Alice in Portaland feedback and suggestion thread

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

Dudes, you guys are literally confusing having a good time with your friends with good instance design
The movement speed, the dispel, the random warps that separate and add nothing but more walking don't bring anything good to the experience of the instance. They're just half assed measures put in place because the instance would literally be a walking simulator otherwise with how lacking in actual mechanics it is outside the boss room. Slow movement speed just makes it so people get frustrated while some classes completely ignore the limitation and make the instance actually possible because they can play it normally.
The empty maps are just a snore fest.
The dispel mechanic on ads being instant and affecting people indiscriminately is crippling to some classes and forces extra consumption of consumables and more time spent rebuffing people over and over and over because that's what dispel does when you put it in normal mobs so liberally.

All you're telling me is how much you're communicating and having fun with your friends in the strongest guild in the game with the highest dps in the game and I'm like, do you not see how you're the only ones having fun running this horrible instance? And how part of your fun is just on talking to your friends in VC and figuring ways to circumvent the horrible mechanics present? What will you start saying if they disable snap too? That that way it's more engaging because now everyone needs to scout together and this is a group building exercise?

Choco

no issue if they disabled snap. we have done it without snap before.

Emrys

Apologize for the necro and upcoming wall of text, but I think there were some good points brought up here and I would also like to bring this feedback thread into attention again. After running almost daily 1-2 runs for past few few weeks, one of the most aggravating key mechanics that truly stand out are the RNG portals in map 1.

Based on our party experience, we are seeing 10-15 tries in map 1 to RNG to the next phase (which generally takes up easily 9 to 15 minutes of the allocated 20 minutes for full rewards (30 for halved) time period) to to proceed to map 2 which happens on average to at least 1 to 2 person every 2-4 runs. This has resulted in the previous strategy of kicking party members that are stuck due to something out of their control so that the other party members can proceed.

Even if say they do manage to finally get past say on the 10th attempt, mobs may have wandered or possibly respawned? (behaviour cannot be confirmed) in previously cleared regions resulting in further delays to said player. For instance, in a recent run one of our party members that took 15 tries to get past phase 1 got ambushed in a region that was cleared earlier.

Perhaps there are some key mechanics that we are missing but we certainly are unable to figure it out after so many runs. We tried going into different portals which do not appear to help with proceeding to the next phase, and going into portals together don't necessary mean players are warped to the same spot together (support players may be separated from dps players while navigating thru the maze). Personally I do not understand why RNG is one of the core instance mechanic that can determine the success or failure of the run with no real way to mitigate/strategize against (as far as I can tell) other than getting lucky I suppose.

The instance itself is vibrant and does has some nice themes and interesting mechanics, but RNG certainly does not add to it. I do hope that other players can chip in their experiences and perhaps the GMs can also provide some explanations on the feedback as well.

chup1n

shoutout to myself for very bad RNG

Aqua

This instance has such a bad design, I'm sorry for the people who designed it but that's how it is. It feels like an individual instance until the MVP room (which is really just a DPS statcheck). Before the MVP room I don't even see like half of my party, it DOES NOT feel like a party instance at all.

There are a lot of issues with this instance. If not for the crazy amount of zeny I can generate from farming the instance daily I would never touch this instance, at all. As compared to other servers I've played in (Nova) I would still keep doing instances regardless of the zeny I could generate at the end of the run, as long as I had fun playing with my friends or even with random players.

Which is another issue for this instance. Considering that this instance has a lot of things that can go wrong with an unorganized party, it's very exclusive for only a small group of players. I could never see myself recruiting a random player for this instance unless I'm REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY desperate. I understand the importance of having an organized party but this just feels extreme, having a 1-day CD isn't helping either. Once you F up the run, you won't have another chance until the next reset OR unless you have multiple characters.

Which brings me to my other suggestion, custom instances should have no CD, people should be able to run it as much as they want/can without worrying about the CD if they fail or F up the run. This would also remove the exclusivity of organizing parties for this and future custom instances.

Meer

Aqua

Which brings me to my other suggestion, custom instances should have no CD, people should be able to run it as much as they want/can without worrying about the CD if they fail or F up the run. This would also remove the exclusivity of organizing parties for this and future custom instances.

I'm not really a PvM master, but I can give a really good solution for this, as this is how top tier MMORPG like Final Fantasy XIV deals with this. Basically the end game contents in FFXIV doesn't have cooldown. You can go inside the party million times a day, but the rewards, can only be taken 1x weekly (on the real top tier content), but they later unlock this reward as the content being obsolete (after 3 to 6 months).

By doing this they unlock:

Ability for the players to "progress" the fight. A.k.a testing roster out, checking if healing is okay here and there, testing out the DPS, etc etc.
Still rewarding the playerbase if they "cleared" the fight, but can still help out friends who want to "progress" the fight, without losing the chance of getting reward.

But yea just my two cents, I rarely play PvM anymore in MuhRO either way 👀

Choi

Meer I like this idea too, and like Aqua mentioned it should be daily. I think the only issue is that the mobs in the map drop important loot as well, so someone can repetitively fail the instance to farm the loots. I don't really know if or think that's necessarily a bad thing though. And the players will get to retry the instance multiple times but only get the monster stone/heavy chain once per day.

Aqua

You can go inside the party million times a day, but the rewards, can only be taken 1x weekly (on the real top tier content)

This actually doesn't sound like a bad idea, I like it. But maybe not weekly, make it daily instead. This way people could still commit multiple characters for these custom instances but at least this way people could still help others without risking their own CD for the instance.

Muh

Just a headsup note, we will look into the RNG in first area.

(this is not a statement regarding anything else in this thread)

StellarFlare

Can you also stop limiting movement speed please?

Aqua

StellarFlare This, please... If movement skills are enabled, why do other jobs have to suffer with the MS penalty 🙁

Sagii

Bumping this up.

I run Alice Normal earlier, and was wandering in first map for the whole 25 minutes with several mazes.

I don't think someone likes to walk around and waste their time.

I know it is just a bad RNG, but it leads to not completing the instance.

I don't know if it is intended though.

Muh

There will be changes _feel free to suggest new ideas after the patch if it's not to your liking

CongaLyne

Something else I want to bump with this that isn't necessarily strict to Alice but doesn't warrant it's own thread either, but I do want to see more party focused content in the server, even if it's earlygame for newer players to have something to party up with.

I want to see more party content in general, since currently the game largely feels like a single player dungeon grinder which happens to have multiplayer aspects integrated.
You can encounter other people while farming dungeons, but due to the NoKS system it's detrimental to go near them and encourages people to stay away from interacting with each other.

I know they'll likely take a while to make, but I do really want to see a lot more party instances in the future like Alice where people are encouraged to play with together.

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