Alice in Portaland feedback and suggestion thread

[deleted]

Let's go giving our complain, feedback and suggestion about alice twisted instance here.

For now my feedback are:

Time limit of 20 minutes is too short considering the portal rng and the limited movement speed. Dont put too many eggs on one basket, choose one or two mechanic that doesnt clash with each other and stick with it. (Are your goals trying to make people lost? Or to make people speedrunning? Or try to make those biolo experience normal speed?)
It is too bothersome to have 1 day CD when all we did is scrambling around in the 1st map trying to reach second map. Make it so that u can only claim reward from mvp once per day but enable us to generate instance multiple times.
Portal RNG is more punishing the more people in your party, and especially with the limited time we have on doing the party

Would appreciate if these problem are addressed, it is just too much punishment in one instance as it is right now.

zarkhaev

I was going to make a similar thread to this one as several of my friends and I tried to run this instance for the last two days. While the normal one is doable, the hard one is just plain stupid with the portal RNG and time limit.
After discussion (more like ranting) today, we've also come to the same conclusion, either delete the time limit or randomness.
I know that your intention is to make the instance according to the theme of 'Twisted Madness', but what good does it do if anyone hardly plays it?
Maybe the real Twisted Madness was our party members descending into madness trying to find the correct portal.

Emrys

I'm writing this post since I haven't seen much people writing about their experiences with the custom instance Alice Twisted Madness. So I'll start and other people can join the discussion as well. Instance overall looks pretty nice aesthetically and has some interesting mazes. I did 2 hard mode attempts and 2 easy mode attempts and have some feedback for the hardmode one.

Portal RNG destination needs to be reworked or removed entirely. From the 2 runs I did in hard mode, in a party between 8-11 people, while most of us can get to midway portal there are some members that are unable to do so resulting in run failure.
For instance in the first hard mode run, everyone in the party managed to reach the midway portal with the clock but I was the last to arrive with about 5 minutes left due to unlucky warps with the portal where I was the only character there and trying to work my way thru the physical/magic immune mob mix to re-enter portal.
In the second hard mode run, all but one of our party members managed to reach clock and the last party member never reached the clock due to bad rng warp to the point where the entire 20 minutes had elapsed and still did not manage to reach it.
The time gate combo with movespeed penalty along with RNG portals. While one or two of the aforementioned mechanics of the instance would be acceptable IMO, having all 3 seems overboard. In the second attempt, we had an Inquisitor that scouted ahead and found the portal in the map before the MVP but could not proceed because one member was still stuck in first map despite several portal entry attempts to reach the clock map area.

Sagii

I'd like to retain everything, I have an idea however I do not know if it is possible. Everytime a party member reaches the portal to 2nd map. A key is provided to a random party member roaming around the 1st map of the labyrinth. Using the key directly teleports that party member to the 2nd map. Key is tradable and can be drop, but cannot be put to storage or cart, and only lasts 5 minutes.

2nd map is fine.

I personally haven't reached the MVP room on hard mode. So I don't have any idea on that yet.

Neku

I honestly think everything is fine, the only change I would say is increase the time limit for Hard Mode to 30 minutes or something. For when my guild ran it, we only had 1-2 people who had to leave the party before we confronted the MvP due to them not being able to find the warps. I think an extra 10 minutes is acceptable.

Choi

I kind of hesitate to add feedback since the instance is still new. Generally, my team is able to get to the boss on hard mode with 7-10 minutes to spare with the boss taking about ₈ minutes to defeat? We have had to kick some people on some runs because there'd be 1 person stuck behind. So I think the time limit isn't too bad since we're still strategizing on ways to speed it up.

As far as portals go, I think it's fine as is. Even when I'm alone I can get through the warps with a mix of tokens of seigfried and potions. I think it's probably the most difficult for support classes, but generally, tanks are able to get through by healing if they're alone and DPS clears to get through.
That being said, I could also see a change to make the warps be randomized per instance but always go to the same places within that specific instance. That would allow people to go as a group through the whole instance, but I think that would also take away from some of the fun of the instance because I do like the chaos of trying to get through.

I think my main feedback would be to add a visual cue on the bosses on the kind of damage that will work on them, as it's pretty hard to tell who is doing damage. Maybe an aura could be added that changes when they should be taking melee, ranged, or magic damage?

StellarFlare

I agree with everything mentioned in the first post and I wanna add that the speed limit is maddening and makes me hate this instance lol

Reminder that not everyone has enough gears to deal with all the random bullshit you're dealing at 6.66ms and have a good time. People that aren't having a problem with it are mostly those with endgame guilds/instances that have nothing to worry about.

So many empty rooms with nothing in them

StellarFlare

Instead of random warps leading into empty rooms with walking inside then why not do it like this?

Main map has it's usual warps. Entering the warp will randomly give you a challenge room(like the chessboard) where you have to defeat all enemies to clear it and move on. The warp to the next step of the dungeon shows up in the middle of the main map after a number of challenge rooms were cleared.
That helps deal with the rng aspect of warps in an I teresting way at least
Also fuck the limited walk speed. I can't even use sprint because it forces sprint to the same speed as walking.

Neku

Actually I'm gonna put in another suggestion:

At the very end of Hard Mode when the MvPs are spawning/dying, speed up the text process. The text takes several seconds to appear which means the MvPs are spawning very late. The biggest concern is at the end when Jabberwocky dies, it takes like 30 seconds for the final NPC to spawn which can sometimes be final problem between "completing" the instance, or failing it because the NPCs took too long to spawn after the boss's death.

Choco

My experience so far with the Instance:
1-2nd try:
-quite some confusion how to get through the 1st maze in the most effective way
-wtf how to get solo through the mobs when you get split up
-how big is the second maze?
-how do you even kill the boss?
Later trys:
-can we please clear all the mobs, i need tentacles
-wait there's still 5minutes left after the boss kill?

In the end it mostly comes down to team composition(including a good mix of roles, decently geared), communication, experience with the instance.
I watched the random group that was running today, and saw some issues with people not knowing what to do.
But even then they reached the boss in time tho they didn't kill it.
If they try a bit more and figure out the strategy to tackle the maze & the boss they have a good chance to clear the hard mode.

I can see how people can get annoyed by the 1st maze, but there seems to be some kind of pity after entering x portals so it's pretty much doable if you always take the nearest portal. Also you can utilize classes like meister/rebel/inquisitor who have strong movement skills to scout ahead and make up time that other might need in the 1st maze (tho not really necessary).

In the end i think the istance is pretty okay as it is and i enjoy that you need some teamwork of different classes to tackle it. As improvement for others i might suggest adding a lower pity for the 1st maze portals or some other mechanic that shortens the time some people have to walk in the 1st maze.

Mercurial

LAC

If you read the posts above, people have been suggesting ways for workarounds regarding the rng portal so that we all could find a way to meet halfway while maintaining the challenge this endgame instance provides.

Choco As improvement for others i might suggest adding a lower pity for the 1st maze portals or some other mechanic that shortens the time some people have to walk in the 1st maze.

Choi I think my main suggestion that would make it more fun would be to make it so that the warps are random, but people are warped together if they go in together within 3 seconds (similar to the red map). It is tough if you get warped into mobs by yourself or with only physical or only magical members. So I think this will increase collaboration and make it more enjoyable. Though I'm not sure how hard that is to code. This will make it quicker for everyone to get to the end though so it may need some compensation by making it require more warps to get there.

Mercurial I do agree with Choi's suggestion regarding the warping a certain amount of people within a timeframe to keep everybody alive. If I'd like to add to this suggestion, how about diversifying the mobs (ele lvl 4/ranged dmg only/phy dmg only)? Since everyone can move in groups, I think this would still align to the theme of "togetherness" as you navigate this instance.

StellarFlare

Dispel should be a skill exclusive for bosses and very special enemies. The boss already has Deadly Projection (really rare) and Dispel, so why give the ads dispel too? They're infinite and instantly cast dispel on everything.

Do you really think that sprinkling dispel on everything is challenging? It's just frustrating lol

StellarFlare

They're empty and serve no purpose other than waste time.

StellarFlare

This limits skill like Sprint, making them useless and is just an unfun mechanic for anyone that doesn't have a snap skill.

Is it just there so people don't skip past your unfun instance because it was made without having level design in mind?

cruro

As much as it pains me as an inquisitor player to say, but I'd say either all movement skills need to be disabled too (snap, backslide, frontslide, etc..), or just don't nerf movement speed (which I'd definitely prefer).

I feel like using consumables for faster movement speed should be a viable option to compensate for whatever players may lack in dps or ability to conquer the mazes.

Choi

One of the main features that I wanted from this server is collaborative late-game content, and this instance does provide that, and I think some of the suggestions remove some of the collaborative aspects of it. I agree with Choco that the main reason why people are having issues is lack of team composition, communication, and experience. I think that once groups are able to do these better, they'll find that the instance isn't as difficult as it may initially seem.

Dispel from mobs - I'm against this because this is part of the collaborative aspect. If you get dispelled, that should be called and buffers should rebuff the carries. I also don't agree with the premise that dispel should be exclusive to bosses and special enemies.
Movement Speed from Alice Madness - I also think this will take away from the collaborative aspect. From my understanding, the movement speed debuff was added because players could easily bypass the mobs and not have to work together to clear the mobs to get through. If they can just bypass the mobs, all it would be would be a rush to the end. I also don't think that we need an option to compensate for whatever players may lack in dps since from my understanding this is supposed to be a late-game instance, and even then you don't need full-end game gear or mvps to clear it or beat the boss.
No opinion on the empty maps.

I think my main suggestion that would make it more fun would be to make it so that the warps are random, but people are warped together if they go in together within 3 seconds (similar to the red map). It is tough if you get warped into mobs by yourself or with only physical or only magical members. So I think this will increase collaboration and make it more enjoyable. Though I'm not sure how hard that is to code. This will make it quicker for everyone to get to the end though so it may need some compensation by making it require more warps to get there.

Emrys

Choi
I can see the idea of making the warp work by warping ppl that enter within some short timeframe as a group could help alleviate some of the issues with the randomness of the warp. However, I am still of the opinion that the complete RNG needs to have some pity. As of time of writing, it appears that people just kick unlucky members to proceed which seems counter productive to the collaborative aspect.

On this topic however, I also think that more information could be highlighted in the wiki or patch notes regarding how this instance is expected to work. For instance, in the most recent patch "fixed to account players on hardmode floor 2 as to be part of the party at final stage's party check" which basically means now all players in the party needs to be at the Alice NPC before the PL can talk to NPC to proceed to MVP room. However, the previous behaviour in which we tried was that we can start warping from the red map as long PL reaches the portal and talks to the NPC to warp everyone in from the red map. Now that we have worked a strategy around this behaviour we are now told that this is a bug and it no longer works this way.

I do not understand why (imho) critical NPC mechanics/behaviour are not explained at all in anywhere that I can find. Among some of the information that I feel would have been useful for players to know and thus strategize for would be (in no order of importance):
1) Portals in the first map are RNG
2) Players need to walk to the two portals in clock room to proceed (first right then left)
3) Red map portal location changes after someone has entered it
4) Everyone needs to be in front of Alice NPC to proceed
5) First phase MVP actually needs to die for phase change to happen while 2nd to 3rd phase trigger is HP at 50%
6) Jabberwock can actually spawn 3 instances of himself if we take too long time (time duration still unknown) to bring his HP down to 50% for change

All of these coupled together with the RNG-ness of the instance itself can make it fairly aggravating imo.

StellarFlare

You say that about dispel because you play AM and AM doesn't get crippled by dispel sir. Remember when dispel worked on reading spellbooks? That's a little more akin to being crippled by dispel. Just because you are hanging out with your buddies calling for buffs doesn't mean that this is good group content. Being ill can be fun with friends.

The movement speed aspect is just to band aid shit design. The only way to make it work if by having someone that can ignore that and scout ahead. The map is so unchallenging that I could just walk to the boss solo and not die. Your team work is just trying to minimize the band aid so it doesn't get in your way as much. Hell, it's faster to just quit and reenter if you enter a wrong warp and it's the spiral corridor one because you'll take 2 minutes in it just to return to start.

In another suggestion: Remove the 1 day limit to run the instance and adjust the item requirements accordingly.

Choi

StellarFlare Just wanted to clarify that I am not the one calling dispels in my party, and I am not only considering AM in regards to the dispel. The members who are calling dispels are generally our meisters and inquisitors, who are heavily impacted by the dispel. Despite this, they enjoy the mechanic and enjoy playing around the counterplay options that exist to prevent it.