U34 Preview 1 Feedback: Delvings

[Cordovan]

Please let us know about your Delvings experience on Bullroarer in this thread! Reminder you need to be level 140 in order to access Delvings.

[squirle]

Too easy.

Hunter 470/tier 1 gear made it to tier 7 solo before connection crashed. Not sure if the infinite respawns inside some missions is part of the mission.

[CloudCastle]

Just completed the delving Down on the Farm on tier 1. Completed the objective and was told to return to Baglan. I couldn't find a scout to talk to so I just used "leave instance" on the portrait menu. When I returned I got a message saying the mission had failed. However, I was able to turn it in and it counted for the mission wrappers. I also received a cracked zircon back. Is that "failed" message a bug or did I actually do something wrong? It will let me trade in the zircon for another tier 1 but not tier 2.

edited to add: Only received 5 motes and 2 greyflood marks even though the quest said it was supposed to reward some kind of chest. I also don't care for the mobs respawning behind you. Is that intentional? Usually doesn't happen in instances.

Edit 2: Tried another mission, this time on tier 5. Scout appeared this time right next to the boss, so I got credit for completing the mission. It appears that if you do not talk to the scout then you do not get credit for the mission. The other missions allow you to exit without using the chest or talking to the scout and still turn it in for full credit once you get out. Can this be changed so it is like the other missions in the game?

Tier 5 box reward was 5 chunks of Eorlingas skarn.

[Plidak]

Tier 5 box reward was 5 chunks of Eorlingas skarn.

Sounds chunky to me

[Khani.]

delving System is a nice idea and besides various bugs in those new missions
- siege breaking is missing one catapult
- scouts not appearing... or appearing too soon
- random crafting tier reward boxes
- barter vendor is missing defensive bracelets

it has quite a bit of potential

but could you do everyone a HUGE favor? please put those delving gems into the wallet... worst case scenario we use 20 slots of inventory space (cracked and delving version of each tier) on every character...


additionally since we can buy them with gold and the rewards (delving writs) are account wide anyway... please make them account wide as well

best regards

[Bragolos]

Perhaps I'm talking too soon, since I've only completed three missions (tier 1 to 3), but every tier seems to be giving the same amount of writs, 15. So what exactly is the reward for trying to finish higher tiers? Is it 'just' a more polite RNG treatment (chests have a higher chance to give actual useful rewards), or is there also a more certain reward for trying to finish all 10 tiers in one day?

In case it's only more generous RNG: I understand that you'll have to put some effort in the system in order to be able to earn the, at first sight, great rewards, but wouldn't it be a good idea to reward more writs for completing higher tiers?

[Xaviere]

50 writs for T10 completion. The quality of gear from the additional reward box is higher, for higher delving tiers, but can't speak to % chance you'll get gear (as opposed to low level crafting materials, which I assume is WiP. Nobody wants coal after reflecting themselves to near-death)

[CloudCastle]

Just did the Nettinglade Mission on tier 8 but had some problems. I got lost a lot and somehow ended up down a gully surrounded by red walls, and when i tried to jump out I ended up in a never ending fall. I used the /stuck command to get out, which failed the mission. I jumped back in and my progress (7 out of 8 cocoons) had been saved. Finally found the last cocoon but I had trouble reaching it because I would fall through the rock formation as soon as I got close. I ran around hitting "u" and finally got it. Found the scout, clicked on him to finish the mission and then turned it in outside the instance. I never got any credit for completing tier 8 though, no chest and no writs. I don't know if leaving the mission through the /stuck command borked it or what.

[savetheroadtodoriath]

T10 is trivial but tedious. The only hard part is testing your patience and healing up in between pulls. Whoever thought a reflect effect on every mob in the mission was a good idea should be fired on the spot.

Also the Enrage effect starts immediately even out of combat and expires after 30s on most mobs. In effect it doesn't exist, nothing stopping people from just waiting the 30s before pulling, not that the mobs hit particularly hard with it on anyway.

[SSG_Orion]

Too easy.

Hunter 470/tier 1 gear made it to tier 7 solo before connection crashed. Not sure if the infinite respawns inside some missions is part of the mission.

Which mission had the infinite respawn?

Can you provide more detail about too easy? Were the mobs not hitting hard enough? Skill not changing your gameplay enough?

[SSG_Orion]

Just completed the delving Down on the Farm on tier 1. Completed the objective and was told to return to Baglan. I couldn't find a scout to talk to so I just used "leave instance" on the portrait menu. When I returned I got a message saying the mission had failed. However, I was able to turn it in and it counted for the mission wrappers. I also received a cracked zircon back. Is that "failed" message a bug or did I actually do something wrong? It will let me trade in the zircon for another tier 1 but not tier 2.

Sadly, that is one of the missions that is in a state where it needs to receive a little polish. You likely took out the target a little too far away from where he will eventually end up. I should have this polished up in the coming releases.

edited to add: Only received 5 motes and 2 greyflood marks even though the quest said it was supposed to reward some kind of chest. I also don't care for the mobs respawning behind you. Is that intentional? Usually doesn't happen in instances.

The mission itself provides the motes and greyflood marks. The delving, which in the case above you failed, would provide the chest and the delving writs. Because that quest failed, you would receive nothing.

Edit 2: Tried another mission, this time on tier 5. Scout appeared this time right next to the boss, so I got credit for completing the mission. It appears that if you do not talk to the scout then you do not get credit for the mission. The other missions allow you to exit without using the chest or talking to the scout and still turn it in for full credit once you get out. Can this be changed so it is like the other missions in the game?

Tier 5 box reward was 5 chunks of Eorlingas skarn.

You completed the mission. You will need to find the scout in order to complete the delving.

[SSG_Orion]

delving System is a nice idea and besides various bugs in those new missions
- siege breaking is missing one catapult
- scouts not appearing... or appearing too soon
- random crafting tier reward boxes
- barter vendor is missing defensive bracelets

it has quite a bit of potential

but could you do everyone a HUGE favor? please put those delving gems into the wallet... worst case scenario we use 20 slots of inventory space (cracked and delving version of each tier) on every character...


additionally since we can buy them with gold and the rewards (delving writs) are account wide anyway... please make them account wide as well

best regards

I will need to revisit siege breaking, I believe that it had been adjusted to have all of the needed catapults. Alas.

As far as the gems going into the wallet, the answer is no. They cannot go into the wallet. But we will work on a way for you to carry them.

[SSG_Orion]

Perhaps I'm talking too soon, since I've only completed three missions (tier 1 to 3), but every tier seems to be giving the same amount of writs, 15. So what exactly is the reward for trying to finish higher tiers? Is it 'just' a more polite RNG treatment (chests have a higher chance to give actual useful rewards), or is there also a more certain reward for trying to finish all 10 tiers in one day?

In case it's only more generous RNG: I understand that you'll have to put some effort in the system in order to be able to earn the, at first sight, great rewards, but wouldn't it be a good idea to reward more writs for completing higher tiers?

Writs do increase. You should be able to look at all the quests on the delving stone and see the rewards for each tier.

[SSG_Orion]

Just did the Nettinglade Mission on tier 8 but had some problems. I got lost a lot and somehow ended up down a gully surrounded by red walls, and when i tried to jump out I ended up in a never ending fall. I used the /stuck command to get out, which failed the mission. I jumped back in and my progress (7 out of 8 cocoons) had been saved. Finally found the last cocoon but I had trouble reaching it because I would fall through the rock formation as soon as I got close. I ran around hitting "u" and finally got it. Found the scout, clicked on him to finish the mission and then turned it in outside the instance. I never got any credit for completing tier 8 though, no chest and no writs. I don't know if leaving the mission through the /stuck command borked it or what.

If you left the mission, while on the tier 8 delving quest, without returning to the scout, it will fail and there will be no reward. I believe the section you gell into was a known issue that is fixed in an upcoming patch.

Additionally, there are no chests in these missions. We made the determination that there are enough times that players a) forget to open the chest or, b) simply miss the chest at the end of a mission and instead moved the rewards to the quest for the mission itself.

[SSG_Orion]

T10 is trivial but tedious. The only hard part is testing your patience and healing up in between pulls. Whoever thought a reflect effect on every mob in the mission was a good idea should be fired on the spot.

Also the Enrage effect starts immediately even out of combat and expires after 30s on most mobs. In effect it doesn't exist, nothing stopping people from just waiting the 30s before pulling, not that the mobs hit particularly hard with it on anyway.

Well... time to pack up my things. Reflect is a top tier effect, won't be present all the time and is supposed make the space more difficult.

The enrage effect is a bug that will be addressed.

[SSG_Orion]

If you are providing feedback on Delvings can you mention your class and gear loadout, if possible?

Thanks in advance.

[Bondamar]

Day 2 Edits/additions in Red.

Before they Bond mission: String error in quest text. After clearing npc's scout shows up but you can't talk to them. Reran it a few times at different tiers and same effect. No way to complete the mission.

The Jaws of Death mission: Seems like the quest objective is the wrong variant for the items I can interact with. Says rescue the living 0/6 ( I can see the Hobbits on the ground) but the only thing interactable is burning dead victims. No progression.

Haunting at Dol Ernil mission: gaunt lord and friends infinite respawn. Roughly 1.5 mins respawn timer. Works the same tier 0 and tier 10.

Steps of Caranost mission: Barricades are cosmetic, not objects. You can run from the entrance to the top of the stairs, everything despawns and you can turn in the mission but the delving completion doesn't register if things despawn. Full clearing and finding scout doesn't complete the delving. The scout gives two quest options, the blue delving quest does nothing and when you take the mission travel now option it fails it upon leaving.

The Bridge to Caranost mission: Also cosmetic barricades. Sprint to the finish. This one doesn't bug the delving, you can complete both quests.

Dangerous Deliveries mission: I always knew I didn't like hobbits. Had me in the first half. In the second, the delving doesn't register the scout and upon travel now it fails. Same thing as Steps of Caranost.

Patrol the township mission: Delving doesn't register scout, fails on travel now. Same as above. I imagine this happens for a few more missions (only ran about 70-80% of them with delvings).

Jorthkyn and Hounds mission: Random invisible (red lines) wall/barrier blocking off the last two Jorthkyn. Was able to cast range skill through and bring them to where I could fight them. You are on Bullroarer server 26 at r1 lx1144 ly775 i10 ox12.85 oy159.85 oz365.17 h25.3. Game timestamp 42576.968.

The Nettinglade mission: Webs cosmetically respawn their Meatbags, not interactable but annoying trying to find the last one. Also a couple spots of rocks not being solid. You are on Bullroarer server 27 at r1 lx927 ly824 i6 ox154.19 oy4.75 oz415.87 h130.8. Game timestamp 46880.046. - and one under a cocoon - You are on Bullroarer server 27 at r1 lx927 ly828 i6 ox146.76 oy82.09 oz413.42 h18.3. Game timestamp 46953.405.

Bite the Hand mission: Not able to talk to the scout at the end with the mission complete. (no quest ring)

Signs and Sigils mission: Not able to talk to the scout at the end with the mission complete. (no quest ring)

Siege-Breaking mission: -1 catapult. While looking for it fell through rock at You are on Bullroarer server 13 at r1 lx1240 ly643 i2 ox0.10 oy75.24 oz471.56 h90.0. Game timestamp 36418.499. Had to /stuck out.

Sift Through Time mission: scout showed up early with a ring icon, was after kill objective, before completing collectables. Was able to turn in afterward, visual bug only.

Among the Watch-Towers misison: Didn’t drop final keg upon completion, had to right click and drop the bar(or let time run out). Can use skills (not inductions) while holding keg.

Secrets and Plans mission: Scout wouldn’t talk to me, leaving instance I was able to complete both delving and misison.

Not really a bug;
Siege of Sírlond mission: You can just afk off to the side (or die and retreat) and run to turn in when the timer runs out.

No delving stone barterer next to Irvo Church the Clegur mission giver. Showed up on day 2.

Auto kicks you out of the mission once the mission obj completes and you afk for a few minutes without finding scout. This forces the delving failure.

You can have multiple tiers of rocks in your bags, but you can't interact with a delving stone if you haven't turned in an outstanding completed delving quest.

As someone who doesn't craft if I can help it and doesn't bother with a house, getting those rewards from a T10 delving is personally disappointing. Was hoping to see it weighted more for endgame progression; LI items, essences, etc.

Are instance lockouts necessary? Doesn't seem to hold much purpose other than slowing down fast players forcing them to have to afk. If its an anti exploit feature, it doesn't even lock you out of the same instance, so you can keep opening the same one at diff levels/tiers (see warg pens/SH pwr leveling). Assuming there is an exploit its probably in a particular instance not 10 different ones. I see this as only an issue for missions, since all are instances and many are pretty quick. Having missions specifically not count toward lockout or it being more lenient would be nice.

Malice mechanics: (note I played Yellow Champion. Gear was avg ~474 T4 HH, highest I could get including new cloak and necklace, not currently geared on live so all was attained from E&G. I boosted my Hunter, went blue line(more enjoyable playstyle imo), geared it out exclusively from E&G, all t1 green gear from gundabad vendor, 465 ilvl, no green pocket or offhand, boosted virtues and made LI's only using ancient script in rivendell, all rare purple traceries. maxed enhancements with MC. Red text is all hunter runs.

Disease Cloud I - Bug: Can follow you out of the instance, hitting players in the mission exit location.
Clear indicator, requires reactive movement. Ignoring it will accumulate a massive stack and punishes you. I think this is a good malice. Was still full glass in these tiers so this hurt a bit more than champ.

Daunting Disease - Makes it harder to clear other effects, health decrease didn't seem oppressive. A fine malice. Easier to clear on hunter.

True Face of Fear - Not sure how impactful this would be to tactical classes but had no affect on yellow champ, I could ignore this. More impactful in group content setting I suspect. I cleared it when it came up, not sure if it had much impact.

Virulent Poison - Knockdown felt fair, plenty of counter-play with class clear, SI, poison pots etc. Think this would be most impactful when enemies deal a lot of dmg or stuck in a puddle. With less gear might be more of a concern. I think this is a good malice, however doesn't seem to put you in compromising positions as much as I'd expect. Easier to clear on hunter, so I only got knocked down a couple times. Class stun break was always up for it.

Thick Hide - A questionable malice. I think the effect is fine however it adds 0 engagement from the player. Crits are RNG so either you get a crit or you don't. You just ignore it and play as normal. (assuming I understand it correctly, it falling off after taking a crit, though I had one moment where this didn't happen)I did notice the dmg reduction a bit more, since I wasn't capped on crit, it seemed to stay up longer on average.

Heal allies on Death - I think this is a bit weak, can potentially catch you out, but fast dps should make this one not very relevant. You could have it full heal within 5m of death location if you made it a higher tier malice. You would then want to actively try to space the mobs out or kill all at the same time as an aoe class, or focus more on single target as splitting would be inefficient.

Afraid to Die - Focusing targets that are low makes sense, encourages this a bit more but I never felt like this was a threat with the speed of kills. Would be more impactful the less gear you have. Small amount of engagement. Didn't notice this at all even with alot less gear.

Rage - Not sure how this is supposed to trigger, I imagine on agro. If that's the case I guess ccing extra's you can't take to the face makes sense. Again, depends on how much damage you take from it but wasn't super noticeable to me. So start of one mission a few npc's had 10 stacks of rage.. I got one shot. Wore off after that. Not sure if this is how it's supposed to work either. I don't mind the concept of this, having to keep them at bay for a duration. Might be a bit long at 30s for melee classes to manage. Not sure how this would play out in practice.

Mob spawns on kill - I like this malice, adds a bit more chaos into the mix. Makes decisions more dynamic. Was also a life saver paired with the reflect being on all other mobs. I used the extra mobs as sustain/healing when all others reflect. Was a bit more annoying with no aoe skills slotted, was able to just deposit a lot of them around the map without them agroing since I could kill them at a distance.

Saurons Defence II - So I'm mixed on reflect. I think it is a very strong effect and almost necessary in some ways. It essentially forces you to slow down, a couple enemies at a time. If it wasn't there I could cruise through with ease. (reflect becomes nearly obsolete with a healer duo) Did require a few more tact mit essences and a virtue change. But even then as a yellow champ I could pull a few comfortably and as long as I didn't use too many aoe's per pull I had the sustain (the bonus mobs help) to stay alive. It essentially adds a ceiling to dps.

I guess the part that I'm less keen on is the type of engagement it requires. As it's mainly a solo instance you have to be the one doing the damage. I think the reason it doesn't feel good is because its slowing down that one objective, and slowing down is the only counter-play you have. Do less damage, wait for more heal cd's, pull things slower, cc some of the pack, etc. If your class doesn't have much combat sustain.. well I hope you like dale crams. This is all just assuming you don't want to die. If you don't care about dying you can just throw yourself at a pack, deleting 1 or 2 mobs at a time and you'll work your way through it about the same speed but with less care and attention to what you're doing.

I did about 15 of the missions at T10 delving. I didn't have to use a single corruption removal. I didn't have to use a single interrupt. Using cc was never necessary. Kiting was minimal. Managing where I was standing, when to move was not much of a consideration. It was entirely just waiting around heal cd's to let you continue killing. You take damage when you kill, but the only way to stop taking damage is also to kill. I think keeping it as a malice is okay, but every mission at T9 and T10 in it's current state is exhausting. A little bit of counter play with it might be nice, even if its more potent. Like corruption removal tiering it down, forcing LoS to make them move off a reflect spot, having the reflect be on a cycle giving you short burst windows, interrupts, permanent reflect goes up if you cc them etc. Having different variations requires different solutions, and more room for creatively solving them with the toolkit your class has. I think
of it in terms of something like Sekiro or Dark souls. You have all the tools required to beat it, but its your understanding, problem solving and skill in execution that determines the outcome. If where it's at is as difficult as you wanna make it for players, might I suggest Delving tiers that go beyond(in missions or some other instance), that distribute no loot so as not to have players feel like they aren't being optimal, rather award an exclusive title or cosmetic upon the mastery of. Something akin to the Solo Tower Challenge in FF14, Mythic+ Tower of the Damned or the personal class challenges in Wow, Towers in Lost Ark etc etc. With minimal content for players to test and push past their personal limits I think we stagnate in what's possible.

So I'm even more conflicted now having done a bunch of T10 on hunter. HPS functions a bit differently than champ. Had to use blood arrow off cd, press onward as well and then after an initial burst of dmg taking me and the npc to ~half hp I would swap endurance and spam Quick shot kiting them out. Kept me up just long enough to survive. Endurance QS hps is lower than taken, especially if you crit (you don't want to crit in this case) so it just slowly drains your bar. Felt less drastic ups and downs than champ which had good mitigation and good dps. As suspected this slow qs spam sustain felt like the best solution, slowing down the dps while you heal. This part was uncomfortable. However, pulling multiple mobs with reflect felt alot better on Hunter. Was actively fearing, dazing etc to manage the flow of battle.. only to then go back to kiting and qs spam. Had some good moments that felt alot better than champ. Though I suspect my strategy wouldn't scale if I had better gear/more dps. I would kill myself alot faster and no way to sustain in time or tank the damage. (I don't think the qs heal in endurance scales, so smaller the hits the less you reflect, and more sustain you have) I may go in and try hunter again with better gear, but I assume it will feel alot worse.

I was able to breeze through T1-4, T5 I noticed myself taking a bit more dmg, no change with T6, T7 I had to actively pay attention to what I was doing, some of the wound bleeds I took were hitting hard. (was still full glass virtues/gear and was manageable). T8 I face tanked 3 wargs and they very nearly killed me. I used HP pot for the first time. Reflect in T9 took the first death. I could kill things but had to go very slow, and kite alot. To speed it up I had to respec traits, got rid of aoes, bleeds, add more healing, mitigation in yellow. I had to swap all virtues over to mit ones. I swapped to the "tanky" green agility armor from the E&G gundabad vendor (the ones with tact mit, I kept dps gear if the alternative didn't have tact mit, and put the 5 slots of essences as tac mit(flickering purples). Dying only occurs if I am pulling too fast back to back without waiting for regen, being stingy with morale pots or hoping I don't crit and can kill it with the last hit, overkilling with big hits is punishing. So the best experience (outside using qs 20 times in a row) I've had with reflect is when I run low dps, have many mobs pulled at once that I have to manage cc and npc positioning with. Feels much worse when you have better dmg. (champ I ran all tact mit essences and virtues but the t4 gear was doing alot more dmg to myself than anything else.) Not sure how to make it feel better without just self nerfing. Of course the other strat is just run in, blow something up, die, trading 1 for 1 every time, youll get to the end eventually. I think the parts that felt good didn't have much to do with reflect, outside of the fact I was going to take damage no matter what, it always came down to managing extra adds to survive being the interesting/enjoyable part.

[peppertoad]

Delving Armor from the barter has a min level of 50, which means the account tradable item can be used by level 50s lol.

[savetheroadtodoriath]

Well... time to pack up my things. Reflect is a top tier effect, won't be present all the time and is supposed make the space more difficult.

If I remember right the end boss has like 4 million HP, with 25-50% reflect that means you need to have like 16-32 million effective HP through healing to kill it. For some classes this is a non issue, for others it is going to be very difficult or worse...very boring. I foresee a lot of unhappiness in my Captain's unfortunate future for example. I implore you to use a light touch with these things especially since the end result is usually just healing up between pulls and making the mission take 5x as long with everything else being the same.

Reflect is lame, I think most people would prefer dealing with 'mechanics' rather than 'buffs'. For example I liked how wight/gredbyg mobs spawned when you kill things, that's a cool mechanic, although it could be improved by making them do more interesting things.

I had an interesting moment in the Turtles mission on T10, I noticed the wight/gredybyg mobs don't aggro if you move quickly away from the mobs you killed, I am lazy so I did that, the end result was extra adds all over the very limited space. I then pulled the boss and while kiting to heal up from the reflect ended up pulling a bunch of these extra mobs. I liked that too, it made me happy and for a brief moment the mission felt dangerous. Unfortunately the mobs don't really do anything but auto attack you...I think maybe the weights had the usual shadow aura...in fact none of it would have been threatening if I didn't just nuke my own HP on the reflect. I didn't die, I just ran around in a circle healing myself and DPSing them down. The mobs should do more things! It'd be neat if they all slowly followed you for example even without having pulled them. In my mind I'm imagining the old wights from BG, aggro liinked with one another and slowly creeping towards you. Maybe the more gather together the more damage and run speed they all get? Something like that.

That said, on every tier without reflect I'd just aggro every mob in the instance and then AoE it down together because they're so susceptible to kiting and CC. Nothing gave me pause except the reflect mechanic and that was completely manageable provided you had the patience to play it safe. This is from the perspective of a 470ish average item level red Minstrel.

Mobs should do things like slow, or have meaningful interrupts, or maybe telegraphed attacks to avoid, or inductions that can't be interrupted except via CC which won't work unless you kill another mob giving them all immunity, or maybe shared HP pools, or maybe killing one mob buffs another, or maybe the Reflect is one of several effects that can be cycled through with corruption removals like on the Lt of Dol Guldur fight, or a bunch of other mechanics you could borrow simply from Skirmish Lts and other older instances or maybe even the Scion mobs from T4/T5. And you're not just limited to NPC interactions, maybe there could be a mission where there's a timer and the longer the mission goes the weaker or stronger the mobs become, or maybe mobs spawn continuously and faster and faster so there's some kind of incentive to blitz through it and not go at a leisurely pace, maybe there's a creeping cloud of toxin or fire slowly covering the entire map, maybe the terrain features lots of places to fall off and die and there's very slow mobs that knock back, or maybe there's "buffs" to be collected throughout the mission, or multiple choices of ways/strategies, there's lots of different interactions you can do with terrain and stuff... variation please, not just 500% more damage buffs and reflect. There's such a huge pool of cool mechanics to choose from, there's little end game content with this xpac so Delvings are very do or die in this content drought.

[Faudyen]

Several issues in round 1 of missions.

Quest Before they bond. The quest counted up as I took out the Brigand trainers but my quest log was numbers and letters table [019912393] or whatever it said. At the end of that missions, killing 16 wolf masters the scout would not spawn a golden ring, had to leave by right clicking which failed the mission and the delving misson.

Quest the Jaws of death Some of the unfortunate victims' bodies could not be burned for burial and none of the living hobbits could be rescued. That mission I was not able to complete.

Quest Among the watchtowers I was able to fight holding the barrels, looked awesome but not sure if intended. I was able to user wanderlust with the barrels, again not sure if intended. Also the last barrel didn't drop and I was able to ciick the scout and run around with the barrel after exiting the instance.

[CloudCastle]

Sadly, that is one of the missions that is in a state where it needs to receive a little polish. You likely took out the target a little too far away from where he will eventually end up. I should have this polished up in the coming releases.


The mission itself provides the motes and greyflood marks. The delving, which in the case above you failed, would provide the chest and the delving writs. Because that quest failed, you would receive nothing.


You completed the mission. You will need to find the scout in order to complete the delving.

Thanks for the explanation. I'll think of these missions as a two-part quest then -- the mission, with it's own turn-in, and the delving, with another separate turn-in.

If you left the mission, while on the tier 8 delving quest, without returning to the scout, it will fail and there will be no reward. I believe the section you gell into was a known issue that is fixed in an upcoming patch.

So once you leave the instance (and auto-fail a mission,) you shouldn't go back in to complete it? It had saved my progress, so I thought I could continue where I left off, and when I did complete it, the scout showed up and I clicked on him to finish the quest. But if getting back in and completing the quest does not grant the reward, then I'd suggest locking players out from getting back in at all until everything resets.

I'd rather see players be allowed back in to finish where they left off (with the reward) granted though!

[Faudyen]

I'll think of these missions as a two-part quest then -- the mission, with it's own turn-in, and the delving, with another separate turn-in.

This is what is appears to me as well. I've had two scouts fail to have golden rings now. The second scout I stood in the instance while coming to the forums. My character was kicked from the instance, was able to complete the quest with the quest giver but still failed the delving system because he "left the instance" and was left with just a cracked stone that he needs to trade in.

[Thanatos88]

If I remember right the end boss has like 4 million HP, with 25-50% reflect that means you need to have like 16-32 million effective HP through healing to kill it. For some classes this is a non issue, for others it is going to be very difficult or worse...very boring. I foresee a lot of unhappiness in my Captain's unfortunate future for example. I implore you to use a light touch with these things especially since the end result is usually just healing up between pulls and making the mission take 5x as long with everything else being the same.

Reflect is lame, I think most people would prefer dealing with 'mechanics' rather than 'buffs'. For example I liked how wight/gredbyg mobs spawned when you kill things, that's a cool mechanic, although it could be improved by making them do more interesting things.

I had an interesting moment in the Turtles mission on T10, I noticed the wight/gredybyg mobs don't aggro if you move quickly away from the mobs you killed, I am lazy so I did that, the end result was extra adds all over the very limited space. I then pulled the boss and while kiting to heal up from the reflect ended up pulling a bunch of these extra mobs. I liked that too, it made me happy and for a brief moment the mission felt dangerous. Unfortunately the mobs don't really do anything but auto attack you...I think maybe the weights had the usual shadow aura...in fact none of it would have been threatening if I didn't just nuke my own HP on the reflect. I didn't die, I just ran around in a circle healing myself and DPSing them down. The mobs should do more things! It'd be neat if they all slowly followed you for example even without having pulled them. In my mind I'm imagining the old wights from BG, aggro liinked with one another and slowly creeping towards you. Maybe the more gather together the more damage and run speed they all get? Something like that.

That said, on every tier without reflect I'd just aggro every mob in the instance and then AoE it down together because they're so susceptible to kiting and CC. Nothing gave me pause except the reflect mechanic and that was completely manageable provided you had the patience to play it safe. This is from the perspective of a 470ish average item level red Minstrel.

Mobs should do things like slow, or have meaningful interrupts, or maybe telegraphed attacks to avoid, or inductions that can't be interrupted except via CC which won't work unless you kill another mob giving them all immunity, or maybe shared HP pools, or maybe killing one mob buffs another, or maybe the Reflect is one of several effects that can be cycled through with corruption removals like on the Lt of Dol Guldur fight, or a bunch of other mechanics you could borrow simply from Skirmish Lts and other older instances or maybe even the Scion mobs from T4/T5. And you're not just limited to NPC interactions, maybe there could be a mission where there's a timer and the longer the mission goes the weaker or stronger the mobs become, or maybe mobs spawn continuously and faster and faster so there's some kind of incentive to blitz through it and not go at a leisurely pace, maybe there's a creeping cloud of toxin or fire slowly covering the entire map, maybe the terrain features lots of places to fall off and die and there's very slow mobs that knock back, or maybe there's "buffs" to be collected throughout the mission, or multiple choices of ways/strategies, there's lots of different interactions you can do with terrain and stuff... variation please, not just 500% more damage buffs and reflect. There's such a huge pool of cool mechanics to choose from, there's little end game content with this xpac so Delvings are very do or die in this content drought.

This. /signed

[theultimatekyle]

Quote from the other forum thread I posted in.

The missions unfortunately though, are boring. I solo'd all the missions t10 on my hunter and it wasnt hard, just a slog. Missions are fundamentally flawed in their conception, they're just boring instanced quests, and no amount of buffs on the mobs will change that. Making things harder never has, and never will be a good substitute for making things more interesting. Damage buffs do not stand in for mechanics. And the rewards for all the delving missions are too poor to make up for the mind numbing waste of time in performing them. If you really want raiders to do these past the first month required for the tracery recipes and necklaces, add something like Tome of defence to the barter. If youre gonna require tome of defense to do the t4+ content, they should have in game sources.

Just to really hammer the point home: bigger numbers does not equal more interesting/fun game play.

[squirle]

Which mission had the infinite respawn?

Can you provide more detail about too easy? Were the mobs not hitting hard enough? Skill not changing your gameplay enough?

Going from memory. All missions were from Baglan.

Bridge To carnost - Died once. Had the first wave and second baricade group respawn resulting in 3 + 6 mobs on the next pull.
* Kill Goblin boss on the farm with a path in the middle. - All mobs respawn after awhile when i went to go to the questguy at the end. Even the boss mob respawned
* Kill 6 gaunt lords (with 2-3 adds) - First groups respawned before i even got to 6 kills.

On it being too easy. Standard mission issue. Mob just dont really do any damage or have sufficient morale to live long enough to do anything. 300k morale on mobs and 600k on bosses for 140 mobs. It's like playing landscape on -5 levels. Adding +200% health/dam with Delving 7+ brings that up to par of Gundabad. And its only the bug and flood of debuffs that make me run or die.

Havn't tried a duo yet. But assuming they work the same as normal. That would make Every D10 a speedrun.

Double spawns on Bridge to Carnost




This is how i'd rate the difficulty compared to normal landscape difficulty atm. Considering the quality of gear gotten i'd expect it to ramp up a bit harder. D5 at Dangerous, D8 at Deadly. And D9 and D10 above that. D1-5 are a bit harder to balance depending on where SSG considers the tipping point should be. I'd consider the increase should start at D2 as it's a difficulty increase above questing level. With the base mission difficulty it starts of 5 levels below landscape.

Column1	Damage taken (%)	Morale (%)	Damage dealing (%)
Mission standard	50	50
Normal	100		100
Delving 5	150	150	50
1 - Hard	150		75
2 - Dangerous	200		57
Delving 8	200	200	50
Delving 10	250	250	50
3 - Deadly	300,1		43
4 - Deadly +1	400,1		32,9
5 - Deadly +2	509,7		25
6 - Deadly +3	600,1		19
7 - Deadly +4	700,1		16,7
8 - Deadly +5	800,1		16,7
9 - Deadly +6	900,1		16,7