Patch 6.10: Hard Mode Raids

Summary
We had a total blast pushing our way through the increased difficulty! We didn’t run into any critical blocking bugs or issues, but many of the persistent client issues make performing hard content an exercise in hoping that no one has a client problem for the length of the fight. There are a number of potential balance issues/questions, particularly on the first few bosses, as well as potential exploit cases mostly on the third. The 5th boss has a significant number of issues related to the hell dimension mechanic, but the worst ones were largely addressed when playing through normal.

As always, please let us know if we can provide any additional information on any listed issues, and all feedback is given in the spirit of wanting to support the game as much as possible.

Issues Observed!

General

  • We had a fairly significant number of desynchs, crashes, and spontaneous load screens throughout the night. This happens on all content, but it’s extra problematic with hard mode raids where everything is balanced within extremely tiny success tolerances. (There is also a relatively new type of desynch, where others see you moving around, but you can’t be healed and abilities seem to misfire until you relog)
  • We had a number of client objects be invisible, including acid pools and AE telegraphs. This always rarely happens, and relogging usually helps stave it off for a while, but again, long form content with minimal leeway exacerbates the impact of this
  • The longer a fight goes, the more graphical lag will begin to pile up (as mentioned in another thread). This always happens, but as it’s an escalating issue, is greatly exacerbated on 10 minute long raid fights
  • Ambient audio largely doesn’t work but will occasionally be faintly heard or suddenly loudly heard for brief moments (extra noticeable with unique crypt audio). This also seems to be associated with relogging.
  • Often times hitting Go To Graveyard will not successfully clear aggro, and the boss will stay aggressive on your corpse or just in general, which prevents everyone else from respawning. Our approach to this is to have everyone repeatedly hit Go To Graveyard until it finally works.

Raid Specific

Boss 1

  • We were able to heal through the blizzard effects without using the campfire (Possibly intended?)

Boss 2

  • The damage from add death was pretty manageable, similar to normal mode (Possibly intended, due to additional vindictive mechanic?)

Boss 3

  • As mentioned in a separate thread, boss 3’s primary mechanic can be trivialized by teleporting at a specific time (We did not take advantage of this)
  • Boss 3’s jump impact damage can individually crit, which has a disproportionate impact on low health classes
  • Quickly pulling Boss 3 to the alternate tier of floor than where the room-wide AE is hitting can cause the room-wide AE to do no damage (We did not take advantage of this)

Boss 4

  • I believe this was related to the escalating lag mentioned above, but we had a handful of times where spells went right through the bells without registering. (~3 times out of the entire fight, so it was rare, but it can have a significant impact). The escalating lag was particularly rough on this fight for whatever reason, but it was present on others, such as the 5th.
  • On boss 4 the tankbuster animation can be interrupted or not play at all if the boss is moving. This can lead to a tank buster with no indication it’s coming surprising a tank.
  • The super long corridor AE (happens on both boss 4 and 5) will do no damage if someone is at high/near-max distance from the boss when it hits

Boss 5

  • Boss 5’s acid pools can individually crit each tick (may be deliberate?)
  • Demon in personal hell can sometimes not spawn at all, not spawn right away, not aggro, get bugged out if it triggers unbending on a target with it’s finishing move (Mentioned in separate thread)
  • Players can get hit by AE in hell if timing is just right/wrong
  • Players can get stuck in hell after boss resets if timing is just right/wrong (There is a theory that this only happens if a player unbends to demon finishing move and resets)
  • Rarely, players can get sent to hell (with no demon visible) but everyone will still see you in the main room. Then you get teleport shifted in hell when someone else gets sent to yours
  • On normal mode, we consistently (for the ~4 times we did it) had about 4 out of 10 of our members receive capes on defeating the final boss each time. This time 0 of 10 of our raiders did. It could be RNG, but that seems like a pretty significant variance for bad luck. (Mentioned above)