UnOfficial Cathedral of Pain Feedback
By
0zymandous,
Posted on: 2006-05-07 07:39 in Developers' Corner
My feeling is that they've got it pretty much right with this version. Any SG large enough to be able to get a raid ready base together should also have a good chance of beating the trial.
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My feeling is that they've got it pretty much right with this version. Any SG large enough to be able to get a raid ready base together should also have a good chance of beating the trial.
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I have to agree with Sadako now. With the last incarnation of the IoP Trial, I feared we'll have a redux of the Hamidon situation, with only one SG being able to defeat it and lording it over us for months until the rest of the server found out the trick.
This new version appears to be both a challenge and easy enough for even the most casual of SG. I would hate to see only the top 5 SGs/VGs on a server being able to compete in base raids because only they had the numbers/voice chat necessary to defeat it.
As for it sounding "too easy," I learned in CoV beta to never gauge difficulty with testers. I know myself and others in CoV Beta had no problem with the respec trial. But the casual players who got to it when CoV was released did.
Current Badge Hunter: Plot Device (Rad/Thermal/Dark) - 1,268 Xbox Live: Friggin Taser
King of Electricity, Lead Inmate running the Carl and Sons asylum, the "Man" behind the Establishment, Given Honor in Hat Form By Paragon City (Favorite Forum Poster 2006!), Master of Ceremonies of the Fair Use Law podcast
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I would hate to see only the top 5 SGs/VGs on a server being able to compete in base raids because only they had the numbers/voice chat necessary to defeat it.
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That's one of the keys right there. Voice chat. Granted, it's easy enough for practially anyone to get Vent or TS and just listen in, but on the other hand, should voice chat be required? Since I wasn't on Vent, I had trouble keeping up with everything that was going on during the CaS test. Many of the people who showed up were either listening to Vent or had done the IoP trial before and had at least a general idea of what to expect, where to go, what to do, etc.
I felt more than a little lost, more than once, but I did, barely, manage to keep up despite not having access to instantly spoken directions and clarifications.
And I think that's right where it should be. If the difficulty were increased to a point of requiring vocal coordination, I don't see this, or base raids, ever being widely successful or enjoyable. Voice comms may be relatively common, but they aren't universal, aren't included with the games (which would give people who don't know about Vent or TS something to start with, or incentive for others who just don't like using voice chat), and shouldn't be factored into the difficulty.
One bug I just remembered.
On our second run-through, several members on one team were not able to enter the trial (myself with star included). We had to quit the team, then we were able to enter the raid teleporter.
Perhaps this has something to do with the current bug on Live involving teaming and raid teleporters? Anyways, I /bugged it, but I don't think anyone else did.
Planning on running it again tonight in about half an hour.
Aight, new testing results.
Lemme go ahead and summarize the whole of our previous testing results:
1) The other night, we were able to easily defeat Cathedral with >20 assorted players on three reasonably well-balanced teams. We verified that the First Phase of the Trial no longer requires simultaneous destruction of the Obelisks; this remained constant in our other attempts. Upon zoning into the Main Room, we observed something novel -- several Wisps appeared to be on patrol routes, bringing them into near-instant aggro range of the door. Most of our Raid Party zoned in to immediate aggro. In this testing run, the initial aggro at the door chained us to the nearest two Willforges, which had spawns. After defeating those spawns quickly, we backed up against the wall and proceeded around the periphery of the room to the Willforge nearest Aspect, noting that neither of the previous two Willforges had respawned at all. Clearing the last Willforge and defeating Aspect was quick and trivial, and we were rewarded with a Fury Monument.
2) Tonight, we wanted to see how a small team would perform against Cathedral, so we took in an assortment of 3 Blasters, 2 Scrappers and 3 Controllers (with Rad, Emp and Kin). The First Phase was defeated quickly. Upon reaching the Main Room, we did not encounter any immediate aggro as before. We proceeded to defeat the first Willforge spawn on the left, before proceeding to the second Willforge on the right. After defeating those spawns, we did not observe any further respawns, before continuing on to the third Willforge and defeating Aspect. We were rewarded with Anger Monument.
3) In order to more explicitly test the respawn mechanism in the Main Room, we immediately restarted the Trial with the same 8-man team as before. The First Phase was defeated quickly. Upon reentering the Main Room, we did not encounter any immediate aggro, as before. We proceeded to engage the first Willforge on the left, before immediately proceeding to the second Willforge on the right. In contrast to our previous attempts, the Willforges continually respawned at semi-regular intervals (on the 0:20 second marks on the timer, in confirmation of testing during the previous Cathedral testing cycle).
As of present, we do not fully understand the respawn mechanism. Beinig unable to fully clear the room before players had to log (our second Cathedral in a row, mind you) -- we'd made the following observations:
a) The Willforge spawns appear to follow very odd aggro mechanisms. Snipe pulling a single target, in one instance (a Storm Elemental), caused that mob to fly away across the room. A Controller finished off that mob while he was near the other Willforge, pulling the aggro from that spawn. Another single target pull of a Wisp Overlord caused the entire Willforge spawn to fly away and scatter throughout the room.
b) Aggroed Willforge spawns will follow out the door of the Main Room.
c) At one point, we had cleared the first two Willforge spawns with no resulting respawn. However, aggroing the third Willforge, near Aspect, was coincident with respawns at the first two boxes. We are not certain of a causal triggering relationship.
So what do we have in conclusion?
In three instances of testing, subtle differences between each Trial suggests several possiblities. The Devs may have patched some of the aggro mechanics today; there may be bugs associated with this -- we're not clear. Most importantly, we do not have consistent experience with the respawn mechanism on the Willforges. It's possible there may be some randomization elements to the Trial which could also explain those inconsistencies.
The CoP trial was completed with a kinda-sorta Pickup SG raid. and we succeeded so its very possible by competent gorups
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The CoP trial was completed with a kinda-sorta Pickup SG raid. and we succeeded so its very possible by competent gorups
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We had several pick-ups in our first large-group attempt at Cathedral. With a little explanation and patience, everyone picked it up rather readily. Even with those pickups, the whole affair took less than fifteen minutes from portal to portal.
I'd definitely agree that in that instance, with large-numbers, PuGs are probably going to be just fine.
With the strange aggro and respawn mechanics we saw in our third go-round, I might be concerned that even a larger team of PuGs would still be confounded.
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The CoP trial was completed with a kinda-sorta Pickup SG raid. and we succeeded so its very possible by competent gorups
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Oh yes, we're definitely not saying otherwise. In fact, if anything, the fact that we did it with only 8 people today proves that.
I think what we're looking for is a bit more anecdotal evidence of others seeing the disparity we saw between our second and third runs today. Like Flamer said, the second time we did it was cake with 8 people. But the third run seems something happened. It was almost like a completely different trial.
So I think what we're looking for is some evidence here to answer a few questions:
1. Did we somehow manage to have just really good luck the first two runs killing the box spawns before they respawned?
2. Is there some kind of bug that prevented the boxes from respawning the first two times we did it but didn't mere minutes later when we tried it again with the exact same team?
3. Is there some kind of built in mechanic that makes the IoP Trial get progressively harder the more and more IoPs you have?
4. Why is aggro so wonky in the Aspect room itself?
5. Is there some kind of special trigger that determines whether a box will or won't respawn?
Hopefully with more findings posted in this thread, we can iron out the details before this goes live.
Current Badge Hunter: Plot Device (Rad/Thermal/Dark) - 1,268 Xbox Live: Friggin Taser
King of Electricity, Lead Inmate running the Carl and Sons asylum, the "Man" behind the Establishment, Given Honor in Hat Form By Paragon City (Favorite Forum Poster 2006!), Master of Ceremonies of the Fair Use Law podcast
One thing I've got to stress here:
We're on the test server. We're testing a new raid that opens the door for an entire field of content for the entire game.
This is not the time for petty supergroup secrecy. What you might think is your SG/VG "cracking the code" to the trial could actually be a bug. Here is where we need to share all the data we can such as teamsizes that completed it, tactics used, box respawn activity, etc.
The testing Flamer, FashionSense, and I have done and posted about have shown that there might be larger, gamebreaking bugs to this trial that could severely hamper the completition of it for smaller SGs.
So, I ask of you: use the test server/forum for what it's meant for: testing something and then posting what you find. This is not a way for you to get a preview of future content only. Do everyone in the game a favor and post what you find so, if there is a bug, we can get it squashed before this hits live.
Current Badge Hunter: Plot Device (Rad/Thermal/Dark) - 1,268 Xbox Live: Friggin Taser
King of Electricity, Lead Inmate running the Carl and Sons asylum, the "Man" behind the Establishment, Given Honor in Hat Form By Paragon City (Favorite Forum Poster 2006!), Master of Ceremonies of the Fair Use Law podcast
Wow, this sounds less "raid like" then it was originaly sounding. It actually sounds like it might be alot of fun! I'm looking forward to trying this out.
Attemped the trial again with a team of 8 people. This was not a pug, all of us have played together many times and all of us are good to excellent players.
Team consisted of: (all lvl 50 unless noted)
Invuln/SS tank
Fire/Kin/Psi troller
Fire/Kin/Force troller - level 49
Illusion/Emp/Psi troller
Illusion/Emp/Force troller
Ice/Kin/? troller
Elec/Elec Blaster - level 44
Ice/Ice Blaster
First part of the trial was quick and painless. Once we got to the room, we did not experience immediate agro. Proceeded to the spawn on the left, defeated it. Defeated the next willforge spawn. While we were defeating the 3rd spawn, both of the previous wilforges simultaneously respawned.
All three willforges continued to respawn at a very quick pace. We used Warburg rockets, Amy Johnson's, every temp power and normal power we had, but could not wipe away the spawns completely.
At one point, the AV, while still in a bubble, started successfully attack members of our team and killing them. It was my understanding from the way he acted in our previous two attempts that he could not affect us until out of his bubble. We could not attack him but the tank could taunt him away, all while the AV (still in a darn bubble!) was killing several teammates.
About 40 minutes into the timer three members had to log, however it was time to give up anyway. Team makeup was strong and others have completed it with 8, this leaves me to believe with the others that this trial still has some major bugs.
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3. Is there some kind of built in mechanic that makes the IoP Trial get progressively harder the more and more IoPs you have?
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We had 2 IOPs, the momument of resistance and of fury. Both other trials were completed with 15 people and 10 people, respectively.
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At one point, the AV, while still in a bubble, started successfully attack members of our team and killing them. It was my understanding from the way he acted in our previous two attempts that he could not affect us until out of his bubble. We could not attack him but the tank could taunt him away, all while the AV (still in a darn bubble!) was killing several teammates.
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Even in our successful run, the AV could attack with his bubble on. We stacked debuffs on him basically out of habit, but I'm not sure whether they had any effect.
In the successful run all 3 Willforge spawns started coming back just as we beat the AV. It's possible that we just got lucky and finished with seconds to spare, but it seemed like we spent much longer without respawns on that run.
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We had 2 IOPs, the momument of resistance and of fury. Both other trials were completed with 15 people and 10 people, respectively.
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This might be the red herring we're looking for.
First time we did it with a group of 18-20 people with no problem. Second time we did it with a group of 8 people, also without a problem. As Fashion said, it appeared the wellforges respawned after we took down The Aspect both those times and, like him, I can swear we took longer than a minute to take down all the wellforges and Aspect himself.
The third time (with the exact same 8 person team we had for the second run) we did it, we noticed the wellforges respawning every minute on the minute. We had two Items of Power.
Everything you described, icedone, is what we witnessed, too, in our third run. It was like a completely different trial from the second run we had just completed minutes earlier with no difficulty.
Could the culprit be the number of Items of Power your SG has at the time?
Edit: For the record, our team for the 2nd and 3rd runs was:
Level 50 Mind/Rad Controller
Level 50 Illusion/Empathy Controller
Level 50 Gravity/Kinetic Controller
Level 50 Fire/Fire Blaster
Level 50 Fire/Devices Blaster
Level 44 Ice/Energy Blaster
Level 50 Dark/SR Scrapper
Level 50 Dark/Regen Scrapper
All experienced players who have previous IoP Trial experience, most of which were part of the first successful attempt with the larger team.
Current Badge Hunter: Plot Device (Rad/Thermal/Dark) - 1,268 Xbox Live: Friggin Taser
King of Electricity, Lead Inmate running the Carl and Sons asylum, the "Man" behind the Establishment, Given Honor in Hat Form By Paragon City (Favorite Forum Poster 2006!), Master of Ceremonies of the Fair Use Law podcast
I believe you are right. We have been running the trial about every two days, and I am sure a lot of us can help do it again tomorrow night (tonight we have a Live tf). If you'd like to combine forces and try it again with a larger group I'm sure that would be cool. Most of us are in channel "Goldfish United" (lol).
Sounds good.
The way we should go about this is start doing a run with only 1 IoP and testing the recharge times. If the are anything more than 1 minute, then the recharge times are directly linked to the amount of IoPs you currently have.
Current Badge Hunter: Plot Device (Rad/Thermal/Dark) - 1,268 Xbox Live: Friggin Taser
King of Electricity, Lead Inmate running the Carl and Sons asylum, the "Man" behind the Establishment, Given Honor in Hat Form By Paragon City (Favorite Forum Poster 2006!), Master of Ceremonies of the Fair Use Law podcast
then try bringing lik 25 ppl to the trial with 2 iop's in your sg to see if you can beat it, then try it with your 3rd IoP
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Villains stand a good chance against Heroes. I've seen it first hand in base raids.
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yes but not when they are 10 levels behind and lacking hami'os
Also no one before this point has had to fight heros with Focused acc, FON, and a few other very strong APP powers.
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and since schedulers can choose whether to attack a hero or villain group in a raid, the villains are going to get picked on very quickly. Even by other villains who don't want to face a defending hero group.
Is this still active? I can't get it to work, gives me some message about the dimensional frequencies not being in tune.
I have:
8 rooms
6 anchors
Raid TPer
Rez ring
Base Computer
Vault with IOP Base
Power and Control to all items
Am I forgetting a requirement?
If everything is in line, try another character. Some have a weird bug where it wont allow one character to start it, but another allows it to.
and with this stickied now it seems O-o remove the Un part of it 
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Is this still active? I can't get it to work, gives me some message about the dimensional frequencies not being in tune.
I have:
8 rooms
6 anchors
Raid TPer
Rez ring
Base Computer
Vault with IOP Base
Power and Control to all items
Am I forgetting a requirement?
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We're haveing the same problem... any solutions out there?
The Cathedral of Pain is on a special timer to keep Items of Power in circulation through mainly base raids. It's available for 5 days every 60 days I think.
Seems like they didn't turn off the timer this go round, since it's now unavailable exactly 5 days later.
Current Badge Hunter: Plot Device (Rad/Thermal/Dark) - 1,268 Xbox Live: Friggin Taser
King of Electricity, Lead Inmate running the Carl and Sons asylum, the "Man" behind the Establishment, Given Honor in Hat Form By Paragon City (Favorite Forum Poster 2006!), Master of Ceremonies of the Fair Use Law podcast
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Is this still active? I can't get it to work, gives me some message about the dimensional frequencies not being in tune.
I have:
8 rooms
6 anchors
Raid TPer
Rez ring
Base Computer
Vault with IOP Base
Power and Control to all items
Am I forgetting a requirement?
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We're haveing the same problem... any solutions out there?
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I know you said power and control to all items, but check the mission computer again. It should be connected to the control. At first we had the same problem, then remembered that we had Arcane control and a Tech Mission Computer. Fixed the control and everything worked fine.
Also, try adding another room. You may be counting the secret entrance, which does not count for base raids.
Do we even know what kinda bonuses we get with IoPs? Like the magnitude?
Because honestly not xp/inf/pres but plenty of debt sounds like they'll be building this for powergaming villain groups and for the hero groups already stocked with 50s...
The only thing that sounds good for is getting debt to pay off for debt badges...but then you can't even make payments in the trial...the magnitude of the IoP buffs would have to be pretty great for anyone under 50 to bother trying for it. No matter how "balanced" it is people will die.
Wait, what's the reasoning for disallowing xp gain during the trial? Would it be abusive in some way? How?
It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
-- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World
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Yup, that appears to be the case at the moment - I'd like to see the simultaneous element back as it does provide a nice challenge, however I'm not sure how close to each other they needed to be destroyed before - but I think 2 minutes would be a good number to aim for.
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In figuring out workable strategies for this phase of the Trial (I call the strat Delayed Gratification, for those of you in the know), it seemed to me like there were several arguably conflicting principles at work:
1) Reasonably well-balanced teams seemed quite important. There seemed to be a good role for every AT in the Trial, especially the first part. Unlike, say, Hamidon - there's nothing really even resembling a superfluous powerset in Cathedral.
2) There was simply a non-scaling hard-gate on sheer manpower. The spawns didn't appear to differ, in terms of relative con and numbers. The previous "Tough" Cathedral probably couldn't be completed by less than eight players in most circumstances, although I am aware of some claims in that regard.
3) Likewise, the one most appealing thing (to me, at least) about Cathedral was that it required coordination of players across teams -- in a manner not really seen outside of Hamidon or, arguably, Lusca. Simple communication becomes that much more challenging, and that much more necessary.
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I think the lair section isn't too bad at the moment - however he does go down very quickly with a full-sized trial party. I wouldn't want him to be buffed too much if it made taking him down too difficult for smaller sized trial parties though.
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In all fairness, it seems that high-end raid content in CoX suffers from these problems of accessibility-versus-challenge that appear to be common in other raid-heavy MMOs like WoW. While there are plenty of good arguments for or against scaling, remember that Cathedral itself is not necessarily an end-unto-itself -- it serves as a gateway to the Base Raid mechanic, so it seems likely that some degree of fine-tuning would be needed to ensure that enough SGs are capable of reliably completing Cathedral, without making it so accessible that it negates the need for having an SG of any notable size or coordination.