Not sure what "hard mode" will bring because.... after a week or two, it will be known if it's more beneficial to kill more mobs in easy mode, or if you can kill less mobs in hard mode, and which delivers more drops for total time played.  For simplicity, let's say you can kill 10 mobs in 10 minutes normal, but only 5 mobs in 10 minutes in hard mode.  That means unless hard mode delivered more than 2X the loot, no one will do hard mode.  And conversely, everyone will do hard mode if it is more than 2X loot.  Maybe things will be more complicated than that an part of the fun will be to figure out what's most efficient?  Could be.

The only instance I see this working, is if hard mode is so hard that it isn't possible for a non-Spud player to do it until you've gotten enough T12 loot to make up for, in this case, my gimpness.  At which point when reaching the ability to get plus 2X you would never go back to normal mode.

At first glance, it "seems" like a good idea.  In actuality I'm not sure if it's just an unnecessary complication both in the setup of the zone and the play.  I'm not against it, but am wondering if it's worth the programming effort.  Hard mode will make it quicker for the top tier players to complete the zone.  I don't have an issue with that, I'm never racing to be first or even 10th, but from the top 10 perspective, it seems like they'd have more downtime and overall less fulfilment in the game-play, unless that is, the encounters are so hard that it takes them more time to figure out in the first place, thus a higher level of achievement feeling.

Other than that, I really like the mechanics of T11 with chain bosses, buff removals during encounters to make you pay attention are cool too.  Like having the gambling coins or something similar as that keeps interest as well.

Love the last zone and looking forward to the next.  It will be fun with or without hard mode I'm sure.

Just finished the 700 today...  Out of 24 toons, here is the current state:

Armor:  71% of molds looted, 9 toons with full armor
Armor Components:  All have all minor and cooled water.  8 toons still need all the major shards.
HP Augs:  19 with all HP Augs (not Roxy augs)
Resist Augs:  12 with all Resist Augs
RK Bracer from Tormax:  7
Fen Mask:  6
Roxy Final Aug:  3
Frozen Mantle Complete:  2
Mounts: 4
Improvement Quest: 0 (need one more scale from Statue to finish first)
AoW Cycles:  15
Upgrade Augments:  2
1 HS (Shagrath): 1
1 UW13 so far.  At about 80 essences for the next one.  Almost all are from KD as I didn't have much time in the new Halloween zone yet.

Raid:  24:  2 Warriors, 3 Clerics, 4 Pallys, 9 rogues (all 12.5), 2 mages, 1 monk, 1 ranger, 1 changer, 1 shaman  All but two of the clerics have UW12 or higher.  All have earring except 2 clerics, all have Veeshan shield and min rank 5 ring, pretty maxed out.

Went through the 400 quest in 5-6 days.  Killed before that for several days.  Went another week or so after that before getting my first plate armor and that was three days ago I think.  The next day I got two more plate pieces.  Previous to that, I had a total of 3 silk and 1 chain drop.

I've killed the four bosses before and after adjustments.  Have not tried AOW yet even though I have all the heads.

I think all of the boss encounters are fun except for the "Increases Attack" instances which "seem" to insta-kill my warrior 30-50% of the time.  No time to even hit a key.  Now, I suppose I could see that if it happens at the exact same percent and take action when I'm a percent or two before that hits.  If that's the way it's supposed to be, fine.  However, would be nice to have at least one round's worth of time to react.  Yes, I know to keep my mitigation buffs up...
EDIT TO THE ABOVE PARAGRAPH:  Just really need to pay attention to what's happening when, with the debuffs after the adds and such.  Got a few tips today with regard to that especially and obviously I was missing those.  Wouldn't change a thing even with this.  Takes me so more time than others to work things out, even with getting tips..



I'd like to see Furious reuse brought down to 10-15 minutes.  As it stands at 30 minutes, on these more challenging bosses, I've managed to get Fjord without using it, but it's nice to have in reserve and entering into your hardest mobs without everything available then getting smoked again, then you just end up waiting to try again for 30 minutes for it all to reset.  Then again, I could be way off base and missing some major mechanism that would help here.  No idea.  And yes, I use the BP clicky to try to weather some of those "Increases Attack".

I don't think any changes really need to be made.  Like it the way it is.  There is a feeling of making very very little progress.  But I've lowered my expectations there.  Some days I may kill 150 giants, other days more like 30.

At this point I may not even bother with Fjord till I've got full plate on my tank.  Time would be better spent on the other bosses and mini's that have a chance to drop armor.  And that's fine.  As stated above, I'll probably have a pretty big stockpile of heads before even attempting AOW.

Like the zone a lot.  Like the encounters, even Fjord who kicks my butt most of the time.  Very nice design job overall.

Fecw and I both did the Tunare event today and neither got a GoW, Credit, or Map.

On 3/4 and 3/6 when I did Tunare, she didn't drop one of the following either time:  GoW or Credit or Map.  Those are the only two times I can remember her not dropping one of those items.

After having spent a few more days, really enjoying this.  Just as a reference, I've only managed to get one boss down twice, ..the Fearless, in 6 attempts, however, that seems appropriate given how hard it should be to break into a zone.  I've got no "armor" pieces yet, though have gotten a number of the new HP and resist augs, and the mask off of Fearless.

So far I've only gotten two "afk" spots I use, although I know there are some more that are possible.  More than sufficient for the casual player.

Thanks again!

Thanks for discussing.  I think there will be sufficient areas to AFK, even if you had to for a couple of hours.  I'm planning on doing more of a holistic clear today / tomorrow.  Again, great jog on the zone, has been a lot of fun!

Spent several hours in there yesterday.  Granted, this was my first time, however, I see a challenge ahead for folks like myself.

It doesn't have to do with mob difficulty, that seems fine.  I'm more concerned with how much time it takes to enter the zone then fight to a boss and achieve a win.  Meaning, how long should that take from a design perspective?  Obviously breaking in to the zone should be hard, that's not what I'm asking.

How long should it take, let's say once you have a few UW13s to enter the zone and then kill whatever the hardest to get to boss mob is?

The reason I ask is selfish, as I personally can't string together 3-5 hours of concentrated play more than a couple of times a year.  Now, if it takes that long and there is a safe spot or two where you can go AFK every so often, that would be great.  But if you're forced to keep plugging away due to repop, or even fear of a wipe after the zone starts repopping behind you once you finally get to the boss mob hence only giving you one shot, that's a tough one.

But hey, it's all good.  I think the zone is pretty fun so far regardless of the potential issues for me and others with similar play styles.

Thanks again for working on this.  Very cool and fun!

Really looking forward to it, thank you!

A:  Qty 1:  1 min 26 secs  no Vie
A:  Qty 2:  2 min 51 secs  used Vie and Cover

C:  Qty 1:  1 min 30 secs  no Vie
C:  Qty 2:  3 min 4 secs  used Vie and Cover

D:  Qty 1:  1 min 27 secs  no Vie
D:  Qty 2:  2 min 58 secs  used Vie and Cover, Came close to dying a few times on this one but didn't trigger DI.

Anyone get GSOWs?  No rush, but wondering if we'll get them from last weekend!   Could use a few upgrades.....

24 Toons.  All but 3 with UW12.  Main fully everything.  6 rogues with UW12.5.  3 more rogues with UW12.  3 Clerics, 4 Pallys, 2 Mages, 1 Ranger, Chanter, Shaman, Monk, Warrior

ONE:  Pulled 1 mob.  No special abilities.  50 seconds.
ONE:  Pulled 2 mobs.  Used Riposte on pull.  Used Vie until first mob was dead then killed the other mob.  1 Min 50 Secs
ONE:  Pulled 3 mobs.  Used Riposte on pull.  Used Vie.  Lasted 50 seconds till wipe.  Almost had one mob dead.
ONE:  Pulled 3 mobs.  Used Riposte on pull.  Used Vie.  Took 2 Mins 40 Secs to kill all three.

TWO:  Pulled 2 mobs.  Wiped in 30 Secs.
TWO:  Pulled 1 mob.  Used Riposte on pull.  Used Vie.  Took 2 Mins 2 Secs to kill the mob.

THREE:  Pulled 1 mob.  Used Riposte on pull.  Used Vie.  Wiped after 2 Mins and 35 Secs.  Would have wiped sooner but used DI twice during the fight.

UPDATE 1/30/2024:
TWO:  Pulled 2 mobs.  Used Riposte on pull.  Used Vie throughout pretty much.  Got the first mob down to about 30%.  Tank's HP hadn't dropped below 50% much when all of the sudden he was down.  FAILED at 3 Min 30 Secs.
TWO:  Pulled 1 mob.  Same as above.  Took 4 Mins and 30 Secs to kill the one mob.

Cool, will check it out tomorrow.  Seems like a great easy way to get some feedback.

Thanks for running the event Raygan!  Couldn't believe it when I logged on this morning (rare Saturday appearance) and saw the event running.

Thanks all who jumped in as well with the fun.

Awesome, thanks for the update!