My group ran Viper and Zephyr twice this year. On Combat both times. Just my observations on them.
Zephyr
Room 1 - Glados voice was cool and the puzzle was well designed for the group type but I was annoyed at having the push damage spread out through the room when it was not necessary to do so. Also annoyed at having the push damage be eldritch, this room should have stayed PUSH damage.
Room 2 - Interesting concept puzzle but the implementation was off. Having 4 pillars with multiple sides to add up, different length tubes to connect and a physical ball to manuver through the tubes would have been fine for a SINGLE orb but adding all these pieces in and requiring 2 or 3 combinations was too much. Had it been 4 pillars and required X people activating switches on each pillar instead of the tubes I would have been fine with the design. Had it only required solution #2 to complete I would have been fine.
Room 3 - The air elemental was a cool fight I think (honestly can't speak to this fight really. My team blew it apart in 1/2 combat rounds both runs)
Room 4 - Loved the RC orb, it was really cool IMO
Sadly it was dead by the second run
Batteries, make sure the props work for the whole day! The combat version was VERY complicated... if you didn't have massively OP Wizards obliterate the shields for you. Once the shields dropped the orb was metallic shards on the ground.
Room 5 - Gear Golem was cool. Making it immune to ALL magic but Shock was BS. Large metal construct immune to force and acid damage made no sense. Made me a sad mage. Still a really cool fight
Room 6 - OK yeah. Inflation puzzle. HOW DID THIS MAKE IT PAST PLAYTESTING? 10 tubes, 5 minutes to complete puzzle, treasure stamp in COMBAT RUN and the tubes 100% were not sealed right *more than 1 place I felt air leaking out of tubes that made me think we had a connection that wasn't there. The 20 on/20 off was complete shit and should NEVER have been implemented. Making this puzzle a treasure room was a horrible idea, took a complex puzzle and punished players completion for not being able to finish it on a combat run. DM reported 10/58 runs completing the puzzle and reporting NOT KNOWING THE SOLUTION so couldn't help us if it WAS broken.
Room 7 - Amazing fight, loved the design, loved my DM (dude was stellar, both times) Some communication about REQ ranged and some communication about combat/flying split would have helped out. *Again can't speak to this room, it was flatlined in 2 turns with our group*
Viper Combat
Room 1 - Amazingly designed puzzle. Was able to solve it myself once we found the clues. Push damage REALLY annoying on this one. There was NO VALID REASON to split the push damage for this puzzle. Second DM allowed the 4 of us who knew the answer to tell him and he negated the timed damage but that seems overly complicated. That said I LOVED this puzzle, I want to see it more often.
Room 2 - Cool room, cool design, all in all cool
DM was a tad slow running combat but that's a DM thing not a room design thing.
Room 3 - Another cool puzzle, really cool design. Another one I was able to piece together with the clues from the board/rogue. Loved how it worked, the wand was a bit touchy but the room allowed time to spare for multiple attempts. Feel Zephyr room 2 could have benefitted from a similar design for the puzzle
Room 4 - Zombies and Sarcophagi, cool room, cool fight; slightly out of place in a Viper god's temple but great fun
Casters on the box + cleric with greater Turn = QUICKLY destroyed combat room
Room 5 - Medusa
Very cool room, amazing actress. Expected fight what with the whole VIPER theme. Issues with the changes to mirror rulings over the weekend. CONSISTENCY needs to be there. If 3 groups encounter 3 different fights in the same room that's bad for the game. Other than that great.
Room 6 - BLOODY SAND PUZZLE! Yeah, this was awesome, I loved it so much. I really honestly have nothing bad to say about it. I hope to see more like this in the future! ... OK well ALMOST nothing bad about it. Puzzle that requires dealing party members unavoidable damage 6 times in the second to last room sucks. 36 points of non combat damage sucks. Understand why, but still. Sucks.
Room 7 - Great design, awesome Monster but inconsistency. Drow assassin seemed unecessary and out of place in the room. *Personal gripe - I burned Dust of Appearance in that room both runs and never "revealed" the hidden Drow Assassin. That irritated me* Heard a lot of people mention the Casters mass poison damage. We killed him too fast to really deal with it so I can't speak to that piece. Didn't use the poison first round, maybe someone hit the staff. Sand monster was cool and fight went well. All in all I think the Drow assassin was out of place, maybe could have been HC/NM only.
Observations-
2 Puzzle stamps in a Combat run is bad
Treasure connected to a 20% success rate, buggy puzzle is worse
Push damage changes really need reverted or re-examined
Combat DMs need a primer on Caster Spell Slides
Consistency in puzzle solutions and Enemy immunities needs to be upheld. If a mirror makes you avoid the save for attacking on Tuesday it needs to make oyu avoid the save on Sunday. If the Iridescent Sphere makes you immune to the poison gas, the Iridescent Spindle needs to as well.
Create a damage type called Puzzle Damage and hit us with that for push damage if needed. Don't go throwing Ancient Druid magic at us from an angry defense system.
Everything said I did LOVE the runs and LOVE the game. I just found several things made for a negative play experience. If I could have traded my Zephyr tickets for more Viper ones to avoid that damned room 6 I would have done so it was that bad. Don't EVER make a treasure chip dependent on a prop functioning properly.
Oh, and make sure your room DMs know the puzzle solution. It's really disheartening to hear 20% success rate and the DM doesn't know the solution which begs the question... 20% success rate? or 50% broken prop rate?