Brilliant Turbine! (Compliment, not sarcasm)

[Azoralq]

Excellent work on modifying Desicrated Temple of Vol. Now it's no longer a walk in the park, but an actual quest. Shadows are harder to kill now, they spawn within the room with the lever now, making it hard to set up the 4 million firewalls people put down. From what I can tell, after you kill them, they spawn again, forcing you to actually progress through the area as intended.

Beautiful job...I actually died laughing when the first party I made tried to do it the old fashioned way. The anger in their text..priceless

Someone, some where is gonna cry because you made it an actual quest, just laugh at them..you did a good job.

[Aspenor]

I always thought the method of pulling everything to the middle was dumb and boring anyway. It's just as easy and just as SP efficient to run through and kill everything without kiting.

[Strakeln]

If what I read elsewhere is true, and the shadows are now immune to fire, then I'm going to have trouble calling this move brilliant, or even smart.

Blanket immunities are not a solution, they are a cop-out.

[Qzipoun]

If what I read elsewhere is true, and the shadows are now immune to fire, then I'm going to have trouble calling this move brilliant, or even smart.

Blanket immunities are not a solution, they are a cop-out.

Immune to fire? Now that would just be dumb. Firewall is supposed to do double damage to undead not no damage -.-

[Azoralq]

They are immune to fire. Any why is this a cop out? How else would you solve it?

Next update, Turbine is going to remove firewall from the game, due to people complaining about making things immune to a spell that is used waay to much to exploit things. Thank you.

Cone of Cold works just as well.

Making stuff randomly immune to fire, ok..maybe not smart. What would ahve been smart is not calling the shadow sin this quest 'shadows' anymore..rather invent a new enemy specific to this quest, and make them immune to fire.

Overall though..it is a good remedy to fix people that like not having to play this game, and just like loot.

[Aspenor]

They are immune to fire. Any why is this a cop out? How else would you solve it?

Oh, they could leash the shadows so you can't pull them. That'd solve the problem in a less tacky fashion than a blanket immunity.

[Azoralq]

Oh, they could leash the shadows so you can't pull them. That'd solve the problem in a less tacky fashion than a blanket immunity.

Wouldn't solve anything, you'd just place a firewall on where they are leached at, watch them return to where they started, and burn as you shield block.

I like the 'new enemy specific to quest' idea.

[Mercules]

Oh, they could leash the shadows so you can't pull them. That'd solve the problem in a less tacky fashion than a blanket immunity.

The problem with that is that I don't believe you -have- to kill the shadows, well not all of them. So people would haste past them, much like they do now, and wait for them to rubber-band back. Sure they are not just using Firewall to get rid of them, instead they are expending even fewer resources to get past them.

[Talcyndl]

They are immune to fire.


I think my Pally with 3 levels of Divine Light and a good Charisma bonus to number of turns, just got a lot more useful on this quest.

[Dane_McArdy]

Oh, they could leash the shadows so you can't pull them. That'd solve the problem in a less tacky fashion than a blanket immunity.

I thought that too, but then I realized, leashing also means you can run past and not have to worry, because they can only go so far.

[jjflanigan]

They are immune to fire. Any why is this a cop out? How else would you solve it?

Next update, Turbine is going to remove firewall from the game, due to people complaining about making things immune to a spell that is used waay to much to exploit things. Thank you.

Cone of Cold works just as well.

Making stuff randomly immune to fire, ok..maybe not smart. What would ahve been smart is not calling the shadow sin this quest 'shadows' anymore..rather invent a new enemy specific to this quest, and make them immune to fire.

Overall though..it is a good remedy to fix people that like not having to play this game, and just like loot.

Erm...so setting up a magical ambush for creatures is an exploit? So I assume we should go ahead and remove all persistant damage area spells -- no more acid fog, acid rain, blade barrier? That statement was harsh and without any foundation in reality or logic.

Sticking a nonsensical immunity on a mob is never a good solution, ever. Doing it without saying so is even worse.

[jjflanigan]

I thought that too, but then I realized, leashing also means you can run past and not have to worry, because they can only go so far.

Not if they also leashed the priests, if you ran far enough to let the shadows leash back, the priests would leash back also.

[Aspenor]

The problem with that is that I don't believe you -have- to kill the shadows, well not all of them. So people would haste past them, much like they do now, and wait for them to rubber-band back. Sure they are not just using Firewall to get rid of them, instead they are expending even fewer resources to get past them.

Might be true. Frankly, I don't see the point to changing this quest at all, anyway. Sure, it was easy. Sure, you could run the quest in 8 minutes with a good party. So what?

[Azoralq]

Erm...so setting up a magical ambush for creatures is an exploit? So I assume we should go ahead and remove all persistant damage area spells -- no more acid fog, acid rain, blade barrier? That statement was harsh and without any foundation in reality or logic.

Sticking a nonsensical immunity on a mob is never a good solution, ever. Doing it without saying so is even worse.

Blade Barrier, Acid fod, and Acid Rain require a little bit of tact. Simply because they don't kill something on contact. Maximixed impowered acid rain, or acid fog does damage, but not as much..it requires just a bit of time.

Blade Barrier requires you to jump around, and move the enemies through the barrier over, and over, and over again.rather than just standing there, and blockign while the thing burns to death. Which is actually more annoying, in the fcat that the cleric is running around like a dimwit, not allowing the fighters to well...fight. Those, though not much better in my opinion..are better than firewall in regards to that.

Firewall? You drop enough to make a fancy design on the floor, pull something, and it suddenly takes 300hp of damage with each step. Something wrong here? Yes...yes, sir, there is.

[jjflanigan]

Blade Barrier, Acid fod, and Acid Rain require a little bit of tact. Simply because they don't kill something on contact. Maximixed impowered acid rain, or acid fog does damage, but not as much..it requires just a bit of time.

Blade Barrier requires you to jump around, and move the enemies through the barrier over, and over, and over again.rather than just standing there, and blockign while the thing burns to death. Those, though not much better in my opinion..are better than firewall in regards to that.

Firewall? You drop enough to make a fancy design on the floor, pull something, and it suddenly takes 300hp of damage with each step. Something wrong here? Yes...yes, sir, there is.

I understand what you are saying, I was only taking umbrage with the fact that you labeled using firewall an exploit. Yes it does more damage than the other spells, however, just giving non-named mobs an immunity to it without any reasoning other than "It kills them too fast" is not good development.

[Mercules]

Firewall? You drop enough to make a fancy design on the floor, pull something, and it suddenly takes 300hp of damage with each step. Something wrong here? Yes...yes, sir, there is.

Actually... I've started having Diablo/Diablo2 flashbacks what with all the firewalls being spammed.

[MysticTheurge]

Erm...so setting up a magical ambush for creatures is an exploit?

Honestly, JJ, to a point Yes.

We're far, far more intelligent than the AI. There's no getting around this. So, to some degree setting up overwhelming ambushes and waiting for things to run into them is bordering on an exploit of the fact that the AI can't do anything about them.

Now a better fix would be to tweak the AI so that it can do something about them, as suggested in this thread (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=125085), but it's still awfully close to an "exploit."

[jjflanigan]

Honestly, JJ, to a point Yes.

We're far, far more intelligent than the AI. There's no getting around this. So, to some degree setting up overwhelming ambushes and waiting for things to run into them is bordering on an exploit of the fact that the AI can't do anything about them.

Now a better fix would be to tweak the AI so that it can do something about them, as suggested in this thread (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=125085), but it's still awfully close to an "exploit."

Well, I've always had the loose definition of "exploit" as performing an in game action that goes against the initial intentions of the developers. Now, I can concede that pulling back the entire zone to one spot to firewall them was an exploit by that definition. However, I cannot conceive that, under normal circumstances, setting up huge bonfires to cook the mobs as you progress through a quest was not envisioned by the developers.

My normal play of ToV was to just WoF in each room that had a Priest, then move on to the next. We'd still be within each room as we went through so there was no massive pulling of the entire zone (just because that's cheesey). Now, even that is impossible due to a silly, non-sensical immunity tossed onto a mob that should not have said immunity based on any rational thought.

[Lightdragon]

I can't agree with making shadows immune to fire as they have several advantages to make up for this weakness.

1) They require ghost touch weapons to hit on a reliable basis. This means that alot of times the tanks can't use their best weapons on them unless those weapons happen to be ghost touch or the tank has acquired the ghost touch bracers. This can cut the damage done to them by 2d6 to 3d6 per swing quite often.

2) Shadows can blink out at will and cause several swings to miss outright even with ghost touch weapons. Don't even let me get started on the difficulty a ranger has if he tries to bow a shadow. Even with a disruption bow, the shadow can blink out before the arrow gets there. Oh, and that disruption bow better be ghost touch also. Those drop all over the place, don't they?

3) The shadow bypasses armor with it's attacks because it's incorporeal. Unless you have on ghost touch armor, this monster with more hps than you can hit you very easily. This means that the cleric is now going to be overworked healing everyone the shadows are ripping apart easily. Because they are now immune to fire, the party will expend a ton of resources recovering from them.

If you want to add more quell to the quest to make it more difficult with their special abilities, that's fine. But this immune to fire business does not follow in d&d rules and I expect it to be pulled from the game if you are going to keep calling this game ddo.

[Azoralq]

This just in...shadows are not undead in Temple of Vol, Appearantly...you can scare them, fear them, and stuff. Hmm

[Oran_Lathor]

Thanks for the linkage, MT. I'm hoping my thread gets a couple of views/replies before it falls to page 2 and the devs miss it completely. As for the topic here, I think the change is an acceptable stop-gap measure until the devs come up with a more elegant method of dealing with the wall of fire proliferation problem.

[Azoralq]

Said it once, say it again. I think you shoudl just make an enemy specific to the quest. 'Vol's Fallen' or something. They are shadow like creature, same graphic maybe, but have immunity to fire, take away their strength damage, and the ability to spawn a shadow out of killing someone, give them an ability here or there. Bam..new enemy.

The power of DMs.

[Dane_McArdy]

3) The shadow bypasses armor with it's attacks because it's incorporeal. Unless you have on ghost touch armor, this monster with more hps than you can hit you very easily. This means that the cleric is now going to be overworked healing everyone the shadows are ripping apart easily. Because they are now immune to fire, the party will expend a ton of resources recovering from them.

A few potions of mage armor will help this part.

[Azoralq]

I can't agree with making shadows immune to fire as they have several advantages to make up for this weakness.

1) They require ghost touch weapons to hit on a reliable basis. This means that alot of times the tanks can't use their best weapons on them unless those weapons happen to be ghost touch or the tank has acquired the ghost touch bracers. This can cut the damage done to them by 2d6 to 3d6 per swing quite often.

2) Shadows can blink out at will and cause several swings to miss outright even with ghost touch weapons. Don't even let me get started on the difficulty a ranger has if he tries to bow a shadow. Even with a disruption bow, the shadow can blink out before the arrow gets there. Oh, and that disruption bow better be ghost touch also. Those drop all over the place, don't they?

3) The shadow bypasses armor with it's attacks because it's incorporeal. Unless you have on ghost touch armor, this monster with more hps than you can hit you very easily. This means that the cleric is now going to be overworked healing everyone the shadows are ripping apart easily. Because they are now immune to fire, the party will expend a ton of resources recovering from them.

If you want to add more quell to the quest to make it more difficult with their special abilities, that's fine. But this immune to fire business does not follow in d&d rules and I expect it to be pulled from the game if you are going to keep calling this game ddo.


Just like in DnD, there are templates to add on to enemies. A Monsterous Spider with the Fiendish template suddenly becomes a Fiendish Monsterous Spider, with new abilities. Oh no! It's not a normal spider anymore! D&D can't be called D&D anyomre guys..sorry.

[jjflanigan]

A few potions of mage armor will help this part.

I thought it was generally accepted now that there is no touch attack in DDO and therefore this makes no difference. A MOB being incorporeal still goes against your normal AC. Having ghost touch shields or mage armor doesn't change anything at all, as they are still going on the standard AC.

[Dane_McArdy]

I thought it was generally accepted now that there is no touch attack in DDO and therefore this makes no difference. A MOB being incorporeal still goes against your normal AC. Having ghost touch shields or mage armor doesn't change anything at all, as they are still going on the standard AC.

I'm not sure, to be honest. But if they are bypassing armor, this isn't really armor, and might work.

Doesn't hurt to try.

[Raithe]

The shadow bypasses armor with it's attacks because it's incorporeal.

I used to be under the false assumption that incorporeal attacks had been implemented in the game, mostly because of how often they hit. I got told by a fellow forumite that I was wrong. After some testing in the Chamber of Insanity and one of the Depths quests, I had to concede he was correct. They just have been given really high to-hits to compensate for the fact that armor still makes a difference.

Wouldn't it be nice if things about D&D that didn't have to change, weren't?

[Mhykke]

This fix is nothing but lame.

You want to make it harder? Fine.

Throwing random immunities around? Something a 12 year old would do.

This is a joke of a "fix." Devs got lazy on this one.

[Strakeln]

How else would you solve it?There have been several suggestions in the other thread, or we could take a page from the book of similar past situations. Here's a couple of suggestions:

1) Add doors
2) Add more of the drop-gates
3) Make multi-layered firewalls revert to non-stacking damage
4) Improve AI so that intelligent undead (like Vampires) know that standing in the middle of 82 firewalls is a dumb idea

I could go on, but I think my point is clear. I could see (and agree with) arguments that #'s 1 and 2 are cop-outs as well. #'s 3 and 4 could never be mistakenly sorted into that category.

[Blazer]

3) The shadow bypasses armor with it's attacks because it's incorporeal. Unless you have on ghost touch armor, this monster with more hps than you can hit you very easily.

Somewhere, Mad_B is twitching...

[Yaga_Nub]

Might be true. Frankly, I don't see the point to changing this quest at all, anyway. Sure, it was easy. Sure, you could run the quest in 8 minutes with a good party. So what?

Asp,

I've said the same thing before and you have said that EVERY quest MUST be a challenge.

My point is that if the Devs design a quest, test it on Mournlands, test it on Risia, and STILL release the dungeon to the live servers..... LET IT THE F ALONE! You (the devs) had your chance to fix it, you didn't, so stop screwing with it. Learn your lesson and the NEXT quest you develop make sure it can't be done the same way.

Most importantly, LISTEN TO THE FEEDBACK FROM RISIA. We already knew this quest was ridiculously easy they way designed it and they still released it as is.

Asp, I agree that some tactics aren't as ful for everyone (like CKing through walls in PoP) but as long as it is a valid tactic (like the firewalling in Vol) then the DEV should leave it alone and go on designing the next quest.

[Strakeln]

I'm not sure, to be honest. But if they are bypassing armor, this isn't really armor, and might work.

Doesn't hurt to try.The (DDO) spell description for mage armor has changed. It used to read very similarly to the d20srd version:

An invisible but tangible field of force surrounds the subject of a mage armor spell, providing a +4 armor bonus to AC. Unlike mundane armor, mage armor entails no armor check penalty, arcane spell failure chance, or speed reduction. Since mage armor is made of force, incorporeal creatures can’t bypass it the way they do normal armor.
It now reads as follows:

An invisible, but tangible field of force surrounds an ally, providing a +4 armor bonus to AC.
Whether or not mage armor applied against incorporeal creatures before the description change is hard to say, but I'd be willing to bet that it never has.

One could argue this is yet another example of a "lazy fix"... instead of fixing the spell, change the description so it matches the "bugged" state.

[Azoralq]

Said it once, say it again. I think you shoudl just make an enemy specific to the quest. 'Vol's Fallen' or something. They are shadow like creature, same graphic maybe, but have immunity to fire, take away their strength damage, and the ability to spawn a shadow out of killing someone, give them an ability here or there. Bam..new enemy.

The power of DMs.

:) DM created enemy template added on to a shadow. You can do it, it's legal. Template making is A-Ok in D&D books.

[Talcyndl]

I thought it was generally accepted now that there is no touch attack in DDO and therefore this makes no difference. A MOB being incorporeal still goes against your normal AC. Having ghost touch shields or mage armor doesn't change anything at all, as they are still going on the standard AC.

I've never seen a developer response on this, but your view does seem "generally accepted" on the forums. A developer's definative response would be nice though.

[Aspenor]

Asp,

I've said the same thing before and you have said that EVERY quest MUST be a challenge.

C'mon now Yaga both you and I know that's not true. I never used the word "must."

[jkm]

why didn't you just spawn blackbones in there instead of magically fire immune shadows? geez...

[Raithe]

Whether or not mage armor applied against incorporeal creatures before the description change is hard to say, but I'd be willing to bet that it never has.


It's not that mage armor doesn't work against incorporeals in DDO... it's that regular armor does too.

Talk about making rogues more useful in undead quests... Touch AC anyone?

[Yaga_Nub]

C'mon now Yaga both you and I know that's not true. I never used the word "must."

How about SHOULD? Or maybe a heavily emphasized "if at all possible"?

[Azoralq]

Asp,

I've said the same thing before and you have said that EVERY quest MUST be a challenge.

My point is that if the Devs design a quest, test it on Mournlands, test it on Risia, and STILL release the dungeon to the live servers..... LET IT THE F ALONE! You (the devs) had your chance to fix it, you didn't, so stop screwing with it. Learn your lesson and the NEXT quest you develop make sure it can't be done the same way.

Most importantly, LISTEN TO THE FEEDBACK FROM RISIA. We already knew this quest was ridiculously easy they way designed it and they still released it as is.

Asp, I agree that some tactics aren't as ful for everyone (like CKing through walls in PoP) but as long as it is a valid tactic (like the firewalling in Vol) then the DEV should leave it alone and go on designing the next quest.

You're right.

I heard in Mod 6, and after looking back on this quest, they are going to add this really kick ass quest called 'The Track.'

You start in this six lane track field, and are forced to run to the other side of the map. This map is HUGE, but with haste, you can get there in..3 minutes? Along the way, there are hurdles..but they aren't normal hurdles, they are enemies, mostly spiders.

The object of the quest is to run past EVERYTHING, then when you get to the other side, you huddle up next to the 10 chests that are locked, until you kill the stuff. Once there, you throw down 72 firewalls, and let everything burn.

The best part? The devs are announcing that each chest will have AT LEAST ONE +2 tome for everyone PER CHEST. This quest was made because the devs are tired of trying to make a game anymore. They figure people are just out to get loot as easily as possible.

This is awesome! 3 minute quest, tomes guarenteed each time. I can't wait for Mod 6.

[Aspenor]

How about SHOULD? Or maybe a heavily emphasized "if at all possible"?

IIRC about the conversation you speak of, I stated that I play the game to be challenged and for excitement, not to stand around. While I can see your projection of the attitude onto this argument, in no way did i / have i ever supported random, blanket immunities, nor have i supported cheeseball programming to make a quest more difficult.

This change, for example, is cheeseball.

The change to the pre-raid, for example, is not.

[Raithe]

3) Make multi-layered firewalls revert to non-stacking damage


No one ever layers their firewalls in an undead quest. With a crit firewall, everything dies first pass through the core of the fire. With non-crits, it takes a whopping 2 passes. Vampires with fire resistance or % fire immunity may take a few more...

Walls of fire have to be the reason that undead quests are so choked with undead. Changing it so that firewalls don't work as well should mean a significant decrease in the number of undead, not an increase.

[jjflanigan]

You're right.

I heard in Mod 6, and after looking back on this quest, they are going to add this really kick ass quest called 'The Track.'

You start in this six lane track field, and are forced to run to the other side of the map. This map is HUGE, but with haste, you can get there in..3 minutes? Along the way, there are hurdles..but they aren't normal hurdles, they are enemies, mostly spiders.

The object of the quest is to run past EVERYTHING, then when you get to the other side, you huddle up next to the 10 chests that are locked, until you kill the stuff. Once there, you throw down 72 firewalls, and let everything burn.

The best part? The devs are announcing that each chest will have AT LEAST ONE +2 tome for everyone PER CHEST. This quest was made because the devs are tired of trying to make a game anymore. They figure people are just out to get loot as easily as possible.

This is awesome! 3 minute quest, tomes guarenteed each time. I can't wait for Mod 6.

Well, thank you for showing that you are happy to insult and demean people without using any logic or arguing skills.

Seriously, though. What is up with that attitude? Why do people have to take everything to extremes rather than just being calm and logical and discussing things?

[Yaga_Nub]

Honestly, JJ, to a point Yes.

We're far, far more intelligent than the AI. There's no getting around this. So, to some degree setting up overwhelming ambushes and waiting for things to run into them is bordering on an exploit of the fact that the AI can't do anything about them.

Now a better fix would be to tweak the AI so that it can do something about them, as suggested in this thread (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=125085), but it's still awfully close to an "exploit."

MT would you say that the average person is just as intelligent as the next person? Well for the most part you'd be wrong but that's just because there seems to be more morons out there than the law of averages should allow...... but I digress.

Have you ever been in the military? Tactics is one of the things that a combat arms soldier (of any branch) learns and the training has to become ingrained in you to react a certain way in a situation to ensure that you survive. One thing that you exploit when setting up an ambush is that very training. We studied the training of foreign military forces to give us that "edge" in an ambush situation. When an ambush is performed correctly, so much firepower is brought to bear that no enemy within the killzone is able to function. They are either dead, injured very badly, completely pinned down and effectively out of the fight until we come back to kill/capture them, or they are so shocked they stop fighting back. The effective life expectancy on the modern battlefield is said to be about 12 seconds (in a non-urban enviroment). At 12 seconds you don't have time to time, you have to react and let you training carry you through until the time that you can actually think.

How does this relate to the question at hand? The shadows are doing what I would imagine they WOULD do if they were real, that is they are attacking and chasing us on sight. Here's where I disagree with you. YES they should be intelligent enough to pull back out of the fire (so should the priests) but in most cases there is just to much damage going on for them to actually have the time to react and thus they die very quickly.

Programming-wise you could program all creatures to move 180% from their previous direction when they encounter a WoF but then you would also have to account for momentum and how far were they carried into the fire or you could even make any creature remain 10 feet from any WoF that was already cast. That just introduces new problems like holding critter between two walls of fire and making them sitting ducks for archers or at the very least keep them away from casters.

I think we all would like the AI to be even better but it is what is what it is for now. I would rather the devs leave quests alone than create blanket immunities. They should just close the quest, admit they didn't think about this quest, admit they didn't care about the feedback because they were behind schedule and didn't want any more delays, and fix it in the RIGHT way if they want to fix it.

Now to wrap up with my very first comment. I brought that up because while humans can be very intelligent even the most intelligent follow some "program" even though they don't realize it (and guess what, it's usually easier to "program" an intelligent person than a less intelligent person).

[Talcyndl]

Well, thank you for showing that you are happy to insult and demean people without using any logic or arguing skills.

Seriously, though. What is up with that attitude? Why do people have to take everything to extremes rather than just being calm and logical and discussing things?

:confused:

At least the way I read his post was as a funny way to make his point. Whether you agree or not, I don't see anything in the post that "insult[ed] and demean[ed] people."

[jjflanigan]

:confused:

At least the way I read his post was as a funny way to make his point. Whether you agree or not, I don't see anything in the post that "insult[ed] and demean[ed] people."

Perhaps I misunderstood the point -- It appeared (and still does to me) that he was correlating anyone who uses firewall to people that want no challenge in the game and would rather just have a simple quest that requires no skill or thought and provides awesome loot.

[Yaga_Nub]

:confused:

At least the way I read his post was as a funny way to make his point. Whether you agree or not, I don't see anything in the post that "insult[ed] and demean[ed] people."

The problem was that Azor missed my point. My point was this quest was play-tested for a few months on Mournlands, it was play-tested for a month or so on Risia and they still released it as you see it today. Issues were brought up on Mournlands, issues were brought up AND posted about for Risia and they choose to ignore them.

So don't waste the time to go back and fix it when it could have been right from the start. And instead of making shadows immune to fire like they did, do what another poster said and spawn blackbone undead instead of shadows. Keep things logical, stick with what you've done in the past, don't try to do a fix that is both too much (because the quest still spawns a ton of shadows) and too late (because you were told it was to easy on your play-testing servers.)

Plus I never said anything about loot and I don't consider this a loot run because I've pulled level 6 **** out of here every time I've gone in it.

[MysticTheurge]

How come people don't complain about Blackbones' immunity to fire.

Would it help if these were "Charred Shadows" or something?

[jjflanigan]

How come people don't complain about Blackbones' immunity to fire.

Would it help if these were "Charred Shadows" or something?

Yes -- as I stated above, my only issue is with just giving random MOBs immunity to something that makes no sense. Were the mobs changed to be something that has immunity to fire rather than just sticking the immunity on another mob, I wouldn't be as peeved. It's still a "cheesy fix" but at least it would be adhering to the ground rules they set forth.

[Strakeln]

It's not that mage armor doesn't work against incorporeals in DDO... it's that regular armor does too.Really? My high AC characters seem to get hit an awful lot for that to be true. Wish we could see the other end of the roll (the attacking NPC roll). I'd like to see the opinions (yes, opinions) of a few other forum members who have looked into this... I think mad_bombadier will probably have something to say.


No one ever layers their firewalls in an undead quest.I'm sure you've been wrong before, but probably never quite this wrong. Perhaps what you meant was that "No one ever needs to layer their firewalls?"


Walls of fire have to be the reason that undead quests are so choked with undead. Changing it so that firewalls don't work as well should mean a significant decrease in the number of undead, not an increase.Makes sense.

[Yaga_Nub]

How come people don't complain about Blackbones' immunity to fire.

Would it help if these were "Charred Shadows" or something?

Don't get me started on Blackbones' immunity!!!

[MysticTheurge]

Don't get me started on Blackbones' immunity!!!

:confused:

Seriously?

Do you also complain that fire does extra damage to Frostmarrow Skeletons?

[jjflanigan]

Really? My high AC characters seem to get hit an awful lot for that to be true. Wish we could see the other end of the roll (the attacking NPC roll). I'd like to see the opinions (yes, opinions) of a few other forum members who have looked into this... I think mad_bombadier will probably have something to say.

The general consensus from those that tested was that the Incorporeal attackers simply had their to-hit jacked up insanely high to make up for not having incorporeal attacks. Someone went through and did tests with ghost touch shields, mage armor, super high dex, etc. And the results were always the same, if I remember correctly.

[Yaga_Nub]

:confused:

Seriously?

Do you also complain that fire does extra damage to Frostmarrow Skeletons?

No I'm referring to the Halt Undead immunity that I've encoutered.

[Mad_Bombardier]

Really? My high AC characters seem to get hit an awful lot for that to be true. Wish we could see the other end of the roll (the attacking NPC roll). I'd like to see the opinions (yes, opinions) of a few other forum members who have looked into this... I think mad_bombadier will probably have something to say.Targets Strakeln and bombards him madly. :p :D

Yes, my high AC tank gets hit by incorporeals in the Orchard. I can still go into Chamber of Insanity and shield block and be hit only 1 time in 20.
Conclusion: Incorporeal mobs in the Orchard were given insane to-hit rolls (+40/50/60) to simulate bypassing armor with an "incorporeal touch attack."
Outcome: One for the 'loss column'. Unarmored, high DEX players should be hit less by incorporeals and lose yet another of their few PnP advantages.

[Dane_McArdy]

4) Improve AI so that intelligent undead (like Vampires) know that standing in the middle of 82 firewalls is a dumb idea

You don't see 82 fire walls as part of the problem?

I do. Where would you find a place to stand with 82 fire walls. Heck lets say 20 fire walls. And you can stand in them too, without burning.

[MysticTheurge]

You don't see 82 fire walls as part of the problem?

I do. Where would you find a place to stand with 82 fire walls. Heck lets say 20 fire walls. And you can stand in them too, without burning.

You only need one to have a problem.

1) Cast Wall of Fire
2) Stand in it and kill everything that won't approach you with ranged attacks
4) Profit

[Strakeln]

The general consensus from those that tested was that the Incorporeal attackers simply had their to-hit jacked up insanely high to make up for not having incorporeal attacks. Someone went through and did tests with ghost touch shields, mage armor, super high dex, etc. And the results were always the same, if I remember correctly.That would fit the behavior, for sure.

I think I'm going to petition the devs to get some blanket immunities applied to my characters.

[Lizardgrad89]

They are immune to fire. Any why is this a cop out? How else would you solve it?

Next update, Turbine is going to remove firewall from the game, due to people complaining about making things immune to a spell that is used waay to much to exploit things. Thank you.

Cone of Cold works just as well.

Making stuff randomly immune to fire, ok..maybe not smart. What would ahve been smart is not calling the shadow sin this quest 'shadows' anymore..rather invent a new enemy specific to this quest, and make them immune to fire.

Overall though..it is a good remedy to fix people that like not having to play this game, and just like loot.

Oh, and so there is only one way to play this game?

EVERY QUEST must be the same, where tanks spend an hour beating on every mob, and clerics spam heal scrolls all over the place while casters haste and resist and stand around?

Would that make it a better game, to have EVERY SINGLE QUEST be identically run?

How about a little leeway for ingenuity and using your toons abilities to succeed?

IMO, every quest is like a puzzle. You have to figure it out to get the prize. But instead of being rewarded for figuring out an elegant resolution to the puzzle, we get punished for not "doing it the way the developers wanted".

When we are only allowed to solve a puzzle the way the puzzle developers envisioned, we are reduced from humans and problem solvers to "rats in a maze". If the rat climbs over the wall, the scientists build taller walls. If the rats chews through, the scientists use metal walls. This is what we face here.

So hey, developers, how about, if we "climb over the walls" or "gnaw through the walls", you just accept that we solved the problem in an ingenious way, and move to creating a better puzzle for the next time.

Think of it as a battle of wits, rather than a lab experiment gone wrong.

[Strakeln]

You don't see 82 fire walls as part of the problem?

I do. Where would you find a place to stand with 82 fire walls. Heck lets say 20 fire walls. And you can stand in them too, without burning.Does my #3 (posted directly above the quoted #4 :p) cover that?


3) Make multi-layered firewalls revert to non-stacking damage

However, you're bringing my points into a different realm, that of the "friendly fire" world. While I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea of friendly fire, I don't think it has any place in DDO as it currently exists. About the only way I would support "friendly fire" would be as an optional mode (normal, hard, elite, friendly fire) that does not provide additional favor or rewards.

[llevenbaxx]

I vote they just make FW non-stacking damage. Ten firewalls seems to be the answer for far too many challenges in the game these days. Call them tactics if you want, I call it lack of AI.

Three next to each other would still be useful in many situations but stacking them up has to go. Im surprised it took this quest to see there is an easy button issue with the spell. Making it not stack seems like it would make enough sense anyway. Still would be better than most other DOT spells too.

ADD Blanket immunities are the cheese way to gloss over a problem rather than fixing them.

[MysticTheurge]

Does my #3 (posted directly above the quoted #4 :p) cover that?

No, in fact it helps Dane's point, which is you could nearly fill an area with firewalls, and then what?

[Dane_McArdy]

Does my #3 (posted directly above the quoted #4 :p) cover that?

However, you're bringing my points into a different realm, that of the "friendly fire" world. While I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea of friendly fire, I don't think it has any place in DDO as it currently exists. About the only way I would support "friendly fire" would be as an optional mode (normal, hard, elite, friendly fire) that does not provide additional favor or rewards.

I would assume that where the fire walls don't stack, they each burn the mob. So you lay down a bunch, and run the mobs around, so that they run through each fire wall.

I get what you are saying, but that would be like if they made firewall like pets. One per person. Wouldn't that be just as lame?

[jjflanigan]

I vote they just make FW non-stacking damage. Ten firewalls seems to be the answer for far too many challenges in the game these days. Call them tactics if you want, I call it lack of AI.

Three next to each other would still be useful in many situations but stacking them up has to go. Im surprised it took this quest to see there is an easy button issue with the spell. Making it not stack seems like it would make enough sense anyway. Still would be better than most other DOT spells too.

ADD Blanket immunities are the cheese way to gloss over a problem rather than fixing them.

Then you'll have most groups in LFM saying -- "Need one sorc, if I already have one, don't apply"

[llevenbaxx]

Then you'll have most groups in LFM saying -- "Need one sorc, if I already have one, don't apply"

They are one out of what... 7 or 8 classes.

Why would you need more than one?

Why wouldnt you want more than one? Was that their only spell?

What about everyone else?

I dont seem to remember any high level sorcys having a whole lot of trouble getting in groups lately.;)

Your lack of concern for the other classes isnt very moving.:)

[jjflanigan]

They are one out of what... 7 or 8 classes.

Why would you need more than one?

What about everyone else?

I dont seem to remember any high level sorcys having a whole lot of trouble getting in groups lately.;)

Your lack of concern for the other classes isnt very moving.:)

Because changing it so AoE spells don't stack from multiple casters doesn't really affect the other classes as much? Wizards can swap out spells, so I didn't include them in the statement. It's not a lack of concern for the other classes as much as it is the fact that the comment I quoted would have 0 impact on them.

And you are right, they don't have any troubles right now because 4 sorcs can be 4 firewalls, which will help in most quests. If you make it so that 4 sorcs = 1 firewall...well, why have the extra sorcs. They don't have the malleability to swap out wall of firewall in case there is already a sorc in group that has it. Also, the majority of sorcs I know are fire / ice specced due to the lack of high damage spells in the other categories. Sure, this could cause some sorcs to swap out how they spec, but then, if they are the only sorc in a group, the DPS is now significantly lowered.

[Mhykke]

Here's my problem w/ the "firewall is too powerful" argument.

It's SUPPOSED to be too powerful against undead. It's in the spell description for pete sakes.

Of course the spell is going to be much used in a mod that is MOSTLY undead.

It's like if the devs give us a spell called "slay dolphin", which automatically kills a dolphin w/o a saving throw. And then, in the next mod, they make it a mostly dolphin mod. Should the devs be surprised that slay dolphin is being used constantly? Of course not.

Firewall is supposed to kick undead A*s. B/c it's doing so, people are surprised it's being used? I can't begin to explain how ridiculous these changes today are, in most respects. (the preraid switch I'm fine with, that's not a cheesy fix.)

[MrWizard]

I always thought the method of pulling everything to the middle was dumb and boring anyway. It's just as easy and just as SP efficient to run through and kill everything without kiting.

/signed....

/signed again for emphasis....

now they can do it the easier way....isntead of waiting...

[Dane_McArdy]

Here's my problem w/ the "firewall is too powerful" argument.

It's SUPPOSED to be too powerful against undead. It's in the spell description for pete sakes.

Of course the spell is going to be much used in a mod that is MOSTLY undead.

It's like if the devs give us a spell called "slay dolphin", which automatically kills a dolphin w/o a saving throw. And then, in the next mod, they make it a mostly dolphin mod. Should the devs be surprised that slay dolphin is being used constantly? Of course not.

Firewall is supposed to kick undead A*s. B/c it's doing so, people are surprised it's being used? I can't begin to explain how ridiculous these changes today are, in most respects. (the preraid switch I'm fine with, that's not a cheesy fix.)

Well, I am not asking that firewall be weakened.

However, ultimatly I would like to see mobs not run into them and stand there dying. It would be great if mobs would hang back because of the heat. It would make firewall more of a tactic then a way to kill everything.

Pull some mobs, then put fire wall up to block off part of them, while you hack down those on your side.

[llevenbaxx]

And you are right, they don't have any troubles right now because 4 sorcs can be 4 firewalls, which will help in most quests. If you make it so that 4 sorcs = 1 firewall...well, why have the extra sorcs. They don't have the malleability to swap out wall of firewall in case there is already a sorc in group that has it. Also, the majority of sorcs I know are fire / ice specced due to the lack of high damage spells in the other categories. Sure, this could cause some sorcs to swap out how they spec, but then, if they are the only sorc in a group, the DPS is now significantly lowered.

With the current spell selection it would hurt to be sure. I really dont think the current implimentation of the spell is very good for the game though. Every bottleneck, every spawning point, just about any situation imaginable with solid ground and all you have to do is stack up firewalls.

It still does good single cast damage if you are spec'ed for it. If there was multiple sorcys in the group they would have to do a little coordinating but there are other good damage spells within fire and ice.

Just because Ive thought about this spell before, I also think that one spell is a huge part of why Ive never seen a non-fire and ice spec'ed sorcy in the later stages of the game...ever. There is something very wrong there imo. I will admit that arcanes are supposed to own the later stages of the game and FW is prolly the best DOT spell currently but I think it needs some reworking. Its an easy button people seem to like calling tactics.

[maddmatt70]

Firewall should have been nerfed when cloudkill was nerfed way back when. Firewall makes playing spellcaster boring and unimiginative.
Firewall is the only spell an arcane needs for 80% of the quests.
Firewall should have been nerfed in the vampire pre-raid section as well. A group I was in the other day took zero damage in the head boss vampire in the pre-raid thanks in large to firewall.
Firewall is overpowered.

Thank you Turbine for beginning the nerfing process...

Sincerely,

Norg

[Aesop]

Wall of Fire
Evocation [Fire]
Level: Drd 5, Fire 4, Sor/Wiz 4
Components: V, S, M/DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Effect: Opaque sheet of flame up to 20 ft. long/level or a ring of fire with a radius of up to 5 ft. per two levels; either form 20 ft. high
Duration: Concentration + 1 round/level
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes

An immobile, blazing curtain of shimmering violet fire springs into existence. One side of the wall, selected by you, sends forth waves of heat, dealing 2d4 points of fire damage to creatures within 10 feet and 1d4 points of fire damage to those past 10 feet but within 20 feet. The wall deals this damage when it appears and on your turn each round to all creatures in the area. In addition, the wall deals 2d6 points of fire damage +1 point of fire damage per caster level (maximum +20) to any creature passing through it. The wall deals double damage to undead creatures.

If you evoke the wall so that it appears where creatures are, each creature takes damage as if passing through the wall. If any 5-foot length of wall takes 20 points of cold damage or more in 1 round, that length goes out. (Do not divide cold damage by 4, as normal for objects.)

Wall of fire can be made permanent with a permanency spell. A permanent wall of fire that is extinguished by cold damage becomes inactive for 10 minutes, then reforms at normal strength.

Arcane Material Component: A small piece of phosphorus.

OK First Red part. Max Firewall Damage is 26 at this level ... + modifiers

lets see


Max x2
Empower x1.5
S.Comb x1.5
Fire Spec.x1.4
Crit x2.5
_____________
now the question is do the multipliers stack up?
So is max damage at approximately 409? About 818 against undead or Cold types... but that can't be right cause I've heard of people hitting 1200. So what's going on there. Sounds like Wall of Fire got another little boost. I wouldn't complain if it was brought back into line... really that damage there is obscene. 1000+ is ungodly.

Second part. Also in Red. Walls of Fire can be dispelled if it takes more than 20 COld Damage in a round... eck even if this was 10 Cold Damge per caster level it could still be dispelled at least and thus make things a little more interesting.


Now I'm not saying Nerf it into the ground... but it seems to be the be all and end all spell right now. If any spell should get a boost its Acid Fog... nah ...nvm on that no need of boosts just let them work right

Aesop

[Drider]

Oh, they could leash the shadows so you can't pull them. That'd solve the problem in a less tacky fashion than a blanket immunity.


Which means you just run past them. The leash thing has it's drawbacks. Why fight anything if you can just run to the end of a dungeon knowing that all the mobs can't leave their respective areas.

[MysticTheurge]

What if persistent AoE spells dealt damage to people regardless of who cast them?

Not only would it (help) solve this problem, it'd solve the "What do you mean, it's not ours?!" problem.

[Strakeln]

No, in fact it helps Dane's point, which is you could nearly fill an area with firewalls, and then what?Currently, you can cast extended haste, and follow it up with 20 non-extended hastes... and then what? Are you suggesting we have mana-saving protections for the idiots who cast their spells in an ineffective manner?


I would assume that where the fire walls don't stack, they each burn the mob. So you lay down a bunch, and run the mobs around, so that they run through each fire wall.

I get what you are saying, but that would be like if they made firewall like pets. One per person. Wouldn't that be just as lame?Dane, it was pretty clear what I meant by "stacking".

You're acting like you don't know how this would really operate. Did you forget that firewalls used to behave this way? Now think back to those days... did each caster have one firewall? No, not only did they have several of their own firewalls, they also had a half dozen or so scrolled firewalls. You could cast "all" the firewalls you wanted (within time and timer constraints), but if they overlapped, you didn't get double effect.

Now let's compare this to the way fire behaves in the real world. Pretend that both MT and I have torches. First MT burns your leg for 20 seconds, then I will burn your leg (same area) for 20 seconds. Based on your hypothetical howls of pain, I'm going to guess that it felt like you were burned for 40 seconds. Furthermore, your burned leg is REALLY burned, since I took the time to pick up the slack. Now, the next week, we hold our torches together and burn your other leg for 20 seconds. While it certainly wasn't a lot of fun for you, this second injury will be notably less severe, as you were burning at approximately the same temperature for half the amount of time you were the previous week.

In other words, fire+fire != superfire. fire+fire = fire. It makes sense that two overlapping firewalls wouldn't both do damage.

Not that I'm supporting this change. It's just one of the many potential solutions that I consider notably better than general or blanket immunities.

[llevenbaxx]

Here's my problem w/ the "firewall is too powerful" argument.

It's SUPPOSED to be too powerful against undead. It's in the spell description for pete sakes.

Of course the spell is going to be much used in a mod that is MOSTLY undead.

It's like if the devs give us a spell called "slay dolphin", which automatically kills a dolphin w/o a saving throw. And then, in the next mod, they make it a mostly dolphin mod. Should the devs be surprised that slay dolphin is being used constantly? Of course not.

Firewall is supposed to kick undead A*s. B/c it's doing so, people are surprised it's being used? I can't begin to explain how ridiculous these changes today are, in most respects. (the preraid switch I'm fine with, that's not a cheesy fix.)

All true but PnP rarely if ever ran into mass multiple castings of the spell, monsters too stupid to get out of a WALL OF FIRE:), or player characters who are able to just hang out in the fire taunting the monsters.

Some of these may not sound like good reasons but they are all factors in DDOs translation of the game. They were a little too loyal in the translation of this spell imo, they needed to factor in some of the other changes they made to the game while implimenting this spell.

[MysticTheurge]

Currently, you can cast extended haste, and follow it up with 20 non-extended hastes... and then what? Are you suggesting we have mana-saving protections for the idiots who cast their spells in an ineffective manner?

No, I'm saying having them not deal extra damage where they overlap means it's easier to fill the entire room with them.

[Strakeln]

What if persistent AoE spells dealt damage to people regardless of who cast them?I am completely against this suggestion. Dane touched on it earlier. The reality is that the entire game to this point has been designed without friendly fire. While it would be fun to mess around with, were a change like this made universal, it would break casters beyond belief.

Well, let me rephrase that. It would lead us down a path that would break casters beyond belief. There's only a handful of spells that are impacted by your suggestion, but then the questions of "why does WoF do friendly fire damage but fireball does not" start to come into play.

I like the idea of friendly fire, but only if it is completely optional or designed as such from day 1.

Finally, there appears to be a big reason why DDO does not allow much player interaction of this sort. It opens the book on all kinds of problems that discourage grouping. Who would want to take a PUG sorc into their group? What about the sorc that decides it'd be funny to drop a amx'd/empowered WoF on the chest, and it 1-shots the party? This opens the door for all kinds of griefing, something that very few people enjoy.

[jkm]

I am completely against this suggestion. Dane touched on it earlier. The reality is that the entire game to this point has been designed without friendly fire. While it would be fun to mess around with, were a change like this made universal, it would break casters beyond belief.

Well, let me rephrase that. It would lead us down a path that would break casters beyond belief. There's only a handful of spells that are impacted by your suggestion, but then the questions of "why does WoF do friendly fire damage but fireball does not" start to come into play.

I like the idea of friendly fire, but only if it is completely optional or designed as such from day 1.

Finally, there appears to be a big reason why DDO does not allow much player interaction of this sort. It opens the book on all kinds of problems that discourage grouping. Who would want to take a PUG sorc into their group? What about the sorc that decides it'd be funny to drop a amx'd/empowered WoF on the chest, and it 1-shots the party? This opens the door for all kinds of griefing, something that very few people enjoy.

heck, ottos sphere would do it...

[MysticTheurge]

What about the sorc that decides it'd be funny to drop a amx'd/empowered WoF on the chest, and it 1-shots the party? This opens the door for all kinds of griefing, something that very few people enjoy.

Yeah, that's the problem, of course. But what if that sort of thing was handled in other ways. Obviously, people stop grouping with you (just like if you cast grease on people at inopportune times). But you could also put it under harrassment guidelines with potential banning as a result. Of course then you get in to some "he said, she said" problems. But I think overall we're mostly adults who could handle this appropriately.

As for "Why Wall of Fire and not Fireball." That seems like it should be an easy distinction. Anything that you can see on your screen, anything that creates a persistent effect, can hurt you. Anything that's immediate at the time of casting doesn't.

[Strakeln]

No, I'm saying having them not deal extra damage where they overlap means it's easier to fill the entire room with them.How so?

I can currently fill the room with walls of fire. I can currently put 4-5 firewalls in one single spot. If they took away the ability for layered firewalls to all apply damage, I could still fill the room with walls of fire, and I could put 4-5 walls in the same spot.

The "difficulty" of filling the room with firewalls does not relate to whether or not layered walls will both apply damage.

[Strakeln]

heck, ottos sphere would do it...Yeah, I thought about that and other AoE spells, but MT (smartly) constrained his argument quite a bit... persistent, AoE, damage... meaning wall of fire and acid fog (only?). The sphere doesn't do damage.

Correct me if this assumption is wrong, MT. My argument changes a lot if it is. :D

[MysticTheurge]

The "difficulty" of filling the room with firewalls does not relate to whether or not layered walls will both apply damage.

Except that when you can stack them and deal more damage there's a reason to stack them. When you remove that reason it's easier (as in, of the two choices it makes more sense) to fill the room with them.

[MysticTheurge]

Yeah, I thought about that and other AoE spells, but MT (smartly) constrained his argument quite a bit... persistent, AoE, damage... meaning wall of fire and acid fog (only?). The sphere doesn't do damage.

Correct me if this assumption is wrong, MT. My argument changes a lot if it is. :D

You could limit it like that. Damage it's what's really the problem. Kiting through an Otto's isn't.

So, acid fog, blade barrier, wall of fire, these would do damage to everyone.

Solid fog, web, otto's, these would only effect enemies.

It wasn't my original intention, but I like it.

[Shaamis]

What if persistent AoE spells dealt damage to people regardless of who cast them?

Not only would it (help) solve this problem, it'd solve the "What do you mean, it's not ours?!" problem.

QFT.

Be happy the firewalls don't do 1000+ damage to us, like the firewalls in PnP (if that powerful)

I remember no wanting to even jump through a firewall, let alone dance around fighting while standing in one.

[Strakeln]

Except that when you can stack them and deal more damage there's a reason to stack them. When you remove that reason it's easier (as in, of the two choices it makes more sense) to fill the room with them.I think I understand why we are having communication gaps here.

I intepreted Dane's post regarding the 82 firewalls as "it's ridiculous that you can fill a room with fire and not get burned".

It appears that you translated it as "it's ridiculous that you could fill the room with fire".

Two very different arguments, but look at what Dane said:

Where would you find a place to stand with 82 fire walls. This struck me as an odd question, since the obvious answer is "in the middle of the 82 firewalls". But then he went on to say:


And you can stand in them too, without burning.So Dane appears to be saying that it's ridiculous to be able to cast 82 firewalls, since you'd never be able to do so while maintaining a safe spot for you to stand. Then he adds that he also considers it ridiculous that you can stand in a wall of fire. It sure doesn't appear to me that he's saying it's ridiculous to have the ability to cast the spell multiple times, just that it's ridiculous to be able to do so without killing yourself.

But perhaps I'm the one who misunderstood. Dane, clarify, please?

[Azoralq]

Oh, and so there is only one way to play this game?

EVERY QUEST must be the same, where tanks spend an hour beating on every mob, and clerics spam heal scrolls all over the place while casters haste and resist and stand around?

Would that make it a better game, to have EVERY SINGLE QUEST be identically run?

How about a little leeway for ingenuity and using your toons abilities to succeed?

IMO, every quest is like a puzzle. You have to figure it out to get the prize. But instead of being rewarded for figuring out an elegant resolution to the puzzle, we get punished for not "doing it the way the developers wanted".

When we are only allowed to solve a puzzle the way the puzzle developers envisioned, we are reduced from humans and problem solvers to "rats in a maze". If the rat climbs over the wall, the scientists build taller walls. If the rats chews through, the scientists use metal walls. This is what we face here.

So hey, developers, how about, if we "climb over the walls" or "gnaw through the walls", you just accept that we solved the problem in an ingenious way, and move to creating a better puzzle for the next time.

Think of it as a battle of wits, rather than a lab experiment gone wrong.

What? :confused:

I'm sorry dude, I didn't really know putting down a billion firewalls in one room, having someone be bait, and fish out enemies is a 'puzzle solution.' In fact, it really isn't anything at all, except maybe a solution to finish the quest fast enough so you aren't late for work in the next 15 minutes. Seriously, if this is a puzzle solution, then there are a **** ton of quests out there *** the same puzzle design.

1)
Newbie: 'Oh no! We have to fight a Marut at the end of VoN 3, what ever will we do?
Veteran: 'Shut up, newb. The caster put down as many firewalls as they can on the door, and you watch him burn.'

2)
Newbie: 'Oh no! We have a **** ton of undead to fight at the first part of Xorian Cipher, not to mention a huge room with a few chaos balls! What ever will we do?'
Veteran: 'Shut up, newb. Just run past everything, and when you get to stop of the first tier of stairs, turn around and have mages cast as many firewalls as they can until they die.'

3)
Newbie: 'Oh no! We have a million mephits out there om part 6 of Co6, as well as a few high prieces. What ever will we do?'
Veteran: 'Sut up, newb. Just have a guy run out there, aggro it all, then run back here. Mages set up as many firewalls as you can, until they die.'

4)
Newbie: 'Oh no! We have to kill 6 Vampire Priests, but there is a **** ton of stuff in there as well, what ever will we do?'
Veteran: 'Shut up, newb. Just have one guy run out there, aggro it all, then run back here. Mages set up as many firewalls as you can, until they die.'

Edit: I can't believe I forgot this one:
4.5)
Newbie: 'Oh no! We have to descent into the freezing abyss, full of undead and incorperal beings on each level, and survive, not to mention 2 mean looking named bosses that have to die at close to the same time, whatever will we do?'
Veteran: 'Shut up, newb. Just run all the way down to the bottom of a first level, have a caster cast as many firewalls as he can until they all die, then proceed to next level and do the same thing.

For the named, have one caster and a healer stay up here, and firewall him. The rest run down to the bottom to the other named, ignoring everying on the way. Once to the named, cast firewall on him, and watch him, and everything else burn.'

5)
Newbie: 'Oh no, there is a lot of flesh golems in this next...oh my god..I give up'
Veteran: 'yer finally learning, son.'

Nice Puzzle solution dude. Very unique, very impressive. Because, as you said, all quests are not the same.

[MysticTheurge]

1)
Newbie: 'Oh no! We have to fight a Marut at the end of VoN 3, what ever will we do?
Veteran: 'Shut up, newb. The caster put down as many firewalls as they can on the door, and you watch him burn.'

2)
Newbie: 'Oh no! We have a **** ton of undead to fight at the first part of Xorian Cipher, not to mention a huge room with a few chaos balls! What ever will we do?'
Veteran: 'Shut up, newb. Just run past everything, and when you get to stop of the first tier of stairs, turn around and have mages cast as many firewalls as they can until they die.'

3)
Newbie: 'Oh no! We have a million mephits out there om part 6 of Co6, as well as a few high prieces. What ever will we do?'
Veteran: 'Sut up, newb. Just have a guy run out there, aggro it all, then run back here. Mages set up as many firewalls as you can, until they die.'

4)
Newbie: 'Oh no! We have to kill 6 Vampire Priests, but there is a **** ton of stuff in there as well, what ever will we do?'
Veteran: 'Shut up, newb. Just have one guy run out there, aggro it all, then run back here. Mages set up as many firewalls as you can, until they die.'

5)
Newbie: 'Oh no, there is a lot of flesh golems in this next...oh my god..I give up'
Veteran: 'yer, finally learning, son.'

This made me chuckle.

[Mad_Bombardier]

I can currently fill the room with walls of fire. I can currently put 4-5 firewalls in one single spot. If they took away the ability for layered firewalls to all apply damage, I could still fill the room with walls of fire, and I could put 4-5 walls in the same spot.

The "difficulty" of filling the room with firewalls does not relate to whether or not layered walls will both apply damage.Yes, you could fill the room, but mobs would only take 1 hit of damage per wall, and it would require kiting mobs through (or keep them in 1 spot using 1 WoF to save mana). As it is now, you can literally lay 5 WoF on top of each other, form a shield wall and watch as the baddie takes 5 doses of damage from standing in a single spot. I think it's poor implementation.

I didn't like the stacking change when it happened and I still don't. As you said previously,
fire+fire != superfire. fire+fire = fire. It makes sense that two overlapping firewalls wouldn't both do damage.

[MysticTheurge]

You know what else would make a difference. Implementing it according to the D&D rules.

..|==--
..|==--
..|==--
..|==--
..|==--
..|==--

Crossing the plane of the wall deals 2d6+caster level damage. Standing 10 or fewer feet away on one side deals 2d4 damage. Standing 10-20 feet away on the same side deals 1d4 damage.

The only way to get really good damage would be to kite (like blade barrier) rather than stand and fight in it. Still handy, but less so.

[Aesop]

1Firewall per AoE. No overlapping them. ya can throw several up but only one damage source (the highest) takes effect in a given round.

so if you say have 2 Firewalls in a X pattern only the highest damage affects the mobs within. If you instead have a pattern like this |i i| (the "i"s are little people representing a distance between the walls) and run mobs through the both of them separately then they could both be effective.

so to recap


X one sourse of damage because they are passing through the same AoE

|i i| each wall can damage baduns if they run through


Aesop

ps Cold Damage to walls of fire should put them out (20pts or more )

[Drider]

You know what else would make a difference. Implementing it according to the D&D rules.

..|==--
..|==--
..|==--
..|==--
..|==--
..|==--

Crossing the plane of the wall deals 2d6+caster level damage. Standing 10 or fewer feet away on one side deals 2d4 damage. Standing 10-20 feet away on the same side deals 1d4 damage.

The only way to get really good damage would be to kite (like blade barrier) rather than stand and fight in it. Still handy, but less so.

Agreed and limit how it's damage can be modified.

[Lizardgrad89]

What? :confused:

I'm sorry dude, I didn't really know putting down a billion firewalls in one room, having someone be bait, and fish out enemies is a 'puzzle solution.' In fact, it really isn't anything at all, except maybe a solution to finish the quest fast enough so you aren't late for work in the next 15 minutes. Seriously, if this is a puzzle solution, then there are a **** ton of quests out there *** the same puzzle design.

1)
Newbie: 'Oh no! We have to fight a Marut at the end of VoN 3, what ever will we do?
Veteran: 'Shut up, newb. The caster put down as many firewalls as they can on the door, and you watch him burn.'

2)
Newbie: 'Oh no! We have a **** ton of undead to fight at the first part of Xorian Cipher, not to mention a huge room with a few chaos balls! What ever will we do?'
Veteran: 'Shut up, newb. Just run past everything, and when you get to stop of the first tier of stairs, turn around and have mages cast as many firewalls as they can until they die.'

3)
Newbie: 'Oh no! We have a million mephits out there om part 6 of Co6, as well as a few high prieces. What ever will we do?'
Veteran: 'Sut up, newb. Just have a guy run out there, aggro it all, then run back here. Mages set up as many firewalls as you can, until they die.'

4)
Newbie: 'Oh no! We have to kill 6 Vampire Priests, but there is a **** ton of stuff in there as well, what ever will we do?'
Veteran: 'Shut up, newb. Just have one guy run out there, aggro it all, then run back here. Mages set up as many firewalls as you can, until they die.'

Edit: I can't believe I forgot this one:
4.5)
Newbie: 'Oh no! We have to descent into the freezing abyss, full of undead and incorperal beings on each level, and survive, not to mention 2 mean looking named bosses that have to die at close to the same time, whatever will we do?'
Veteran: 'Shut up, newb. Just run all the way down to the bottom of a first level, have a caster cast as many firewalls as he can until they all die, then proceed to next level and do the same thing.

For the named, have one caster and a healer stay up here, and firewall him. The rest run down to the bottom to the other named, ignoring everying on the way. Once to the named, cast firewall on him, and watch him, and everything else burn.'

5)
Newbie: 'Oh no, there is a lot of flesh golems in this next...oh my god..I give up'
Veteran: 'yer finally learning, son.'

Nice Puzzle solution dude. Very unique, very impressive. Because, as you said, all quests are not the same.


You know, if Vol were the ONLY quest where this was at issue, you would have a point.

But it isn't, so you don't.

What about POP?

Players came up with a way to defeat the doors. Devs changed it. They came up with a new way. Devs changed it. They came up with yet ANOTHER WAY, devs changed it. Now, you have to melee fight everything, because all the elegant solutions have been compromised.

And the WF at the end? Same thing. At least 3 different strategies-effective ones-destroyed by devs because they just HAD TO HAVE melee fighting.

Von 6 - changed how many times? Why? Because people figured out a way to beat it without meleeing everything.

Do I have to list more? I think you get my point.

WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO BE ABOUT MELEE? Can't we have quests where you are allowed to do things differently? The FUN in this game is SOLVING THE PROBLEMS CREATIVELY. That is constantly being taken from us.

Don't have tunnel vision about my post. There is a bigger picture here.

[MysticTheurge]

Now, you have to melee fight everything, because all the elegant solutions have been compromised.

Are you serious? I throw down a maximized, quickened blade barrier as the room starts to go off and that takes care of most stuff.

Either that or I Destruct half the things in the room.

[Deragoth]

So are the shadows undead or not?

As for the fire immunity... Don't get me wrong, the firewall thing was cheese :D, but total immunity? That's the worst kind of cheese... DMburger cheese.

Please find a better way. Otherwise, I'll just Chill-Touch them all and leave them a-scared while I bang out the rest of the quest in 5 minutes.

Regards,

Paying customer actively recruiting new DDO blood.

[moorewr]

Sounds like clerics will have fun dropping divine light and cure mass spells on the shadows while the arcanes torch everything else... and the meatshields can get some use for their ghost-touch weapons.

So what, big deal. :)

[MysticTheurge]

Sounds like clerics will have fun dropping divine light and cure mass spells on the shadows

And blade barriers. ;)

[Azoralq]

You know, if Vol were the ONLY quest where this was at issue, you would have a point.

But it isn't, so you don't.

What about POP?

Players came up with a way to defeat the doors. Devs changed it. They came up with a new way. Devs changed it. They came up with yet ANOTHER WAY, devs changed it. Now, you have to melee fight everything, because all the elegant solutions have been compromised.

And the WF at the end? Same thing. At least 3 different strategies-effective ones-destroyed by devs because they just HAD TO HAVE melee fighting.

Von 6 - changed how many times? Why? Because people figured out a way to beat it without meleeing everything.

Do I have to list more? I think you get my point.

WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO BE ABOUT MELEE? Can't we have quests where you are allowed to do things differently? The FUN in this game is SOLVING THE PROBLEMS CREATIVELY. That is constantly being taken from us.

Don't have tunnel vision about my post. There is a bigger picture here.

What? :confused:

You really want me to go on with other things? I kind of thought I beat it into the ground with those first six posts. By the way, that one about Von 3..yea, that is done still. You don't fight the earth elementals, you just burn the marut the moment he comes out.

PoP? Like the guy said, you don't fight there, either. So it isn't melee centered at all. A firewall after the room started, everything dead. A blade barrier, everything dead.

I'm just pointing out that your 'brilliant puzzle solution' isn't really brilliant at all, it done everywhere, in every quest. I've seen casters cast firewall on fire basec creatures (I kid you not) because they are so used to hitting that macroed button, and watch everything die.

Nerf the **** out of Firewall. Well, I shouldn't say it that strongly...just nerf it enough so it isn't the only spell in the game (besides instant kill spells, nothing will ever beat those.)

I'll say it again..you aren't solving anything creatively. You are putting down a firewall, and burning everything in sight.

For PoP before fix: You are putting down cloudkill through a wall of force A wall which even Ethereal creatures can't even pass, let alone gas, and killing things inside. That's not creative, that exploiting something that's not possible in any terms. I didn't know Tear gas floats through a solid brick wall in real life.

[Dane_McArdy]

I think I understand why we are having communication gaps here.

I intepreted Dane's post regarding the 82 firewalls as "it's ridiculous that you can fill a room with fire and not get burned".

It appears that you translated it as "it's ridiculous that you could fill the room with fire".

Two very different arguments, but look at what Dane said:
This struck me as an odd question, since the obvious answer is "in the middle of the 82 firewalls". But then he went on to say:

So Dane appears to be saying that it's ridiculous to be able to cast 82 firewalls, since you'd never be able to do so while maintaining a safe spot for you to stand. Then he adds that he also considers it ridiculous that you can stand in a wall of fire. It sure doesn't appear to me that he's saying it's ridiculous to have the ability to cast the spell multiple times, just that it's ridiculous to be able to do so without killing yourself.

But perhaps I'm the one who misunderstood. Dane, clarify, please?

Saying, have the mobs not stand in the fire isn't the solution when you can make it so that there isn't any place without fire. Sure, smarter AI would be great. So then what? Mobs now won't enter fire wall. Then what happens?

We put fire wall up so the mobs can't get to us and peg them off at a distance? Not much different. Sure it's more tactical in thought I guess. But not much difference, really, it's basically making encounters safe to the point of no ris.

The issue here is that we can make so much of the content trivial with our powers, that no risk is really involved. The game has to have a level of risk to remain interesting.

[Furgulder]

why didn't you just spawn blackbones in there instead of magically fire immune shadows? geez...

I think this would have been a pretty good fix actually.

[MysticTheurge]

I think this would have been a pretty good fix actually.

Or just rename the shadows to ... Blackbone Shadows. ;)

Or, more seriously, Cindershades (as was suggested elsewhere).

[Issip]

If what I read elsewhere is true, and the shadows are now immune to fire, then I'm going to have trouble calling this move brilliant, or even smart.

Blanket immunities are not a solution, they are a cop-out.

I'm not an idealist about blanket immunities, but incorporal mobs that are fire-proof are not a fun addition to the game. Swinging wildly at incorporal mobs is never fun - firewall was the only thing that made incorporal mobs tolerable. When I play my fighter this makes my wrist hurt. When the wrist pain reaches a certain level DDO play stops, and then the DDO payments will also stop.

Seriously, fireproof incorporal mobs are a cumulative trauma disorder risk, and also not fun.

Perhaps more importantly, I noticed that VOL was the most popular of the new quests. I assume because it was too easy. Perhaps it should never have been too easy, but Turbine took something that was popular and made it unpopular by changing it. Eliminating or changing what is most popular in the game is a sure way to make the game less fun for as many people as possible. I think the approach, going after the most popular content, will, by definition, remove what most people found to be most fun in your game. Continuous application of this approach will lead to a shrinking and disgruntled player base.

Brilliant? I think not. What's the opposite of brilliant again?

[Warrax23]

I just say get rid of Mages all together, the Devs are slowly making us useless. Everything being immune to fire is ********. So for those people who don't like firewall being good, quite grouping with mages cuz you sure don't whine about haste now do ya? That's a cop out. Swing at your own pace not something a MAGE, who's purpose is to be portable artillery and is slowly being gimped by poor planning, gives you. I mean your hastes runs out and ya pout like crack fiends. So watch what ya wish for... cuz soon there isn't gonna be anyone stupid enough to play Mages.... Yeah I get to cast MM wee... I killed a kobold at level 14 I'm cool....

*One step closer to leaving, and saving my 15 bucks a month by watching paint dry*

Markeen Level 14 Sorc *Sarlona*

[Azoralq]

Un-brilliant?

Looking back on this, you are right. Fire Immunity to normal shadows is not a good long term idea. I retract my origional post. however!

Putting in fire immune enemies was a brilliant idea. I will say it again. Make a new, Templated enemy! Cindershade was a good name for a shadow that is immune to fire. Blackbones was a good suggestion, plenty of ideas, if people don't like the fire immunity of shadows.

All in all, way to break the easyness of this quest.

[Azoralq]

I just say get rid of Mages all together, the Devs are slowly making us useless. Everything being immune to fire is ********. So for those people who don't like firewall being good, quite grouping with mages cuz you sure don't whine about haste now do ya? That's a cop out. Swing at your own pace not something a MAGE, who's purpose is to be portable artillery and is slowly being gimped by poor planning, gives you. I mean your hastes runs out and ya pout like crack fiends. So watch what ya wish for... cuz soon there isn't gonna be anyone stupid enough to play Mages.... Yeah I get to cast MM wee... I killed a kobold at level 14 I'm cool....

*One step closer to leaving, and saving my 15 bucks a month by watching paint dry*

Markeen Level 14 Sorc *Sarlona*

No, sir. You still have:

Finger of Death
Fireball
Delayed Blast Fireball
Disintigrate
Phantasmal Killer
Acid Fog
Acid Rain
Burning Blood
Lighting Bolt
Chain Lightning
Ball Lightning
Chill Touch
Melf's Acid Arrow
Flaming Sphere
Scorching Ray
Cone of Cold

...others to come when I remember them

[Strakeln]

Saying, have the mobs not stand in the fire isn't the solution when you can make it so that there isn't any place without fire. Sure, smarter AI would be great. So then what? Mobs now won't enter fire wall. Then what happens?

We put fire wall up so the mobs can't get to us and peg them off at a distance? Not much different. Sure it's more tactical in thought I guess. But not much difference, really, it's basically making encounters safe to the point of no ris.

The issue here is that we can make so much of the content trivial with our powers, that no risk is really involved. The game has to have a level of risk to remain interesting.Ah, okay, your posts in this thread make a lot more sense to me now. Sometimes I'm not so perceptive when at work :p

[Taoxos]

Blade Barrier, Acid fod, and Acid Rain require a little bit of tact. Simply because they don't kill something on contact. Maximixed impowered acid rain, or acid fog does damage, but not as much..it requires just a bit of time.

Blade Barrier requires you to jump around, and move the enemies through the barrier over, and over, and over again.rather than just standing there, and blockign while the thing burns to death. Which is actually more annoying, in the fcat that the cleric is running around like a dimwit, not allowing the fighters to well...fight. Those, though not much better in my opinion..are better than firewall in regards to that.

Firewall? You drop enough to make a fancy design on the floor, pull something, and it suddenly takes 300hp of damage with each step. Something wrong here? Yes...yes, sir, there is.
First off, you can position any of those spells like you can position firewall, and you can overlay them with similar spells or with the same spell (five BB intersecting, which cover up an area, does the same thing as Firewall stacked on itself...).

And for the absurd amount of damage that firewall dealt, I would blame the devs for creating items that increased fire damage output and crit percentage to such spells...

To have them make a bunch of stuff to enhance fire spells, then make a bunch of creatures (expecially incorporeal undead...) immune to it seems to be kind of pointless...and a waste of programming memory (and no, lag is not the result of the game running faster than my computer...that's just plain ******** ).

Actually... I've started having Diablo/Diablo2 flashbacks what with all the firewalls being spammed.
Lol... Ah, the good ol' days...heh...lol.

Honestly, JJ, to a point Yes.

We're far, far more intelligent than the AI. There's no getting around this. So, to some degree setting up overwhelming ambushes and waiting for things to run into them is bordering on an exploit of the fact that the AI can't do anything about them.

Now a better fix would be to tweak the AI so that it [I]can do something about them, as suggested in this thread (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=125085), but it's still awfully close to an "exploit."
...So...being human is an exploit... Well, so much for this, and any other, game...

I'll remind you that using healing potions is an exploit of clerics being able to cast spells (and craft items)... AND, a mage exploits the weave (or the magical essense of the world, if you prefer non-Faerun definitions) to cast ANY spell...including Jump...or Haste, Fireball, Scorching Ray, Dimension Door (which screams for exploitation), etc...

Technically, because we are smarter than the AI, we'll always have an advantage that borders more so towards "exploit" than anything else the devs can throw into the game (and no, I'm not one of those people who say the game is easy, but hides in "sweet spots"...I die with self-respect like any other non-l337 caster...).

I can't agree with making shadows immune to fire as they have several advantages to make up for this weakness.

1) They require ghost touch weapons to hit on a reliable basis. This means that alot of times the tanks can't use their best weapons on them unless those weapons happen to be ghost touch or the tank has acquired the ghost touch bracers. This can cut the damage done to them by 2d6 to 3d6 per swing quite often.

2) Shadows can blink out at will and cause several swings to miss outright even with ghost touch weapons. Don't even let me get started on the difficulty a ranger has if he tries to bow a shadow. Even with a disruption bow, the shadow can blink out before the arrow gets there. Oh, and that disruption bow better be ghost touch also. Those drop all over the place, don't they?

3) The shadow bypasses armor with it's attacks because it's incorporeal. Unless you have on ghost touch armor, this monster with more hps than you can hit you very easily. This means that the cleric is now going to be overworked healing everyone the shadows are ripping apart easily. Because they are now immune to fire, the party will expend a ton of resources recovering from them.

If you want to add more quell to the quest to make it more difficult with their special abilities, that's fine. But this immune to fire business does not follow in d&d rules and I expect it to be pulled from the game if you are going to keep calling this game ddo.
...Well put... It's straight forward, honest, and mostly factual. Kudos.

Said it once, say it again. I think you shoudl just make an enemy specific to the quest. 'Vol's Fallen' or something. They are shadow like creature, same graphic maybe, but have immunity to fire, take away their strength damage, and the ability to spawn a shadow out of killing someone, give them an ability here or there. Bam..new enemy.

The power of DMs.
...Ugh...the crappy thing is that Azoralq makes a valid point... *waves fists at DMs*:D

4) Improve AI so that intelligent undead (like Vampires) know that standing in the middle of 82 firewalls is a dumb idea.
Well...Shadows generally have an Intel score of 6, but that should be enough to be like "hmm...this hurts...I'm going to move now..."

Well, thank you for showing that you are happy to insult and demean people without using any logic or arguing skills.

Seriously, though. What is up with that attitude? Why do people have to take everything to extremes rather than just being calm and logical and discussing things?
I would say they were just being Jews, but someone would take offense to that and would NOT realize that I AM NOT serious about saying anyone is a Jew (meaning something mean). I only say it as a joke. Jews are very nice pennypinchers... :D (Just kidding...stop with the angry messages...you know I'm not going to read them anyway...)

No I'm referring to the Halt Undead immunity that I've encoutered.
You too!? Man...I thought I was just going crazy....

You don't see 82 fire walls as part of the problem?

I do. Where would you find a place to stand with 82 fire walls. Heck lets say 20 fire walls. And you can stand in them too, without burning.
What!? Just FYI, 82 Wall of Fire can occupy the same amount of space as 20 Wall of Fire...or one Wall of Fire, for that matter... Remember, magic doesn't always comply with physics...

Firewall should have been nerfed when cloudkill was nerfed way back when. Firewall makes playing spellcaster boring and unimiginative.
Firewall is the only spell an arcane needs for 80% of the quests.
Firewall should have been nerfed in the vampire pre-raid section as well. A group I was in the other day took zero damage in the head boss vampire in the pre-raid thanks in large to firewall.
Firewall is overpowered.

Thank you Turbine for beginning the nerfing process...

Sincerely,

Norg
Of course, you have to realize that if this were actual D&D 3.5e, Wall of Fire wouldn't be used (seriously...why would I use a Wall of Fire when I can just imprison you in Forcecage with no save...or use multiple Walls of Force to accomplish the same task...and if I use delayed blast fireball before hand, you could be stuck in your own incineration Hell...). Playing a cast with or without Wall of Fire is unimaginative because the spells are unimaginative...

And I remind you that you can't even hit incorporeal undead with MM or Force Missiles when they go to the Ethereal plane like you're supposed to in 3.5e... And you better time your other rays just right, or you'll miss them entirely, making them as effective as MM...and less so due to the fact that they can still move out of the way (I would use MM ALL the time if they could affect Ethereal creatures like they're supposed to...and Wall of Fire wouldn't even be a big deal, because an enhanced Force Missile can accomplish the same task without the ethereal creature able to hit you...).

Oh...and Grease+Burning Hands would be used frequently, too....

Don't forget about Windwall, Black Tentacles, Wall of Ice (yes, I said it), Polymorph (yeah...you knew that one was coming...), and, most importantly, Fly... There would be no sorc without Fly...none...period... Hell...I'd personally use Repulsion (http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/spellsPtoR.html#repulsion)

In other words, fire+fire != superfire. fire+fire = fire. It makes sense that two overlapping firewalls wouldn't both do damage.
Oh yeah...that's flawed logic... Something about intensity of a flame + intensity of a flame will equal the sum of intensities of flame, provided there is sufficient fuel (I remind you of a house on fire versus a house surrounded by fire...the more the fire burns, then stronger, and hotter, it gets, which means it causes more damage as it grows...assuming it has sufficient fuel, as I've said).

Yeah, that's the problem, of course. But what if that sort of thing was handled in other ways. Obviously, people stop grouping with you (just like if you cast grease on people at inopportune times). But you could also put it under harrassment guidelines with potential banning as a result. Of course then you get in to some "he said, she said" problems. But I think overall we're mostly adults who could handle this appropriately.

As for "Why Wall of Fire and not Fireball." That seems like it should be an easy distinction. Anything that you can see on your screen, anything that creates a persistent effect, can hurt you. Anything that's immediate at the time of casting doesn't.
...And what if that PUG sorc accidentally (actually by accident, not intentional) hit the firewall button, which casted it on himself, while he was at the chest...then he gets banned for an accident...

And Fireball is an AoE spell...just not a persistent effect. I don't think it's ANY where near fair to allow persistant spells to kill the party but not instant spells... Of course, that would mean that Acid Rain, Symbol of Flame, and Cloudkill would all affect the party as well. And so would Delayed Blast Fireball [trap] (as it would have a duration)...


And yes...I do type a lot... Work is boring, and I have little else to do (pays enough to keep me here, bored, typing to people who don't care what I say, lol).

[Mhykke]

Un-brilliant?

Looking back on this, you are right. Fire Immunity to normal shadows is not a good long term idea. I retract my origional post. however!

Putting in fire immune enemies was a brilliant idea. I will say it again. Make a new, Templated enemy! Cindershade was a good name for a shadow that is immune to fire. Blackbones was a good suggestion, plenty of ideas, if people don't like the fire immunity of shadows.

All in all, way to break the easyness of this quest.

See, now that would've been a much better reaction by the devs.

People aren't protesting b/c it's harder, or b/c they can't solo it, etc. etc.

People are p#ssed b/c it's just lame....You can picture the devs stammering out "uhhh, then uhhh....fine, all the shadows are immune to fire, so there!"

Replacing mobs is fine and legit, throwing blanket immunities around is lame, arbitrary, and random.

[Talcyndl]

I just say get rid of Mages all together, the Devs are slowly making us useless.


It's kinda funny, just last week I was reading threads about how uber high level casters are.

[jjflanigan]

See, now that would've been a much better reaction by the devs.

People aren't protesting b/c it's harder, or b/c they can't solo it, etc. etc.

People are p#ssed b/c it's just lame....You can picture the devs stammering out "uhhh, then uhhh....fine, all the shadows are immune to fire, so there!"

Replacing mobs is fine and legit, throwing blanket immunities around is lame, arbitrary, and random.

That was my position on this change from the very beginning.

[Cambo]

...dont know if this has been said....(didnt read all 6 pages)
Yes it has been said just above...must be a good idea...on the same page and all

Nerf Firewall and make it not stack..

More firewalls should = more area coverage not multiple damage due to stacking.

In theory it doesnt get any hotter in the middle if fires overlap certainly not by double, triple etc and being a magical fire its temperature is probaly set by the magic not by increasing combustability.

Now blade barrier should stack because more blades = more pieces....
(New 6th level cleric spell...Ghost Touch blade barrier:) )

PS I am not a mage and if I have something wrong...(ie they already dont stack lol....sorry)

[MysticTheurge]

Technically, because we are smarter than the AI, we'll always have an advantage that borders more so towards "exploit" than anything else the devs can throw into the game (and no, I'm not one of those people who say the game is easy, but hides in "sweet spots"...I die with self-respect like any other non-l337 caster...).

Yep, that's pretty much my point. It's not an exploit (certainly not one that anyone can do anything about), but kind of borders on one.


...And what if that PUG sorc accidentally (actually by accident, not intentional) hit the firewall button, which casted it on himself, while he was at the chest...then he gets banned for an accident...

Like I said, I hope we're mostly adults. If that happened to me, I'd back the heck up real fast, but I wouldn't probably report him, especially if he was apologizing. If it happened to me a lot, I'd probably report the guy.

Ideally, you'd have a "dismiss" button too, that you could use to get rid of your own Persistent AoE spells (even though that's not entirely in keeping with the D&D rules).


And Fireball is an AoE spell...just not a persistent effect. I don't think it's ANY where near fair to allow persistant spells to kill the party but not instant spells... Of course, that would mean that Acid Rain, Symbol of Flame, and Cloudkill would all affect the party as well. And so would Delayed Blast Fireball [trap] (as it would have a duration)...

Acid Rain isn't actually a persistent spell despite what everyone thinks. It casts, rains on everyone and then the acid that lands on you persists, but things that run into the rain don't get acid. (I'm about 95% sure on this, but if someone is closer to 100% feel free to agree/correct me.)

And yes, Symbol of Flame and Cloudkill (and Blade Barrier and anything else that cause damage) would affect the party. You'd just learn not to go into things that caused damage if they appeared on your screen.

Delayed Blast Fireball[trap] and Glyph of Warding (Standard and Greater) would be a toss-up under this system. They're really kind of instant-effects that are just waiting to go off. I'd lean towards not having them affect or be triggered by party members. Making them actually remotely useful for trap/ambush situations; as it is now, there's almost no reason to use these since BB, Firewall, and similar spells are far more effective.

[Pyromaniac]

I've got another idea, I think this quest is too easy...how bout -10 to all stats if you die? Not curable till you get to a tavern :) If it worked for the abbott raid, then why not on this too?

Hey if that doesn't work, lets make mobs immune to everything! That will stop those pesky adventurers from completing the quest.

Seriously, just a horrible change.

[MysticTheurge]

I've got another idea, I think this quest is too easy...how bout -10 to all stats if you die? Not curable till you get to a tavern :) If it worked for the abbott raid, then why not on this too?

Hey if that doesn't work, lets make mobs immune to everything! That will stop those pesky adventurers from completing the quest.

Seriously, just a horrible change.

Honestly, I wouldn't be upset by a "negative level" kind of death penalty, especially if it brought reduced XP debt.

I'll take temporary effectiveness penalties over XP debt any day.

And then maybe capped characters would care a bit more about dying.

[SableShadow]

Brilliant? I think not. What's the opposite of brilliant again?

That word is 'dim'. And I agree.

[Strakeln]

Well...Shadows generally have an Intel score of 6, but that should be enough to be like "hmm...this hurts...I'm going to move now..."Absolutely. One thing at a time, dude. You wanna break ALL of the monsters in the game at once? We need a couple quests to remain open! :p

[dragonofsteel2]

Who cares if a couple quest or easy, sorry its not big flipping deal. Give the casual and others something to do. There or plenty of challenging quest out there. This is one of the biggest problem with the game wait this not suppose be that easy go back make harder and harder. Make new content stop going back nerfing couple easy quest. What you want use all to run long hard quest with little reward all day? I not even big on this quest prob. ran just enough to get 2 shield pieces and the sigil ones. I usually run the harder quest, but hate quest that just use blanket immunities to make them hard. Good mods should have easy and hard quest. Its fun sometimes just blowing through a quest.

[spyderwolf]

I think my Pally with 3 levels of Divine Light and a good Charisma bonus to number of turns, just got a lot more useful on this quest.

no he didnt. my pally has a 26 cha and i played around with divine light. if it wont work on undead in the desert. it aint gonna work in a level 14 quest

[DoctorWhofan]

Oh, they could leash the shadows so you can't pull them. That'd solve the problem in a less tacky fashion than a blanket immunity.

or doors. We all agree that Temple was way too easy, but I have to agree with (cringe!) Aspenor with this. THere were other ways than total immunity.

And laughing at someone else's fustration isn't right. My sorcerer is now totally useless in the necropolis.

[QuantumFX]

No, sir. You still have:

Finger of Death
Fireball
Delayed Blast Fireball
Disintigrate
Phantasmal Killer
Acid Fog
Acid Rain
Burning Blood
Lighting Bolt
Chain Lightning
Ball Lightning
Chill Touch
Melf's Acid Arrow
Flaming Sphere
Scorching Ray
Cone of Cold

...others to come when I remember them

And only 2 on your list that would have any effect on incorporeal undead thanks to their ******** phase in/phase out spaz cycle!

Here's a link for ya: CLICK (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=125165)

[Raegoul]

What i really dont like is abitrary design decisions that solve a percieved problem in the simplest way that narrows the strategic options for characters.

So a spell is overpowered it is part of D&D get used to it. Casters get stronger as levels go up it is part of D&D. I remember when fighter classes ruled the day back when the cap was at level 10.

Monsters cant cope with certain tactics well that is a good thing as far as i can see.

Turbine changed the cooldown on firewall so now it is more fun and does silly damage. Adjust the damage slightly if it makes things better. But i am sure people will complain about that too.

I wish "halt undead" worked then i wouldnt have to use firewall all the time. I wish i had more spell options that worked as well as firewall. I wish i knew how DC's worked in DDO. What i do know is i used to be happy to adjust but some of the recent changes are not opening up more gameplay fun but narrowing gameplay fun. I find it difficult to swallow particularly when there is nice flavour in the new stuff. I dont mind random pieces dropping for the new shields and such but not for quest progression sigil pieces.

They might seem like small things but they are adding up to an overall negative approach and so it is becoming a battle between gamer enjoyment vs quest design management.


I might be confused but i thought undead were immune to cold.

[ebt-dnd]

Finger of Death - Immune
Fireball - Immune
Delayed Blast Fireball - Immune
Disintigrate - Woohoo! Whoops, it phased out/ran past you/you just plain missed.
Phantasmal Killer - Immune
Acid Fog - Woohoo! Err, not doing much damage there maximized/empowered...
Acid Rain - lol. How long does this last now? 5 seconds?
Burning Blood - immune
Lighting Bolt - See Disintegrate.
Chain Lightning - See Disintegrate.
Ball Lightning - See Disintegrate.
Chill Touch - Yeah, right.
Melf's Acid Arrow - See Disintegrate.
Flaming Sphere - you aren't serious are you? Immune anyway.
Scorching Ray - immune
Cone of Cold - see Disintegrate, but probably your best bet. Until they make them immune to cold too. Cold sphere you'll just miss left and right on.

Now, I've heard that Fear works on them, which strikes me as strange since Fear's not supposed to work on undead (unless it was chill touch).

[wizzy_catt]

temple of vol hmm elite duo time:6 mins not to mention that 2 of us we killing alll the vampires in opposite direction never pulled them anywhere. i dont get why wizard/sorcs need to stay at the lever? plain lazy. havent done the quest after this stupid 'fix' which actually created more problems so i cant really comment on the changes. just so u know whats the fun pulling everything to leaver? kill them by their spawn point thats faster anyways.

[DoctorWhofan]

How so?

I can currently fill the room with walls of fire. I can currently put 4-5 firewalls in one single spot. If they took away the ability for layered firewalls to all apply damage, I could still fill the room with walls of fire, and I could put 4-5 walls in the same spot.

The "difficulty" of filling the room with firewalls does not relate to whether or not layered walls will both apply damage.

How about thecasting time? Lengthen it again? and doors in this quest would slow the whole party down. I slightly offended by the way the OP suggested this was caused by the loot farmers. In this case, we all are loot farmers, for the sigil. Cuz I don't have the sigil pieces yet doesn't make me a farmer in normal sense. Makes me a desperate casual player.

We allagree the quest was too easy. This was not the way to fix it. Plus all the other issues going on in the Orchard, this was the topping on the cake.

In better news, I stopped playing the Orchard today and did 2 scale runs. Finally got all the bluescale I needed for the sorcerer. yay!

[MysticTheurge]

So a spell is overpowered it is part of D&D get used to it.

Not like this, it's not.

[Harncw]

why do you all run this anyway?

the pre raid is one level higher and the vol side is certainly doable

[moorewr]

Not like this, it's not.

In all my paper DnD days we barely ever used it offensively. We did now and then, but it had to involve real creativity. It hurt US, for one thing! The main use was to seal off a corridor so we could escape a losing fight, or channel a mob where we wanted them.

Also in the days before max+emp+ext you just figured one round of base damage as your enemies moved through to attack you wasn't all that impressive. Fireball was king.

[moorewr]

why do you all run this anyway?

the pre raid is one level higher and the vol side is certainly doable

(answering for the populace) easy loot, easy sigil pieces, and easy power-leveling. what's not to like?

[Perceval418]

Wouldn't solve anything, you'd just place a firewall on where they are leached at, watch them return to where they started, and burn as you shield block.

I like the 'new enemy specific to quest' idea.

Dear god! The spell was working as intended and the undead taking damage as intended! WE MUST CHANGE IT! This cannot be!

Anything that phases is impossible to cast on. MM/Any Ray Spell only lands occasionally and if your lucky. It just burns your SP and has virtually no output.

They could have:

A) Put the shadows on a leash
B) Made the shadows resistant to fire (yellow damage)
C) Increased the cooldown on thier phase while also increasing the number and frequency of thier spawn

Instead they do none of these good, balanced, moderate ideas and go to extremes. Now we have infinite spawn and immunities to fire.

Im frusterated at the extremism displayed in these moves. There isnt even an attempt to find a balance. They just do whats easiest and quickest for them and throw it in our face.

The reaction would have been much different if they posted that they were aware that the temple of vol was far to easy, and changes were forthcoming that would increase the difficulty of the quest.

Then, they turned around and lets say gave us more shadows, a faster respawn, and made them resistant, but not immune, to fire. People might be a bit annoyed but i think reasonable people would see the Reason behind that move. Look at the other three orchard quests, they are all challening in thier own way. I can duo the old vol on elite and its a cakewalk. Something was wrong with the quest.

[Prinstoni]

They are immune to fire. Any why is this a cop out? How else would you solve it?

Next update, Turbine is going to remove firewall from the game, due to people complaining about making things immune to a spell that is used waay to much to exploit things. Thank you.

Cone of Cold works just as well.

Making stuff randomly immune to fire, ok..maybe not smart. What would ahve been smart is not calling the shadow sin this quest 'shadows' anymore..rather invent a new enemy specific to this quest, and make them immune to fire.

Overall though..it is a good remedy to fix people that like not having to play this game, and just like loot.

Funny thing is undead are supposed to be immune to cold...:rolleyes:

[MysticTheurge]

Funny thing is undead are supposed to be immune to cold...:rolleyes:

This is also a common fallacy. Just as undead aren't all vulnerable to fire they aren't all immune to cold. A lot of them aren't.

[Mad_Bombardier]

Funny thing is undead are supposed to be immune to cold...:rolleyes:Not all undead; mostly just skeletons.

[Strakeln]

I guess my problem with blanket-type immunities is that it doesn't jive with the rest of the game.

For example, players do not have items that will make them permanently immune to fire. They can resist, protect, absorb, but all in some limited fashion.

If I were a Dev, I would have wanted to focus on adding things like fire resistance or protection. Some item-based, some spell-based (and therefore dispellable). In other words, make it fit in with existing game mechanics... allow us to dispel some/all of these effects (can't dispel items).

People keep asking "well what would you have done?". The simple answer is "fix the problem using the established game mechanics".

[sirgog]

IMO Resist Fire 60 (30 on normal, 42-45 on hard) would have been a better solution than immunity. Super-uber-mega-toasty-maximised-firewalls-of-burning-squishy-death would still cook the shadows, but not as quickly.

The main thing however would have been to make the corridors harder to navigate at speed.

[Aspenor]

I would have preferred them make the gates that fall down actually TRAP us, instead of just sealing off pathways. That would make pulling a stupid thing to do, since you'd get trapped with the monsters. Problem solved.

[MysticTheurge]

I would have preferred them make the gates that fall down actually TRAP us, instead of just sealing off pathways. That would make pulling a stupid thing to do, since you'd get trapped with the monsters. Problem solved.

That could work, though in general I'm not a fan of this tactic (which many lower level quests make good use of. I'm looking at you Delera's.)

[llevenbaxx]

IMO Resist Fire 60 (30 on normal, 42-45 on hard) would have been a better solution than immunity. Super-uber-mega-toasty-maximised-firewalls-of-burning-squishy-death would still cook the shadows, but not as quickly.

The main thing however would have been to make the corridors harder to navigate at speed.

With the current stackable quality of the spell, any kind of prot/resist can just as easily be overcome by just spamming a couple more.

If the damage didnt stack Id say your suggestion would work just fine.

[jjflanigan]

With the current stackable quality of the spell, any kind of prot/resist can just as easily be overcome by just spamming a couple more.

If the damage didnt stack Id say your suggestion would work just fine.

I think you are confused (or I am). The damage doesn't stack like you seem to imply. In my experience it works like this:

(numbers given purely for an easy example)

1x Firewall = 30 damage per tick
5x Firewall = 30 damage per tick x5

Casting firewalls doesn't give a single source damage of 150 damage (120 after 30 resists), it would give 30 damage 5 times (reduced to 0 each time).

[MysticTheurge]

In my experience it works like this:

That's always been my understanding as well.

[Strakeln]

That's always been my understanding as well.Same here, although I fear I may have started a new DDO urban legend with my flippant use of the word "stack" regarding firewalls.

[Hafeal]

In all my paper DnD days we barely ever used it offensively ... Fireball was king.

Ah, I remember it well. A time where melee was not severely over-powered for the on-line masses and creatures did not have inflated stats to deal with the MMO style.

Can't remember the last fireball I have seen a caster cast. I am sure it occurs, its just not truly the most efficient use of sps most of the time.

:cool:

[Waterboy]

Honestly, JJ, to a point Yes.

We're far, far more intelligent than the AI. There's no getting around this. So, to some degree setting up overwhelming ambushes and waiting for things to run into them is bordering on an exploit of the fact that the AI can't do anything about them.

I have read a lot of absured things on these forums but this is right up there at the top. Setting up an ambush is bordering on an exploit....it is so silly and absured I am not even going to say anything more about it.

[Warrax23]

I use Fireball and Cone of Cold a lot, and is more my primary spell against non shadow,wraith,ghost opponents. My cone of cold does more damage against living things then WoF.

However the point is this, The 4 quests out there since you have to run them multiple times to get sigil peices SHOULD be a little easier then say Madstone which you only have to run once to be Raid Ready.

A resistance to Fire damage isn't a bad idea because they still DO damage, I just sit there and have to watch now because I'm a FIRE/COLD mage. My disco balls sure don't do anything to them.... stone to flesh... fail...

SO I say pull yer brain out of the jar and think of a solution instead of a hot fix that makes people not want to actually DO a mission. They are supposed to ALL be fun... and for the DDO crown jewel it's pretty garbage since better loot GENERALLY still falls out of Giant hold.

[MysticTheurge]

Can't remember the last fireball I have seen a caster cast. I am sure it occurs, its just not truly the most efficient use of sps most of the time.

It doesn't help that they're really hard to see.

[Yaga_Nub]

I've noticed BB as a suggested replacement for WoF and I started thinking..... Isn't it really the same thing? An AoE spell that can be spammed down in the in room and you can place them so that a critter has to run through many of them?

So what's the difference? Why is one okay and one isn't?

[MysticTheurge]

So what's the difference? Why is one okay and one isn't?

You have to move across the boundary of a blade barrier to be hit by it. Thus, you can't really "Fight in a Blade Barrier." This usually adds up to meaning that it's most effective to just put down one blade barrier and kite around in it (when even that is effective), unlike Wall of Fire where you can throw down tons and fight in them.

More over, with regards to incorporeal creatures in particular, they can phase out on one side of the barrier and phase back in on the other, suffering no damage.

[Hafeal]

It doesn't help that they're really hard to see.

You raise a good point, fireballs exploding in the firewall don't really get much graphic love! :D

[Dane_McArdy]

You raise a good point, fireballs exploding in the firewall don't really get much graphic love! :D

Yeah, can you make the fire stand out from the fire please?

he he he.

[MysticTheurge]

Yeah, can you make the fire stand out from the fire please?

I know you're joking, but I wasn't. Where's the expanding sheet of flame that marks the edge of a fireball as it explodes?

There's a little comet of fire, and then, like, a *poof* of flame. The graphics for fireball are some of the most disappointing spell effects in the game, if you ask me. And given that it's such an iconic spell that really sucks.

[Aesop]

I know you're joking, but I wasn't. Where's the expanding sheet of flame that marks the edge of a fireball as it explodes?

There's a little comet of fire, and then, like, a *poof* of flame. The graphics for fireball are some of the most disappointing spell effects in the game, if you ask me. And given that it's such an iconic spell that really sucks.

Yeah I agree on that one... when you think Wizard you think of them Launching Fireballs that level battlefields ... not a small poof


Aesop

[Mad_Bombardier]

I think you are confused (or I am). The damage doesn't stack like you seem to imply. In my experience it works like this:

(numbers given purely for an easy example)

1x Firewall = 30 damage per tick
5x Firewall = 30 damage per tick x5

Casting firewalls doesn't give a single source damage of 150 damage (120 after 30 resists), it would give 30 damage 5 times (reduced to 0 each time).Correct, but when your WoF does 150-250 dmg each to Undead (420-680 on a crit), even with Resist Fire 30, it's 120+ damage x5. Unless they invent Resist Fire 100, it barely even dents WoF damage.

[jjflanigan]

Correct, but when your WoF does 150-250 dmg each to Undead (420-680 on a crit), even with Resist Fire 30, it's 120+ damage x5. Unless they invent Resist Fire 100, it barely even dents WoF damage.

Yes, however that doesn't have any bearing on the quote that I was answering ;)



With the current stackable quality of the spell, any kind of prot/resist can just as easily be overcome by just spamming a couple more.

If the damage didnt stack Id say your suggestion would work just fine.


It doesn't talk about the damage from an individual fire wall being too great, it talks about adding more firewalls to make it overpower the resists.

[Mad_Bombardier]

Yes, however that doesn't have any bearing on the quote that I was answering ;)

It doesn't talk about the damage from an individual fire wall being too great, it talks about adding more firewalls to make it overpower the resists.To be fair, he did mention overcoming Protection too. ;) And more WoF brings down the ablative Fire Protection faster.

[Charmazal]

If what I read elsewhere is true, and the shadows are now immune to fire, then I'm going to have trouble calling this move brilliant, or even smart.

Blanket immunities are not a solution, they are a cop-out.

yes this is a cop out

[Yaga_Nub]

You have to move across the boundary of a blade barrier to be hit by it. Thus, you can't really "Fight in a Blade Barrier." This usually adds up to meaning that it's most effective to just put down one blade barrier and kite around in it (when even that is effective), unlike Wall of Fire where you can throw down tons and fight in them.

More over, with regards to incorporeal creatures in particular, they can phase out on one side of the barrier and phase back in on the other, suffering no damage.

That's the problem then, I never stay still in a fight so I have also figured that dropping BB was better anyway. Drop them in a pattern and then start running circles in the pattern. Seems to work as fast as firewall but maybe that's just because I'm running scared and time seems to fly by.

[MysticTheurge]

That's the problem then, I never stay still in a fight so I have also figured that dropping BB was better anyway. Drop them in a pattern and then start running circles in the pattern. Seems to work as fast as firewall but maybe that's just because I'm running scared and time seems to fly by.

It's the lack of synergy between blade barrier and other spells largely that makes the difference I think.

You can Dancing Sphere and Firewall and have yourself a nice little roast. But for BB to work, you've got to run around in circles and they inevitably get off a few hits.

[Lizardgrad89]

Sounds like clerics will have fun dropping divine light and cure mass spells on the shadows while the arcanes torch everything else... and the meatshields can get some use for their ghost-touch weapons.

So what, big deal. :)

I was thinking that bringing in a couple of clerics and throwing down some heavy blade barriers while the casters throw down acid fog and/or acid rain would do about the same thing, and probably about as quick, but even if you did, what would be the difference?

The devs want you to wade in and kill everything melee style and take 40 minutes to run the quest. If you find a way around that, they will just change it again. AND claim you are "exploiting the game".

I wonder, if any of this were real, and you were a wizard in a dark dungeon, wouldn't you use every means at your disposal to accomplish the mission and get out alive?

Hate to sneak up, get the info, create a battle plan, then have some demigod step in with a thunderous voice and say "you may not kill these creatures with a fire spell. You must kill them with naked steel!"

I'd want to tell the demigod to mind his own darn business.

Want to tell the Dev's the same thing.

[Lizardgrad89]

What? :confused:

You really want me to go on with other things? I kind of thought I beat it into the ground with those first six posts. By the way, that one about Von 3..yea, that is done still. You don't fight the earth elementals, you just burn the marut the moment he comes out.

PoP? Like the guy said, you don't fight there, either. So it isn't melee centered at all. A firewall after the room started, everything dead. A blade barrier, everything dead.

I'm just pointing out that your 'brilliant puzzle solution' isn't really brilliant at all, it done everywhere, in every quest. I've seen casters cast firewall on fire basec creatures (I kid you not) because they are so used to hitting that macroed button, and watch everything die.

Nerf the **** out of Firewall. Well, I shouldn't say it that strongly...just nerf it enough so it isn't the only spell in the game (besides instant kill spells, nothing will ever beat those.)

I'll say it again..you aren't solving anything creatively. You are putting down a firewall, and burning everything in sight.

For PoP before fix: You are putting down cloudkill through a wall of force A wall which even Ethereal creatures can't even pass, let alone gas, and killing things inside. That's not creative, that exploiting something that's not possible in any terms. I didn't know Tear gas floats through a solid brick wall in real life.

1. I am posting about more than firewalls. I am posting about the developer attitude that if you don't run a quest the way the want you to, it's considered an "exploit", and they will change the quest to try to force you to do things the way they want them done, and WILL continue to make changes until they have countered every creative way to finish the quest that isn't the way they want.

2. Never made mention of VON 3. VON 6, Velah, is the one that has been changed so many times and will continue to be changed, until the Devs find a way to force the party to split into three groups and fight battles at all bases simultaneously while trying to take down the pillars at the same time, similar to the battle with fire and ice in TS. That's obviously what they want, and anything else is an "exploit".

3. POP before fix: ACTUALLY, before the first fix, you went into a room, laid cloudkill down, then left and pulled the lever. Then the devs made all spells drop when the wall went up. Where's the logic there? Heck, where's the logic that the undead archers in Stormcleave can now hit you from a long distance without being able to see you. Even William Tell couldn't do that, yet mindless undead can.

As for your point about tear gas and solid walls, well, maybe MAGIC tear gas does go through walls. Maybe the spell travels the etheral plane (passing through barriers) until it intersects with the point desired on our plane and then bursts through.

I can't for the life of me imagine why you would try to use REAL WORLD LOGIC in a fantasy setting.

Maybe you should switch over to an RPG like WWII Online, where the application of real world physics is actually a valid argument.