i like Dungeon Alert... what do people here think of it?

[weddingly]

dungeon alert is that status where more and more monsters get aggroed or something.

i quite like it. there's some dungeons where if u solo it's quite deadly to alert all the monsters and try to hide.. cos then they mass up on you..

in a large party setting where you are comfy, dungeon alert can signal "oh googide more to kill" or sometimes it can end in ignominous defeat ! i quite like it :)

what did people think of it as a concept?

[phalaeo]

This isn't going to end well. :D

[SaisMatters]

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Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

[Ridag]

dungeon alert is that status where more and more monsters get aggroed or something.

i quite like it. there's some dungeons where if u solo it's quite deadly to alert all the monsters and try to hide.. cos then they mass up on you..

in a large party setting where you are comfy, dungeon alert can signal "oh googide more to kill" or sometimes it can end in ignominous defeat ! i quite like it :)

what did people think of it as a concept?

I wouldn't dislike it as much if it worked consistently and properly. There are some instances where it ramps up immediately upon normal mobs spawns, which is absurd.

I also feels like it limits the tactic of splitting up a bit, which should be perfectly valid.

All in all I think the system needs a complete overhaul.

[KillEveryone]

dungeon alert is that status where more and more monsters get aggroed or something.

i quite like it. there's some dungeons where if u solo it's quite deadly to alert all the monsters and try to hide.. cos then they mass up on you..

in a large party setting where you are comfy, dungeon alert can signal "oh googide more to kill" or sometimes it can end in ignominous defeat ! i quite like it :)

what did people think of it as a concept?

It doesn't create more critters, just buffs them.

Some quests DA needs to be adjusted.

I think it is a poor implementation to stop players just running straight to the end.

Critters on one side of a wilderness shouldn't get buffed because someone on the other side just rounded up a huge mob.

[Bodic]

dungeon alert i quite like it

Well here is somthing for you then I will give you 10 Million plat if you can SOLO an Elite Bastion w/o gettting any DA status.

If you do that and still think DA is Cool I will triple that.

Oh and Uncut Video is Required Proof.

[Baahb3]

I consider DA the single worst thing they have added to the game.

With Grazing hits being a close second.

[ceiswyn]

Yes, I love dying because I took a wrong turn on the way through Meridia, aggroed a bunch of mobs, and now mysteriously can't even run away from them because, I dunno, they sellotaped themselves to my backpack or something.

Oh, wait, not 'love', the other thing.

Look, I don't mind the mobs ahead of me in the dungeon getting buffed, or all coming after me at once, or anything rational like that (well, I'd really rather they didn't, but if I didn't want the enemy to buff up I shouldn't have run in yelling a war cry). What I object to is being unable to flee a sticky situation because the mob behind me - you know, the one I surprised - got randomly buffed, and I, for no reason at all, am suddenly running through treacle.

[redoubt]

I consider DA the single worst thing they have added to the game.

With Grazing hits being a close second.

Here! Here!

(I might reverse the order, but these both ****)

[binnsr]

in a large party setting where you are comfy, dungeon alert can signal "oh googide more to kill" or sometimes it can end in ignominous defeat ! i quite like it :)

I think you're mixing DA up with scaling..






I consider DA the single worst thing they have added to the game.

With Grazing hits being a close second.Here! Here!

(I might reverse the order, but these both ****)
Thirded.

[noinfo]

I consider DA the single worst thing they have added to the game.

With Grazing hits being a close second.

While I would reverse the order they are so close I can't fault you on it. And they happened during the same update.

[weddingly]

ive never played DDO without dungeon alert (i only started a few weeks ago)...

when i first i saw i thought, wow the dungeon is like a live being with all the onsters TALKING to each other!!
COOL! i thought, cos then it makes it more real and even unpredictable!!!

cos the mechanic is not consistent across dungeons! so every time i started a new quest i would be even more careful and changing my tactics and being on the alert not to scare too many monsters r something. i like that it is unpredictable, that the monsters get aggro everywhere...

and actually, i don't think anything above normal is ever meant to be soloable unless there is some very big level difference. dungeon alert makes the dungeons more real for me.

[Samadhi]

I wouldn't dislike it as much if it worked consistently and properly. There are some instances where it ramps up immediately upon normal mobs spawns, which is absurd.

I also feels like it limits the tactic of splitting up a bit, which should be perfectly valid.

All in all I think the system needs a complete overhaul.

... This, with the addition of, or a complete removal.

There is still no single change in 4 years playing this game as poorly done as this one.

[mwgarn]

I use DA as a means of letting me know when its time to turn around and start blasting with spells at early levels.
None = Sitting at the start of the quest buffing
Green = Switching from my GreatAxe to my Casting weapon set
Yellow = Getting close to the spot to park
Orange = Parking
Red = Turn around and start casting

After about level 14 if I have DA it means my spells are on cool down (with the new extended cool downs of certain spells this tends to happen a lot more often)

Even on my melee types its basically the same thing when I hit yellow I start looking for a doorway to sit in and let the mobs catch up as I slice them up, good thing about that is I can swing my weapons all I want with out having to worry about running out of resources for the boss fight so I tend to Park and Kill at yellow instead of red.

[Dirac]

Personally, I think this was by far the worst change to the game. I've played through them all. Some changes made the game less fun for me, but only for a while. DA made it less fun permanently. (For the record, over 99% of the changes have made the game better, some enormously better.)

One problem is that DA is tied up with the history of the origin of the lag. In the beginning there was no lag, despite many more people playing. They changed their infrastructure in some way and the lag started. The game eventually became unplayable. DA, and other things, were the result.

I still hold out the hope that DDO will eventually become profitable enough that they can go back and fix, structurally, whatever mistake was made and we can play DA free again.

[Chazzie]

"What did people think of it as a concept?"

We dreaded the day we knew it was coming !!! So we ZERG our flippin brains out to get V~stat for Fav,We would run 6 man teams in two or three quests at the same time ,& hold up before the end fight. Everyone knew it was going to be bad,& it has been , but as always we adjust ,overcome & RUN Through it anyways ROFLMAO ;)

[Kushiel]

Dungeon Alert is just PITA.

Maybe if it were only intelligent foes that were influenced by it there would be a little sense in having it implemented in some quests. But when vermin, slimes, mindless undead (and probably some others that slip my mind right now) take notice of the situation and a single hit from anything triggers that "harried" condition - it's just dumb. If vermin, slimes, mindless undead attacked everything around them with equal intent it would be less annoying.

Glass Spiders in Threnal that can at-will crank out an egg that hatches in seconds deserve some sort of attention in the overall DA scheme. It can become rediculous. Them and stupid Mephits that can crank out additional foes that are meaningless to the kill count but use up resources, break/wear gear, and pose actual threats.

DA is also overtly punitive to the player - there is no benefit/reward to surviving it nor managing it once it happens (nor any benefit for never causing it to occur). It makes certain actual *fun* aspects/circumstances/situations of playing the game, all of a sudden drag down to world physics and gameplay behaviors that just feel unrealistically limiting.

Doing away with it would be a grand thing!

[binnsr]

Personally, I think this was by far the worst change to the game. I've played through them all. Some changes made the game less fun for me, but only for a while. DA made it less fun permanently. (For the record, over 99% of the changes have made the game better, some enormously better.)

One problem is that DA is tied up with the history of the origin of the lag. In the beginning there was no lag, despite many more people playing. They changed their infrastructure in some way and the lag started. The game eventually became unplayable. DA, and other things, were the result.

I still hold out the hope that DDO will eventually become profitable enough that they can go back and fix, structurally, whatever mistake was made and we can play DA free again.

+1 for saying what I would say were I even remotely eloquent. :)

[Raithe]

Dungeon Alert is a non-issue for players and groups that kill or use stealth when either are efficient. The problem is that it has become primarily a griefing tool for people who like to run ahead and laugh at the people behind who have to actually deal with the DA condition. Also, as others have mentioned, it often prevents efficient separation tactics from saving resources even when mobs are not being bypassed.

Dungeon Alert may have prevented a lot of solo quest instancing that often involved zerging survival tactics and dozens of aggro'd mobs, however. You really need to have someone at Turbine give you a heads up on the cost/benefit ratio.

[Rian]

Dungeon Alert: What Lag? :p:D




Aside from that comment, DA is bad juju.
I do not like it
I will not like it with a pair of socks
I will not like it with a fox
I will not like it in a box
I refuse to like it in a car
I however will beat it with a bar! :D

[MeliCat]

Dear weddingly, I totally agree with you! I love DA!

You are not going fast enough unless you have skull.


NEEDS MOAR SKULL

[Kovalas]

I think that DA is the single worst thing ever added to the game.

It was implemented to stop lag apparantly...

[Jeromio]

Sorry to say, but I hate DA. Especially in quests where it's implemented very badly, e.g. Coal Chamber and Bastion.
It would have been nice if the devs could have come up with some better solution or if quests with especially bad implementation had been re-designed a bit.

[EustaceTrevelyan]

Yes, I love dying because I took a wrong turn on the way through Meridia, aggroed a bunch of mobs, and now mysteriously can't even run away from them because, I dunno, they sellotaped themselves to my backpack or something.

Oh, wait, not 'love', the other thing.

Look, I don't mind the mobs ahead of me in the dungeon getting buffed, or all coming after me at once, or anything rational like that (well, I'd really rather they didn't, but if I didn't want the enemy to buff up I shouldn't have run in yelling a war cry). What I object to is being unable to flee a sticky situation because the mob behind me - you know, the one I surprised - got randomly buffed, and I, for no reason at all, am suddenly running through treacle.

Yeah, just because their servers can't handle zerging, they have to slow you down? Not cool.

[boomeranky]

Dungeon Alert is a non-issue for players and groups that kill or use stealth when either are efficient. The problem is that it has become primarily a griefing tool for people who like to run ahead and laugh at the people behind who have to actually deal with the DA condition. Also, as others have mentioned, it often prevents efficient separation tactics from saving resources even when mobs are not being bypassed.

Dungeon Alert may have prevented a lot of solo quest instancing that often involved zerging survival tactics and dozens of aggro'd mobs, however. You really need to have someone at Turbine give you a heads up on the cost/benefit ratio.

I would sign that, if it would be true.

But the trueth is, that even groups that kill or use stealth will get to orange and red alert in certain dungeons (coal is one of my favorite contenders, but there are -many- more).

And it hasn't prevented any solo quest instance zerging survival tactic at all except those who try to do it on a melee char.

Nothing against server resource management, but dungeon alert could have been positively incorporated into the game without cheating the players by being debuffed like getting harried and giving mobs instant super duper extra buffs without sense.

No, I don't like dungeon alert at all and would prefer they stop to use it and incorporate other measures at stopping mindless zerging like force barriers who go down after completing certain optionals or other things. Or maybe spawn a big bad meany who is capable of stopping zergers - whatever as long as it is not being harried and debuffed players without sense.

[Kmnh]

I think dungeon alert needs a major tweak: Take out the boss AC buff. It is unfair to undergeared characters

[zwiebelring]

Dungeon alert like it makes cute pandas sad.

On a more serious note I really think sometimes you have to accept the limits (players as well). You create the dungeon so please accept if people find a legal (means: according to given rules) way to avoid or ignore monsters. In pnp DMs who do stuff like that are probably clueless when something unexpected happens so they set the whole group on a railway. This is exactly what dungeon alert is to me. ''Meh, I want you to encounter the dual wield vorpals mob, so you can't bypass it, haha''. Create a simple but more than punishing mechanic to prevent some hardcore gamers from zerging. As if...

[Cyr]

DA should be scraped along with many of the other horribly implemented and ill thought out new systems introduced since they changed from calling their new content updates instead of modules.

[redspecter23]

Dungeon alert is a very poor solution to a very real problem. For dungeon balance there has to be some sort of reason to stop and fight mobs or else those mobs are just colorful pixels that follow you to the boss room. If every ladder is essentially a safe point (since mobs can't climb), then the only challenge is to make it to the next ladder alive. Without dungeon alert, certain dungeons are much easier simply because of the layout and placement of things like ladders. It starts to effect how you can design dungeons and stifles creativity.

Now that I've said that, I'll go on to say that I think dungeon alert is great in theory, but DA itself breaks certain quests, especially those with respawns and is an even greater problem if you get multiple spawns or respawns at a time (like Coal Chamber and Bastion). A quest like Prey on the Hunter which I believe was always supposed to be a "run for your life" type quest just isn't right with DA. I think the DA was very much toned down for that specific quest but someone correct me if I'm wrong.

[TheDjinnFor]

dungeon alert is that status where more and more monsters get aggroed or something.

Dungeon Alert is a buff that is applied to all monsters depending on how many of them you have aggro'd.

Before Dungeon Alert, you could still have hundreds of mobs aggro'd to you, but they wouldn't have artificially increased stats and wouldn't slow you down when you got near them.

Real Dungeon Alert should actually work as the tooltip description explains: enemies become alerted to your presence and more of them should aggro to you, they should pre buff themselves with actual buffs, new traps should appear in the quest, and there should be physical barriers to zerging like hastily erected walls and locked doors.

That would make things interesting.

[Comfortably]

It's all relative. I hate DA when there's a bad player making a mess of things, and it's not even there when you have a good group.

[Infant]

I wouldn't hate DA so much (but would still hate it) if it only appeared when people try to zerg or exploit bad monster AI. However, as many already pointed out, it also appears if you try to beat some dungeons in a "normal" way -- threnal spiders is only one example of such dungeon. When this happens I REALLY hate it.

Infant

[Thrudh]

I think it is a poor implementation to stop players just running straight to the end.

What would you suggest instead?

[Thrudh]

I don't particularly like DA, but it's trivial to deal with for any good player, so it has near zero effect on my gameplay.

In 99.5% of the dungeons, you don't get to orange or red alert accidently. If you get those levels of DA, you caused it on purpose. So deal with it and don't complain about it. If you don't like the effects of DA,avoid it. Avoiding it is very easy.

[Thrudh]

Also, as others have mentioned, it often prevents efficient separation tactics from saving resources even when mobs are not being bypassed.

As long as you kill as you go, I've never had any problems splitting up a group to get a quest done faster.

[Cyr]

What would you suggest instead?

Well the first question you have to ask is if the existing challenge of the quest does not prevent this to begin with is it important to stop players from doing this?

In many cases the answer should be it's okay for a player to zerg if they can handle it.

In the cases where a need was seen to prevent this, due to whatever considerations there is little reason that a quest specific solution would not work better in the individual and be less disruptive game wide then DA.

So what are these solutions?

Well we have puzzles, switches, doors, and quest objectives all as commonly used mechnics of this sort. Many of these solutions are not made 100% trivial by a simple application of an invisibility spell either.

So name a quest that you think running to the end is a real problem (if DA didn't exist) and let's brainstorm up ideas on how to modify things to make it work better.

[Thrudh]

But the trueth is, that even groups that kill or use stealth will get to orange and red alert in certain dungeons (coal is one of my favorite contenders, but there are -many- more).

If you kill as you go (take 5 seconds to kill bats when they drop), DA is non-issue in Coal.

You say there are -many- more dungeons where groups that kill will get to orange and red alert. Name 10 please. Bastion is probably the only really bad dungeon at this point.


And it hasn't prevented any solo quest instance zerging survival tactic at all except those who try to do it on a melee char.

This is true... Casters still zerg, but at least they do gather up all the mobs and kill them at certain choke points. Before they would just run by and leave all those AIs chruning up computer resources.

DA isn't about stopping people from zerging... It's about stopping people from running past everything without killing (or at least making it less common). Tons of Live AI (with path-finding) does cause lag.


No, I don't like dungeon alert at all and would prefer they stop to use it and incorporate other measures at stopping mindless zerging like force barriers who go down after completing certain optionals or other things. Or maybe spawn a big bad meany who is capable of stopping zergers - whatever as long as it is not being harried and debuffed players without sense.

I'm pretty sure ANYONE who hates DA would hate force barriers in every room more.

A big boss spawn could work, but only if it was impossible for the players to just run past. Maybe they could make the end-boss 5x stronger and have 10 lieutenants if you enter that room with red-alert on... That could be interesting.

[Thrudh]

Dungeon alert is a very poor solution to a very real problem. For dungeon balance there has to be some sort of reason to stop and fight mobs or else those mobs are just colorful pixels that follow you to the boss room. If every ladder is essentially a safe point (since mobs can't climb), then the only challenge is to make it to the next ladder alive. Without dungeon alert, certain dungeons are much easier simply because of the layout and placement of things like ladders. It starts to effect how you can design dungeons and stifles creativity.

I agree the problem is real and that DA isn't a great solution. What would be a better solution?

[Khanyth]

If I get a DA, it means I am not killing fast enough.

So long as you kill as you go, what's the problem?

[Thrudh]

Real Dungeon Alert should actually work as the tooltip description explains: enemies become alerted to your presence and more of them should aggro to you, they should pre buff themselves with actual buffs, new traps should appear in the quest, and there should be physical barriers to zerging like hastily erected walls and locked doors.

I'd be okay with that, but I guarentee 80% of the people on these forums who hate DA would hate locked doors and barriers in every room even more.

They just want DA gone so they can zerg past all mobs to the boss monster over and over and over.

[Phidius]

...
DA is also overtly punitive to the player - there is no benefit/reward to surviving it nor managing it once it happens (nor any benefit for never causing it to occur). It makes certain actual *fun* aspects/circumstances/situations of playing the game, all of a sudden drag down to world physics and gameplay behaviors that just feel unrealistically limiting.

Doing away with it would be a grand thing!

This is my biggest problem with DA. I understand their reasons for implementing DA, but I don't agree with the use of "punishment" in a game that I play to have fun.

Punishment is never fun, unless we agree on a safety word ahead of time.


As long as you kill as you go, I've never had any problems splitting up a group to get a quest done faster.

How about Against the Demon Queen or the Twilight Forge? Thankfully, I don't normally run those at level, so the instant red-alert isn't a problem.

[Thrudh]

it's not even there when you have a good group.

Exactly.

For a point of reference, I mostly run TRs... so I've been playing at all levels of the game in many different quests for the past year or two. And I PUG a lot.

And I hardly ever see DA. And I almost NEVER see red-alert DA (I've had 2-3 groups with a griefer in it, but even then he dies, I clean up red-alert, and we're back to normal playing)

The point is, you have to really TRY ON PURPOSE to get red-alert DA (Bastion being the only notable exception).

[Ridag]

They just want DA gone so they can zerg past all mobs to the boss monster over and over and over.

I don't think this is entirely true, at least not in all cases.

The simplest fix that I can think of would be to make it so only agro from intelligent mobs triggers Dungeon Alert. Critters and mindless undead are the biggest offenders of DA bugginess in the game.

What really needs to happen is that each dungeon needs to be evaluated individually for an appropriate DA sensitivity level, but that is way too labor intensive and I don't expect it to happen.

It would also be nice if DA were set to scale with difficulty, that seems like it would be an easy thing to do.

As for the Amrath quests, they all need to be looked at. Sins you can get agro from above by jumping around, Invasion you always get agro through walls and Bastion is just a mess, half the time you don't even know where you got the agro from.

[Sarisa]

Dungeon alert is downright broken in several areas. Even when doing "normal" game play where you kill as you go, you will get increased alert.

Bastion of Power: Mobs on the floor above you in the first area will aggro on you, and will not be able to reach you for upwards of 20 minutes in an average group. Maybe longer in a low DPS group and if you get an exceptionally poor lever layout. Each unreachable mob will punish you for each portal ambush. When killing everything you encounter, it's still not hard to remain in yellow or orange, and reach red every time you reach a portal.

It makes sense, with the grated floor, that they can see you come in; but it is extremely punishing to groups. I did Elite Bastion this past weekend, and we spent almost the entire first section of the quest in a constant orange to red alert simply because of a group of archer and caster trash above us. This is with killing everything we came across. We succeeded, and that part of the quest wasn't too hard (the boss is what's brutal in Elite Bastion), but it was unnecessarily frustrating.

Twilight Forge: Just stepping into the purple side will almost instantly put you into red alert status. A large portion of those mobs won't even be able to reach you for a considerable length of time due to stacking up behind the barrier. You'd need to do the big jump or the lava dive in order to reach them. At level, due to the massively stacked alert and the punishing buffs the mobs get, I don't see many people surviving that group of trash.

New Invasion: Like Bastion, except the mobs aggro you through walls instead of between floors. It's only extremely punishing if you trigger the ambushes. If you use the drop-down points instead, it's not as bad.

Coal Chamber: Bats that spawn and then fall in the shafts can easily get stuck in areas that players cannot access, and will remain aggro'ed on you for the duration of the quest. The strange physics of bat combat can make them a nightmare to kill when you spawn them, and makes it more likely that one will fall.

Anywhere with large groups of Mephits: Mephits can spawn other mephits, which can thus spawn more mephits. This is most prominent in part 9 of the Sorrowdusk Cult of the Six chain, and in the bat hallway in Against the Demon Queen. I personally watched the one single remaining live mephit in the bat hallway of ADQ1 summon a friend when I killed it, the summoned one summoned another, and so on. The chain of mephits finally ended after I killed the 7th one.

Anywhere with large groups of Glass Spiders: They lay an egg every few seconds, which just spawns more mobs that don't count as kills. The extra trash is a one of the challenges of these, but their interaction with DA just makes them more of a nuisance than they're worth. The DA is most prominent in the Ruins of Threnal and the tunnels of the Restless Isles. Also note that those two areas are two of the least popular areas in the game. The poor DA interaction just makes these two areas even less desirable to run.

I'll refrain from expressing my opinion of the normal operation of DA, in order to try not to feed the flames. Just some quests do not function properly due to being old enough that they're not designed with DA in mind, or ones with odd physics issues or design interactions that unnaturally scales the DA too much.

[Cyr]

DA is all about a psychological effect that would, in theory, more then offset the real increase in code run time that occured due to the addition of DA. With such an effect to be proven to be effective real measurements would have to be taken over extended periods with DA on and off. As I know that DA was never shut down for an extended period since it went live for a fair comparision to be made I am left with the only logical conclusion possible that any data gathered in regards to DA was inherently biased to indicate that DA works.

Some notes on how DA might be measured and the reasoning why any measurements made to this point would be highly questionable to say the least...

Server load. This seems like a logical way to approach the DA question. Is the desired effect of less server load (due to less active average AI's per time period) signifigant enough to justify the disruption to players?


To be fair you would have to measure server load under two identical builds with just DA turned on or off. This would of course mean the only time that DA could have been tested in this respect in the live environment (ie the only environment that duplicates normal player behavior) would have been when DA was shut off for just a few days.
Now why is it a problem to test DA/non DA based upon one being on/off for only a limited time? Well that is simple logic as this entire thing is based upon the psychological effect of having a system in play that discourages a certain behavior (in this case having many mob AI's active at the same time) there is almost certainly going to be an upswing or downswing of that behavior in the short term upon any change being made. For example, when DA was off for a few days my guild got really busy (was very slow before then) as everyone was excited to run things like they used to fast and full zerg on. As such we did more zerg runs of quests during those few short days then we did pre-DA during the same time window by at least an order of magnitude. Of course this means that if you measure the server load right when DA is turned off that it would look like it is more effective then it actually is (in my guilds isolated case by orders of magnitude more effective).
Now what if DA was then measured in effectiveness right when it got turned back on? Well then you also have the reverse effect occuring where people stop playing and avoid quests they had just ran quickly and zerg style to death when DA was off for a few days leading to much less active AI per time period. In other words you would measure both the undershoot and the overshoot of the phenomona you are wishing to measure and not in fact it's actual effects over time.
Now there is another possibility on how Turbine measured DA. That is that they took measurements pre-DA and never updated them and then compared them to results month into DA. In this case we no longer have the flaw of catching overshoot and undershoot, but have the much greater flaws of ignoring any other code changes along the way and more importantly the changing demographics of the player base between the two measurements. As anyone who was around pre-DA knows almost everyone playing was a full on vet at that time. Fast and efficient was the name of the game, but when F2P came out we had a massive influx of new and more casual players. The change in demographics alone could account for a large change in any measurements taken.

[Thrudh]

Dungeon alert is downright broken in several areas. Even when doing "normal" game play where you kill as you go, you will get increased alert.

Bastion of Power: Mobs on the floor above you in the first area will aggro on you, and will not be able to reach you for upwards of 20 minutes in an average group. Maybe longer in a low DPS group and if you get an exceptionally poor lever layout. Each unreachable mob will punish you for each portal ambush. When killing everything you encounter, it's still not hard to remain in yellow or orange, and reach red every time you reach a portal.

It makes sense, with the grated floor, that they can see you come in; but it is extremely punishing to groups. I did Elite Bastion this past weekend, and we spent almost the entire first section of the quest in a constant orange to red alert simply because of a group of archer and caster trash above us. This is with killing everything we came across. We succeeded, and that part of the quest wasn't too hard (the boss is what's brutal in Elite Bastion), but it was unnecessarily frustrating.

Twilight Forge: Just stepping into the purple side will almost instantly put you into red alert status. A large portion of those mobs won't even be able to reach you for a considerable length of time due to stacking up behind the barrier. You'd need to do the big jump or the lava dive in order to reach them. At level, due to the massively stacked alert and the punishing buffs the mobs get, I don't see many people surviving that group of trash.

New Invasion: Like Bastion, except the mobs aggro you through walls instead of between floors. It's only extremely punishing if you trigger the ambushes. If you use the drop-down points instead, it's not as bad.

Coal Chamber: Bats that spawn and then fall in the shafts can easily get stuck in areas that players cannot access, and will remain aggro'ed on you for the duration of the quest. The strange physics of bat combat can make them a nightmare to kill when you spawn them, and makes it more likely that one will fall.

Anywhere with large groups of mephits: Mephits can spawn other mephits, which can thus spawn more mephits. This is most prominent in part 9 of the Sorrowdusk Cult of the Six chain, and in the bat hallway in Against the Demon Queen. I personally watched the one single remaining live mephit in the bat hallway of ADQ1 summon a friend when I killed it, the summoned one summoned another, and so on. The chain of mephits finally ended after I killed the 7th one.

I'll refrain from expressing my opinion of the normal operation of DA, in order to try not to feed the flames. Just some quests do not function properly due to being old enough that they're not designed with DA in mind, or ones with odd physics issues or design interactions that unnaturally scales the DA too much.

That's an excellent list with good descriptions of the problems... +1

Hopefully the devs will see that and can work on those individual quests.

I haven't seen any problems in ADQ or Co6 with the mephits... but I definitely agree Bastion, New Invasion, and Twilight Forge should be looked at. And take bats out of the DA calculations in Coal.

[Infant]

That's an excellent list with good descriptions of the problems... +1

Hopefully the devs will see that and can work on those individual quests.

I haven't seen any problems in ADQ or Co6 with the mephits... but I definitely agree Bastion, New Invasion, and Twilight Forge should be looked at. And take bats out of the DA calculations in Coal.

You could add Threnal East to the list. At least when soloing on my bard (no zerging!), the glass spiders were producing baby spiders at a rate that caused DA for me. Being harried is not fun...

Infant

[Kovalas]

If I get a DA, it means I am not killing fast enough.

So long as you kill as you go, what's the problem?

Thats it, that the problem, exactly that, your making me play 'your' way......

I dont want to kill every mob on the way to a chest that I only need a funk out of.....

[SableShadow]

DA is all about a psychological effect that would, in theory, more then offset the real increase in code run time that occured due to the addition of DA.

+1, for maybe the first post I've ever seen since DA was introduced that actually expresses DA's purpose instead of mindlessly repeating the "DA fixes lag!" mantra.


I am left with the only logical conclusion possible that any data gathered in regards to DA was inherently biased to indicate that DA works.


Most software testing ... particularly performance testing ... seems to fall into the same line of thought. Emphasis, particularly on a tight deadline, is on "testing to see that it works" instead of "testing to see that it fails".



I'd be okay with that, but I guarentee 80% of the people on these forums who hate DA would hate locked doors and barriers in every room even more.


Recall that at the same time DA came out, doors arrived in many quests that previously didn't have them (e.g. Monestary, Dust, some others). Lots of the new quests have similar mechanics, some heavy handed, some not. The heavy handed ones (e.g. IQ2 minus the solo quest) I despise. The light handed ones (e.g. Monestary, after several passes) I love.

[redspecter23]

Thats it, that the problem, exactly that, your making me play 'your' way......

I dont want to kill every mob on the way to a chest that I only need a funk out of.....

The sign of a good developer is that they can get you to play "their way" and you'll never even know it. The unfortunate part of DA is that it's a punishing way of enforcing a certain playstyle. Instead of rewarding players for doing something you want them to, you punish them for doing something you don't want them to. There are other ways to encourage people to kill mobs on their way to the goal if that is the problem Turbine was trying to solve with DA.

[Sleepsalot]

To me is a waste of time it takes to read it. I know when I am swarmed by the Baddies I don't need a message telling me this .. Sorry just my Rant on the issue.
Sleeps


dungeon alert is that status where more and more monsters get aggroed or something.

i quite like it. there's some dungeons where if u solo it's quite deadly to alert all the monsters and try to hide.. cos then they mass up on you..

in a large party setting where you are comfy, dungeon alert can signal "oh googide more to kill" or sometimes it can end in ignominous defeat ! i quite like it :)

what did people think of it as a concept?

[Kovalas]

the Sign Of A Good Developer Is That They Can Get You To Play "their Way" And You'll Never Even Know It. The Unfortunate Part Of Da Is That It's A Punishing Way Of Enforcing A Certain Playstyle. Instead Of Rewarding Players For Doing Something You Want Them To, You Punish Them For Doing Something You Don't Want Them To. There Are Other Ways To Encourage People To Kill Mobs On Their Way To The Goal If That Is The Problem Turbine Was Trying To Solve With Da.

+1

[ceiswyn]

I dont want to kill every mob on the way to a chest that I only need a funk out of.....

...and I want to be able to run away from the mob that I ran into unexpectedly because my Spot skill sucks. Any game in which 'running away' is not a possible tactic has issues.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I wish people had enough self discipline to not need DA. But I think it serves a purpose....which I happen to like.

The nerf to Firewalls has also helped....

DA is buggy. Better than it was, but still buggy. Goes off in situations it shouldn't. Part of that is certain dungeons have monsters that agro that shouldn't IMO.

But if you take a kill, sneak, charm as you go attitude to dungeons, DA is not an issue.

Worst thing about it is that some noob or idiot can get others killed because of it. If it goes up gradually and I can see it coming, I can take actions to not die....but many times I get caught by surprise by an instant Red Alert and unable to move to a defensible position...... hate that part of it.

I've learned a lot of survival tricks in this game, but they all depend on movement....which DA takes away from me real fast. :(

[Thrudh]

...and I want to be able to run away from the mob that I ran into unexpectedly because my Spot skill sucks. Any game in which 'running away' is not a possible tactic has issues.

Running away back through the rooms or areas you already cleared is fine...

Running forward into multiple new rooms with multiple more mobs can't really be called "running away". That's "zerging past everything"

[elixer1]

Real Dungeon Alert should actually work as the tooltip description explains: enemies become alerted to your presence and more of them should aggro to you, they should pre buff themselves with actual buffs, new traps should appear in the quest, and there should be physical barriers to zerging like hastily erected walls and locked doors.

That would make things interesting.

DA was a quick hack solution by the devs to reduce lag and zergers. I appreciate them trying to address these issues, but DA is a total hack way to do it.

Want to stop zergers and slow down people's aggro acquisition?

I think a semi smart monster would start locking doors, setting traps, and more monsters would start appearing out of doors and crannies. But I guess that would take to much dev time to work it out for every quest.

Why not just buff the **** out of everything and hit the toons with a hamstring, yeah, that will do it just fine. /sarcasm

[Thrudh]

I think a semi smart monster would start locking doors, setting traps, and more monsters would start appearing out of doors and crannies.

Having MORE monsters appear would just cause more AI lag, and without DA, the zergers would just run past them too...

Locked doors and deadly traps would work, but how do you code those into every quest?

[redoubt]

Dungeon Alert is a buff that is applied to all monsters depending on how many of them you have aggro'd.

Before Dungeon Alert, you could still have hundreds of mobs aggro'd to you, but they wouldn't have artificially increased stats and wouldn't slow you down when you got near them.

Real Dungeon Alert should actually work as the tooltip description explains: enemies become alerted to your presence and more of them should aggro to you, they should pre buff themselves with actual buffs, new traps should appear in the quest, and there should be physical barriers to zerging like hastily erected walls and locked doors.

That would make things interesting.

That would be a better implementation.

Why worgs still care about me once I've gone a mile past there home is beyond me. And why are the Kobolds telling the worgs I'm coming? Are the worgs telling the minotaurs ahead I'm on the way as well? This makes no sense.

On the flip side, go to splinterskull instead of stormcleave, and it makes perfect sense that guys in the dungeon alert each other. In fact, that one hobgoblin always runs over and rings that bell and 6 more come storming down the hallway to attack you and defend the fortress. THIS is quality dungeon alert. (What we have is not.)

[Thrudh]

I think an interesting solution would just be to super-buff the boss...

Make him near impossible on red-alert, a real pain on orange-alert, etc.

But would that be enough incentive to get people to kill the trash mobs?

[redoubt]

As long as you kill as you go,.


I think an interesting solution would just be to super-buff the boss...

Make him near impossible on red-alert, a real pain on orange-alert, etc.

But would that be enough incentive to get people to kill the trash mobs?


Why is that the only answer?

[ceiswyn]

Running away back through the rooms or areas you already cleared is fine...

There speaks someone who's never tried it.

It doesn't matter where I try to run to when I've been slowed down so much that I can't get away from the critters that are hitting me.

[redoubt]

@ trudh and the 80% disliking locked doors.

I think you are correct. I dislike the locked doors and similar mechanics. I think it would be fine to get a key now and then. I'll use tangleroot as another good example of this. You have to kill the dudes who have the key. Once you have the key, you can use it and move on. It helps to kill the others so that they are not attacking you while you work the door, but its not required. This is a good implementation and is not even DA as we know, but an effective means to control the play.

Most of the "force barriers" that drop when the last mob dies are just cheese.

Again, in fortresses and organized groups (i.e. similar mobs working together) I have no issue with them warning each other. Randoms mobs warning unrelated random mobs on the opposite end of a dungeon is poor form (even worse when the less than intelligent ones do so.)

[Sydril]

Yes, I love dying because I took a wrong turn on the way through Meridia, aggroed a bunch of mobs, and now mysteriously can't even run away from them because, I dunno, they sellotaped themselves to my backpack or something.

Oh, wait, not 'love', the other thing.

Look, I don't mind the mobs ahead of me in the dungeon getting buffed, or all coming after me at once, or anything rational like that (well, I'd really rather they didn't, but if I didn't want the enemy to buff up I shouldn't have run in yelling a war cry). What I object to is being unable to flee a sticky situation because the mob behind me - you know, the one I surprised - got randomly buffed, and I, for no reason at all, am suddenly running through treacle.

This.

[FastTaco]

What they should have done is made mobs inside a quest rubber band like explorer areas if they run too far AND add minimum Kill counts (atleast 80% or more) to every quest where you actually kill stuff, this would disadvantage arcanes who currently can gather a huge number of mobs then use aoe dot or instakills and bring them more in line with melee.

[KillEveryone]

What would you suggest instead?

This would be good....


Real Dungeon Alert should actually work as the tooltip description explains: enemies become alerted to your presence and more of them should aggro to you, they should pre buff themselves with actual buffs, new traps should appear in the quest, and there should be physical barriers to zerging like hastily erected walls and locked doors.

That would make things interesting.

Harried is a stupid effect. Artificial stat increases is a stupid effect. Buffs would be fine but the way they have their "buffs" now is wrong.

I don't like how it is implemented in some of the quests either.

As mentioned in this thread, Thernal spiders, Bastion, Coal Chamber.

DA just doesn't work in these quests well. If you jump in Bastion, you aggro the stuff upstairs and it can be a bit before you get to a set of stairs to kill the stuff. The FvS archon can aggro stuff up stairs. This is wrong. Stuff shouldn't be able to see you through the floor or walls. You'll probably say just don't jump but that is just wrong because stuff shouldn't be able to see you through walls or floors. If there are grate, fine, but not all the floors in bastion have grates.

Bats in Coal will cause a jump in DA even when you are killing everything. This is wrong.

When you are in an explorer area and you split up, stuff on either side of the explorer zone should not get a DA buff if you are killing things as you go. Some of the rares can cause a jump in DA when you trigger them and other party members could be on the other side of the explorer zone and still feel those effects. This is wrong.

So we can play the way they want us to play but that is also wrong. I should be able to jump in Bastion without aggroing stuff up stairs, the party should be able to split up, new spawns from a group of mephits or spiders should not cause DA. If I'm killing as I go, there should be no DA regardless of the tactics I'm using.

[KillEveryone]

I don't particularly like DA, but it's trivial to deal with for any good player, so it has near zero effect on my gameplay.

In 99.5% of the dungeons, you don't get to orange or red alert accidently. If you get those levels of DA, you caused it on purpose. So deal with it and don't complain about it. If you don't like the effects of DA,avoid it. Avoiding it is very easy.

I'm going to complain about it until it gets fixed or implemented in a rational way and there is nothing you can do about it.

Really, it was implemented to stop running to the end. It only slowed that down but didn't stop it.

[Cyr]

Having MORE monsters appear would just cause more AI lag, and without DA, the zergers would just run past them too...

Locked doors and deadly traps would work, but how do you code those into every quest?

Well, why do you need to code these into every quest?

Not every quest was or is an offender when it comes to many mob AI being active at once. Certain quests were always offenders, and often still are, due to their design while others are much less likely to have large numbers of active AI.

There are really a few criteria for when a quest is a candidate for large numbers of AI being active in it and that actually being important.


XP/Time Ratio based only upon straight run through zerg full on. Does the quest reward you strongly for zerging and not killing mobs? If so the quest is likely to be run alot more commonly then other quests of similar level. This means that AI active per instance would be more important then lets say a 3BC quest run once a day per server.
Isolated areas that mobs can not get through, but where the mobs remain active for some time after players leave the area.
Straight runs to the end are possible. Linear or near linear quest design common here.
Mobs possess no effective means of ranged damage.
Mass mob spawns. Bats are the biggest offenders here.
Note, that one of the above is often not a big deal, but when multiple of the above line up then AI lag would add up quickly...

One of the issues here is really a coding issue. Isolated areas, such as in shadow crypt/tempest spine/and various other quests are a big problem here. Basically mobs have no possible way of reaching you, but they continue to be active. This is a coding issue. If a mob has no way of reaching you they should go inactive. If the devs wanted mobs to be able to teleport to you all the time then they would all be devils, but since they are not we are left with the assumption that some mob avoidance is by design. Those that are not by design should be addressed through changes to dungeon layouts. This would also address the bastion issue.

The largest set of issues seem to be design issues. We have mobs being a trivial threat at range, straight run throughs very easy to do, mass mob spawns, and xp/time ratios that encourage no kill zerging over conquest bonus/optional completions. So what are the solutions?


More dangerous ranged combat abilities from mobs in quests that have linear quest design and/or that encourage zerging no kill strats over conquest/optionals.
Reduce mass spawn type mobs as these are generally nusance mobs to begin with such as bat spawns in dungeons that are run often.
Add incentives to conquest/optionals in quests that would otherwise be zerg no kill runs.
REDUCE the xp/time ratio for no kill zerg run quests with the BEST ratios of this sort. There is a part in tangleroot, for example, that would be a prime candidate for this.
Add occasional doors and barriers to quests that would otherwise be straight run through no kill zergs, but only when the quest is run often.
Add a new category of trap. Traps that are triggered by mobs if you run past them.

Most of the quests in the game would not be a concern DA/no DA when it comes to active mob AI weighing down the hamsters that run the Turbine servers. It really is a limited number that cause the most issues in game and these can be altered through intelligently altering quests and their reward structures.

[SableShadow]

I think an interesting solution would just be to super-buff the boss...

When DA first came out, they did ... did something change? We tested by red skulling TBF elite on Llama, then Bastion elite on live...bosses had really amped ACs and saves, so a real pain (as in, you'll have to graze them to death) if you're trying to melee.

Casters, however, were not nearly as impacted, so we'd make sure to have a caster or two to do the actual boss killing if we were planning on red skulling to the end.



But would that be enough incentive to get people to kill the trash mobs?

Depends. In groups I ran with regularly, it wasn't. On the other hand, the whole point of DA isn't to 100% prevent running to the end fight, it's to discourage it.

[elixer1]

Having MORE monsters appear would just cause more AI lag, and without DA, the zergers would just run past them too...

Excellent point.



Locked doors and deadly traps would work, but how do you code those into every quest?

I would dare not to speculate the actual coded mechanics of the game, or the code itself , but I can speak from observations and basic understanding

There is lots of precedence for this already, quests that have "moving" traps, such as a few of the GH quests, obviously the traps are still there but are in some deactivate form (code wise, not play wise) and they are disabled. If you hit dungeon alert red, simply enable this previously disabled trap. This would take work to go back and add in traps in quests where previously there were none, but this is not such a bid thing either (that's a conversation for another thread, traps aren't so scary or deterring any more with rogue hirelings.)

Doors unlock when you kill certain creatures, so there is obviously a way of toggling them mid-quest. If DA hits a certain threshold, lock that door. Having to wait for the rogue to pick it, or the arcane to knock it I think would certainly slow things down. Although not for the properly specc'd toon, which I guess is the heart of the issue.

Just a few thoughts.

[Sarisa]

You could add Threnal East to the list. At least when soloing on my bard (no zerging!), the glass spiders were producing baby spiders at a rate that caused DA for me. Being harried is not fun...

Infant

Added. I forgot about how annoying that group of spiders was in Threnal, and in the tunnels of the Restless Isles. Note that both areas are among the least popular packs.

[Thrudh]

Why is that the only answer?

Because that is the problem. DA was created so that people would kill more tash mobs. Running past dozens of mobs causes CPU stress.

The real-space physics of this game is what makes combat so interesting. But it also takes a lot of computational power if every AI has to path itself to you while also accounting for the location of every other AI...

10 mobs - each has to keep track of 9 other mobs = 90 calculations
20 mobs - each has to keep track of 19 other mobs = 380 calculations

2x the mobs does not mean double the AI load on the CPUs... it's more of an expontial growth.

[Thrudh]

There speaks someone who's never tried it.

It doesn't matter where I try to run to when I've been slowed down so much that I can't get away from the critters that are hitting me.

You should have ran away before you got to red-alert... You know it goes green-alert, yellow-alert, etc...

If you can't handle stuff on orange or yellow-alert, you better start killing or running away at green-alert.

[Thrudh]

Randoms mobs warning unrelated random mobs on the opposite end of a dungeon is poor form (even worse when the less than intelligent ones do so.)

Oh I agree... I don't like DA that much either. But replace it with what?

At least it's not that hard to work with the system... In 99.5% of quests, you can easily avoid DA if you choose to.

[Thrudh]

What they should have done is made mobs inside a quest rubber band like explorer areas if they run too far AND add minimum Kill counts (atleast 80% or more) to every quest where you actually kill stuff, this would disadvantage arcanes who currently can gather a huge number of mobs then use aoe dot or instakills and bring them more in line with melee.

That's not a bad idea... Requiring kill counts is ugly, but so is DA... I especially like how this will make it slightly harder for casters to just zerg past everything.

[Thrudh]

DA just doesn't work in these quests well. If you jump in Bastion, you aggro the stuff upstairs and it can be a bit before you get to a set of stairs to kill the stuff. The FvS archon can aggro stuff up stairs. This is wrong. Stuff shouldn't be able to see you through the floor or walls. You'll probably say just don't jump but that is just wrong because stuff shouldn't be able to see you through walls or floors. If there are grate, fine, but not all the floors in bastion have grates.

No, I don't say "Don't jump"... I say the devs should fix Bastion.


Bats in Coal will cause a jump in DA even when you are killing everything. This is wrong.

Killing the bats is usually pretty easy to get DA to go back down a notch, but I agree that bats should not count in Coal, and the devs should fix this.




When you are in an explorer area and you split up, stuff on either side of the explorer zone should not get a DA buff if you are killing things as you go. Some of the rares can cause a jump in DA when you trigger them and other party members could be on the other side of the explorer zone and still feel those effects. This is wrong.

I'd be okay if they got rid of DA in explorer areas.


If I'm killing as I go, there should be no DA regardless of the tactics I'm using.

I agree.

[Thrudh]

Really, it was implemented to stop running to the end. It only slowed that down but didn't stop it.

Just to be clear, it was implemented to stop running to the end without killing anything. Most zergers do kill more mobs than they used to, even though they still run to the end.

Leaving the mobs alive is the problem. Not running to the end.

[grodon9999]

They just want DA gone so they can zerg past all mobs to the boss monster over and over and over.

That's the truth.

[Thrudh]

So what are the solutions?


More dangerous ranged combat abilities from mobs in quests that have linear quest design and/or that encourage zerging no kill strats over conquest/optionals.
Reduce mass spawn type mobs as these are generally nusance mobs to begin with such as bat spawns in dungeons that are run often.
Add incentives to conquest/optionals in quests that would otherwise be zerg no kill runs.
REDUCE the xp/time ratio for no kill zerg run quests with the BEST ratios of this sort. There is a part in tangleroot, for example, that would be a prime candidate for this.
Add occasional doors and barriers to quests that would otherwise be straight run through no kill zergs, but only when the quest is run often.
Add a new category of trap. Traps that are triggered by mobs if you run past them.

Most of the quests in the game would not be a concern DA/no DA when it comes to active mob AI weighing down the hamsters that run the Turbine servers. It really is a limited number that cause the most issues in game and these can be altered through intelligently altering quests and their reward structures.

These are great ideas.

[grodon9999]

That's not a bad idea... Requiring kill counts is ugly, but so is DA... I especially like how this will make it slightly harder for casters to just zerg past everything.

Greatly increase the COnquest XP bonus and people will kill everything.


DA is an artificial construct useful only for griefing you friends.

[Cyr]

DA is an artificial construct useful only for griefing you friends.

IDK, it's a pretty effective method for griefing in pugs too.

[ceiswyn]

You should have ran away before you got to red-alert... You know it goes green-alert, yellow-alert, etc...

Yeah. And sometimes it goes through those stages awfully fast.


If you can't handle stuff on orange or yellow-alert, you better start killing or running away at green-alert.

I am all about the running away :) Sadly, I am also all about the incompetent running away, where you don't take the precise same route back, and therefore discover that you have suddenly aggroed extra mobs that didn't notice you on your way out...

Still, I see you've already agreed with removing DA in explorer areas, which is where this is most problematic.

DA in quests with spawning ambushes is annoying, but much less susceptible to going really pear-shaped.

[SableShadow]

Greatly increase the COnquest XP bonus and people will kill everything.

Or add a small % to the probability of named l00t showing up on the end reward ...

[Theolin]

DA != 10% bonus for killing 0 mobs

Hmmmm there seems to be computational issue here in what they are saying

Get a bonus to not kill mobs .... but if you don't then were gonna red alert you ..... wait what?

[eonfreon]

DA != 10% bonus for killing 0 mobs

Hmmmm there seems to be computational issue here in what they are saying

Get a bonus to not kill mobs .... but if you don't then were gonna red alert you ..... wait what?

The XP bonus for not killing Mobs applies to very few quests, because most quests have some part where you have to kill to progress.

However, it is quite possible, if you have the patience, to sneak past Mobs. That xp reward isn't for aggroing everything and running to the end with a bunch of angry Mobs chasing you. It's for getting through without alerting them in the first place.

Sneaking takes a bit of patience but it can be done on quite a few quests. It's just few groups have the patience to do it (also few Pugs have the ability, really).

But it is quite possible to sneak past Mobs and not get their aggro, thus not getting DA. It's just usually easier/faster to just kill everything.

[fuzzy1guy]

I like dungeon alert. Its a nice 'real' mechanic when it works properly. BUT. harried is damm stupid. one little 0 dmg hit and i cant move anymore? uh no. thats dumb. Harried should need at least some damage before it hits. Or get rid of it completely somehow. You made your concentration check! Screw harried! i'm going this way and you mobs can't stop me!!

And in some dungeons da needs a serious tweek. Like coal chamber, where a swarm of bats you may not have even seen spawn can ramp it up and you're standing in a hall all alone with no mobs visible moving thru tar. Or BoP in the iron maw. Where getting too near a wall, floor, roof, ect... makes things go all to hell and yet you're not even fighting.


Other than that. the concept is good. the implementation is bad.

[grodon9999]

Just give mobs the ability to grapple :)

[MrWizard]

dungeon alert is that status where more and more monsters get aggroed or something.

i quite like it. there's some dungeons where if u solo it's quite deadly to alert all the monsters and try to hide.. cos then they mass up on you..

in a large party setting where you are comfy, dungeon alert can signal "oh googide more to kill" or sometimes it can end in ignominous defeat ! i quite like it :)

what did people think of it as a concept?

In a game designed to endlessly repeat the same dungeons, it kinda makes grinding it out, even more gindy....(not a word).

Seems it was needed to help lag and apparently also forces the player to play the dungeon as intended.

many bugs or lame parts still remain...such as somehow the dogs or rats you fight seem to alert the entire dungeon of orcs...must be psychic.
And those spawning type mobs like glass spiders somehow become more aware as they grow endlessy around you into red alert.

Many quests...well, all quests before dungeon alert was added, were not built with DA in mind. So things do not work as intended (example- bastion of power and about 40 other dungeons). These issues make doing the dungeon 'not as intended'...in fact they make the dungeon horrible in many ways for most players.

Not our game, it is Turbines...gotta play it the way they see it...period. So suck it up, love it or hate it, and play or don't.

[TheDjinnFor]

Just give mobs the ability to grapple :)

Please! Wolves that Imp Trip you should maul you while you're down until you save versus the trip/its duration runs out or someone stuns/disables them.

Spiders that jump at you should jump on you.

[somenewnoob]

I haven't done many of the quests where the mechanic is flawed (except for Threnal with the spiders, and I didn't have that problem) so I don't hate it as much as some.

I'd still rather see what some people have said, with traps laid, doors locked or barred, maybe some nasty ambushes........something to simulate a group becoming aware that it was being invaded.

For non intelligent creatures......well.....bats should never cause dungeon alert......or spiders for that matter.

Somebody mentioned the hobgoblin fortress, places like that should get DA, places like caves full of spiders should not.

Just my 2 coppers.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Way before DA, everyone hated Coal Chamber.

Everyone just ran by everything, as fast as they could.......
And people fell, died.....got left behind. Hated having to go back for someone who couldn't keep up.... Bad, bad, bad experience.


I joined an LFM for Coal Chamber Elite. At the time it would've been one of the hardest quest in the game on elite...

The LFM was put up by a very good player, who usually ran with a couple RL friends and family members, and PUGed out additional spots.

They informed me right away that we would be killing everything as we went... (except maybe some bats in a few spots that just don't make sense to worry about)

.........This was the easiest run I had seen in that quest by far...up to that time.
first time to the shrine the Cleric still had over half his mana left. (and what he had used had been used offensively!)

That run...and a couple others with that guy convinced me of what I had always thought....but never been allowed to prove......

Killing as you go is usually the best tactic.
it makes most dungeons easy.

Just take on monsters as you encounter them.. Take them in nice bite-sized chunks that are easy to handle....
And everything goes smooth.

As soon as you try to skip things, or round up a bunch...is when things start to go badly.


Can't argue that rounding up a bunch into a single Firewall or runining them through a Blade Barrier...is SP efficient....but it causes problems.



I also like stealth.
But the first time I saw a Red Alert was in an all stealth group that was trying everything they could not to kill anything...

So even though you can bypass a lot of fights with stealth....if things go badly, you usually end up with more agro at once than you would have had, just killing as you go.

Invisibility usually has better results. But if you have a door....or a party member you breaks invis for some reason.....things can go bad that way too.

Charming monsters actually does a great job of avoiding fights without agro.
You could go through most dungeons and simply charm everything and move on...and never see DA and never get hurt.
(but it would also be pretty boring)




DA has some real issues in some quests.
But only in a very few number of quests.

Also if you know the quest, you can take actions to minimise it.

[Kominalito]

it may have been said, buuuuuuuut.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y45/Jayzmanz/obvious.jpg

[Thrudh]

(and about 40 other dungeons)

Name 10.

[redoubt]

Because that is the problem. DA was created so that people would kill more tash mobs. Running past dozens of mobs causes CPU stress.

The real-space physics of this game is what makes combat so interesting. But it also takes a lot of computational power if every AI has to path itself to you while also accounting for the location of every other AI...

10 mobs - each has to keep track of 9 other mobs = 90 calculations
20 mobs - each has to keep track of 19 other mobs = 380 calculations

2x the mobs does not mean double the AI load on the CPUs... it's more of an expontial growth.

So you are saying that killing mobs is the only way to fix lag. I would say that better AI and better servers would ALSO work.

But, really, the point I was trying to get at is WHY is killing everything the only appropriate way to complete quests? Why have kobold assualt when EVERY quest is simply "kill everything that moves" until you get to the end.

I would like to see variety and not only "kill it all" quests. Of course, everywhere you turn mobs now have "see invisible" on, or true seeing or there is some door to bring you out of stealth, so there are no quests that are stealth capable (in any real since) nor is there incentive to run them stealthily.

[weddingly]

So you are saying that killing mobs is the only way to fix lag. I would say that better AI and better servers would ALSO work.

But, really, the point I was trying to get at is WHY is killing everything the only appropriate way to complete quests? Why have kobold assualt when EVERY quest is simply "kill everything that moves" until you get to the end.

I would like to see variety and not only "kill it all" quests. Of course, everywhere you turn mobs now have "see invisible" on, or true seeing or there is some door to bring you out of stealth, so there are no quests that are stealth capable (in any real since) nor is there incentive to run them stealthily.


actually, i just want kill it all/everything quests.
those puzzle etc quests can go single player - i can play BG or Icewind for those.
for me mmorpgs are meant for massive hack and slash fireworks magic battles. more massive bloody and evil the better.
however, i don't mind if it is small as long as its evil bloody cruel and ruthless killing.
the more ways u get to kill ur enemy (preferably a real human) the better !

[redoubt]

Way before DA, everyone hated Coal Chamber.

Everyone just ran by everything, as fast as they could.......
And people fell, died.....got left behind. Hated having to go back for someone who couldn't keep up.... Bad, bad, bad experience.
.

DA has caused me to kill more things in coal chamber. (I kill more things in most quest now in fact.) Fall or fall behind in coal chamber and you still get left and it will really suck if you are in a respawn point.

Why do we zerg coal chamber? Archers and casters that can hit us hard and debuff us. Why am I going to stand killing a mob while 4 others range and cast on me? I'm going to run for the next tunnel where I can get some actual cover.

Want to make it better? Make better AI. Have those mobs follow me into the tunnel or close to melee range if I hide from their ranged ability. (Haveing the nearly mindless scorpion harry me because a bunch of trogs are mad at me is not the answer.)

side note: While I think dispel, g.dispel and disjunction are broken due to the level imbalance, those spells as well as the others we hate like sleet storm are good to have. Mostly because they are effective enough to make us hate them. That said, don't punish us when we try to run from those spells.

[redoubt]

actually, i just want kill it all/everything quests.
those puzzle etc quests can go single player - i can play BG or Icewind for those.
for me mmorpgs are meant for massive hack and slash fireworks magic battles. more massive bloody and evil the better.
however, i don't mind if it is small as long as its evil bloody cruel and ruthless killing.
the more ways u get to kill ur enemy (preferably a real human) the better !

And you should have that option. 100% agree.

But it should be an option. It should not be the only way to complete. I can play doom for that. I think WOW would also suffice for kill it all satisfaction. :D

[Zaodon]

Dungeon Alert is to DDO,
as Mother-in-laws are to Honeymoons.

Nuff said.

[eonfreon]

So you are saying that killing mobs is the only way to fix lag. I would say that better AI and better servers would ALSO work.

Well, yes, but "fix AI and get better servers" is a long-term process. The Devs needed a more immediate solution to server lag created by just running by and activating multiple Mobs.

I think they are constantly working on AI, but it is a slow, careful process.


But, really, the point I was trying to get at is WHY is killing everything the only appropriate way to complete quests? Why have kobold assualt when EVERY quest is simply "kill everything that moves" until you get to the end.

I would like to see variety and not only "kill it all" quests. Of course, everywhere you turn mobs now have "see invisible" on, or true seeing or there is some door to bring you out of stealth, so there are no quests that are stealth capable (in any real since) nor is there incentive to run them stealthily.

Well, yes a greater variety of quests would be great. But this is a game which the largest draw comes from it's fast-paced combat system. Thus it is the most predominate part of the game. The battles are pretty much what the game is, that's what justifies the "gametime". Fewer people enjoy quests with puzzles for instance.

The basic premise is a medievalish/fantasy game with combat. The combat aspects are supposed to wear us down a bit and at the very least use some resources. Mostly it's just to use up some resources, because only very disorganized groups ever really get worn down.

Mostly we're invading other creatures' lairs. Of course we're going to have to fight everything there. They're defending their home. There are many places where you can sneak by at least past some Mobs, just most people don't bother due to the obsession with xp/minute or loot/minute or such.

Basically, what would you suggest for an alternative?

More puzzles? Few people really like those.

More traps? Even fewer people like those.

What, besides fighting the enemy, should be the purpose of some quests?

As far as every Mob having True Seeing; well they are guards in high level dungeons. If your objective was to prevent intruders in a world full of magic that can render enemies invisible, what would you do? I'd bet you'd have your Clerics constantly renewing every guards True Seeing.

[Vyrn]

I think its a great concept, slow players down since the devs dont.. want us to run through quests, and they are the ones making the game. Its just a trash implementation in my eyes.

[Kalari]

dungeon alert is that status where more and more monsters get aggroed or something.

i quite like it. there's some dungeons where if u solo it's quite deadly to alert all the monsters and try to hide.. cos then they mass up on you..

in a large party setting where you are comfy, dungeon alert can signal "oh googide more to kill" or sometimes it can end in ignominous defeat ! i quite like it :)

what did people think of it as a concept?

Do you happen to like root canal's and visits to the proctologist to?

Seriously DA only bugs me in quests that it cannot be mitigated in which was the Threnal's protect coyle quest though now that I only run that at higher levels where I can burn threw mobs easier its not been an issue. And Bastion of power where mobs from up above tend to go cuckoo for cocoa puffs and reds can still easily happen. And any of the quests with them damned scorpions I am sorry I hate burrowing critters with a passion I say no alerts for anything that sticks its head in the ground how the hell is it telling mobs up above to beware?

other then that DA is not a big issue with me but I hardly love or like it I just deal since its not going anywhere.

[Aeolwind]

DA is a visual indicator for when to stop and kill stuff that is still following you. Especially if you are a caster and there are ladders in the quest lol.

[transtemporal]

what did people think of it as a concept?

I quite like the concept that allied monsters in a dungeon could get their act together to fight you if you alerted them to your presence, but the implementation is shockingly poor.

Inexplicably, the mobs "readiness" is expressed by a stacking buff to speed when they hit me. Why on earth does their readiness affect my speed?!

Ever tried meleeing the red name Troll in Coal Chamber on elite with a red skull (which is almost guaranteed, even if you aren't zerging)? Its just a joke. Their AC skyrockets, you can't get away because they all spam the stacking speed debuff. There is nothing you can do but die. This is not fun.

[MadFloyd]

Regardless of how you feel about DA, it appearing in Bastion of Power is a symptom of a different problem.

Or, put this way: if you can't help but trigger DA in a quest, there's something wrong with the quest.

I'm bugging Bastion of Power. I didn't catch the others (one in Threnal if I recall correctly). Feel free to list them here. Regardless of what ever happens with the DA system, these should get some content developer love.

Appreciate all the feedback.

[NXPlasmid]

Coalescence chamber

[Kalari]

Regardless of how you feel about DA, it appearing in Bastion of Power is a symptom of a different problem.

Or, put this way: if you can't help but trigger DA in a quest, there's something wrong with the quest.

I'm bugging Bastion of Power. I didn't catch the others (one in Threnal if I recall correctly). Feel free to list them here. Regardless of what ever happens with the DA system, these should get some content developer love.

Appreciate all the feedback.

I will try to log on and get actual quest names for the ones I dont know off hand but especially desert quests with scorpions that one little side quest that you drop down to in the scorrow section can be horrible for DA due to the burrowing and since you have to kill them scorps its not people rushing ahead to the end goal. I found on Epic Offering that even taking our time and taking out waves (and fascinating with my bard) that Red Alerts are very common. Coal chamber is another due to scorps and bats which can get frustrating we have always in my guild focused on killing since many of us like to compete for counts but in that one part where you get ambushed the vermin in that quest make it unbearable.

I am glad you noted that Bastion is a special case we ran this the other night and once again we did the kill room by room while looking for the levers but once we got to that one junction where the enemy could see us from above it went red in a blink my poor healer was more then ready to throw in the towel between trying to keep myself up and my poor team and just finally take on the devils as well since my favored soul aura tends to make them all go banana's throwing in a red alert just really made things more difficult. I am glad your looking into it most of the time its not a real burden but there are times where it can get really dicey and make for an no fun experience.

Edit forgot threnal because now I go in with higher levels then the quest is but the last time I did go in within level range on my melee type the protect coyle in the library setting quest was rough on my group. Mobs that spawn from the corners and the gargoyles up above seemed to keep us in constant alert still. Now this was a good month ago I have lowbies I can go in on this at some point and check again but I do remember that at level the quest seems to go into high alert still the phasing mephits maybe a contributor to this as well.

[Calebro]

Coalescence chamber

The trick in Coal is to listen. If you hear bats flying around, turn around and kill them, because they spawned behi9nd you as you ran past. If you do this, DA isn't an issue.
Obviously this removes zerging as an option unless you want to deal with DA.

[KillEveryone]

The trick in Coal is to listen. If you hear bats flying around, turn around and kill them, because they spawned behi9nd you as you ran past. If you do this, DA isn't an issue.
Obviously this removes zerging as an option unless you want to deal with DA.

One problem with this is if you are in a group using voice.

People turn sound effects way down and voice all the way up just to hear other people. Sometimes I can barely hear sound effects.

I usually don't hear bats until they are on top of me.

[Kovalas]

Just to be clear, it was implemented to stop running to the end without killing anything. Most zergers do kill more mobs than they used to, even though they still run to the end.

Leaving the mobs alive is the problem. Not running to the end.

How hard do you think it is to drop a blade barrier while running to the end?

DA is a pathetic way of DMin and so are you for trying to defend it....

CPU stress?? get a more powerful machine, charge more, or drop the fluff...

DA is an attempt to cripple the zerger/soloist, and it didnt work! We rolled Favoured Souls...

[Calebro]

One problem with this is if you are in a group using voice.

People turn sound effects way down and voice all the way up just to hear other people. Sometimes I can barely hear sound effects.

I usually don't hear bats until they are on top of me.

This is an issue with the sound settings related to voice chat, not an issue with the quest in itself.
Once again I'd like to request individual VC volume sliders for each party member.

/derail

[chester99]

Regardless of how you feel about DA, it appearing in Bastion of Power is a symptom of a different problem.

Or, put this way: if you can't help but trigger DA in a quest, there's something wrong with the quest.

I'm bugging Bastion of Power. I didn't catch the others (one in Threnal if I recall correctly). Feel free to list them here. Regardless of what ever happens with the DA system, these should get some content developer love.

Appreciate all the feedback.

This game was so much more fun before DA existed. So many of my friends don't play or barely play anymore for that very reason. A vicious cycle of unfun. You sort of imply there are changes coming... I guess there's hope.

[auximenes]

DA is an attempt to cripple the zerger/soloist, and it didnt work! We rolled Favoured Souls...
It was put in place to reduce server lag produced by having a lot of enemies 'thinking' about whether or not you've been noticed. By just applying a blanket AI pattern, it reduces the number of calculations the server(s) have to perform.

[Samadhi]

Regardless of how you feel about DA, it appearing in Bastion of Power is a symptom of a different problem.

Or, put this way: if you can't help but trigger DA in a quest, there's something wrong with the quest.

I'm bugging Bastion of Power. I didn't catch the others (one in Threnal if I recall correctly). Feel free to list them here. Regardless of what ever happens with the DA system, these should get some content developer love.

Appreciate all the feedback.

Coal Chamber should also be bugged. A single spawn of bats or scorpions will make DA jump 2 alert levels every time.


My complaints against DA are threefold, though, in the interest of staying on topic.

1) Realism. DA alert will hit you in a lot of circumstances that it just shouldn't. When no mob even hits you, for one. When you are 10 levels above the quest level, for another. These should be relatively easy to adjust. (On the second one, I would use the same scale used for determining XP. If you are high enough level above the quest that you are not getting any XP, then DA should not apply.

2) Splitting up should be a viable tactic. If I am on one side of a dungeon, fighting a single mob, I should not get hit by DA because of what the rest of the party is doing two floors down and 400 yards away. If anything, their brashness should be a distraction for me! But seriously, splitting up a party can be an awesome way to make a quest not as typical as the norm, it shouldn't be penalized.

3) It didn't fix anything... Yeah, seriously, all that time spent, but it hasn't changed the way I play outside of one single quest (Monastery). What it has done, however, is create a new way to grief people, which is never a good idea. Not cool.

[Isolani]

DA doesn't bother me much on an arcane or divine, since the more mobs I can get chasing me the better...sucks on melees though.

[Missing_Minds]

Coalescence chamber

Stop making bats and scorps count.

[NaturalHazard]

I consider DA the single worst thing they have added to the game.

With Grazing hits being a close second.

I sort of agree with this.

[Kovalas]

It was put in place to reduce server lag produced by having a lot of enemies 'thinking' about whether or not you've been noticed. By just applying a blanket AI pattern, it reduces the number of calculations the server(s) have to perform.

I have heard this, and read this from a dev, but I have noticed 0 difference in my 'lag' or lack thereoff, the only lag i ever suffer is a spike, not some continued distortion of movement due to server load..

However I do not know the technical side of these things, hence my, server cant handle the strain, buy a bigger server or more servers!

But maybe Turbine have the most high tec equip going and being able to run from start of dungeon to end of dungeon affects everyone else on the servers lag...............

If thats the case then maybe there not making as much money as it seems and were all doomed anyway...

[auximenes]

Each new subject (PC,NPC,monster) added to the equation raises the complexity exponentially. Every little bit of reduction to that load on the servers helps.

[KillEveryone]

This is an issue with the sound settings related to voice chat, not an issue with the quest in itself.
Once again I'd like to request individual VC volume sliders for each party member.

/derail

Totally.

[Ridag]

Regardless of how you feel about DA, it appearing in Bastion of Power is a symptom of a different problem.

Or, put this way: if you can't help but trigger DA in a quest, there's something wrong with the quest.

I'm bugging Bastion of Power. I didn't catch the others (one in Threnal if I recall correctly). Feel free to list them here. Regardless of what ever happens with the DA system, these should get some content developer love.

Appreciate all the feedback.

Sins of Attrition, New Invasion, Coalescence Chamber and Desecrated Temple of Vol are ones that immediately come to mind. Probably also any quest that has critters (scorpions, bats, rats etc) spawn from nowhere.

The Necro series quests where splitting up is necessary also come to mind.

[DagazUlf]

I'll be incredibly happy to just see Bastion and Coal Chamber looked at and adjusted. :D

[Battlehawke]

The AI sux for it. Something needs to be fixed. They should have it so the monsters all just never stop coming for u or something... A Serious Gang Bang.....

[joneb1999]

Well here is somthing for you then I will give you 10 Million plat if you can SOLO an Elite Bastion w/o gettting any DA status.

If you do that and still think DA is Cool I will triple that.

Oh and Uncut Video is Required Proof.

Are you saying DA status is annoying as it makes elite bastion difficult to solo?

[Cahira]

Regardless of how you feel about DA, it appearing in Bastion of Power is a symptom of a different problem.

Or, put this way: if you can't help but trigger DA in a quest, there's something wrong with the quest.

I'm bugging Bastion of Power. I didn't catch the others (one in Threnal if I recall correctly). Feel free to list them here. Regardless of what ever happens with the DA system, these should get some content developer love.

Appreciate all the feedback.

Shadow King. If you try to go to a light (since the lights provide the mobs with a curse), you can't make it from a doorway to the closest light without green dungeon alert...possibly yellow.

[sephiroth1084]

Another notable place for DA to pop up: while running in the Subterranean toward A Vision of Destruction (at the light "puzzle") it's fairly typical to get orange or even red DA if someone falls down to the level below, which is a tremendous pain in the ass. For one, whoever fell down is almost assuredly going to have a very tough time rejoining the group without getting hamstrung and pummeled even harder due to the number of mobs down there and the unwillingness most groups have to sending more than one or two other people down to help them out. For another, the mistake of one player (or lag) can end up killing a few others who are progressing normally (or even wipe the group) as all the already tough monsters they were facing on the way up to the switch to open the final passageway to the quest suddenly become much tougher.

Also, as others have pointed out, splitting up to conquer a quest should be a viable strategy.


In addition, DA tends to only hinder weaker groups/characters, and does little to remove the kind of zerging that it supposedly was introduced to address. Arcane casters especially, but also divines (especially favored souls), and some melees (high-AC types, monks with abundant step, and high-HP + good healing barbarians, fighters and paladins) are typically able to muscle their way through even red alert. If you read some threads by experienced caster-players, you'll notice many espouse a strategy of running until you get red alert and then wailing a time or two, or dropping a Blade Barrier until your alert level drops before continuing.

Dungeon Alert is annoying, and does little to address the real issues we have in the game, namely monster AI in dire need of some major adjustments and a lack of true obstacles that prevent pure zerging.

[ZeroTakenaka]

Regardless of how you feel about DA, it appearing in Bastion of Power is a symptom of a different problem.

Or, put this way: if you can't help but trigger DA in a quest, there's something wrong with the quest.

I'm bugging Bastion of Power. I didn't catch the others (one in Threnal if I recall correctly). Feel free to list them here. Regardless of what ever happens with the DA system, these should get some content developer love.

Appreciate all the feedback.

Twilight Forge. Purple Side. Guaranteed Red DA everytime.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Regardless of how you feel about DA, it appearing in Bastion of Power is a symptom of a different problem.

Or, put this way: if you can't help but trigger DA in a quest, there's something wrong with the quest.

I'm bugging Bastion of Power. I didn't catch the others (one in Threnal if I recall correctly). Feel free to list them here. Regardless of what ever happens with the DA system, these should get some content developer love.

Appreciate all the feedback.

A New Invasion has a similar problem because of the semi-random walls. Monsters can agro through them when there is nothing you can do about it. They at least can "hear" through them, and I believe they can "see" through them too.


Biggest issue in Coal Chamber is that a large number of monsters are in positions that makes killing them difficult. Bats mostly. But all of the trogs between the two sections of the first shaft, that get agroed as you jump down. It is possible to kill them but you have to really know the quest and actually go out of your way to do so.

[sephiroth1084]

A New Invasion has a similar problem because of the semi-random walls. Monsters can agro through them when there is nothing you can do about it. They at least can "hear" through them, and I believe they can "see" through them too.



I'll also point out that it's really irritating to get dispelled through a wall by the beholder in A New Invasion.

[darkrhavyn]

The trick in Coal is to listen. If you hear bats flying around, turn around and kill them, because they spawned behi9nd you as you ran past. If you do this, DA isn't an issue.
Obviously this removes zerging as an option unless you want to deal with DA.

Actually thats not exactly true....we just did Coal Chamber yesterday and were killing as we went....the ambush part after one of the rooms....the one that is a quest objective...threw us straight to yellow...do not pass green go straight to yellow...once it was finished...DA gone so I doubt it was anything else causing it.:)

[weddingly]

Actually thats not exactly true....we just did Coal Chamber yesterday and were killing as we went....the ambush part after one of the rooms....the one that is a quest objective...threw us straight to yellow...do not pass green go straight to yellow...once it was finished...DA gone so I doubt it was anything else causing it.:)

maybe its the case that the monsters were all EXTRA ALERT?
also, think of the poor monsters who FOR DECADES have been murdered and ABUSED by players like YOU!!!
yes!! killing and killing and killing!!!!! all the sensleess killing and they do not have ANY CHANCE!!!
well now, DDO has given them a chance to FIGHT BACK!!!
i say.. "Good for DDO!!!" give monsters a chance! that's what i say...!
also maybe the monsters had froot loops for breakfast - that always makes pple hyper...

[Auran82]

Most Red Alerts in Coal chamber are from the couple of areas where a mass of bats swarm, jumping from none or green alert to red.

A recent one I have come accross is Temple of Vol, where you get alot of bats, especially if you split up, 2 rooms with a couple of bats (and other undead spawning) will cause alert to jump up quickly.

I sorta understand what its intention was, but surely it wasn't put in to stop groups from splitting up at all, thats just stupid.

[arjiwan]

Regardless of how you feel about DA, it appearing in Bastion of Power is a symptom of a different problem.

Or, put this way: if you can't help but trigger DA in a quest, there's something wrong with the quest.

I'm bugging Bastion of Power. I didn't catch the others (one in Threnal if I recall correctly). Feel free to list them here. Regardless of what ever happens with the DA system, these should get some content developer love.

Appreciate all the feedback.

Greetings,

I don't mind DA or the purpose of it as a way for the group to not run at the end quest and ignore all the monsters. It is fine, part of the system.

But can you please also look at the New invasion. The DA is from nothing to Red in seconds. Try running a normal route without ignoring any mobs. You can have a RED DA eventhough you don't have any monsters running after you. One monster will give you the harried status.


A New Invasion has a similar problem because of the semi-random walls. Monsters can agro through them when there is nothing you can do about it. They at least can "hear" through them, and I believe they can "see" through them too.



I'll also point out that it's really irritating to get dispelled through a wall by the beholder in A New Invasion.

Both yes.

[fuzzy1guy]

Easy fix for the majority of DA problems.

Make bat's / scorpions 'immune' to adding to it. Maybe even all 'non-intelligent' monsters.
Or at least make bats chase you like anything else will. Instead of wandering around with no target like they do now.


That just leaves a couple of oddball ones like bastion and genesis with 2-3 other ones max where its less of a problem and might need a specialized fix.

[Sarisa]

Regardless of how you feel about DA, it appearing in Bastion of Power is a symptom of a different problem.

Or, put this way: if you can't help but trigger DA in a quest, there's something wrong with the quest.

I'm bugging Bastion of Power. I didn't catch the others (one in Threnal if I recall correctly). Feel free to list them here. Regardless of what ever happens with the DA system, these should get some content developer love.

Appreciate all the feedback.

Posted earlier in this thread, and re-quoting it here.


Dungeon alert is downright broken in several areas. Even when doing "normal" game play where you kill as you go, you will get increased alert.

Bastion of Power: Mobs on the floor above you in the first area will aggro on you, and will not be able to reach you for upwards of 20 minutes in an average group. Maybe longer in a low DPS group and if you get an exceptionally poor lever layout. Each unreachable mob will punish you for each portal ambush. When killing everything you encounter, it's still not hard to remain in yellow or orange, and reach red every time you reach a portal.

It makes sense, with the grated floor, that they can see you come in; but it is extremely punishing to groups. I did Elite Bastion this past weekend, and we spent almost the entire first section of the quest in a constant orange to red alert simply because of a group of archer and caster trash above us. This is with killing everything we came across. We succeeded, and that part of the quest wasn't too hard (the boss is what's brutal in Elite Bastion), but it was unnecessarily frustrating.

Twilight Forge: Just stepping into the purple side will almost instantly put you into red alert status. A large portion of those mobs won't even be able to reach you for a considerable length of time due to stacking up behind the barrier. You'd need to do the big jump or the lava dive in order to reach them. At level, due to the massively stacked alert and the punishing buffs the mobs get, I don't see many people surviving that group of trash.

New Invasion: Like Bastion, except the mobs aggro you through walls instead of between floors. It's only extremely punishing if you trigger the ambushes. If you use the drop-down points instead, it's not as bad.

Coal Chamber: Bats that spawn and then fall in the shafts can easily get stuck in areas that players cannot access, and will remain aggro'ed on you for the duration of the quest. The strange physics of bat combat can make them a nightmare to kill when you spawn them, and makes it more likely that one will fall.

Anywhere with large groups of Mephits: Mephits can spawn other mephits, which can thus spawn more mephits. This is most prominent in part 9 of the Sorrowdusk Cult of the Six chain, and in the bat hallway in Against the Demon Queen. I personally watched the one single remaining live mephit in the bat hallway of ADQ1 summon a friend when I killed it, the summoned one summoned another, and so on. The chain of mephits finally ended after I killed the 7th one.

Anywhere with large groups of Glass Spiders: They lay an egg every few seconds, which just spawns more mobs that don't count as kills. The extra trash is a one of the challenges of these, but their interaction with DA just makes them more of a nuisance than they're worth. The DA is most prominent in the Ruins of Threnal and the tunnels of the Restless Isles. Also note that those two areas are two of the least popular areas in the game. The poor DA interaction just makes these two areas even less desirable to run.

I'll refrain from expressing my opinion of the normal operation of DA, in order to try not to feed the flames. Just some quests do not function properly due to being old enough that they're not designed with DA in mind, or ones with odd physics issues or design interactions that unnaturally scales the DA too much.

Add Desecrated Temple of Vol to that list, as explained already in this thread.

Tomb of the Shadow King, and to a lesser extent Shadow Crypt can cause unnecessary DA due to the very frustrating Phase Spiders. They continue to raise DA even when they stay phased out for long periods of time, or chain-phase so much that you can't kill them without Wall of Fire.


One problem with this is if you are in a group using voice.

People turn sound effects way down and voice all the way up just to hear other people. Sometimes I can barely hear sound effects.

I usually don't hear bats until they are on top of me.

In addition, certain sound effects are so loud and PERSISTENT that you cannot hear the bats. The most notable of these obnoxious sound effects is the Pale Master death aura.

And in the shafts, there are a number of bats that have a tendency to fall down the shaft into areas that players cannot get. I don't have a screenshot at the moment but there are some inclined areas that bats tend to stack up, mostly after getting back to the primary shaft after going through the secondary and passing the shrine. Players typically cannot land in those areas, and it's difficult to make a spell land on those bats; but they continue to raise the DA.

[rest]

I think the fact that you can get harried when a mob MISSES YOU COMPLETELY is horse puckey. How am I harried if the mob hasn't even hit me? Just the simple fact that he THOUGHT about hitting me is enough to harry me? Bologna.

[sephiroth1084]

I think the fact that you can get harried when a mob MISSES YOU COMPLETELY is horse puckey. How am I harried if the mob hasn't even hit me? Just the simple fact that he THOUGHT about hitting me is enough to harry me? Bologna.
I'll second this.

[DoctorWhofan]

The title alone is a loaded question.

Staying out of it.

[oradafu]

Anywhere with large groups of Glass Spiders: They lay an egg every few seconds, which just spawns more mobs that don't count as kills. The extra trash is a one of the challenges of these, but their interaction with DA just makes them more of a nuisance than they're worth. The DA is most prominent in the Ruins of Threnal and the tunnels of the Restless Isles. Also note that those two areas are two of the least popular areas in the game. The poor DA interaction just makes these two areas even less desirable to run.



When there are multiple Glass Spiders laying eggs or even worse other trash, the DA can become unbearable. Threnal is a great example of this. When the Glass Spider appears along with other trash if you don't kill the spider first, the eggs start hatch quickly and the DA jumps out of control. In Need of Supplies (and I believe The Rescue) can cause this to happen quite early in the quest.

Another set of trouble spots can be found in The Missing Expedition and Entering the Gate Chamber. Early in the quest, there is a room that has a closed door that contains Glass Spiders (and I think Ice Flensers). If you go anywhere near that room, the Spiders start laying eggs and the DA jumps up quickly, even if you don't open the door. I found that if you move away from the room and wait a few minutes, the DA will eventual drop and you can ignore the room for the rest of the quest...unless that's where one of the randomly placed chests spawn that contains the key to continue the quest. Then you have to go back to the room and kill everything in there that's spawned.

[sephiroth1084]

The title alone is a loaded question.

Staying out of it.
I call shenanigans! Pretty sure there is a forum guideline somewhere stating that players newly returned to the forums after a hiatus may not post in a thread unless they address the OP directly, including their opinion on the matter in addition to screenshots, personal examples, funny interweb pictures or off-topic distractions.

/nodsagely :cool:

[losian2]

One of the Ruins of Threnal, I THINK it was East.. The one where you go down to deliver supplies to the guy, then for the next quest go back to rescue him. The rescue one triggered a dungeon alert on me by just stepping in and attacking the first few monsters, no training or anything.

[Natashaelle]

Or, put this way: if you can't help but trigger DA in a quest, there's something wrong with the quest.

Not just quests -- if you have multiple black puddings (for example, but other blobs of stuff act the same) in one place and use sharp weaponry (everbright, natch), they automatically trigger DA just by fighting them after they all split up into slices of delicious blood provender ;)

[FuzzyDuck81]

2) Splitting up should be a viable tactic. If I am on one side of a dungeon, fighting a single mob, I should not get hit by DA because of what the rest of the party is doing two floors down and 400 yards away. If anything, their brashness should be a distraction for me! But seriously, splitting up a party can be an awesome way to make a quest not as typical as the norm, it shouldn't be penalized.



Agree to this.. would be nice if there was some way to make a "DA radius" so it only gets applied to enemies near that area where the alerts are initiated - not like the mobs all have radio headsets after all - and since when would a bunch of random rats in a room get a heads-up about the adventurers running through & killing all the organised monsters? well, unless there was one look-out rat that was saying "woo dead ogres, we eat like kings tonight!"

[mrtreats]

VOD and Hound are a pain going there is also when 1 guy falls off you get auto yellow or higher and going to VOD u NEED to keep the mobs alive to get the door down. in VOD when the waves spawn it is easy to get yellow or higher the end is unreal with all them bats.

[bobbryan2]

Regardless of how you feel about DA, it appearing in Bastion of Power is a symptom of a different problem.

Or, put this way: if you can't help but trigger DA in a quest, there's something wrong with the quest.

I'm bugging Bastion of Power. I didn't catch the others (one in Threnal if I recall correctly). Feel free to list them here. Regardless of what ever happens with the DA system, these should get some content developer love.

Appreciate all the feedback.

Bastion is extra annoying, because when Tolero took a survey of problematic quests... Bastion was #1. And after the others were fixed.. it's still bad. That colors DA in a bad way....

Others of the top of my head:
Coal Chamber can have issues.
Mindsunder (even taking the side entrance)
New Invasion (yes... I know you can avoid the ambushes.. but the ambushes should be hard enough on their own merit and not triggering DA in addition)

Typically... look into "ambush" type quests. It's very annoying to go from nothing to yellow or orange because of a scripted event. Especially since most of those encounters are "locked in" and you can't zerg even if you wanted to.

[Envoi]

Dungeon alert was a rather...kneejerk and hamhanded way of lowering lag.

It did lower lag.

The problem is that the game wasn't designed with dungeon alert in mind, then it was added, and it's not as trouble-free in some spots as others.

[Velexia]

http://wondermark.com/c/2009-06-05-524tape.gif

[Velexia]

Regardless of how you feel about DA, it appearing in Bastion of Power is a symptom of a different problem.

Or, put this way: if you can't help but trigger DA in a quest, there's something wrong with the quest.

I'm bugging Bastion of Power. I didn't catch the others (one in Threnal if I recall correctly). Feel free to list them here. Regardless of what ever happens with the DA system, these should get some content developer love.

Appreciate all the feedback.

Against The Demon Queen - Bat.
The Coalescence Chamber - Too Many Respawning Bats (that tend to fall and get into hard to reach places).

[Arlathen]

Yes, I love dying because I took a wrong turn on the way through Meridia, aggroed a bunch of mobs, and now mysteriously can't even run away from them because, I dunno, they sellotaped themselves to my backpack or something.

Oh, wait, not 'love', the other thing.

Look, I don't mind the mobs ahead of me in the dungeon getting buffed, or all coming after me at once, or anything rational like that (well, I'd really rather they didn't, but if I didn't want the enemy to buff up I shouldn't have run in yelling a war cry). What I object to is being unable to flee a sticky situation because the mob behind me - you know, the one I surprised - got randomly buffed, and I, for no reason at all, am suddenly running through treacle.

Get some Monk levels and haste potions and run faster. You know it makes sense ;)

YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO ZERG!

[Samadhi]

Most Red Alerts in Coal chamber are from the couple of areas where a mass of bats swarm, jumping from none or green alert to red.

A recent one I have come accross is Temple of Vol, where you get alot of bats, especially if you split up, 2 rooms with a couple of bats (and other undead spawning) will cause alert to jump up quickly.

I sorta understand what its intention was, but surely it wasn't put in to stop groups from splitting up at all, thats just stupid.

I forgot about temple of vol. /agreed on that one being completely broken as well.

[Wizzly_Bear]

Regardless of how you feel about DA, it appearing in Bastion of Power is a symptom of a different problem.

Or, put this way: if you can't help but trigger DA in a quest, there's something wrong with the quest.

I'm bugging Bastion of Power. I didn't catch the others (one in Threnal if I recall correctly). Feel free to list them here. Regardless of what ever happens with the DA system, these should get some content developer love.

Appreciate all the feedback.

I appreciate you getting involved in the discussion, but I have to say it's quite aggravating for us (the players) to have been complaining and issuing bug reports about this for years before you (turbine) even become aware of it by chance of some random thread. This is not the first mention of "Bastion of Red Alert."

Dungeon Alert did not fix lag as it was claimed to, railroads players on how to play, is aggravating, illogical, and often used for griefing. Of all the nerfs and changes turbine has made over the years, DA is by far the worst. It sucks the fun out of the game.

Think about changes this way before implementing...would this change result in a net gain or loss of overall enjoyment and balance of the game? If the latter, fix it.

Again, thank you (madfloyd) for getting involved, but you (turbine) should have a very long time ago.

[Eleia]

I wouldn't dislike it as much if it worked consistently and properly. There are some instances where it ramps up immediately upon normal mobs spawns, which is absurd.

I also feels like it limits the tactic of splitting up a bit, which should be perfectly valid.

All in all I think the system needs a complete overhaul.

I agree with Ridag.

The concept is sound, but it just doesn't work as well as I'd like it to.

[Thrudh]

How hard do you think it is to drop a blade barrier while running to the end?

DA is a pathetic way of DMin and so are you for trying to defend it....

CPU stress?? get a more powerful machine, charge more, or drop the fluff...

DA is an attempt to cripple the zerger/soloist, and it didnt work! We rolled Favoured Souls...

Did you not read what I said? DA was not an attempt to cripple the zerger/soloist. DA was implemented to encourage people to kill monsters instead of running past them...

If you're dropping a blade barrier as you run past, then DA is working, because before people just ran past.

[Thrudh]

Regardless of how you feel about DA, it appearing in Bastion of Power is a symptom of a different problem.

Or, put this way: if you can't help but trigger DA in a quest, there's something wrong with the quest.

I'm bugging Bastion of Power. I didn't catch the others (one in Threnal if I recall correctly). Feel free to list them here. Regardless of what ever happens with the DA system, these should get some content developer love.

Appreciate all the feedback.

Bastion
New Invasion (when you drop down to the next level and are suddenly swarmed)
Twilight Forge
Bats in Coal (I never have DA problems in Coal, because I kill the scorps and bats, but I can support removing them from the DA equation, if that's possible)

I feel that you should never enter a room and jump 2-3 levels of DA. If you kill as you go, DA should not be an issue...

In 99.5% of the dungeons, this is true... There are a few (the ones above) where this is not true.

[Thrudh]

Coal Chamber should also be bugged. A single spawn of bats or scorpions will make DA jump 2 alert levels every time.

That is not true. He can't act on our feedback if we don't tell the truth. 1 alert level jump sure, then you turn around and kill the bats, and it goes back down.


1) Realism. DA alert will hit you in a lot of circumstances that it just shouldn't. When no mob even hits you, for one. When you are 10 levels above the quest level, for another. These should be relatively easy to adjust. (On the second one, I would use the same scale used for determining XP. If you are high enough level above the quest that you are not getting any XP, then DA should not apply.

This doesn't resolve the problem of AI lag. Besides, if you're 10 levels above the quest it should be insanely trivial for you to KILL THE MOBS.


2) Splitting up should be a viable tactic. If I am on one side of a dungeon, fighting a single mob, I should not get hit by DA because of what the rest of the party is doing two floors down and 400 yards away. If anything, their brashness should be a distraction for me! But seriously, splitting up a party can be an awesome way to make a quest not as typical as the norm, it shouldn't be penalized.

If both sides kill as they go, DA isn't much of an issue for parties that split up (sometimes you'll get a DA alert level jump, but if both groups are killing, it goes down quickly)


3) It didn't fix anything... Yeah, seriously, all that time spent, but it hasn't changed the way I play outside of one single quest (Monastery). What it has done, however, is create a new way to grief people, which is never a good idea. Not cool.

People still zerg, but more mobs are killed. Sure most casters gather up a bunch and kill with a bb or a firewall when DA hits red, but people ARE killing the mobs now... Before they would just run past without killing.

[Thrudh]

Bastion is extra annoying, because when Tolero took a survey of problematic quests... Bastion was #1. And after the others were fixed.. it's still bad. That colors DA in a bad way....

Others of the top of my head:
Coal Chamber can have issues.
Mindsunder (even taking the side entrance)
New Invasion (yes... I know you can avoid the ambushes.. but the ambushes should be hard enough on their own merit and not triggering DA in addition)

Typically... look into "ambush" type quests. It's very annoying to go from nothing to yellow or orange because of a scripted event. Especially since most of those

encounters are "locked in" and you can't zerg even if you wanted to.

I agree with this post.

[zwiebelring]

if you're 10 levels above the quest it should be insanely trivial for you to KILL THE MOBS.
If you are 10 levels above the questlevel then you should be able to have more options than just kill (like in level appropriate quests too). Really, some mobs could just be avoided, you won't even get more exp out of it. Insidious Cunning seems only viable for stealth toons.

Dungeon alert in general is completely realistic and okay to me but the effect is stupid. In pnp the group had a higher chance on random monsters and well, intelligent monsters might be able to prepare for intruders. Fine with everything. But *Harried* is bs.

Where is the benefit in gameplay and rewardsystem? A way to stop zerging might be to use dungeon alert to lower lootlevel (intelligent monsters might even flee and take precious stuff with them).

So, if it was meant to stop zerging, it failed. If it was implemented to give more realism, then it failed again because of easy button mechanic. Individual scaling and adaption to quests could solve it.

[Thrudh]

If you are 10 levels above the questlevel then you should be able to have more options than just kill (like in level appropriate quests too). Really, some mobs could just be avoided, you won't even get more exp out of it. Insidious Cunning seems only viable for stealth toons.

Dungeon alert in general is completely realistic and okay to me but the effect is stupid. It is enforcing a certain style of play not linked to the party at all.

Where is the benefit in gameplay and rewardsystem?

I don't like that DA forces a certain style of play either. I wish there was a better solution.

But it's a pretty easy system to work with. For most players, killing the mobs is the main part of any quest anyway... And I think DA is better than a bunch of locked doors or barriers...

One can still run past stuff today, you just can't run past EVERYTHING. You can avoid certain annoying fights still if you want, you just can't avoid EVERY fight.

DA is a pretty easy system to meta-game.

[Thrudh]

So, if it was meant to stop zerging, it failed.

It was meant to encourage mob killing. And it succeeded there.

[Cyr]

Regardless of how you feel about DA, it appearing in Bastion of Power is a symptom of a different problem.

Or, put this way: if you can't help but trigger DA in a quest, there's something wrong with the quest.

I'm bugging Bastion of Power. I didn't catch the others (one in Threnal if I recall correctly). Feel free to list them here. Regardless of what ever happens with the DA system, these should get some content developer love.

Appreciate all the feedback.

I would view it as a problem with mob AI being active even though they can not path to you. Viewing it that way would prevent these sorts of multi-year issues from cropping up with newly designed quests and reduce active AI all over the game.

The issue here is that blaming quest design done sometimes years before DA was put in is just sadling content designers, which happen to be the devs that almost everyone thinks do a pretty dang good job, with fixing on a case by case basis the issues caused by a horribly implemented system put in by the systems team.

[RudeIota]

Just got an unnecessary DA last night while doing Maze of Madness in Gianthold, just outside the gates of the optional red named. It's all those mephits he's summoning. :-)

That reminded me: This also happens in the Vale of Twlight with Lourolle (also summons tons of mephits).

In my opinion, DA is a very bad way of handling exploitation and server lag. I don't have much in the way of alternative suggestions, but it's basically the DM saying, "No, you can't do that and I don't need to explain myself".

I know the DM is always right.. But geez...

[zwiebelring]

It was meant to encourage mob killing. And it succeeded there.
I don't like mobkilling as the only way. More specific mobs which are just there to drain ressources. You find a way to ignore that, so fine with me. Why bother as a dev? meta gaming cannot be prevented, especially not in static quests like DDO.

If meta gaming was/is a problem, give more randomness instead of poor railroading mechanics. My conclusion still remains, mechanics like DA show poor ability to handle cleverness.

[Sarisa]

Just got an unnecessary DA last night while doing Maze of Madness in Gianthold, just outside the gates of the optional red named. It's all those mephits he's summoning. :-)

That reminded me: This also happens in the Vale of Twlight with Lourolle (also summons tons of mephits).

In my opinion, DA is a very bad way of handling exploitation and server lag. I don't have much in the way of alternative suggestions, but it's basically the DM saying, "No, you can't do that and I don't need to explain myself".

I know the DM is always right.. But geez...

Mephits can summon other mephits. In the SRD, Summoned Mephits are not allowed to use their summoning ability for one hour after summoning. It doesn't appear that DDO honours that in any way, as summoned mephits can instantly summon another. As I said earlier, a single mephit I didn't kill in the Bat corridor of Against the Demon Queen ended up being a chain of 7 mephits because of the summoning.

[Templarion]

I consider DA the single worst thing they have added to the game.

This.

[Chaos000]

It's also annoying on my virtuoso that if I happen to use my song of enthrallment getting from point A to B even if the mob hasn't seen me it keeps adding to the dungeon alert despite being nowhere in sight.

Now the tactic is song... toss out a mass suggestion to lower dungeon alert, re-apply invisibility then continue running.

I would say that one of the biggest failings of dungeon alert is when it comes to mobs that multiply like oozes that splits (yet only count as one kill), mephits that summon, spiders that lay eggs....

I've suggested before and I'll do it again, what about a pay to play option of turning off dungeon alert? I'd keep my subscription indefinitely if there was an ability to enable that. AND if there was a toggle it would let people who like the challenge and hate the easy button to not turn it off or even start off at mid-high alert :)

[redoubt]

The AI sux for it. Something needs to be fixed. They should have it so the monsters all just never stop coming for u or something... A Serious Gang Bang.....

Actually, the opposite needs to happen.

If a mob is trying to get you and looses sight of you AND cannot path to you for x seconds it goes inert and stops making calculations. This would reduce load on the servers and should address all the talk about how blitzing through a dungeon creates massive system load.

Basically, if they can get to me quickly or at least keep me in sight, they drop out. Yes, this allows zerging, but it also reduces the load. There are already plenty of random doors, barriers and artificial stops to make even zergers kill stuff.

[Junts]

I will try to log on and get actual quest names for the ones I dont know off hand but especially desert quests with scorpions that one little side quest that you drop down to in the scorrow section can be horrible for DA due to the burrowing and since you have to kill them scorps its not people rushing ahead to the end goal. I found on Epic Offering that even taking our time and taking out waves (and fascinating with my bard) that Red Alerts are very common. Coal chamber is another due to scorps and bats which can get frustrating we have always in my guild focused on killing since many of us like to compete for counts but in that one part where you get ambushed the vermin in that quest make it unbearable.

I am glad you noted that Bastion is a special case we ran this the other night and once again we did the kill room by room while looking for the levers but once we got to that one junction where the enemy could see us from above it went red in a blink my poor healer was more then ready to throw in the towel between trying to keep myself up and my poor team and just finally take on the devils as well since my favored soul aura tends to make them all go banana's throwing in a red alert just really made things more difficult. I am glad your looking into it most of the time its not a real burden but there are times where it can get really dicey and make for an no fun experience.

Edit forgot threnal because now I go in with higher levels then the quest is but the last time I did go in within level range on my melee type the protect coyle in the library setting quest was rough on my group. Mobs that spawn from the corners and the gargoyles up above seemed to keep us in constant alert still. Now this was a good month ago I have lowbies I can go in on this at some point and check again but I do remember that at level the quest seems to go into high alert still the phasing mephits maybe a contributor to this as well.

You'll always run high alert in epic offering if your group doesn't kill very fast (fascinate doesn't remove things from the DA table) because the entire quest is respawning mobs. If you can't out-kill the respawn rate, you're going to live at yellow alert at a minimum.

Most groups can't outkill the respawn rate and simply outrun the respawn rate and then kill at places that are outside the detection radius of new respawns. If you try to fight right on the respawn location, you will never leave, even with the very best dps party.

Floyd, what you guys need to do is to code a Dungeon Alert variable, one that content developers can adjust, so that for certain dungeons where the actual problems DA is solving aren't at issue, the content developer can simply raise the alert thresholds to allow the quest to play the way they want it to play. For example, Coalescence Chamber runs very high alert levels because it features many troglodyte archers who are located in inaccessible places to shoot at the party. While certain kinds of turret-archers (like skeleton archers) don't seem to count for dungeon alert at all, troglodytes aren't usually in that category, so you routinely hit yellow/orange alert when you spawn a mob pack because you're running the entire quest at green or one-two mobs below green due to all the trogs you were unable to kill earlier.

Simply allowing that quest to be set where each alert level is 5-8 mobs above the normal thresholds would make it play normally while still requiring people to kill the vermin spawns instead of ignoring them.

Bastion is the symptom of a different problem - transparent grated floors that let mobs you can't yet reach hear, see and aggro on you and thereby count on dungeon alert. When the mobs are active, they open portals that spawn teleporting barbazu until you break them, so you can face endless teleporting barbazu without being able to access the portal to close it yet. That's an actual design issue (while the grated floors are cool, they either have to go or the ceilings have to be raised a lot so that the upstairs mobs can't hear players on the first floor anymore). Note that floors 3-4 of this quest, while having identical mechanics and similar, don't have the same problem, because the 4th floor is much higher above the 3rd than the gap between floors 1-2.

Some quests need to be altered, but in some cases your quest designers simply need the option to tweak exactly what constitutes a dungeon alert in a given dungeon. No dungeon is run as regularly as the places where we used to break your server farm with things like endless monestary instances with 150 active monsters were when DA was created, and allowing quests that need to change the alert levels to do so shouldn't cause undue stress on your server systems: Most of those quests are unpopular for reasons besides the dungeon alert (bastion is the longest and hardest quest in Amrath and rewards the least exp and loot, coal chamber is long and many people hate its mario-skill nature, etc), so you're not going to see them become so popular that allowing them extra active monsters would cause a resource issue.

[Arctigis]

I appreciate you getting involved in the discussion, but I have to say it's quite aggravating for us (the players) to have been complaining and issuing bug reports about this for years before you (turbine) even become aware of it by chance of some random thread. This is not the first mention of "Bastion of Red Alert."

Dungeon Alert did not fix lag as it was claimed to, railroads players on how to play, is aggravating, illogical, and often used for griefing. Of all the nerfs and changes turbine has made over the years, DA is by far the worst. It sucks the fun out of the game.

Think about changes this way before implementing...would this change result in a net gain or loss of overall enjoyment and balance of the game? If the latter, fix it.

Again, thank you (madfloyd) for getting involved, but you (turbine) should have a very long time ago.

I agree with this. I'm totally against any 'solution' which forces you to play the game one way.

It's nothing more than a punitive kludge.

[Impaqt]

The trick in Coal is to listen. If you hear bats flying around, turn around and kill them, because they spawned behi9nd you as you ran past. If you do this, DA isn't an issue.
Obviously this removes zerging as an option unless you want to deal with DA.

Mobs spawning behind you isnt a problem.

THe problem in C-Chamber is when you fall. All kinds of mobs aggro and cant move. Having to reclimb up the caves while in red alert isnt fin while getting pelted by archers.

Mobs spawn behind you? No poblem. Stop, Kill them. Mobs aggro 75' above you? Nothing you can do to fix that.

[Kalari]

I honestly think quests where mobs phase out, summon other mobs or burrow should really be examined for issues. Quests where these types are abundant tend to have DA issues more then any others and to top that off even when a party is doing what is intended for us to to kill them It is still really hard not to get high dungeon alerts.

On top of that I forgot about Vol that one has the most mix of mobs that can phase in and out (wheeps, vampire knights and priests, shadows) then it has Bats and invisible barrier walls that if the party does not move fast enough splits them up which guess what someone goes a wrong way red alert.

Junts definitely agree about Epic offering I think it is worst for us when we are teaching new guild mates how to run it and these alerts run up for a lot of us we have learned how to painfully get threw a red alert in such epics but for the newer guys it can be rough and many times when we have more then 3 there is a good chance its going to be a bad experience and we have to start over which really sours new guys we are showing the ropes to epic experiences.

I just hope this all gets looked at cause those factors seem to be a big red flag for me in DA issues.

[Jahmin]

DA is an attempt to cripple the zerger/soloist, and it didnt work! We rolled Favoured Souls...
&

This game was so much more fun before DA existed.

QFT :(

DA is simply another in a long line of DDO development failures. It sadly did not accomplish what it was stated to do :rolleyes:

[Thrudh]

Mobs spawning behind you isnt a problem.

THe problem in C-Chamber is when you fall. All kinds of mobs aggro and cant move. Having to reclimb up the caves while in red alert isnt fin while getting pelted by archers.

Mobs spawn behind you? No poblem. Stop, Kill them. Mobs aggro 75' above you? Nothing you can do to fix that.

Kill all trogs on the way up

When you jump down after getting the key, kill all trogs on the way down...

Then the second run up has near zero mobs to deal with...

I never see red-alert in coal, and only occasionally green and yellow alert.

I'm not saying Coal doesn't need to be looked at... I'm saying it's not too hard to avoid DA in there if you really hate it... Just bumping up the DA threshold in there another 10 mobs would probably solve most of the problems.

[Zaodon]

0. Memorize Coal Chamber by running it a lot so you know the next 3 steps are necessary to avoid the horrid implementation known as Dungeon Alert.
1. Kill all trogs on the way up
2. When you jump down after getting the key, kill all trogs on the way down...
3. Then the second run up has near zero mobs to deal with...


Fixed that for you.

Obviously, people running for the first time are not capable of avoiding DA since it *requires* foreknowledge of the quest, just to avoid DA.

[weddingly]

which quest is Coal Chamber ? :/
i cant find it on ddo wiki...

edit: np figured out its coalescence chamber

[Thrudh]

Fixed that for you.

Obviously, people running for the first time are not capable of avoiding DA since it *requires* foreknowledge of the quest, just to avoid DA.

Good point.

[Wizzly_Bear]

Thrudh - how many times are you going to state, restate, and rerestate that killing spawns eliminates DA? I don't think anyone here is confused about what causes DA, but rather confused why this hasn't been fixed after all these years.

Oh, Captain Obvious wants his hat back btw.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Kill all trogs on the way up

When you jump down after getting the key, kill all trogs on the way down...

Then the second run up has near zero mobs to deal with...

I never see red-alert in coal, and only occasionally green and yellow alert.

I'm not saying Coal doesn't need to be looked at... I'm saying it's not too hard to avoid DA in there if you really hate it... Just bumping up the DA threshold in there another 10 mobs would probably solve most of the problems.

The Jump down after getting the first key has an area between the two climbable sections of the shaft, that have a large number of perched Trogs that are quite difficult to kill all of on the way down.

Plus new players don't even know to expect them. Old players know they will be past them and out of their range soon.....
It doesn't make sense to bother trying to kill them.....even to me. :D
Except to limit DA.

I've attempted to kill them al before, but it seems I always miss some. Or feel like the whole party is upset that I am taking so long messing with them....etc.
(actually I quite often jump down the shaft in sneak mode.... :cool:)

Personally though, I almost agree with you. I have seldom seen any problem with DA in CC, "if" the party makes a little effort to kill as they go.
(and they get conquest! Without resorting to farming a spawn point!)

[Emili]

Did you not read what I said? DA was not an attempt to cripple the zerger/soloist. DA was implemented to encourage people to kill monsters instead of running past them...

If you're dropping a blade barrier as you run past, then DA is working, because before people just ran past.
It was introduced to fix the lag... So now there is no more lag in DDO. ;)

Seriously, DA actually favours certain classes, caster beit arcane or divine because they can reduce trash mob in bundles without any penalties outside of movement speed, and high 'to-hit' BaB builds who exceed the buffs the mob gain.

Was maybe a year ago I remember Sowen post on the topic - he was soloing coal on his exploter ranger when he accidentally dropped down and while running back up triggered alert to orange as he was killing mob the dungeon went to red alert and to his surprise. His 56 str ranger could no longer hit the mob reasonably ... the bats ac increased to 53 and the trogs 58. :) An arcane or FvS does not have these issues as they may use spells to clear it up - mob saves do not change from normal. A pure Kensie fighter is even far better than an AC build when DA occurs as mine is normally running at 70+ to hit with PA on, likewise barbs do not have an issue either - but all in all key to it is fast killing of mob.

Usually in groups certain classes do not care... i.e. as I stated arcane, a PM is likely not to care and zurge a quest gathering mob up to wail they generally could care less if your melee is three miles back harried and dealing with DA... if you die they may come back and toss you a res or pick up your stone. If that upsets you then too bad it's a pug get over it. ;)

I know that is a harsh view but such happens repeatedly ... seen it so many times. Leads to not only bad experience bias towards DA but also creates squable among the players. The one thing I see here is that DA is not fairly distributed to gain the desired result... is fine to buff the mob - buff them evenly though across all stats to make it meaningful.


Kill all trogs on the way up

When you jump down after getting the key, kill all trogs on the way down...

Then the second run up has near zero mobs to deal with...

I never see red-alert in coal, and only occasionally green and yellow alert.

I'm not saying Coal doesn't need to be looked at... I'm saying it's not too hard to avoid DA in there if you really hate it... Just bumping up the DA threshold in there another 10 mobs would probably solve most of the problems.

Usually what I do here is I try to be the first to drop down ... agro it all on me, I do so wo FF and toss it on right before the door on the bottom. Once in a while am slow and miss the click - does not matter though as most my characters could fall off anything in the game and take but 20 points of falling damages. When the rest of the party gathers up I just let time subside the DA.

[The_Phenx]

TITAN AWAKES RAID!!!! For gods sake.

The second someone goes into purple side all the mobs aggro on the top of the maze along with the ones on the bottom, and the other half of the party goes over to the green side, and boom red alert.

You force the party to split to 4 groups then smash us in the face for it.

Secondary Issue here.

While I agree that the thrall gunners should do more damage on elite than on normal, their damage scales the same as traps, with no possible way to disarm them, you have to run through as fast as you can, and take a pounding and "maybe" survive, then kill them, when your cleric has more than likely not survived more than 10 feet. Making an at level elite run almost impossible.

And while your at it.

1.Make the teleport mask (royal guard mask) open up a guild airship portal. You know how many people would run it/buy the pack for this alone?

2. Make the warded chest actually have a reasonable chance to drop loot. It is long known as the worst raid for loot in the whole game, and people are considered lucky to get an item they want within 60 runs. My acrobat 83 runs without ever even seeing a chattering ring drop. My fighter 60 runs for the gloves.

3. Fix the acrobat immunity to knockdown to include the Titans Hammer smash. The fact that it can still knock you over with Acrobat II is definitely a bug.

[DoctorWhofan]

I call shenanigans! Pretty sure there is a forum guideline somewhere stating that players newly returned to the forums after a hiatus may not post in a thread unless they address the OP directly, including their opinion on the matter in addition to screenshots, personal examples, funny interweb pictures or off-topic distractions.

/nodsagely :cool:

fail. :D

Fine. It never really bothered me. But I am (for the most part) get every chest, kill, breakable, explorer, XP type of girl. Not slow, just thorough.

This topic is like taxes, politics, religion, ice cream flavours, Spam, battleclerics, etc.: no matter what you say; you will be wrong.

For the record, BR's World class chocolate, chocolate chip cookie dough, and rocky road. so there!

[Thrudh]

The Jump down after getting the first key has an area between the two climbable sections of the shaft, that have a large number of perched Trogs that are quite difficult to kill all of on the way down.

Plus new players don't even know to expect them. Old players know they will be past them and out of their range soon.....
It doesn't make sense to bother trying to kill them.....even to me. :D
Except to limit DA.

I've attempted to kill them al before, but it seems I always miss some. Or feel like the whole party is upset that I am taking so long messing with them....etc.
(actually I quite often jump down the shaft in sneak mode.... :cool:)

Personally though, I almost agree with you. I have seldom seen any problem with DA in CC, "if" the party makes a little effort to kill as they go.
(and they get conquest! Without resorting to farming a spawn point!)

Oh, I don't try to kill them as I'm falling past... I land on thier ledges and take them out... I even let everyone else fall to the bottom so there's no wasted time... They can continue on with the quest while I'm killing all those respawns at the top of the shaft (they only respawn once).

Then I catch up to the group, and the second run back up the shafts is SUPER easy with almost no fights... and hardly ever any DA (maybe an occasional jump to green when bats and scorps spawn at the same time).

[Emili]

TITAN AWAKES RAID!!!! For gods sake.

The second someone goes into purple side all the mobs aggro on the top of the maze along with the ones on the bottom, and the other half of the party goes over to the green side, and boom red alert.

You force the party to split to 4 groups then smash us in the face for it.

Secondary Issue here.

While I agree that the thrall gunners should do more damage on elite than on normal, their damage scales the same as traps, with no possible way to disarm them, you have to run through as fast as you can, and take a pounding and "maybe" survive, then kill them, when your cleric has more than likely not survived more than 10 feet. Making an at level elite run almost impossible.

And while your at it.

1.Make the teleport mask (royal guard mask) open up a guild airship portal. You know how many people would run it/buy the pack for this alone?

2. Make the warded chest actually have a reasonable chance to drop loot. It is long known as the worst raid for loot in the whole game, and people are considered lucky to get an item they want within 60 runs. My acrobat 83 runs without ever even seeing a chattering ring drop. My fighter 60 runs for the gloves.

3. Fix the acrobat immunity to knockdown to include the Titans Hammer smash. The fact that it can still knock you over with Acrobat II is definitely a bug.
Yes Titan does that too...

Oh and I was zurging "inferno of the ****'d" the other day with two friends... Da never below green and peaking at red every so often. I thought was due the shear numbers of mob we avoided killing on the live side at first (you know to prevent them appearing on the inferno side) but after a while I realized it was the mephits... the little critters were very busy multipling on the inferno side around the third portal. They come swarming out from that area close to the end.

[Thrudh]

Usually what I do here is I try to be the first to drop down ... agro it all on me, I do so wo FF and toss it on right before the door on the bottom. Once in a while am slow and miss the click - does not matter though as most my characters could fall off anything in the game and take but 20 points of falling damages. When the rest of the party gathers up I just let time subside the DA.


Someone else in your group should be killing them up at the top of the shaft... You have all the aggro (which is good!), they land next to the caster or archer who's shooting/spells downwards towards you, and it's an easy kill...

Seriously, it's 10x easier to handle a caster FFing down to his ledge from above, than trying to deal with him on the run back up where he's above you, casting spells at you, and half-hidden by the ledges.

[Calebro]

Mobs spawning behind you isnt a problem.

THe problem in C-Chamber is when you fall. All kinds of mobs aggro and cant move. Having to reclimb up the caves while in red alert isnt fin while getting pelted by archers.

Mobs spawn behind you? No poblem. Stop, Kill them. Mobs aggro 75' above you? Nothing you can do to fix that.

Keep your FF item on during the climbs.
If you fall, go into sneak mode immediately.
I never have DA problems in Coal.

[testing1234]

TR team:
-remember the first time i ran into a static TR team and saw just what was possible these guys had red alert the majority of the 3hs i was with them (two of them are since completionist so guess this is a extreme example)
still the game changes once the issue isnt can i beat this but can i beat this with over 1k exp/min once you have a team of TRs often playing like alert simply didnt exists is still the best way.

"truth is in the eye of the beholder"
-once you are used to someting and its changed then its never going to be the same situation for those as those who join after the change its all relative to the perspective. the fact is was once otherwise has a real impact even though its not there anymore or ever will be again.

its possible to do a exact replica of a famous painting or a pyramid but nobody would travel around the world to see the replica the past has a real impact on how we view the present, we are not objective lots of subjective things that influence us id like to claim that the fact you once played without DA has a permanent and irreversible impact on the how we view DA.
the game as it was before DA is "real" and still alive in many players minds and still trows shadows on DA even though its not there anymore.


necropolis quests:
-couple of the necropolis quests you "need" to split up in two teams and if you do and run into enemies same time you will jump at lest 1 alert level and sometimes more rarely 2 levels.
dont run these very often myself so dont remember the names but its in their very nature that you want to split up or gotto split up to stand on squares/circles to open up way forward.

one of the lvl4 necro quests you need split up
the lvl5 bloody "someting" vampire boss quest most "want to split up" and if you do you get alert
1 of the lvl8 necro quests i dont remember name of and i suspect 1 more you "need to split up" and 2 others are just alot faster if you split up
shadowcrypt the lvl9 main boss quest its very easy to get separated even if you try not to be and then you get alerts, most wants to split up to speed quest up.
the lvl12 necro quests also has 1 quest you need to split up in and then 2 more you want to split up in to speed things up.

all in all the necroplis quests are a real nightmare to do after DA. (not that i ran them before DA very much i barely do shadowcrypt even)
pretty easy to see that these quest were designed before DA was added

[Alavatar]

I've suggested before and I'll do it again, what about a pay to play option of turning off dungeon alert? I'd keep my subscription indefinitely if there was an ability to enable that. AND if there was a toggle it would let people who like the challenge and hate the easy button to not turn it off or even start off at mid-high alert :)

I have to admit that if a VIP subscription made a player immune to DA I would subscribe the day that came to fruition.

[FastTaco]

I don't think anyones mentioned Dreams of Insanity, I just ran this quest and I had 20+ mobs aggroed through the wall... and when I was at one of the doors that open by using the gong all 20 of those mobs were waiting on the other side. Luckily it was only normal and I was on my TR'ed wizard who quickly dispatched them all.

[PsiGuy]

Some possible solutions.

DA delay timer between alert levels. So for example if you hit DA green, it has to stay DA green for at least 30 seconds before moving up a step regardless of number of mobs active. 10 seconds for yellow, and 5 for orange.

DA monster teleport on DA upgrade. Monsters that have agro and can't get to or attack a player will teleport to the location of a monster that can, similar to calling up your hireling, checked every DA increase.

[redoubt]

Some possible solutions.

DA delay timer between alert levels. So for example if you hit DA green, it has to stay DA green for at least 30 seconds before moving up a step regardless of number of mobs active. 10 seconds for yellow, and 5 for orange..

Sure. I'd push to 30 seconds between each increase though.


DA monster teleport on DA upgrade. Monsters that have agro and can't get to or attack a player will teleport to the location of a monster that can, similar to calling up your hireling, checked every DA increase.

No way in hell... I mean no thank you.

There are many monsters that a speed/haste boosted player should be able to simply run away from. Having an entire pack of worgs teleport to me once I get to far away from them would be even more broken than what we have now.

[protokon]

what bothers me the most is how each tier is incredibly imbalanced to shift. 20 mobs roughly to get me to green alert, then 5 more mobs and its red?

i don't understand the logic behind that...

the second thing that really is disturbing is the alert scaling ratio versus groups of mob spawns. it makes zero sense that I should be punished for walking into a room that has enough mobs to create DA, or should be punished for respawning mobs in large amounts (referring to coal chamber and Bastion).

As it stands, it literally feels like developer griefing the players, to run through these quests.

[weddingly]

what bothers me the most is how each tier is incredibly imbalanced to shift. 20 mobs roughly to get me to green alert, then 5 more mobs and its red?

i don't understand the logic behind that...

the second thing that really is disturbing is the alert scaling ratio versus groups of mob spawns. it makes zero sense that I should be punished for walking into a room that has enough mobs to create DA, or should be punished for respawning mobs in large amounts (referring to coal chamber and Bastion).

As it stands, it literally feels like developer griefing the players, to run through these quests.

i haven't played coal chamber. the most memorable DA for me would be GUard Jung's kobold quest in mktplace, which scales a bit like how yu have described it.

How I feel DA works is that the dungeon is a fortress where all the monsters are connected to each other. They have like intercoms or something! So unless you are really hidey or have super invis (usually doesn't work since monstershave super high listen and spot), just a few monsters knowing you are around will qucikly alert the rest! I found it pretty exciting in the Guard Jung quest cos hordes of kobolds could come puring out (oh well maybe 10-15). The other DA one is of course kobold assault style quests.

Never having played a dungeon without DA, i find DA quite nice. But i can appreciate how it owuld be nice to quietly go thru a dungeon and slaughter the monsters in sections without having to worry about other sections coming ot get you. I just likethe widea of the dungeon as a live nest of enemies!

[binnsr]

DA monster teleport on DA upgrade. Monsters that have agro and can't get to or attack a player will teleport to the location of a monster that can, similar to calling up your hireling, checked every DA increase.

One word... No!

Simply put, I would quit. After nearly 6 years of playing this game almost every night, something like this would be the straw that finally breaks the camels back for me.

[Velexia]

Actually, the opposite needs to happen.

If a mob is trying to get you and looses sight of you AND cannot path to you for x seconds it goes inert and stops making calculations. This would reduce load on the servers and should address all the talk about how blitzing through a dungeon creates massive system load.

Basically, if they can get to me quickly or at least keep me in sight, they drop out. Yes, this allows zerging, but it also reduces the load. There are already plenty of random doors, barriers and artificial stops to make even zergers kill stuff.


This. In almost every game I've ever played where the AI isn't completely awful, when you break line of sight the AI opponent goes into a different mode. If they can't sense you for say 10-15 seconds, they give up and go back to their post. In DDO I could run around 10 corners and hide, then stealth back, and the AI opponent will be in my face as if he watched me the whole time. Remove DA, implement this.

If that happened I might actually believe that Turbine gives a **** about the players and their enjoyment of the game.

[ZiKiLingj]

It is ok. It annoys me. I don't need telling when the mass of screaming enemies are pounding on my head, for goodness sake! I don't really care what level alert it is. I can tell if a hoarde is after me!

I would not miss it if it was not there.

[Astraghal]

I like the idea of dungeon alert, I just hate being harried. I also really hate being crippled, it's a very powerful effect.

[weddingly]

This. In almost every game I've ever played where the AI isn't completely awful, when you break line of sight the AI opponent goes into a different mode. If they can't sense you for say 10-15 seconds, they give up and go back to their post. In DDO I could run around 10 corners and hide, then stealth back, and the AI opponent will be in my face as if he watched me the whole time. Remove DA, implement this.

If that happened I might actually believe that Turbine gives a **** about the players and their enjoyment of the game.umm.. this is something you guys do not understand? even if the monster is standing there gone passvie, it still consumes cpu cycles. if u play or code nwn mods you will understand this. every single npc and monster no matter how passive consumes cpu cycles because the cpu has to be given time every cycle to check whether the monster has any actions to take (ie player come in sight etc).

in nwn, it is absolutely essential to keep npcs and monsters down to a minimum to get maximum server response. in fact, in team pvp, it is best to have zero npcs and monster so that no cpu cycles are consumed other than for players killing each other. then you get the nicest respnse times between players.

[Velexia]

umm.. this is something you guys do not understand? even if the monster is standing there gone passvie, it still consumes cpu cycles. if u play or code nwn mods you will understand this. every single npc and monster no matter how passive consumes cpu cycles because the cpu has to be given time every cycle to check whether the monster has any actions to take (ie player come in sight etc).

in nwn, it is absolutely essential to keep npcs and monsters down to a minimum to get maximum server response. in fact, in team pvp, it is best to have zero npcs and monster so that no cpu cycles are consumed other than for players killing each other. then you get the nicest respnse times between players.

I played, scripted, modded, and moduled in the original NWN. It takes more CPU load to have a DDO npc search for you, or chase you than it does to have it just sit there. Pathing, collision detection, repathing, etc. The AI in NWN is much less complex than the AI in DDO. (Unless of course we are talking about the much more awesome custom AIs that were created by modders...)

[weddingly]

I played, scripted, modded, and moduled in the original NWN. It takes more CPU load to have a DDO npc search for you, or chase you than it does to have it just sit there. Pathing, collision detection, repathing, etc. The AI in NWN is much less complex than the AI in DDO. (Unless of course we are talking about the much more awesome custom AIs that were created by modders...)

i see i see ! so you are saying reduce the CPU load by creating a passive mode for monsters? (available in NWN but looks like not available in DDO?) they should have a passive mode which consumes less cpu cycles. maybe they didnt do it because they wanted a more alert dungeon overall - or perhaps they were designing in the expectation of a continuation of moores law (increasing cpu power).

i dunno.. i sort of feel one could just go back and use the nwn engine... but then we wud lose all of ddo's awesome melee click abilities and nice gfx... hmm...

[oldkraft]

one vote for DA
not only bother -- adds entertainment too

[Thrudh]

In almost every game I've ever played where the AI isn't completely awful, when you break line of sight the AI opponent goes into a different mode. If they can't sense you for say 10-15 seconds, they give up and go back to their post.

Then standard procedure would be to run past all mobs in nearly every quest. They might as well just make one-room quests with a boss-monster from now on.


If that happened I might actually believe that Turbine gives a **** about the players and their enjoyment of the game.

LOL...

So you believe that Turbine doesn't give a **** about the players and their enjoyment of the game? All the fun you've ever had in this game is purely a coincidence?

You sound extremely jaded.

[Thrudh]

So I went in Threnal West last night, and I will admit those glass spiders with the eggs are a little annoying...

We got to yellow alert from no alert a couple of times when the glass spiders appeared... but we were able to get it back down to green and no alert fairly easily.

But still, we shouldn't go from no alert to yellow alert just walking around a corner (granted, it was more like an intersection with 3 corridors full of stuff).

But we were killing everything as we went, we didn't move forward too fast, and still went from no alert to yellow alert...

Again, not that hard to handle, but it shouldn't happen.

[redoubt]

Then standard procedure would be to run past all mobs in nearly every quest. They might as well just make one-room quests with a boss-monster from now on.



Not really. There are already a ton of door to open or unlock and too many rooms where the ladder doesn't spawn or the force barrier doesn't disappear until everything is dead.

There are plenty of other methods. Several of them are smart.

Again, I say refer to the Tangleroot gorge series. This is one of the best in my opinion. It had real dungeon alert before it was invented. You had to get keys. In part two it actually tells you "hey, looks like they relocked the doors, you'll have to open them again." Then later they are not still locked because that would get too boring.

In part 5 you have to get a key. Later, you can run past some of the mobs, but not always. Long before DA, groups would still kill on the way through Part6a and 7a because anyone who was not first would get pummeled by the mobs. There were also a couple doors that could be hard to open while mobs are beating on you.

Anyway, I think the devs should consider more of this tangleroot style than the DA style. CO6 is decent as well. And consider that neither of these chains are on Lithics TR path should tell you that its effective at preventing running past all the mobs without being overly cheesey.

[spyderwolf]

I'm going to complain about it until it gets fixed or implemented in a rational way and there is nothing you can do about it.

Really, it was implemented to stop running to the end. It only slowed that down but didn't stop it.

didnt read past this and im not commenting on you personally, at least not exactly i dont think. but for the great players it didnt slow our zerging at all. red alerts means nothing. i intentionally get red alert at least once every dungeon im in. if you get red alert and die then you shouldnt be zerging as hard because your probably not as good as you think you are.

[pHo3nix]

didnt read past this and im not commenting on you personally, at least not exactly i dont think. but for the great players it didnt slow our zerging at all. red alerts means nothing. i intentionally get red alert at least once every dungeon im in. if you get red alert and die then you shouldnt be zerging as hard because your probably not as good as you think you are.

Actually harried slow you down anyway until you get wings :D I agree on the rest ;)

[Velexia]

Regardless of how you feel about DA, it appearing in Bastion of Power is a symptom of a different problem.

Or, put this way: if you can't help but trigger DA in a quest, there's something wrong with the quest.

I'm bugging Bastion of Power. I didn't catch the others (one in Threnal if I recall correctly). Feel free to list them here. Regardless of what ever happens with the DA system, these should get some content developer love.

Appreciate all the feedback.

Waterworks, Part 2, cell room with Arlos. Instant DA even if all other enemies in the quest are dead.

It's everywhere. The system is flawed, and insulting, and horrible. Remove it.

[Velexia]

Then standard procedure would be to run past all mobs in nearly every quest. They might as well just make one-room quests with a boss-monster from now on.



LOL...

So you believe that Turbine doesn't give a **** about the players and their enjoyment of the game? All the fun you've ever had in this game is purely a coincidence?

You sound extremely jaded.

I've been playing the game since it was released. I am jaded, by terrible customer service, lackluster quality assurance, lack of foresight by the development team, what I can only imagine is a nightmare of tangled scripting, a complete deviation from the original game into something more everquest/world of warcraft like... I remember when this game was fun. I was in love with it. Now the only thing that keeps me playing is the time and money I've invested in my characters. It's pretty sad really. I'm addicted to the game because I love my characters. I hate what has become of the world around them, though.

The same thing kept me playing World of Warcraft long after I grew sick of its own failures as a game. I can't even consider the script-work-arounds they have attached to their "mobs" as AI, because it's just garbage.

I used to praise DDO with every breath... now, it's shallow, empty praise. I've tried to get my friends to play the game, but they tell me it's just a boring game full of grinding. I remember when DDO was the game that was considered grind free.

I wish someone would just delete my characters for me in the night, so I can move on and do better things with my time and money.

[oldkraft]

[QUOTE=weddingly;3837053]i haven't played coal chamber ... But i can appreciate how it owuld be nice to quietly go thru a dungeon and slaughter the monsters in sections without having to worry about other sections coming ot get you. QUOTE]
But thats not the purpose of opposing the DA-system.
The motivation is that you want to be able to speedyrun to the end chest, loot and fo, with no further discussions with DM, coz you dont wanna spend your life in a stupid game now just hand me the loot Turbine so I can mark DDO done on my list of achievements didnt I pay you even... ;DDDD

[Zion_Halcyon]

Dungeon Alert is not an issue for people who just play quests. It simply is just the bane of the zerger's existance.

But what was it put in to do?

Slow down Zerging.

So if the zergers are mad because Dungeon Alert is doing its job, then I would say Dungeon Alert is doing its job effectively. I'm sure the devs feel the same way, even though they'd never admit it. :p

[Zion_Halcyon]

I've been playing the game since it was released. I am jaded, by terrible customer service, lackluster quality assurance, lack of foresight by the development team, what I can only imagine is a nightmare of tangled scripting, a complete deviation from the original game into something more everquest/world of warcraft like... I remember when this game was fun. I was in love with it. Now the only thing that keeps me playing is the time and money I've invested in my characters. It's pretty sad really. I'm addicted to the game because I love my characters. I hate what has become of the world around them, though.

The same thing kept me playing World of Warcraft long after I grew sick of its own failures as a game. I can't even consider the script-work-arounds they have attached to their "mobs" as AI, because it's just garbage.

I used to praise DDO with every breath... now, it's shallow, empty praise. I've tried to get my friends to play the game, but they tell me it's just a boring game full of grinding. I remember when DDO was the game that was considered grind free.

I wish someone would just delete my characters for me in the night, so I can move on and do better things with my time and money.

Honestly, with that outlook, you will never enjoy any MMO for long. It just seems like it isn't your real cup of tea. Every MMO has that shiny feel to it when you first play it, and then the longer you are with something (true in life too, tbh), the more warts appear. And MMOs are NEVER a finished product, EVER. Not a SINGLE ONE. Every single MMO is an ongoing development because of the size, nature, and playerbases of each of these, and the near infinite randomness of human behavior they need to accomodate.

If you can't get past that, and just keep getting mad over playing a "glorified beta", then I don't think MMOs in general are for you, not just this one. Sure, you'll tell me I'm wrong, and then cite some game you either haven't played or haven't played long enough to see the warts on THAT MMO, but play it long enough, and you'll be complaining about that MMO as much as you complain about this one.

See, I've seen it all before in the MMOs I have played before. And there are just some people who aren't built to play MMOs, because they refuse to accept the inherent imperfect nature of MMOs.

Even if your characters are too precious to you for you to leave, you might best be served by taking a break, and seeing what else is out there. Breaks are good when you feel an MMO is a grind, because when you come back after a period of time, you can kind of recapture some of the freshness that made it fun in the first place.

[Saravis]

The current function of DA is horrible, getting harried can ruin the fun of a quest and as people have said there are quests where you don't zerg at all and you can reach red quite easily. With that said, change the function of DA. Rather than inhibit the player's ability to do anything, make the enemy stronger. You can give them things like striding, attack bonus, damage bonus, resistances, etc that boosts with increased DA.
That way, the player isn't inhibited, but the situation becomes considerably more challenging.

[zwiebelring]

@Zion
Your conclusion is right, it is effective but it does not prevent zerging at all so players who just want to speed up a bit are punished notorious zergers and pro gamers keep on doing the samne thing and just don't care.

You can TR and have to repeat stuff some time so why is it a problem or a *NO GO* to be able to speed up? I'll spend enough time with this game, why is it a problem to just ignore some monsters? I don't see any plausible argument pro dungeon alert the way it affects people currently.

And then, why give option on insidious cunning when you are forced to kill everything and otherwise just get a replacement for conquest??? There is no reason. If you are specialized on something, then you should be able to benefit from it, that is what DnD suggests to all players. Specialized on speed, so win for you, you just get base exp.

- edit -
Without zerging tangleroot part 6 once I didn't even know that bonus existed.... so, something is wrong with dungeon alert. To me it is nothing more than a developper's easy button to control the illusionary zerg-problem in this game.

[Backley]

I didn't catch the others (one in Threnal if I recall correctly). Feel free to list them here. Regardless of what ever happens with the DA system, these should get some content developer love.

Appreciate all the feedback.

"The Twilight Forge" (part 1 of the 2-part Titan raid in Restless Isles). The 6 in the party going to the Purple side WILL hit Red Alert no matter what.

[Thrudh]

Waterworks, Part 2, cell room with Arlos. Instant DA even if all other enemies in the quest are dead.

Never seen that. And I ran WW 3 times a week or two ago


It's everywhere. The system is flawed, and insulting, and horrible. Remove it.

No it's not... You exaggerating so much no one is going to listen to you.

[Thrudh]

I've been playing the game since it was released. I am jaded, by terrible customer service, lackluster quality assurance, lack of foresight by the development team, what I can only imagine is a nightmare of tangled scripting, a complete deviation from the original game into something more everquest/world of warcraft like... I remember when this game was fun. I was in love with it. Now the only thing that keeps me playing is the time and money I've invested in my characters. It's pretty sad really. I'm addicted to the game because I love my characters. I hate what has become of the world around them, though.

The same thing kept me playing World of Warcraft long after I grew sick of its own failures as a game. I can't even consider the script-work-arounds they have attached to their "mobs" as AI, because it's just garbage.

I used to praise DDO with every breath... now, it's shallow, empty praise. I've tried to get my friends to play the game, but they tell me it's just a boring game full of grinding. I remember when DDO was the game that was considered grind free.

I wish someone would just delete my characters for me in the night, so I can move on and do better things with my time and money.

Yes, it is pretty sad... You might need professional help. Seriously... Just quit if you hate the game so much...

You'll feel a lot better in about 3 weeks. I quit a MMO I had played for 5 years once before... I had invested a ton in my guy... But once a game isn't fun anymore you have to quit...

[Thrudh]

Dungeon Alert is not an issue for people who just play quests. It simply is just the bane of the zerger's existance.

But what was it put in to do?

Slow down Zerging.

So if the zergers are mad because Dungeon Alert is doing its job, then I would say Dungeon Alert is doing its job effectively. I'm sure the devs feel the same way, even though they'd never admit it. :p

Agreed...

[Cyr]

Dungeon Alert is not an issue for people who just play quests. That would be pretty much everyone who plays DDO... It simply is just the bane of the zerger's existance. Nope, I kill as I go in most quests I run. Yet DA is an annoyance in many quests that I run. Before and after DA my play style was pretty much the same.

But what was it put in to do? Reduce the number of active AI's in an instance at one time.

Slow down Zerging. Nope, actually the devs could care less if people zerged just as fast as before as long as they threw out a fireball or wall every once in a while to keep the active AI's down to a more managible number.

So if the zergers are mad because Dungeon Alert is doing its job, then I would say Dungeon Alert is doing its job effectively. Nope, people's annoyance with a game mechanic should never be hailed as a sign of success. I'm sure the devs feel the same way, even though they'd never admit it. :p Jeez, even I don't think that the devs would be delighted by ****ing off their players.

In Red.

[Kalari]

Its funny how people who claim this was to stop zergers or make people kill fail to realize that most of the time it dont stop those who still wish to zerg things. And it hurts those of us who do stop and kill things to.

Titan oh god theres a reason I only run that raid every once in awhile to and I am always on purple team due to it going red and knowing I will be the one to heal everyone threw the harried of the phasing spiders crazed ogres and their stupid magi who fade in and out. They see us from the top of the maze like structure and threw that barrier that we have to get down and its always a red alert in there.

But I guess thats just due to zerging to? Believe me if it stopped the problem it was supposed to and fixed lag (which is still prevalent) then most of us would just be cry babies who just want the game our way. But honestly there are quests that DA has made very un enjoyable due to the mob mechanics I still believe quests with burrowers, phase creatures and the like really need to be looked at they seem to all have that common issue.

[sweez]

Dungeon Alert is not an issue for people who just play quests. It simply is just the bane of the zerger's existance.

But what was it put in to do?

Slow down Zerging.

So if the zergers are mad because Dungeon Alert is doing its job, then I would say Dungeon Alert is doing its job effectively. I'm sure the devs feel the same way, even though they'd never admit it. :p

a) DA does not slow down zergers, at least not competent ones

b) if you think that DA is not an issue for people who just "play" quests, I'm just gonna assume you've never "played" Bastion of Power, Coal Chamber, or any quest that has spiders that lay eggs in it; either my assumption is correct and you should do more research (by research I mean actually playing the game) before trying to contribute to a discussion, or it's incorrect and you're trolling, in which case 1:0 for you ;)

[Thrudh]

a) DA does not slow down zergers, at least not competent ones

You are correct, DA was NOT implemented to stop zerging... It was implemented to encourage zergers to stop and kill a mass of mobs once in a while. And there it succeeded.


b) if you think that DA is not an issue for people who just "play" quests, I'm just gonna assume you've never "played" Bastion of Power, Coal Chamber, or any quest that has spiders that lay eggs in it; either my assumption is correct and you should do more research (by research I mean actually playing the game) before trying to contribute to a discussion, or it's incorrect and you're trolling, in which case 1:0 for you ;)

98% of the quests in this game have no issues with DA... There are like 5-10 quests where DA is semi-broken (and a couple where it's totally broken, like Bastion and Titan).

I would very much like for the devs to make a quick pass over...

Threnal West
Bastion
Titan Forge
New Invasion
Coal Chamber

[Zaodon]

DA was NOT implemented to stop zerging... It was implemented to encourage zergers to stop and kill a mass of mobs once in a while.

Correct, but not fully explained.

DA was implemented to remove lag. The WAY which it removes lag is "to encourage zergers to stop and kill a mass of mobs once in a while."

DA, itself, does not remove lag. In fact, DA (all by itself), increases lag, since the servers have to do more AI processing to determine what DA level to set, and then has to modify monster stats accordingly, plus it has to run an extra routine in melee combat for "harrying", and then has to actually run code to reduce your movement speed when harried, with a "buff timer" for the harrying effect, and process it along with everything else.

Or, they could have just added some doors to some quests which don't unlock until the monsters in that area are killed.

Case in point: Cult of the Six (parts 1+2). They specifically added doors to EVERY SINGLE CORRIDOR in that quest to stop "the run" in part 2.

If they could do that to Co6, then they could have done it everywhere. Instead they chose to create one of the stupidest, arbitrary, game-style-limiting implementations in MMORPG history.

[Cyr]

Or, they could have just added some doors to some quests which don't unlock until the monsters in that area are killed.

Case in point: Cult of the Six (parts 1+2). They specifically added doors to EVERY SINGLE CORRIDOR in that quest to stop "the run" in part 2.

If they could do that to Co6, then they could have done it everywhere. Instead they chose to create one of the stupidest, arbitrary, game-style-limiting implementations in MMORPG history.

Yup, this is particularly sad because as I explained in an earlier post in thread there are a certain conflux of things that really had to occur for a quest to become an issue in regards to active mob AI's. It was far from every quest that had these issues combining so really it was a limited number of quests.

Heck, the quests that are the worst broken quests due to DA back when DA was put in must have been a dramatic source of mob AI server resource expenditure and that is due entirely to how the quests are set up and how mobs are triggered to go active and was never really addressed with DA (despite pleas from day 1 of it going active to how broken it was in those quests then at or near end game).

I mean sure tangleroot part 6 might have been zerged out by players a half dozen times per life taking a total of 20 minutes, but players were constantly running those end game quests. They spent more time in those quests then tangleroot part 6 which is probably one of the worst offenders for full on zerging and active mob AI on a case by case basis. Tempest spine probably was an issue when the cap was 10-12 too, but when DA was put in it was a drop in the bucket for total time people spent in there. Threnals same deal. Prey and Monastary were run tons then though so those counted big time.

So let's list the actual quests when DA was put in that had lots of player time spent inside of them on a server basis that also had lots of average active AI's...

New Invasion -> still lots of active AI with DA
Monastary of the Scorpion -> doors helped with active AI alot
Prey of the Hunter -> still zerged full on
VoD -> no one alters their behavior in here due to DA
Subterran Explorer Zone -> again what would you alter in the sub...same killing going
Coal Chamber -> this improved with DA. Lot's less full on zerg runs of this, but still has active AI issues due to vermin spawns
Bastion -> omg more active would be tough to try and get in here then what you get naturally
Sins -> Ever run this with a FvS...

Now with epics we also have the following potential AI trouble spots...
Von 1 -> very tempting to zerg out this one and almost everyone does and it's the most commonly run quest of the pack (not raid though)
OOB -> probably not alot of modified behavior from DA, perhaps some though...very tough not to get DA hits in here and clearly lots of active AI in here
Big Top -> Zerg full on old buddy. If anyone bumps peps while invis you get alot more active AI. Run enough to be a potential flare up.
Deeps -> DA or no constant spawns in two rooms in there have lots of AI. Very popular quest.
Claw -> Vermin...if not sneaked or sneaked badly huge AI.
BoB -> fairly popular for a sentinals quest. A suprising amount of active AI in this one.
Chrono -> Huge active AI potential in many places with lots of running of this one

I think that you can see that DA does not help most of these cases. However, in many of the cases a design modifications could have helped things alot.

On the flip side you can look at a ton of lower level quests and realize that while they are still zerged average time spent inside there by any one player is rather low and often average AI active is not even enough to have DA go yellow by the end of the quest due largely to them being short fast quests and/or bad xp/time ratios no matter how they are run.

[KillEveryone]

didnt read past this and im not commenting on you personally, at least not exactly i dont think. but for the great players it didnt slow our zerging at all. red alerts means nothing. i intentionally get red alert at least once every dungeon im in. if you get red alert and die then you shouldnt be zerging as hard because your probably not as good as you think you are.

For me, it really isn't about zerging.

It is about the quests that it doesn't work right.

I also feel that as a mechanic, it doesn't really fit right. When parties split in an explorer area, if you spawn a red named such as spiders and the cleric that conjures mephits in vale, you can hit red DA even though you have a huge amount of area in between.

Quests like Bastion it is borked. At least Madfloyd is looking into that. Ran it last week and we were killing everything but the whole first floor we had DA, getting to red DA fairly quickly. In some cases, you can't get to the mobs and they are still active and causing DA.

Quests that it doesn't work correctly really need to have tweeking but I'd rather see a better implementation of DA if we are going to have to deal with it. Explorer areas shouldn't have increased levels when the party splits up and are on other sides of the explorer. Walls in quests need to be fixed so that unless it is actually a gate or a floor is actually a grate, the mobs should not be able to see you. Hastily erected barriers, locked doors, or even force fields should go up.

DA also favors casters quite a lot. It doesn't really buff the critters saves or resists enough to actually effect spells but it does boost critter AC enough to make it much harder for a melee to kill. Casters can still round up several dozen, drop some kind of AOE and kill them all without breaking a sweat but a melee is going to have lots of trouble dealing with just one on a red DA(I'm not complaining about casters and I find it rather satisfying to round up a whole dungeon and drop my AOE. :D )

I just feel that in the current implementation that it is broken. I think they should give the barrier system a try and get rid of the harried effect(someone did read the tool tip as mentioned in the thread that barriers are supposed to be put up.) If they are going to buff AC, have the buffs noticeable like barkskin but not whatever it is just adding on. I have no problems with buffs in the form of spells that we use but I don't like some made up buff just to cover DA. I also think that it needs better balance between what it does to casters vs. melee.

[Asketes]

Regardless of how you feel about DA, it appearing in Bastion of Power is a symptom of a different problem.

Or, put this way: if you can't help but trigger DA in a quest, there's something wrong with the quest.

I'm bugging Bastion of Power. I didn't catch the others (one in Threnal if I recall correctly). Feel free to list them here. Regardless of what ever happens with the DA system, these should get some content developer love.

Appreciate all the feedback.


crucible is another one that can EASILY get red alert while running the maze since once elementalists up top see you, all those mephits they spawn cause red alert within seconds. makes ya run the quest on red alert for a bit till you get around to the top of the maze.