34 AM by Dadbodosteel

There have been 4 successful HoH runs since the last change as of yesterday, all on Hibernia. The reason for this is largely due to the class limitation hurting Albion and midgard more than Hibernia. The changes before this set made the instance hard enough as it was, hardly any sub 45 min runs. If your goal was for them to be hour plus long raids then you've achieved it. But this will result in the instances hardly being ran ever again. With the xp and feather changes you can directly see a decrease in new 50s for rvr, especially templated ones. This will result in far fewer players overall in rvr. A decrease in cost of feather items will be the best solution to the problem.

Sat 7 Dec 2019 2:09 PM by Sepplord

the realm bias glasses are out again in this thread... ^^

can't comment on HoH but DS, for example was done with only animists as DPS in the standard setup
midgard is then hit more in HoH because they only have one bomb calss and can'T stack bombs anymore (but wasn't just bombing everything nerfed in itself too?)

etc...

Sat 7 Dec 2019 4:19 PM by Lipsi

Valaraukar wrote: ↑
Fri 6 Dec 2019 1:53 PM
I believe that it is not the solution to cover the gap between people who could farm HoH before and new player who never did it. Because people who farmed millions (literally) of feathers in HoH .. why have you waited months before making it so hard now? Do you understand that the gap that has been created could never be filled in this way?

I do not understand why it is so important to fill the gap ? Yes, some people were able to farm may be millions of feathers, and they had them, used them and probably don't need more to fill vaults, ... They may be don't just sit on their millions feathers, which are a currency and as such, they are moving hands. Now, the situation is the same for old and new players alike, the difficulty is the same for all, so even tho it would take a colossal amount of time for a new player to stack millions of feathers under the new difficulty, that is not critical to new players, who in the end also benefit this mane of feathers already circulating (more feathers available to trade, more crafters ready to gift potions or craft them for cheap, guild vaults full of respecs stones). Moreover, that raises the question of how many feathers are necessary to get started. Somewhere between 40K and 100K is probably more than enough for a new player to get started and fully templated and the players are provided with many means to gather such a low amount.

Jammin wrote: I was hoping to offer a suggestion for HoH and DS farming. It would be nice to have the old HoH and DS mechanics and methods for a "normal mode" and decrease feathers to 5-10k per run, still decent rogs, etc. Then introduce a "challenge mode" HoH and DS that are worth 2-3x the feathers and double the rogs. Make it so only challenge mode qualifies for the leaderboards.

I like very much your idea of instances to be available in normal mode and challenge mode. It allows the same dungeon to reach a larger audience, it also helps in the learning curve for new players, until they feel confident to move on challenge mode, without penalizing too much experienced groups => it answers both new players needs and experienced players needs

I would suggest to rename your topic because "HOH & DS changes" can be perceived negatively (it just changed, that might imply that the changes aren't good and this is a post to complain about it, which it is not) to something more positive.

Sun 8 Dec 2019 9:20 PM by Valaraukar

Lipsi wrote: ↑
Sat 7 Dec 2019 4:19 PM
Valaraukar wrote: ↑
Fri 6 Dec 2019 1:53 PM
I believe that it is not the solution to cover the gap between people who could farm HoH before and new player who never did it. Because people who farmed millions (literally) of feathers in HoH .. why have you waited months before making it so hard now? Do you understand that the gap that has been created could never be filled in this way?

I do not understand why it is so important to fill the gap ? Yes, some people were able to farm may be millions of feathers, and they had them, used them and probably don't need more to fill vaults, ... They may be don't just sit on their millions feathers, which are a currency and as such, they are moving hands. Now, the situation is the same for old and new players alike, the difficulty is the same for all, so even tho it would take a colossal amount of time for a new player to stack millions of feathers under the new difficulty, that is not critical to new players, who in the end also benefit this mane of feathers already circulating (more feathers available to trade, more crafters ready to gift potions or craft them for cheap, guild vaults full of respecs stones). Moreover, that raises the question of how many feathers are necessary to get started. Somewhere between 40K and 100K is probably more than enough for a new player to get started and fully templated and the players are provided with many means to gather such a low amount.

Jammin wrote: I was hoping to offer a suggestion for HoH and DS farming. It would be nice to have the old HoH and DS mechanics and methods for a "normal mode" and decrease feathers to 5-10k per run, still decent rogs, etc. Then introduce a "challenge mode" HoH and DS that are worth 2-3x the feathers and double the rogs. Make it so only challenge mode qualifies for the leaderboards.

I like very much your idea of instances to be available in normal mode and challenge mode. It allows the same dungeon to reach a larger audience, it also helps in the learning curve for new players, until they feel confident to move on challenge mode, without penalizing too much experienced groups => it answers both new players needs and experienced players needs

I would suggest to rename your topic because "HOH & DS changes" can be perceived negatively (it just changed, that might imply that the changes aren't good and this is a post to complain about it, which it is not) to something more positive.

How do you not understand? On this server you can have almost infinite chars, and every one need its amount of feathers to template. So why new players should be limited in chars creation while "old" ones, the one who could farm feathers for months, can create anything they want, buy any item they want and sell it at the price they want.... Should I continue?
The simple fact that there is now a feather multiplier means that the gap must be filled in some way, and in my humble opinion this is not the right way. That's all.

Mon 9 Dec 2019 9:50 AM by Lipsi

Valaraukar wrote: ↑
Sun 8 Dec 2019 9:20 PM
So why new players should be limited in chars creation while "old" ones, the one who could farm feathers for months, can create anything they want, buy any item they want and sell it at the price they want....

Nobody is limited except by his desire to be farming for months... If a new player wants to spend a year (the time that the "old one" spent), i'm sure he will have tons of feathers as well even if the time frame may vary a little bit, with drop rates, difficulty changes, players experience, population size, availability of groups, time zone, etc. But feathers have not been removed from Phoenix.

Those doing 500+ DS runs certainly must love farming, those creating and templating 100 characters must love pve and levelling. Or you do it 2 times, buy your feathers and play your temped 1 or 2 characters. There are such people, i see in Hib, animists that can spend the whole day farming. If that what my case, i would probably be glad for an added pve challenge and a little change in the routine.

But it seems to me all this affects more the "old" ones, unhappy with decreased rate or increased difficulty, than the new players for whom it makes little difference anyway (groups willing to accept noobs still do, and majority of those refusing them already did before). Getting a DS / HoH group as a new player isn't a difficulty problem with dungeon, it is a mentality problem with players, and experienced was always asked before the change,when it was *so* easy (you sound like the feathers were given almost for free until now)

Thu 12 Dec 2019 2:26 AM by Nephamael

So far my groups are the only ones finishing HoH in all 3 realms. Here is my suggestions for changes to make it more noob friendly as my intention is to bring noobs through it but currently it's extraordinary challenging and disappointing to do so.

Most importantly: Feathers should go to all group members inside the instance no matter if they are close to the boss or not.

Ogoga: I strongly suggest to give 1 more second of time between getting a new color and the fireballs hitting, so people can call the switch and change sides when someone is rooted at the wrong place.

Zregoo: He could use 10% less HP to make it a little easier for noob grps, he will still be a challening encounter.

Mother of Ice: When standing at the wall one add is spawning inside the wall, needs a fix, else rly nice new challenging encounter

Maschunga: All in good shape, but it would feel less exhausting if he had 10% less HP, adds are hitting pretty hard so i'm sure he'll still be challenging enough.

My general opinion on the class changes is you should have made them a long time ago to open DS/HoH for more classes, thanks for the server and your great work

Best regards Xpovoc

Fri 13 Dec 2019 2:17 AM by Nephamael

Sadly i do not have mid or alb toons here to prove myself right, but i am sure someone will.
I think Mid and Alb have great group possibilities for changed HoH, here are my suggestions:

Mid: 4tanks, 2 bombs, sham, aug or 3spec healer // 3 tanks, 2 bombs, sham, healer, rm // 2 tanks, 2 bombs, 2 rms, sham, healer

Alb: 2 reavers, 2 theurgs, 2 wizards, 2 clerics (reavers are no must, just suggesting them for the cold debuff synergy, any shieldtank works)

-----------------------
general advice:
-bring 2 shieldtanks for slams and guard, it also works with 1 shieldtank and 1 tank with any form of very high defense and potential to keep aggro, eg: we did it with a battlewarden
-bring a bladeturn grp pulse, it rly helps making almost every encounter more smooth, use grp static bladeturn refresh
- if you run a low pbaoe dmg grp snipe 1 lizard, tank 1 lizard away from the grp, don't be afraid to kill 2 mobs first and delay the other 2
-focus on dealing with the adds on every boss encounter (i won't spoil too much)

gl and hf trying,
imo the new HoH is very fun and just needs some slight tweaks to make it a little more noob friendly

Best regards
Xpovoc

-----------------------------------------
edit: I was trying a off Meta lineup with 3 newbes today, we managed to finish in 2 hours and 14 minutes.
I think the time of HoH with some new players and no major delays should be at something like 1 hour 15 minutes, so a full expert group can clear in 40ish minutes. Else the overall PvE experience will feel somewhat painful and exhausting instead of challenging and fun.

I think to make HoH a fun and challenging instance for all 3 realms it is necessary to decrease HP of Ogoga, Zregoo, Mother of Ice and Maschunga, probably more than in my prior post, at least by 25% for Mother of Ice and Maschunga, 15% for Ogoga and 10% for Zregoo.

Mon 24 Feb 2020 11:28 AM by Valaraukar

Lipsi wrote: ↑
Mon 9 Dec 2019 9:50 AM
Valaraukar wrote: ↑
Sun 8 Dec 2019 9:20 PM
So why new players should be limited in chars creation while "old" ones, the one who could farm feathers for months, can create anything they want, buy any item they want and sell it at the price they want....

Nobody is limited except by his desire to be farming for months... If a new player wants to spend a year (the time that the "old one" spent), i'm sure he will have tons of feathers as well even if the time frame may vary a little bit, with drop rates, difficulty changes, players experience, population size, availability of groups, time zone, etc. But feathers have not been removed from Phoenix.

Those doing 500+ DS runs certainly must love farming, those creating and templating 100 characters must love pve and levelling. Or you do it 2 times, buy your feathers and play your temped 1 or 2 characters. There are such people, i see in Hib, animists that can spend the whole day farming. If that what my case, i would probably be glad for an added pve challenge and a little change in the routine.

But it seems to me all this affects more the "old" ones, unhappy with decreased rate or increased difficulty, than the new players for whom it makes little difference anyway (groups willing to accept noobs still do, and majority of those refusing them already did before). Getting a DS / HoH group as a new player isn't a difficulty problem with dungeon, it is a mentality problem with players, and experienced was always asked before the change,when it was *so* easy (you sound like the feathers were given almost for free until now)

Yes, in fact they were given almost for free... that's why many players used to run HoH 10 times a day. Because it was an effortless Feather Farming. The situation is completely different now, as I've said I have never done an HoH run because they are so rare now, and the devs decided to give a feather multiplier for "traditional" runs (Tuscaran Glacier and other epic dungeons) so now almost no one is making HoH or even DS (which deserves a special regard...why the Race and initial stats respec stones are still linked to DS encounter? It has no sense at all now, almost no one is running it so you can respec them only if you are lucky enough to have a friend who did it, or if you pay for them).
You can see by the "experienced" players' posts that now these runs are a pain, not a challenge. I'm not saying that whe should farm them again as it was before (anyway I still it unfair that some players have been able to farm them, creating a fortune in feathers and plats, for months before these changes that made HoH quite impossible to do). I'm just asking a balance, something that would make HoH worth doing again, not a pain that noone wants to do just because there is the "simple mode on" with Feather Multiplier on Epic Raids, which are the most boring things in Daoc ever.
Anyway I feat that this discussion is gone forever, and it is sad because it means that no one will never concern again about HoH and DS, wasting them into oblivion