Official Hunter's Vale Dungeon Feedback Megathread

[Aluviya]

Official Hunter's Vale Dungeon Feedback Megathread

Hunter's Vale


Hunter's Vale has been re-introduced to Return of Reckoning in the 2024 - Wild Hunt Patch , and can be enjoyed with completely restored and working mechanics for all PvE enthusiasts. These restored mechanics mean on the other hand that Hunter's Vale might be a tad bit more challenging than before, as new mechanics will have to be learnt.

Part of the current PvE Development Goal is to restore all dungeons and their mechanics to their original form before the Ability Rework, as they were or better. It is important to clarify, that the goal isn't to make PvE Content and Dungeons Harder in Return of Reckoning, but actually to make it easier - where we can - than before the Ability Rework, while still offering an authentic experience that both we and the players can be proud of, representing the Warhammer Fantasy Universe.


Important! This thread is for Hunter's Vale Feedback about mechanics, monsters, bosses and their abilities in order to help us fine-tune them and set the intended difficulty.
The thread is not to ask for removing PvE, Dungeon Lockouts or to remove Dungeon Mechanics - please respect it!
Post Converted into Megathread by Hazmy - Community Management



Greetings PvE enthusiasts,

Firstly, I want to express my gratitude for the recent reimplementation of PvE content. It's been a refreshing addition to our gameplay experience. However, as someone who organizes daily PvE runs, I'd like to share my perspective on the current state of Gunbad and HV dungeons.

General Feedback:

• Incorporate core game elements into boss mechanics rather than relying solely on granting them supernatural abilities. The game thrives on buffs, debuffs, and the interplay between them, which should be central to boss encounters. For instance, there are many classes that can shatter enchantments or buffs - incorporating these elements could enhance the encounters.

• There seems to be an overabundance of crowd control (CC) abilities among mobs, with some being used too frequently and with too low cooldowns. This can result in frustrating situations where players are continuously CC'd once their immunity wears off.

Gunbad Feedback:

• Boss Left Wing: The phase where the boss becomes immune and untargetable feels excessively long, to the point where players can even drop out of combat. I urge for consideration of integrating core game mechanics into this phase, aligning with the general feedback provided.

• General Trash Mobs: The number of CC abilities possessed by mobs in what is essentially a "beginner" dungeon may need adjustment to provide a smoother progression experience.

HV Feedback:

• Spite Boss: The Spite adds' powerful silence ability feels overpowered, especially when factoring in the abundance of CC mentioned earlier. Additionally, most tanks struggle to maintain aggro due to the rapid respawn rate of these adds.

• Last Boss: While the mechanic involving spears on the ground adds an exciting layer of challenge, the subsequent phase with the absorb shield feels disproportionately difficult (in terms of requiring way too long to clear). Even with a composition of 1 healer, 1 offensively specced tank, and 4 DPS, the boss takes an excessive amount of time to clear. This likely makes the encounter way overprolonged for groups using a more standard 2 tank, 2 healer, 2 DPS setup.

[Hugatsaga]

Greetings PvE enthusiasts,

Firstly, I want to express my gratitude for the recent reimplementation of PvE content. It's been a refreshing addition to our gameplay experience. However, as someone who organizes daily PvE runs, I'd like to share my perspective on the current state of Gunbad and HV dungeons.

General Feedback:

• Incorporate core game elements into boss mechanics rather than relying solely on granting them supernatural abilities. The game thrives on buffs, debuffs, and the interplay between them, which should be central to boss encounters. For instance, there are many classes that can shatter enchantments or buffs - incorporating these elements could enhance the encounters.

• There seems to be an overabundance of crowd control (CC) abilities among mobs, with some being used too frequently and with too low cooldowns. This can result in frustrating situations where players are continuously CC'd once their immunity wears off.

Gunbad Feedback:

• Boss Left Wing: The phase where the boss becomes immune and untargetable feels excessively long, to the point where players can even drop out of combat. I urge for consideration of integrating core game mechanics into this phase, aligning with the general feedback provided.

• General Trash Mobs: The number of CC abilities possessed by mobs in what is essentially a "beginner" dungeon may need adjustment to provide a smoother progression experience.

HV Feedback:

• Spite Boss: The Spite adds' powerful silence ability feels overpowered, especially when factoring in the abundance of CC mentioned earlier. Additionally, most tanks struggle to maintain aggro due to the rapid respawn rate of these adds.

• Last Boss: While the mechanic involving spears on the ground adds an exciting layer of challenge, the subsequent phase with the absorb shield feels disproportionately difficult (in terms of requiring way too long to clear). Even with a composition of 1 healer, 1 offensively specced tank, and 4 DPS, the boss takes an excessive amount of time to clear. This likely makes the encounter way overprolonged for groups using a more standard 2 tank, 2 healer, 2 DPS setup.

Good post. Few thoughts on some points you mentioned:

Introduce more mechanics with shattering buffs (and/or cleasing debuffs):

I don't hate the idea as long as it doesn't get taken overboard (ie failing to shatter x type of buff from enemy or clease x type for debuff from ally leads to wipe for insance). This is because WAR/ROR has multiple buff (blessing, enchantment) and debuff (ailment, curse, hex) types and not all classes have access to shatter x buff type and it's not great if you have to be extremely selective with people/classes you take for your runs, especially during low pop hours when there is not that much to choose from. That being said, it would be cool if for instance, some dungeon boss would have absorb shield (let's say buff type is "blessing") which needs around 200k dmg to dps through but can be severed with sever blessing and the boss casts it say 2-3 times per fight. That way you get rewarded for having right class in the run and pressing right button at the right time but penalty for not bringing say WH or IB to dungeon run is not too severe. However if same boss would cast it 50 times per fight it would lead to discrimination (in lack of better word) towards certain classes.

Mobs spam random cc:

Yes no way around this, it just sucks. Actually I rephrase: getting cc'd RANDOMLY with NO COUNTERPLAY sucks. Trash mobs casting cc abilities makes sense in World of Warcraft where you can see their castbars and can interrupt/cc the adds ie there is actual counterplay and way to prevent getting cc'd. There actually was similar in few boss encounters in war (Bilerot 1st boss aoe silence cast could be interrupted with taunt, Gunbad troll cc animation (it did kb before iirc) could be interrupted with taunt, Gunbad right wing end boss could be taunted to stop his knockback right after he yelled kablooey etc) and I don't hate those, actually I thought those were really cool. So CC is ok as long as there is counterplay but randomly getting staggered for ~5 seconds (or stunned, disarmed, silenced for that matter) with no chance of counterplay is just annoying and should not exist unless part of actual mechanic (and in that case there is counterplay for it like bastion boss throws you to his hounds and other people need to go kill hounds to bail out that player).

Gunbad left wing boss:

Yes this is braindead mechanic right now: literally go afk for ~10 seconds because you can't do anything after clearing adds. Easy fix would be make him immune only duration adds are up and as soon as you managed to clear adds you can hit boss again ie get rewarded for fast add clear. Add mob hp values can be buffed or there can be more adds spawning if you want to make this more difficult or not reduce overall time per boss. Some other mechanic that makes people play the game is ok too. Literally any mechanic. Even old low hp bouncy mechanic was way better but tbh that led too long downtime so ppl would go have to afk/wait until going back in.

[Groning1]

Why dont you just beg them to port you to the end with a chest full of gear so its as easy as possible for you to complete # jedi can show you the way

[R1CH]

After running 4 times:

- The first fight is only challenging at the start when you have all the adds picked up from running to the boss also fighting you. After that it feels like the bosses have too much HP and no interesting mechanics so it just takes a lot of time.

- Sprites fight feels good to me, HP and rate of sprites spawning is enough to be manageable yet can still kill an unguarded DPS or healer if they pull too many.

- Tree boss also feels a bit boring, no real mechanics here other than just tank and spank.

- Hound / lion mini bosses also seem to lack mechanics but at least they are over quickly.

- Fight before the lion/lioness feels easier than before, previously the boss would do a move standing on its rear legs which dealt huge damage to the person holding aggro and could even kill a well geared tank, this required careful use of defensive morales and targeted heals. Now it seems to do low damage to the whole group which is easily ignored.

- Lion/lioness fight is still cheesable where if you stand at the left you can engage only the lion, subverting the intended mechanics.

- The Kurnous fight feels good, though one of the gates is bugged and cannot be attacked (cannot see target despite standing on top of it). I have occasionally had a spear not be visible until it was too late. Although the sprites corpses are removed on death, something still seems to build up either on the client or server that prevents some things from being visible (e.g. Kurnous doesn't re-appear until he's very close to you). The part with the granted abilities still feels confusing, it's not obvious when to use these and you can still complete the encounter without them with no apparent side effects.

Overall I find the dungeon well tuned balance-wise, I've run it in the R55-R65 range as a DPS which I feel is about the intended level for it and it was fairly straightforward. It does feel a bit easier than before the rework but it could also be luck from having good group composition.

As already mentioned, it would be nice to see more abilities that required interrupting or buffs that had to be shattered to make the job of the tank a bit more important than just sitting there spamming taunt and challenge. I'm not really sure what else to change to make it more interesting for healers and DPS though.

[Schett]

I’m a bit confused where devs want to put this dungeon in difficulty level. Since it used to be T1 or T2 dungeon on live. One would think this is the first dungeon new characters should do or do they want this to be the most difficult content in game?
So without knowing that it’s hard to give feedback on the difficulty of the dungeon

But some obvious bugs that could be fixed is:
2nd portal to the left when you enter last boss room facing the boss is always bugged, you can’t attack the portal (i’ve done 15+ runs since hv came back).

On the puzzle there’s 1 platform hidden by some texture so you can’t see the symbol (could be confusing for new players that don’t know the symbols, even players that done hv multiple times seem to be confused at times)

[shoelessHN]

I’m a bit confused where devs want to put this dungeon in difficulty level. Since it used to be T1 or T2 dungeon on live. One would think this is the first dungeon new characters should do or do they want this to be the most difficult content in game?
So without knowing that it’s hard to give feedback on the difficulty of the dungeon

But some obvious bugs that could be fixed is:
2nd portal to the left when you enter last boss room facing the boss is always bugged, you can’t attack the portal (i’ve done 15+ runs since hv came back).

On the puzzle there’s 1 platform hidden by some texture so you can’t see the symbol (could be confusing for new players that don’t know the symbols, even players that done hv multiple times seem to be confused at times)

Is it a t1 or t2 dungeon here? LV is easier than it ever was before. It's easily clearable within the PQ timer.

The portal is bugged and can be adjusted, but he rarely or never uses the same one twice so you lose one opportunity to do damage -- oh well.

There is only 1 hidden symbol, basic reasoning should be enough to know what the hidden one is.

[Schett]

I’m a bit confused where devs want to put this dungeon in difficulty level. Since it used to be T1 or T2 dungeon on live. One would think this is the first dungeon new characters should do or do they want this to be the most difficult content in game?
So without knowing that it’s hard to give feedback on the difficulty of the dungeon

But some obvious bugs that could be fixed is:
2nd portal to the left when you enter last boss room facing the boss is always bugged, you can’t attack the portal (i’ve done 15+ runs since hv came back).

On the puzzle there’s 1 platform hidden by some texture so you can’t see the symbol (could be confusing for new players that don’t know the symbols, even players that done hv multiple times seem to be confused at times)

Is it a t1 or t2 dungeon here? LV is easier than it ever was before. It's easily clearable within the PQ timer.

The portal is bugged and can be adjusted, but he rarely or never uses the same one twice so you lose one opportunity to do damage -- oh well.

There is only 1 hidden symbol, basic reasoning should be enough to know what the hidden one is.

LV is not even in the game atm

I had a run where we got the bugged portal 3 times..

[shoelessHN]

I’m a bit confused where devs want to put this dungeon in difficulty level. Since it used to be T1 or T2 dungeon on live. One would think this is the first dungeon new characters should do or do they want this to be the most difficult content in game?
So without knowing that it’s hard to give feedback on the difficulty of the dungeon

But some obvious bugs that could be fixed is:
2nd portal to the left when you enter last boss room facing the boss is always bugged, you can’t attack the portal (i’ve done 15+ runs since hv came back).

On the puzzle there’s 1 platform hidden by some texture so you can’t see the symbol (could be confusing for new players that don’t know the symbols, even players that done hv multiple times seem to be confused at times)

Is it a t1 or t2 dungeon here? LV is easier than it ever was before. It's easily clearable within the PQ timer.

The portal is bugged and can be adjusted, but he rarely or never uses the same one twice so you lose one opportunity to do damage -- oh well.

There is only 1 hidden symbol, basic reasoning should be enough to know what the hidden one is.

LV is not even in the game atm

I had a run where we got the bugged portal 3 times..

Hunter vale, whatever. The portal can be fixed. The rest of the dungeon is a joke. People crying would prefer they just get a gold bag for entering the thing.

[Schett]

Is it a t1 or t2 dungeon here? LV is easier than it ever was before. It's easily clearable within the PQ timer.

The portal is bugged and can be adjusted, but he rarely or never uses the same one twice so you lose one opportunity to do damage -- oh well.

There is only 1 hidden symbol, basic reasoning should be enough to know what the hidden one is.

LV is not even in the game atm

I had a run where we got the bugged portal 3 times..

Hunter vale, whatever. The portal can be fixed. The rest of the dungeon is a joke. People crying would prefer they just get a gold bag for entering the thing.

I actually want it to be harder. So there’s mechanics you actually have to do. But right now there’s pretty much no boss in the game that force you to do mechanics. Only some obvious ones.
But last boss for example just takes so long time with a lot waiting, there’s nothing hard about it.

There should be challanging content, but when dungeons take hours to run (bs with casual pug grp) its a big turn off for ppl.

[shoelessHN]

LV is not even in the game atm

I had a run where we got the bugged portal 3 times..

Hunter vale, whatever. The portal can be fixed. The rest of the dungeon is a joke. People crying would prefer they just get a gold bag for entering the thing.

I actually want it to be harder. So there’s mechanics you actually have to do. But right now there’s pretty much no boss in the game that force you to do mechanics. Only some obvious ones.
But last boss for example just takes so long time with a lot waiting, there’s nothing hard about it.

There should be challanging content, but when dungeons take hours to run (bs with casual pug grp) its a big turn off for ppl.

I've had some bad dps groups that took 15mins on the last guy, and good/competent groups that did it in about half that. The same bad dps slow down the other dungeons as well. If they made it so bad players could do bastion in an hour, good players would beat it in 20minutes. Not sure there's a way to balance that.