Are they really worth it

[CMunster80]

My brother, sister and I started free DDO accounts a few days ago and have been playing together not a lot but we don't do anything without at least the other one of us. Yesterday we ran through Heyton's Crypt (I think) on the highest difficulty setting and saw the same **** loot that we saw the other three times we ran through it. Is this indicative of normal when running higher difficulty adventures or were we just unlucky?

Thanks for you responses.

[ORIGINALBAG0]

Korthos is nothing but **** loot, my friend. And running it into the ground is never gonne get you an uber twink low-level gear. My best recommendation is to get to level 3 and smoke Misery's Peak as quickly as possible and rake in all those sweet, sweet harbor quest rewards. And, if you're on Argo, all Ioun Stones can be sent to me, or sold to someone spamming trade chat for FAR less than their fair market value...

[stille_nacht]

most of what you get is **** loot :P, running things on elite is mostly for favor/ xp

[SynalonEtuul]

At low levels the loot is poor. Eventually you will run a raid and get something amazing.

[Vyrn]

But.. but.. its a +1 greataxe!

In all seriousness, its korthos, dont expect some decent loot for a lv4 till about lv8 quests.

[GotSomeQuestions]

If you mean the quest end-rewards, those are fixed items for all Korthos quests, no matter what difficulty you choose. Once you get off the island, the end rewards will be randomly generated and you'll have a chance to get something useful, and they will scale (slightly) with quest difficulty.

That said, some of the starter items from Korthos are quite good, and you may end up using them for several more levels.

[vVAnjilaVv]

Ahh the perspective of the younglings....hehe...if you were around back in the day before dungeon scaling and hirelings were around you would understand the value of Korthos is it's end rewards. Between that and the Sharn series a low level character can do really well with gear for the first few levels.

You won't start getting decent end rewards and good chest loot until you start doing some of the Market and House quests.

By the time you get to level 10+ you'll have so much stuff u'd want to keep you'll wish you could get more inventory space even if you do have all 5 pack spots, all 5 bank tabs and your shared bank maxxed out. :D

[Freeman]

The loot level of a chest is usually quest level - 3. Heyton's Crypt is what, level 1, on Normal? Since the loot table doesn't go below 1, then the chest level is probably 1 on Normal as well. On Elite, the quest level goes up to 3, making the chest level...still 1. While it can make a difference at higher levels, the general opinion is that it isn't worth running Elite for better random loot. Even Hard only has a few places where it is worthwhile. There are some exceptions at later levels where you get a better chance at named loot with higher difficulties, but that is much later.

For now, I would recommend only hitting Elite for XP or favor, and let the loot come as it will. You are better off working towards the semi-static end rewards from various quest chains anyway, since those will be much better than any random loot you can find.

[vVAnjilaVv]

Be aware also that once you start getting into some higher level quests.....there will be items that can drop in certain treasure chests or random chests throughout the dungeons that are rare named items. These can drop usually on any difficulty from casual to elite...tho a lot of these items have a greater chance to drop on elite and the least chance to drop on casual...but hey...luck is luck :D

[EustaceTrevelyan]

My brother, sister and I started free DDO accounts a few days ago and have been playing together not a lot but we don't do anything without at least the other one of us. Yesterday we ran through Heyton's Crypt (I think) on the highest difficulty setting and saw the same **** loot that we saw the other three times we ran through it. Is this indicative of normal when running higher difficulty adventures or were we just unlucky?

Thanks for you responses.

Yes, like all quests, you get mostly **** loot, and like all lower level quests, it wont's sell for much. But the end rewards in korthos are amazing; get the goggles of insight and the anger's set, or archivist's set for a caster (ignore the other casting necklaces, that SP clicky is gold, and you won't see its like for a long time if ever.) Also there's a feather fall cloak and a healing cloak that will take people out of incap, at least if you get a couple of them.

[Bodic]

one of the most searched for peices of loot comes out of lvl 5 quests, but really is only good once your lvl 20.

you cant expect uber loot from the bottom end.
adjusting your end reward setting also helps.

[vVAnjilaVv]

I see that your F2P...but if you have a chance to....the lower level chain quests are great XP, and where you're guaranteed to get good loot for lower to mid level use....some of it's even useful all the way to cap.

Delera's, Tangleroot, Sorrowdusk, Shan to Kor, The Carnival Pack, Red Fens.......these all have some nice loot for end reward completion lists.

Seriously tho......the turnover rate is so fast for a first timer at the lower levels you should really just concern yourself with leveling and not so much gearing yourself out.

[KillEveryone]

For a new person with no gear or knowledge of the game, Korthos is decent enought to get you going.

Aid bracers are good, a feather fall cloak is good, the cure light cloak is also good. One or two sets...Angers and Archivists...are decent enough.

I'll still run through there to get a few items that I don't have coverage for...typically the feather fall cloak and a Angers or Archivists(usually just for the clickie.)

Korthos is all static rewards. There are other quests in the game that have static rewards for the end reward and a few items will drop from a specific chest, but most of the quests will have variety of junk to choose from and the chests will typically have a variety of junk to sell. You'll occasionally find something you can work with though.

Harbor loot isn't really much better but there are a few decent bits.

Delera's Pack has some really nice end rewards that are useful for your characters life(Golden Cartoche for example.) Most quests though don't offer this but will give you something to work with untill you get higher up to use something better and Raids will have all the good named stuff.

[licho]

Do not understimate Korthos Loot!
;-)
The end rewards in Korthos are fixed, so you get same all the time, however some of them are nice starters, thigs like bracels from crystal, first false life item, inisght googles, protector gloves and troubleshooter for rogues (not to mencion archivist necklac for casters) its good starter, however you need only one of them. So just do all there is and go to harbour.

In harbour the end reward is random.

[PopeJual]

The loot inside an Elite quest is slightly better than the loot inside the same quest on Normal.

The first time you run a quest on Normal, you get a +25% bonus to XP.
The first time you run a quest on Hard, you get a +25% bonus to XP.
The first time you run a quest on Elite, you get a +50% bonus to XP.

The biggest benefit to running a quest on Elite, though, is that it's significantly harder than running the quest on Normal. If you have done a quest a bunch of times on various characters over the past months and years, then having harder challenges is actually kind of nice.

[yawumpus]

There is a lot of great loot in Korthos. It is almost always a fixed set of gear, at least a few of which should be good (Hayden's crypt, not so much. Also note that *every* toon should pick the "caster" choice. The other one will nerf toons with even attributes (i.e. those made well)).

Choice gear from Korthos:

Store house secret: belt of lesser false life (it is a "named" item, but check the gear) - free hit points!
Cannith Crystal: You should be wearing one of the two DR bracelets at all times (at least until level 6 or so). Note that you should wear "axe bane" against spear wielding Sarhaguin (leave the spear bane for archer attacks). Also grab as many of the "bracers of aid" as you can stomach. They give 11 free temporary hit points, bless you, and can be used to "heal" fellow players dropped below 0 hp.
The Collaborator: All the weapons listed are the best possible against Sarhaiguin. Grab one and keep it equipped until misery's peak (spoiler - it has no Sarhaguin). Also all casters will want a (only one works at a time) ring of +10 sp.
Necromancer's Doom: everybody loves the goggles of insight. I've seen players in the shroud (commonly played at 20th level) wearing these. Don't leave Korthos without them.
Sacrifices: Keep running this quest until you run out of gear you want. Choice items include anger's step (eventually required for all non-casting melees due to anger's wrath) which lets you run back to take it again quite fast. Protector's gloves (removes 1 point of melee damage not covered by your bracelet). Troubleshooter's goggles (what rogues wear when looking for traps, they might want the insight goggles during a fight). I may have missed a few, but this list is full of great gear.
Stopping the Sarhaguin: meh. Most will want the haggle helmet (it should really help those with chr 8) for better prices when buying/selling. Casters will like the concentration hat, but it really shouldn't matter. I think monks should rush to the concentration hat, but I've never played a monk to be sure.
Redemption: *unspoiler* grab the feather fall cloak for misery's peak. You can also get some healing cloaks, but I think it is too long to grab them. Just run cannith crystal for the bracelets of aid (they add more hp).
Misery's peak: Pretty much every character who will ever get a blue bar wants archivist. Fighters and barbarians will want anger's wrath. I suspect rogues will prefer anger's wrath as well (hitting at all and getting all that sneak attack beats a few more sneak attack damage points).

NOTE RUNNING MISERY'S PEAK MULTIPLE TIMES DOES NOT GET AN END REWARD. CHOOSE WISELY!
Also, those who used veteran status to start at level 4 can not grab a second archivist necklace. Grump.

[Kinerd]

The loot level of a chest is usually quest level - 3. Heyton's Crypt is what, level 1, on Normal? Since the loot table doesn't go below 1, then the chest level is probably 1 on Normal as well. On Elite, the quest level goes up to 3, making the chest level...still 1. While it can make a difference at higher levels, the general opinion is that it isn't worth running Elite for better random loot. Even Hard only has a few places where it is worthwhile. There are some exceptions at later levels where you get a better chance at named loot with higher difficulties, but that is much later.

For now, I would recommend only hitting Elite for XP or favor, and let the loot come as it will. You are better off working towards the semi-static end rewards from various quest chains anyway, since those will be much better than any random loot you can find.Not quite. Elite is +2 loot level, but level 1 quest chests have a special loot table that is unrelated to levels 2-20 quests. This special loot table happens to be an especially lousy loot table, verifying the OP's anecdotal observations, but the important thing to note is that these observations are not directly generalizable to the rest of the game.

[yawumpus]

The real loot in the harbor are vials of pure water and feverbranch mushrooms. At least such is the case before update 9. When you get off the boat, Mara hands you two small bags. The first thing you should do is hit the gather button (won't do anything if you haven't explored the harbor yet) and click the autogather check box.

The point is that some of the collectibles can be used for crafting. As of now, they only work on stone of change crafting, but some should be used for new-style crafting (I have no idea how that will change the economy). Simply put, rich players want a lot of these items that don't fall in high level quests.

tl;dr
Sell vials of pure water on the auction house for ~1k. Buy the stuff you want there. Very little dropped gear in the harbor comes close.

[spyyder976]

Besides the loot level being 2 less than the quest level, you have to remember that even if you're getting something like level 5 loot from a level 7 chest, you can always roll badly and get level 1 garbage, because level 5 loot means any loot from the level 1-5 loot tables, although both level 1 and level 5 loot should be the least common loot found at this level, at only the highest and lowest loot rolls. With level 5 loot, expect the average of level 3 loot, and if you get better than that, you can rejoice for your good luck and the blessings of the dice gods.

[Ngha]

Learn to play, do quests whose level are 3+ yours. good loot, mmmm

[PurdueDave]

The Sharn Syndicate series gives weapons that are decent at the quest level (chain reward, last quest reward). Decent lower level stuff can also be had in Tangleroot and Red Fens. Delera's has a few great items. Waterworks is good chance reward for underwater action and featherfalling (the permanent kind).

[CMunster80]

While most of the information presented here was very helpful to my question. Which was essentially are they worth it as you go along? I may not have worded it quite right and I am sorry for that. I am an experienced MMO player and experienced DnD players as well so I understand a 1st level character will not recieve a bastard sword of kick assery immediatly upon completing their first few adventures. I was simply trying to figure out if it changed and I see from the response that it does. Thanks to those who contributed something worth reading and to those who didn't well I hope you have a nice day too.

[7-day_Trial_Monkey]

If you mean the quest end-rewards, those are fixed items for all Korthos quests, no matter what difficulty you choose. Once you get off the island, the end rewards will be randomly generated and you'll have a chance to get something useful, and they will scale (slightly) with quest difficulty.

That said, some of the starter items from Korthos are quite good, and you may end up using them for several more levels.

What I highlighted in red is wrong.

Quest end rewards never change based on quest difficulty. You get the same end reward quality on casual as you get on elite.

This has been confirmed by the devs on more than one occasion.

[LordMond63]

While most of the information presented here was very helpful to my question. Which was essentially are they worth it as you go along? I may not have worded it quite right and I am sorry for that. I am an experienced MMO player and experienced DnD players as well so I understand a 1st level character will not recieve a bastard sword of kick assery immediatly upon completing their first few adventures. I was simply trying to figure out if it changed and I see from the response that it does. Thanks to those who contributed something worth reading and to those who didn't well I hope you have a nice day too.

The most obvious advantages to running quests on Hard and Elite difficulty are the significant (especially the first run at the higher difficulties) boosts to xp. followed by the increased factional Favor (which can unlock some nice individual and/or account benefits such as additional storage space for the individual character and the like).

As far as loot goes, well you see the varying opinions expressed in the answers to this thread. I'm not positive that increased difficulty necessarily yeilds better loot, though it makes sense that it would. I can say that I often run quests in red Fens (level 8-10 area) on Casual with characters in that level range and almost always receive as a loot reward choice at least one of the named set items. This might not be the case everywhere- I cannot say with any degree of certainty so I won't risk giving bad information- but I know it's the case in Red Fens. Yes, the xp award is terrible (as it should be- there was almost no risk to my character) but, if the end reward is your objective, the xp is probably secondary.