Critical Mass

[Qaliya]

I think the challenge system is failing. Not "failed" as that would imply a finality that it's too soon to assess, but they are definitely in trouble. In terms of gameplay, these challenges are similar to Crystal Cove -- some might even say too similar. But they aren't getting off the ground because of a combination of factors.

Crystal Cove worked in large part because there were so many people who wanted to participate. This is not happening with the challenges, for the following primary reasons:

1. CC was free; this is not.
2. CC standard items were considered by most players to be more attractive to a wider variety of characters than the challenge items. Some are really "no brainers" for their slots.
3. CC let you customize items to your tastes (the hats).
4. CC was limited time so there was more impetus for players to stop regular questing to do the event.
5. CC was a lot easier, even at high difficulty settings.
6. CC offered far superior XP.

If Turbine wants these challenges to be a success, the company needs to address some or all of these problems. If it does not, then the challenges will never achieve the critical mass necessary for them to really work. Even now, people like myself who are on the fence about them usually cannot find groups. I think that without revamping, the challenges will soon be reduced to small groups of die-hards combined with people who grind out the parts they need for a few items by soloing.

Some ideas I'd consider if I were in charge:
A. Drop the price of the pack. This is pretty obvious.
B. Offer the pack for free for a limited time, perhaps around the holidays. Or perhaps make it free a certain day of the week. Something like this, to get more people interested. The tokens are not sufficient.
C. Increase the XP offered, so people leveling have some reason to do these if they don't want the items (which are especially bad at low levels).
D. Change the ingredients from BtC to BtA as many have requested.
E. Make some of the ingredients tradeable. Perhaps for each of the items, one of the ingredient types would not be tradeable while the other two were. This would give a break to players who don't like the challenges, while giving more incentive to players to participate.
F. Offer customizable items like the CC hats.

[le_goat]

I think turbine tried to do too much in this pack.

they either need to take the cannith favor out of the pack or take out the items, reducing the cost.

seems they got confused when putting this pack together,losing sight of what it could/should be ie:

fun
solo-able
and a challenge

most of the challenges get 2 out of the 3, but you need all 3 to create success.

[Jubylina]

I'm sorry - but have you actually tried to run the quests? At level a 3 star netted me 12k xp for 20 minutes.
I'd say that's pretty good xp.

Why should the quests be solo-able? The biggest challenge is to get people to work together towards a common goal. I like that these quests have an emphasis on that - it should make players realize that a competent team can achieve more than any single player should. This will build team play so that new and older players alike can train themselves to communicate and sacrifice the ego of "self" for the greater good - leading to better team players and competent team building for higher level raids. We've enjoyed figuring these challenges out with friends and guildies at a casual pace without the grind factor put in and it's great! Loving the Mansion pictures one especially!

My 2 cents.

*let negative posts begin lol*

[Qaliya]

I'm sorry - but have you actually tried to run the quests? At level a 3 star netted me 12k xp for 20 minutes.
I'd say that's pretty good xp.

I've run into a lot of people who say this. What they don't realize is that this is one-time XP only. When you reach a new star threshold you do get a decent chunk of XP. After that, you drop down to the miserably low standard rates. This was not the case with CC.



Why should the quests be solo-able? The biggest challenge is to get people to work together towards a common goal.

Being soloable was one of the stated goals of the developers. Part of the idea was to make the challenges something that individuals could do when they only had a short amount of time to log in.

As for getting people to work together, that would be fine if it were actually possible! I could have soloed CC but never did, because it was better in a group. But being able to find groups for these challenges is very hard, which is part of the point of my post.

This isn't just a case of me complaining because I don't like the content. I do like it, which is why I think it needs to be improved or it will never reach its potential.

[brian14]

Being soloable was one of the stated goals of the developers. Part of the idea was to make the challenges something that individuals could do when they only had a short amount of time to log in.

Yes, Fernando had said just that. With possible exception of Kobold Island, challenges are anything but.


As for getting people to work together, that would be fine if it were actually possible! I could have soloed CC but never did, because it was better in a group. But being able to find groups for these challenges is very hard, which is part of the point of my post.
I second that. One time I ran Colossal Crystals, it took longer to set up a party than to actually run (and fail) the challenge.

[Qaliya]

And this is less than a week after it has come out. What will it be like in a month or two? Or a year?

Abandoned, that's what.

[DeafeningWhisper]

The problem with the challenges is not how they function, or how much exp they give, it's the rewards to quests binding.

There are not really 12 challenges, just 4 with 3 variation, keeping this in mind it would make more sense to have only 4 types of ing rewards, one per main quest type.

That way players would be able to choose the quests they like the most to make their items (while still having to do multiples runs of 3 main types), I don't think it's too much to ask since they are not free to play. As a bonus parties would actually fill (it's mostly half parties with hirelings now), since they could join any CC clone to get one of the ings they need, instead of that one quest no one likes.

As they stand now I would have to run challenges I hate to get the items I want, when a fun variation is sitting not two feet away...

P.S. CC was a great even with a number of parties going during it's duration because you can get all you want from 1 quest, the challenges are failing because not everyone wants to make the same items and with too many ings you end up with half parties that will likely never fill. The BTC ings also means few healers actually run this too.

[Arnhelm]

Hey, the system works in LotRO...

:|

[Jubylina]

The BTC ings also means few healers actually run this too.

I actually run my healer through the challenges - all the ingredients bind to character - but not the crafted item. She is my most durable and self sufficient toon and can farm all my mats - craft the items - and pass them on to the toon i want.

It would be nice to be able to transfer the ingredients as a VIP or someone who bought the pack - but i can see why they are BTC - the fact remains that you can run the content as ftp. Turbine is a business - and they run it like one.

[voodoogroves]

The BTC ings also means few healers actually run this too.

I'm running them solo on my FVS, or trying to. Got a few down.

For me, it's ...

(1) the bind-nature of the ingredients (I'm pretty much locked in to using just 2 characters for the moment because ingredients will be a pain).

(2) grouping is a pain ...
- for one, since it's really just a pain in the rear to run these for little or no real gain on toons who won't run them enough to make an item, I can't run the breadth of my alts and find groups at the times I'd like.
- because of the bind nature above, I will be running most of these on a multi-TR FVS I have so I can get the meager XP while I farm for the sub-20 ingredients. I strongly suspect most folks will be doing similar, or running 20s in the 15-20 range to get the raw materials.
- because of the daily rotation, there's no way to know if F2P folks will be able to run what I need or want on a given day. Plus, they won't be able to really commit to a group to farm it. With the very slow nature of the ingredient accrual (combined w/ the BTC nature) this means premium and f2p folks are only going to run it if they feel like showing some pity.
- since you don't know if grouping will be reliable and since the ingredients are BTC, many folks are trying to figure out how to just solo-run these on their (few) real farming toons


Maybe we'll see more folks on in a few weeks. With sooo many quests and all ingredients BTC (and items BTA) I see myself hitting these as much as I can tolerate on as few toons as possible. I suspect 20s will be able to group somewhat, others not as much. There's really no value in spreading around ingredients - unless you'll run enough to get 600 of multiples, you may as well skip running on that toon at all.

[Qaliya]

Let me add one more suggestion: make consumables you can buy with leftover tokens, like you could in CC. This is one more way that running CC even for small amounts of time was worthwhile, whereas for these challenges, it's a waste of time.

[DeafeningWhisper]

I actually run my healer through the challenges - all the ingredients bind to character - but not the crafted item. She is my most durable and self sufficient toon and can farm all my mats - craft the items - and pass them on to the toon i want.

It would be nice to be able to transfer the ingredients as a VIP or someone who bought the pack - but i can see why they are BTC - the fact remains that you can run the content as ftp. Turbine is a business - and they run it like one.

Sorry, I should have pushed my thoughts further. What I meant is that people are usually willing to change for an alt to fill specific roles in parties, but since ings are BTC a lot have a single ing Mule that does the work.

I would love to get on my Cleric and help the group (w8 on healer is an endurence sport in DDO) but it's my PM that has the 200+ ings and tokens and since I can't combine them I won't ever switch.

[Darkrok]

First of all, I've barely touched the challenges and doubt I will for quite awhile.

It's not the content itself...it's the shear volume of stuff available versus the limited time I have to play it. I have a plan for my toons and the challenges (as well as quite a bit of other content released over the last year or so) don't fit into that plan.

That said, I think the only thing lacking, as mentioned by several people, is making the items BTA. If the rewards are BTA it's kind of silly to have the items to buy them BTC.

[Qaliya]

Darkrok, that can't be the only thing lacking.

Ironically, the reason BtC ingredients are such a problem is all the other issues, which prevent there being many people doing groups. If there were a lot of people playing, the impact of BtC would be much less, because it would be easy to get stuff on multiple characters.

I agree with that change (I listed it in my OP) but this content needs a lot more work for it to be a success. Hardly anyone is doing these challenges and it's not solely because of BtC ingredients.

[Mrmorphling]

I'm sorry - but have you actually tried to run the quests? At level a 3 star netted me 12k xp for 20 minutes.
I'd say that's pretty good xp.


Well a decently succesfull run (3 out of 5 stars) at level netted less than half of what you'd expect by a good quest xp/min wise.

I know that challenges might have other appeals but xp reward doesn't seem one of the selling points; even without mentioning uber quests like maraud the mines, shadow crypt and friends any deecntly built duo or good solo character can average better than 1k/min at every level.

I have ran them once, didn't liked them (but tbh i never liked CC too, out of flavor for what I consider DDO, repeat strong personal experience nothing bad with it :D); i'll try to net max favor on one toon and forget about them prolly (and it won't be easy as noone is doing them and soloing 5 stars epic or just 5 stars hoard is tough).

[LucidLTS]

Some ideas I'd consider if I were in charge:
A. Drop the price of the pack. This is pretty obvious.
B. Offer the pack for free for a limited time, perhaps around the holidays. Or perhaps make it free a certain day of the week. Something like this, to get more people interested. The tokens are not sufficient.
C. Increase the XP offered, so people leveling have some reason to do these if they don't want the items (which are especially bad at low levels).
D. Change the ingredients from BtC to BtA as many have requested.
E. Make some of the ingredients tradeable. Perhaps for each of the items, one of the ingredient types would not be tradeable while the other two were. This would give a break to players who don't like the challenges, while giving more incentive to players to participate.
F. Offer customizable items like the CC hats.

/signed and +1 for a well thought out analysis

For me the attributes "solo friendly" and "BtA" are the big ones here (oh, and of course "fun").

I loved Crystal Cove and played it waaay more than I should have, and I'd be playing this too except I don't have the inventory space and I heard how miserable it was to solo. So I have grabbed a few tokens, have not used any, and have zero interest in buying the pack as it stands.

Don't misunderstand, I love to group, but my play time is often subject to high risk of AFK or even DC and I don't group at those times. Being able to solo when I can't reliably group is a prerequisite. I'm not going to make an investment of time in a system that's hard to get a group and hard to solo. Even if it was easy to get a group I want the safety net of knowing I could finish on my own if I don't want to wait.

I'd like to add that the token mechanic is OK with me, but the tokens should go in one of the bags and I'd like to have the token vendor tell the quest and ask confirmation before dispensing tokens so I don't blow my 5 on a quest out of my level range. I've got plenty of characters, but by the time I know which quest is being offered it's too late :)

[Miow]

Like i said before, just another grind...i don't have time for more grinds.

[MrkGrismer]

CC at least gave you some ingredients on a fail. I didn't even both checking how many tokens last night because I decided to quest for XP instead of using up my limited time trying to figure out a new (to me) challenge. I probably should have got the tokens anyway but I just got caught up in other stuff.

[Qaliya]

I was just in a group with six players doing Short Cuts. It was hard as hell, we literally won with one second on the clock (401 shards extracted) and got a whopping 40 parts as a reward.

And then three of the group dropped to go do something else.

I see LFMs with comments like "doing this until I get 1000 pieces".

People simply don't like this content. They're doing it as a "grind" as Miow said, or not at all.

As a level 16, I have the choice of doing these or doing Vale quests. The latter offer more XP and more random treasure. The components from the Vale quests are of guaranteed value to me for Green Steel, or I can sell them for good coin. In contrast, the challenge ingredients I can only use for level 16 items, none of which is worth getting IMO, especially since upgrading them to level 20 costs as much as making the level 20 items in the first place. I can't sell them and I can't trade them and I can't use them to make what *I* want.

It's a pretty easy choice, and people are making it.

[BladeTricks]

Some ideas I'd consider if I were in charge:
A. Drop the price of the pack. This is pretty obvious.
B. Offer the pack for free for a limited time, perhaps around the holidays. Or perhaps make it free a certain day of the week. Something like this, to get more people interested. The tokens are not sufficient.
C. Increase the XP offered, so people leveling have some reason to do these if they don't want the items (which are especially bad at low levels).
D. Change the ingredients from BtC to BtA as many have requested.
E. Make some of the ingredients tradeable. Perhaps for each of the items, one of the ingredient types would not be tradeable while the other two were. This would give a break to players who don't like the challenges, while giving more incentive to players to participate.
F. Offer customizable items like the CC hats.

G. Give players a way to create unlimited amount of plats/items/+3 tomes. Oh wait...

Nah but seriously, the challenges are pretty dead for a brand new pack. I don't think many premium players bit the bullet, this pack is just too expensive relative to other packs.

And as Qaliya pointed out, if you don't unlock a new star, the XP is miserable.

[Qaliya]

Another example of how frustrating these "challenges" are.

Just tried Dragon's Hoard at level 14. I'm level 16 with a level 16 hireling.

It's hard to have to move around a lot but I'm doing okay. Then about 8 minutes in a red-named CR 18 Marilith pops up.

In Crystal Cove when a red-named spawned, it would be down a hallway and would take a while to make its way to the center area. Even then, you'd have time to fight it before it could get near the foreman, right?

Here? She just shows up right in the center and starts laying the smack-down on me and the hireling simultaneously. I mean, she was doing six or eight attacks at a time. While I'm pelting her with spells, she suddenly turns on the foreman -- whom I had even tried to invis -- and just cuts him down. I mean -- one set of attacks, and he was toast. There was NOTHING I could do to stop it. It took me over a minute of wallopping her with spells, almost dying in the process. There were so many other mobs around and the kobolds were not sticking to the torches, so they were all dead with a LOT of time left on the clock. So then I got to stand around being bored for almost 10 minutes.

Remember, this was on a CR14 instance.

Did I make my one star objective? Yes. And a whopping 2,380 XP in 20 minutes.

Did I feel like playing it again after that? Definitely not.

These things need to be overhauled.

[sheepface]

I think atm the problem is the price and not many people having it.

I actually enjoy the content.

[voodoogroves]

Once it is finished, I'd love an "exit early with my XP and whatever reward I have now" option, that's one definite improvement I'd make beyond making the ingredients BTA.


I've solo'd a number of these now on my designated non-epic challenge-runner (level 18 FVS). The rewards aren't nearly as fast and easy as in a group, but they are definitely doable. I don't think I'd be star/favor hunting solo though - that's a pain - but a finish and ingredients, very doable.

So far I can reliable and repeatedly solo the extraplanar labor shortage, out of time ... the extractor ones and most of the time the lava cave ones - the get-one-big-crystal can be annoying if you can't find the crests you need. I've not tried the house yet



I still want the ingredients to be BTA. The ingredients and late entry/timed requirements make it somewhat annoying for true pick up groups and my play schedule as well.

[Postumus]

Being soloable was one of the stated goals of the developers. Part of the idea was to make the challenges something that individuals could do when they only had a short amount of time to log in.



I ran one last night simply because it was the only LFM up and I was too tired to think of something on my own.


The kobold chaos (the one with the shard generators) was pretty boring. I didn't find the content very solo friendly, or I might have run it over and over out of sheer boredom (much like playing solitaire).


It was hard to duo, easier to do with 4 or more, but if I'm going to be in a group, I'd rather run something more fun.

[Postumus]

[QUOTE=voodoogroves;4174406

I've solo'd a number of these now on my designated non-epic challenge-runner (level 18 FVS). The rewards aren't nearly as fast and easy as in a group, but they are definitely doable. I don't think I'd be star/favor hunting solo though - that's a pain - but a finish and ingredients, very doable.
[/QUOTE]

Try it on a 9th level rogue at level. Take a hireling even. Not very fun.

[Captain_Wizbang]

In case some of you missed it.

http://www.ddo.com/en/ddogameinfo/developer-diaries/1727-update-12-dev-roundtable-challenges

[Qaliya]

Did Collosal Caves with a group.

First time we couldn't get the kobold with the big crystal back in time. So despite meeting two other objectives, got nothing. 15 minutes down the drain.

Second time we did get the kobold back, after much effort. Our reward for another 15 minutes time? A whopping 38 items.

Talk about making you want to leave House Cannith for a while.

[jkm]

Yes, Fernando had said just that. With possible exception of Kobold Island, challenges are anything but.

Kobold Disruptor at level 10 spawns skeletal archers as enemies. They spawn on hills you can't get too, they spawn outside of the detection range of the cannons, they plink the extractors from across the map. This quest isn't too bad if you get walking mobs spawn. Archers? It sucks.

[Qaliya]

Collosal Cave again with a group.

Spend 10 minutes coaxing a kobold down to get the big blue crystal. I buff the kobold and three of us start to escort it back. We are jumped by about a dozen drow, none of which can be instakilled, hitting for 40+ damage a shot. All three of us die, and then the kobold with the crystal dies.

This is fun?

The mobs in here hit harder on CR20 than the ones on CR25 did at the Cove. And you have far less ability to recover from even a touch of bad luck.

[brian14]

Kobold Disruptor at level 10 spawns skeletal archers as enemies. They spawn on hills you can't get too, they spawn outside of the detection range of the cannons, they plink the extractors from across the map. This quest isn't too bad if you get walking mobs spawn. Archers? It sucks.
Did not do Disruptor yet, but thanks for the heads up! What other mobs are there? Are they all undead?

[Kinerd]

I wanted to cross-post some data from another thread, because it puts numbers to the feeling of this thread. I took snapshots of the LFG panel in Argonnessen at 6 times last night and this afternoon. I counted 125 total LFMs, exactly 1 (one) of which was for a challenge.

Not a good sign.