Raid Zones

Luzionist · 10-08-2014, 03:51 PM

So the recap said that there is 6 new raid zones coming and with the opening post for this forum says that the new zone on beta atm is supposed to be on the difficulty of Accursed Sanctum, I have a couple of other questions on these zones

1. What are the names of the zones going to be

2. What is the intended difficulty progression on these zones

3. What is the size of the zones going to be

4. On the entry level raid zone what is the recommended itemization going to be

5. What are the 4 new avatars

6. Is there going to be a contested encounter outside of the avatars, and are the avatars going to be redone for loot etc.

Gninja · 10-08-2014, 04:57 PM

1. What are the names of the zones going to be
- Names of the zones are not finalized quite yet. So if you happen to see Raid zones hooked up to the doors in game they will likely show up as something somewhat generic such as "Brokenskull Bay [Raid]"

2. What is the intended difficulty progression on these zones
- Difficulty should start out around Accursed Sanctum difficulty in terms of complexity and difficulty will be based around having middle to top end heroic gear from this expansion (AoM) and it will range up to absolute most difficult in the game. The progression will basically be Zavith'Loa raid open from the start. Once the final boss in Zavith'Loa raid has been defeated it will unlock 2 more raid zones. Once the bosses of both of those raid zones have been defeated it will open up 2 more raid zones and once those final bosses are defeated it will open up the final zone.

3. What is the size of the zones going to be
- The bosses in each zone will range from 3 - 5 bosses per zone.

4. On the entry level raid zone what is the recommended itemization going to be
- Middle to high end heroic gear will be recommended for the entry level raid zone.

5. What are the 4 new avatars
- Not telling Smile

but none of them are ones currently spawning in the world.

6. Is there going to be a contested encounter outside of the avatars, and are the avatars going to be redone for loot etc.

- As of right now we only have plans for the avatars to be contested content. There are a few X2 contested bosses in the contested heroics. The current avatars that are spawning in the world will not be getting re-itemized. The new Avatars will pretty much be the top end items and are setup much like Drazaak/Lorokai was. The difficulty of the avatars is being balanced along the same line as the hardest encounters in the game.

Bloodguts · 10-08-2014, 05:55 PM

So there is no reason to kill the same Avatars we've been killing in the previous expansions?

That's a downer for me. Frown

R.I.P. Tunare, Prexus, Hounds of War, Drinal, Mith Marr, Rodcet, Sol Ro

Katanallama · 10-08-2014, 05:55 PM

Out of curiosity, how will 2/2 mystical armor / Maw jewelry geared characters faire in the raid content? Will we be dropping this gear for heroic drops, or will they still be viable into the new raid zones?

Arieste · 10-08-2014, 05:57 PM

By "setup like draazak" you mean that they'll be spawned via items acquired from regular raid content?

Ucala · 10-08-2014, 05:59 PM

I would assume it's the same as any other expac

Errrorr · 10-08-2014, 06:12 PM

You said when Wing 3 was released, it was meant to stay Relevent for a long time? How is this being dealt with? Or has that idea been scrapped.

konofo · 10-08-2014, 06:22 PM

The only data point I know of right now are the advanced armor recipes for level 100 mastercrafted gear. Most of the stats I saw fit roughly between 0/1 and 1/1 Energized, except with more stamina and mitigation.

Given the adjustments to mitigation and resist curves after level 95, I expect that those stats will be the biggest shortcoming of ToV raid gear in level 100 zones.

kono

Gninja · 10-08-2014, 06:57 PM

Correct. They will lock to whoever spawned them for the first pull only then will remain up until killed for a certain amount of time or until the zone restarts from inactivity.

headbusta · 10-08-2014, 07:51 PM

Any chance we can get the drops from the earlier zones to drop off end bosses of later zones as well, or some type of token drops to trade in for the drops we need. I know we pretty much stopped running Drazzak as soon as we ran out of items from Sanctum cause we weren't running Sanctum anymore, and it would have been nice if Zlandicar dropped the two items from Sanctum.

Gninja · 10-08-2014, 07:56 PM

The drops will be dropping toward the mid to end of the progression. The avatars are on the end of the difficulty scale so no reason to put the items in the easier zones this round.

Luzionist · 10-08-2014, 10:28 PM

So you are talking about flagging, is everyone in raid going to need to be flagged or just one person are the lockouts going to be short lockouts or are they going to be the long ones, and can we get a sneak peek at any of the proposed gear for the zones

Gninja · 10-08-2014, 10:30 PM

Only one person will need to meet the criteria to pull your whole raid into the zone. The zones will likely have normal style lockouts. 3-5 days more than likely. It will depend on how many bosses are in each zone and what the rate of entry for rewards is set to be.

You might get to see some of the raid gear later in beta but I don't know when or if that will happen.

Alenna · 10-09-2014, 03:25 AM

this had to be asked because hard mode raid from CoE exchanged their raid for ToV heroic instead of going to easy mode raiding like usual and those who were in easy mode raid had to do the solo questline in VI to get into heorics then to raiding. So is it going to be like most expansions or like ToV?

Ucala · 10-09-2014, 03:28 AM

no they didn't, HM CoE exchanged their gear for upgraded HM CoE, which was better than ToV heroic gear (except for some jewelry)

Estred · 10-09-2014, 07:14 AM

If you were in HM-CoE (killing Drinal 4, Amalgamon, Bastion the Immovable) chances are you were also contesting Avatars as there was a max of two or three guilds per server to bid against. Those players moved from CoE-HM to ToV-EM (Accursed Sanctum and Vulakaers/Temple-Heroic). They barely stopped in anything below Temple-Heroic.

If you were in middle Hard Mode, such as killing Ancient Sentinel and Baelon of Thule, you went to High Keep zones and Ishraktum (Stasis and Sactum).

If you were in EM-CoE yes, you went to beginner Heroics (Nexus and Hive) off the start of the expansion. I would hope that those who have cleared Guardian's Edifice (Zlandicar) can jump into Mid-Late Heroics and those who are in Deathtoll and Dreadscales gear can jump to EM-Raiding. It's hard given we have another Level Increase. Which means chances are, we are going to replace MOST gear with Heroics.

This is what happened in Sentinels Fate going from The Shadow Odyssey (Level 80 to 90) and going from Echoes of Faydwer to Rise of Kunark (70 to 80). This time were going from 95 to 100.

Buffrat · 10-09-2014, 08:12 AM

From how the new resist/mit scale looks, I imagine even anyone geared to the teeth in current raid gear will be replacing their gear with solo quested gear to even do the heroic zones. Hopefully this time around my dps won't be reliant on how many practiced items my group can acquire.

Salbain · 10-09-2014, 06:58 PM

Testing 1 raid zone.. what could possibly go wrong?

Gninja · 10-09-2014, 07:56 PM

More like testing 1 raid zone at a time...

Ucala · 10-09-2014, 07:57 PM

first the zone would actually have to be available, 90% of norrath is "zone is unavailable"

Gninja · 10-09-2014, 11:42 PM

It will be available soon(tm) we want to make sure that the solo zones etc get a good look before people start getting buffed up for raid testing etc. Also lets us get a few loose ends wrapped up in prep for the testing so we can dedicate more time to it.

Daalilama · 10-10-2014, 12:47 PM

Hmmm sounds interesting sort of and cant wait to get in there and test now if only the numerous bugs keeping myself and others from actually getting into the new zones TS, etc. could get a pass at a fix I'd be happy...

Luzionist · 10-15-2014, 04:37 PM

So has anyone gotten the opportunity to get into one of these raid zones for testing yet?

10-08-2014, 04:57 PM	#2
Gninja Developer Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 0	Luzionist said: ↑ “So the recap said that there is 6 new raid zones coming and with the opening post for this forum says that the new zone on beta atm is supposed to be on the difficulty of Accursed Sanctum, I have a couple of other questions on these zones” 1. What are the names of the zones going to be - Names of the zones are not finalized quite yet. So if you happen to see Raid zones hooked up to the doors in game they will likely show up as something somewhat generic such as "Brokenskull Bay [Raid]" 2. What is the intended difficulty progression on these zones - Difficulty should start out around Accursed Sanctum difficulty in terms of complexity and difficulty will be based around having middle to top end heroic gear from this expansion (AoM) and it will range up to absolute most difficult in the game. The progression will basically be Zavith'Loa raid open from the start. Once the final boss in Zavith'Loa raid has been defeated it will unlock 2 more raid zones. Once the bosses of both of those raid zones have been defeated it will open up 2 more raid zones and once those final bosses are defeated it will open up the final zone. 3. What is the size of the zones going to be - The bosses in each zone will range from 3 - 5 bosses per zone. 4. On the entry level raid zone what is the recommended itemization going to be - Middle to high end heroic gear will be recommended for the entry level raid zone. 5. What are the 4 new avatars - Not telling but none of them are ones currently spawning in the world. 6. Is there going to be a contested encounter outside of the avatars, and are the avatars going to be redone for loot etc. - As of right now we only have plans for the avatars to be contested content. There are a few X2 contested bosses in the contested heroics. The current avatars that are spawning in the world will not be getting re-itemized. The new Avatars will pretty much be the top end items and are setup much like Drazaak/Lorokai was. The difficulty of the avatars is being balanced along the same line as the hardest encounters in the game.

10-08-2014, 05:55 PM	#3
Bloodguts Active Member Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 2	Gninja said: ↑ “- As of right now we only have plans for the avatars to be contested content. There are a few X2 contested bosses in the contested heroics. The current avatars that are spawning in the world will not be getting re-itemized. The new Avatars will pretty much be the top end items and are setup much like Drazaak/Lorokai was. The difficulty of the avatars is being balanced along the same line as the hardest encounters in the game.” So there is no reason to kill the same Avatars we've been killing in the previous expansions? That's a downer for me. R.I.P. Tunare, Prexus, Hounds of War, Drinal, Mith Marr, Rodcet, Sol Ro

10-08-2014, 05:57 PM	#5
Arieste Well-Known Member Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 1	Gninja said: ↑ “The current avatars that are spawning in the world will not be getting re-itemized. The new Avatars will pretty much be the top end items and are setup much like Drazaak/Lorokai was. The difficulty of the avatars is being balanced along the same line as the hardest encounters in the game.” By "setup like draazak" you mean that they'll be spawned via items acquired from regular raid content?

10-08-2014, 05:59 PM	#6
Ucala Well-Known Member Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 0	Katanallama said: ↑ “Out of curiosity, how will 2/2 mystical armor / Maw jewelry geared characters faire in the raid content? Will we be dropping this gear for heroic drops, or will they still be viable into the new raid zones?” I would assume it's the same as any other expac

10-08-2014, 06:22 PM	#8
konofo Active Member Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 0	Katanallama said: ↑ “Out of curiosity, how will 2/2 mystical armor / Maw jewelry geared characters faire in the raid content? Will we be dropping this gear for heroic drops, or will they still be viable into the new raid zones?” The only data point I know of right now are the advanced armor recipes for level 100 mastercrafted gear. Most of the stats I saw fit roughly between 0/1 and 1/1 Energized, except with more stamina and mitigation. Given the adjustments to mitigation and resist curves after level 95, I expect that those stats will be the biggest shortcoming of ToV raid gear in level 100 zones. kono

10-08-2014, 03:51 PM	#1
Luzionist Member Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 0	So the recap said that there is 6 new raid zones coming and with the opening post for this forum says that the new zone on beta atm is supposed to be on the difficulty of Accursed Sanctum, I have a couple of other questions on these zones 1. What are the names of the zones going to be 2. What is the intended difficulty progression on these zones 3. What is the size of the zones going to be 4. On the entry level raid zone what is the recommended itemization going to be 5. What are the 4 new avatars 6. Is there going to be a contested encounter outside of the avatars, and are the avatars going to be redone for loot etc.

10-08-2014, 05:55 PM	#4
Katanallama Well-Known Member Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 0	Out of curiosity, how will 2/2 mystical armor / Maw jewelry geared characters faire in the raid content? Will we be dropping this gear for heroic drops, or will they still be viable into the new raid zones?

10-08-2014, 06:12 PM	#7
Errrorr Well-Known Member Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 0	You said when Wing 3 was released, it was meant to stay Relevent for a long time? How is this being dealt with? Or has that idea been scrapped.

10-08-2014, 06:57 PM	#9
Gninja Developer Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 0	Arieste said: ↑ “By "setup like draazak" you mean that they'll be spawned via items acquired from regular raid content?” Correct. They will lock to whoever spawned them for the first pull only then will remain up until killed for a certain amount of time or until the zone restarts from inactivity.

10-08-2014, 07:51 PM	#10
headbusta Member Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 0	Arieste said: ↑ “By "setup like draazak" you mean that they'll be spawned via items acquired from regular raid content?” Gninja said: ↑ “Correct. They will lock to whoever spawned them for the first pull only then will remain up until killed for a certain amount of time or until the zone restarts from inactivity.” Any chance we can get the drops from the earlier zones to drop off end bosses of later zones as well, or some type of token drops to trade in for the drops we need. I know we pretty much stopped running Drazzak as soon as we ran out of items from Sanctum cause we weren't running Sanctum anymore, and it would have been nice if Zlandicar dropped the two items from Sanctum.

10-08-2014, 07:56 PM	#11
Gninja Developer Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 0	The drops will be dropping toward the mid to end of the progression. The avatars are on the end of the difficulty scale so no reason to put the items in the easier zones this round.

10-08-2014, 10:28 PM	#12
Luzionist Member Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 0	So you are talking about flagging, is everyone in raid going to need to be flagged or just one person are the lockouts going to be short lockouts or are they going to be the long ones, and can we get a sneak peek at any of the proposed gear for the zones

10-08-2014, 10:30 PM	#13
Gninja Developer Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 0	Luzionist said: ↑ “So you are talking about flagging, is everyone in raid going to need to be flagged or just one person are the lockouts going to be short lockouts or are they going to be the long ones, and can we get a sneak peek at any of the proposed gear for the zones” Only one person will need to meet the criteria to pull your whole raid into the zone. The zones will likely have normal style lockouts. 3-5 days more than likely. It will depend on how many bosses are in each zone and what the rate of entry for rewards is set to be. You might get to see some of the raid gear later in beta but I don't know when or if that will happen.

10-09-2014, 03:25 AM	#14
Alenna Well-Known Member Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 0	Ucala said: ↑ “I would assume it's the same as any other expac” this had to be asked because hard mode raid from CoE exchanged their raid for ToV heroic instead of going to easy mode raiding like usual and those who were in easy mode raid had to do the solo questline in VI to get into heorics then to raiding. So is it going to be like most expansions or like ToV?

10-09-2014, 03:28 AM	#15
Ucala Well-Known Member Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 0	Alenna said: ↑ “this had to be asked because hard mode raid from CoE exchanged their raid for ToV heroic instead of going to easy mode raiding like usual and those who were in easy mode raid had to do the solo questline in VI to get into heorics then to raiding. So is it going to be like most expansions or like ToV?” no they didn't, HM CoE exchanged their gear for upgraded HM CoE, which was better than ToV heroic gear (except for some jewelry)

10-09-2014, 07:14 AM	#16
Estred Well-Known Member Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 0	Alenna said: ↑ “this had to be asked because hard mode raid from CoE exchanged their raid for ToV heroic instead of going to easy mode raiding like usual and those who were in easy mode raid had to do the solo questline in VI to get into heorics then to raiding. So is it going to be like most expansions or like ToV?” If you were in HM-CoE (killing Drinal 4, Amalgamon, Bastion the Immovable) chances are you were also contesting Avatars as there was a max of two or three guilds per server to bid against. Those players moved from CoE-HM to ToV-EM (Accursed Sanctum and Vulakaers/Temple-Heroic). They barely stopped in anything below Temple-Heroic. If you were in middle Hard Mode, such as killing Ancient Sentinel and Baelon of Thule, you went to High Keep zones and Ishraktum (Stasis and Sactum). If you were in EM-CoE yes, you went to beginner Heroics (Nexus and Hive) off the start of the expansion. I would hope that those who have cleared Guardian's Edifice (Zlandicar) can jump into Mid-Late Heroics and those who are in Deathtoll and Dreadscales gear can jump to EM-Raiding. It's hard given we have another Level Increase. Which means chances are, we are going to replace MOST gear with Heroics. This is what happened in Sentinels Fate going from The Shadow Odyssey (Level 80 to 90) and going from Echoes of Faydwer to Rise of Kunark (70 to 80). This time were going from 95 to 100.

10-09-2014, 08:12 AM	#17
Buffrat Well-Known Member Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 0	From how the new resist/mit scale looks, I imagine even anyone geared to the teeth in current raid gear will be replacing their gear with solo quested gear to even do the heroic zones. Hopefully this time around my dps won't be reliant on how many practiced items my group can acquire.

10-09-2014, 06:58 PM	#18
Salbain Member Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 0	Testing 1 raid zone.. what could possibly go wrong?

10-09-2014, 07:56 PM	#19
Gninja Developer Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 0	Salbain said: ↑ “Testing 1 raid zone.. what could possibly go wrong?” More like testing 1 raid zone at a time...

10-09-2014, 07:57 PM	#20
Ucala Well-Known Member Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 0	first the zone would actually have to be available, 90% of norrath is "zone is unavailable"

10-09-2014, 11:42 PM	#21
Gninja Developer Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 0	It will be available soon(tm) we want to make sure that the solo zones etc get a good look before people start getting buffed up for raid testing etc. Also lets us get a few loose ends wrapped up in prep for the testing so we can dedicate more time to it.

10-10-2014, 12:47 PM	#22
Daalilama Well-Known Member Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 0	Hmmm sounds interesting sort of and cant wait to get in there and test now if only the numerous bugs keeping myself and others from actually getting into the new zones TS, etc. could get a pass at a fix I'd be happy...

10-15-2014, 04:37 PM	#23
Luzionist Member Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 0	So has anyone gotten the opportunity to get into one of these raid zones for testing yet?