What is the purpose of, or reasoning behind this? I honestly can’t see one, and as a result it just feels like absolutely broken, untested BS that makes the mission artificially harder. A barrel being lit, and about to blow shouldn’t affect its mass, or center of gravity that it just starts floating around like a poltergeist is playing with it, lol. I hope that’s not how it’s intended to work, cuz it would almost seem like you guys just made it this way to mess up an otherwise perfectly good throw that would’ve satisfied the mission objective.
Generally, the event seems kinda overtuned, considering that even in veteren (easy mode), things can go wrong incredibly easy. Whether it’s the BROKEN barrel physics, or the fact that TWO blightstormers can spawn on the far reaches of the arena where barely anyone can reliably see/reach (without good call-outs at least, but even then) WHILE simultaneously doing the death-wall dance/trying to survive the mobs that come from all directions, casting dual storms that can take up half of the arena, or the fact that the barrel-hunting skulls (why they hate barrels so much, no one knows) can see through stealth, thus negating one of the most practical uses for stealth characters being safe barrel transport (In my opinion, it’s a often hallmark of bad game design if you need to negate a class feature just to keep your boss mechanics safe).
Idunno man. Honestly, this event needs some serious retuning, cuz it plays like it’s bugged, and frustratingly tuned towards premades who are expected to be situationally aware at all times, never being allowed to skip a single beat. Messing up even once leads to much more dire consequences than any other map/game mode.
The barrels (in my experience) only go wonky when hit by one of the three blue skulls circling the well of souls. If it wasn’t there it could be completed very quickly and easily. It makes you think about when to throw it.
The skulls focus on the barrel not the carrier, so the stealth mechanic works how it should I think as this is the same for all barrels. I’ve had more success as a character who can dash(Handmaiden, Zealot, FK, BW) than stealthy characters.
Tbh I’ve completed it dozens of times in PUGS at Legend and although it can go south fast, I happen to think the ending of Trail of Treachery is much more punishing than the Tower. Once the mechanics are understood and if the team stick together, protect the carrier and shoot the skulls it’s not too difficult.
Slayer with Coghammer build that refreshes his ULT very fast is good for leaping/throwing barrels too.
Plus, if you are fast enough (dash, speed potion, or just coordination) you can throw the barrel in the well without having to shoot the skulls.
Even without items or ulti it can be accomplished by throwing the barrel over the gates to a teammate who then proceeds to throw it in the well.
Not terribly easy, but I happen to think it’s miles better than the end of Trail, even on solo play.
I’m happy for your input, but I highly disagree. The wonky barrel idea is just stupid.
If the barrel mission design was too easy for their liking on this particular level, then they should’ve gone with something else. It doesn’t matter what the skulls track, because the barrel should be literally invisible with you, because otherwise it’s an annoying deviation from previous barrel mission design, and it’s also just generally unfair that as a result, stealth character utility is pretty much gimped for this section. I’d rather more consistency, because 9/10 wipes in that section come from players playing it for the first time, expecting it to be like every other barrel mission. There’s SO much going on from all directions in this circular arena that most people don’t even notice the floating skulls, and are wondering why the barrels keep getting triggered.
Also think about this lore-wise. How did Sophia specifically think to create floating skulls that see through stealth specifically for the purpose of attacking barrels, to trigger them/make their gravity weird? Was this a problem she’s had before, or something? lol…So, not only is it bad game-design, but it’s crazy immersion breaking. It’s clearly just an incredibly lazy way to artificially add “challenge” (more like annoyance) to a scenario format that was fine as it was. I think the death wall would’ve been a fine enough of an addition to spice it up.
Lore wise? Whole section of the tower is filled with skeletons, she probably saw and heard the whole plan being done. And Sienna clearly notices this since she has voicelines talking about how Sofia is not being serious, she´s just messing around and being dramatic for fun. Which is kinda reinforced by how theatrical the library introduction is. And how exactly should some shadow magic or whatnot be able to hide oneself from undead using magic to look around?
As for it being unfair in practice that the skulls ignore stealth, well maybe, but on the other hand, stealth has quite a lot of advantages in other sections of the game so its not the end of the world for it not not be the best thing there too.
People keep going on about “shoot the skulls”. There are none. I’ve seen a few accounts, myself included, of folks saying that they can’t even see the skulls. They’re just not visible (either too light against the background they’re in, they’re moving too fast/out of our FoV so we can’t see it, or just downright not there at all). I think we can put to bed the “just shoot the skulls” thing because it’s clear that there’s visibility issues with the skulls.
As for the whole mechanic i agree it’s an added layer of difficulty that doesn’t need to be there. Like sure i get it if the skulls just shot the barrel and then it blew up that’s fine. But if we’re assuming we can actually see them why not just have it blow the barrel up and leave it at that? The barrel normally isn’t viable if it’s lit before it falls in (though they may have patched it because there’s a few times where i’ve seen it fall in lit and it counted) so just having it hit the barrel is enough. There shouldn’t be this whole magnetism mechanic around it. It’s a cool idea but it falls flat in practice.
edit: that’s on top of all the other mechanics there’s borked special spawns. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve wiped to a blightstormer who’s hiding all the way in the back corner of our prep room and there’s just the tiniest sliver between the portcullis and the window to the next room that you can just barely see him if you stop. Which is the problem right there, you can’t stop. They need to either disable special spawns or make it so they can only spawn around the upper walls of the arena like they do in righteous stand just before the barracks.
You can see them, but they’re visually unremarkable compared to all the chaos going on around you. It’s not like the bug clouds the rot wizard bosses throw at you. They kinda blend into the color scheme of the environment too much to readily notice without taking your eyes off the omni-directional chaos coming at you the majority of the time, due to the circular nature of the arena.
I don’t think specials need to be disabled, but the stormers definitely should be limited to 1, and unable to spawn in unreachable areas.
The lore bit I brought up because since when does necromancy give you the ability to detect invisibility, and why would she have thought “WELP! Better check for stealthed barrel carriers. That’s a known problem 'round these parts!”
I would say stealth has the right amount of advantages in the game. The problem here is that this barrel scenario deviates from all other previous scenarios, and there’s honestly no way you’d know of the deviation until you actually look up and realize the skulls are tracking you through stealth, and for some people this could be many failed barrels, or even wipes before they catch on. What I’m saying is that it’s not intuitive at all, and needs to be plainly stated for many players, as I’ve seen on many message boards.
Because as far as i know, warhammer employs the good old system of mage in tower = outrageously extra powered mage. So having been able to overhear and see the entire plan being done she could comfortably prepare just enough to ensure she wouldnt go down too easily.
And i mean, it seems like she intentionally left this huge arse weakness open, which gets called out too. So it´s not too strange she´d have prepared countermeasures for the very obvious attempted attack on said weakness.
…
Oh, and i believe this whole “invisibility doesnt work” thing applies to nearly all mages in all towers and that´s why the elite skaven Enshin assassins are so feared. Since their unique warp magic lets them cloak through nearly everything short of plot armor.
Right amount of advantages? It kinda nullifies quite a lot of enemies and pressure stuff in the game at large. This whole event for instance would be kinda trivial if a shade could just waltz in and carry the barrels without any fear of reprisal…But i do agree that this mechanic could be better done such as the skulls being more visible and it being more obvious when they are going in to attack.
But i disagree that there is no way to know…i lost two barrels during my first run before i caught on, but after that it was easy enough.
No, the invisibility works, you’re getting this wrong. It just doesn’t work on the floating skulls. It’s very clearly arbitrary game design. There’s no way this makes any lore sense lol.
…I was being unclear, yes i know stealth works against everything else.
These are two different issue´s.
Game design : It´s not terrible to have the skulls not discriminate because stealth doesnt really need to be able to trivialize this event as well.
Lore wise, Being sneaky does not make assassins invisible to wards or other kinds of magical boundaries or magical sentinels. As far as i know its really just the Skaven, specifically Enshin, warp magic that reliably gets through.
I think the fact that those look like skulls is just a cosmetic choice, like Sienna’s Flaming Head, they are most likely completely unrelated.
That aside, I get how this mechanic discrimination could be annoying to you, but are you really having trouble with the event? I find the hard part is getting the barrel in throwing range, and that’s where invisibility helps immeasurably. As far as I know the skulls don’t start to track the barrel until you are close.
So the difference is between being able to walk unopposed there and throw it, compared to walking all the way to the edge and just drop it.
It doesn’t seem that bad to me.
I’ve beaten it many times, but the likelihood of beating it drops dramatically when in quickplay. I think that’s where I get annoyed, because the task of carrying the barrels isn’t always in my hands. See, I know about the skulls, I know the barrel starts flying like zero gravity when it gets triggered (still makes no sense), but most people still don’t. Most people see the objective indicator and just go into “Oh, it’s a barrel mission” autopilot mode, not even suspecting that it might deviate from all the previous barrel missions…I mean, why would they have reason to suspect that? All the barrel missions are pretty much the same. So if the barrel objectives keep spawning closest to the one person who keeps screwing it up, there’s really not much I can do but frantically survive the increasingly messed up odds.
I would say that, and the challenge of the wall-dance phase gets way too sloppy very easily. Double-blightstormers who are often completely hidden far off in areas where you can easily (almost guaranteed in some situations where the stormer is really nestled in the farthest of the farthest secluded nook of the outer ring) get trapped by the death-wall when trying to pursue them, DURING all the omni-directional spawning chaos in the inner-ring is just straight up stressful, and unfun.
The difference between this event, and events previously is that the other events, while challenging, are able to be figured out intuitively, and while on the run/fighting hordes. This event is incredibly unintuitive, and what makes it obvious is that people are still posting here and there asking wtf is making their barrels explode, especially when in stealth, and also inquiring as to why the barrels lose gravity and move erratically when triggered (by anything, not just the skulls).
Thanks for the clarification. I do agree that’s frustrating (and inevitable, for a while at least), I’ve had many runs where I’ve tried to ask pubs to let me or another player carry them, but changing the stealth part wouldn’t change your experience a lot (unless another new player with stealth has to find out the hard way).
The funny part of this is: I’ve only found out about the skulls after a few successful runs, even on cata: me and my mates are just used to tossing barrels from a distance
So yeah, the event is a bit unintuitive, but not in too bad a way. Give it time, I can see it becoming routine. I for one appreciated the novelty (skeletons, yay!) and think it’s a much better way to go about it than just spam insane density of enemies and adding a secret cheese spot (Trail).
Why not? The blightstormers are the worst bit, but assuming somebody survives the undead phases it is easy enough to pull revives. I think convocation of decay and rasknitt are worse events
