Destiny of Velious introduced an unparalleled strict progression to both its group and raid zones. Players wanting to group up in Velious instances have discovered that there are 3 sets of group zones which each require completing the one before it in progression before being granted access.
For instance, you must clear Tower of Frozen Shadow: Shadowed Corridors to gain access to ToFS: Umbral Halls, which must be cleared to gain access to ToFS: Haunt of Syl’Tor. And aspiring raiders must clear all 3 of these group zones in order to gain access to the Tower of Frozen Shadow x2 raid zone. And as we also saw in The Shadow Odyseey expansion, raiders who wish to take on the most difficult x4 Raid content in Velious must first acquire a clickable debuff item by clearing the Tower of Frozen Shadow x2.
With such a daunting interdependency on all Velious zones from group instances through x2 raid and onto the x4 raid zones, you would think that Progression Quests would have been fully tested through QA and ready for players on day 1 of the expansion. Alternately, you would expect that if bugs were discovered, some of these quests would have been passable through other means. Any MMO is going to have adjustments, tweaks, nerfs, etc. after the launch of an expansion. But it’s quite another to release content that MUST all work smoothly end-to-end, yet doesn’t.
Necretia the Widowmaker
Tuesday’s Update restored Necretia the Widowmaker, a boss of Tower of Frozen Shadow x2 nearly a week after she was removed from the game due to two problems. First, it was noticed several weeks ago that she could be killed and respawned. However it was when an extraordinary item on her loot table, the Necretia Bow of Webs was discovered that she was despanwed. This bow had inflated stats and effects such that it was equivalent to a “level 300 item”. However the issue here is one of progression. Tower of Frozen Shadow x2 cannot be completed without her.
It took several days to get this resolved, and guilds who had already started the zone must wait for their zone to reset and start over to get a chance at fighting her. Until then, certain guilds remain unable to raid Velious x4 content through no limitation of their own.
Six Weeks Later
Destiny of Velious’ progression structure ended up concentrating players into just a few certain dungeons, trying to ‘open up’ the game. Yet due to a variety of bugs, players have been flummoxed in their progression. This started right from the beginning with Lord Doljonijiarnimorinar (Lord Bob). He was at first nearly unkillable, and also bugged so that he could be killed repeatedly by raid guilds. He had to be removed from the game, thus making it nearly impossible for players to complete any group dungeons at all unless they had raid gear from Sentinel’s Fate.
In the past weeks, we have continued to see a high volume of progression bugs and script problems with locking and unlocking doors in dungeons, and the mobs themselves despawning, bugging out, or being unkillable.
Progression bugs have not been limited to new zones either:
By many accounts, Destiny of Velious is a good expansion with lots of great dungeons, challenging encounters, well-written quests, and lots of things to do. Although the itemization has been widely panned for boiling down EverQuest II’s 24 class system to a 4 class system, and graphical glitches have partly tarnished the otherwise great artwork, it is these progression bugs that have prevented some players from just logging in and enjoying the content.
Six weeks after the launch of Destiny of Velious, bugs still remain in the progression and completion of the 9 group dungeons and 4 raid zones in this expansion, presenting additional challenges for those players who wish to enjoy the entire expansion’s content. It seems fortuitous that Velious also brought Public Quests with powerful gear as a distraction while bugs with the instances were resolved.
Your Feedback
Are we making a mountain out of a molehill? Have you been able to find plenty to do in Velious with faction grinds and questing and public quests such that a few bugs here and there in instances and raid zones don’t affect you that much?
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Devil in the Details: Velious Progression
Destiny of Velious introduced an unparalleled strict progression to both its group and raid zones. Players wanting to group up in Velious instances have discovered that there are 3 sets of group zones which each require completing the one before it in progression before being granted access.
For instance, you must clear Tower of Frozen Shadow: Shadowed Corridors to gain access to ToFS: Umbral Halls, which must be cleared to gain access to ToFS: Haunt of Syl’Tor. And aspiring raiders must clear all 3 of these group zones in order to gain access to the Tower of Frozen Shadow x2 raid zone. And as we also saw in The Shadow Odyseey expansion, raiders who wish to take on the most difficult x4 Raid content in Velious must first acquire a clickable debuff item by clearing the Tower of Frozen Shadow x2.
With such a daunting interdependency on all Velious zones from group instances through x2 raid and onto the x4 raid zones, you would think that Progression Quests would have been fully tested through QA and ready for players on day 1 of the expansion. Alternately, you would expect that if bugs were discovered, some of these quests would have been passable through other means. Any MMO is going to have adjustments, tweaks, nerfs, etc. after the launch of an expansion. But it’s quite another to release content that MUST all work smoothly end-to-end, yet doesn’t.
Necretia the Widowmaker
Tuesday’s Update restored Necretia the Widowmaker, a boss of Tower of Frozen Shadow x2 nearly a week after she was removed from the game due to two problems. First, it was noticed several weeks ago that she could be killed and respawned. However it was when an extraordinary item on her loot table, the Necretia Bow of Webs was discovered that she was despanwed. This bow had inflated stats and effects such that it was equivalent to a “level 300 item”. However the issue here is one of progression. Tower of Frozen Shadow x2 cannot be completed without her.
It took several days to get this resolved, and guilds who had already started the zone must wait for their zone to reset and start over to get a chance at fighting her. Until then, certain guilds remain unable to raid Velious x4 content through no limitation of their own.
Six Weeks Later
Destiny of Velious’ progression structure ended up concentrating players into just a few certain dungeons, trying to ‘open up’ the game. Yet due to a variety of bugs, players have been flummoxed in their progression. This started right from the beginning with Lord Doljonijiarnimorinar (Lord Bob). He was at first nearly unkillable, and also bugged so that he could be killed repeatedly by raid guilds. He had to be removed from the game, thus making it nearly impossible for players to complete any group dungeons at all unless they had raid gear from Sentinel’s Fate.
In the past weeks, we have continued to see a high volume of progression bugs and script problems with locking and unlocking doors in dungeons, and the mobs themselves despawning, bugging out, or being unkillable.
Progression bugs have not been limited to new zones either:
By many accounts, Destiny of Velious is a good expansion with lots of great dungeons, challenging encounters, well-written quests, and lots of things to do. Although the itemization has been widely panned for boiling down EverQuest II’s 24 class system to a 4 class system, and graphical glitches have partly tarnished the otherwise great artwork, it is these progression bugs that have prevented some players from just logging in and enjoying the content.
Six weeks after the launch of Destiny of Velious, bugs still remain in the progression and completion of the 9 group dungeons and 4 raid zones in this expansion, presenting additional challenges for those players who wish to enjoy the entire expansion’s content. It seems fortuitous that Velious also brought Public Quests with powerful gear as a distraction while bugs with the instances were resolved.
Your Feedback
Are we making a mountain out of a molehill? Have you been able to find plenty to do in Velious with faction grinds and questing and public quests such that a few bugs here and there in instances and raid zones don’t affect you that much?