Challenge pack still not worth it.

[ghortagg]

First of, i'd like to say two things

- Il like challenge, it s fun abd the change of pace is nice
- Most of the things in patch 1 are good news (Ingredients BTA/trading)

But overall, the Pack is still not worth 1500 Turpine points

Why ?

- look at what you can get for the same amount: shared bank or Vale+Shavarath
these are more usefull to anybody.

but most importantly:

- Chalenges are hard to solo (for the average player at least)
with 1 or 2 buddies they are manageable, but alone no.
Since i need help, i end up most the time doing the challenge of day, so why bother to buy the pack ?

-Tokens are useless.
Ar least i could use my competitive adventage of having a large supply of token.
But no, they only give a random bonus, so basicaly tokens are just eating slots in my bags.

Right now, i am very disapointed by the pack (not the challenge themselves) and i still wonder why i have bought them.
Please help me enjoy my purchase

I think you have several solutions:

- make the challenge more solo friendly (so that the ability to do them again and again is a real perk)
- make the token usefull (ability to choose the bonus for instance)
- give perk to VIP/premium who bought the pack (a token bag for starters and more)


Thank you for reading.

[FranOhmsford]

Well said and /signed

Especially like the "Token Bag" idea But everone should get one

[InsanityIsYourFriend]

Signed was just about to make a thread for that when i saw this

[Chai]

Or just lower the points price to something reasonable - in the range of the other useful packs.

[Ziindarax]

First of, i'd like to say two things

- Il like challenge, it s fun abd the change of pace is nice
- Most of the things in patch 1 are good news (Ingredients BTA/trading)

But overall, the Pack is still not worth 1500 Turpine points

Why ?

- look at what you can get for the same amount: shared bank or Vale+Shavarath
these are more usefull to anybody.

but most importantly:

- Chalenges are hard to solo (for the average player at least)
with 1 or 2 buddies they are manageable, but alone no.
Since i need help, i end up most the time doing the challenge of day, so why bother to buy the pack ?

-Tokens are useless.
Ar least i could use my competitive adventage of having a large supply of token.
But no, they only give a random bonus, so basicaly tokens are just eating slots in my bags.

Right now, i am very disapointed by the pack (not the challenge themselves) and i still wonder why i have bought them.
Please help me enjoy my purchase

I think you have several solutions:

- make the challenge more solo friendly (so that the ability to do them again and again is a real perk)
- make the token usefull (ability to choose the bonus for instance)
- give perk to VIP/premium who bought the pack (a token bag for starters and more)

Thank you for reading.

/signed

Especially on the extractor challenges. Currently, they can be soloed through casting invisibility on the extractors. However, this patch makes extractors immune to the invisibility buff.

The ability to cast invisbility on the extractors was not an exploit, but apparently, it was not intended by the devs either. While I am grateful that colossal crystals will actually BE completable with a semi-compitent group on Orien now (none but the best players can currently complete colossal crystals atm), making another challenge impossible to solo is just not cool.

Challenges should be enjoyable for and by everyone. Make challenges soloable. :)

[ghortagg]

Or just lower the points price to something reasonable - in the range of the other useful packs.

IF Buying the pack don't give something more than the 5 free token a day can give you, no price will be reasonable.

[Valindria]

I agree I would buy it if it was not so expensive. I know a lot of people I have talked to in game are the same way.

[MrkGrismer]

I'd buy it at 750-800. I'm waiting for a 50% sale apparently...

[donfilibuster]

It'd be good to burn time in between other quests if there were an airship tower and teleport location in there.

Also, maybe the first time bonus should be per-level, that way you have something to look forward at each level.
After all, it was advertised that the pack would be useful to you during the entire life of the toon.

[Aeolwind]

While I am grateful that colossal crystals will actually BE completable with a semi-compitent group on Orien now (none but the best players can currently complete colossal crystals atm), making another challenge impossible to solo is just not cool.


Listen, if me and my 2 best friends are able to do Colossal crystals at 19 with an inept hireling a piece then -anyone- should be able to complete it lol. The hardest part for us is finding the crests and having a portal in range of the door we have the crests for. CC isn't that hard, once you realize you just need to pick the trash off the kobold, haste him & use your cove haste hat to get the flock out of town. The trash will still follow him through the teleporter, which puts the foreman at risk now unless you are quick to get someone through the teleporter and get it off the circle before any mobs chase them.

[redspecter23]

I think the devs had a bit of tunnel vision with this update. They really could have expanded on the ideas they had and made something that more people could enjoy. The basic idea is very simple. Complete challenges, get rewards, trade rewards for gear. That's it. If you don't like the grind as it's presented, then you'll likely not like the entire pack.

It could have been a bit more interesting if maybe some of the base gear dropped randomly in chests in the challenges and you were farming for the upgrade pieces. Or maybe have some random ingredient reward from the chests in addition to the reward for completion and high scores. I know that opening chests would be a lot more exciting if maybe I had a shot at 50 or 100 ingredients (quite possibly random from any challenge as well), or vary the costs on the items a bit. 600/600/600 gets old and annoying really quickly. As it stands now, your goal is to go in and get a high score. Simple really, but they could have tapped these challenges for other "goals" as well. Perhaps we could be farming specific "stars" or objectives in some for specific rewards besides a random loot box? Things like that could have made this pack appeal to a much larger audience. The "collect a bunch of stuff to crunch into gear" approach to gaining loot is starting to get stale.

[Kicksome]

I've had a great time with the challenges. When you get a group of people together who work well it's a blast. Making the objective with 3 seconds left etc... Someone buying a minute of time at the last second to save the game... Just hitting everything right and getting like 600+ tokens. I was able to get more gear in the challenges, and in less time than anywhere else. It's a lot of fun, and the random aspects in many of the challenges are nice, since sometimes things can really go your way.

I also love the fact that they are timed, and you know how long it's going to take - get it done, and get out.

The best part about it is I can actually solo many of them if I can't find a group, and can use the tokens to buy or upgrade a couple pieces of gear. It's a lot better than running around the marketplace doing nothing or waiting for a group.

Some of the challenges are definitely buggy and frustrating at times. I also wish it was more viable to level using the challenges, but overall, it's been a great update for me.

[Cyr]

I'd buy it at 750-800. I'm waiting for a 50% sale apparently...

Would have to go down to other packs of it's actual size for me to buy it. So the 550 or so price range is what I would buy it for.

[Auran82]

At 550 points I would buy a point pack to get it. At 750 or so, I would think about it, and probably would.

At 1500 I feel like I dropped the soap in the prison showers.

[Aeolwind]

The "collect a bunch of stuff to crunch into gear" approach to gaining loot is starting to get stale.

Well, the current mechanic is. Previously they were tied to raids in the form of flagging. In this case you are just flagging for the raid 18 times with no lockout! Take for example the 20th completion rewards. Same mechanic, just takes up less bag space.

[redspecter23]

Well, the current mechanic is. Previously they were tied to raids in the form of flagging. In this case you are just flagging for the raid 18 times with no lockout! Take for example the 20th completion rewards. Same mechanic, just takes up less bag space.

I suppose you could look at it that way. Instead of 20 runs to the reward you want (hopefully), you build your way up to your gear through a series of runs, each getting you a bit closer. Really, it's what we've been asking for since the slot machine of Reaver's Refuge and the randomness of epic gearing. You take out the random element, so in that regard, it's hard to complain.

One small difference is that in the case of challenges, there is no possibility for that instant gratification. You can't open a random box and find a shiny new piece of gear like you could do in a raid. What I was getting at is that you can do both at once like in raids. You can have your build up to a completed item when you hit 600/600/600 or maybe they could have put in a small chance to pull a complete item out of a chest so you can get that instant wow factor. Wow factor and instant happies should never be underestimated when it comes to finding ways to sell a pack, especially one that has such a high cost to begin with.

[lugoman]

I think a major problem is that these are timed quests. I know many like the excitement of a beat-the-clock type quest but I think even more play ddo to relax and dont want to feel rushed to complete something.

Crystal Cove was a success because it was only open for a limited amount of time. You could put up with it for a week knowing things could get back to normal after. Also it was pretty easy to get groups.

[mystafyi]

Challenges should be enjoyable for and by everyone. Make challenges soloable. :)

Sadly, the challenges were designed for players to run when they only have a short time and dont want to wait around for a group.
I would quote the 2 members from turbines team that stated that, but I dont feel like hunting it down atm.

[Dunklerlindwurm]

When U-12 first came out alot of the challenges were really hard to solo even for a well geared Vet.

But they changed that in the first hotfix.

All challenges (except maybe Collosal Crystal) are very much soloable even by my gimp melee Ranger.

Of course you have to actually learn the challenge-dont expect to be succesful on your first run.

After patch 12.1 even Collosal crystal will be easier because the kobolds can use the 2-way teleports when carrying the big crystal.


The price is still a bit too high in my opinion.

But i must say-first i didnt like the challenges....now i actually like them and even love some of them ;)

[Carpone]

The price of the pack is too high for people that have already purchased Artificer.

[mystafyi]

The price of the pack is too high for people that have already purchased Artificer.

Artificer is not included in the U12 pack. why do you think buying artificer should give you a discount to a future expansion pack?

Turbine just knew they would sell more via the ddostore if there was no way to unlock it in U11, so they made the the next pack cannith favor. Can you honestly say the challenges are house Cannith themed?

[oradafu]

Well, it looks like the Devs added XP and crafting pots to the trade-in barter box. I think that's a nice step in the right direction, especially for people who play characters that didn't receive useful items, such as clerics, or weapons that were useful to their build, such as acrobats.

There's also the problem with the actual challenges. The inability to max out all 5 stars at the same time is inexcusable. As some have mentioned few Devs claimed the Challenges are targeted at people who only have a few minutes to play the game, then why weren't they more solo/two-manned melee friendly from the get-go?

The 1500 TP price tag is still at least twice as expensive as its regular price should be. (As Auran stated, the current price just feels like the shower scene in Born Innocent.) Personally, 750 TP would be the range for me to ponder about buying the pack (as it stands today on Lamannia). There would have to be more weapon options (such as quarterstaves or dwarven axes) to actually commit to buying it though at that price though.

Truthfully, the only way I can see the justification of the 1500 TP price is if there will be a constant addition of items or upgrades to already existing named items to the barter box each update. And since I'm sure the plan wasn't to be constantly adding more stuff to a pack that can be accessed without spending a dime, I doubt that idea will be even on the drawing board.

[GermanicusMaximus]

At 550 points I would buy a point pack to get it. At 750 or so, I would think about it, and probably would.

At 1500 I feel like I dropped the soap in the prison showers.

As a premium player, I own all the packs except this one. Yes, even 3 Barrel Cove, Threnal, and Restless Isles. I do like having full access to the game.

1500 TP? Not going to happen. 750? At this point, the original price has annoyed me enough that I'm not willing to spend that much. 500? Did I mention that I do like having full access to the game. :D

Either the pricing of this pack was pure marketing genius, or a colossal mistake. We'll never know since Turbine doesn't release numbers on pack ownership, but I'm not sensing any marketing genius at work here.

The bad thing is that unless the pack itself is exceptional, the marketing buzz for a pack will never be higher than the day it is released. Slapping a ridiculous price on it just gives the pack a bad reputation, one that will be difficult to overcome. Turbine likely lost potential sales and revenue here that they will never be able to recoup no matter what they do to try and recover.

[donfilibuster]

Artificer is not included in the U12 pack. why do you think buying artificer should give you a discount to a future expansion pack?


Point is lots of us believe the high price is due to the ability to unlock artificer, so they likely raised the price to count that benefit.
So premium players that had already bought artificer have one less reason to buy it.

A dev mentioned it was because it helps you at all levels for the lifetime of the toon, but there's only four challenges with variants and you may not like all four.
On review it seems too much grind to repeat the challenges you like over and over.

[smallstones]

Point is lots of us believe the high price is due to the ability to unlock artificer, so they likely raised the price to count that benefit.
So premium players that had already bought artificer have one less reason to buy it.

A dev mentioned it was because it helps you at all levels for the lifetime of the toon, but there's only four challenges with variants and you may not like all four.
On review it seems too much grind to repeat the challenges you like over and over.

I was just going to say this... And yes, I believe it is the reason. Sadly, I hated the challenges so much on lamannia, that the cost is just too much for me... (even if 50% off)

[Eilyen]

The Favor from this pack (and thus unlocking Artificer) seems like a very weak reason for the absurd price. You don't need to run it over and over again for favor, just use your daily tokens. Finding a group on the other hand... The extreme price certainly doesn't make that easier.

To me it seems that anyone with enough patience to farm the items from the challenges will also have enough to wait for the free tokens, at least at the current price anyway.

[Adrenas]

/signed

A significant drop in price is in order. Those who did buy the pack and vip's still can't get anyone to join their challenge group most of the time. 1500tp is absurd. The content is pretty fun and some of the rewards are well worth running the content, but it's not worth 1500tp. The only reason I have it is because i'm vip, if I had been premium then I never would have bought it. 500-700tp would be much closer to the mark.

And I bought Artificer last update. I thought it was too expensive as well, but I was just too excited about the new class. A lot of people did. Using the packs opportunity to gain Cannith favor in order to unlock artificer just doesn't wash. You could buy Artificer on its own, and the ability of the pack to let you gain favor to do it is moot. If what someone wants is the Artificer class then they can just buy it, skip the work of running quests in content that very few have, and save 500tp. When the pack is bought what we're getting is the challenges and the rewards that they bring, not the artificer class. Come on turbine, lower the price already... i've got a ring of master artifice to craft for that overpriced artificer that I bought from you LAST update.

[somenewnoob]

They could have naked elf bellydancers dancing everywhere and it still wouldn't be worth it.


Well........:p

[donfilibuster]

The four quests are too few, specially if you don't like cove, and either way u may get tired of the ones you like.
Adding at least two that are interesting like rushmore would help.

[MRH]

The only thing the new challenges have done, is to make grouping and running them even harder. Yes you can sit with an lfm up for a good hour or so..... but should you have to for something that is supposed to be different and fun ? The pricing has turned many off from buying it.

The vip's that can do it whenever , hardly see any lfm's up for it.

The prem members get their daily token(s) ..... but can't find groups for it

The F2P get their daily token........and can't find groups for it

so what happens..... hardly anyone is running them, let alone week long grinds

Grouping has gotten bad enough with the "know it, know me, must have x hp's, be uber, don't die" mentality.

New House C raids..... on Orien I see a couple maybe on the weekends

We need to start seeing more lfm's , more helping newer ppl get flagged for raids, teach people quests so they can teach others so we can start seeing tons of lfm's everyday so we can get to end game and keep the fun and learning going.

Alot of raids / questing is done by guilds that might not want to pug , and that leaves alot of people out of the fun and the knowledge of those quests / raids.

[quijenoth]

The Favor from this pack (and thus unlocking Artificer) seems like a very weak reason for the absurd price. You don't need to run it over and over again for favor, just use your daily tokens. Finding a group on the other hand... The extreme price certainly doesn't make that easier.

To me it seems that anyone with enough patience to farm the items from the challenges will also have enough to wait for the free tokens, at least at the current price anyway.

The fact is (as im finding out first hand), unlocking artificer via this pack is next to impossible for most premium players. the optionals are just too hard to achieve.

Of the 4 quests I have run kobold island and extraplanar minds with 2 RL friends and 3 hirelings. all level 20, all running quests on lowest level to complete for stars. we have 5 star'd 2 of them (yes using the invisibility trick) but as yet have not succeeded at completing at top level for the gold stars (6th favor point).

In fact of the quests we tried at level 20 we found hard just to even get completion (**** marilith is one hard mother!).

After burning through the 20 or so tokens we had our net result on stars and favor was only 17!

now lets look at the problem here; 9 of these quests are epic difficulty meaning if we are stuggling to gain more than 2 stars on those quests at minimum level (4, 10, 12, 14s) what hope do you have for getting the stars on these 9 epic versions? As it stands im ruling out all epic quests for favor completly.

Thats 54 favor ruled out leaving just 72 total favor from the quest assuming 5 star runs on max level which is turning out to be next to impossible.

assuming we do try again in a few weeks once we built up some more tokens if we 3 man them again im not expecting more than 2-3 stars average per non-epic quest. (bringing total favor possible to earn to 36. if we try and fill the group (assuming we get people interested in running for favor over loot) we might be able to increase this to 4 stars average (48).

now add in the 3 elite cannith quests and at best normal runs on PUG raids (71 total favor) that still leaves me 31 favor short of artificer unlock.

This pack is far from favor friendly so those looking at it for a cheap way to get artificer are seriously mistaken. The free tokens are nice but all its letting me do atm is play content i dont own for free. Given how few groups are running these, tokens are probably hurting the sales of this pack instead of helping it.

Right now I'm more inclined to buy artificer instead of this pack and never do another challenge again. The gear is nice but too niche making certain classes impossible to recruit for these quests, and you would likely have to run the quests 30-50 times just to get one item (assuming the rewards dont scale with level).

Overall, the challenges, while fun, are too difficult to complete for favor. Some have very easy completions for the quest rewards making them hot spots for people after the loot but thats not for everyone, altough U12.1 trade in might help getting people into the same quest, I think it will just see people playing 2 or 3 challenges to the exclusion of all the rest. Making favor even harder to grind.

[Chai]

Well well well...

Here we are then, with all of the Cannith favor released, and I see some of the same people who were calling VIPs crybabies and complainers because we had to pay for Artificer or wait for the unlock to happen just like everyone else and didnt like it, now complaining about pricing being too unreasonable for the challenge pack, and for being too difficult to unlock Artificer in general for the average player. Remember when I stated the slippery slope argument always gets LOLed at, right up to and until the point where it affects the people LOLing?

The slippery slope ~letting stuff like that slide and defending it, which is what brings on this kind of stuff later on. You want to unlock the class? You pay near 2x the points for this pack than you would for packs that are alot more useful XP and loot-wise.

Here we are then. Now we see that they are going to get your money either way. Even if you pay for the pack and DO unlock the class, you paid way too much for it.

If you want the class, you WILL pay for it, its just a matter of how.

Next up, new PREs, hilariously alot more powerful than the current ones, in the DDO store. Dont say I didnt gve you a warning shot, heh. When it comes to the slippery slope, that trains never late. /glances at wristwatch.

[azmodeus1]

Vault of the Artificers - 450tp

...problem solved.

nobody's even playing them, and the groups that form are usually for daily's.

[Deathdefy]

I concede I often see the same people in the Khyber pugs for them.

That said, I find them extremely enjoyable content, and have been happily soloing or duoing them while waiting for other groups to form. Being able to (in 12.1 assuming there hasn't been a change) earn yourself a small segment of an epic token with a 5 or 10 minute dally is awesome.

Having bought them, I don't remotely regret the decision and find the echo-chamber of the forums a bit frustrating in its negativity toward them. They're very hard, yep, and have a learning curve much steeper than most other content. That said, they're rewarding once you do get into them.

If the forums genuinely are reflective of in-game, the content is evidently too expensive for people to have bought just for the sake of having all the content in the game. And the free daily token experiences haven't so far charmed players into buying them yet due to the learning curve.

Initially Difficult + Expensive, I think is the trouble... lowering the price might be wise (I'd certainly like to see more pugs up for the challenges; been hoping to see a 6-star attempt at Moving Targets pug for a few weeks now), but I really would like to opine that it's very fun content once you get into it.

[PestWulf]

Vault of the Artificers - 450tp

...problem solved.

nobody's even playing them, and the groups that form are usually for daily's.

I don't think that solves the complete problem unfortunately. I had been playing the challenges daily since they came out and I have noticed some things about the 5-stars.

Some of them are relatively easy to get, others are challenging and then there is another category...the one that requires you to buy requisition forms from the Store to even have a chance to get the star. In a group of 4, doing this daily with them as well as solo at other times, I have never, ever seen a cannon requisition form that could be used in the Disruptor challenge.

At this point I can only conclude that it is so rare as to be irrelevant or it doesn't exist. You start with being able to put up 4 cannons at once...You get all 4 small extractors, still 4 cannons. You get one large extractor..still 4 cannons. So it doesn't appear number of extractors effects the number of cannons allowed.

If only requisitions can be used to get from 4 to 10..and they don't drop...then this is pretty much a tp sink hole.

I also have come to hate that challenges are set up only to get items from them, they are useless for exp once you obtain the bonus for getting each of the stars, they are detrimental. So they have set challenges up to be a grind for specific items only and they make you pay for it in slowing down your leveling dramatically.

The challenges are fun, but I admit they start to look irritating when you find out they are gimmicks to make you pay turbine points to finish them. They are fun for going for the items...till you realize you are gimping your leveling beyond pretty much anything else in the game to do them.

My first impression of the challenges was great, they seemed to be a fun alternative that you could switch to for leveling up and getting working on getting some great loot for the level. Then reality sunk in and while there is some fun to be had and some great loot to be had..the sacrifices you make to get it are huge.

I played for a week on my 9 sorc and made level 10. That's about 4 hours a night playing and 10 hours on weekends... Now, I'm not all about rushing to lvl 20 as fast as I can, but when I see 900xp as my reward for something like Rushmoore (which is about a 25 to 30 minute quest)....That is horrible. At level 4 (so taking an exp penalty) I got about 500xp for a lvl 1 elite korthos Island quest that took 2.5 minutes to complete (the dragon scroll one) and that includes breaking all the breakables for the optional xp.

The time/reward ratio is just completely broken in these challenges. I'm going to be giving DDO a break for a bit and tramp around in SWTOR for a while. I'm hoping when the luster wears off and I come back here that maybe some player oriented changes will have happened.

And before you ask if you can have my stuff, please keep in mind this is DDO you are playing. Anything you would want is BTC or BTA anyway. :P

[oradafu]

I also have come to hate that challenges are set up only to get items from them, they are useless for exp once you obtain the bonus for getting each of the stars, they are detrimental. So they have set challenges up to be a grind for specific items only and they make you pay for it in slowing down your leveling dramatically.

The challenges are fun, but I admit they start to look irritating when you find out they are gimmicks to make you pay turbine points to finish them. They are fun for going for the items...till you realize you are gimping your leveling beyond pretty much anything else in the game to do them.

My first impression of the challenges was great, they seemed to be a fun alternative that you could switch to for leveling up and getting working on getting some great loot for the level. Then reality sunk in and while there is some fun to be had and some great loot to be had..the sacrifices you make to get it are huge.

I played for a week on my 9 sorc and made level 10. That's about 4 hours a night playing and 10 hours on weekends... Now, I'm not all about rushing to lvl 20 as fast as I can, but when I see 900xp as my reward for something like Rushmoore (which is about a 25 to 30 minute quest)....That is horrible. At level 4 (so taking an exp penalty) I got about 500xp for a lvl 1 elite korthos Island quest that took 2.5 minutes to complete (the dragon scroll one) and that includes breaking all the breakables for the optional xp.



Exactly. And where XP is needed more in the higher levels, I can hit 4 rares in the Orchard or 3 rares in the Vale in about 2 or 3 minutes and get the same "unlimited" amount of XP that I can get from running a Challenge quest that takes much much much longer.

The "always available XP at any level" is a bogus argument for the stupid price. The unlock favor for Artificer is a bogus argument also. The lack of item choices for players also makes the cost of unreasonable, for example not all melee style weapons are covered (no quarterstaves for Acrobats) and no cleric item (no reason for healers to run quests).

As I mentioned before, the Challenge pack is the same cost as the Necro bundle. However, the Necro bundle provides more than just quests from 4-17, and "unlimited" XP via the Orchard from levels 10-19. There is much more XP to be gained from Necro than the Challenges. There's over twice the favor. There are estinential items in the Necro bundle with minimumal grind, such as Minos and Silver Flame Pendant. There's more variety in the Necro pack. In fact, the lack of flagging for the Challenges is the only thing superior to the Necro pack since the Necro packs continues to have either broken flagging (Necro 1 and 2) or stupid flagging (Necro 4 sigils).

[freelove]

Turbine seems to get the scale of things wrong a lot compared to the 5 other MMO's I have played. By scale I mean comparative tasks at the same level and what they yield. This is more painfully apparent with these challenges. Challenges is a great add, having daily content that can allow solo or people with less time to get gear so they can contribute to end game is in most modern MMO's and works well. The problem here is some of the challenges are way to hard to solo. The difference between say the mansion quest and the kobold island quest is immense. The island quests are hard to solo and impossible to get over 2 stars.

The idea of trying to get parties for these challenges puts it back into more content like epic that you run in channel or guild - the exact reason you should create dailies to give us something to do when we can not get a group or do not want one.

Turbine why do you fail at some much new content when it comes to the scale of the game? Why is one epic item out of the 20 you add worth it to farm with three toons for 6 months (and why must I farm for 6 months - no game does this). Turbines understanding of its end game is poor, it is more based on uhhh shinney lets spend points, then actual understanding of the mechanics of the game. Again challenges show this, sure you can solo 75% of it but good luck on the other 25% unless you extend time or get a group. No wonder most of my friends have left the game in the last 9 months.

[Adrenas]

I agree on the 5-star thing. Some star items are just nuts. Like the Djinni, how many of you have actually seen the booger? I haven't, and i've farmed kobold chaos enough to make 2-3 items. Opening all of the doors in behind the door is possible, but what a task! Then again I don't care too much about the stars unless it is a star that outputs ingredients for me in the end. It IS xp at every lvl, and I haven't noticed any penalties for repeating the adventure, but it is a very LOW xp per minute.. still, it could fill a gap especially for a premium player.. but not nearly enough to boost the pack price to its current lvl. We pretty much all seem to be in agreement that the ability to unlock artificer with favor as a reason for boosting the price is an argument that doesn't hold water.

A lot of the challenges ARE easily soloable though, in fact they're probably 10x EASIER to solo than to group for, kobold chaos being a prime example. But in others you need a group, like in behind the door/moving targets/the other rushmore, because you need to cover a lot of ground quickly to gather crests.. and even then it's still a tradeoff because of how severely the dungeons scale with party size. I still wouldn't run a full party in them, I watched bosses that I had killed solo end up wiping a full group. In my opinion 2 things should happen, 1. The scaling needs to be softened and more importantly 2. The pack needs to be on a 50% off sale for the next week, if for no reason other than increasing the number of people who have the pack so that vips and people who already spent the 1500 can USE the content. As it stands a large portion of people who bought the pack are feeling ripped off, and that is something that both turbine and the community will want to address pretty darn quick. The price should be lowered period, but at least for now, something needs to be done to immediately increase the number of people using the pack. Two things whose value increases with the number of people that use them, vaccinations and adventure packs. Seriously, 50% off sale starting like tomorrow.

[Melchon]

A lot of the challenges ARE easily soloable though, in fact they're probably 10x EASIER to solo than to group for, kobold chaos being a prime example. But in others you need a group, like in behind the door/moving targets/the other rushmore, because you need to cover a lot of ground quickly to gather crests.. and even then it's still a tradeoff because of how severely the dungeons scale with party size.

Imho this is even worse in collosal crystals, because like the mansion challenges it is based on luck. There is nothing worse than failing collosal crystals several times in a row because you are missing the insignia or there is no teleporter circle nearby.



I still wouldn't run a full party in them, I watched bosses that I had killed solo end up wiping a full group. In my opinion 2 things should happen, 1. The scaling needs to be softened

I couldn't agree more, the scaling seems to be off for most (if not all) of the challenges. Sometimes it is just single enemies (having two water eles guard a large extractor is no fun), sometimes it is the whole challenge (e.g. running kobold island with 3 people -> spawn of 6 enemies (stronger than normal too) instead of 2-3 per extractor ...).
I don't know if this is better for 6 people, as I did not try finding a larger group for this. (Or 3 people at level 20 with perfect equipment).