Changes to Beast-- Reflect Shield and other stuff

I've been back to game for a couple weeks after a 9 month break so I'm not sure when this change took place...

The past 4 times I've done Beast it seemed as if he was putting up his reflect shield a lot more frequently than what I recall in the past. (By a lot more frequently I mean 10sec up, 10 sec down, 15sec up, 20sec down, 10 sec up, etc). I am well aware that Beast has always had a reflect shield (and that its up/down time varied) however it seems to have been significantly changed such that the amount of time to kill Beast now, compared to before is x4 or x5.

From my vantage point, Beast's difficulty has been increased. Being that Pande is content from 2003, I'm a bit confused about the adjustment. I know that historically, we'd gotten to a point where people were multi-logging or one teaming Beast. While on the surface that might seem problematic, the reality is that Pande is 10 year old content and it's normal for it to appear to be easy to toons a decade down the line. It happens in every game I've played. While many of us take endgame toons to Pande, that shouldn't be the requirement imo. Pande wasn't designed for teams of today's endgame characters.. it was designed to be done by people that were 205+ wearing gear from Shadowlands. Getting Beast weapons to tradeskill your Xan weapon should be a cake walk. As it is now, its more challenging to get your beast weapon than it is to get the item to upgrade it.. that seems backwards to me being that the WU comes from the most recent expansion's instances.

On a personal note, my experience with Pande was so unenjoyable that I don't see myself doing it again anytime soon. Pande was one of my favorite areas to go in and even help people with and now the thought of doing it makes me want to log out of game.

Yeah, they changed it a few months back for the worse. I literally hate doing Beast now... it's not worth the amount of frustration I build up from finally being able to damage it and queuing perks just for 1-2 to land then the rest are reflected for another 30secs.

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Originally Posted by Traderjill

it seems to have been significantly changed such that the amount of time to kill Beast now, compared to before is x4 or x5.

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Beast does seem to raise his reflects more than before (which is kind of a silly gimmick) but I've been in many raids since the change with very few reflects, or even none. They do seem more likely to go up since the recent changes though like you say.

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Originally Posted by Traderjill

From my vantage point, Pande's difficulty has been increased.

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I totally disagree. Beast is tougher, there's often a double wave of adds which can be squirrely in a disorganized team and last portal can be messy with adds (using brains can avoid it though) but the rest of the zone seems way way easier in my experience; far fewer mobs having a lot less hp, and it's just too easy to rush from zodiac feet to zodiac feet since 3/4 of the mobs will just turn around and forget you.

I like some of the ideas in the way they changed Pande but I feel like they nerfed it a little too much.

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Originally Posted by Biancha

Beast is tougher,

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And that was the point I was making.. that Beast is tougher. I used the generic term Pande in a couple spots where I should have stated 'Beast' (since edited for clarity). This thread (as the subject might indicate) is specifically about changes made to the Beast boss mechanics. My bad on not being clearer there :)

Pande is outdated/10 year old content and there's no need to increase its difficulty. Some might say 'But then everyone will have a BoC' and I'd like to point them to research attunement devices, DB coverings and ring of plausibility. I think the days of Beast loot being considered 'luxury' are many years behind us.

Well, maybe if they made NSD work in PvM this wouldn't be an issue!

But I agree, reflects pop waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too often, for too long. And I dont find beast to be harder himself, just not manageable with a super small group. The shield thing is more of an annoyance and a bit of a deterrent (per what I said) and with no possible counter, makes it for non fun, annoying times, longer killing, and did I mention sheer frustration?

If they wanted harder, they could have made him wtf crazy hard; Needing multi docs timing iCH casts, 4+ full teams in raid interface, continuous add spawns, (oh oh! have his reflects cover adds too!) AOE stuns e.g. Woon, AOE nsd, AOE fears, timed fire from the floor leaking in from inferno that's insta-death.

Made the last boss in Pande real horrorshow! :D

But no, they went for; pesky/annoying/unfun...

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Originally Posted by Traderjill

Pande is outdated/10 year old content and there's no need to increase its difficulty.

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Since the weapons used to create all (or most) professions's current "endgame" weapons drop from from the Beast, I think people should indeed be near "endgame" to do that raid successfully. So I guess I agree with Beast being at least as tough at as it is; I'd rather have it be even tougher in a real way, though - not just in an annoying reflect way.

If a newer crazy awesome raid had ever gets added to AO maybe I'll feel differently about Pande, but I doubt we'll get a completely new raid zone for a long while if ever. So if that's the case, I'd actually do like the idea of old raid zones being updated for difficulty (and with new loot, which they haven't really done much unfortunately)

The newer "three mobs in a single room" shtick like 12m doesn't really feel like a raid to me, so I'm not sure what we have for raids currently that count as not-out-of-date content.

I tanked beast last night with a screaming baby on my knee, half paying attention to game, half paying attention to trying not to be a bad daddy.

guys on my team were fine, but nothing spectacular.

Sure, reflects went up a fair bit, dropped an alpha or two into them which sucks, but hey, no biggie.

The biggest change I saw was that Pande mobs were a little more nicely spaced out and we tore through them very quickly.

I don't know if there has been any changes, in recent times (last time I did pande was a year ago farming lusts for advy), but I felt like the trash mobs dropped a lot faster than I remembered.

The HP of the trash mobs have been reduced, and their damage slightly increased to compensate.

I think the changes to beast where the following:

More Shield, more (or better timed nukes ;-) ) and which I think was capped to only two waves of adds is changed since I've been in raids where more then two waves of adds just plain sucked when those happend right one after another..

Pro's an Con's left aside it wasn't my favorite and to begin with and hasn't changed that much for the worse. Only the mob agro range can be very annoying. Proper team = still easy.

The beast was just a dull pain in the .... now... all the New reflects cycles made it damn boring.

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Originally Posted by Biancha

The newer "three mobs in a single room" shtick like 12m doesn't really feel like a raid to me, so I'm not sure what we have for raids currently that count as not-out-of-date content.

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The closest we have is S42, though that's still over half a decade old.

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Originally Posted by Biancha

Since the weapons used to create all (or most) professions's current "endgame" weapons drop from from the Beast, I think people should indeed be near "endgame" to do that raid successfully.

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Since they wanted us to use old content to make endgame weapons, then the goal should've been to make the current content where the weapon upgrade drops a challenge.. not turn 10 year old content into endgame raid material again (using the 'lots of time=challenge' formula, no less). As it stands right now, you need a better team/more people to obtain the weapon from the 2003 content than you need to do the most recent expansion's instances.

Let's look at another Xan item that is an upgrade of dated content, the profession stellar nanodeck. Funcom actually went the opposite direction in that they made the profession star much easier to obtain. It only takes a very short/easy quest line that includes one zod kill and one beast run to get a guaranteed star for your profession. Couple that with the fact that there have been no attempts to make the questline that awards the original nanodeck require an endgame team to do it (no moreso than what was required when that content came out, not including the init changes that affected every high level content in game). The result is that it is easier (read as faster), overall, to get the older items and the challenge/grind/whatever you want to call it is focused on the Xan components. If Funcom wants to add a similar style quest to Pande to allow us to obtain up to 2 Beast weapons then I'd ask a mod to close this thread. But since any new toon is still going to need to farm a weapon or two from Beast then the fact that the encounter has been made EXTREMELY annoying to play is very relevant.

So again, turning an old drop into a new shiny doesn't mean they should've turned up the intensity on the old content by making it take x4 longer to beat or requiring you to bring in 3-5 times the raid force required less than a year ago. It is a backwards approach.. even moreso to do now considering Legacy of the Xan has been out for four years. If this was the approach they wanted to take.. they should've done it when Xan came out.

Take everything that I just said away and there's one other factor that annoys me about the Beast change. Funcom is directly or indirectly promoting the whole 'do it on your main' way of thinking that is completely unfun for a decent portion of their population. Rather than me being able to do content as my new toon gets to it (and is level appropriate) they're raising the bar so I'll be forced to go do raids on finished toons to gear up a new one. Granted, that's what some people will do regardless but they shouldn't strip away the option to 'reasonably' do otherwise for those that want to play another way. Of course we can debate it til the end of time but as someone whose primary focus is PvM, I'd prefer to not to have keep doing it triple logged or with the same 3 or 4 toons that I've used for 10 years. I rolled a new engie.. I'd like to do the content in Pande on the new engie, not be forced to join a zerg bot or 'log my main'. The changes to Beast are kinda forcing me to either opt out of it altogether (as I don't need beast on finished toons) or play in zerg bots which I don't necessarily find entertaining for 10 year old content.

If someone from Funcom actually covered off on why they were making these changes it would be nice. I may have missed something but I searched the forums after I did my first Beast raid, upon returning, and couldn't even find any mention of the changes in the patch notes. I also haven't seen a single thread on the forums mentioning it besides this one. Seems like a significant enough of a change to have at least warranted some communication.. anyone have a link to anything?

I understand that games need to change/evolve but I feel like we just got pushed back 7 years in terms of progress, without any explanation. You mentioned the 3 mannable Xan instances and I 100% agree that Xan was a joke in terms of its lack of what I consider to be 'raid worthy' content. But.. that was the plan. If you go back and listen to Colin/Means' statements and interviews on Xan he talks about moving to a structure where you're not farming trash mobs and such but able to enter an instance and get right into the battle. Everything released since then (Collector, Gauntlet, DB3) has been in line with that way of thinking. If something changed and now they're trying to regress to the Pande style encounters (when Pande was current content) then make a new raid OR make a 'heroic' version of Pande (weren't they supposed to be upgrading/re-purposing non-instanced Pande anyway? All they've done since announcing that was added Gauntlet at the very start).

We had what felt like the worst version of the new Beast the other night. After the first near-wipe, I started using my fixer's fling cycle to calc the shield time and came up with 87 successful fling shots vs. 135 that were wasted against the shield. Granted, that's not a true timer but it was one I could work out with hashmarks while dealing with adds, etc.

In my opinion, there's nothing about this that is fun or improved. If there is a way to take down or limit the shield, then we can have a tactical response and I'd have nothing but compliments for FC. I say this as someone who completed Arid Rift solo (but for Way In/Out) in the first few weeks on a 204 fixer with a KMP 5/Hawk combination. I like figuring out how to make difficult scenarios work. But this? This was just ridiculous.

You aren't going to see detrimental changes to the game for 4-6 years. Engine will be released in 2, and maybe NPE at the same time, then 2 more years to develop new content internally and address issues with gameplay and then another 2 years implementing. This is of course if AO doesn't die in 2014 or 2015, but 2015 is really pushing it for this game surviving.

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Originally Posted by Traderjill

If someone from Funcom actually covered off on why they were making these changes it would be nice. I may have missed something but I searched the forums after I did my first Beast raid, upon returning, and couldn't even find any mention of the changes in the patch notes. I also haven't seen a single thread on the forums mentioning it besides this one. Seems like a significant enough of a change to have at least warranted some communication.. anyone have a link to anything?

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• The game is too easy.
• The game is too grind-heavy.
• The "AO"-team doesn't seem to know well what to do with it.

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Originally Posted by Traderjill

there's one other factor that annoys me about the Beast change. Funcom is directly or indirectly promoting the whole 'do it on your main' way of thinking

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I agree in part, but I attribute the "do it on your main enf/crat/doc" thing to player mentality as much as Funcom though. Taking the path of least resistance, etc.

I'd rather Funcom had kept the old-style portals that disappear quickly and not let people back in after they die, or leave. It would make raids a little more risky and demand a little more focus from people. I'm sure that won't happen though, and I realize most people don't share my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Traderjill

I rolled a new engie.. I'd like to do the content in Pande on the new engie, not be forced to join a zerg bot or 'log my main'. The changes to Beast are kinda forcing me to either opt out of it altogether (as I don't need beast on finished toons) or play in zerg bots which I don't necessarily find entertaining for 10 year old content.

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I'm not sure I understand exactly but I'm sorry it's working out for you like that. I guess on the bright side, killing your way to the Beast is a lot faster now.

The best solution to these kinds of discussions would be to have Funcom make us some interesting new raids :)

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Originally Posted by Biancha

I agree in part, but I attribute the "do it on your main enf/crat/doc" thing to player mentality as much as Funcom though. Taking the path of least resistance, etc.

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I think I covered that 2 sentences after the one you quoted so guess you agree in whole :)

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Originally Posted by Traderjill

Granted, that's what some people will do regardless but they shouldn't strip away the option to 'reasonably' do otherwise for those that want to play another way.

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Originally Posted by Biancha

I'd rather Funcom had kept the old-style portals that disappear quickly and not let people back in after they die, or leave. It would make raids a little more risky and demand a little more focus from people. I'm sure that won't happen though, and I realize most people don't share my opinion.

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The issue I have with your idea is that I don't want more risk on 10 year old content. It's 10 years old.. on a 220 endgame toon I should be able to run through it, darn near solo, due to the power creep. On a level appropriate toon, also due to the power creep/additional items and such, I should definitely be able to get it done in a smaller group than what was needed 5-7 years ago.

Honestly, I'd be happy if they made Pande a max level 215 instance such that people were forced to stop, fix their toons up and do the content at a level that's close to what's intended. That would make a lot more sense to me than what they've done.

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Originally Posted by Biancha

I'm not sure I understand exactly but I'm sorry it's working out for you like that. I guess on the bright side, killing your way to the Beast is a lot faster now.

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Well let me spell it out a bit more because I was indeed vague. Before I took a break, I could log a toon that needed Beast items and do Pande with that toon in a small group with friends. Now, if I tried to do that, I'm pretty sure the raid would not be successful ( a small group of non-finished toons). So, that means that I can either do the proverbial "logging of my main" or put my non-endgame toon in a zerg bot. The option of just going there and doing the content on my toon and a small group of friends is just not there (unless they're logging their mains and I'm the only one that isn't).

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Originally Posted by Biancha

The best solution to these kinds of discussions would be to have Funcom make us some interesting new raids

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Going to have to disagree. The best solution to these kinds of discussions is for Funcom Devs to announce significant changes to content. I've gone through patch notes 5 times at least.. every patch since I took a break in September and don't even see a single mention of these Pande changes. The only Pande changes I found mentioned mobs returning to their spawn points and added xp (which I assume applies to non-instanced Pande). It is possible that the changes are somehow lumped into "fixed exploits" but even if that is the case.. this is a significant of enough change that something should have been mentioned in detail. It's very, very sloppy communication and pretty inconsiderate of the players. I'm not asking for above and beyond communication.. patch notes are pretty standard in the MMO industry.

Quoting myself from last year this time. Different changes.. same darned problem!

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Originally Posted by Traderjill

Based off the last dev response to the UBT issue, I'd like to request that the funcom dev staff take a look at the last patch notes and get together and determine what stuff was left out.

When a new patch comes out, so many things are changed and not listed in the patch notes that it is pretty tough to tell if something was intentionally changed or if it is a bug. On top of it all, you guys are generally pretty darned slow to respond to threads where people are asking "is this working as intended?".

UBT breaking crat mezzes now.. not in the notes. That change to the omni technical device.. not in the notes. Heck, even a really awesome thing like the change to the MP pets (them being changed to insta cast and then a cooldown) wasn't even listed in the patch notes.

How hard is it for you guys to share a document someplace on your servers that everyone updates with changes as you go? This isn't just the lindelu crew.. this is a long standing issue with patches in AO. We get a new patch and no one seems to know what the heck was actually changed. I deal with documents all of the time, generally for business processes and training. When I do updates to master documents there is an entire "Updates in this version x.x" that I constantly maintain and update every time I make a change to the document. Then, when the new version is published, there is very little that I have to do except review the update area for wording. This should be SOP for a software company... why aren't you guys doing that?

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Originally Posted by Traderjill

Honestly, I'd be happy if they made Pande a max level 215 instance such that people were forced to stop, fix their toons up and do the content at a level that's close to what's intended. That would make a lot more sense to me than what they've done.

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Well that would make Biancha a lot more popular!

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Originally Posted by Traderjill

I think I covered that 2 sentences after the one you quoted so guess you agree in whole :)

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I kind of agree yes, but I think our opinion of what being able to do Pande "reasonably" is, is different.

By the way, I disagree and/or don't understand a lot of your ideas, but I'm not just trying to be fighty, and I do agree that the increased reflects are kind of silly. If beast had cyclical reflects like Urquhart the biodome tree it might be more fun but as it is now it's just kind of silly.

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Originally Posted by Traderjill

Honestly, I'd be happy if they made Pande a max level 215 instance

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I don't know, that wouldn't make any sense to me at all O_O

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Originally Posted by Traderjill

Before I took a break, I could log a toon that needed Beast items and do Pande with that toon in a small group with friends. Now, if I tried to do that, I'm pretty sure the raid would not be successful.

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I can't really say for sure, but I wouldn't write off your chances so easily.

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Originally Posted by Traderjill

Going to have to disagree. The best solution to these kinds of discussions is for Funcom Devs to announce significant changes to content.

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Yes that's true, but it's entirely possible Funcom doesn't really know they changed the Beast at all. Those changes could be a bug from adding a new Phasefront skateboard to the item shop or something.

:)