Epic Feedback: General

[Tolero]

Ever wished you could run one of your favorite mid-game dungeons at a higher level, have it be challenging, and receive awesome loot for it? With Epic Dungeons, now you can!


For Update 1, the Demon Sands Adventure Pack has received the Epic treatment. Five adventures in the Menechtarun Desert (including the Queen Lailat raid) can now be played in Epic difficulty.
Old favorite items that originated in these dungeons can be upgraded into powerful Epic versions by collecting rare scrolls, seals, and shards.
Epic rewards can be further customized with Epic Augment Crystals, permanently adding new effects to your items.
Epic dungeons and raids award special tokens that can be traded for Augment Crystals or True Reincarnation Tokens. See Misty in the Tower of the Twelve for more details!
All members of the party must be 20th level to enter on Epic difficulty.
This difficulty will only be unlocked if you have completed the dungeon/raid on Elite

Let us know your feedback on the new Epic difficulty!

[Bogenbroom]

1 comment. Pretty minor, actually, but "Epic" is not the best name for it because common abbreviations for quests levels are N/H/E. Another "E" would be best avoided. I would suggest something like "Legendary" or "Mythic."

[Dylos_Moon]

1 comment. Pretty minor, actually, but "Epic" is not the best name for it because common abbreviations for quests levels are N/H/E. Another "E" would be best avoided. I would suggest something like "Legendary" or "Mythic."

I believe Epic is used because of what it means in 3.5 dnd, Epic is beyond 20, and since all characters in an epic adventure must be level 20, I am in favor of the difficulty staying with the name Epic.

[Memnir]

Interesting.

Gimmie the preview. :)

[KaKa]

I am very excited about your choice to use Mod 3 as the first area to get epic quests. Mod 3 was my favorite Mod so I am ready to get back into it and have a challenge once again.

I hope the next thing that gets epic treatment is the VoN series, as having a challenge in those quests at 20th level would be very welcome. Maybe we will see the return of the 3 hour von 3:D.

[Angelus_dead]

I believe Epic is used because of what it means in 3.5 dnd, Epic is beyond 20, and since all characters in an epic adventure must be level 20, I am in favor of the difficulty staying with the name Epic.
No, that does not make sense. The word "epic" in D&D has a specific meaning: characters of level 21 and above. Presumably someday DDO will want to increase the level cap to past 20.

The word "Epic" should be avoided unless it is referring to approximately the same thing it means in the D&D rules. Other words like "Advanced", "Heroic", "Legendary", "Extreme", or "Ultimate" can be used.

[jakeelala]

No, that does not make sense. The word "epic" in D&D has a specific meaning: characters of level 21 and above. Presumably someday DDO will want to increase the level cap to past 20.

The word "Epic" should be avoided unless it is referring to approximately the same thing it means in the D&D rules. Other words like "Advanced", "Heroic", "Legendary", "Extreme", or "Ultimate" can be used.

um you have to be level 20 to do it, which tells me that this is above lvl 20 quest level, IE Epic.

I also think it hints that Epic level items will be dropping (+9 and up armor items, +4 and up tomes, weapons with ******** mods, etc.)

[Arianrhod]

Oops, sorry, didn't see this thread when I posted mine, so I'll copy it over to here:

I'm pleased to see this revamping of the mid-level raids to make them relevant at endgame, and hope all the lower level raids get this treatment eventually; it's something that's been requested before

However, I'd also like to see the raids at their original levels get some attention. These are some of the most interesting and involved quests, storywise, for their respective levels, with whole zones designed around them, and it would be nice to have versions of those raids available to first-time players who want to run them at level, slowly, and learn them first-hand. This can be very hard to do with just a duo or trio, and filling an entire raid (especially one well below the level cap) with level-appropriate first-timers can be quite a challenge. If possible, maybe not right away, but when dev time permits, it would be nice to see a "sightseer" version of these quests; possibly doing away with the raid loot in exchange for scaling, store use, hireling use, and limiting group size to the standard 6.

[Strakeln]

Oops, sorry, didn't see this thread when I posted mine, so I'll copy it over to here:

I'm pleased to see this revamping of the mid-level raids to make them relevant at endgame, and hope all the lower level raids get this treatment eventually; it's something that's been requested before

However, I'd also like to see the raids at their original levels get some attention. These are some of the most interesting and involved quests, storywise, for their respective levels, with whole zones designed around them, and it would be nice to have versions of those raids available to first-time players who want to run them at level, slowly, and learn them first-hand. This can be very hard to do with just a duo or trio, and filling an entire raid (especially one well below the level cap) with level-appropriate first-timers can be quite a challenge. If possible, maybe not right away, but when dev time permits, it would be nice to see a "sightseer" version of these quests; possibly doing away with the raid loot in exchange for scaling, store use, hireling use, and limiting group size to the standard 6.
Doesn't that exist already? I know I've brought several tourists along on my raids... you know, underpowered PUGs who likely won't contribute at all but wanna see what's going on...

[Kintro]

Happy to see older raids and raid loot being made useful again!

[Arianrhod]

Doesn't that exist already? I know I've brought several tourists along on my raids... you know, underpowered PUGs who likely won't contribute at all but wanna see what's going on...

That's not quite the same thing. Riding around in someone's backpack, or being told "stand there and DO NOT MOVE" is not really the experience I was getting at ;)

[Angelus_dead]

Ever wished you could run one of your favorite mid-game dungeons at a higher level, have it be challenging, and receive awesome loot for it? With Epic Dungeons, now you can!
It is a very good idea to go back to quests were were originally introduced as level-capped content and give them a way to be played at the new level cap. That's the only way to preserve the investment that was made in them.


All members of the party must be 20th level to enter on Epic difficulty.
It doesn't make sense for a level 19 character who has been a leading contributor to natively level-20 raids to be prohibited from something like Chains of Flame Epic. If people want the challenge of going to Epic before reaching the cap, let them.

[Zzevel]

+5 Shortbus Shortsword Of Retardation?

+1 +1 +1 Lmmfao

[KaKa]

Did the level 20 only restriction have anything to do with exp? Do the quests give xp on epic? Maybe the Devs didn't want to give xp for these quests or balance it. Could be the case. I guess a % first time bonus isn't necessary :D.

[zealous]

It is a very good idea to go back to quests were were originally introduced as level-capped content and give them a way to be played at the new level cap. That's the only way to preserve the investment that was made in them.
One wonders what will happen if the loot in epic is substantially better than in non-epic new content...

[Angelus_dead]

If people want the challenge of going to Epic before reaching the cap, let them.
And I should point out:
Currently there are complaints from people who don't like having only a handful of Shavarath quests to use as they advance from 18 to 20. If epic quests allowed characters to enter before 20, then they'd alleviate that problem and provide more variety for high-end leveling.

[ahpook]

And I should point out:
Currently there are complaints from people who don't like having only a handful of Shavarath quests to use as they advance from 18 to 20. If epic quests allowed characters to enter before 20, then they'd alleviate that problem and provide more variety for high-end leveling.

well, there are the new dreaming quests in the 19-20 range.

If it makes it easier to assume that XP is not relevant to the "Epic" quests I am ok with that. However, I would still allow 19's in.

[Xeriphim]

+5 Shortbus Shortsword of Retardation?

post full of win ! .

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Ever wished you could run one of your favorite mid-game dungeons at a higher level, have it be challenging, and receive awesome loot for it? With Epic Dungeons, now you can!


For Update 1, the Demon Sands Adventure Pack has received the Epic treatment. Five adventures in the Menechtarun Desert (including the Queen Lailat raid) can now be played in Epic difficulty.
Old favorite items that originated in these dungeons can be upgraded into powerful Epic versions by collecting rare scrolls, seals, and shards.
Epic rewards can be further customized with Epic Augment Crystals, permanently adding new effects to your items.
Epic dungeons and raids award special tokens that can be traded for Augment Crystals or True Reincarnation Tokens. See Misty in the Tower of the Twelve for more details!
All members of the party must be 20th level to enter on Epic difficulty.
This difficulty will only be unlocked if you have completed the dungeon/raid on Elite

Let us know your feedback on the new Epic difficulty!

And Talonkage was sooooo looking forward to retirement.
/sigh

[sirgog]

I'd also like to see Epic available to level 17-19 players that are gutsy/crazy enough to try.

Set base XP at Elite +10%, and add a 100% first time completion bonus, and we are all set :)

[Borror0]

I wonder if they reworked the raid to be fun for melee characters.

[Angelus_dead]

I wonder if they reworked the raid to be fun for melee characters.
That would be a bit difficult in game design, but can be done as long as they step a bit outside of their existing mechanics.

See, even back in mod3 it was possible to kill raid Laliat in melee... you just needed an unusual focus on 1 cleric healing exactly 1 barbarian. Although Laliat is too damaging for a level-appropriate melee to fight her, the line between Too Hard and Plenty Easy is actually very thin. Because cleric healing is so powerful compared to the hitpoint totals of characters, if her damage is reduced to be survivable, it would probably also become approximately trivial.

A way to fix this is to give Laliat a different kind of threat: Reduce the actual hp damage of her hits, but have them include a healing debuff so they can't be rapidly healed. That way melee guys can go to attack her and survive, but they can't "stay in" by clerics healing through her assaults.

(Note that this suggestion is conceptually similar to the "penalty box" dead zone seen in Reaver and Shroud)

[Riggs]

Call it 'Nightmare'....

[Angelus_dead]

Call it 'Nightmare'....
I am death incarnate.

[Riggs]

Queen was given not only a ton more melee damage, but unlimited cleave on every swing. Six cleaves a second is really overkill.

I guess Turbine didnt like people beating up the queen in melee, so made it next to impossible.

The whole 'no save knockdown/overun' needs to be addressed too - what is going to happen to 'epic' queen, air elementals, etc if you cant melee them, and because of the super duper epic buffs - other ways of dealing with them become next to impossible as well?

[Tharriis]

If the quests are being re-worked, can extra spots for traps be added????????? And then any number of the new spawn points for traps be activated when the instance is opened, like rares in explorer areas????

[sirgog]

A way to fix this is to give Laliat a different kind of threat: Reduce the actual hp damage of her hits, but have them include a healing debuff so they can't be rapidly healed. That way melee guys can go to attack her and survive, but they can't "stay in" by clerics healing through her assaults.

(Note that this suggestion is conceptually similar to the "penalty box" dead zone seen in Reaver and Shroud)

Excellent idea. It's one that's heavily used in WoW (where healing is *much* weaker than it is here) - raid bosses can, upon hitting you with their special attacks, apply one of several stacking debuffs - reducing your Defense Rating (in DDO this translates to reducing your Fortification, but it's more severe as most raid bosses attack slower but can one-shot anyone on a critical hit, only the boss of Monastery of the Scorpion on Elite can do this in DDO); other bosses apply a Mortal Wound debuff (stacks, reduces incoming healing by 10% per stack, similar to but less severe than a Clay Golem's Cursed Wound), or a stacking damage-over-time effect (in DDO this would translate to taking 30 damage per second for 20 seconds - and if you get hit by the same ability again while this is on you, the 20 second timer resets and you start taking 60 per second)

That allows melee players to play a role, but prevents them staying constantly in melee - after a while you *must* move out of combat, allow someone else to take aggro, and let debuffs expire, possibly attacking the boss with a ranged weapon while you wait.

[Rab]

T'was thinkin here about Epic levels being tested out in Lamannia, from the brief comments from Tolero was:
Active characters from the live servers who logged in between April 29th 2008 and December 29th 2008.

Does that mean Lamannia is still going to be using the characters backed up from the Dec 29th timeframe? ie. Lvl 16 was the cap. If that is so, we would have to level those toons to 20 before we could even test this Epic feature, am I correct here?


I love the idea of running Epic quests, Imagine running WaterWorks on Epic!!! Come on that would be a blast!!!!

[jakeelala]

I wonder if they reworked the raid to be fun for melee characters.

melee's have like 6 or 7 raids, what's wrong with the ranged characters getting one?

[Borror0]

melee's have like 6 or 7 raids, what's wrong with the ranged characters getting one?
While it would be acceptable for ranged to be slightly superior in a raid or quest, it is not acceptable for melee to not be able to contribute in any meaningful way.

If you're a melee character in the DQ raid, you might as well go afk and come back for the loot. It is not what I could call fun.

[Visty]

While it would be acceptable for ranged to be slightly superior in a raid or quest, it is not acceptable for melee to not be able to contribute in any meaningful way.

If you're a melee character in the DQ raid, you might as well go afk and come back for the loot. It is not what I could call fun.

you can melee the efreetis

[Junts]

That would be a bit difficult in game design, but can be done as long as they step a bit outside of their existing mechanics.

See, even back in mod3 it was possible to kill raid Laliat in melee... you just needed an unusual focus on 1 cleric healing exactly 1 barbarian. Although Laliat is too damaging for a level-appropriate melee to fight her, the line between Too Hard and Plenty Easy is actually very thin. Because cleric healing is so powerful compared to the hitpoint totals of characters, if her damage is reduced to be survivable, it would probably also become approximately trivial.

A way to fix this is to give Laliat a different kind of threat: Reduce the actual hp damage of her hits, but have them include a healing debuff so they can't be rapidly healed. That way melee guys can go to attack her and survive, but they can't "stay in" by clerics healing through her assaults.

(Note that this suggestion is conceptually similar to the "penalty box" dead zone seen in Reaver and Shroud)

All she needs is the knockdown radius of the mariliths in Shavarath; those mobs can be meleed.

Lailat requires a lot more ac, but having one tank and people beating on her tail works fine .. I have intimitanked the raid in less time than it takes to nuke her to death before.

[Angelus_dead]

Lailat requires a lot more ac, but having one tank and people beating on her tail works fine .. I have intimitanked the raid in less time than it takes to nuke her to death before.
Yeah, I'm thinking of the raid as it was in the period of mod 3, 4, and 5, when you couldn't intimitank a dangerous boss.

[sirgog]

melee's have like 6 or 7 raids, what's wrong with the ranged characters getting one?

Poetic justice: Melees having as hard a time getting an epic DQ2 group as Sorcs have now getting in Shroud groups.

[nytewolf]

Something to consider for these Epic quests.

They have already shown in Devil assault they can use different creatures for different difficulties, it could be possible that our opponents in the Epic quests and Raid could be completely different than they are right now.

[spyderwolf]

level 17s wouldnt stand much of a chance.


jsut went into wiz king the gnolls have roughly 10000 hp in the front room. everything is at least cr 33 (dogs) and range upto cr 38(gnolls) 700 point firewall on the undead jsut kinda ****es them off. they are immune to basically everything, insstan kill, neg levels, some stat damage,charm, fascinate. epic is far and away the hardest stuff so far, elite tower is probably easier than epic anything at first glance.


they may end up toning down epic slightly. i dont think they should, but they might.

[Thrudh]

While it would be acceptable for ranged to be slightly superior in a raid or quest, it is not acceptable for melee to not be able to contribute in any meaningful way.

If you're a melee character in the DQ raid, you might as well go afk and come back for the loot. It is not what I could call fun.

Pull out a bow then and contribute... I'm okay with changes being made to DQ, but I LIKE the fact that ranged characters rule in there..

[Angelus_dead]

Pull out a bow then and contribute.
Laliat elite with 1 ranger = 7 minutes
Laliat elite with 1 ranger + 4 bow-using fighters/paladins = 7 minutes

[Zenako]

Laliat elite with 1 ranger = 7 minutes
Laliat elite with 1 ranger + 4 bow-using fighters/paladins = 7 minutes

7 minutes??? that long? :)

Just have the others get rid of the gnolls...lol

[sirgog]

level 17s wouldnt stand much of a chance.


jsut went into wiz king the gnolls have roughly 10000 hp in the front room. everything is at least cr 33 (dogs) and range upto cr 38(gnolls) 700 point firewall on the undead jsut kinda ****es them off. they are immune to basically everything, insstan kill, neg levels, some stat damage,charm, fascinate. epic is far and away the hardest stuff so far, elite tower is probably easier than epic anything at first glance.


they may end up toning down epic slightly. i dont think they should, but they might.



Looking forward to this!

Trash mobs that put up more of a fight that Shroud (or even VoD) Orthons on Elite - sign me up!

Sounds like this might just be ****ing brutal - something a LOT of us have been wanting for some time.

Now Devs, get to making Necro 4 into Epic! (Make the Litany trap both disable-able and a one-shot kill on players)

[Angelus_dead]

they may end up toning down epic slightly. i dont think they should, but they might.
It seems like the Epic difficulty is going too far.

The idea is to bring old quests up to the point where they can be played again... but that means similar to the highest level of new quests, not way beyond them. Probably it would be better if instead of one Epic difficulty, "epic" was a checkbox toggle, and you could still select Normal / Hard / Elite on top of that. Thus a single level 20 character could decide to play Chains of Flame Normal Epic, while a party who wants to show how tough they are can do Elite Epic.

[sirgog]

It seems like the Epic difficulty is going too far.

The idea is to bring old quests up to the point where they can be played again... but that means similar to the highest level of new quests, not way beyond them. Probably it would be better if instead of one Epic difficulty, "epic" was a checkbox toggle, and you could still select Normal / Hard / Elite on top of that. Thus a single level 20 character could decide to play Chains of Flame Normal Epic, while a party who wants to show how tough they are can do Elite Epic.

I think instead of doing this, they should just have the epic difficulty quests be different difficulties to each other.

For instance, make (say) Offering of Blood the easiest of the lot, about as hard at 20 as Shroud Normal was when the cap was 16.

Then, make Chains of Flame next. Make it tougher - as hard at 20 as Shroud Hard was at 16.

Next, make Wiz-King tougher - like what Shroud Elite used to be like.

Then, make ADQ1 and ADQ2 *really* mean - as tough as it would be (say) to beat part 5 of the Shroud on Elite if the four Lieutenants were all attacking you at the same time as Harry was, and Harry had the ability to cast True Resurrection on any Lieutenant that was slain.

Then, you have epic fun for everyone - players that are moderately skilled can take on Offering and Chains with 100% and 50% completion rates respectively. When they are feeling a little daring, they can give Wiz-King a go too - maybe they won't finish it, but they'll get to see how far they can get.

For those of us that want a crazy challenge, we have Wiz-King and ADQ1 and 2.


But I'm hoping that they keep the difficulty a little crazy on at least some of them.

[Aussieee]

We tried Wiking earlyer today......now let me say they have a bit too many hp if you ask me. And then again casters are pretty much worthless in there. Pretty sad but giving mobs so much immunities ........make you think about bringing casters together. I would love to see a quest where they actually have their place and are very effective instead of being carried in quests.

[Angelus_dead]

I think instead of doing this, they should just have the epic difficulty quests be different difficulties to each other.
Why would they want to do that?


Then, you have epic fun for everyone
No, you would not. How could that be desirable?

[sirgog]

Why would they want to do that?


No, you would not. How could that be desirable?



So there is content of varying difficulty levels - so powergamers can have their fun in extremely tough challenges while more casual players have something to do at level 20, but at the same time the devs don't need to balance three additional difficulty levels (although if they want to do that, I'd be all for it)

[Shade]

While it would be acceptable for ranged to be slightly superior in a raid or quest, it is not acceptable for melee to not be able to contribute in any meaningful way.

If you're a melee character in the DQ raid, you might as well go afk and come back for the loot. It is not what I could call fun.

mm maybe your melees.

I've always melee'd her just fine. Get some more str/hitpoints and try again.

Solo melee'd her at level12, on elite back not long after the mod came out.

These days at lvl20 its pretty much a joke. Can take several hits and take her down in under a minuit. Severely out DPS ranged characters, and casters on elite due to her higher fire resist. You like intimdate dont u ? can hit her with that and pull out a hound shield too, 0 dmg as she only hits for sub 40 per hit on elite. (just 6 hits per swing)

I'll melee her on epic too. Hit me for 700, i'll shrug that off like its a joke when i get my 1100 HP double re-incarnate 20 base con barbarian rdy for her.

[Borror0]

I think instead of doing this, they should just have the epic difficulty quests be different difficulties to each other.
An important incentive to run Epic quests are the crafting thingies. Making some quests far easier than others would thus be a mistake.

[sirgog]

Why would they want casual players to run Epic quests?

Reminder: an important incentive to run Epic quests are the crafting thingies.

Differing difficulties works well in other games, that's why.

WoW has a quite similar system where you (at level 80) grind 'Heroic' versions of quests and get both loot and tokens that can be redeemed (in quantity) for excellent loot that gets you a 'foot in the door' for raids.

These Heroics have very varied difficulties - pretty much any PUG group can beat Heroic Utguarde Keep, but even guild groups had a level of respect for Heroic Occulus until it was made easier by a recent patch. Likewise two or three of the others are quite tough.

All offer similar rewards - all get played. In part this is because they have a lockout timer limiting you to running each one only once per day, but when I was still playing WoW, there were days when the *only* Heroic I touched was the hardest one, the Occulus, simply because it was more entertaining as it was harder. EDIT: It's worth stating that since a patch a few months ago, the loot you get from grinding the heroics is now excellent and better than a lot of raid loot - the DDO equivalent would be to imagine if, back when Mod 4 was new, if you could turn in 30 Giant Relics and receive a bound +6 stat ring of your choice. Those rings were precious back then - I remember selling a +6 Dex ring for a million plat when I was new.

In the same vein, Shroud Elite was run a moderate amount by groups - even PUGs - particularly pre-Mod 9. I'd guess that on Khyber, over 5% of Shroud runs were elite pre Mod 9, despite the loot being basically equivalent on all difficulties except for the slim chance of race required +5 WoPs, +5 Vorpals and a couple other things on Elite.



In addition, with players requiring the three components to upgrade their old ML9 Bloodstone into the base Epic Bloodstone, there remains the potential to have a loot incentive to running the hardest epic dungeons. If ADQ1 is the hardest Epic, making one of the components to upgrade the Bloodstone drop *only* in the end chest of ADQ1 ensures that there is a loot incentive as well as a challenge/fun incentive to run it on Epic.

[Borror0]

Differing difficulties works well in other games, that's why.
Do you have an example of this working in a low population game?

In addition, with players requiring the three components to upgrade their old ML9 Bloodstone into the base Epic Bloodstone, there remains the potential to have a loot incentive to running the hardest epic dungeons. If ADQ1 is the hardest Epic, making one of the components to upgrade the Bloodstone drop *only* in the end chest of ADQ1 ensures that there is a loot incentive as well as a challenge/fun incentive to run it on Epic.
Also, depending on how it's implemented, it could contribute to finally forming something alike an economy in DDO by having some gems rarer than others (since not everyone could realistically acquire them) while others are too easy for the Elite to bother with.

[sirgog]

Do you have an example of this working in a low population game?

Also, depending on how it's implemented, it could contribute to finally forming something alike an economy in DDO by having some gems rarer than others (since not everyone could realistically acquire them) while others are too easy for the Elite to bother with.


Only MMOs I've ever played are DDO and WoW, so no.

Having an economy in DDO again would require the return of unbound, highly sought after and rare loot - we had a semblance of one when the cap was 14 (Boots of the Innocent, +6 Con rings, Sup Pot 6 scepters, +5 Mith FP, +2 Int tomes, Bloodstone, Tome of Legends pages, Shield fragments, WoPs, etc etc were all heavily sought after and traded), but Mod 6 squished it like a bug. But back in the day, the items on the level 17 loot tables (+2 tomes and Sup Pot 6) were available only to those that were Litany of the Dead flagged and capable of farming it on Elite. That worked well.

[QuantumFX]

My feedback: What a waste of developer time.

Giving self absorbed power gamers a reach around setting may seem like a good idea but it doesn’t address the big problem of your game: There are very few fun things to do at the current level cap.

When I first read your relase notes on this setting I thought it was meant to give us some more high level content. Epic setting should involve facing level appropriate badguys not the same bad guys with enough hitpoints to highlight the design failures in your game.

If you need an example of how you should be doing this look at the Devil Assault quest. Why? It maintains the adventure aspect of the quest without delving into absurdity. Make the epic mummies better casters, make the epic ghouls use weapons. Have the skeleton archers switch to melee for once. Epic is something people should be able to do after the XP for elite has dried up.

[Angelus_dead]

Differing difficulties works well in other games, that's why.

WoW has a quite similar system where you (at level 80) grind 'Heroic' versions of quests and get both loot and tokens that can be redeemed (in quantity) for excellent loot that gets you a 'foot in the door' for raids.
No. As they'd say in WOW, that analogy is terribad. For one thing, even on Normal mode both Utgarde and Oculus are high level quests; they were introduced in the last expansion and are above the previous level cap. (In DDO term that'd mean level 17+ already). For another thing, Normal modes of Utgarde and Oculus are several levels different, which is fine because they're not part of one story chain.

Obviously those conditions don't begin to apply to DDO's Menechetarun desert quests: the Normal and Elite modes are already low level content; so much so that premium players were widely advised to simply skip those packs and go to GH or Vale. And their basic quests were adjacent listed difficulties.

In addition, you didn't even attempt to support your actual conclusion, which was not simply that WOW uses differenting difficulties, but that they are used and they work better than the alternative.

[Angelus_dead]

Giving self absorbed power gamers a reach around setting may seem like a good idea but it doesn’t address the big problem of your game: There are very few fun things to do at the current level cap.
Yes, true. Turbine needs to step back and decide what their real objective for Epic mode is:
* To create some masohistically tough "challenges" where your hard-earned character features mostly don't even work and there's no recourse except to slowly grind down your weapons killing each mob one at a time?

* Or is it to restore content that was originally designed for capped characters to it's intended place of prominence, allowing new and returning players to experience it as it was meant to be played?

Think about it this way:
If mod 3 had never come out before, and the next patch was going to introduce Menechetarun desert quests for the first time, what kind of difficulty would the devs set them at? Obviously they'd use 19-20, just like Shavarath, so that they're something playable by typical customers with capped characters. If someone desires more challenge than that, he could choose Hard or Elite.

That's why my suggestion makes more sense:
Put a separate "Epic" checkbox on the difficulty window for these quests. That way you could play "lowbie" Wizard-king as listed 12/13/14 N/H/E, or click Epic and get the capped Wizard-king with 20/21/22 N/H/E.

But even if they can't make Epic a separate setting from N/H/E, it would be better for Epic to be not much harder than level 19-20 Hard quests.

[Mjesko]

Think about it this way:
If mod 3 had never come out before, and the next patch was going to introduce Menechetarun desert quests for the first time, what kind of difficulty would the devs set them at? Obviously they'd use 19-20, just like Shavarath, so that they're something playable by typical customers with capped characters. If someone desires more challenge than that, he could choose Hard or Elite.

That's why my suggestion makes more sense:
Put a separate "Epic" checkbox on the difficulty window for these quests. That way you could play "lowbie" Wizard-king as listed 12/13/14 N/H/E, or click Epic and get the capped Wizard-king with 20/21/22 N/H/E.

But even if they can't make Epic a separate setting from N/H/E, it would be better for Epic to be not much harder than level 19-20 Hard quests.

That is exactly how an epic difficulty should work, but i think a normal checkbox is enough (Normal/Hard/Elite/Epic).

[sirgog]

No. As they'd say in WOW, that analogy is terribad. For one thing, even on Normal mode both Utgarde and Oculus are high level quests; they were introduced in the last expansion and are above the previous level cap. (In DDO term that'd mean level 17+ already). For another thing, Normal modes of Utgarde and Oculus are several levels different, which is fine because they're not part of one story chain.

Obviously those conditions don't begin to apply to DDO's Menechetarun desert quests: the Normal and Elite modes are already low level content; so much so that premium players were widely advised to simply skip those packs and go to GH or Vale. And their basic quests were adjacent listed difficulties.

In addition, you didn't even attempt to support your actual conclusion, which was not simply that WOW uses differenting difficulties, but that they are used and they work better than the alternative.

The analogy does work. Utguarde Keep (normal) is less likely to wipe a poorly prepared level 80 party than the Elite Desert quests are to wipe a poorly prepared level 20 party in DDO, as WoW characters become *so* much stronger when they gain levels. A level 20 party with no experience in ADQ1 in particular *would* probably wipe once or twice on Lailat, a WoW level 80 group where noone had seen UK could stomp it and would barely be able to be hit by foes, while their attacks would nearly all be crits or crushing blows.


Back to the main question though - endgame *requires* content of different difficulty levels - some, like Shroud Normal was when the cap was 16, that's tailored to be accessible but challenging to casual players, some, like Shroud Hard (at 16). that's designed to push those players to their limits while providing a minor challenge to powergamers, and it needs some content that's designed to keep long-term powergamers interested (like Shroud Elite would be if in part 4 the trash devils and gnolls kept spawning while Harry was up)


I don't mind whether this toughest content comes from Epic dungeons, or from level 22-23 quests run on Elite, or from raids run on Elite, or from 'epic elite' quests. It should be there, and having varied Epic difficulties seems the best implementation to me. Something for everyone, and there's some rewards that are available in both the medium difficulty and the hard difficulty content (so those that can't handle the hardest content can advance, possibly to the point that they can handle it), plus some unique things available only in the hardest.

[moops]

I think that you should at least allow lvl 19's in. . .I do love challenging dungeons, but Im not sure what the incentive would be for me to run my capped characters here--though this might have more to do with my feeling of being lvl 20 and knowing there is a large possibility that the level cap will never be over lvl 20.

When I was capped at 16 I tried to gear out my alts as best as I could so that I could level easier when the level capped was raised. Maybe Im still burned out from being capped at lvl 16 for so long.

Even if the Epic Gear makes the raids easier, the other raids are already pretty easy most of the time--I could see grinding for this gear on capped alts if there was going to either be a level cap raise or a cool new raid in the future.

I never really liked the Sands quests, I wouldve preferred Gianthold Epic and of course I'd like to see an Epic Level Tempest Spine.

[Aussieee]

I never really liked the Sands quests, I wouldve preferred Gianthold Epic and of course I'd like to see an Epic Level Tempest Spine.
Can never agree with you more. And TS is a blast they should do Epic on it for sure!

[Angelus_dead]

Here's some suggestions for changes to epic mode, to make it difficult but in a somewhat different way:

1. Reduce a lot of monster stats and immunities.
2. No player character can enter more than 5 minutes after start.
3. Using a Mnemonic Enhancer potion applies a debuff making you immune to those potions, until you rest.
4. Using a consumable magic item applies a cumulative -1 penalty on UMD and caster level checks for that precise kind of item, until you rest. (Yes, this means a cleric could forget how to work a Heal scroll after a bit).
5. Any DDO store item that would be barred from a raid is also unusable in epic.

The goal of those changes is for Epic mode to still be an obstacle, but not one based on how many consumable resources you're willing to spend, nor on how many trips back to an outside shrine to recharge. You need to win with what you've got.

[FluffyCalico]

Here's some suggestions for changes to epic mode, to make it difficult but in a somewhat different way:

1. Reduce a lot of monster stats and immunities.
2. No player character can enter more than 5 minutes after start.
3. Using a Mnemonic Enhancer potion applies a debuff making you immune to those potions, until you rest.
4. Using a consumable magic item applies a cumulative -1 penalty on UMD and caster level checks for that precise kind of item, until you rest. (Yes, this means a cleric could forget how to work a Heal scroll after a bit).
5. Any DDO store item that would be barred from a raid is also unusable in epic.

The goal of those changes is for Epic mode to still be an obstacle, but not one based on how many consumable resources you're willing to spend, nor on how many trips back to an outside shrine to recharge. You need to win with what you've got.

grrr you put up something I agree with...I do not have an issue with these applying to epic mode. :eek:
would +1 you but I am out for today.

[sirgog]

Here's some suggestions for changes to epic mode, to make it difficult but in a somewhat different way:

1. Reduce a lot of monster stats and immunities.
2. No player character can enter more than 5 minutes after start.
3. Using a Mnemonic Enhancer potion applies a debuff making you immune to those potions, until you rest.
4. Using a consumable magic item applies a cumulative -1 penalty on UMD and caster level checks for that precise kind of item, until you rest. (Yes, this means a cleric could forget how to work a Heal scroll after a bit).
5. Any DDO store item that would be barred from a raid is also unusable in epic.

The goal of those changes is for Epic mode to still be an obstacle, but not one based on how many consumable resources you're willing to spend, nor on how many trips back to an outside shrine to recharge. You need to win with what you've got.

Like the idea, like it a lot.

For me to agree with A_D, it must be a very good idea indeed!

[Junts]

I like it but the consumable thing might be excessive; it really imposes limiting party makeups (must have fvs cle or bard for healing, etc) and the damage output of most mobs has been balanced for people to be using heal scrolls like pennies for a long time. I appreciate the sentiment behind it, but it might be necessary to adjust the damage dealt by the mobs and etc in order to make a limited-consumable environment work on DDO.


I think the fact that party makeups are not important for high-level play is a strength of DDO and not a downside; I would prefer to see epic quests (not necessarily epic raids) be very challenging but doable for nearly any combination of 5-6 exceptional characters, regardless of the class makeups.


If a group of rangers, rogues and barbarians wants to do epic content by having one of the barbs intimi-tank, being healed by a rogue and a rogue-splashed ranger while the other 3 dps, that should be entirely viable .. the fact that ddo characters can be built to work that way if designed correctly is a huge strength of DDO that extends even into the present raiding environment. ADQ and DQ are going to be party limited enough through the fact that melees are entirely worthless in them in the best of circumstances; requiring everything done on elite to require 1-2 healers, 1 haster, and a certain amount of dps and an ac build is justc crappy, and its exactly why DDO's gameplay is better than WoW's gameplay, where that kind of thing is frequently required for normal instance play.


The challenge should be finding players skilled enough and with developed enough characters, and having them devise ways to accomplish the goal with the tasks at hand .. not finding someone willing to cleric this particular run. If the challenges of the quest dictate that certain abilities are necessary (re: ranged dps for Lailat), so be it, but designing the entire system to require a pretty standard party makeup is just a huge step backwards imo,

[Borror0]

[...] it might be necessary to adjust the damage dealt by the mobs and etc in order to make a limited-consumable environment work on DDO.
I think all of DDO should be a limited-consumable environment and it would be a better game (with the DDO Store-bought consumables being an exception).

[Junts]

I think all of DDO should be a limited-consumable environment and it would be a better game (with the DDO Store-bought consumables being an exception).


While there's some truth to that its way too late to go back now, and there are, I confess, really big parts of the game that I think are improved by the way resources function .. the fact that a monk, paladin and rogue can 3-man an elite quest and heal each other with scrolls is a perk of the game, not a flaw.

[I_Bob]

Yes, true. Turbine needs to step back and decide what their real objective for Epic mode is:
* To create some masohistically tough "challenges" where your hard-earned character features mostly don't even work and there's no recourse except to slowly grind down your weapons killing each mob one at a time?

* Or is it to restore content that was originally designed for capped characters to it's intended place of prominence, allowing new and returning players to experience it as it was meant to be played?

Think about it this way:
If mod 3 had never come out before, and the next patch was going to introduce Menechetarun desert quests for the first time, what kind of difficulty would the devs set them at? Obviously they'd use 19-20, just like Shavarath, so that they're something playable by typical customers with capped characters. If someone desires more challenge than that, he could choose Hard or Elite.

That's why my suggestion makes more sense:
Put a separate "Epic" checkbox on the difficulty window for these quests. That way you could play "lowbie" Wizard-king as listed 12/13/14 N/H/E, or click Epic and get the capped Wizard-king with 20/21/22 N/H/E.

But even if they can't make Epic a separate setting from N/H/E, it would be better for Epic to be not much harder than level 19-20 Hard quests.

/signed, with emphasis on N/H/E, Epic; don't take away dungeons, add new ones, there's already not enough content.

[Borror0]

While there's some truth to that its way too late to go back now
I don't think so. Rather, I think the higher levels of the game (11+) has become too easy and that, by removing the healing consumables, we would more or less restore that balance. There obviously would be tweaks required for certain quests but, overall, I think it could be an acceptable workload for the benefits it would lead to.

the fact that a monk, paladin and rogue can 3-man an elite quest and heal each other with scrolls is a perk of the game, not a flaw.
You think it's perfectly fine for an instance designed to be kick ass to be kick-ass hard for six people to be 3-man by non-optimal group?

There is a difference between "I like group composition to not matter too much", liking the existence of consumables and the statement you put above.

[zealous]

Here's some suggestions for changes to epic mode, to make it difficult but in a somewhat different way:

1. Reduce a lot of monster stats and immunities.
2. No player character can enter more than 5 minutes after start.
3. Using a Mnemonic Enhancer potion applies a debuff making you immune to those potions, until you rest.
4. Using a consumable magic item applies a cumulative -1 penalty on UMD and caster level checks for that precise kind of item, until you rest. (Yes, this means a cleric could forget how to work a Heal scroll after a bit).
5. Any DDO store item that would be barred from a raid is also unusable in epic.

The goal of those changes is for Epic mode to still be an obstacle, but not one based on how many consumable resources you're willing to spend, nor on how many trips back to an outside shrine to recharge. You need to win with what you've got.
Correct me if I'm wrong but 2-5 is perfectly possible to self-impose, right?

So it's not really needed to spend dev time on ;) (http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=2244159&postcount=12)

[Junts]

I don't think so. Rather, I think the higher levels of the game (11+) has become too easy and that, by removing the healing consumables, we would more or less restore that balance. There obviously would be tweaks required for certain quests but, overall, I think it could be an acceptable workload for the benefits it would lead to.

You think it's perfectly fine for an instance designed to be kick ass to be kick-ass hard for six people to be 3-man by non-optimal group?

There is a difference between "I like group composition to not matter too much", liking the existence of consumables and the statement you put above.

Clearly I don't think an epic quest should be 3 manned very easily; but it should be 6 mannable by a wide range of combinations of 6, not 1 haster, 1 dedicated healer, etc .. that **** sucks, because what it leads to is people running characters they don't want to play just so the quest can happen. There's already too much of that.

What should matter is how well played, equipped and versitile the characters are .. not exactly what classes they are.

DDO would improve markedly if it moved further towards clerics being seen as 'dps, or spell dps, or dc based cc' roles and not 'this is the healer oh em gee'. The more healers, the better, because it frees any individual player or class from the shackles of being heal *****.


I say this as someone who not only has umd on every character but for whom every character but the human sorc (lacking no other options) is further specced to heal .. the paladins do torc+mana regen+quickened self-cast healing, the bard does torc+quicken+raid quality healing, the monk even carries full halfling dragonmarks. I prefer strongly to run with other characters of the same nature, because it means it doesn't matter if someone wants to run a fvs/bard/cleric, and if we're grouped with one (at least, a well made one) they are free to actually play the quest instead of standing there casting healing spells for 45 minutes.

[Borror0]

Clearly I don't think an epic quest should be 3 manned very easily
I meant Elite. Elite is intended to be approximatively +5 level above the base level of the quest.

Elite was meant to be a challenge for the hardcore gamer (as by Turbine staff claims and changes in Module 6). The fact that it is possible to three-man it is a demonstration of failing to achieve that goal (and thus can be considered to be a flaw).

DDO would improve markedly if it moved further towards clerics being seen as 'dps, or spell dps, or dc based cc' roles and not 'this is the healer oh em gee'. The more healers, the better, because it frees any individual player or class from the shackles of being heal *****.
Like I said, it's a different position than saying that consumables are a good feature to the game (even if there are small overlaps).

[Junts]

The nature of equipment and player skill on DDO makes it pretty much impossible for them to create a task which will be challenging for a character of say, the 75% percentile, that is not something that can't be done by 2 characters at the 90th or 95th.

Or, put another way

Do you want elite instances balanced to be so hard they can't be done by 1-2 characters with literally every item/reward in the game who are built to be good at soloing? Because if they can't, unless it is for reasons along hte lines of multiple people required to proceed (see: tomb of the crimson heart, requiring 4 people) or a specific/rare class role required for completion (eg, ranged capability, etc), the only way they will be able to do so is by making the quest so difficult that a group of 6 above-average characters has little to no chance at it.

Equipment and combinations on DDO are simply so powerful and so varied in scope as to make that impossible.

WHile wrath of flame and weapons shipment are laughable, I don't honestly think there's a problem with the varying difficulties and challenges of the 4 Shavarath raid flagging quests. Each one favors different kinds of abilities and is most easily soloed (or shorted manned) with different groups ... armor class, will-save aoes and blade barrier dominate sins, stealth, invisibility and dps are required for bastion (and high ac or ranged dps for the end), invasion requires aoe damage or instakills (or high ranged anti-elemental ability), and genesis point does not favor any specific tactic.

While each quest in Shavarath has been soloed, there are in fact pretty few characters that would be capable of soloing all 3 (4, if you include GP), in fact, only a melee-capable, spell-damage built favored soul or cleric would really be able to handle the Marilith and Barnizdu as well as sins and the air elementals, etc.

While its true clerics are a bit too good at this, the varying range of challenges isn't that bad, and I don't honestly have a problem with the fact that elites can be done by characters particularly good at the quest's challenges in short man situations.

Characters who are particularly poor at the quest's challenges will struggle even in larger groups when well equipped if no one skilled at the task is present in the group (for perspective, watch a group with no cleric bb or mass healing do Barnizdu .. doable, yes, ugly, yes, unless you have several rangers with good bows).


Mana consumables are a much larger problem than raise or heal scrolls, which to be honest are the only methods -available- in most cases to create groups that are non-dependent on cleric/fvs presence. While there are limited ways to make raise clickies, they're a bit too limited and the single mark of a well made ddo character is, imo, not the ability to self-heal but the ability to raise.

I was in a Hound last night that went poorly due to a cleric's linkdeath and, with 7 people down and Xyzzy ready to be killed, we were waiting for someone to raise us .. maybe the wizard, running around with no spell points

Raise us, wizard! I say
I can't raise people, I'm a wizard, he says

With DDO working the way it does, there's no excuse for people to not possess that ability and in fact design it into every character .. its critical to being a useful and effective groupmate, and I do not like the idea of playing a DDO where party roles become so heavily defined due to even good characters being as useless as that guy was.

[Borror0]

The nature of equipment and player skill on DDO makes it pretty much impossible for them to create a task which will be challenging for a character of say, the 75% percentile, that is not something that can't be done by 2 characters at the 90th or 95th.
That's only true because Turbine does such a poor job at equipping characters as they level and because of consumables.

Solve those already existing problems and the landscape changes quite a bit.

[...] which to be honest are the only methods -available- in most cases to create groups that are non-dependent on cleric/fvs presence.
I agree but I don't think that's a good thing. I think that bards, paladins and monks should be better at healing than they are now. I also think that players should be better at self-healing than they are now. (Potions were fine at cap 12 but it's no more the case. We need something better.)

[Junts]

That's only true because Turbine does such a poor job at equipping characters as they level and because of consumables.

Solve those already existing problems and the landscape changes quite a bit.

I agree but I don't think that's a good thing. I think that bards, paladins and monks should be better at healing than they are now. I also think that players should be better at self-healing than they are now. (Potions were fine at cap 12 but it's no more the case. We need something better.)

Yeah I just oppose changing the dynamic in such a way that penalizes the only methods available to not center the game around cleric power.

Curious though, how exactly do you find paladin or bard (or ranger, who belong here more than monk) healing power lacking? a bard spends 2 feats and a few action points on healing and is equally capable of doing so as a cleric with identical investment, at the cost of being able to raise and some spell points.

self-healing rangers and paladins, however, are way too dependent on one specific and probably overpowered raid loot item.

[Borror0]

Yeah I just oppose changing the dynamic in such a way that penalizes the only methods available to not center the game around cleric power.
I agree though, honestly, if I had to chose I think it would prefer a healer-centric game without consumables. But that's mostly preferences.

Curious though, how exactly do you find paladin or bard (or ranger, who belong here more than monk) healing power lacking? a bard spends 2 feats and a few action points on healing and is equally capable of doing so as a cleric with identical investment, at the cost of being able to raise and some spell points.
I don't think that it's true that you can simply swap a cleric for an healing specced bard and call it a day. More often than not, this will decrease the odds of being successful (with the exception of very well equipped bards and strong parties) and the bard will have to rely far more heavily on the use of consumables (that I desire to remove).

I obviously don't think healing bards should be as good at healing as a FvS or cleric is but I think they should be better.

(or ranger, who belong here more than monk)
As per PnP design, you're right. However, monks have been implemented in DDO in a way that is vastly different from PnP (I'm looking at you, finishing moves) which is fine because monks are fairly weak in D&D when compared to other melee classes. They are made to be either good at debuffing (well, intended might be more accurate here since they are not good at it) or supporting the party through heals and buff.

I think a subset of the Path of Balance should be able to heal more effectively than they do now and that it would be fitting with the theme of the Balance monk.

As for rangers, it's more about preconceive notions. I can easily imagine a paladin being a good healer while I have trouble imagining rangers healing more than minor wounds. If looking for a PnP argument, a way to say it would be to say that rangers are to druids what paladins are to clerics. Since clerics were intended to be better healers than druids, it would only be normal if paladins were better at healing than rangers.

Though, I can see how you think otherwise.

(Wow, we sure are derailing this thread!)

self-healing rangers and paladins, however, are way too dependent on one specific and probably overpowered raid loot item.
Indeed.

[Junts]

Paladins are better healers than rangers; thats why they get 4-5 uses a day of an ability that restores 250-300 hp instantly and without interruption, as well as access to the faith lines (and unyielding sovereignty, an incredibly powerful healing ability). Unfortunately the nature of DDO means that this limited healing is only viable for the highest ac builds to self heal with, or for emergency healer saving. However, its a significant set of abilities and it does make paladins always superior healers to rangers, especially average versions of both (who are unlikely to have feats or enhancements spent in healing areas). However, both classes have simply such small sp pools that it is impossible for them to heal themselves, much less someone else, without the use of concordant opposition and the torc of prince raiyum. DDO needs a non-stacking, lesser kinetic energy item that is available in some means that is not the demon queen raid or a shroud item. It changes the whole dynamic of healing characters and their viability, and a minor torc (5-10 sp regenned per hit, same or lower proc rate) would really increase the incidence of these kind of paladin and ranger builds, who are hamstrung by the need to spam-run a raid that (especially for paladins) they are extremely unimportant in.

I hate healer-centric gaming because I hate clericing and I hate asking people to play them. When I did bastion elite in a trio, it wasn't for a challenge .. it was because the 3 of us wanted to ru nit on those characters and not on other characters, so we did it .. that kind of gameplay is ideal, imo, because no one was forced to go run a character they didn't want to play just to complete a specific instance.

As far as swapping cleric for bard, I disagree there .. I've done every raid in the game with a bard as a main healer, including Tower (one battle cleric and one healing-specced bard as the two positive-energy healers). Assuming an equal investment (eg, lore item or not, same amounts of spent ap on healing enhancements, same feat selection), the only difference is roughly 1 mana pot's worth of spell points, (ok, maybe 1 mana pot with a good roll). A healing spellsinger with no mental toughnesses tops out around 1700 sp, vs the 2100 or 2200 on a typical cleric. That one mana potion is not game-breaking in most situations, and is entirely sufficient to heal though any task in the game with the possible exception of ToD part 2 in a group with relatively few ac characters. My healing bard is still 17 and has about 1300 sp and has solo-healed entire shrouds off his bar, as well as VoDs and the like .. frankly, ddo lacks a lot of situations where serious, mass healing via the bar must be done for a sustained period, and the bar limitation is not a significant drawback. I think healing bards are drastically underrated in their healing ability, primarily because relatively few people actually care about their bards (the percentage of bards played as main or serious haracters is very low), and of people who play their bard as a main, very few select to spec it primarily as a healer. Those characters tend to be high focused cc or dps bards, which are much more fun to play than a healbot bard.

The place bards fall behind clerics as healers is lacking teh 500 hp heal to top someone up from near-nothing in an emergency, having to rely on a 250 pointish cure critical wounds instead.

In fact, this brings me to what is really the biggest problem on DDO: a vast majority of healing capable characters are people's secondary and tertiary characters, not treated nearly as seriously as their dps/sorc/tank alternate characters. There are people who primarily play clerics and healers, but they are a tiny minority of clerics. Those people are put in high-stress situations as it is, and making the game more dependent on the few people who enjoy healing and want to play a healer as a major alt by making the game more healer centric just makes the whole experience worse, imo. Its far better to allow all those people who dont honestly enjoy clericing or party healing to make self-sufficient characters.

In order to make ddo more healer centric, other things would have to be changed to make playing a healer not a sacrifice for a majority of the playerbase. I know many people dont mind clericing, but I think the number of people with a cleric character vs the number of people who treat that cleric as a major priority, level it up early at a new mod's release, prefer to play it over their other characters, etc, is ver ylow .. almost everyone has a cleric (because having a toon to take a turn with healing drudgery is expected by your friends) and very few people work at them very hard. Frankly, I'll enjoy the game more and Im pretty sure most people playing with me will if none of us are forced to go log our cleric alts unless we actually want to. There's nothing that turns me off running a raid or quest more than being asked to switch to my bard/cleric to heal it .. I would rather pug a raid that was 3 times more likely to fail than play either and mass heal while bored off my ass for 45 minutes. I may be near the extreme on that feeling, but I imagine that more people are near me than are near the people who love clericing like DrWhofan.

[Borror0]

A healing spellsinger with no mental toughnesses tops out around 1700 sp, vs the 2100 or 2200 on a typical cleric.
Clerics and favored souls have Heal. That makes a big difference in terms of damage healed/spell points.

In order to make ddo more healer centric, other things would have to be changed to make playing a healer not a sacrifice for a majority of the playerbase.
..and removing the consumable burden would help a lot by making clericing not cost freaking a lot! ;)

[Jefro]

Biggest thing for epic is time spent in the quest, it will make it so casual players cannot afford to do the whole quest before having to leave to pick up the kids :p

[Junts]

Clerics and favored souls have Heal. That makes a big difference in terms of damage healed/spell points.

..and removing the consumable burden would help a lot by making clericing not cost freaking a lot! ;)

I just don't see the consumable cost of healing being a burden for anyone who's played ddo for more than 3 months, I guess.

I agree on heal, and mentioned that, though I think its relatively unimportant for most raid healing purposes, where single-target healing is almost always done via scroll. I mean, when in raiding do you cast the heal spell off your bar?

1: your tod tank just got stunned and was hit 3 times in a row and you are the only person on heal duty because your partner is doing something else (if both of you are on scrolls there's no need to spend sp)
2: your tod tank just rolled a 1 vs disintegrate
3: your kiter isn't a warforged in tod 2 and just got tagged 4-5 times by shadows an has 30 hp as they come past the thrones
4: Someone with no ac or dr is tanking xyzzy (if they had either, you'd be using scrolls)
5: ..I have run out of situations my cleric would expect to cast heal, outside of throwing one at osmeone you just raise dead'd to top them out or when the party's in terrible shape and you are on scroll timer and someone needs saved

Its simply not that common to use it.

[FluffyCalico]

Biggest thing for epic is time spent in the quest, it will make it so casual players cannot afford to do the whole quest before having to leave to pick up the kids :p

I rememeber the days when a Molten core run was 6 hrs for complete. Providing you were in one of the best guilds on your server. WoW surrived. Pretty sure DDO will too.

[Borror0]

I just don't see the consumable cost of healing being a burden for anyone who's played ddo for more than 3 months, I guess.
I still see it being a complaint often enough. Well, mostly in PUGs.

The other is that babysitting is boring, and that's mostly a problem with others' inability to self-heal.

I rememeber the days when a Molten core run was 6 hrs for complete. Providing you were in one of the best guilds on your server. WoW surrived. Pretty sure DDO will too.
This is probably the worse example you could have came up with.

For one, that was nearly five years ago and the landscape a lot since then. MMOs were far more geared toward hardcore gamers back then.

[zealous]

I rememeber the days when a Molten core run was 6 hrs for complete. Providing you were in one of the best guilds on your server. WoW surrived. Pretty sure DDO will too.
I'll trade your apple for an orange ;)

How large proportion did that?
How large population/revenue did WoW have then compared to DDO now?
Is the demographics of WoW and DDO comparable?

[WolfSpirit]

Poetic justice: Melees having as hard a time getting an epic DQ2 group as Sorcs have now getting in Shroud groups.
-
UNLESS its an ALL Sorc Shroud! Done on elite on Sarlona! Thread around here somewhere...

[Angelus_dead]

Correct me if I'm wrong but 2-5 is perfectly possible to self-impose, right?
And if we want mobs with stupidly high stats and tons of immunities, we can imitate that by using no weapons and casting no control or death spells.

People who want a crazy 4+ hour "epic challenge" can already do that, without forcing anyone who wants a high-level Menechetarun quest through the same.

[Angelus_dead]

Clearly I don't think an epic quest should be 3 manned very easily; but it should be 6 mannable by a wide range of combinations of 6, not 1 haster, 1 dedicated healer, etc .. that **** sucks, because what it leads to is people running characters they don't want to play just so the quest can happen. There's already too much of that.
Yes, that is indeed a real problem with the suggestion. It was just to highlight a major flaw of the current epic setting: the incredibly high use of either consumables or rested re-entries it would take to beat anything.

Seeing as so many characters are already built to carry 100+ Heal scrolls at all times, and that those scrolls are affordable at their level, it would be unfair to just take them away from them. But the current plans for epic difficulty would also be unfair to every player, in a whole different way.

That's why I prefer my first suggestion:
Setup normal Epic mode to be exactly like what you'd expect from a level 20 quest, meaning that a trash mob is no tougher than that first Orthon in TOD. Then allow the Epic checkbox to be combined with Hard or Elite if the group wants to go for something more difficult.

If some rules are changed regarding consumables, it would really be better to do so more widely (such as the 5-minute cooldown on Mnemonic Enhancers that I've repeated suggested)

[Angelus_dead]

I meant Elite. Elite is intended to be approximatively +5 level above the base level of the quest.
Actually that's what low-level Elite is supposed to be. At maybe level 15 or so, Elite changes into an even higher increase. This was officially announced.

[Angelus_dead]

I rememeber the days when a Molten core run was 6 hrs for complete. Providing you were in one of the best guilds on your server. WoW surrived. Pretty sure DDO will too.
And the WOW devs are on record that MC was a big mistake that they've promised never to repeat.

[Junts]

Yes, that is indeed a real problem with the suggestion. It was just to highlight a major flaw of the current epic setting: the incredibly high use of either consumables or rested re-entries it would take to beat anything.

Seeing as so many characters are already built to carry 100+ Heal scrolls at all times, and that those scrolls are affordable at their level, it would be unfair to just take them away from them. But the current plans for epic difficulty would also be unfair to every player, in a whole different way.

That's why I prefer my first suggestion:
Setup normal Epic mode to be exactly like what you'd expect from a level 20 quest, meaning that a trash mob is no tougher than that first Orthon in TOD. Then allow the Epic checkbox to be combined with Hard or Elite if the group wants to go for something more difficult.

If some rules are changed regarding consumables, it would really be better to do so more widely (such as the 5-minute cooldown on Mnemonic Enhancers that I've repeated suggested)

I agree, the present epic is poorly designed. I would rather see smarter mobs .. DDO already features mobs smart enough to realize which attack works on you, then stick to it. I'd like to see enemy casters smart enough to spam greater dispel then throw enervations or energy drains, and follow it up with something else, etc, real challenges to deal with, instead of just endurance fights

the ai processes for the decisions and recognizing immunities are already there .. its just a question of making the mob ai choose a different series of responses.

My favorite example of observing the intelligent mob ai is to go into waterworks 1 and climb up to the chest in the kobold shamen's room. leaving one of the shamen alive, and totally unbuffed, stand there and try and open the chest ... the shaman will alternate acid touch and magic missile.

cast an acid resistance, and after 2 acid touches, he will spam magic missile and stop using acid touch

if our caster ai can be smart enough to do that, it cna be smart enough to follow an energy drain with greater dispel, then another energy drain and a finger of death.

[FluffyCalico]

And the WOW devs are on record that MC was a big mistake that they've promised never to repeat.

Too bad MC BWL Onixia etc were what made that game and its society that keeps it going now despite nothing worth doing. If they had not done that WOW would not be the biggest ever. It would have never gotten the large guild meet people environment.

[bobbryan2]

Too bad MC BWL Onixia etc were what made that game and its society that keeps it going now despite nothing worth doing. If they had not done that WOW would not be the biggest ever. It would have never gotten the large guild meet people environment.

That's a tough sell. You're saying you know more about why WoW was popular than the people that made it?

[Burem]

Arguing that MC is what made WoW what it is today is possibly the dumbest thing I've ever read. WoW is as popular as it is because casual gamers, many that were drawn by Blizzard's name, finally got to experience an MMO that didn't **** down their throat and laugh at them (Ala EQ1 and the other games from that generation). If you think the hardcore raiding is what made WoW so popular please feel free to explain why that same sort of content hasn't left Everquest raking in the millions in the last five years.


I just don't see the consumable cost of healing being a burden for anyone who's played ddo for more than 3 months, I guess.


It's not a serious burden, no one is likely to go broke from heal scrolls, but the difference between running raids (particularly on higher difficulties) on my wizard vs my cleric (neither of them need drops) is often a small net loss vs making some money. Why would I bother investing time in something that, with loot tables as they are, has maybe a 1% chance of yielding a reward I care about when I could make sure I'm at the very least going to walk away with a little plat.

DDO has been abusing the **** out of clerics since the cap was ten (Velah is a terribly boring raid on a cleric, you barely got to see the dragon with the most popular hiding behind rocks strategy), and none of the raids have changed that. Even regular group quests lay 90% of the consumable burden at the Cleric's feet, particularly now that potions are nearly useless. If I go to run something on elite and things go to hell the barbarian will only end up with a bigger repair bill. He may donate some plat to the cause, but pretending that's the norm is naive. At level ten it was my job to hide behind a rock and rez people, now I stay out of AOEs and heal people. Melees get new toys to play with, better armor and weapons. I get a set bonus that makes my heals more effective. I'm not bitter, I like playing a cleric, but cutting them a break certainly wouldn't hurt the game.

Anyway, that's sort of besides the point I originally wanted to make, which is this: If these epic quests are nothing but long boring endurance fights where I get to stand around and rub myself while I mass heal I may just stop logging my cleric in. As much as I love repeatedly watching little red bars refill, being the only class that is, in all serious content, so limited in scope that every quest plays nearly exactly the same is really a shame in a game where everyone else gets new and different challenges everywhere they turn. If I want to have fun on my cleric these days I only group with Warforged arcane casters/other clerics and go run things. It sure is nice to cast a spell that doesn't surround all of the party members in a flashing cross of menstruation.

[zealous]

And if we want mobs with stupidly high stats and tons of immunities, we can imitate that by using no weapons and casting no control or death spells.

People who want a crazy 4+ hour "epic challenge" can already do that, without forcing anyone who wants a high-level Menechetarun quest through the same.
Yah, but they've already spent the dev time on "teh epic stuffz", those changes are mainly ~just tweaking numbers. I agree with point 1. to change it to lvl20 n/h/e, just a bit more tweaking worth the dev time, as you said people can already get a "epic challenges". In the same way people can also get the challenge provided by your points 2-5. :rolleyes: (http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=2244275&postcount=33)

[Borror0]

Too bad MC BWL Onixia etc were what made that game and its society that keeps it going now despite nothing worth doing. If they had not done that WOW would not be the biggest ever. It would have never gotten the large guild meet people environment.
No, no, no!!

What made woW a success was that it understood that quests were fun (before WoW, leveling consisted mostly of mob grinding rather than questing) and realized that soloing in an MMO was actually fun for a lot of players. Those two facts, along with the fact that WoW was a very polished game that met most people's expectations, lead to WoW being successful.

WoW's raiding was probably the less well designed part of it and the one they changed the most.

Forty players raid are now a thing of the past. Raiding has been made more accessible to casual gamers. No raids require the kind of memorization that Onyxia did. The class design has changed so much around the years to facilitate raiding: non-warriors can tank, the buffs are spread around so that no one is getting Sunwelled, etc. The list goes on.

[FluffyCalico]

No, no, no!!

What made woW a success was that it understood that quests were fun (before WoW, leveling consisted mostly of mob grinding rather than questing) and realized that soloing in an MMO was actually fun for a lot of players. Those two facts, along with the fact that WoW was a very polished game that met most people's expectations, lead to WoW being successful.

WoW's raiding was probably the less well designed part of it and the one they changed the most.

Forty players raid are now a thing of the past. Raiding has been made more accessible to casual gamers. No raids require the kind of memorization that Onyxia did. The class design has changed so much around the years to facilitate raiding: non-warriors can tank, the buffs are spread around so that no one is getting Sunwelled, etc. The list goes on.

Clearly you never played wow until years after it came out. It took them over 3 years just to fix the stuck while looting bug... It was down most of the first month. Every class was stuck in a specific role for years despite having 3 trees being only any good at the 1 tree ment for that class... Soloing leveling up was done by some because it was fast, it was not fun to solo up... And the 40 main raids forced guilds to be created and to interact together. This formed a community. The cummunity that formed is why the game continues to strive. At this point they would have a hard time killing it off even if they tried. The community that formed from the mass amount forced guild interaction of the 40 man raids is what has held that game together. Note the 40 man raids did not do it, the community that came from them did. They could remove raiding all together, make the game full of bugs and no fun and it would still do good as its like facebook. You log onto see your friends you have known for years on there, talk, have fun and maybe go do something together (or in wows case that something is in game). People have tons of old friends on there that they just don't want to move to a new game without. WoW will surrive for long long to come, not because of the content or the amount of it, or the fun of it, but because of the community that has formed. And those raids are what caused that community to initally form.

[Angelus_dead]

I've mentioned this before, but maybe I can repeat more clearly: It looks like Turbine made a mistake in what kind of gameplay they want the "epic" quest setting to provide. The word "epic" distracts from proper judgement, because it carries meaning over from D&D, where it referred to content for player characters level 21 and above. It might help to think about it more clearly if you suppress the word "epic" and just call it "that new option being added to 5 Menechetarun dungeons".

What could the developers do with a new setting on Menechetarun dungeons to produce the greatest improvement to DDO gameplay?

Choice 1: Quests which were originally designed to be primary content choices for top level characters are once again playable as primary content choices for top level characters. They are balanced similarly to new top level quests that were introduced after the level cap was raised to 20.

Choice 2: Quests which were originally designed to be primary content choices for top level characters are made "playable" as expensive and painful endurance tests for the minority of players who'd enjoy that kind of thing. They are balanced to be much tougher than new top level quests that were introduced after the level cap was raised to 20.

Well, which would be better?

[sirgog]

I've mentioned this before, but maybe I can repeat more clearly: It looks like Turbine made a mistake in what kind of gameplay they want the "epic" quest setting to provide. The word "epic" distracts from proper judgement, because it carries meaning over from D&D, where it referred to content for player characters level 21 and above. It might help to think about it more clearly if you suppress the word "epic" and just call it "that new option being added to 5 Menechetarun dungeons".

What could the developers do with a new setting on Menechetarun dungeons to produce the greatest improvement to DDO gameplay?

Choice 1: Quests which were originally designed to be primary content choices for top level characters are once again playable as primary content choices for top level characters. They are balanced similarly to new top level quests that were introduced after the level cap was raised to 20.

Choice 2: Quests which were originally designed to be primary content choices for top level characters are made "playable" as expensive and painful endurance tests for the minority of players who'd enjoy that kind of thing. They are balanced to be much tougher than new top level quests that were introduced after the level cap was raised to 20.

Well, which would be better?

Option 1 is lacking. A good number (maybe a quarter of current players) have already run these quests to the death when they were endgame or close to it (cap 12-14). Plus, with the Dreaming Dark, there's a reasonable number of quests that are levels 18-21.

Option 2 is also unimpressive, mostly because fighting trash mobs with silly amounts of HP and blanket immunities isn't much fun - witness player reaction to the Frost Giants in Prey on the Hunter, mobs that pose little danger to players but take a long time to kill are not fun except in moderation; mobs that both pose a significant danger and take a long time to kill should be bosses.

A solution different to both your options is better.

Option 3: The quests are turned into the start of the endgame that DDO is currently lacking. These quests are balanced to vary from being a little tougher than the hardest currently in-game content to much harder, and assigned a difficulty level of 22-24 on Epic mode. (4 levels over the cap is what VOD elite, BAM elite and Invaders elite were when they launched). They achieve this higher difficulty not through blanket immunities, millions of hp and frustrating mechanics like making mobs damage your weapons, but through mixed groups of monsters.

Invaders, run at level or below, feels like an epic challenge without having any trash with over 1000hp (note: at level 20, 1000 isn't the upper limit, I'd say no more than 5% of non-boss mobs should have 10000 or more hp and 60% should have 2500 or less). Encounters in Invaders are deadly but reasonably short. Weapons that beat DR are important but not totally essential. and every encounter can be done in multiple ways - you can run in DPS blazing, you can sneak up and try to charm a Beholder and turn it against the pack it is with, or you can crowd control.

[Burem]

It reminds me of the issues Everquest raiding eventually ran into where instead of creating new and interesting encounters they just started giving everything tons of HP so they were two hour long endurance fights. Being challenged for five minutes is infinitely more fun than sitting through a two hour fight that's moderately difficult.

[Drfirewater79]

Ever wished you could run one of your favorite mid-game dungeons at a higher level, have it be challenging, and receive awesome loot for it? With Epic Dungeons, now you can!


For Update 1, the Demon Sands Adventure Pack has received the Epic treatment. Five adventures in the Menechtarun Desert (including the Queen Lailat raid) can now be played in Epic difficulty.
Old favorite items that originated in these dungeons can be upgraded into powerful Epic versions by collecting rare scrolls, seals, and shards.
Epic rewards can be further customized with Epic Augment Crystals, permanently adding new effects to your items.
Epic dungeons and raids award special tokens that can be traded for Augment Crystals or True Reincarnation Tokens. See Misty in the Tower of the Twelve for more details!
All members of the party must be 20th level to enter on Epic difficulty.
This difficulty will only be unlocked if you have completed the dungeon/raid on Elite

Let us know your feedback on the new Epic difficulty!

This is the part i dont like

with the new true res ... you figure you would want it open for people to actually get experience from it why not change the level needed to 17-20 ?