First, I want to say, that I really enjoyed this mission. I look forward to running it with my guildmates and friends as part of our usual routine of bosses and levels. However, I think the "danger level" of the mission could be improved somewhat. Some random thoughts in no particular order:
1. Statuses: The monsters should inflict harmful statuses / be resistant to certain statuses. The only status I had was stun from the zombie breath, and I found that this made the mission much easier. Perhaps a different status could be inflicted depending on the week/day. Cold/Shock/Fire/Poison/Curse. I was never really scared of anything -- nor was I punished for wearing gear that had negative status resists.
2. Kamizombies: I found it all too easy to spam staggerstorm / shivermist / VT and negate the kamizombies entirely. Stagger made them confused and they explode premature, shiver locks them in place and lets them get picked off quite easily, and tempest's shock effect acted much like stagger. Perhaps they should have some resistances, since after the initial surprise goes away, it becomes an easy task to dispatch them with a mist bomber / polaris / what have you. Also, their fuse timer could be adjusted. Often I could get away with poking them and then just running away, because they would just pause for what seemed like forever before exploding. Maybe instead of having them freeze in place, make them like faster versions of those blasticubes, and have a countdown timer when they trigger, so they chase after you and after 3-5 seconds explode. That way it would be harder to dodge.
3. Miniknights. Their health/attack speed could definitely use a buff. Because they don't inflict status (again I think this shd be fixed), they don't pose much of a threat even if they hit you, which was rare, because they were very slow in their attack windup animation. Also, it was very easy to one-shot them with voltedge charge/ rss / what have you. I am not sure what the intention of them is. As it is, they don't drop loot, so are they meant to be just like the demons in graveyard levels? If so, it is a little disappointing -- I would rather them be given a health buff and drop loot, or if they don't drop loot, then a more rolling respawn. I really like their design and enemy variety is nice. It just feels like I am not sure how to approach them, since a lot of them can be avoided with shiver + run away, or just not triggering their statues. Since they don't drop loot. I would prefer them to have loot drops so it encourages players to fight them.
4. Dreadnaughts. These guys were really awesome. They made things tough and it was a challenge to take them down in the rooms with traps. One suggestion I would make is to give them qualities of attack buffing, like a swarm seed, as well. Like how a trojan can pause and make its attack up, perhaps they could pause and make surrounding monsters have higher attack as well.
5. Level length. The first depth seemed to drag for me. The payout isn't that great at the moment (about equivalent to old jelly king), and as a result, taking 15-20 minutes to go through the graveyard was a bit much. I didn't get a big feeling of danger, with exception of the button rooms, and the constant breaking of blocks to pass made things more tedious. Perhaps shorten the length of the depth, to take out the more monotonous slag only sections (which remind me of graveyards) and focus on the more unique button rooms. Add more traps as well (maybe arrows shooting from walls? status inflicting spikes? drones? Since I could just kite the bulk of the level with rss. The parts with howitzers were great though, as well as the grim totems. I think it just needs to be cut in places to make the excitement more consistent. Like in KOA depth 24, how the button rooms are broken up by sections of wheel dodging, which I enjoy. The first depth I think needs something like that. Perhaps a chase of miniknights + demons from button to button as you have to break the blocks. Or something. Just hacking at slags the entire time plus a few kats doesn't make it any different from clockworks.
6. The second depth was amazing. I agree with others that the entrance should be a party button, so as to not trigger the monsters before everyone is done loading. Other than that, I like the originality. The bomb network esque hunt for cat statues was great. In fact, the left side is something that I greatly enjoyed and can imagine playing every day. My favorite was the button room with the respawning kamizombies that were controlled by switch rooms. The fight was a blast, and the mix of different enemy types made the experience fun. The right side is more of a slog though, made difficult by the miniknights that can or cannot appear depending on if you triggered them. But I would just avoid them and run for statues, since they didn't give drops. I would like to see more of a hazard field here -- the thorns are nice, but what about the shadow pellet gates in SL snarby? something like that would be nice. It is always a nice change of pace from fighting.
7. Final room. The final button room felt a little underwhelming. Maybe because of its size? It was very crowded and made bombing a bit too easy. Especially once the two dreadnaughts appeared. I would like the space to be slightly larger, to be given more room to maneuver, run away from the kamizombies. Also, I never found the traps to be very dangerous. Perhaps just make them regular exploding blocks that you have to break without hurting yourself to grab the totems out.
But overall, I really really enjoyed this preview of the danger missions. I look forward to playing them when they eventually come out. I think their challenge level at the moment is somewhere around d27 of KOA, and if they are pushed just a little more in terms of how hard the monsters hit / the layout of traps, it would make it even better.
Cheers!
I wrote a thread on the topic but reading the feedback from dinos I realize its much more detailed... I completely agree with every suggestion he made... maybe t3 difficulty level (with adjustement on hit points and status) might go for t2 and increase lvl for t3 with the suggestions given above. I run through the levels without usual uvs and without snarbi set so it might be even too easy with them... especially for pro-knights and veterans of the game. Go on OOO!