Let's Talk: Game Difficulty

[MadFloyd]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

[Diyon]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

A solution to the time put in and rewards vs failure would be to have more benefit to partially accomplishing something. This is already done to a small degree with chests through out quests and raids, but it would be nicer if more of these at major checkpoints gave more things of value. A very good example of this done well is shroud loot ingredients.

As to difficulty, I think things need to be more difficult in many places but NOT by just making stuff last longer by beefing up HP and Fort. That's just a war a attrition. LoB is a good example of high difficulty done well. I think another thing to avoid in high difficulty situations is making it so that one mistake can easily destroy the raid. Don't get me wrong, some of those mistakes should be very costly on higher difficulty things, but this is when resources should be called for in extra, make it hurt bad, but don't make it an absolute fail. An example of this gone bad is Abbot. A mistake in those puzzles by potentially one person often leaves no room for recovery even at the cost of more resources.

[Aashrym]

My first thought is class balance actually plays into this. Difficult for one class is not difficult for another.

My preference is that I expect normal to not be challenging for an over-leveled group, elite to have a risk of failure and no guarantee for success.

I will get a more detailed reply when I have more time. :)

[stainer]

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case?


Yes.

I expect there are going to be some arguments stating that not everyone is cut out for end game, and/or epic content. This is a bunch of bunk. I have invested reasonable care into equipping and gearing my characters. I fully expect to be able to play in every aspect of the game. I expect to complete quests and game objectives in a reasonable amount of time. Sure, if mistakes are made running the quest, and we fail, I understand. What you have now doesn't feel right to me.

[Ganolyn]

The top end should be hard. I don't think anyone should be soloing raids at level. At the other end of the spectrum though, the ship buffs have trivialized much of the lower end content. Sure a fully geared out TR should have an easier time, but when someone who just stepped off the boat as it were can run over everything it seems silly. There have been suggestions to scale ship buffs by appropriate level based on the spell/wand/scroll amounts and I support that idea if it is possible.

[jortann]

As for General quests....

With the new bravery bonus I have been running most quests on Elite. I find with an experienced group (meaning people who have played for a year and know the quest) that these are challenging, but the group will still succeed most of the time.

When I compare that to how I used to approach quests on Elite a year ago when I was a newb, this is very different. I was afraid of quests on Elite and they were very challenging for me, but having more experience with the game and particular quests makes a huge difference.

Now normal quests for me can easily be zerged, because I know them well enough and have my characters prepared.

As for Raids... I find these all very challenging. Some of them on normal are easy if you know them but still there is the threat of a possible wipe if things go bad.

[nordlav]

As a casual player (read: slow to level), I really haven't noticed the Normal difficulty setting being an issue. Having recently brought my first character to level cap, there may have been the occasional quest where going in solo with a hireling was certainly difficult, but not extreme. Group questing typically lowers the overall difficulty as well.
To be fair, I haven't as yet run a lot of higher end content and raids. My first Shroud run on Normal setting was a couple of weeks ago and I was actually surprised how smooth, and in some sense "easy", it was with our group. Reflecting on it certainly highlights the benefits of good group communication and tactics. I was half expecting a party wipe after all the forum threads on how the blade damage mechanics were changed.
So to date, my limited experience with difficulty levels has been positive.

[grodon9999]

The difficulty in this game is schizophrenic. For example the Lordsmarch quest on elite are much harder than the GH quests on elite yet the GH quests are a higher level.

In the Flesh elite is harder than some epics, and definitely harder than Mindsunder elite.

I'd like to see stuff evened out and level appropriate, no more balancing a level 17 raid on people who have epic gear. A level 15 elite should be about as hard as a level 15 elite in a different pack.

Sentinels Elite mobs have DOUBLE the HP of old-school level 8 quests. Even it out. The "new" content feels right for close to level twinked people, it's hell on first-life non-twinked toons. Whichever you chose, please be consistent, level 8 elites mobs should be closer in HP to each other than they are in what we have now.

Regarding raids:

VoD and ToD: are fine right now, U11 elite was stupid hard, this is just difficult but not terrible.
Shroud: The blades do too much damage, this needs a nerf in all settings. I cannot believe your intention is for Elite Shroud to be harder than Elite ToD.
Titan: the drop-rate suck, please increase so we don't have to run this tediously annoying content over and over again.
Reaver: A level 14 raid shouldn't throw a 500 point spell at people, other than that it's fine.
Abbot: The HP on hard/elite are insane, cut them in half. And evasion? Really?
EChrono, eDragon, EQQ: are fine, leave them alone
LoB and MA: Have only done up to hard so I cannot comment on higher settings. Normal could be toned down a little so more people could learn the raid without it being so painful. One things though . . . FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY PLEASE STOP MAKING NEW JUNK THAT REQUIRES KITING OF MOBS. It is stupid, it is lame, it is boring and un-fun. Any time I see something like LOB where it's "kite this, kite that, etc . . ." it makes God kill a kitten. It's just so stupid and "MMO," please stop this silliness.

Challenges feel about right, other than the to-hit on the red-named mobs is stupid high meaning a melee requires a healer to follow him around to fight these things. Thats okay, we only bring our casters into these any way.

I don't think I want you touching Epic quests as I don't trust you not to make things worse.

[grodon9999]

As to difficulty, I think things need to be more difficult in many places but NOT by just making stuff last longer by beefing up HP and Fort. That's just a war a attrition. LoB is a good example of high difficulty done well. I think another thing to avoid in high difficulty situations is making it so that one mistake can easily destroy the raid. Don't get me wrong, some of those mistakes should be very costly on higher difficulty things, but this is when resources should be called for in extra, make it hurt bad, but don't make it an absolute fail. An example of this gone bad is Abbot. A mistake in those puzzles by potentially one person often leaves no room for recovery even at the cost of more resources.


Forgot about the fort-change stupidity of U11. All this does is marginalize melees over casters.

[grodon9999]

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'



There's a difference between challenging and just plain stupid. U11 ToD was just plain stupid, the current hard/elite abbot is just plain stupid. Just piling on HP and fort is the dumest change made to this game.

I mean if all a raid/quest is is a contest of who can kite mobs and toss heal scrolls you failed as a designer.

[HarveyMilk]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard? NO, EXCEPT FOR TOP-END RAIDS

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout? DEFINITELY NOT

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you? THAT WOULD DEFINITELY BORE ME

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating. THIS IS ALSO A DDO-SPECIFIC ISSUE, GIVEN THAT OTHER MMO'S REWARD PLAYERS WITH XP EVEN WHEN THEY FAIL TO COMPLETE A QUEST. A GOOD SOLUTION WOULD BE TO GIVE QUESTS THAT YOU FAIL TO COMPLETE A PARTIAL COMPLETION OPTION, WITH REDUCED END REWARDS/XP, AND WHEN TURNING IT IN, SOME HINTS TO COMPLETE THE QUEST IF CHOSEN.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!' WITH THE EXCEPTION OF ABBOTT AND LOB, THIS IS NOT THE CASE. IT'S TRUE, THAT SOMEONE COMPLETELY NEW TO DDO WITHOUT A DECENT GUILD WILL HAVE TROUBLE JUST LEVELING, ESPECIALLY TRYING TO SOLO MOSTLY. THAT IS FINE, AND IS WORKING AS INTENDED, IMO, BECAUSE OF THE D&D ROOTS.

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

Thoughts in caps

[exvanguard]

Casual was introduced (IMO) as the never fail difficulty. Normal should still have some challenge to it.
On a scale of 1-10 though (10 being the hardest), I think:
casual should be a 1
normal should be a 3
hard should be a 6
elite should be an 8
epic should be a 10


Currently, normal is closer to a 2 and hard is closer to a 4
The difference between hard and elite is night and day

[jortann]

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

Shorter quests at 'end game' may be a possibility. There are sometimes when I log on and just don't have enough time to wait around for a raid group to fill and then run a long quest. This is a little bit discouraging for me at times.

Also, I think a great change for difficulty would be to add more monsters. I think the changes to Weapons Shipment were greatly applauded. It is an intense quest that is exciting to play. I think that the difference between normal and elite difficulty should include a significant increase in the numbers of bad guys. This way you would feel like you are really getting ambushed or attacked by the enemy instead of the same 4-6 mobs around every corner.

[Diyon]

Forgot about the fort-change stupidity of U11. All this does is marginalize melees over casters.

Definitely. I glossed over that in my head since we were talking about game difficulty and not class balance, but they are somewhat tied together. As some others have said, making fort apply to spell crits could help here.

[Cauthey]

I believe that some of the recent changes to raid bosses have lifted the difficulty bar too high.

There is nothing wrong with augmenting the risk, so long as the reward is also directly augmented.

Personally, I believe that the most recent adjustments to The Shroud are fantastic. There is now much greater risk. However, there's almost an even amount of additional payout.

Argumentitavely, The Shroud (Normal) has also been made more difficult, and many suggest that it is no longer a Level 17 raid. I disagree, as I think the additional dangers in the blades have made the raid more exciting, and feel that level 17s can still complete this. The only problem that I have with The Shroud is that the PRIMARY ANTAGONIST now is Blades1, Blades2, Blades3, and Bladesx. This is kind of anti-climactic for poor Arraetrikos, who seems to have been reduced to a punching bag.

The contrary would be the Abbot raid.

As I understand it, raid loot out of the Abbot was seemingly much more rare. Further...it's a complicated raid. (Complicated - do not read this as "bad" - complicated, and requiring teamwork, is GOOD!)

Now with the raid boss balancing, some of the best players in the game have sworn the raid off entirely. Normal doesn't drop any loot to make it worth running. And Elite is too incredibly painful with the Abbot's new buffs. Sure, making players adapt is a good thing. A GREAT thing. But - having to beat on a raid boss for 20 minutes to wittle down all of his fully fortified HPs is not fun. ESPECIALLY if it comes with a heavy cost in the way of expendables and spell point potions.

So, I guess the tl;dr is:

Challenge == GOOD!
Challenge != Tedium
Tedium == BAD!
Increased difficulty with adequately increased rewards == GOOD!
Increased difficulty with expectation of taxing SP potions heavily == BAD!
Occasional "oh poo!" moments where minor use of resources are needed to succeed == GOOD!

Thank you for all that you guys do. I am constantly awed with the new content I experience. And, most importantly - the community LOVES YOU ALL when you communicate with us! :D

[die]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

1. I find that a full party in many low too mid - lv quest have no problem finishing norm hard or elite. nothing lives long enough we just maul the enemy.

2. i find soloing elite in the 14-20 range much tougher than the lower quest, as i think it should be. (that's at lv or a lv or two behind)

3. over all i think the game in the last few yr's has become way too easy for the most part and the things that are tough are not so much tough as boring long beat down's , that is one reason i dont do alot of epic's i find them long drawn out boreing, altho i love epic chains:) always been a chains fan .:) love the game and Merry Christmas Turbine

[grodon9999]

At the other end of the spectrum though, the ship buffs have trivialized much of the lower end content.

That is true . . . the only thing that really makes a huge difference (the others are minor) are the resist shrines. We were never meant to have 30 acid resist when running Elite Proof is in the Poison at level 4-6. If at all possible this should be scaled down.

Low priority though, it all evens at at level 11 so it's not that big of a deal.

[Havok.cry]

I think difficulty in this game is just fine. I don't consider myself an uber leet player, and I expect somethings to be very difficult for me to accomplish. I don't think that is bad.

Now the grind involved in accomplishing somethings IS extremely annoying. Specifically abbot flagging, and DQ loot. slightly off topic but related as difficulty should be rewarded. My suggestions for these specific instances would be:
abbot- add sigil pieces guaranteed on end rewards of appropriate quests. Also give a good chance of the random location pieces to show up on those end rewards.
DQ- make the 20th rewards based on class already. My wizard got to his 40th and vendored the chaosblade I got from the reward list because that was the most useful thing on the list. That was the same thing I did on my 20th also... in fact in 40 DQ runs I have never pulled a useful item for my wizard. I hear similar stories across the spectrum of classes for the things they are looking for. I feel like my effort there is entirely wasted, and am considering never entering the sands again, because I am tired of wasting my time there. Specific example: compare the time investment involved in acquiring and upgrading a toven's hammer vs the average amount of time a player has to spend to get a torc.

[Havok.cry]

Low priority though, it all evens at at level 11 so it's not that big of a deal.

It still makes a big difference to some. Calculate the cost of casting hour long reistance to all 5 elements on 12 people. It is alot of SP. The shrines are ~a sp pot on every caster you run with.

[KillEveryone]

I think normal is quite easy. Trash dies in a few swings. This I kind of expect. This is why I don't really see a need for casual setting but to each their own.

Elite offers a decent challenge.

Hard is easy enough to just skip running beyond the first time bonus and doesn't offer enough extra XP to time to farm on this difficulty.

The bravery bonus is quite nice to entice players to run elite but it is still a one and done type of thing.

I think that leveling, to encourage players to run elite more than once for streak, XP should scale more for elite and less for normal. Right now, it is just quicker to run elite once for streak then do hard for first time bonus and any farming on normal because it is just so much quicker to blow through the quest on normal and repeat rather than farm on elite that would take a bit longer, and in some quests that have only one shrine, it would require a little better management of resources.

You can make sloppy mistakes on normal and still complete.

I like how Shroud was changed to offer extra chests for hard and elite difficulties and I think that quests that offer named loot, a increased chance of getting that loot should be scaled with elite difficulties. As far as I know, it doesn't, just gets us a chance at slightly better vendor trash so any farming I would do is just normal because it is quicker to complete and run again.

I have plenty of resources so early levels are not really a challenge. Things do get to be a bit more challenging toward the higher end but that is because mobs are actually hitting me for some real damage where early levels, I have pots of resists, haste, and the kitchen sink. I really would not expect this to change and I really have no problem with it staying that way. Early levels shouldn't be too difficult to discourage players.

I also don't think that content needs to be balance toward multi-TR'ed players. Epics should be a challenge to those that just capped and there should not be a requirement that you have multiple past lives to complete. If you balance content to multi-TR'ed twinked players, the average player isn't going to want to even to epics. It takes a while to get some of the loot needed just to be decent in epics as a first lifer, it would suck if you had to get all that gear AND get all the past lives just to have a chance in epics.

I think that you need mobs to buff themselves more. Players go in buffed to the hilt and then some. Mobs have nothing. I am so glad that epic ward went away but would like to see mobs buffed with spells that I can dispel. I don't mind mobs casting mass deathward, I would like it much more if I could dispel it, I hate blanket immunities. You could have mobs set with certain buffs such as FoM and resists when the players enter the quest but I would soooooo like it if I could actually have a real chance at dispelling that buff so that I can make my spells work.

I don't really think you are balancing to the hardcore player. I think that some of the changes upset people, I don't necessarly agree with all the changes, but I'm glad some things were changes...Shroud was just a joke in part 4 before so I'm really glad this was changed.

[Missing_Minds]

There's a difference between challenging and just plain stupid. U11 ToD was just plain stupid, the current hard/elite abbot is just plain stupid. Just piling on HP and fort is the dumest change made to this game.

I mean if all a raid/quest is is a contest of who can kite mobs and toss heal scrolls you failed as a designer.

I agree with the first, but not the second. That just smells like standard mmo design. We have come to expect innovation and uniqueness in DDO. That the kite and heal is a bit substandard for what we have come to expect from the developers.

[mudfud]

Every quest in this game once beaten once or twice can be beaten all the time by anyone. As long as communication is there.

Every raid can be beaten once you figure out the strategy. By strategy I mean that all raids have 1 main way every group does it. Word spreads by word of mouth or by other people sharing how it was beaten. As you (Turbine) changed some raids we have had to adjust what was being done, but it's still all the same.

I think in some stuff the game has been dumbed down but it doesn't follow the "uber-player". By dumbed down I mean stuff like dungeon scaling and dungeon alert.
For example: Weapon Shipment elite. I can go into that with a party of 6 and have to kill nearly 300 mobs. If I enter it solo on elite I will only have to kill 90 or so. Then I can just invite the other 5 once the titan comes on down.
Dungeon alert was made in my belief to slow zerging groups down that run past everything. Well it doesn't really slow those "zerging" groups down. Groups run past everything, gather them up at a certain alert level and then kill them all at once, and continue to run on.

I don't remember the specific name of the Amrath quest but you fight the end fight in the circle with the devil. That end fight is so much different on elite then it is on normal and hard which i believe is great! Though, once you have done it and got the strategy down it's a no-brainer like every quest in this game to succeed at.

Epics: Epics have the same strategy for all, and have even become the new thing to run "shortman". Why run epics with a full group of 6 since you can run them with half a group and they have less hp and it's like your doing it elite.

[rdasca]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

Normal should have the chance to wipe a new group, first time in the quest. I do not want “easy buttons” nor do I want have to grind for some piece of gear so I can run a quest / raid.

The problem comes from making quest that at level are wiping fully geared toons due to bad luck, the new shroud on normal should not be killing a 500 plus hit point melee because they cannot run away from some blades. A level 19 raid should not be significantly more difficult than a level 20 raid. Granted as tactics are developed to figure out the raid it will get easier, such is the nature of MMO quest / raids.

My solution would be to make the difficult level actually mean something other than just loot chances; Casual, should be easy to do, of course loot will be much less; Normal, should be a challenge to first time players (as in the first time they go in the quest) and be compellable rather easily with a group that works together and pays attention; Hard, should be a real challenge of skill, tactics, and teamwork; Elite, should be a major challenge even to the best geared toons at level; Epic, should be more than just an endurance and beat down fest.

Make quest have random traps in both type and locations, “hey rouge don’t worry about this trap, it only does acid damage and we all have acid resist” “when did they change it to blades?”. Have the mob spawns be random is size and in some cases type. “Oh, bring firewall because there are Trolls in here” “oops where did these fire reavers come from?”

Granted not all quest can have these elements but those that can will IMO really make the game more fun.

As to making quest for “uber-toons”, again that is what elite and epic are for.

[Osharan_Tregarth]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

One of the things that I dislike (and there are numerous quests in DDO where this is an issue, but recently the example would be the spawns in the LOB raid on elite/epic) is putting the harder to complete sections of the quests/raids at the end.

It's a good learning experience to find out that you don't have the right type of tools, or have the wrong character mix, or anything else that can keep you from completing a quest or raid. However, to find this out in the last five minutes of the quest, can be a huge dissappointment.

[oradafu]

Just some quick thoughts on the Game Difficulty. I'll probably come back to this thread with more thoughts, but these are things I can think of right off.

There are 5 difficulties (Casual, Normal, Hard, Elite and Epic), use them please. If a level 20 is making content easy, adjest either the Elite setting or make an Epic level. There is no reason to rework the content in existing quests or raids from Normal to Elite because a capped player has been able to make the quests or raids easy.

Also, inflating HP and adding Fort just extends the length of the quest. They don't make the quest harder, just harder on the healer (usually a playing style that most people avoid wanting to play to begin with). Something that should be an alternative is to add DR to mobs on Elite. For example, Beholders should have a Byeshk DR, but currently in DDO I don't know of any Beholders that do. Why not, at least on Elite levels, adding Byeshk DR to beholders? It would be nice to put to use those Byeshk items that keep popping up in chests. I'm beholders aren't the only mobs that could have their proper DR on Elite difficulty.

Another alternative to Fort and HP increase is energy absorption. And unlike Fort that affects only melees, energy absorption affects everyone equally.

[Kadriel]

IMHO, ddo already have a nice way to balance things (except when it comes to epics).

We have 3 difficulties to choose from: Normal, hard and elite. Normal should be doable for any casual not perfectly geared player.

Hard should require a better geared casual player or some game knowledge

Elite should require good gear and game knowledge

To most quests it seens to be the case. Maybe some punctual adjustment should help a bit, but nothing big.

Problem seens to be the raids. Some raids seens to have gone one step higher, been almost non doable to a casual no greatly geared player on normal, and extremely challenging for a greatly geared experienced player on elite if at level.

On my current life I have taken an almost "elite once and done" strategy. It has been working greatly, except the only raid I have been able to run on elite so far was tempest spine. No one would even join a tr only lvl 8 chrono run. Filling a raid for that outside of internal guild runs is almost impossible, completing if you ever get that party is even farther.

I say raids difficulty should be lowered a bit.

[Krell]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

I think there are a couple parts to that question. What do I feel is a reasonable success rate for the different difficulties and what party makeup am I thinking of when I consider those expectations.

This is just my opinon and observations when I consider if my time spent playing DDO was successful or not.

Normal - I expect to complete this 95% of the time with an average pug group. Applies to non-raids and raids.

Hard - I expect to complete this 90% of the time with an average pug group or 95% of the time with a more carefully selected group. Raids, maybe 10% less.

Elite - I expect to complete this 85% of the time with an average pug group or 90% of the time with a more carefully selected group. Raids, maybe 50% of the time with an average pug group or 80% of the time with a more carefully selected group since this represents the most challenging content.


Note: By average pug group non-raid I'm thinking one or two TR's with decent gear and knowledge, 2-3 non TR's that are decent players and either know the content or can follow a plan, and 1 person that is pretty much a liability for some reason. An average pug raid is usually a little stronger with 3-4 TRs, 6-7 non TR's that either know the content or can follow a plan, and 1-2 people that don't contribute much either due to player skill, build, gear, or communication issues. I'm also thinking that these players are at level for the quest.

Edit: I didn't answer one of your questions:
Q: We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'
A: I pug a lot because I like the variety, the challenge, and meeting new people, and think I have a pretty good feel for the average player. I also read the forums a fair amount and have a feel for what level of knowledge, gear, or skill an average forum poster has. Overall I think there is a fair gap between the average player and average forum poster when it comes to being capable of successfully completing quests. This could be because of any combination of knowledge, skill, or gear. As a result, I think any game balancing based on forum feedback doesn't represent the average player well. I'd say you either need to solicit feedback from players, for example using email or links in the launcher to surveys, or assume there is a drop off between what the average forumite thinks is just right and what feels right to the average player. It is important to get feedback from the average player since they represent the future growth of the game.

[Munkenmo]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

Regarding the difficulty of ddo, there seems to be a large difference between older quests and newer ones, in old quests mobs aren't dangerous no matter the difficulty, partly due to having what used to be casters swapped for rangers, and partly because in old quests traps used to be the dangerous element. Older quests used to have less shrines and also made watching resources and playing carefully more important.

New quests seemed to be designed towards, take lots of damage, deal lots of damage, stop, rest, repeat. Removing some of the shrines in hard / elite, or using the old tear of dekhaan style behind locked doors (that are super hard to knock) would be more fun imo than what we have now.

When i started playing there was no casual and I did expect to fail on normal sometimes. 1 year later when I started to really know the game, I expected to never fail on normal, but that's due to knowledge / twinking / resources. I expect that new players should never fail casual, and have the same experience with normal as I did / do now.

Re: spending 45mins to fail a quest with no progress at all is frustrating, It's worse when doing epics or raids, and spending 45 mins on an epic quest, or elite raid, with no epic ingredients or raid loot. Getting epic tokens or fragments is not enough progress, and getting just a completion with no loot for any of the 12 people is not enough progress. I'd like to see a system where hard counts as two raid completions, and elite guarantees loot and counts as 2 raid completions. Regarding epics, the drop rates on seals and shards needs to be increased.

Moving onto your designing quests for the "uber-player" I disagree with this, I consider myself to be very good, and very well geared, yet in U11 you didn't cater quests towards me, You catered them to "Uber-groups" I didn't struggle with the raid changes in my guild runs, but in pugs they were a nightmare, I hated them, and stopped running them outside of guild until u12. I like where EVon 6 and EDQ are now, echrono i tolerate because the loot just makes it worth it. Shroud I dislike the blades, and I dislike how much harder it is for a new player in there than it was for anyone who started in 2009, Shroud is the gearing raid, players need it to achieve reasonable benchmarks for other raids.

The elite / hard changes to von 6, reavers, were and are over the top, either hugely increase drop rates or revert them to their old standard, as it is now esp with bravery i don't bother running either at level as most pugs aren't going to succeed.

What you did wrong with content this year was make old frequently run content tough to the point you mostly killed it, whilst ignoring abandoned area's like threnal / 3bc, they could be toughened up and have their level range increased.

[TDarkchylde]

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'
My thought is this: if you put the time and effort in to grind out all the end-game gear and work to improve your skills and builds, you're entitled to the Easy Button.

Now, this isn't so much for newer content or Epic Difficulty on older stuff. That should be a challenge... "Is shortman Elite ToD too easy? Try our new raid, the Ultimate Meatgrinder From Hell... and that's just on the Casual setting!"

This is more aimed at trying to reinvent the older raids. There are people who haven't or can't put in the time to become uber, and as of late it is becoming harder for them to run the content that older players have perhaps become bored by. While someone with nothing but Epic and Greensteel gear would find Normal Shroud a cakewalk, someone who just hit the Vale for the first time and barely has any raid loot may see it as an insurmountable challenge.

If that isn't a horrid enough example, then I suggest taking completely ungeared characters into Abbot. It went completely off the deep end in U12. You could change it to yield the most loot of any quest in the game on Elite and I still doubt people would feel it was worth burning all those pots for. Normal should be old Elite, Hard should be post-U9 Elite, and Elite should be current Hard. Save current Elite for if and when you Epic the Necropolis. That'd be balanced.

My suggestions would mainly be as follows:

- Try to leave the older content alone - if you bump up the rewards (Hard/Elite Shroud), then it's okay to tinker with the difficulty some, but there's no increased reward to running Ultimate Meatgrinder From Hell (otherwise known as Elite) Abbot. There's actually less reward from running Abbot now with the nerfed base loot!

- DO NOT CHANGE NORMAL - I can't emphasize this enough. Give the newer/casual players a chance to learn the content and maybe get a shot at gear so they too can become jaded powergamers. Even some of the higher-end players want something they can go on autopilot for so they can rack up completions for that hard-to-find piece of raid loot or tome (this is my case with ATDQ2 lately.) We've started to adapt to the new Shroud now, but that does NOT make it OK to do this to other raids in the future.

- This one's for the powergamers - if the game really has become too easy for you, try something new. Go permadeath. Start completely fresh on a new server (no character transfers - roll a completely new character.) Intentionally challenge yourself by rolling a gimp character and seeing if skill alone can carry you. There's plenty of things y'all could be doing besides the usual "This is too easy now because I have all the loot" spiel.

[ZeroTakenaka]

I have a few issues I want to talk about here.

Abbot: This raid is brutal. One mistake and the entire raid is wiped UNLESS you have a PLIS... I don't know if Mantle helps or not. Also, a lot of bugs have been said to exist here. However, my issue is the puzzles. Asteroids is just the right amount of time. Ice is too easy. However, goggles can be finicky because lag can be a huge factor here. It's also too long in my honest opinion. Also, the abbot has too much HP.

Titan: EPIC. That is all... Okay, I know it's not hard but MORE LOOTS.

I had more things but then I forgot them.

[rodallec]

It's nice that some of the content is insanely hard.

every wannabelegolas shouldnt be able to step into all content and win without a sweat

[Odin_Redbeard]

I prefer the 5-10 min quests that you can knock out quickly. As levels increase the time to complete also seems to increase. I am fine with that, even if it is the norm, but I like the 5-10 minute completion times of Korthos, harbor and marketplace. I find that any quest that lasts 20+ minutes I prefer to put off or skip completely. I do run Jungle of kyber/Wiz-King for the xp and enjoy them. But most times i see a lfm for xorian cypher or Tempest spine and end up switching to a low level alt and running them instead. I do like the 4 harbor solo quests and raiding the giants vault so maybe I would like more short solo quests in the 4-17 level range. The challenges would be like this for me but they are longer, and failure is an option. If i could solo them and knew that I(not you, you uber elite epic'ed out twitch spec ops trained unprofessional) would complete 90+ percent of the time i would prob run them more. But i have never been able to solo one even when i ran the level 4 one on my level 20. Last, less of the tricky walls like in coal chamber or raiding the giants vault if i wanted to play a plat-former game, then I would play that instead, I like strategy games i have reflexes that seem to require 3 second to react and very poor timing.
/end wall
I really enjoy DDO and want less challenge, more bs'ing with friends while we tackle/cakewalk through some random quest.

[Scraap]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

It honestly depends quite a bit on how many folks are in a group, and familiar with the quest, and capable of handling themselves, since the introduction of dungeon scaling. I'm not quite sure if you're aware of just how much of an impact that has on questing areas, so to use a simple example from when I got my maybar docent last go around:

In vale, checking procrate vs the typical 5 rats. Guildie in the party but not present in the zone. The proc alone kept the hitpoint bar maxed on out. As soon as he poped by, it started dropping a recognizable amount. At least to the point I had to turn on the aura.

Ok, there's a caster perspective. Now a melee one:

Amranth normal Sins of Attrition on an AC 70 dr 10/adamantine toon with a vampiric bastard sword: solo, that's enough to make it through with the occasional turtle and cleave. Bring one more person along, and that will not in any shape or form cut it.



If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

Player power fluctuates alot in fits and starts due to the pres overpowering the class inherent abilities instead of supplementing them. The older quests were built without those pres in mind, while the newer ones were not. It shows when you compare, say gianthold and lordsmarch, to name a couple I'm working a pair of TRs through. Throw in the massive difference in available gearing for experienced long time players, and the road-blocks that keep getting thrown up to bring the new guys up to what we consider par, and yeah, there's inconsistencies.



What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?


Normal needs to have enough lessons in it to prepare folks for hard where the lessons are useful, and then to elite where they are needed. This is not helped by blanket player immunities and 2-dimensional stats allowing folks to just plow through things and ignore situational awareness entirely.



I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.


Protecting Coyle is 15 minutes, and the poster child for getting it wrong. It is good to sweat a bit over completing, but the all or nothing reward is the biggest source of irritation. Take a page from Desert Caravan instead, with the rednames giving you a bit of xp, and the time points giving you a bit more, and that goes from 'we just wasted 14 minutes' to 'well, at least we got x'.



We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

It's not so much that you've been balancing this for the uber-player, as the uber-connection. Those blades in shroud that got all the complaints don't hit nearly as hard as a single epic trashmob (and that's only 2-4 character levels or so away for most folks most of the time.). Once. Hit a lagspike, and combine that with the physics checks that cause it to proc far more often than any mob attacks, and they accumulate to more than a redname.

I will however say there's far too much stacking in the game at present, and it's got side effects. Arcane damage stacking inflates mob HP while gutting offensive UMD, to-hit stacking inflates mob AC to the point where investing in damage mitigation is chancy, AC stacking inflates mob to-hit to the point of near-uselessness, and it all ends up stove-piping builds into all or nothing with very few situations where a partial commitment to some aspect of a character leads to a partial success that's worth the tradeoff, and this is really apparent when comparing classes with multiple attribute dependency. And that undercuts alot of flexibility, and hence replayability.

Possibly more later.

[sirgog]

First part: The pre-20 game. A disclaimer: This comes from the perspective of a long-term veteran. Edit: Post 67 has a lot more in it.


General:
I think difficulty should be somewhere around the following. Note that quests with 'Extreme Challenge' warnings are IMO fair game to be two difficulties higher than this (so 'Extreme Challenge: Normal can be as tough as non-extreme Elites).
Casual: Sure success unless your play session is interrupted, you totally ignore quest parameters, or do something really, really dumb. You should not need to play to your class's strengths here. The Casual setting is needed in raids, IMO - I'll get to that later in my next post which is a fair way down in the thread.
Normal: Sure success if everyone has somewhat level-appropriate gear and is making a reasonable attempt to work together. No surprises that wipe unprepared groups (although surprises that kill individual players are OK in full groups). Mobs should not have save-or-die effects (including Disintegrate) as this is meant to be solo-friendly.
Hard: Casual players with no foreknowledge should succeed within three tries, possibly needing some resources. Party wipe surprises are only to be used to punish groups that do stupid things (e.g. enter Dead Pixel's room despite clear warnings 'this room has a very tough fight in it').
Elite: Might be beyond level-appropriate casual players unless they make a lot of attempts.
Elite+ (only relevant in 'extreme challenges): Veterans are likely to take multiple tries to get their first completion, and might need resources. Example of this today: Elite Bastion of Power.
Elite ++ ('extreme challenges' only): Completing this, at all, should be something worth bragging about. Example: Elite Stealer of Souls with Sor'jek when the cap was 16.

An example of a quest I think is balanced perfectly: Blown to Bits. Casual you will win unless you blow yourself up away from a rez shrine (i.e. ignore quest parameters or do something really dumb). Normal is pretty similar but you don't want to go in there with 170hp and no fortification. Hard is a little rougher, and Elite is a moderate challenge to veterans, with mobs putting up a real fight.


One last general point I elaborate on more in the next post I made (20 or so posts down the thread): The way DDO handles total party wipes is not pleasant. DDO could learn a bit from WoW in how to handle party wipes - for all that combat in that game is lackluster, they do get you back in the action fast after a wipe. I've been in PUGs in that game that have stuck together throughout 5 or 6 wipes because you are back in the fray within 2 minutes. OTOH, in DDO, recovering from a wipe might take ten minutes (everyone but one person recalls to the tavern, restocks HP/SP/boosts, then needs to meet up, run together through an explorer area killing their way back to the quest, then has to run all the way through the quest again).


Low level (1-7):
Casual/Normal are generally very forgiving (as they should be). Non-boss monsters can't do much to you unless they really swarm you.
Hard is usually too close to Normal, IMO.
Elite varies - in quests with enemy spellcasters, Elite with airship buffs is like Casual, but without airship buffs, it's actually really tough, especially since the changes to Lightning Bolt.

Suggestions: Level-restrict the 30 resist shrines. Low level is otherwise pretty well balanced - there are quests to suit pretty much anyone's preferred difficulty. There's the odd outlier quest (Proof is in the Poison, Chronoscope) that are much, much harder than their level indicates, but they are the exception not the rule. If you want to do anything, leave Casual, Normal and Elite as they are, but up Hard a little so the Normal to Hard jump is roughly the same as the Hard to Elite jump.



Mid level (8-15 or so):
Quest by quest variance here is more significant than difficulty setting. Chains of Flame normal is significantly more difficult than Trial by Fire Elite, for instance. This is IMO a problem.
Throughout all of these levels, almost all mobs just have no answer to the 'gather up 20 mobs, Acid Rain or Fireball them down' strategy. This lets veterans obliterate almost everything in this level range.
These levels are where the gap between veteran completion times and newbie completion times really widens - consider VON3, which I've done on Hard in under 10 minutes, but where a newbie might spend an hour and a half then not be able to defeat the Marut or the Troika before it. Xorian Cypher is similar - 4 minutes if your group speedrun it flawlessly, 45+ if you don't know it.

Suggestions: Reassess the Challenge Ratings of some quests. Add some abilities mobs can use on kiting players (not ray spells for obvious reasons, and not things FoM blocks - think things like Power Word Stun, PW: Blind, Dispel Magic, Divine Punishment, Burning Blood, Chain Lightning, and arrows of Slowburst, all of which can harry rapidly moving players).
But most of all: Warn players when they are about to step into a quest that is likely to wipe first-timers. VON3, VON4, Offering of Blood, Chains of Flame, most of Necro 3, and Crucible all need an 'extreme challenge' warning. The most common 'this game is too hard' feedback I've heard is from people has come from people stepping into one of those quests with no foreknowledge. A casual player that's just soloed Stormcleave on Normal and is now stepping into VON4 is more likely to enjoy the experience if they select Casual difficulty, and the 'extreme challenge' warning will help guide them to that difficulty.

High level (15-20, excluding raids)
Really this is all over the place. Some is much harder than endgame content (Elite Stealer of Souls is harder than any 6-person Epic content, as is Elite Bastion of Power). Some is mind-numbingly easy to me (IQ/DD chains, excluding Elite Mindsunder) but might interest some other types of players. There's few quests that are short in this range, which makes it difficult to do anything when you have limited time, unless you are a seasoned zerger.

Suggestions: Add more short quests that aren't the really easy Inspired Quarter ones. Reassess challenge ratings - leave the quests themselves alone, but change the CRs so that a newer player can make a more informed decision about which quests to attempt. Specifically (and yes I know I'm quoting myself here and that that is weird, but I did make these suggestions just days ago :) ):



My wishlist for the Update 13 release notes.

...(lots of stuff not related to this thread)

High Level Quests - Challenge Rating Reassessment
To make it clearer to players what the relative difficulties of these quests are, the following quests have had their CR changed (and as such, now award slightly different levels of random loot):
Against the Demon Queen (the preraid): Promoted to level 14.
Inspired Quarter: All quests demoted to level 17, except Mindsunder remains level 18.
Dreaming Dark: All quests demoted to level 17, except The Dreaming Dark which is demoted to level 19
Reaver's Refuge: All quests promoted to level 18, except Stealer of Souls which is promoted to level 20
Acid Wit: Promoted to level 18
In the Flesh: Promoted to level 17
Amrath: All flagging quests promoted to level 20, except Bastion of Power promoted to level 21. Tower of Despair promoted to level 22. Both non-flagging quests demoted to level 18.
Also note the earlier suggestion related to doing something similar for Epics.

All Quests - Quest Length Indicators:
Quests are presently rated as 'short', 'medium', 'long' or 'very long'. These ratings have all been reassessed. All ratings assume no foreknowledge of the quest, and that no shortcuts are used.
In addition, quest length changes (if required) with difficulty setting - so a quest like A Vision of Destruction that takes ungeared groups quite a bit longer on higher difficulties will show up as 'medium' if you run it on Normal, but 'long' if run on Elite.
Quests are marked as 'short' if it is expected that a level-appropriate party with no foreknowledge of the quest would complete it in under 10 minutes. Example: Stand Your Ground
Quests are marked as 'medium' if they are expected to take 10-20 minutes. Example: Running With The Devils
Quests are marked as 'long' if they are expected to take 20-30 minutes. Example: Prison of the Planes
Quests are marked as 'very long' if they are expected to take longer than 30 minutes. Example: The Shroud
Quests are marked as 'extremely long' if they are anticipated to take players over an hour. This only really comes up for chains that are hard to pick up partway through.
Quests are marked as 'varied length' if they have significant optionals that, if done, add a lot to completion time. Example: Gianthold Tor is 'varied length - very long'; Litany of the Dead is 'varied length - long', and so is The Missing Party from Delara's Tomb.
Finally, quests are marked as 'multi-part' (in addition to a length) if they are part of a chain that is hard to pick up midway through. Example: Captives of the Cult (part 1 of the Cult of Six chain) is marked as 'multi-part, extremely long'. Freeing Achka (Grey Moon Waning part 1) is marked 'multi-part, very long'.
...


My second post will have what I'm more concerned with, the game at 20. That's post #67, IIRC.

[Viren1]

Balancing difficulty in this game is extremely difficult because of the range of players... Things that can be soloed by well geared TR could potentially crush a party of new ungeared players, especially if they don't already know the quest.

The difficulty levels at the moment don't quite feel right to me. When I first started playing ~1 year ago I feared running anything on elite because I failed them, regularly. Now with a couple TR's under my belt and more experience, these quests are mostly a walk in the park to solo.

So I think the levels need to be rejigged slightly:
Casual - Should be soloable by a new player on their first life with limited gear (This allows new players to learn quests, get xp and gear if for whatever reason they don't like partying up/don't have time for a party to fill)
Normal - Should be a slight challenge for a party of new players with limited gear (Where challenge means that if a couple of mistakes are made the chances of completing drop unless resources are used, Encourages better teamplay and coordination for better xp)
Hard - Should be a bit of a challenge for a geared TR to solo( This 'should' also make it possible to do with a well geared party of new players/first life toons)
Elite - Should be a challenge for a TR party (This one is all about risk vs reward. A PUG consisting of a few TR's and a couple well geared new players will find it a fair challenge but could complete with good teamwork, A group of vet's who TR together and know each others abilities and the quests should even find this a slight challenge, but lets face it - if you balanced elite around those players it would become extremely exclusive and new players would never even attempt it)
Epic - Should be... Well, Epic. Capped Toons first life or not, with decent gear (Greensteel, ToD sets ect) should be challenged, somewhere around a 70% completion rate. At the moment most epics can be walked through with just a small amount of coordination just 1-3 well geared toons (One or more would need to be a caster but this isn't the place to be discussing that)

[Ganolyn]

Here's a question to the playerbase:

Would you accept Elite/Epic quests that smacked you around like gimps, even with fairly good gear, stats, skills, multiple TR's etc...; where you had more of a chance to fail than succeed; where you need good planning, communication, tactics, skill, a little luck and still the outcome is not in the bag; as long as at the end of it you were guaranteed something you might want to loot to help you progress your game? This would make beating the quest the goal and not a certain number of completions hoping for a good drop. Yeah, you'd die a lot, but you would become better players for it and not treadmill runners. Would this be preferable to the mindless repetitive head banging that grinding and hoping the luck gods smiling on you that is in effect now?

[TheDearLeader]

I think to say "The game is too hard" or "The game is too easy" is too broad of a stroke to be taking. Really, we need to be able to see that we can leave appropriate, targeted, qualitative feedback on specific Quests, Mobs, Encounters, and Difficulties. Also, with 12 distinct classes, the relevance of party composition also comes into play. Saying "The game is geared toward the Uberleet" or "The game is way watered down easy button" ... it's just too general. How does feedback based on such premises turn into a change in product?

So, I will leave at least a couple pieces of feedback that are more targeted:

Air Elementals - They were bad, then they were good, now they are bad all over again. 1 is bad in and of itself, and can significantly increase the difficulty of an encounter well beyond it's challenge rating - 2 or more in a pack become a nightmare. Was duoing Casual Running with the Devils with a level 16 Dex-Based Rogue, a level 18 Paladin, a level 18 Cleric hireling, and a level 13 Bard Hireling. There was a particular area in the middle where two elementals, a Djinn (who went into "invincible air form"), and two Invisible stalkers - and it nearly wiped us. That's *Casual*. It killed both hirelings, and even as a Dex Rogue found myself getting tossed and knocked over regularly not because of low reflex saves, because of lack of a cooldown or immunity timer on their various effects - 15 saves in the span of less than 0.5 seconds? Yeah, I'm likely to roll a 1 on at least one of them.

Abbot - Not the puzzles, they're fine provided you have no server lag, no ISP lag.. whatever. The Black Abbot himself. High HP, High AC, High Saves, multitude of Undead + Lich + Purple Name immunities, and Evasion? It's just entirely too much on one mob. He's a caster - he should low AC. He's a Sorcerer, I believe? If I'm remembering that right, he should have a pretty poor Reflex, as well, since he can't benefit from Insightful Reflexes like a Wizard would. His Fortitude probably shouldn't be all too stellar, either. And where exactly does Evasion come from? It really doesn't serve the flavor of the mob. It's an example of a "super mob" - just because someone wants to Ascend to Godhood, that doesn't mean they are without imperfection.

Quests where the trash/effects/etc end up becoming more of a threat than the boss mob - For example, Elite New Invasion. Barnzidu? I could care less about. But his traps, combined with the aforementioned Super-Air-Elemental? Different story. In this situation, you've got a relatively weak boss, to the point that he is on the back burner. The bigger concern is evading traps, getting a Power Word : Kill off the moment the Air Elemental spawns and hoping you don't get the "You are not facing..." Error that's been cropping up so much lately, and then you can deal with "the big bad". His Binding Chains are only scary and dangerous not because it allows him to close on you, but because it makes it very difficult to avoid the traps - again, the traps become the highlight, not the boss. Likewise, Shroud on Hard or Elite shares this issue - instead of the Boss, Arraetrikos, being the "difficult part", the new difficulty is instead the Blades, an "Effect". By Effect, of course, I mean that they do not follow the rules for either a Mob, or a Trap, or a Spell. They do not have AC, HP, and are immune to all player interactions attempting to stop them (Web, Dancing Ball, Massive Damage, Disable Boxes, other attempts to "Thwart" them.) They also do not have To-Hit, so player AC is irrelevant, and they do not have a standard Trap/Spell Save, so player Saves or status of Evasion is irrelevant. This is again where Turbine basically deviates dramatically from a D&D perspective. There really is no "Cure" for Blades, no resist, no buff, no offensive or defensive action aside from Large HP Pools, and Fast Response Healing. Different from that is Arraetrikos : He is an enemy mob with a To-Hit, spells with DCs and specific damage types, etc. He can be Debuffed, he can be destroyed, his spells can be saved or buffed against, etc. So... again, rather than the boss who intends to make Shavarath coterminus taking the spotlight... some "effect" of dead Barbazu becomes the focal point of Parts 3, 4, and 5.

Caster Level/Hit Dice issues : These cause more problems in the game than we tend to think about, I believe. They can greatly influence the outcome of an encounter. An Epic Quest with all Ogres? Great. Cast Mass Hold, move on. An Epic Quest with all Drow? Same "Difficulty", except a great deal of a caster's spellbook is instantly nullified by the fact that they have SR45~46 on Epic Difficulty settings. Yes, there are non-SR-based techniques, but that's not solving the problem, it's adapting to lack of sufficient solution to the problem - make them 25 HD mobs instead of 35 HD ones, and an SR of 35~36 ends up being more a level well casters will see 40%~80% efficacy of "Landing" their spells, dependant upon how much they have focused on Spell Penetration. Likewise, when a CL:21 Greater Dispel Magic and rolling a 20 is insufficient to "Remove" a Symbol of Pain Debuff cast by an Epic Caster? That Epic Caster's Caster Level needs to be toned down. Player Character Caster Levels and Spell Resistances become as irrelevant in most Epic Difficulty settings as AC does.

Difficulty Versus Reward : This is often a problem that I see, and hear complained about. Running Elite VoD is probably somewhere on the order of 6 times more difficulty than a Normal VoD, as a practical example. It will take longer, require more damage, more resources, better saves and gear... etc. However, the rewards for completion of Elite are not so different. A few new items? Good. But there is still a maximum of 3 chests, with only 3 chances for Major Pots/Renown/etc. It's sad that I can run one of the Dreaming Dark quests in 5~6 minutes, pick up the reward in 60 seconds, and be back in to repeat process, and net more material worth *and* renown than a 12 man group can do running an Elite Raid. Abbot Elite shares this issue - 1 Chest? Really? Really? 1 "Named Loot" chest - and five CR18 Trash loot chests. Do it. Elite DQ and Epic DQ have the same "Junk loot" chest? No. Epic should have an additional CR20 Trash loot side chest, the kind with a chance at unbound +3 Tomes. Do it - reward players that both attempt and succeed at high degrees of difficulty.


That's all for now.

Edit : Looking at that, that is a big wall of garbage. Horrible looking. I apologize. It might help to Copy/Paste individual bullets into Word and read them or something, because the forum format did not come out well.

[Angelus_dead]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO?
The most-outstanding specific problem with DDO's difficulty: the lack of Normal Epic, Hard Epic, and Elite Epic. If NHE settings are good for level 1-19 dungeons, they'd be good at level 20 too.

The bigger problem (and more difficult to deal with) is spellpoint potions, and how they form an entire other axis of success/failure. Do other MMORPGs allow players to spend consumables to power through tough fights like that?

Yet another big problem is the loose way DDO measures a character's power, since whether an encounter is difficult is relative to the character attempting it. DDO deals with this by applying XP penalties or other drawbacks if a character is "too strong" for the content, as measured by his level. But the truth is that a 34-point FVS 13 with a Supreme Tyrant Greensteel Greatsword of Lightning is a much stronger character than a Drow Paladin 17, but yet the weaker character is penalized for being overlevel.


It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'
The giant pitfall with that kind of feedback is that it rests on the assumption that difficulty is a scalar; that all difficulty is interchangable. Of course, the truth is there are many different ways to make some content more difficult, and the various approaches can lead to very different gameplay enjoyment levels.

Once again, the problem overshadowing all that is that if you give Boss X +100% hitpoints, he'll stay alive +100% longer and do +100% damage, requiring +100% healing and up to +100% spellpoint usage. In one sense the battle has become way way more difficult. but almost all of that "difficulty" can be conquered by doing the exact same things a bit longer and clicking a few mnemonic bottles as-needed.

[Kushiel]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

I'm sure class type matters some, especially against certain foes. If built as a min/max, that probably changes things too. I'm an old (OLD) pnp player... I built "characters" for my own fun, each life I've slipped a little closer to min/max allocation of points, and definitely putting more in CON that I would for pnp. It's... annoying... to do that with a DND character. Even kinda botched, it'd be nice to shine!

I think (would like) that every player/character/build stood a good chance at progressing through quests on Elite... also since that is favor reward bumps that unlock other additions and aspects of the game. It'd be nice for folks to have easier access to more content. Let there be that "Epic" level/version of quests where people who want a "challenge" *playing* a "game" can go and feel like they are pushing their attributes, gear, and personal twitch skills to red-line conditions.

In general for the higher level quests I'm one who would say that I would like an easier time on Hard and Elite difficulties... because that is where the xp is. Repeating on casual and normal the xp penalty kicks in to quick to count on that for good leveling. For the characters I build, the race I prefer to play, my playstyle, my gear there are many high level quests I actively avoid even on their casual or normal setting. Maybe that will change on life 10 or so....

I really enjoy most the quests and leveling from 1 to about level 13 (I'm a TR addict and like to see progress taking place). Levels 14-15 are okay... but the spread of quests is poor. I hate levels 16-20... even on Normal I find many of the quests full of foes and mechanics that sap a lot of the fun out of "playing" a *game*.

I have never done Shroud - I'm not likely too. What I've read about it sounds like a messy PITA. So, in my recurring lives I don't have greensteel items. I don't grind out Mabar, Cove, or Challenge stuff either. After trying the early cumbersome, confusing, unintuitive (compared to pnp magicking up better gear/weapons), unfun repetative button-clicking annoyance of "crafting" I haven't done that either.

Many of the quests on hard or elite, say in the levels 12-20 range, probably are a breeze for people with greensteel and uber epic'd gear. That's not me. That's not first life 28pt builds (I guess those folks still exist in the game and we get more now and then? Don't we even *want* more of them... they are new people to play the game?). I can't imagine folks who aren't guilded up and playing consistently with good parties finding much fun in many of those.

Critters like mephits, glass spiders and eye-horrors that do spawn-offs of additional critters... that do Not count towards kill count (but can be deadly, use resources, and can damage gear) are miserable. Blanket Immunities suck... I want a chance to be able to use all my abilities/capabilities/spells and see them be effective.

The mechanic where if one parties with another who is 4 levels higher the XP penalty hit is painful makes grouping in the higher level quests miserable as well. Limits too many chances to get into quests (even on normal) and see some good xp accumulated.

Some Wilderness Zones (Desert, Water Works, Red Fens, Restless Isles) could stand to have more critters added to instances that are just groups of fun, nice stuff to kill. Not every critter on the map has to be a potent foe. Especially for first life 28pt new players running through the area.

Puzzles. OMFG Puzzles. Some of them are deity-awful stupid to figure out *in-game* and benefit from doing (The Sane Asylum, Dream Conspiracy). I've recently been in a couple groups where we have been screaming along having a great time together and... pfftttt... those puzzles are a complete bog. Have had people drop group while trying to "solve". Swamp. Suck of time. Unless... someone is able/willing to alt-tab off to a freaking wiki to find a solution. Not Fun In The Game World.

If this actually saves (this message) will try to edit later with better/more details.

[Dawnsfire]

Personally I am finding the difficulty levels quite confusing. I am running my first TR and am trying to run everything on hard. I have noticed that hard in some quests are simple while some are a lot harder. The Catacombs at level are very easy, while the Seal pack is quite a bit harder (and longer).

I never did see a significant difference between normal and casual. Hard is definitely harder and Elite is a step harder still.

I am more annoyed with the xp awards for quests. It doesn't seem like the length of many quests are taken into account in the xp awards.

[sebastianosmith]

I recently got my 69 year old father to sign up for a F2P account. He's computer literate but not game savvy. After a month of casual play and much tutelage, he is beginning to learn the ropes. Watching him play, I'd have to say that at least low-level content is tuned just about perfectly for the casual or new player.

He's mostly been puttering about Korthos trying to figure the basic mechanics of running his character. He dies every once in a while but can handle most content on normal. Granted I've twinked his character so that failure is almost an option, but he's having fun and not getting discouraged when he fails a quest.

I suppose the greatest challenge he faces is simply the scope of the game. There is so much to do, so many lessons to learn. What I now take for granted, he has yet to master or even encounter. DDO has a high barrier to entry for a new or casual player. Not because the quests themselves are terribly difficult, but rather that the game is so enormous it can be overwhelming.

[BlackSteel]

from 1-19 I find the game to be appropriately easy/difficult based on what settings you use n/h/e when you TAKE AWAY DUNGEON SCALING. With the exception of traps, I often find it easier to solo something on elite versus playing it on normal with a full party.

I like the general direction the game has taken with quest/raid difficulty over the past 6 monthsish. My only comment would be that some of the HP levels seem more than a little excessive. My favorite thing about DDO was the fact that as a semi'casual player, I could still run endgame content with only short bouts of 30 minute or an hour play time. Between organizing a party, the super high HP of elite/epic bosses, and the unneccarily long wilderness treks, I find it hard to participate in the new raids. Not b/c my characters are not up to snuff, but simply the time investment is not there. I can count on one hand currently my completions for both MA and LoB. I've enjoyed both of them alot when I have had a chance to play them, both on normal and epic. But I dont like having to wonder, "do I have time to sit in a LFM, clear to the quest, and complete before the wife comes home?"

TR'ing is nice b/c no matter how little time you have to play, you can log on and knock out some exp and actually accomplish something. Its a grind, but certainly not challenging. The new top tiered raids on the other hand actually seem to require some time investment

[katz]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

occasionally. some quests are just harder than others. some are easier. an easy lowbie example of a 'hard' normal quest would be Proof in the Poison. sure ship buffs have trivialized it a great deal, but it's still no walk in the park.

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

to some degree there are 'breaks' at what used to be previous level caps where the overall difficulty ramps up a bit (stepping into Gianthold for the first time ever is a bit of a daunting eye-opener) but that's not necessarily a bad thing

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

normal should be scaled so that a first time first life not-well-geared character can complete with some difficulty, but not too much. failing repeatedly is discouraging. failing once or twice usually sparks a person to ask "why did i fail. how can i do better?" especially if they were close to finishing.

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case?

YES YES a thousand times yes! it is a bit hard not to when a game gets a few years on it, and everyone has at least *some* gear... but i remember when i first started. i remember that some quests kicked my arse on normal. some zones were SCARY. Gianthold kicked my rogue's backside six ways to sunday, and god i avoided Shavarath my entire first life with Pointless, and she was my first 'capped' character. i was neither confident in my skills, nor my character, to play in a zone that difficult compared to what i was used to. the first time i ran IQ quests i remember thinking how hard it was. even the first time i tried to run it on Pointless' second life was a bit messy and trialsome. 2 days ago i ran Finding the Path normal, solo. as in, not even a hire. it was... easy. i was amazed at how easy. my husband and i turned around and duo-ed all IQ and most of DD (everything except the end quest with the dreamforge) on hard and breezed through it (ok, we didn't 'breeze' thru mindsunder, but we did complete with reasonable ease). but if the game were to be balanced to give us, a pair of decently geared third life TRs, a challenge, it would be next to impossible for that character my first life self was.

It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

some inline responses in yellow

many of the raids are, IMO, a bit out of whack. as grodon9999 said, a 14th level raid (reaver) should not be throwing 500 damage spells around (also, unrelated, those air elementals are INSANELY annoying), and as rdasca said, normal shroud should not be killing 500+ HP toons in seconds because they couldn't move away from the blades fast enough.

and as others have mentioned, In The Flesh elite is extraordinarily difficult/nearly impossible at level.

and Abbot is just downright ridiculous.

[umeannothing]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.


The right balance vs success for me personally is first and foremost, casual (or solo)difficulty needs, let me emphasize that NEEDS, to be an option for every single raid and quest in the game. This allows people to go in the quest/raid to learn it with little expectation of failure, they can spend as much time as they want to in the area exploring the lore without being rushed by a group of players that has done the quest umpteen times and just wants to get in and out as fast and as many times as possible. (solo difficulty should also allow for the same rewards the quest/raid would drop, but at a very, very extremely low chance, like 0.0005% or less imo so that nobody that does the quest/raid, whether solo or in a group has a zero chance of a reward for the time they put in)

Normal I feel is a bit easy, but also just right. It allows a various divergence of playstyles to play, solo, casual, guild, non guild, group, RP, etc. Raids, I cannot attest to other than Chrono, and that was I still had to ask for help at the end boss when my Hurc was a fresh L20 no gear, so that to me is just about right.

Hard is good, if you do not know the quest well, expect to die if you solo it (in general) but there is a good chance to complete without a death.

Elite I feel is right there, and should be right there, when doing quests at level, you have a good likelihood to die from it as a solo and as a group, skill comes into play for the most part imo on elite.

The balance of success vs. failure to me is touchy, I play solo for the most part, and as such, I avoid quests where I know I haven't the gear to carry my way through, because nobody likes to fail, but the chance has to be there or the game has no interest for very long. I feel that harbor quests are a bit easy on all levels by the way, and give new players the misguided assumption that this is an easy game, maybe a slight bump in difficulty to all but Irestone and WaterWorks and Butchers Path and Kobold Assault wouldn't hurt much, and maybe give a real sense the game can kill you as a new player. When I group, I generally do so to get things done I don't feel I can solo at my level, and I personally like this aspect.


I also feel that re-tooling quests and raids to make at level elite impossible for at level players needing to do the quests just to make it a challenge for those that have already gotten all the gear from the raid/quest so as to make it easier is basically an affront to the up and coming new players that can now not expect to realistically ever get to do it on elite in a reasonable amount of time as well. When I say reasonable amount of time, I mean days/weeks/months. ALL content should honestly have an epic difficulty to accommodate the uber geared best players, to provide them with a myriad of quests and raids to play, even if all they get are tokens, I would love to see an epic Irestone inlet for example, or an epic 'The Pit'(with a higher chance at a muckdoom dropping) or an Stormcleave Outpost You could even take the old good gear from them and make special upgrade tokens for them etc. etc.


Time invested in a quest: ok, realistically, dying in a quest sucks. Really, nobody likes it, but it is a chance we take. The biggest problem I have with dying in a quest, is that about 1/3 of the time, by the time I get back to the quest, it has reset. THAT is where the frustration comes from, I would like to see the 5 minute timer before reset removed, and an option on the quest entry screen that says "reset quest" I get that they have to reset eventually, so how about they automatically reset the moment you step into a new quest (not explorer zone, as some quests are in them).

I really don't feel that people get so much upset about dying, but that they don't get to complete things when they do spend 45 minutes in a quest/raid. I think everything but epic difficulty should allow for re-entry, and every re-entry drops the % chance of the loot by a certain degree for each player that re enters the quest/raid.

Thanks MadFloyd for doing this, very much so.

[Angelus_dead]

Another difficulty problem:
In recent quests, the designers have tended to put in special additions on Hard and Elite, on top of the natural buff to monster/trap stats caused by those settings. Look at Small Problem or Demon's Den.

That pattern causes several problems, including making the difficulty less consistent with older quests: the amount by which it increases on Elite is much more if the monsters are not only stronger, but more numerous and in better situations. Previously Elite dungeons had strong encounters, but they had the expectation that players had learned the mechanics on Normal first. Now Elite gets its own separate mechanics, breaking that principle (and denying non-Elite players the opportunity to interact with those mechanics at all)

[Kmnh]

In-quest difficulties seem well balanced. There is a casual difficulty for guaranteed completions, normal for new/casual players, and harder ones for the crazy TR grinders. I think normal content should be hard enough that people will learn basic skills, so they don't sit like dead ducks on elite/epic content. The blades whirling around harry in part 4 of the shroud are a good example.


I find loot randomness to be really annoying in DDO. It is hard, but it feels artificial. Sure, raids have a 20th end reward list, but getting named quest loot and epic ingredients is hard in the worst possible way - you can't control it, and you can't progress towards it. Making more items/ingredients unbound would help a lot with this issue.


I really, really hate the mass instant kill spells. When a mob is held/dancing/webbed, that effect is timed. If the DPS are not good enough to clear them quickly, encounters will drain a lot of resources, and they might wipe a party. Wailed mobs don't come back.

I know there are wizards out there who ground out multiple TRs and rare loot to get their DC of 45 and use all sorts of debuffs to make their wail land more often. I don't mind those that much. It's the wizard who is playing terribly and getting random kills on lucky dice rolls (or worse: power word) that make the game look cheap and easy. I know it's not that easy, but the feeling is hard to shake. Adding a deathblock to key-mobs (like the Gnoll Conjurers in chains of flame) and higher fortitude saves would help a lot with this.

[fco-karatekid]

Overview for tl;dr - It seems the assumption has now become that all upper level content will be run in either groups or by leet players. Anyone not leet or who runs solo needs to assume he will not see the highest level content he paid for.



Difficulty choice hinge on what you guys want for a "customer".

You cannot be all things to all people. You need to target who you want playing this game, and think through interactions of the various systems within this game.

In my case, I do normal, hard, and elite up through about level 18-19 quests; then I am stuck on Normal and Hard only. I don't do Raids.

This is tied to the loot mechanic (including BTC flagging items, treasure, and ingredients)

I am a solo'er primarily. Because Elite content above ~18 and raids are primarily about hp,fort, and sheer numbers (require a tank/distraction that can think and survive) or being able to do mad crowd dmg (casters); I stay out of those on elite unless I feel like pugging.

Where difficulty becomes a problem for me is loot - i cannot get greensteel because of said limitations above UNLESS I roll up a character of said capabilities.

I can roll a caster (and actually enjoyed the one I rolled) to get BTA and unbound high-level loot to other characters; but the bound (and I could argue required) loot I _require_ (due to current difficulty balance) to experience the highest level content I purchased has to stay on that caster.

This is actually true to PnP somewhat, because you don't trade gear across character sheets;but with respect to DDO, it pigeon-holes a player into specific content for specific characters (or play styles).

Unbound gear would potentially screw with the economy (see - Diablo II - "you give me SoJ TT"), so BTA across the board seems the only way to allow all characters in my account to experience all content.

Compounding this is loot nerfs in much of the content in all but Elite and Epic (though I cannot comment on changing Epic since I've not run any of it) skill levels. A lot of the highest-level content requires at least a second life TR or better to run; but it's a catch-22 when the first-lifers cannot get the requisite Druidic Heart of Wood due to inability to access that level treasure due to the stuff above. So we're left with the choice of skipping paid-for content OR - IMAGINE THAT! They're up for sale in the DDO Store!

I cannot help but feel like it's intentional business strategy - hence becoming jaded. When the store was there for my convenience, I had no issue with it (I bought stacks of SP and thieves' tools because I was lazy - and didn't complain about it to anyone but myself). But when it becomes pay to play in THAT sense (must pay to experience content you had to... well... pay for once already), I find it a scam infinite loop.

[Lifeblood]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

I have been a fairly steady subscriber to DDO (2006) in that time I have seen several transitions in game difficulty ..

My favorite packs have always been spme of the early ones i think the balance was good in most of them
mod-1, Mod-3, Mod-4 from there I would go to the vale ..these packs have good balance imo. for new players at lvl they pose a challenge..for vets most quests are trivial after xxx completions

the rise of the Arti pack is ok i like the flag quests..as for the raids..my healers ..never again will they pug those. all guild runs or channel people only..i don't mind dieing or getting beat in a quest i do mind blowing resources on people that cannot contribute to a completion

I do not mind the rising of the bar..but to go from IQ1-2 quests where everyone gets a ribbon even last place to needing to be a Blue ribbon player to qualify is poor management and weak direction imo


as for the last update...*** made anyone think that was a good idea?...and for the loot...Vorpal ring Are you nuts..If I had a stick that would reach from Wa. to Turbine Central ..I would beat the person/people that allowed that to go live

overall I like the game..i just don't run the quests that bring me no joy..
I prefer the many hours long beating that we took in von 3 (at lvl or below grp..no res cleric all first timers)

over the fast and easy quests

the deal with the Von 3 run..we used no resources except cure pots/wands we did die..a lot we did recall a few times...we did die a lot more...but we completed and lost 60k xp in the process great fun all around

if it was easy to beat every quest i would have been gone long ago..if i had my @$$ handed to me every quest i would have moved on long ago

I understand ya'll want to retain customers..strong and weak players...you added casual for that..i thought...the issue was you added casual AND lowered the bar for the other difficulties

I am sure you know this ..But i want it in writing somewhere :) When trying to build a product that appeals to many diverse people you need to IGNORE the extremes and go with the middle ground
yes the extremes tend to cry the loudest but more often than not it is only to self aggrandize themselves or their agenda
..it is rare that an extreme has the best interests of the product at heart

stop the buggy releases and put some heart into this game...remember its DDO
when all else fails go back to the basics

[Terminus-Est]

Is Normal too hard?

As I am now? No. As I used to be? Yes.
Like other people have said, this varies wildly with your class; things that would never challenge my well-built Artificer or my Sorcerer were absolute torture for my Monk/Rogue or my Fighter/Ranger/Rogue.

Is this associated with level?

Yes and no. As another poster said, the schizophrenia inherent in quest difficulties can be found throughout the whole game, but the inherent weakness in a weak build will be more and more apparent the higher you go and the more difficulty you have advancing.

For me, the very first time I was really challenged by the game was at Misery's Peak, which I entered at level 3, by myself. Many deaths and months later, I wouldn't call Misery's Peak a 'challenge' nor would I expect any of my characters to be unable to complete it, alone, at level 3. Because I've changed as a player.

Yet, instances of wildly different difficulty at each level start as early as level 2. Misery's Peak, Stealthy Repossession and Walk the Butcher's Path are a great deal more challenging than any of their contemporaries. Two of the three reward you for the extra effort in one fashion (gear) or another (xp and 'potential' gear), one does not. Stealthy, in my experience, since it is so difficult, gets run for favor by much higher level characters or now to increase a streak number as part of an iron-man type self-challenge for some high tier players. Is that enough for a quest?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

Yes, I do not expect to fail on normal when in a full group. But it wasn't always so. Familiarity with most quests in the game has raised my expectations of myself. Now, I should be clear, when I say 'fail', I'm talking about a full party wipe that leads to releasing from the quest and maybe trying again or more likely disintegrating the group. That kind of experience should be reserved for the higher tiers of difficulty. A death or several is not 'failure' in my book.

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

Partial rewards are a good way to ameliorate this, and could certainly be more widely instituted. An example is Eyes of Stone (One of the harder at-level quests in the game, I'll note), even if you wipe on the Medusa (Yeah, I've had this happen to me, on good characters and bad) you've had access to at least one chest, more likely three, one of which includes named items, so not a total loss.

Part of the frustration from dying, is not only a lack of partial rewards in some quests, but the very tangible loss of money from repair fees. I understand the need to penalize death in -some- way, so that it has meaning beyond temporal inconvenience, yet, you do understand that repair fees hurt most those players who should be penalized the least, yes? The poorly built melee character is hurt the most by repair fees and is generally piloted by a novice player who has the least resources to come back from such a setback; and now has even less with which to rectify and empower their character.

As a player, I've moved past the point in resources where dying is a dent in my pocket, but I remember playing before this was so, where dying in a solo attempt to finish a new quest on normal meant running that same quest two or more times -without dying- in order to fund the single mistake! It's a narrow niche, this 'medium level but weak character' but I don't think its a niche you should throw under the bus, since it is one that most of your players will occupy at one point in their times as paying customers.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Yes.

In the time that I have been playing 'seriously', all of the new content has definitely had a marked higher difficulty curve than -some- of the old content. The only exception to this in recent memory was In the Flesh, which has since been altered and adjusted to be a good deal more difficult.


Now to give you some thoughts on the question you didn't ask; What should we do about this?

I think that balancing content to level on a more uniform platform, then to player skill by selected difficulty is the key. In this regard, an inexperienced player can progress through the levels with a natural soft ramp in difficulty as he goes, hopefully matching or almost matching his increase in abilities and gear.

Meanwhile the grizzled veteran can enter the world of hellish difficulty and heavenly delights right from the get-go as he battles rappelling Ninja Troglodytes in Elite Misery's Peak.

Which is to say; Make normal more uniform and the difference between Normal and Elite more of a -difference-, not just an increase in numbers. Yes, this requires more time per quest and it likely isn't feasible to expect a massive sweeping change of every quest in the game. That's fine! A few quests per update would be just fine!

Do you know how happy I was when that first Korthos quest got a facelift? Even though I hadn't run through it in months? I made a character just to enjoy the 'new' Korthos experience, to get a feel for what the newbies of today and tomorrow would be seeing. Before too long I'll have to do it again; but if I can expect even one 'new' experience for each of my travels through the lower levels (reincarnations), that is a great carrot for a grizzled veteran.

One other thing I would like to mention while I'm here is the disconnect between reward and effort in many of the lower level quests. I mentioned in et al Stealthy Repossession but I'd like to bring it up again because it is a glaring red mark in the category of Difficulty. You have some great successes. The main korthos quests, waterworks, ringleader, butcher's path, durk's secret, the main quests in the Shan-To-Kor pack. And you have some infamous failures; Stealthy Repossession, Sacred Helm, the entirety of the Three Barrel Cove pack (Which has some schizophrenic difficulty in itself as well, some of the worst I've seen in the game), Kobold Assault and its attendant clones, the Ataraxia quests (a great area that needs expanding!)

[aurum1]

I will break this down on quests and raids. Don't know or care to much about challenges.

Quests -

In a quest I do not expect to fail on normal. I can die. over and over. suffer pain. Spend an hour...or two...but not fail. Overall for a quest -
Casual - fairly easy even for a new player
Normal - Death and pain possible, but failure should be rare (New enter the kobold normal is probably spot on)
Hard - Here is where failure should be expected for new players and possible for vets/TRs
Elite - Should require me to pay attention on my double TR or vet groups

Rewards as far as xp seem about right now with bravery. Loot is always pretty meh, but maybe updated drop rates would help (i.e. stronger skew towards named and special items on elite).



Raids -
On normal I expect to fail going in on a first time on a raid. It should be more complicated. After some experience this should get easier. So overall for a raid -
Normal - Should be hard the first time, but easy once you get the hang of it. After time an at level PUG group should epxect to succeed with minimal resources if ~half the party knows the raid. I believe LoB and MA are spot on for this. ADQ and VoN also. Shroud is not currently well scaled for an at level PUG group on normal.
Hard - Should be challenging for a PUG group and very very difficult for people with average gear and experience.
Elite - Should be very difficult for a group lacking experience and gear. Experienced well geared groups should have to use some resources to complete or play 'perfect' for zero resources.
Epic - Should be impossible to do with a random set of people. Experienced well geared toons should be required BUT not specific classes or gear (i.e. please don't focus on SoS barbs and casters as the be all end all for raid completion).

Raid rewards for every raid should use the new shroud mechanism. In general the rewards for higher raid dififculties are often not scaling well (and in some cases counter-productive as drop rates shift).



Some specific comments -
I think updated epic raids are good. Pre U11 epic raids were pretty much take the 1st twelve and go.
I think updated shroud went too far. In particular this raid would be much better off with a timed death penatly ala LoB than the penalty box OR it should have weaker blades.
Updated shroud loot mechanism is awesome. Should be extended.
Abbott is always kinda funky. I don't care for 'platform game' features in an MMO anywhere.
Quest scaling with levels with the 'classic' quests works very well. You see a natural progression in difficulty as you level up. The recommendation to update the challenge rating system on some quests would be appropriate though (xorian, von3, lots of necro, some of the new stuff).

[MsEricka]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

Overall game difficulty is fine in my opinion

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I expect most normal quests to be a cakewalk and never die in them. When death does occur it's because of doing something stupid like going AFK when you think it's safe and coming back to find yourself dead and your party members laughing because they watched you die.

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

ANY quest with an absolute failure option sucks. And you know I'm talking about Coyle. To spend FIFTEEN minutes in there and have him die in the last 30 seconds is an absolute waste of time. It's not a hard quest, not at all. But his serious lack of hit points makes it difficult for people to even want to run this chain to get themselves a Mantle of the Worldshaper even at level 20.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

I still say "enough with the easy button", but I'm an experienced player. One way to possibly alleviate this is to make lower level quests easier and higher level quests harder. I realize that there is normal and casual difficulty, but since the release of the bravery bonus pugs don't run quests on casual/normal any more. Completely unprepared players are willing to go in on elite for the bonus XP only to nearly wipe while the one experienced player in the party is expected to carry them through. Personally I'm quite tired of this attitude from new players.

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

1) Lord of Blades. Pugs often fail this on normal. Perhaps lighten up a bit and drop the loot a little.

2) Master Artificer. Pugs often fail this on normal. Perhaps lighten up a bit and drop the loot a little. In this case it's the damage from the electric floors.


Direct responses in red.

This is a scary proposal, but what about a casual option for raids for beginners? This would give people the ability to run raids that they normally can't get in or complete and at least learn the raid or learn what to expect. Make no raid loot drop from casual completions and the casual completions should not count towards their raid counter. This way they would still get random loot, but only benefit from the learning experience.

[marcosoneghett]

Let me try to make another contribution here. I think casual and normal difficulties are good as they are. Also agree that some changes to Raids can be good, but they can also be bad for casual players. But overrall let me ask for something more here.

This game has a history of some very distinct and some may say difficult quests as: The Pit or The Crucible just to name a very few. Please dont eliminate this type of the quests of the equation. Some of these are my favorites and others i really hate, but they are what give a different flavor to the game.

That said and incurring in the risk of saying something who should be obvious, casual should be for solo / inexperient players; normal should be for casual players in parties; hard should be difficult but not impossible for casual players in parties and elite should be difficult for regular players and at least present some challenge for experient players. Epic should be a whole another level for experient players.

That said, there´s really a gap between Hard and Elite. It´s something that maybe the designers should rethink in the future. Also, I'd like to see more traps and some more puzzles in the game, but that´s just my personal preference.

[Lifespawn]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.


Casual should basically be no fail but it should also not key you to run a raid people run casual vale and then do one on hard and can into the shroud.I think they should have to be completed on normal have casual give ok xp but no pie piece or a minimum favor from the set of flagging quests for the raid giver to talk to you.


Normal should be like casual but with better xp/favor/pie pieces .


Hard should not scale down with amount of people in the party but i think it should scale slightly up with more people an extra chest at the end with chances for special quest/flagging/other loot.

Elite should not scale down and should scale up decently this should be the last required diff to make/craft an item( like alchemical t3) end should have 1 extra chest same as hard but with increased drop rate in both chests.


Epic should scale steeply with each member of the party more spell selection for casters not just greater command greater dispell give them black dragon bolt, polar ray, niacs biting cold and what happened to hypnotism?
End should have 2 extra chests with increased drop rates in all 3 maybe double what normal gives.


Quests need to have decent xp for the level and diff those house C quests are pathetic xp on elite, getting more xp from waterworks is just plain silly.




Summary hard would be the elite for casual players epic should be very hard and not just more hp but the rewards need to scale up with difficulty and please stop with this binding to char stuff . If you don't want saturation of some things bind them to account all your doing is making parties harder to fill and forcing people to play classes they may not care for which then makes for bad questing.

[Galeria]

It's fun to fail!
-FlimsyFirewood's signature

Actually, it's not fun to fail. But you are close- it's fun to almost fail.

Failing is frustrating, leading you to feel like you have wasted time and resources for no good reason. It can make you ragequit or just logoff and walk away.

Have you ever heard the theory that what makes us happy is the pursuit of happiness, the process, the anticipation, the feeling that you are gaining ground and achieving something?

That's the narrow line a game like this has to walk- challenge plus goals. We want to see progress and we want to feel like we earned our way there. (Except for pikers. They want someone else to do it for them. But even the pikers don't want it to be too easy or too hard.)

I don't remember the hundreds of smooth dungeon/raid completions I've had. I clearly remember the wipes and the almost wipes. They make good stories. But they also made an impression. And taught me lessons. (Some lessons are not to group with obviously drunk people, but that's still a lesson!)

On my first life, I ran Threnal with my family and guildies. 2 guildies, my two sons and my husband. I had no idea what to expect from the Threnal arena.

OMG.

We ran like crazy, died a lot and when we thought it was over, another wave spawned. Beholders!!! NOOOOOO!!!!

But we finished it, and upgraded our little blades into upgraded blades that we threw away. It wasn't the end reward that was cool, it was the struggle and the eventual win.

I ran Arena of Threnal last week with 2 TR's who had never run it before and were curious. We were at level. It was a snooze.

The quest didn't change. The players did, and I suspect it's the power creep of better gear rather than the changing of any specific quests. I know I didn't run that quest on my first life with the fully maxed stats and gear that a level 10 could possibly have... but my crafting work and the AH and past lives have all given me the means to make sure I have the best I can have for the level.

I'm not sure what the answer is. I think the quests are just about right for first life toons. I would not like to see the difficulty increased for low levels. The bravery bonus has convinced most TR's to run quests at the highest possible level for greatest XP rewards.

I don't really have a suggestion, just an observation. I started playing a year ago. In this past year, the gear choices have gotten significantly better. Cove items alone are really powerful. Cannith crafting with masterful crafting lets you max exactly what you need. The new challenge crafting combines some very powerful abilities into single slots.

The creep is from power gear. But I don't want you nerfing my gear!! Or drop rates!

The only thing I might suggest is a super reincarnation bravery bonus for doing elite below level. I almost hate to suggest it because I feel the current BB is really generous. But if you set it so that a TR would get a small bonus for being below-level elite it would encourage the people who are bored to challenge themselves further.

Oh, and nerf the Abbot! NERRRRRF HIM!

[Vormaerin]

Context for my comments: I play almost entirely with friends, casual style (ie lots of family AFKs, no worries about xp/minute, sometimes 8 yr old son's are the barbarian, etc). However, I have played the game a long time with a lot of alts, but no TRs and no huge twink source. I build good characters and know what kind of gear they should have (though I don't always have it).

I like a failure risk and I like figuring out quests. While I'm happy with the difficulty levels in the game (see below), I do find there is huge variance in the difficulty of quests in the same level range, often without commensurate variance in the rewards. I like the new style of quests (Lordsmarch, Reign, etc) over the older quests, though I have mixed feelings about the ever increasing BtA supply.

Normal is monstrously easy. The scaling is the main culprit, since we often only have 2-3 people doing a quest. I can't stand doing a quest on normal, even first time ever. If the VIP 'start on hard/elite' benefit didn't exist, I might not still be playing.

Hard is a good place for the "new" style of quests (Lordsmarch, Harbinger/Reign, etc). Our first life, low twink characters generally can handle the quests unless its one with a trick we just don't figure out (first time in Monastery of the Scorpion got completely destroyed on final boss, for instance).

Elite can be much harder than "hard". All the older quests we do on elite, both because they are easier and because we know those quests inside and out. We can't always manage elite at level on new quests, but I don't think there's any problem with that. We don't have really elite geared characters.

To be honest, I haven't seen any actual evidence of this "scale for the uber elite" that gets complained about alot. Individual quests/raids (abbot) have issues, but I don't see the game as a whole having this issue.


SUMMARY: Party Size scaling is way too significant and makes normal trivial and exaggerates the gap between hard and elite, but overall the difficulty of the game is pretty decent.

[Nataichal]

Rather than wax verbose, I'll try to go with succinct. I'll fail, but try.

Overall, game difficulty should fall along a sort continuum. Very low level quests should be a bit too easy, low to moderate level should have some difficulty to them, and high level more difficulty, but not extreme. This is due to the fact that your player skill level will fall along the standard bell curve, with a few completely inept, many competent, and some prodigies. In general, this curve exists.

Problems:
1)Some quests, for whatever reason, have been designed to be near impossible (or improbable) to complete at level with your average pug. Obvious examples include the new psychotic blades of shroud elite, or the insta wipe mind sucking pain that is the end fight of In the Flesh. These aberrations of difficulty I feel detract from game play rather than improve. Of course, its often caused by....

2)There are 2 distinct tiers of player ability in the game. For people that have been around for years, especially those before epic gear, ship buffs, or high level caps, the school of hard knocks has taught them to perform at an increased level of play. Thus, much content that was normally seen as a moderate challenge is now, due to new gear, experience in the game, ship buffs, etc. as "easy". I think the argument that some content (high level raids, the quests mentioned above, etc) are coded for these 'elite' characters is accurate. I've played since 2006, but I have several characters right now that I simply cannot play because they have not gone thru the TR/Epic gear grind, and thus would be a joke in something like LoB. This level of extreme difficulty is a shame.

3)This makes it difficult to JOIN this cadre of elite characters, as you need to have the epic gear to complete many of the quests where you get the epic gear in the first place. Combine this with the fact that the drop rates of some Epic item pieces are so low that they are almost considered mythical to the average player, and that in general many epic pieces are too hard to get, and it increases your division between these two classes.

4)Conversely, I think much of the school of hard knocks lessons learned at low levels has been lost, and characters woefully unprepared for high levels are getting to them without the basic skill sets needed to function. Upping the difficulty of some lower level content might kill some more newbies, but will make them into better players as they progress.

Thus, instead of a single peak bell curve, we seem to be developing one with two distinct peaks. The haves and have nots, as it were. As the content to gear up to join the 'haves' continues to get more difficult, the gap between these two peaks will increase.

Solution
Do not code the game for the top 10%. If someone has gone TR/gear crazy and made a god of a character, good for them. Their reward should be an easier time in quests, not quests being scaled up to meet them. Code the game for the C average students, your 70% mark.

[Xyfiel]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard? Not often

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout? throughout but minor

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you? failing is ok occasionally, but a quest I have ran a hundred times and on a decent geared character shouldn't have a high chance of failure on normal. I should run elite for a challenge at that point, not worry about completing normal. Raids/Epics on normal shouldn't fail often either.

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating. The higher the grind, the more frustrating the failure is. Turbine made the grind high for too many things.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!' Yes. That was mainly aimed at Dungeon scaling and the ease of leveling. You also have to consider the main type of player who uses the forums and says stuff is easy. Powergamer Achievers who have everything on multiple characters are not going to have issues completing 99% of the game. They play the best builds with the best gear then complain the game is too easy. Stop reworking content for the upper echelon, you can't keep up with them.

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

The following quests are too hard in general for their level:
proof is in the poison
eastern threnal part 3(hold for reinforcements?)
chronoscope
bastion of power(only the dungeon alert issue)
in the flesh end fight
enter the kobold end fight
stealer of souls

I just went thru a TR1 on a Artificer/Rogue/Ranger mutt with a moderate amount of gear and resources. I was unable to complete in the flesh and east 3 for bravery. I stopped after level 16 quests.

There are many quests even with the bravery bonus are just too long to be good xp. Most of the higher end quests give horrible xp considering how much xp a TR needs at high levels. I tie this to difficulty issue as well, if the higher difficulty isn't rewarded I don't want to do it.

[gloopygloop]

Some quests are trivially easy. Some quests are maddeningly difficult. Most are in between.

I really like the fact that there is a variety of quest difficulties in DDO. Some quests are so easy that I won't go through them more than once on Elite just to grab the favor, but there are a lot of players who need quests like those to practice in because they're just not ready for the tougher quests.

I really like the fact that there are some quests that I'm just flat out not ready for. I'd be sorely disappointed if I knew there were no quests waiting for me when I get better at the game.

I think some quests could be tweaked a little bit, but I think that the balance *across* quests is very good.

As for "balancing quests for the uber-players", there has been a little bit of this recently. And that's okay. There are still hundreds of quests for the players that aren't uber. It's okay to make a dozen quests for the people who really need the extra challenge.

[quijenoth]

Firstly thanks for this opportunity and I appologise if this post goes a little off the rails but these are some ideas thoughts and suggestions I have been waiting for an opportunity to air for some time!

There are a few things to consider with Difficulty.

The first is the type of player.

1) As a new player fresh out of the wreckage "Oi can you move?", the learning curve of the game can be quite challenging. To that end, quest easiness needs to be something all can relate to. going in on normal is likely to appeal to people over casual/solo. Since they are likely to do it first solo and will learn the quest at the same time. Grouping will come later but many new players will refrain from grouping unless they know someone else.

2) After a player has experienced a good portion of the game hes likely to want to do more difficult quests. He may not have a level 20 or TR'd yet but hes on his 3rd or 4th character and feels he knows the game well enough to jump in on hards and elites when he can.

3) Top end players that have TR'd multiple times will only want to run elites. They want to challenge not only their characters and skills but also their gear set up will make certain aspects of the game trivial.

---
Second thing to consider is gear.

1) new players will likely struggle to aquire level approriate gear. they may be lucky enough to have a full set of Korthos gear by the time they are level 3 but around level 10 gear seems to be more difficult to get right. many key items are required by certain quests and are actually made difficult or even impossible without them like underwater action, featherfalling, etc.

2) Once you have run through the quests on a few characters picking up that minimum level featherfall boots or having a deathward item becomes trivial. however just as with a players experience once you get to the teens gear begins to let you down. You may still struggle to get the +6 items at their minimum levels or may need to farm enough ingredients to finish your first greensteel.

3) By now gear isnt a problem at all - you have the best gear regardless of level, often pulling from your TR stash as you reach certain breakpoints. By level 12 you are close to what the other two wont see until 17+. Also, having a large sum of disposable platinum also affects things like pot, wand, and scroll use throughout your leveling.

---
Thirdly you need to consider time.

1) People new to the game may fail, and often will due to unknown things happening to them such as traps. when they start to group the will likely slow down more experienced players while they learn their way round a quest.

2) By now you have learned most of the starter quests, if your Premium/f2P you might have bought a few packs that you might consider trying out, not knowing what to expect, but overall you know how things work.

3) Quests are like telephone numbers to you, you stop short of any and every trap, find ways to bypass certain areas with spells or using the geometry to your advantage.

Ok now lets look at the quest levels...

1) 1-6 quests offer great challenges but dont always end in failure after the second or third attempt. 7-10 quests offer a greater challenge as certain elements become required for success, featherfall, waterbreathing and deathward all start to play a role in completion of a quest. 11-14 by this stage soloing is completely out of the question for a first lifer. Many actually turn to wilderness areas to level first time round if they find groups intimidating to join. Quests become alot more involved with many requiring chains or flagging. 16-18 quests are the break point for many first lifers IMHO. Most new players will have decided if they are playing a class worth sticking with or stop and make a new one. 19-20 quests for those that push on to cap are an uphill struggle - many new players will not "Bank" level 19 and will find groups for 19s difficult to find without a guild.

2) 1-6 quests are a breeze on normal, many will seek hard or elite groups or run quests N/H/E before moving to the next. 7-10 Quests start to become more challenging and a player notices his weaknesses - elites often fail without a full group but hards arent much more difficult than normal for them. Grouping is a little easier due to the knowledge you already have. 11-14 many quests seem easy but can turn nasty for an un-prepared, under-geared character. elites can wipe more frequently and the occational zerging hard can go south very quickly. however a careful player with the right group can find his way through these quests with little difficulty. 16-18 quets require some heavy grinding - by now most are bored of wilderness areas beyond picking up the initial explorers and rares so grouping is where the XP is at. for these levels its the start of the uphill struggle to 20. 19-20 quests are still new to this type of player, many tactics are used and although you have learned to bank level 19, getting to 20 can prove challenging to some still.

3) 1-12 quests are simply a roadbump for most veteran players. they will solo, small group (of friends) or hireling their way through them. 13-17 the grind starts for XP expecially for multiple life TRs, quests are attacked systematically to maximise XP with grouping common but mostly with those they know and trust not to slow them down. 18-20 quests continue the grind but lack too much importance as they are considered useful in most endgame content and raids.

Level 20
Quests for 20 have their own consideration. While for many reaching 20 is all there is, those that reach 20 are met with the new challenge of epics. some enjoy epics, others cant wait to TR to start leveling again or abandon one character for a new one, often using their 20 to twink others.

My thoughts on the quests.
Ok so thats the overall analysis on difficulty in the game as it stands. now here are my thoughts on difficulty itself.

for new players 1-6 quests are perfect. They can plow through them with expereinced players or learn the game at their own pace. for Vets 1-6 quests are normally broken down to a couple of High XP quests, the rest may as well not exist. Time Vs XP is all that counts, if a quest is too long they wont bother with it.

Difficulty at this level range is nothing more than "how much XP can I get?" which is fine as is.

Beyond level 6 quests should almost always be about grouping. pulling the community together to achieve a goal.

Currently the difficulty brackets of Normal/Hard/Elite are treated a little differently by each type of player. One of the key elements of a difficult quest is the amount of time invested. In my opinion optional objectives should grant the bulk of XP scaling with the length of the quest. The longer you spend in one quest the more XP you gain. if you fail you still feel you have achieved something in the process. This might not work well on lower quests but it would remove alot of frustration from failing a high level quest you spent 40 minutes on just to wipe at the last hurdle with just a large repair bill to look forward to.

How I view Difficulties:
Normal Quests should be accessable by all - regardless of player exprience.
Hard Quests should be accessable by all - player experience should make life easier as you have knowledge of what to expect from normal.
Elite Quests should provide a quest with new challenges. while still accessable by all, many inexperienced players will find that without good resource management elite is simply not possible "at level".
Elite should be aimed at providing TRs with not only the XP they need to level but also the challenges to keep the game entertaining and enjoyable rather than just a grind. Unfortunately the only way I can see of doing this is to alter the quest or add random elements to the quests. Perhaps moving or removing certain shrines, making traps random, etc.
More damage doesnt mean a quest is harder if you can avoid that damage altogether. This seems to be the approach elite quests have over normal or hard. quite frankly its lazy, unimaginative, and boring. Players simply find a way of avoiding the damage entirely which has since resulted in certain nerfs to spells that should be a part of DDO.
Resource useage should play a big part in Elite quests - shrines should be a commodity not taken lightly, many quests lately have far too many shrines for N/H/E although some see more use on Epic. Make this a more important factor of the difficulty.

EPIC
While the recent changes have been nice for people like myself who have little epic gear, epics just feel like elites with more HPs. Many vets I know find the changes made to epics have made them too easy. Personally I think they have made them more accessable which is a good thing.

I will pick on a single quest however, Epic Devils Assault. I ran this quest on a first life 20 pale master, well geared but in need of a TR, I found it impossible to fulfill my role in this quest. The damage was too heavy for the healers to deal with without good CC and I just didnt have the DCs to CC anything! In steps a 3+ life TR wizard PM with 40+ enchantment DCs and my roll was just to buff the party with rage and haste! This quest is certainly not accessable by all!.

Suggestions
New XP Reward: Include a bonus XP based on the number of times the party rests in a dungeon. The fewer shrines used, the more bonus XP is achieved.

Limit Resources: This might require some work but perhaps the inventory needs a little overhaul. My thoughts are to limit resources such as wands, potions, and scrolls during a quest. break up the inventory into potion belts, scroll cases and wand haulsters. while at a rest shrine you can place a number (say 10) of scrolls, potions and 2 wands into the relevant slots as you would preparing a spell. When you leave the shrine those resources are locked and can only be spent. When you rest again you can replenish/replace what you have used. All gear with clicky effects should be set up beforehand in clicky slots. In effect you have 1 clicky option per slot. so if you have a +4 int hat, an invisibility clicky hat and a water breathing hat you must choice one to load at each rest.

Final Thoughts
Drop the Damage wins all philosophy! every time you raise the bar on what HPs/DPS the players can achieve the damage the mobs take and deal has to increase. Without some additional level scaling, the more this happens the harder quests will become for newer players. Shroud blades is a good example of this.

Progression.
DDO misses out from one fundamental elements present in most MMOs, progression. Once you hit 20 there is nothing beyond. Many other MMOs simply raise the level cap to keep people interested. What DDO needs is some Extreme Quest Progressions. Aimed at Epic level quests only, quests chains need to be far more complex and challenging. giving people a sence of achievement beyond their next epic item. Achievements dont need to be virtual items either; special cosmetic gear, banners, titles, unique airship amenaties or new airships entirely, could all be used to entice people to play more.

Packs
Adventure packs need to cover more than just a few levels. sure there is still room for a couple more mid or high level packs but overall future packs should accomodate a much broader level range. However, they should most certanly not eliminate the existing content altogether!.

Challenges
Fatal error #1. A player can, if he so chooses, level from 4-20 on this pack alone. and he can do it solo! sure it could take some time and I'm assuming its the reason for the huge cost of this pack, however the free tokens make it possible (though very unlikely) for someone to get to 20 without paying you guys a penny!
Fatal error #2. Challenges ignore difficulty. While it may be nice to "try" doing a challenge quest at its highest difficulty for you, there is very little incentive given the scaling of the challenges. Crystal Cove was different in that it had a time contraint - players felt a need to achieve as much as they could from the quests because they where an event - Put CCove into a normal pack and you will likely see the same issues you are having now with Vault of the Artificers. IMHO you should remove the challenge scaling and replace it with traditional banded levels.

heres what I mean...
currently you have 5 quest options - Casual/Solo, Normal, Hard and Elite Plus Epic at level 20.
Dr Rushmores Quests
Behind the Door L4-15 ... becomes a level 5 10 and 15 quest. On the level 5 option Casual/Solo is level 5, Normal is a level 6, Hard is level 7, Elite is 8, there is no Epic.
Moving Targets L10-20 ... becomes a level 10 15 and 20 quest. On the level 10 option Casual/Solo is a level 10, Normal is a level 11, Hard is level 12, Elite is 13, the Epic version is level 20.
Picture Portals L15-20 ... becomes a level 15 quest and 20 quest. On the level 15 option Casual/Solo is a level 15, Normal is a level 16, Hard is level 18, Elite is 19, there is also an Epic version.

XP scales normally and overall people can play these quests continueously but eventually the XP will dry up and they will have to find new revenues for XP.
Casual/Solo needs a facelift. It should be made the quest of choice for those wishing to solo. Normal difficulty should be aimed at groups. perhaps adding in temporary hirelings for solo players to purchase in the quest that expire on exit, or simply adding additional resources or extra time. Casual should not be great XP. you want people to group for that. however casual xp should never zero out. my suggestion is set casual XP to 1/10th normal xp. with a +200% first time achievement. Casual does not affect bravery in any way and after 1st run xp drops with a flat 50% penalty for runs beyond the 3rd.

Bottom Line
Overall, I think difficulty needs to play more of an active role in quest design, not just a switch you flick that scales up the mobs hit dice.

edit: **** took me over 2 hours to write all that!

[JakLee7]

Ok -
1. Normal/Solo/Casual - I think these difficulties are spot on. Some quests are harder than others for new players, and the imbalance of classes means that sometimes you NEED some other type of player(s) with you to succeed if you are just a casual gamer. Great example of this is Ghola Fan; the end battle of that can be tough if you are soloing on a first life non-twink rogue. This is not a problem though with the quests, just a limitation of the game, not every character can do every quest at every level by themselves.

2. Hard - I seldom run hard, BUT....I do feel that other than XP, there is very little reason to run hard over Elite or Normal. The mobs hit harder, have more buffs (to hit, ac, spell selection, ect) and the DC's are slightly higher than normal for traps; and you get one use of shrines....this for a chance at slightly better loot & 1 time bonus for first hard run on XP.... I think hard needs some different standout otherwise it is a tool for TR's and that is really it....

3. Elite -sigh.... Elite is a crapshoot. Some quests do it well (Butchers Path is one) while others don't. The big problem I have with elite though mostly has to do with the raids.

3a. OK, so try this out if you haven't before. Take your level 20 character (class/race combo makes no real difference) and go do The Storehouse's Secret on elite. How many times did you die? This is something I LOVE about DDO. You can actually advance your character to the point that previous parts of the game offer no challenge.

3b. Which brings me to the problem with the most recent changes to the raids. A group of level 20's should be able to do a level 10 raid on elite with little to no challenge; a level 12 raid with little to no challenge; a level 15 raid with some small challenge..... ALL WITH A PUG. A level 17 raid on normal with very small challenges. I understand this means that some things are easier to farm for than others, but there really isn't anything wrong with that.

3c. The fact is, on NORMAL you should be able to PUG any raid in the game. That is not to say you can't sometimes fail (take shroud since F2P until mod 11 was released); but it is the exception rather than the rule. I really don't understand why VON6 would be difficult on elite for decently geared PUGS. The answer is - it shouldn't be. ELITE TOD, sure, that is actually what a level 21 quest on elite? It should be tough for your standard PUG - but normal PUG's should be sending out LFG's, and since 11 was released I have seen very, very few. That is a sign that the hard factor was turned up too much.

so... tldr:
solo/normal/casual=fine
hard doesn't fit well except for XP in its current form
elite is ok on some things but was fubar'd for raid difficulty and some quests (and if you are unsure of quests, we can provide lists).

[jejeba86]

One thing that made the lower level toons life worse was the difficulty scaling up for lower lvl raids: reavers and shroud. As those are ran all the time by capped toons, the scaling up in difficulty on elite reavers and overall shroud to make some match for those capped toons made the job for the first lifers ~17 lvl really difficult. I don't see it as such a bad thing, but really wiping an entire lvl 20 party on a 17 lvl raid on normal is weird. Also a mass spawn of air elementals knocking and slowing lvl 20 people without saves on reavers is annoying.
Now about LoB, considering AC wise (I know its another thread, but...) the raid is too hard for the normal difficulty.
Every other quests are fine, I think.
But what I really would like to see is differing difficulties on epics, may be for levels as challenges, or something more like the casual, normal, hard and elite.
I think that Shade's post here has some nice suugestions for this matter: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=307339

[Hafeal]

There are plenty of thoughts in this thread I agree with. My general thought agree with the idea that the existing game difficulties are underutilized and do not present a consistent enough variation. I would add that players are like water - although they yelp at how much they want challenge - only a small percentage of the player base truly wants or needs such challenge. Elite and Epics are for those players - and they should be rewarded accordingly with extra rewards (e.g., as the new Shroud does).

That being said, running a quest, raid or not, on casual should be 100% success, even with a gimped character, normal should be a 95%+, Hard 80%+, Elite 75%+, Epics, know what you are doing and all bets are off.

I also agree that 'difficulty' should mean more than inflating HP and adding Fort, especially as quests level. I also think, in a sense, it should not include 'grinding' - wasn't this supposed to be the grind free mmo? Perhaps it should mean that curses, blindness and other debuff does not wear off - permanent until you use a pot, scroll or get a caster. Perhaps it should mean much deadlier traps; I do not think there is a problem in needing rogue skills for quests and suffering a punishment if you do not, as long as it doesn't require a mechanic for every quest. Perhaps it should be greater damage to your items - something that really hurts.

Overall, I acknowledge it is hard with the size of the game, variety of quests, to balance them out. We all have different playstyles and might find some quests easier than others compared to other players. That being said, I think the game has failed to fully capitalize on making use of the resources it has as it has grown. The spell pass seemed to indicate some re-balancing is on your mind - but is it?

Clearly, someone thought the game was too hard when 'casual' mode was created, rubber-banding added, debuffs given timers, and scaling put in. I think some of that went too far - I don't think the game 'needed' casual had Normal, Hard and Elite been used more wisely. I am concerned though, that there seems to be some drive to make the game 'harder' again - I do not want to see the game swing back too far and be a 'turn-off' again, as normal Shroud has clearly done for that scene, imo, as it will chase players away. Use Hard and Elite for the challenge seeking. The hardcore players will thrive under it. Give them extra chances at loot - they deserve it, especially when they grind. For the casual gamers, let them have their fun with a small shot at some of the good stuff - I feel that is what has been getting lost.

[Captain_Wizbang]

Good choice for the 1st topic.

Difficulty is a wide ranging topic, and Im going to address what is affecting that in the game as a WHOLE, not for any lvl or class.

I have been vocal about game balance & mechanics, and this is part of the scenario.

We as players several years ago, begged & pleaded with Turbine for new pre's, a newer (not always better) form of crafting, better weapon attributes, increasing the cap etc...

You answered the call! To the point of the basic balance being thrown off (including the loot tables).

The characters, weapons, spells, pre's and techniques employed by the players all combined (and a few things not listed) empowered us to run almost everything with an extremely low chance of failure. Gratifying only in the context of "winning" or the feeling of.

Staff then looked at ways to try and bring the game back to a satisfactory balance. Which led to several "nerfs" (hate that saying) or way to tone down the volatility of our new "uberness"

It's not a very deep trench we are all in, to try and bring that delicate balance back, while maintaining "playability" and keeping the challenge in tact.

For the newer player, some of this imbalance can be daunting, and in some cases over-whelming, resulting in players not enjoying the game and leaving without realizing the unlimited potential DDO offers.

Some of the more recent attempts to curb this has resulted in misplaced efforts that made certain aspects worse. We know for a fact, that is NOT your intent, but it has happened. (as the forumites, are quick to point out)

::


Ensuring the correct game balance is essential to how you (Devs) have proceeded to tweak things here and there. Which is what you should do.

As this subject gets discussed, more detailed aspects of the problems & (hopefully) solutions will arise from that.

My first suggestion, is to bring the original design team in for a pow-wow. Nothing more than a fact finding session to look at how the balance and challenge of the game can be maintained.

Secondly, (this will be the bigger topic) is to look at the characters, and how they are designed.

Third, FOCUS on dungeon & party make-up. This will be real hard to employ any changes, Edited.
The question needs to be asked here, if we dont have dungeons that "require" certain classes, then why have the dungeon or the class?

Madfloyd, you all are SO CLOSE to bringing this game back in balance I can smell it. Toes & egos (players not you all) will be bruised in doing so, but such is the nature of the beast.

I have edited this as I wrote it, trying not create another wall of text in the thread.

The other suggestions are more detailed, and are meant for the specific subject when you post those threads.

In closing, on difficulty; Because of the imbalances in the areas I mentioned above, the degree of difficulty is situational. ie. Newer players, over-powered casting (or to be more precise, spells) rendering melees to a mere A team hireling.
So I believe through proper balance, you can adjust the degree of difficulty much more precisely.

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(http://s467.photobucket.com/albums/rr40/chainmail/?action=view&current=00071.gif)Happy Holidays people.

[Glenalth]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

I've been doing this a while so my views are skewed a bit toward the geared and TR'd end of things here.



I kind of like where the difficulty is now for the most part. There are a few quests that are strangely out of touch such as Proof is in the Poison at level 4 if you don't know what you're getting in to.

A way of making the content scale to cater to both the 1st week newbie and the 6 year veteran on their 30th reincarnation is a difficult balance so here are some opinions on specific quests...

Decent scaling: Demon's Den. Slightly different objectives and additional threats at higher settings, but coupled with the tons of extra HP.
Good scaling: Harbinger and Reign of Madness chains. Varied mobs and quantity based on party size and classes.
Awesome scaling: Weapon Shipment. This is a blast with big groups. I do see more casuals on the LFM boards having issues with farming it now, to the point where they won't allow more than a couple extra people in their quest instance.
Bad scaling: Inspired Quarter/Dreaming Dark... More HP on top of More HP, but otherwise exactly the same.

The current trend of making elite quests actually hard by varying mobs, quantity, and adding more traps instead of just insanely more HP for mobs is a great start. I wish to see it continued in the same manner as Demon's Den by making objectives required slightly more difficult to do (as in the time limit on all 3 efreeti + mobile end boss).

[Thrudh]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

I feel game difficulty is almost perfect... Normal is always easy for me (which is how I like it), and elite (at level) can be quite challenging... I've been working on two TRs lately, and the Bravery Bonus has me doing most quests on elite at level. It is NOT a cakewalk... We have to work hard to get the job done...

I think it WOULD help if we got partial rewards for partial completions. Like someone else said, failing at the Shroud part 4 isn't too painful since at least we pick up some good loot and ingrediants.

I think normal should be accessible to everyone... raids included. I think we should get more rewards for doing hard or elite raids. The changes to the Shroud are very good in that respect. I'm not sure I like the LoB mechanics where you HAVE to complete it on epic to make the best items...

I like the Shroud way better where you can make everything just grinding out normal, or get it done faster on hard or elite... But no one is forced to run Shroud elite to make Tier III greensteel.

As far as balancing for the uber-player, I definitely think you need to be careful here... Again, let them do elite and epic raids and get the loot faster, but don't shut out the casuals... Take advice from players like Shade with a grain of salt. He's in a very different world than 99% of your players.

Also, the grind is way too much for most of the game... There's a ton of stuff to do in this game now... Old systems like Dragon scales from Tor no longer need to take a ton of time... Epic tokens are way out of hand too, in my opinion... 30 tokens per augment slot takes a long time...

With TRs, and alts, and epics, and raid loot, and fifteen types of crafting, we don't need each and every one of those to be a grind.

Do not balance the grind around the 60-hour a week players... Maybe the 20-hour a week player... That's a 3 hour a day commitment.. which is pretty big for a hobby... There's no need to make the grind big enough to keep the 60-hour a week players busy.

[Urist]

I think I'm just restating other posts at this point.

Make the quest level mean something!
A level 4 quest should be of a comparable difficulty as any other level 4 quest.
What is the point of making quests "extreme challenges"? As far as I can tell, it's just to stiff us out of XP and loot. If the quest is so challenging, just make it listed at a higher level.


I will however say there's far too much stacking in the game
I was going to save this for the AC thread, but: this.
If you think guild resists trivialise lower levels now; imagine if guild resists stacked with the resist spell, and both of those stacked with resist potions. Now throw in Turbine "balancing" traps and spells for those stacked resists. Congratulations, resists are now on a par with AC.

[sirgog]

Part 2 of my feedback: Endgame (level 20 content, epics, and raids). The most important point is probably the second general note below, so it's underlined. Edited slightly.


Two general notes:
1) Character power level varies extremely wildly in DDO. In other MMOs, if someone says 'I soloed endgame boss X', people's immediate response is 'You cheated', as endgame bosses are designed to be so dangerous that unless you are defensively specced you cannot be healed through their concerted attacks, and if you are defensively specced, you cannot heal yourself enough to matter, and even if you manage both of those somehow, bosses require a certain minimum DPS to kill at all - often three to ten times what a perfectly played DPS character in the game's best gear can achieve.
In DDO, the lack of any DPS requirements on bosses means they can be killed 'slowly and steadily', and the customization of DDO toons has loopholes that let you build a character that can tank, heal and DPS at the same time.
2) The experience of a party wipe in DDO flat out sucks. In WOW (the other MMO I've played to endgame), wiping on a boss causes you to lose progress on that boss (they respawn at full), but other than that, you can get straight back into the action and can start your next attempt on that boss within 2-3 minutes. In DDO, wiping forces you to repeat an entire quest and maybe even pre-quests. This philosophy should change, IMO. If Arraetrikos kills a raid in part 4 of the Shroud, let them try part 4 again immediately, rather than forcing them to do the mindlessly boring 1 and 3 again (and no doubt losing 3-4 players to time constraints and thus forcing them to fill the raid up again).
The worst experiences of wiping come about in higher difficulty runs of VON6, LOB or tMA. If your group is powerful enough to consider running, say, hard LOB, you will not find the preraid area and initial LOB trash to be entertaining at all.


Raids:
It's my position that raids strongly require a Casual difficulty setting, even though that setting would not be designed for me at all. Casual difficulty is, at its heart, all about experiencing the storyline (and a lot of the game's best storylines revolve around raids) and seeing the sights of the game - experiences I don't think newer players should miss out upon.
To make Casual difficulty appeal only to the players it is intended to, give it the same loot as Normal, but a double-length raid lockout timer. Loot-oriented players won't run it, but more casual players probably wouldn't have run it more than that anyway, so it still appeals to them.
Secondly I think that, due to the long lockout timers on raids and the fast pace of levelling, you should tune Elite difficulty raids with level 20 characters in mind. Few characters achieve even five completions of any one raid before being level 20, and most raids are designed to be played 20+ times. If Elite is tuned for level 20s, then the raid can continue to be entertaining on the 6th-20th runs.
Also I'm happy with the vast divergence in difficulty from Normal to Hard and Hard to Elite that has been added to most of the older raids (even if Normal might be a little overtuned in some cases). A wide spread of difficulties means more chances to please every type of player, unlike (say) pre-U11 Reaver which had three difficulties that were all aimed at level 14 casual players.


Where I feel difficulty should be in raids:
Casual: Beatable by 6-12 people that make an attempt to work together as a group and have a somewhat coherent combination of classes. Minimal gear requirements. Still beatable if one or two of them need to unexpectedly AFK in the middle of it. Ideally does not require foreknowledge of the raid.
Example: Running pre-U12 Shroud Normal with level 20s, or pre-U12 Elite Reaver's Fate with level 14-16 characters.
Normal: The default PUG difficulty. Beatable by 8-12 people that are mostly following an easily communicated strategy, wearing level-appropriate non-uber gear that has been sensibly chosen. PUG groups might wipe if three or four people don't pull their weight or do something very stupid, but 80%+ of level-appropriate PUGs should succeed. Example: Normal difficulty Vision of Destruction, or if heat-seeking blades were removed, post-U12 Normal Shroud.
Hard: The default guild/channel group difficulty. Beatable by 12 people that closely follow a somewhat thought-out strategy, again with non-uber but sensibly chosen equipment. Should have additional complexity compared to Normal. Will require resources until groups discover what to do. Example: Tower of Despair Normal.
Elite: The default 'We'll all bring our best toons for this' guild run difficulty. Beating this should require many attempts, but every guild that works on it should down it eventually. Example: LOB Hard, or TOD Hard.
Epic: For new content, the difficulty that is designed to mercilessly wipe powergamers over and over, until they finally get it down. Server firsts should take a while. Example: LOB elite/epic, Shroud elite post U12. Existing pre-U11 epic raids are currently tuned closer to 'level 20 hard', but it's not worth changing them as too many people are part-way to getting items from them.

Specific raids:
Chronoscope: The non-Epic difficulties are far, far too hard for their levels but far too easy to be enjoyed at level 20. Epic is well done now, except for the final fight which still drags. IMO this should just be promoted to level 8 or 9 and otherwise left as-is.
VON6: Velah hits too hard at the non-Epic difficulties, but is too fragile (you usually don't even get to see her breath in at-level runs). Epic now feels like a very well designed 'level 20 Hard' raid. For casual difficulty, dramatically drop Velah's damage, and make her fire breath painful but survivable.
Titan: Should require 2 pillars on Casual, 5 Normal, 6 Hard, 7 Elite. The Titan needs more HP in the 'combat with the Titan' phase.
DQ2: Tone down Lailat's To-Hit on Normal and Epic, and her damage per hit on the non-Epic difficulties. Up her HP on non-Epic. On Casual, make her miss a 45 AC somewhat often, and remove the archers.
Reaver: On Casual, use the Reaver from the old, pre U11 Elite. He's well suited to a casual level 14 raid.
Abbot: On Casual, require only 4 sarcophagi to be smashed, make the puzzles more forgiving, and tone down Inferno. On the classic difficulties, drop the Abbot's HP.
Shroud: On Normal, remove 'heat-seeking' blades. On Casual, tone down Harry's damage output and remove all blades from part 4.
VOD: On Casual, halve the trash spawns and drop Suulo's To-Hit so that a 65 AC is missed a lot. Leave existing difficulties as-is.
HOX: On Casual, delay beholder spawns by 3 minutes, and tone down Xy'zzy's damage output. Leave existing difficulties as-is.
TOD: Change part 1 to allow raises, but with a raise lockout timer of 0/1/2/3 minutes (c/n/h/e). Remove Blasphemy from Casual and tone down boss stats (especially Shadowfiends). Leave n/h/e otherwise as-is.
LOB: Drop the Lord's to-hit to be maybe 5 points above Horoth. For Casual, remove Whirlwind, tone down Rain of Blades and dog vomit, and remove 'Gate Keeper' quori altogether. Add the shrine to e/EP to remove the boring Torc phases. That, and changes to how the game handles wipes, should see a lot more people run this fantastic raid.
tMA: Have the 'mega-shot' damage scale with difficulty - 200/400/500/600/700 (c/n/h/e/EP) instead of the flat 500.



Difficulty vs. Drop Rates:
Item drop rates vary a lot in DDO. Low drop rates do not in any way add difficulty to the game, they instead add grind - mindless repetition. Newer endgame content (LOB, tMA, eChrono, eFens) is generally harder than the older stuff, but doesn't have the low drop rates. Consider upping drop rates on older items to match.
Also raids have multiple difficulty settings - I feel loot should be noticeably higher on higher settings so that those players that like a challenge (like me) can make groups for the hardest settings and know that those people that prioritize loot acquisition will actually consider joining.
IMO the design principle here should be: "Will this raid be fun on the 20th/50th completion?" If no, then drop rates should be high enough that players should have everything they are likely to want within 20/50 runs respectively.
One thing that's not really been done is having the same item drop on Normal, Hard and Elite but with slightly different stats. Let's say you decided a raid should have a Warhammer with Holy, Greater Undead Bane and Greater Incineration on it. You could consider making the item the +3 if it drops on Normal, +4 if it drops on Hard, and +5 if it drops on Elite, and add an altar at the end of Hard and Elite that lets you upgrade lower level versions of the weapon to their (slightly) stronger forms. Some people might decide to run the raid on Normal until they get the item, leave it tier 1 for a while, then much later work on Hard difficulty and once they get a single completion, bam, they have a tier 2 version of their warhammer which they might be content to keep. Others will just go straight to Elite and keep running it until they get the tier 3 version in one go. And the difference between Normal and Elite versions is very small, so if you consider Elite too hard to ever beat, you can settle for having almost all of the power of the item in the tier 1 or 2 version.


6-person Epics:
These are all, with one or two exceptions, too easy to be entertaining for the number of runs that are required to complete items. Not because of the quest designs, but because the spells Wail of the Banshee, Implosion, Circle of Death and Undeath to Death obliterate them, and then almost all bosses are just 'surround and beat down for 1 minute' fights.
I'm not sure if your intention this year was to swap raiding and 6-person Epics in DDO's difficulty progression, but that has happened with U9. Almost every 6 person epic is now easier than the Subterrane raids on Normal, whereas before U9 almost every 6 person Epic was harder than VOD Elite.

Suggestions:
Keep the lower mob HP - this made epics more fast-paced.
Do something to the four problem spells. Finger of Death and the like are fine, it's the AoE versions that are killing this part of the game. Promoting some mobs to orange-named status would help.
Try to make boss fights more engaging, like you managed with some of the Challenge bosses. If a mob does nothing but melee, give them Improved Sunder and an extreme crit profile, or give them massive combat buffs and/or re-enforcements when they fall under 25% hp.
A lot of this is tied to class balance, as well. Give us a reason to take melees again. And if you see anyone successfully solo an Epic, that's an indication that either the quest is under-tuned, or their class or build is way out of whack.
Finally, give mobs some way to tone down player kiting. If mobs spawn too fast to kill without kiting them, reduce the spawn rates.

Encounters that are done well:
Demon of the Frenzied Blood (although the spawn rate on trash is too high, and the trash is too durable, meaning people pretty much only kite or Fascinate it)
High Priestess of the Depths (just because she has such a wide variety of ways to incapacitate players)
Raiyum
VON2 final fight (really dangerous until you neutralize the adds)

.. and ones that aren't:
Slomnuc (drags on and on but is not varied at all)
Crateos
Malicia (a little more variance here - a 68 AC is fine in general, just not in the easiest epic chain).


What I feel is missing from high level:
Difficult 6-person content that has loot incentives to repeat. For all their faults pre-U9, Epics were this, but they aren't now.
Casual difficulty raids.
More content for ungeared level 20s to acquire solid basic gear from. I posted some ideas related to this in my update 13 wishlist, here: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=354769 (search for Paragon difficulty).

[Xyfiel]

Want to add the easiest solution I had come up with in regards to Abbot was to only have one puzzle per difficulty and more hps.
Normal = meteors only
Hard = meteors and Ice
Elite = all 3
This basically removes the lag/latency problem because players can at least run normal at a high rate of success. Abbot has to be the highest % quest failure that I have run.

[Antheal]

The quests are far too difficult and there are too many easy buttons.

Fix this.

[donblas]

As for General quests....

With the new bravery bonus I have been running most quests on Elite. I find with an experienced group (meaning people who have played for a year and know the quest) that these are challenging, but the group will still succeed most of the time.

When I compare that to how I used to approach quests on Elite a year ago when I was a newb, this is very different. I was afraid of quests on Elite and they were very challenging for me, but having more experience with the game and particular quests makes a huge difference.

Now normal quests for me can easily be zerged, because I know them well enough and have my characters prepared.

As for Raids... I find these all very challenging. Some of them on normal are easy if you know them but still there is the threat of a possible wipe if things go bad.

Pretty much this has been my experience, too.

When i first started playing I found most content difficult, but as I learnt the game and passed down equipment from my older toons to the newer ones, and as i learnt the quests they became less difficult.

When the bravery bonuses came in I found that my wife and i can do elite quests within 2 levels with just our 2 toons, with just enough danger to keep things interesting (depending on the quest). I have found that it is somewhat harder to do this at later levels (14+).

I'm happy with the difficulty spread in the game at the moment. It should be somewhat difficult for a beginner (but this is a social game so gaming with other players who know what they are doing helps a lot, and levels are easy to get to begin with), and experience should (and does) make it easier.

Maybe there should be a more in-depth tutorial system for beginners (as it is a difficult game for a complete newb to get into), or maybe a system whereby patient experienced players are organised to mentor new players. I've done this a few times but really should do a LOT more if I want new players to enjoy and stick with this awesome game.

[Amber-Dawnn]

I think EVERY quest should have 5 diffacultys.
Cas Norm Intermeaded Hard Leet


And block out Cas & Norm on TRs until they've done it on leet first lol

[Niv-mizzet]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO?

If I'm playing a caster toon? Too easy.
If I'm intentionally not playing a caster toon? At least moderately challenging if I'm doing something meant for my level.
Like 99% of the game feels about right if I'm running bravery bonus on a melee without a "good" caster in the group. Hard, but satisfying, and not crazy hard. A couple quests jump out and subvert this though, like acute delirium elite for one.

[Aaxeyu]

Epic is too hard for some and too easy for some.
Why did you decide to ditch the difficulity levels,one of the smartest features of DDO, when making epic?


Oh and leveling a TR is too easy, even if you are only playing on elite.
I'm not sure if I even want this to change, becuase TRing is the biggest grind I have ever seen in a game and I don't wish for it to take any longer.

[Targonis]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

There is a HUGE inconsistency in terms of difficulty based on when content was released. Content that came out at game launch is REALLY easy compared to content of the same level that has been released after the level cap was increased one or more times. Hiding in Plain sight is a clear case of the higher difficulty of new content that came out with mod 2, even when the level cap did not go up. If you were to evaluate the true difficulty to other level 10 content released after the level cap went up, it might be more like level 12 content in comparison.

Quests in general could use a re-evaluation to make it so quests of a given level SHOULD give roughly the same amount of difficulty. Proof is in the Poison is an example of a quest that is much harder than the level would indicate, so why not bump the actual level of the quest to something appropriate?

Now, when it comes to high level content, we have a bit of an issue in terms of raid content vs. normal adventures. A raid will ALWAYS be seen as a challenge for that level, and when you look at content releases, four quests plus one raid means that 20 percent of new content will end up being raid material(1/5). If you have only three quests and two raids, that really makes it seem that the real focus is on the high level raid community.

What is really needed is a way to balance things, so there will be more adventures per release, which would satisfy the balance of raid players vs. more casual players. Mod 3 was 10 quests plus a raid, and we had the same for Mod 4. It was after that point that the number of adventures per release dropped like a rock.

So, how do you assess the true difficulty when some people are playing with characters with high end equipment, and others don't have access to it yet? Green Steel on a character that has been through one or more true reincarnates means that character is going to be more powerful than those who do not have that advantage. Now, do you balance around THAT, or come up with a new difficulty evaluation system?

[Havok.cry]

If I'm playing a caster toon? Too easy.
If I'm intentionally not playing a caster toon? At least moderately challenging if I'm doing something meant for my level.
Like 99% of the game feels about right if I'm running bravery bonus on a melee without a "good" caster in the group. Hard, but satisfying, and not crazy hard. A couple quests jump out and subvert this though, like acute delirium elite for one.

Elite acute delirium is insane.

[Captain_Wizbang]

So, how do you assess the true difficulty when some people are playing with characters with high end equipment, and others don't have access to it yet? Green Steel on a character that has been through one or more true reincarnates means that character is going to be more powerful than those who do not have that advantage. Now, do you balance around THAT, or come up with a new difficulty evaluation system?

That is an outstanding observation. I was trying to find a way to fit in my post, (in different words)

I really think, that is where a HARD LINE STANCE by Turbine needs to taken. Like I said, "some toes & egos will get bruised" because of the outcome of that and several other issues.

Really, that is the single most constructive thing I seen on the boards in a long time.

[sephiroth1084]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.
Coming from the perspective of someone who is a very good, very well-geared player, if not necessarily of the top tier of DDO players (that is, I've soloed difficult content, can be relied upon to contribute meaningfully to, and sometimes support, a group through challenging quests and raids, and tend to favor elite and epic content over normal and hard, even in raiding when I can).

I find that most of the game is on the easy side, with a moderate number of challenging things out there, and a small number of overly difficult quests or sections of quests that are too punishing.

I think the biggest problem, from the perspective of looking at difficulty in DDO, is that quest level and monster CR are both almost entirely meaningless. There are quests on normal that are considerably more difficult than quests on elite at higher level, and quests on elite that are quite a bit easier than normal content around the same level.

For instance, The Kobold's New Ringleader is much easier than Walk the Butcher's Path, in large part due to having fewer Kobold Shaman's and because you don't ever really get mobbed by kobolds in the former, yet they are the same level quest and are about the same length.

As another example, The Ascension Chamber is one of the most challenging quests in the game, yet is rated as level 17--my success rate in there, even with good, experienced groups is well under 50%, while it's at around 90% for Tower of Despair even with mediocre PUGs and about 85% for Epic Chronoscope.

Quest level unfortunately doesn't take into account the number of shrines in the quest, the number of shrines when weighed against the length of the quest, number of monsters fought per shrine, or the breakdown of monsters faced. More casters usually equals more challenge, a mix of divine and arcane casters usually equates to more challenge than that, and a mix of arcane and divine casters with some heavy-hitting melee or archer support usually makes for an even greater challenge. Lot's of monsters that trip or otherwise inhibit a player's ability to deal with the threat at hand also makes encounters more difficult.

For instance, Bastion of Power is more challenging than Genesis Point in every way:


Bastion's shrines are more difficult to get to, and to get back to if you skip them.
You have many more big fights (more than 3 or 4 monsters at a time) per shrine.
Genesis Point has almost no casters, and when you do face them, they tend to be either only a single arcane or a single divine caster, while Bastion frequently throws both an arcane and a divine caster at the party simultaneously.
Bastion has a lot of bezekira, which not only trip fairly regularly, but are also hard to spot, meaning that they can often get away with tripping party members a few times before being dealt with.
Bastion mixes the monster groups (casters, trippers, heavy-hitters) in most of the fights making for a lot of threats that need dealing with quickly and in different ways, which draws on more resources--a Mass Hold is unlikely to get a whole group in Bastion, since casters have good Will saves, while in Genesis it is far more likely, and this holds true for most forms of crowd control.
Bastion has narrower fighting arenas, which cuts down on using mobility as a defense.
Bastion's endfight then combines all of the above into one progressively scaling encounter.

Bastion is more difficult than all of the other Amrath quests, actually, but is listed as the same level 19 as the others.



The end fight in A New Invasion is much more difficult on elite than it is on hard, as elite gains both an air elemental, which has a HUGE impact on the encounter, and the ability for the boss to chain a party member, while the end fights of the other 3 quests generally just gain more HP on the boss and more damage coming through to the party when moving from hard to elite, and not even much more of either of those. Bastion is the hardest of the quests on normal and hard, and 95% of Bastion is harder than all the rest of the quests on elite except for A New Invasion's end fight, which is among the most challenging encounters in the game.



I guess what I'm trying to say is that having clearer information on difficulty would go a long way toward satisfying people I think.



As to how I feel about the game experience...most quests are much too easy for players with knowledge of the quest, and for characters that are well geared. It's the reason that many TRs spend a lot of time soloing or short-manning. Randomizing more elements in dungeons would help a bit with the first issue--if I don't know where, or what kinds of traps I'll encounter, I'll have to go slower, will be more inclined to bring a trapsmith and will likely die to traps more often; if I don't know whether I'll be fighting 4 bruisers or 3 bruisers and a caster, or 4 trippers, or 3 trippers and a caster in the next room, I'll have to be more cautious with my approach and manage my resources better, not to mention managing Dungeon Alert better.



As far as gear goes, Bravery helped a little as it pushes players to tackle Elite content earlier than they otherwise would, but a lot of the stuff is still too easy. Trap damage tends to scale a little too much with difficulty, but monster damage tends to not do so quite fast enough in most areas. I also haven't really paid attention to the differences in spell list at higher levels, but I know that the difference between normal, hard and elite quests in the Harbor is pretty big due to the differences in shaman spell selection--adding Hold Monster instead of Bestow Curse is randomly deadly as you go up in difficulty. Meanwhile, Lightning Bolt (with the new double-strike chance) becomes much more deadly on elite than Scorching Ray on hard for characters without Evasion (hard being more dangerous for characters with Evasion is an odd effect of spell selection changing).



It seems to me that most casters don't upgrade their spells with difficulty setting, though.





Epics became much easier than they had been for casters with both a slashing of mob HP and removal of immunities. Too easy, really. I could just about solo a lot of epics on my wizard before either of those changes were made, and now I could probably absolutely crush (as Axer would say) most of those. My number one suggestion for improving that aspect of the game is to randomize monster groups and buffs. I don't know how easy or taxing that is to do, but having to worry about a divine casting Mass Deathward somewhere I didn't expect it is a bigger hindrance than almost anything else you could do in those situations, but expecting a divine with Mass DW doesn't raise the difficulty of an encounter by quite so much, though it definitely does.



For an example of this, look at the opening encounter of Epic Chronoscope. If I'm soloing for scrolls, my number one priority is to kill the teifling cleric as soon as it activates. If I do that, the encounter lasts about 1-3 minutes and I tend to use up less than 3/4 or 1/2 of my SP. If I don't, I can end up dying as the bearded devil continues to break CC and put on damage because I can't level drain him or otherwise deal with him quickly and easily, and the other monsters in the fight get more time to drain my resources. But I know about that, and have time to anticipate it, so I can throw up a Symbol of Death and hit Wail of the Banshee as soon as the monsters activate.



Now compare that to the fight with Razor Arm. I know that we're getting melees and archers in there, so I can drop Otto's Sphere of Dancing and largely ignore everything that spawns, but if some of those archers were actually casters, it would be a much different story, as a single caster can kill a few party members in a short period of time if left unchecked, and can make it more difficult to deal with all the rest of the trash.



We tend to see very little mob buffing throughout the game. Here and there are divines that toss Death Ward or Mass DW, an occasional Freedom of Movement here and there, and some tend to Rage or drink a Haste potion or cast Haste, but that is often the entirety of mobs buffing themselves and each other. Some casters hit themselves with Blur or Displacement, but they almost never do the same for their companions as far as I can tell. And we rarely see enemy bards any more. If enemy mobs could toss out Greater Heroism, or better yet, get a Warchanter tossing the GH song as an opening move, we'd have a little more variety in what DCs are required, for example.



There are certainly buffs going around, and many monsters have alternate tactics like Crippling, Bleeding Wound, trip and sunder, but I just feel that we don't see these in the sorts of varieties that we should. And with almost zero randomization, which makes for both boring and easy questing.





One last point in this massive response is in regards to bosses. Too many of them tend to just stand around. We're forced to break off attacking them through convoluted mechanics like Velah's periodic fire breath and the blades in The Shroud, but many of our bosses have the ability to get out of a huddled beatdown. I'd like to see more bosses that act like the Lord of Blades, but even his abilities feel a little gimmicky in this sense. We don't have many bosses that can knock us down, or hop over us, or knock us back to get a space to move through us. None can fly above us in anything but a sort of cut-scene-ish way (Arraetrikos in Shroud 4 flies around and shoots at a specific area, and is immune to our abilities to harm him during that time), rather than in an interactive fashion (see: Abishai air raiders). Give bosses less HP, and more ways to not just distance themselves from us, but move us around and change the form of the battlefield and the fight themselves more and fights will be more challenging.



TL;DR Version: Quest level and monster CR needs to more accurately reflect the actual relative challenge the quest presents, and we need more randomization in dungeons and fights in order to keep us on our toes and challenge us.

[Drekisen]

I think before quest difficulties can be scaled to something more appropriate......you should take the first step of "balancing" the classes.

It doesn't matter how you rescale quest difficulty, if one or a few select builds/classes are the easiest to play that's what people will tend to play and the people who want to play the less powerful classes will still flood the forums with this class/build is OP.....do something about it.

IMO...order game should be fixed is.....

major bugs
class balance
quest scaling.

[Falco_Easts]

Challenge for me or a new player starting the game? There is a big difference. Setting in stone difficulty (even 4 levels per quest) is going to net different experiences depending on character.

I may get shot for this but I think scaling was a good idea that needs more work. Quests should scale up, not just down. Scaling should not just take into consideration number of players but also character level, gear, guild buffs, party composition etc...
A team of 6 TR's with full guild buffs and top level weapons will shred a quest 6 new players would struggle with.
Make very quest at level (or even under level) a challenge for EVERY party that enters it.
If aprty has 30pt guild resists, scale elemental damage up. Not the full 30pt up but maybe half the difference.
If a group has a rogue, scale damage of traps up.
If group has twinked to the hilt why shouldn't the mobs be scaled up to match.

DDO needs to understand there is a huge gap between the haves and the have nots but need to cater for both groups. The 4 difficulty split just does not cut it.

[fco-karatekid]

Wow! Is there a way to +1 participants in this entire thread thus far? Well, except for that one guy...

[oradafu]

Now, when it comes to high level content, we have a bit of an issue in terms of raid content vs. normal adventures. A raid will ALWAYS be seen as a challenge for that level, and when you look at content releases, four quests plus one raid means that 20 percent of new content will end up being raid material(1/5). If you have only three quests and two raids, that really makes it seem that the real focus is on the high level raid community.

This comment reminded me of something that I've been meaning to bring up in the forums. Since Raids are much different than quests (as they should be), why not allow raids to played at a lower difficulty without breaking the Bravery Bonus streak, especially since the changes to raids have made the quests a bit more challenging at level? I'm sure alot of people won't like this change, but I think it would be a change that will help grouping the raids at level.

[ArcaneMelee]

Challenge for me or a new player starting the game? There is a big difference. Setting in stone difficulty (even 4 levels per quest) is going to net different experiences depending on character.

I may get shot for this but I think scaling was a good idea that needs more work. Quests should scale up, not just down. Scaling should not just take into consideration number of players but also character level, gear, guild buffs, party composition etc...

I think the players are far better judges of how much challenge they want than the game could ever be. I would rather specify how much of a challenge I want to experience than have the game try to read my mind.

[Enoach]

Before anything else I'm going to put out there that I've been playing Since October 2006 - Previewing for 10 Days during the Summer of 2006. I also limit myself to only 5 characters so I'm not an altoholic.


What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

I like the direction of the difficulty that the Amrath and Cannieth Quests (U11 and not U12) brought but these were geared towards Level 17+

Quests on normal should still be set to a difficulty where four level appropriate geared players can complete and be challenged by the completion.

Raids should be geared towards 10 members




If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

Of the quest levels that have the biggest inconsistency in difficulty I find the majority are between levels 8 and 14. VoN 3 is more difficult then Eyes of Stone which is more difficult than Crucible/Madstone/Prison of the Planes

Why is a Level 9 Elite tougher than a Level 12 Elite which is tougher than Level 14 Elites?




What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

The only time a party should fail on normal is if they are totally unprepared for what lies within, and I'm not talking 100 Spell point potions unprepared, I'm talking wrong gear/spells to use. And if they refuse to work together.

Not failing on normal would only bore me if there was absolutely no way for me to fail - Go in naked, no spells and 1 HP and can still win. Please don't go to that point.





I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

One of the points I would like to make is DDO did a good thing with the Optional XP. The XP you get even if you don't complete the quest. Maybe a thought would be to put more optional components - Even mandatory optional components that distribute XP. Not so much that you could Farm an Optional and keep on leveling, but enough that even if you fail the quest you could get some percentage of reward possibly no less then 10% of the base XP.

Currently the only quests with the 45+ minutes and then failure that brings up frustration are Raids - Specifically Abbot and way back (haven't run this Raid in a long time) Titan.



We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

I find the issue to be that I don't want a quest I can't complete unless I empty my Coin purse and TP cache, I don't want a quest that you need specific Class Abilities to complete (optional paths to victory) - Don't mind if those abilities can make aspects easier.

The problem is that there are those of us that have been around for years that have gathered some pretty nice stuff which makes things easier, there are those have tons of time to dedicate to playing giving them many more hours of play time, then there are those that have time to play on more a casual level.

Keep the idea that you don't need a full Party/Raid Group to be able to complete. Obviously the more you have the easier the challenge is made but only because you have more resources.

If I were to suggest a target I would suggest using the 28 point build. Quests should be able to be completed by a party of only 28 point builds on Normal - doing so should be not be a cake walk and should require some excursion and effort.

Hard/Elite geared towards 32 point builds as a base

34 and 36 point builds should still have enough difficulty on Elite to make these quests challenging.

I'm not advocating excluding 28 and 32 point builds from Epic content, just that it should be difficult - Not because of starting build points but lack of Raid level Gear/Completions.



Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

Just another thought - Why choose blades to make Shroud harder? Why that much of a boost in Damage? Make them mean something, but don't make them a way to kill off 700+ full HP characters.

[sephiroth1084]

.

Encounters that are done well:
Demon of the Frenzied Blood
High Priestess of the Depths
Raiyum
VON2 final fight (really dangerous until you neutralize the adds)
I kind of disagree here. The big thing these fights all have in common is that they have kiteable adds that, if left to their own devices, will wipe a party. That's a decent solution some of the time, but it seems like it is the default solution to too many fights in the game.

As a caster in the Demon of Frenzied Blood encounter I kite a bunch of trash around the room and try to keep a DoT and Ice Storm up on the boss.
As a caster in the Raiyum encounter...I kite a bunch of trash around the room and try to tag the boss with a Meteor Swarm when I can.
As a caster in the final fight of VoN 2...I kite a bunch of trash around the room and try to tag the boss with some DoTs or something when I can.

The DoFB encounter at least has the option of destroying the portals as an alternative to kiting, but the general idea is to distract the party caster from participating in the boss' destruction. And if you don't have an arcane caster in the party, the task falls to the party divine who replaces "try to DoT the boss" with "continue to heal the party." If you don't have a divine capable of that, you need someone with some decent ranged ability, or the party simply fails the encounter, and even a decent archer-specialized character is only mediocre in some of those encounters due to the slowness of archery, facing, limited space, and difficulty in healing both the party and someone else running around the room.

We need more encounters that incorporate everyone without devolving into this ring-around-the-rosy fest.


.. and ones that aren't:

Crateos
Malicia

...because they have too much HP, pose too little threat to the party, and have basically no way of manipulating players (knockdown, knockback, stun, dispel, etc...). Malicia also has too much AC for someone with so much HP and so little danger.


What I feel is missing from high level:
Difficult 6-person content that has loot incentives to repeat. For all their faults pre-U9, Epics were this, but they aren't now.
I agree with this sentiment, mostly. I think the level of repetition necessary in epics is a bit egregious, and is tied up largely in token attrition, but also in seal, shard and scroll droprates. I think making epics more difficult to Wail through would help things a lot, but I don't want to see everything become immune to Wail again, or see Wail get nerfed, because it remains an interesting tool.

[Zephea]

Starting the game is too hard. There is so much information it is hard to choose what is important. It takes a long time to get gear and money. It takes a long time to work out how to lay out your chacter with some of the more non-intuitive features. The forums are established players. If you are going to grow and attract players to DDO and retain them, then maybe you need to get the opinions of a focus group of truly brand new players as part of this dicussion.

Good to see small changes like clean information re sharp and blunt weapons in Heyton's. And changing the cats for wolves in Cereleuan Hills. And upping the loot values in Korthos.

[badbob117]

Well for me and my friends what has gotten under our skin as far as difficulty goes is the Dungeon scaling! We like to run stuff together with a full party a lot of the times and not every run do we want a challenge. Some runs we are helping out one player to get a certain item. Just plain old farming.

Will use Amrath as a example but it can be applied to almost any non raid and challenge. We have all ran the Amrath content on every level, solo and with parties. What really gets our gripe is when we are farming for a certain item on normal with a party of 6 and it feels way harder then elite content. The scaling seems to have gone through the roof lately with a full party. Almost to the point where everyone i know wants to keep it below 4 players so it is not insane. Bare in mind i am talking about farming missions and challenges. This is stuff we all do. We all do it tons of times. The Challenges on epic with a full party are so crazy That i honestly do not know why anyone would bother aside from actually challenging themselves!. You can two man em no problem. 3 man em with ease. Bring that 4th man in and your in for a whole different game. Every hit you take is big pink enhanced damage. Every enemy has their hp bumped up dramatically. In the challenges The bosses almost quadruple in hp.

I think when we initially choose Normal it shows we are not after a insane challenge. We just want to get it done. If we wanted a challenge we would have taken elite.

Bear in mind i love challenging myself. But I have to be in the right mind frame. Sometimes i just want to help some guildies get some item they have been after for months. I agree it should be somewhat ramped up when we have a full party so its not a bore fest, but I also think that the scaling needs to be toned down a tiny bit so a normal 6 man party is not harder then a 3 man elite party. It really makes no sense!

This almost encourages players to run with less people if we want to farm stuff fast and efficiently. I have soloed Every elite amrath quest alone and it was not half as bad as normal with 6 players. I have also done it with 6 on elite and that was a war to remember but we all knew it was gonna be like that. We want to be able to group with 6 players and still be able to have fun . Not do a epic battle to the death on normal! Every enemy hitting for epic damage! If we wanted that and some do, we would take elite... But for normal 6 man, tone it down a bit.

My only real concern with difficulty is the scaling. Raids are alright right now . Most are pretty good and scale properly depending on what difficulty you choose. . Abbott Has some issues that may need to be tweaked but most of the raids are pretty straight forward. The blades in shroud on normal still in my opinion need to be toned down a tiny bit. Not a ton just a wee bit so a lag spike is still recoverable for the healers. One lag spike at the wrong time often spells a party wipe in there now.

If you want to talk about the difference in difficulty between running a melee compared to a caster i think everyone knows that melee has the raw end of the deal. That is a whole different balance issue that you guys need to weigh a bit as well.

[sweez]

Some random thoughts:


I love what you've done with eDragon and eDQ2 in U12. If you're attentive to the environment, they're easier than ever before, yet having to pay attention is what, in a way, makes them harder than before. This is way superior to just increasing bosses' HP and fort and calling it a day - U11 raid changes were just horrible.
Make hard/long quests more rewarding. I'm fine with all level 6 quests not being equally difficult, but it's often the case that the longer and more difficult quest offers not only the same, but less xp than a shorter quest of similar level. You can choose to pretend that most people that play DDO in 2011 are dungeon crawlers that play for exploration/roleplaying/whatever, but the fact is that xp/min crowd is a pretty big one, and that grinding same quests over and over and over again gets mind numbing, but is still preferable to doing quests that offer horrible rewards vs. time spent ratio. Bravery bonus was, indirectly however, something that *kinda* fixed this a bit, but there are still quests that have such horrible xp that they're not worth running even with full bravery bonus. Long quests in particular should have more 'checkpoints', in the form of (relevant) optional xp/chests (someone mentioned Shroud which is a great example of that).
Mob AC. Some mobs have AC that is completely out of whack - having to roll a crit to hit a mob isn't fun. There are a few older quests which are particularly guilty of this, mostly quests with vampires (which are already heavily skewed towards casters), but I remember having horrible to-hit issues in elite Fear Factory on a heavily geared third life melee toon (that even had fighter active PL clicky going) fighting the end-boss. He literally had more AC than a lot of epic mobs, which is just ridiculous.
Dungeon scaling. You say it helps with server load - we can't really contradict you on that, since we have no data. Anyway, whether DA, when working as intended, is a good or a bad thing is a discussion for some other time, however, there are some quests where DA is completely out of whack due (I'm assuming) visibility/spawning issues (namely, Bastion of Power), making quests much more difficult than they should be, even when not zerging at all.
Vamp form light damage vulnerability. This is just too punishing imho - getting hit for over 350 points of damage in normal level 12 quests is pointless - it doesn't matter if PMs get super-ubber-mega at 20, fact is 350 points is more than most epic traps hit for, yet you're getting hit for that much in low-mid teen level quests.
Guard the NPC quests. These can be horridly difficult, due to the fact that a lot of NPCs' hit points don't seem to scale with difficulty. Can easily be fixed by upping their hit points, these quests would still be very annoying and most likely have bad xp/min, but they at least wouldn't be as punishing as they are now.
Time != difficulty (as a general rule). Sometimes, indeed, time can equal difficulty - staying concentrated is harder for extended periods of time. However, for example, removing the shrine from eLoB and (basically) forcing people to torc off trash doesn't make the raid harder in any way - standing and shieldblocking requires no concentration or skill at all.

[Calebro]

I haven't read through the five pages of responses, so much of this may have been covered already (and I expect that it has).

The last few updates have amped up the difficulty of the quests in relation to prior tendencies. Many people feel that this is a good thing. Some people feel that this is a bad thing.
I'm in the former group. I like that things have become tougher.

There are two major problems in my opinion.
AC and SP potions.

Player AC is simply broken. Or should I say that mobs' to-hit scores are broken? I feel that these problems are one and the same. The standard d20 system works fine for PnP, but in this game it doesn't. The power level of players is far beyond anything you'd ever see in a PnP game, which means that the mobs have to be adjusted to compensate. Adding more ways to raise AC via dodge bonuses and PrEs doesn't actually help the issue. In fact, it magnifies the problem.
There have been many upon many suggestions to fix the AC and to-hit problems this game has. I would like some action to be taken on this front. Search the forums, or start a Let's Talk to address this problem separately.

The second major problem this game has in regards to difficulty is SP potions in my opinion. You can simply drink your way to success. They need to have a cooldown timer beyond that of a normal potion.
I realize that this is a HUGE cash shop item, and that a cooldown will lower sales. But the fact is that this small loss in sales will make for a better game.

You will always have players that have been here for years telling you that the game is too easy. This is true of almost any game. You will always have new players that feel some things are simly too hard. This is also true of almost any game.
So I suppose that my opinion on the subject of the game's difficulty is that in and of itself it's fine. Newer players can be challenged on normal or hard difficulty. Players who have been around for a while can be challenged on higher difficulty settings. Continue to build content similar to what we've seen throughout this year and we'll be happy. But address the real issues that make the game too easy or too challenging, which are AC/mob-to-hit and Drinking your way to victory.
Once those two issues are addressed I believe we'll see a much more balanced game, as far as difficulty is concerned.

*edit:
Oh, yeah. And ship buffs. Ship buffs only magnify the problem. Things that might be difficult after a death are trivial if you haven't died. Ship buffs ruin the game's attempt at balance. Nothing you could do could possibly be balanced evenly for two players if one has ship buffs and one doesn't.
If you seriously want to have a discussion about what is and is not too easy or too difficult, then ship buffs need to be removed from the game.
Sorry kids, but it's true.

[sweez]

I kind of disagree here. The big thing these fights all have in common is that they have kiteable adds that, if left to their own devices, will wipe a party. That's a decent solution some of the time, but it seems like it is the default solution to too many fights in the game.

As a caster in the Demon of Frenzied Blood encounter I kite a bunch of trash around the room and try to keep a DoT and Ice Storm up on the boss.
As a caster in the Raiyum encounter...I kite a bunch of trash around the room and try to tag the boss with a Meteor Swarm when I can.
As a caster in the final fight of VoN 2...I kite a bunch of trash around the room and try to tag the boss with some DoTs or something when I can.

The DoFB encounter at least has the option of destroying the portals as an alternative to kiting, but the general idea is to distract the party caster from participating in the boss' destruction. And if you don't have an arcane caster in the party, the task falls to the party divine who replaces "try to DoT the boss" with "continue to heal the party." If you don't have a divine capable of that, you need someone with some decent ranged ability, or the party simply fails the encounter, and even a decent archer-specialized character is only mediocre in some of those encounters due to the slowness of archery, facing, limited space, and difficulty in healing both the party and someone else running around the room.

Absolutely agree with this. Seems like devs can't escape integrating kiting in large majority of the end-game content. What really interests me, what was the devs idea behind these encounters? Did they really design them to be kited or do they just have no idea what the actual live gameplay/metagaming looks like?

[B0ltdrag0n]

The real issues in my mind when it comes go the games difficulty come in a couple forms.

1st It seems when you release a new pack that it is much more difficult on normal, than existing quests of its level range that already existed on their hardest settings. Examples Sentinels of Stormreach is much harder than Von for the same party. And The Lordsmarch Chain on Normal, is gnerally as difficult if not harder than Gianthold walk ups. To be frank here the newer stuff is too much harder.

2nd Compounded to this the newer quests (with few exceptions such as Sane Asylum, Eyes of Stone, Blockade Buster) have such terrible Xp for the time invested, and although the loot from these quests is nice and thematic it just isnt enough reason to run these quests when leveling up. I find that if you want TR's to buy and run your content you have to make the xp better, and to get newer players to buy and run the content you have to make it of equivilant difficulty/length as to other packs.

3rd Raids
Most raids are fine as they are...though I question a few design decisions. 1st Titan. No one runs this raid. Look at your internal records...reference the pct of f2p players with the pack with a % of characters that have EVER run the raid and look only at account created after F2P. I have personally seen a total of 5 Titan runs in LFM or guild runs in two years. Five. Make this pack attractive. Overhaul and/or get rid of that terrible preraid. Add a couple more quests. Give the explorer area a map. Change its favor to House Cannith.

Reaver- Get rid of that 500 pt disintegrate. Just no. Otherwise the raid is fine.

Shroud-blade damage. It makes playing a melee annoying. If your intent was to harm casters then instead of making the blades circle like they do now...Perhaps make the blades roam randomly OUTSIDE of melee range of Harry...make it so the healers/casters can choose to eat melee/meteor damage or take their chances with the blades.

TOD/Hound - fine

VOD - I just dont like this raid so Im pretty biased and cant make accurate opinions. Though those 'paladin' items you made I really hope are the beginning of a true Holy Avenger cause otherwise they are pretty terrible.

MA - The flash on the crystals causes visual lag across the raid...please remove it. Otherwise its not bad.

LOB - I don't know what to say here. The problem is the final trash waves. Please consider making it a single wave of quori OR beef up the red names and get rid of the multiple spawns of the trash quori. If you did this it would be a manageable raid for any team with teamwork and coordination as opposed to now where its either use questionable tactics/exploit (dont care what people call it.) or suck pots. And kill the LOB with the broken glass shards.

Lastly is epics. What you have done with the challenges needs be considered with all epic item construction. I want to feel as though I made progress toward an item, via gain x/xxxx collectables needed for item...than how it is now. I want to feel accomplishment in measured intervals.

This is all I can think of for now. If I think of more I will post again.

[jkm]

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

I don't think there is any question that even normal quests now are being balanced for TRs and not for new players. The difference between Tear of Dhakaan on Normal and Bargain of Blood on Normal is very noticeable. The hobs have more hit points, more AC, and do more damage. When you move to elite the differences become a chasm. The traps hit 2x as hard, have +10 more search/disable DC and the mobs scale much more difficult.

And this has been happening long enough that it has become a trend. New paid content is much more difficult than pre-DDO:EU free content across the board on all difficulties. I'm not saying you should make them easier, but they need to be comparable.

Also at some point, you need to address why the XP gets abyssmally bad in the level 18+ quests.

[hit_fido]

Rather than looking at quest difficulty (casual, normal, hard, elite, and in some cases epic gives you plenty of opportunity to tune and re-tune to cater to the broadest possible spectrum of player skills and desires), I hope you consider another aspect of what can make DDO excessively difficult for some players.

This game's ability to customize character builds is one of its biggest strengths but also one of the most potentially punitive mechanics facing a new player. This game (and many of the players in it) do not forgive "build mistakes". What is a new player who makes their way to the mid upper levels faced with when they're told taking Power Critical or Acrobatic or Improved Mental Toughness were big mistakes, or that their mix of classes is 'gimp', etc? It wont be altogether clear to many new players just how useless some of the feats are or how bad of an idea mixing certain classes is until they've invested some chunk of playtime - and then said investment looks like a big loss in light of the harsh reality of their options:

- reroll: do you want new players to feel like they've wasted all that time?
- pay for lesser/greater reincarnation: expensive.
- pay for one-by-one feat swaps that may not even work given feat selection progressions: potentially expensive.

'Expensive' is subjective, sure, but when you guys shifted the capability of players to swap feats for siberys shards by a couple magnitudes you essentially made real money the only option for repairing bad leveling decisions.

Some ideas for reducing this hurdle:

- revert siberys feat swap 'costs' to their previous levels (i.e. 1,000,000 shards for the flawless needed to feat swap at level 17 is nuts)
- provide every character slot with a one-time usable Greater Heart of Wood +5. This one time use does not renew across True Reincarnations. This would basically function as a single use 'oops' button for, so to speak, un-gimping a character. Maybe tie this to a certain level or maybe a certain favor threshold, but not so high as to be a grind unto itself.
- improve the feat swap and lesser/greater reincarnation interfaces to be more intuitive and forgiving. Consider a two or four hour timer after changes are made: within that window of time there is an 'undo' option, because the only thing worse than making critical mistakes building your character is compounding them because you didn't change out the right class at the right level or so on.

[AZgreentea]

Let me give you a little of my background so you can quantify my response.

I began playing Dec 24th, 2009. That's two years ago this Saturday. In that two years I have purchased or unlocked all content except the Challenge packs and Artificer. I purchased WF and Monk. I have unlocked Drow, Vet, 32 points, and FvS. Since I purchased all of that content, I thought I would get the most of my money by unlocking the unlockable content and spending my TP only on things that were on sale. I do not have artificer because I have not unlocked it (see below) or the challenge pack because it has not been on sale. I will buy things like Supreme tomes, hirelings, and cosmetic items when they are on sale if I need/want them.

I consider myself a casual player. That means if I get a chance to play during the week its only about 30-60 min. I only get an average of 1-2 times a week to play. When I can play on the weekends, I can play for about 2-3 hours total. If the wife has something to do that day then I can get in several hours. Even then its not more than 6-8 all weekend. I can normally get my 2-3 hours in on the weekend. I spend more time on the forums because I can browse them on my phone or at work. When I browse the forums I try to poke my head in technical assistance threads and more community oriented stuff. I find most of the DPS calculation and optimal build/gear threads to be slightly bewildering. That, and I dont enjoy trying to do complicated math when I am trying to take a break from work. :D

I have 13 characters. Most are lvl 5-8, after I made an effort to get all past lvl 4. I tried to roll a character of every race and class, so I can log in and play just about any role I like when I have the time to play. I have a 14th slot waiting for my Artificer. I have one capped character. Otsegolation reached cap shortly after I unlocked FvS, and that was this last November. She was only 3 ranks away so I finished her off. She has not run any content above lvl 15, and she has no good gear. My goal for 2012 is to get her decently geared so I can work on TRing her in 2013. Yes, I expect it to take me that long.

I normally PUG or run with hireling(s). I love my guild but considering how little gametime I have and how many alts I have, I find I get left behind in the lvls by any characters I encounter in a PUG or in the guild. Otsegolation ran all those favor quests with a full army of gold seal hirelings.

Ok, enough about me, on to my opinion of game difficulty.

There are a few area's I want to touch on.

Firstly, Artificer. With only one capped and badly geared character that cant run the House C quests, and how difficult it can be to get favor with the Challenges, I dont expect to unlock Artie unless Turbine releases more House C favor that is more easily obtained. Its unattainable at this time.

Second, there is definitely a disconnect between the old and the new game. The content built when the level cap was 10 or 12 plays much differently than the content built when it was 20. I know I didnt focus on my gear when grinding favor, but I find that I am completely unprepared for the end game on my untwinked characters. Unless I spend the time grinding greensteel and other gears in the lvl 15+ quests, I will not be good for endgame, and it will be even longer before I can touch Epics. It will be very difficult even for my untwinked lvl 20 character to contribute even in a PUG unless I completely redo my gear. Basically, what I am saying is, I wish there was more middle game content (lvl 10-15) that reliably gave you gear to make it to end game and more low mid content (lvl 8-12) that prepared you for the difficulties of the second half of the game.

Third are the quests and raids I cant touch. I cant run Titan because the raid is not appealing enough for PUG's, and the flagging quest with the "Do not kill's" is very difficult for a person using hirelings. I wish the less loved quests in the game got some love to make them more appealing for pugs. I wish I could have run more quests leveling up on my non-favor grinders without having to do them over level or wait for a second or third TR so I dont blow past them. I hate the idea that to run them at level I would have to hold off on leveling for a while. I dont get a lot of time to play, and I worked hard for that xp!

To answer your question more directly, I love it when things go badly, at any difficulty. For better or worse, PUGs are more difficult now with the bravery bonus. Everyone wants to run quests that are sometimes more challenging than the players or characters can handle. I have run the lvl 1-8 content many times, and the near failures mean I really have to work and think to keep the quest going. I do not take my gametime seriously. I love laughing at my failures and joking with my fellow PUGers at how stupidly we handled a situation. I love the comradeship I feel when we pull off a quest that has particularly challenged our party.

I hope that input helps. I also hope it dosent give you the impression I hate the game. I love DDO and look forward to upsetting my wife by playing it for years to come. ;)

[Ungood]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

In many ways, this is contingent on the build, and the dungeon type. And to be fair, not all 5th level mobs need to be same, equally so, not all 5th level dungeons should be the same either. The type of mob, their strengths and weakness play into the strengths and weakness of the various classes.

So, in that regard, there are some quests that when compared to other quests of their level, and in their own chain/pack do not equal out to where they should be.

The first and Foremost to me: Abbot.

Not only has this quest been messed with, and I will openly say the revisions to it have not been good in any way in my mind, it falls out of sync to the rest of the necro 4 pack. Currently the way it is working is that we as players can flag for Abbot at level (IE: doing elites at 16th level for Bravery, and 17th for Litany), and if luck favors us, some somewhat fun loot items, but then we need to wait till cap to do the actual raid.

And as many others have said and seem to agree, this is not a well received revision to the raid. Tone it back. In fact, tone it down to be realistic for 16th to 19th level range.


If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?Yah, this is another thing. There seem to be jumps in difficulty, and just hard "Level" areas for some players and some builds, I personally noticed my first time up, that 10th was the hardest time for me, but I was also F2P at that point, and I will say this, after expanding into the F2P quests, that made getting past 10th a lot easier. But also,11th is a huge "gear" step as well, as once a player makes 11th, they should be taking a substantial step up in gear, if they know what they are doing. I did not my first time up, so rightfully so, it was hard on me to level in the 10+ range until I was explained things like Heavy Fort.

Now I would say, it might be because the older content was designed for a capped 10th level, but while Tempest Spine seems to be a great raid, at it's level, even Vault of Night is viable at level on elite, However, Plane of Night is not.

In that regard, yes, there is a serious inconsistency issue with the amping of the difficulty of the quests namely at this point the Raids and "chain end" quests.

And to be honest, it really makes no sense for this to happen, that a group can do a quest series, and pretty much work their way though it with good challenge and just get owned at the end fight of the series (In the Flesh is an example of the Boss Fight being way out of proportion to the rest of zone it is in, as well as the rest of the series it is a part of)

Other quests that seem out of wack are:

The Dead Shall Rise. (The lich at the end with the falling floor makes this quest very annoying)

The Keepers Sanctuary. This is a really long drawn out quest that gives surprisingly poor EXP for the time sink that it is.


What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?
I hate to be blunt but, I expect Normal to be easy. Normal in my mind is designed for first time players who may or may not have a clue what is good gear and what is a good build. Normal is the "Lets learn this quest" difficulty.

Because lets be honest about this, wiping on Normal (barring some act of stupidity) is a bit discouraging.

I hate to say it, but, if you are wiping on Normal, what is left? Re-roll? Give up?


I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.This depends on how they lost. If you spend 40 min to get the boss fight, only to have it so that 5 min later, the party is wiped out the the boss is only down 20% that is outright discouraging if not totally disheartening.

If a group "Just looses by the skin of their teeth" the fight, they can ponder tactics, or maybe "If I had this extra guard on" or "If only the cleric did not die at the start" or some other issue.

Players Can only overcome hurdles by two means: Skill and Gear.

After any fail, I always ask myself what could I have done better, and first think about could I have been better prepared? IE: Did I break DR, did I use the best weapons on them: IE: They are ice mobs, was I using Fire to do max damage, etc.

Then I ask: What could I have done better: Did I not engage the fight fast enough, too fast, what could I have done differently?

If at the end of the fight, I realize there was nothing I could have done differently to turn that fight around, It becomes a hopeless quest.

I remember a Post U12 Abbot, going in on Normal, after we did the Puzzles, we had the boss beat down. We got him to about 50% life, when I saw that the healers were out of Spell Points (all three of them), only one person down. I realize that there was no way we were going to win this. And that really turned me off to the whole thing. Just realizing that "This is hopeless".

I have not been back to Abbot since. I just don't see the point in it.

So, while I do not expect to win every fight, I don't enjoy a hopelessly overpowering encounter either.


We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!' It is my personal feeling that, yes you have been catering to the "Uber Players" and it has not made me happy at all, in fact it has made me feel very excluded. The reality is, people will always scream easy button, as it is a standing joke that the best drop rate is when I have it and no one else does. But the truth is, players will run an easy quest, just like they grind optimal exp quests.

However, if the quest is too hard, it discourages others from playing it. Take a guess how it feels to feel excluded from content because, quite simply it requires a better guild/gear/team then you have.

Like needing to be in the right circles or have the right connections to run quests. Take some time to ponder how enjoyable that makes a game.


Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.Well I have expressed my thoughts a bit.

[Rawel_San]

TlDr; Too dificult? No.
EVelah,eDQ2, elite VoD, LoB, hard/elite Shroud,In the flesh end fight Grrreat.:)
Abbot,normal Shroud. Tweak.
Elite scaling--- Get rid of.
Hard scaling--- Lower.
Tie drops more closely to difficulty.
The fact that hard vs. elite is a different ball game fine by me.



Hmm don't have the energy to read the whole thread so will mostly respond to OP.

Fast answer: No.

Having just completed a TR with the bravery streak first time elite everything very few things while leveling were
particularly challenging.

I keep hearing about In the flesh elite as incredibly hard I realize it's a fairly low level quest but even so elite on a lvl 20 it was a cake walk and in no way harder then even easy epics (ran on a 20 monk with mediocre gear). In a
reasonably balanced and capable party at level this should not be an issue even if the end fight is nice in not just
being stand there and hit boss. Which btw I think is awesome if you have tactics and know what you are doing it's
easy if you run around like a headless chicken you get slaughtered that in my opinion is exactly how all elite and
epic quests should be.

1-2 years back soloing quests on elite at level was a big achievement now people seem to
expect that to be the norm. A large part of the reason for that in my opinion is that few people run quests
at a reasonable pace due to the leveling grind of tr1/tr2 lives. I find myself completely guilty of that no way
will I wait 10 mins to fill a group especially since doing so means I will most probably have to wait for a cleric
since the other players that join will expect one. Much easier to put "IP,BYOH,zerg" in the LFM and not wait,
that way you get going fast and whoever joins knows to not need a healer.

A lot of this could be fixed by actually removing scaling from elite altogether (as it should be imo) and
by lowering the scaling on hard. Scaling at this moment is one of the biggest hurdles to grouping along with the
party wide 10% death penalty.

I realize that adding end fights of the type you see in In the Flesh to most quests is extremely non trivial but on
the other hand it really brings out the team spirit/tactics approach which is often very much lacking in the
game due to brute force being the answer to so many challenges.

I do agree with gordon and other people though that the difficulty level of quests from different eras
is hugely out of whack. Gianthold is a joke compared to many of the new packs which are lower level. I'm slightly
confused about why that is since I don't think anyone was ever really whining about there being too many easy
buttons for leveling yet you seem to have increased the difficulty of the new content at low levels while
decreasing the difficulty of epics. That seems extremely counter intuitive to me.

In conclusion I would like to applaud the changes made to Velah, VoD, DQ2 and the two new raids with LoB in
particular. That in my opinion is the type of challenge we want to see more of. On the other hand Abbot
and normal shroud could use some tweaking (hard/elite shroud is just fine imo). MA in my opinion is great
but could use some incentive to run on anything other then normal and even then past 10 completions or so.

One remaining thing: Please tie drop rates more closely to difficulty. Something more along the house C quests (1 chest norm 7 elite) works better even
if the 5 chests on hard make elite a waste of time but at least there is something useful going on there.

[Meat-Head]

Instead of add a bunch of blah blah blah to a thread filled with it.. I'll just say that I pretty much like the stuff that Sirgog said. :)


I like the new mechanics on Shroud and Weapons Shipment that reward higher diffs with more loot/more loot chances. We need more of that all around. Fun is fun. Grind is not fun.

BTW, Thanks for doing this.

[Hafeal]

This game's abilrity to customize character builds is one of its biggest strengths but also one of the most potentially punitive mechanics facing a new player.

I have to agree with this wholeheartedly. You can see in this thread and in the game, the discrepancy between players who 'stick it out' for a year or more and those who don't and just give up. When you've stuck it out, run (and re-run) content and, if you are a heavy player, really ground for your gear, your game experience is a world away different from new players.

I said in another thread, ironically today:


I love the character planner (ty Ron).

That being said, I think it borders on criminal that a game as complex as DDO did not come with this type of tool or has not implemented a similar feature in 5 years. Having an 'official' resource would go a long way to helping players get accurate information for their builds. Relying on user created tools at the beginning has lost its luster and excuse. Further, it is unfair to expect users to continually keep these tools accurately up-to-date.

I think the time has long passed for DDO to step-up and give us a character planner as well as a way to get the data printed on paper or into data files. Many players derive enjoyment in reading and analyzing their character sheets.

[AmatsukaIncarnate]

As far as normal day to day questing is concerned, the difficulty seems fine despite the discrepancies between newer content elites and older content elites. Normal/Casual are very accessible to the average player at level and elite is still difficult with a prepared party.

For raids, however, the difficulty is all over the place. While elite ADQ/VON6/Chrono are trivial to level 20s, elite abbot and shroud is very difficult even for moderately geared level 20s. Another problem is that most raid completions are done at level 20 since all other levels go by to quickly to gain raid completions even on a TR. Therefore the raid is rather trivial for the most part.

To quote myself from a different thread, I came up with an idea that would address these issues for players.


Many of the lower level raids are never run at level for many different reasons, primarily because loot is the only objective and doesn't change from your level and losing out on a bit of XP is not killer by any means. Also, loot from these lower level raids are usually not pertinent at higher levels. (few exceptions, but most level 20s will not get too excited about Belt of the Mroranon and ect)

But how about making all raids like Devil Assault where the difficulty is scaled to a different set of levels?

For example Chronoscope...
On normal, make it accessible to 5-7 level characters. On hard, 10-13 level characters. On elite, 16-19. And keep epic for level 20s.

And with each of these "tiers", you have a chance at a raid loot upgrade seal/token instead of the base item. So in essence, the base items drop on normal, and hard drops the first tier upgrade, and elite drops the second tier upgrade, and finally epic can drop a shard/seal/scroll for the final upgrade if applicable.

Each upgrade would make the item useful to that new level tier...
For example, Helm of Frost....

BASE ITEM ----------> First upgrade--------------> Second upgrade--------->Epic
Min lvl 5 -------------> min lvl 10-----------------> min lvl 16---------------->min lvl 20
Frost Lance----------> Cone of Cold--------------> Otiluke's Freezing Sphere->blah
Cold Resistance------> Cold Resistance (20)-------> Cold Resistance (30)----->blah
Might of the Abishai--> Strong Might of the Abishai-> ect. :P ----------------->blah
Charisma +3---------> Cha +5--------------------> Cha +6 (+1 exceptional)-->blah

So in essence, these are the positives
1.) Raid loot from all raids can be pertinent at end game if upgraded.
2.) All raids can be challenging to all characters and can be fun at all levels even at endgame!
3.) More incentive to run raids at level (more like disincentive for higher level characters and not entirely convincing but it will keep some higher level characters away from trivializing a raid of much lower level)
4.) Some of the trash raid loot that exists right now can be made useful without having to change the base item.

[2x4]

The Uber player and the casual player does not have to be in any kind of conflict.

For me the answer already exists in the 12. when anyone goes to Amrath they see 2 choices that don't yet exist. There are plains on the list we can't access ( Lammania and Dolhurr)

It is perhaps a point of intepretation. The Uber player is always looking upward. He/She wants to progress and build on existing achievements because of the exhaustive and rewarding path taken. So these people want to keep moving forward. Invest in these people heavily but not at the cost of the path they travelled.

Also, there are those who enjoy the comfort of what we have now. The comfort of these people is the key. They are the ones who get the grind and ride out the grind without complaint. because they don't mind the gradual upgrade of the uber dudes who blaze the trail. In fact this group doesn't notice or will ever acknowledege it. And that is in fact OK.

So the simple advice on this issue is don't change what alreay exists, the community will have done something you never contemplated and have completely asjusted to.

However, this is where the standard increases exponentially. What is next? House C, IMO absolutely right on course. But all the time spent touching what already has been (Very Bad)

Big caveat is fix bugs but don't fix bugs to the point of re-writing the game.

It is so very important to take a step back and look at the big picture. keep the content moving forward, and in many cases forward isn't only about more quests it's about more class develeopment.

So moving forward doesn't mean reinvent what we got (Only players see that. Dev's should never judge on what we have but where we are going)

Distilled my 2 cents is always move forward (new content) fix the bugs and leave the rest alone (existing content)

[Solmage]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

The problem is that you guys essentially painted yourselves into a corner by sabotaging the old model of normal hard and elite.

What you need IS four difficulties, but they need to be different than they are now:

- Normal: Full dungeon scaling, easy completion for anyone, reusable shrines, etc.
- Hardcore: ZERO dungeon scaling, maybe even exp penalties on death, full complement of enemies (as opposed to the watered-downed normal), no mercy. Twice the chance at named loot than normal in the form of an extra chest appearing on quest completion(!!) at the end with a chance at any named item present inside the quest. (to prevent zerging to the chest only)

- "Epic" Light: Ideal for the people who want end-game content and items, but who aren't hard-core. The folks who currently love house D and P "epics" but who wouldn't run an old-style-pre-epic-nerf offering of blood if their lives depended on it.
- "Epic" Hardcore: Best of the best only need apply, twice the chance (or more?) to get the named items as epic light. F.ex 2 x warded chest, or more where appropriate.


And lastly, the absolutely most important thing the game is missing: A change in loot mechanics so that if you do run something that may even be very challenging, that you do end up 1 small step closer to getting your desired item. With this in mind, I think ALL epics and ALL epic raids need to track completions and once you reach 20 completions you get raid-like list of items, once you reach 40 you get a fuller list of items, and once you reach 60 you get a complete list of items.

If we tie the above with the difficulty settings suggested above, we could even make it so that completing something in 'hard core' would count twice for this completion count, which provides a good motivation to 'kick it up a notch' for those who can without shutting people down from content and loot for those who can't.

A sad reality I've noticed is that no matter how hard a raid is (f.ex epic DQ is not that easy anymore unless you have some key players) completely undergeared and frankly unskilled people will still try it, and still whine when they all fail horribly. Why? Well, because it's there, and because they too want the neato shiney they saw on the one uber-geared player who ate that content for breakfast.

This is the basis for my proposal: to provide two paths to power/content, one shorter, harder, and one longer, easier.

Incidentally, since many folks only run raids and epics, it would help out enormously if TRs were allowed to enter epics at levels 18+...

[voodoogroves]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?
I still have fond memories of failing quests as a newbie on normal, even F2P ones.

Now, I can't imagine failing on normal. Some is experience and some is simply gear.


If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?
I think you need to approach the difficulty levels with the idea that "normal" should be appropriate for early players - first life, new players, etc. A vet who can equip their character with decent boat buffs and nice BTA gear should find a challenge in hard/elite content.


What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?
I would not expect a vet or geared player to fail on normal for content they know; too much metagaming. I would expect far less reward.


I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.
What folks dread is not the wipe ... it's the wipe on the quest that takes 30 minutes to get everyone to (chains of flames) and happens at the last minute. Coyle sucks, but even he isn't that bad in that you can re-run the quest relatively quickly. eDQ wipes aren't horrible because, frankly, you can restart DQ pretty quickly.

So failure is ok ... but if that failure carries with it a huge tax of other non-challenging time, that's kind of a pain. There's a reason folks flag VON5 and ADQ1 on casual - to speed through it.

A wipe in Stealer of Souls is more painful not because the content is too tough and out of scale (honestly, I do love the fire room) but because if you do wipe, the decision to recall and reform isn't about the encounter in question ... it's about the unholy pain it is to get to Reaver's Refuge.

Now I do like the Lordsmarch and Madness chains ... but one thing I don't like so much is that the end fight on Seigebreaker and In the Flesh are so far into the quest such that the incremental time lost is substantial. Truth be told, those "quests" aren't super hard even on elite ... the end fights are.

You can do some things to offset that, like shunting people out to an area if everyone dies, etc. There's a shrine right there before each of those end fights. I understand flagging can be a pain, but imagine (if you will) that ADQ2 was really just a third queen fight tacked on the end of ADQ1.

A really long quest with a shrine right before the end fight but a super hard end-fight isn't a challenging quest.

Personally, I'd have broken both of those quests into two sections - and similar ones.

I want to fail. I don't mind failing lots. What I don't want to do is fail in the last 5 minutes of something that takes 55 minutes to get to and isn't challenging at all. Break that up into shorter bursts. Shorter, harder quests with no rest shrines on elite/epic, etc. Make me fail, hard ... just don't eat too much of my time when I do.


We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

Ah well, if that were the case we wouldn't be here ;-)

Normal really should be aimed at newer or casual players at that level. Experienced players shouldn't have trouble here.

Hard should be geared towards experienced players with some gear. Still, that experienced player with all the boat buffs and absolute best crafted or BTA twink gear may coast by. Should be doable by less-geared but savvy players with a rock solid plan.

Elite should be geared to be a significant threat or challenge for people sporting even the best gear. They'll need to metagame seriuosly, prepare, have solid plans and maybe really dedicated roles on top of the gear.


Since treasure and XP are level-based, you really need to make these distinctions based on the level of the quest as well. There's no reason an elite level 12 quest should be a challenge to geared 20s ... and if the uber players want it to be a challenge and you make it so ... adjust the level too.


And keep in mind, blanket immunities and huge piles of hit points are not challenging. Big blankets that essentially mean only direct damage works aren't fun - they minimize and reduce the options players can bring to bear.

"Moar attrition" isn't a challenge either ... it's annoying. It isn't any harder, it's longer. The new mechanics to eVoN6 are a step in the right direction ... you didn't just make the encounter numbers bigger, you added additional mechanics. That's awesome. I'm still not sold on abbot. Most of that is a Mario event and I'm the worlds worst Mario player, so I tend to not like it. Too many groups still fail on the puzzles, still lag out on the tiles ... to just make the pile of HP bigger on top of that is kinda uninteresting. You're not challenging the uber players, you're challenging my calendar and free time.

[LeLoric]

I just typed out a response to this and lost it because your forums don't keep people logged in over 10 minutes anymore (I got up to tuck daughter in in the middle of it so it wasn't really that long).

I think there is a wide variety of challenging content in this game and enough to suit most peoples playstyle. As a more hardcore player I love some of the changes we have seen recently.

I personally like that each level has more difficulty in it's content and that lev 10A content does not necessarily equal lev 10B content. The game has always had these discrepencies among same level content it provides measuring sticks of your character/player growth. Some could be fixed but honestly ask yourself do you want lots of developer time spent in making gianthold more like lordsmarch or vice versa?

I like challenge upgrades but they have to be both incentivised and immersive.

Incentivised means that there must be rewards that scale with difficulty. Some great examples are shroud and weapons shipment tangible easily recognized increases.

Bad examples are raids that give higher percentage chance at drops amongst different difficulties. These are unpublished chances and most often they are not enough to see any remarkable difference from one raid to the next. Better to have a tangible visual extra chest with drop chance than the current system.

Worse examples are challenging content that have no increase reward. GH Tor and SOS Sorjek fight are the best examples of this. Really high challenge fights on elite but no incentive whatsoever to run them (favor and bravery can be obtained without these fights).

Overall my thoughts on challenge probably boil down to this. The game has often been in a run it once on elite for favor and now bravery and then just normal again for most content. I would like to see game design focus on making people want to run elite everytime if possible and normals left to those who cant run elite or not up for the challenge that day or similar.

[GeneralDiomedes]

That pattern causes several problems, including making the difficulty less consistent with older quests: the amount by which it increases on Elite is much more if the monsters are not only stronger, but more numerous and in better situations. Previously Elite dungeons had strong encounters, but they had the expectation that players had learned the mechanics on Normal first. Now Elite gets its own separate mechanics, breaking that principle (and denying non-Elite players the opportunity to interact with those mechanics at all)

Ehh .. that's part of the charm of this game, actually.

[sirgog]

This is Seph responding to me talking about how I think these encounters are some of the better ones in Epic 6-player content

I kind of disagree here. The big thing these fights all have in common is that they have kiteable adds that, if left to their own devices, will wipe a party. That's a decent solution some of the time, but it seems like it is the default solution to too many fights in the game.

As a caster in the Demon of Frenzied Blood encounter I kite a bunch of trash around the room and try to keep a DoT and Ice Storm up on the boss.
As a caster in the Raiyum encounter...I kite a bunch of trash around the room and try to tag the boss with a Meteor Swarm when I can.
As a caster in the final fight of VoN 2...I kite a bunch of trash around the room and try to tag the boss with some DoTs or something when I can.

The DoFB encounter at least has the option of destroying the portals as an alternative to kiting, but the general idea is to distract the party caster from participating in the boss' destruction. And if you don't have an arcane caster in the party, the task falls to the party divine who replaces "try to DoT the boss" with "continue to heal the party." If you don't have a divine capable of that, you need someone with some decent ranged ability, or the party simply fails the encounter, and even a decent archer-specialized character is only mediocre in some of those encounters due to the slowness of archery, facing, limited space, and difficulty in healing both the party and someone else running around the room.



A player that knows how to kite in DDO is simply too powerful, because not enough mobs have abilities that can harm a player that is running tight circles around them. This is an AI issue that IMHO is a high priority to fix.
Those encounters I mentioned, however, can all be approached in multiple ways, especially the Hezrou in eITD.

The Hezrou can be dealt with by:
- A caster using persistant AoEs to aggro all of the fire reavers, then running large circles around the whole room or tight circles on one platform
- A bard Fascinating the trash
- The group coordinating to smash the portals
- The group assigning 1-2 characters to smash the portals
- Assigning 2 AoE DPS characters (Supreme Cleave barbarians, Sorcs, Wizards, Improved Precise Shot archers) to AoE down the trash
- Multiple casters using Wail on cooldown to thin out trash numbers while focusing the rest of their efforts on the boss
- A high DR character intimidating or otherwise aggroing the trash, shield blocking, and enduring it (might work with an AC tank too, I'll test it in about 7 million more XP)
- (not sure if this still works but it did a while ago) Spamming Charm effects on all of the trash and ignoring it, just like soloists usually do in the west water elemental statue room.

PUGs often use the first approach, not because it is easiest (IMO the second one is easiest), but because most casters have learned to do it this way.

Raiyum can be approached by nuking down the Dread Hex Wraiths as well as by kiting them.

VON2 again does support 'kill the adds' approaches, but again most arcanes kite because they've learned to do it.

[bbqzor]

I have tried to answer your questions in an itemized format. Unless noted otherwise, my responses reference playing the game at level 20 (be it raiding, epics, TRing, etc). Frankly, DDO is not too difficult nor lengthy relative to other MMOs, and anyone who hasnt at least gotten to 20 on a single character yet isn't really too vested in it. Once at 20, you are 'into' the game, and essentially have to choose a method of grind to participate it (be it running raid counters, TRing to level again with some equipment already handy, or start doing epic content).


do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?
Not really. Leveling up is rarely an issue except for a few specific traps/bosses/quests/etc, and a couple rough spots on the way is to be expected. At cap, there are few raids which are difficult on normal. Abbot might be the exception, but that stems more from a reliance on other players abilities and less from the game itself. The one exception would be the new Challenges, which scale horribly with the addition of more people. Soloing them is much easier than grouping them due to this scaling, and makes 'normal' difficulty very much inflated in a group.


If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?
As mentioned before, just the scaling in challenges. The vast bulk of my playing (perhaps 20000 ingredients worth, more or less) has been at cr20-22, and its really not worth stepping into these things with more than 2-3 people unless you're trying to do the Kobold Island ones, or trying a specific gold star strategy where you simply need more hands. The mobs need to scale at a less punishing rate.


What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?
A learning curve is okay, walking in and immediately winning isn't too exciting or impressive. But once you've put in the time learning, success should be more or less guaranteed. I say this not because some element/chance of failure is bad, its okay having the oddball bad run. I say it because virtually everything in DDO has been balanced around requiring extensive grind to pay out. You need 1800 challenge parts, or 20 raids, or enough runs to force a seal to drop, etc. Because you have to go in there and redo it so many dozens of times over and over, its not really fun to have even a small number of those fail and be wasted time. If its a quest you have learned, and its on normal, failure shouldnt really be on the radar.


I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.
Yes, exactly. One of the things which makes MMOs attractive as a form of entertainment is that they do offer a generally linear relationship between effort in and reward out. This is contrary to real life where sometimes no matter how hard you work you fail, or dont get promoted, or what not. In real life, luck plays a huge part, and people have no control over that. In MMOs, while everyone can get a lucky drop obviously, the steady and reliable effort to reward ratio is what makes people feel spending their time playing them is worthwhile. They know that they can keep at it and get somewhere and not be disappointed. This is one reason why constantly going back and greatly changing old things grates on people, it puts stress on the effort-reward ratio people chose to put their time in on. When you start working on something (be it an epic item or what have you), generally people at the upper end know what theyre getting into, and have chosen to accept the price involved. Essentially, theyre choosing to pay x time for y reward. Constantly changing old things means sometimes people lose out on that, which makes spending time online a gamble. People can gamble how valuable their time is in real life, they dont need the game being untrustworthy as well. Nothing stings more than putting in a lot of work on something like a greensteel item, only to turn around and have it turned into a giant waste of time by some nominal change which wasnt really necessary.


We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'
Yes and no... this is a more open ended question. Rebalancing all the old raids (save titan, so far anyhow) around the 'uber player' wasn't really needed, or helpful. I know there are players who like the new versions better, and for some of the raids I am one of those players. But it didnt really help the game at all. See, the upper end might want more challenging things, great add more challenging things. But by changing the old things into those challenging things, all you really did was remove a potential stepping stone for newer players. Take reaver for example. Now hes harder, and he drops better loot. And honestly, I dont mind the harder raid since the loot is better, and it made it something Id consider running again. But it took away something lower level people could do, or start working on, or learn in. Now they have to jump right to a pretty difficult raid (to survive in if youre not in some decent gear, anyhow, since almost assuredly someone will pull the group through). But just dying and having someone else complete isnt that fun. Consider if there had just been a new raid added, with the boss having the new reavers stats, and the loot table having the new reavers loot. (You could call it epic reaver, or just imagine some other parallel event, it really doesnt matter for this example). If that had been added, instead of replacing/redoing old content, everyone wins. The people wanting to catch up or get on board at the old reaver station could do so, and the people looking for the next rung up could go try it. What did DDO really gain with the reaver revamp? I gained a reason to play it again... but Id rather have something new to look forward to than just a reason to go replay something Ive already done 100s of times another 100 times for an upgraded shiny. Gaining a reason to grind the same old thing even more isnt really something Id label a positive, in a lot of ways.


Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.
I've given some above and hope they were helpful. In closing, Id like to mention the Abbot revamp since its just about the worst revamp I can think of. Some of the loot was nerfed, with even the new upgraded versions inferior to the old drops. Some of the loot was nerfed, only to have the upgrade get it back where it was. And to top it all off, the raid was made much more difficult to where now its basically only run on Hard. This effectively made the loot rarer (20% drop on hard vs 25% on elite). So what you have is a situation where the ability to grind out the raids for 20ths went down, the drops per raid went down, the quality of some of the rewards went down, and for some of the other rewards you now need 2 items to make one (since you need the item but now also a seal you didnt have to farm before). Not to mention the current gamble that your 20th list doesnt bug out. All in all, I am left wondering what the point was... it just made players lives a lot less fun and a lot more work, to basically wind up more or less in the same place they would have otherwise. Obviously not all of the upgrades there are bad (the staff, robe, and trinket all came out pretty well) so I can see some of the merits had this been done right. But frankly, it just wasnt, and Turbine hasnt ever mentioned they intend to take a look. I get wanting to be done with it to move on to more interesting projects, but right now its just kind of an eye sore, a reminder to farm everything early and often because its just going to be made worse later.

Id also like to mention some good things, as there have been positive changes too. The change to bag weight mimicing bags of holding was long long looooong overdue. It has made playing the game much more enjoyable by removing headaches over maintenance tasks and making it easier to just play the game. Also, the desert scroll change was greatly needed. I know some people didnt like it, or lost a lot of trade investment, which wasnt good (going back to the whole, changing the value of time people have chosen to put in). But right now making an epic is like trying to get 4 named items, and the game does not really need that level of grind. Its a game which caters to people having multiple characters, and leveling those characters multiple times. But just having 'desert scroll', 'desert seal' and 'desert shard' (then the same for the other areas) would bring a lot of balance to epics. With an absence of 20th reward lists like raids have, trying to track down an epic bit can be a horrible amount of work, and few of the epic items offer any kind of in game advantage to match that work. The new Challenges remedy this well, but a system such as that doesnt seem to me as easily backwards compatible, nor would I want to promote more challenges (frankly theyre all timed which is hard on a social game where people have to use the bathroom at different times, or deal with kids, or afk a second for wives, etc... and theyre all very repetitive which makes the grind even more grindy, especially when the timed nature and fail conditions prevent goofing around or joking conversations and such, theres just too much of a need to perform and rush). Going to generic epic parts, as the desert scrolls are, is a good solution. Id even like to see adjustments made to eliminate the hand ins (if 100 kills for 1 scroll at 1% drop chance is too few with every scroll being useable, just adjust the global rate to 0.33% so its the same ratio as the turn ins now, but it gets rid of an annoying step, and cuts down on clutter in bags, and makes trading easier). Again, just some thoughts. Thanks for the chance to post them.

[FranOhmsford]

I feel that a lot of quests now do not fit with the levels they've been put at.

I feel that certain quests scale way too much from Normal - Elite

I feel that certain quests are far easier to solo than others Yet other quests are far easier in a group.

I feel that slayer zones should NOT scale by party size - This makes zero sense as 90% of parties split up to do slayers anyway. If I'm in Vale of Twilight soloing with an LFM up and someone joins and steps into the instance the mobs HP, Damage and Saves are guaranteed to go thru the roof. This is the same in all slayers - Running round solo {with a hire of course} taking one or two hits to kill everything instantly goes to needing a minimum 3 hits every single time once a second person enters.

My personal thoughts on the difficulty of certain quests

The solo quests are all set at the wrong lvl - I'd change Miller's Debt and Home Sweet Sewer to lvl 1 and An Explosive Situation to lvl 2 BUT I'd up Arachnophobia to lvl 3 - It's by far the most difficult of the four solo quests.

Shan-to-Kor - Sacred Helm scales pretty heavily to elite - My suggestion would be to move it to lvl 4 and rebalance normal and hard leaving elite as is.

The Marketplace f2p quests - The Swiped Signet, Freshen the Air, Proof is in the Poison and Archer Pt could all benefit from a one level advance as Bravery Bonus is forcing people to do them earlier than before - Freshen the Air especially is incredibly hard on elite for it's level.

The Chronoscope - Needs rebalancing a la Devil Assault - 6 / 12 / 18

House D - Sorrowdusk Pt 1 and 2 could do with being upped to lvl 7 - Apart from this House D is fine as is.

House Jorasco f2p quests - Mirra's Sleepless Nights and Dead Predators are a bit weak for lvl 6 quests - These could be dropped to lvl 5 with no real issues {It feels rather strange that the lowest lvl quest in House J is Delera's Pt 1.}.

Delera's - Pt 1 needs to be moved to lvl 6 and rebalanced to bring it in line with the rest of the chain for Bravery.

House Phiarlan f2p quests - I'd suggest toning down the search DC in Rest for the Restless on elite {It really is stupid high as is and many rogues / artis who could disable the trap with no problems thanks to thieves tools can't even find the box.

Tangleroot - The first two quests in this chain are amongst the easiest lvl 3 quests BUT I'd suggest rebalancing them and moving them to lvl 4. I'd also suggest dropping the final two quests in the chain to lvl 6 as they don't really deserve lvl 7 status.

Carnival - The Snitch {Pt 3} is far far easier than the rest of this chain - A Small Problem {Pt 1} especially scales to ridiculous extremes on elite - I'd suggest making the whole chain lvl 6 instead of lvl 5 and rebalancing The Snitch to the difficulty of the rest of the pack {maybe also take a look at the scaling of Small Problem}.

Necropolis - Wow what can I say? Burning Heart needs to stop making people buy gold seal hirelings {It's not actually even that hard once you get past the four runes.
- The entirety of Necro 2 is rendered ridiculously easy if you have a caster with Firewall or an arti with the turret in the party Yet is a monster to get through without one of these - It might be an idea to reduce the phasing abilities of shadows etc whilst giving them Fire, Acid or Cold Res 30 from all the casters in there {33% chance of each - A roll of 100 gives the mob all three}.
-Necro 3 could stand to be moved up a level as it's pretty crowded where it is atm and it's not easy anyway.

Orchard - I'm gonna hear screaming in a second I know BUT I definitely feel that there's too many LFMs going up for Rats and Caravan farming - It might be an idea to look at making the chance of gaining taps reliant on actually doing the slayer properly - I'd suggest a much smaller chance of gaining taps off the first 2 rares with bonuses to drops on subsequent rares in the instance.

Threnal - Here we go - This whole pack needs removing and rebuilding from the ground up - I'd suggest:

1. Make the slayer an actual slayer - 750 max
2. Add favour totals for the side quests
3. Remove all oozes and puddings from the quests
4. Have a competition on the Character Build forums to build Coyle and Derward {Coyle's an Illusionist and Derward's an Artificer}
5. Sort out the flagging mechanism.
6. rebalance the quest levels from lvl 7 on Normal to lvl 9 on Normal.
7. Add chests/xp at certain time intervals in Hold for Reinforcements {ala Devil Assault / Desert Caravan}.

House Kundarak f2p quests - Taming the Flames has to get a special mention here - I'd really like to see this moved to lvl 10 and rebalanced with reference to the fact that shipbuffs are available.
-Relic of a Sovereign Past could do with being dropped a level {replacing one of the four Necro 3 quests}.

VoN - I'm sorry but Jungle of Khyber and Haywire Foundry are lvl 10 quests masquerading as lvl 9s - Move them up a level please
-Vault of Night and Plane of Night could also do with being upped a level.

Back to the Harbour - Invaders at one point was an endgame quest and it still reflects that - Unfortunately the rewards no longer reflect that in the main - I'd suggest moving it up 2 levels and taking a look at the rewards.

The Restless Isles - Hiding in Plain Sight should in my opinion be rebalanced and dropped to level 9 {As it stands people aren't hitting the Isles themselves at the right level}
-The Twilight Forge and The Titan Awakes could do with being upped to level 14 as too many groups are doing these with level 17-20 characters.

Three Barrel Cove - This explorer zone is PERFECTION unfortunately the quests leave a lot to be desired - I'd suggest rebalancing Guard Duty for soloability {one hireling - No goldseals}, allowing the questgivers for Garl's Tomb and The Fire Caves to teleport characters to pt 2 of each once pt 1 is done. And dropping Scoundrel's Run to lvl 6 {It's not a lvl 7 quest}.

Gianthold - Move Reaver's Fate to lvl 17 - May need rebalancing

Vale of Twilight - Move Shroud to lvl 18 - It's already run mainly by capped toons {why have an instant 10% xp penalty for those not capped?}.

SubT - This is NOT a lvl 16 instance - VoD and Hox are lvl 18 quests - Move the slayer to lvl 18 too please {btw Devil Battlefield's mobs aren't as hard as the ones in SubT and that's a lvl 19 instance} and allow hirelings in the slayer.
-I'd also suggest moving VoD to lvl 19

Epics - We need more - I'd suggest:

1. Bring out epic unlock tokens for certain f2p quests {DDOStore of course}
-Misery's Peak
-Redwillow's Ruins
-Gwylan's Stand
-Stormcleave Outpost
-Caverns of Korromar
-Tempest Spine
-Invaders
-Mired in Kobolds
2. Epicify Restless Isles and Threnal {once you've thouroughly rebuilt it of course}
3. Delera's DOES NOT need epicing - Put an epic token for Voice in Threnal.

There's plenty of quests I've missed hereI but I'd start with these.

Oh and please, please, please make Kobolds a playable race...Yark!

[sirgog]

Some random thoughts:


...(other suggestions)...
Mob AC. Some mobs have AC that is completely out of whack - having to roll a crit to hit a mob isn't fun. There are a few older quests which are particularly guilty of this, mostly quests with vampires (which are already heavily skewed towards casters), but I remember having horrible to-hit issues in elite Fear Factory on a heavily geared third life melee toon (that even had fighter active PL clicky going) fighting the end-boss. He literally had more AC than a lot of epic mobs, which is just ridiculous.
... (other suggestions)...


I for one like mob AC being all over the place. Just don't be afraid to have a low AC boss alongside a few high AC trash mobs (it's almost always the other way around).

An encounter in an Epic dungeon where the boss has 55 AC and 100% Fortification, but at a certain point 72 AC 0 Fort trash spawns gives different types of melee builds different opportunities to shine. Monks are excellent DPS against the heavy fort 55 AC boss but lacklustre against 72 AC; a Barbarian might pull less DPS than the monk on the 55 AC boss, but when the trash spawns, they are the god (well, among melees) of killing it.

Likewise, I'm fine with elite requiring players to use all the tools at their disposal - Destruction weapons, Sunder/Imp Sunder, etc - to hit certain opponents reliably. Normal, OTOH, should see players in poor gear for the level hit on a 10 if not lower.

[QuantumFX]

do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

Not really. But there are plenty of times where I feel like Elite difficulty feels too much like Epic difficulty.

There are 3 types of issues that you guys have:
1) Quests that suck due to game changes.
2) Quests that suck due to poorly implemented mobs.
3) Quests that suck and you’ve demonstrated the ability to do a better job, but you haven’t used that knowledge in the quests that suck.

The first type of problem quests tend to come down to changing game mechanics and quests not being revised with these changes in mind. This problem tends to comes up in quests that were considered “Endgame” once upon a time.

Examples:

Vault of Night Part 1 - Tharask Arena: Technically this one also falls under “Poorly implemented mobs”. At one time the troll fight was put in game to give casters something to do other than “Buff the Melees”. Times have changed and casters no longer need melees in that quest. It’s time to tone the Ottos Irresistable Dance down to confirmed vorpals only.

Vault of Night Part 3 - The Jungles of Khyber: Once again, casters now have plenty of play options, including avoiding grouping with melees. And, to add insult to injury, the Marut gets to bypass Grasp of the Earth Dragon *and* Blindness Immunity. Once again, it’s time to make this quest into something any 6 characters can do.

Running With the Devils: Once upon a time melees had some neat options for weapons to use in there. Then there was a pointless nerf to Transmutating. (Which *should* have been a surgical strike to Mineral II.) Now, if you want to fight that named guy you better have crafted something. Seriously, you guys can’t see anything wrong with “You need this quest to craft but you need to craft stuff to play this quest”?

Monastery of the Scorpion: Nothing about Normal or Hard can prepare you for the end “fight” on Elite. OMG, someone completed it on a sneaky guy. Boo effing hoo. Sneaky types have 3 quests in the game where they can shine, but don’t have to. You had to screw this up because?

The second problem is more general. But, it turns good quests into bad quests.

Examples:

Phasing mobs (Shadow Crypts): I’m still waiting for Eladrin to explain to me exactly what the tactical advantage of “phasing into the floor” is. These creatures don’t regen. All it does is bring unnecessary attention to the fact that your graphics engine is perpetually out of synch with the rest of the game.

Beholders (Acute Delerium, In the Flesh, Ghosts of Perdition): In many ways, you guys have a lot of trouble making a quest with a beholder into a fun quest. Your game engine has screwed up the anti-magic ray, enervation and the general spamminess of beholders. There are reasons why anti-magic is just a supression field in P&P. There are reasons why players have 2 defenses against level drain in P&P. (Touch AC and SR) You guys successfully borked these defenses in DDO and have yet to come up with a decent replacement. (Seriously, why does negative energy absorpbsion % not lower the # of neg levels give by negative energy spells?)

Air Elementals (Piker’s Fate, Fleshmaker’s Lab, various): OK, make a save when they attack. That I could see. However, you guys turned it into make a save whenever their 3d model intersects mine. Then you gave the A.I. the ability to intersect my 3d model a dozen times a second. You want to make these mobs the right way? Give us a 2 second immunity each time we make a save.

The third problem is probably the only one I like to talk about. It shows that you guys can fix the problem. You just need incentive.

East Thernal Part 3 - Hold For Reinforcements: Compare this quest to “The Last Stand” or the climax of “Ritual Sacrifice”. The Last Stand is done right. Hold for Reinforcements, not so much. In the Last Stand you actually have a chance at keeping suicidal guy alive and it gives a much more appropriate XP reward. In Hold for reinforcements, Coyle is a one hit wonder and you spend 15 minutes for around 2,000XP. The one level difference between these quests does not justify either of the penalties we must face in Thernal.

Cabal for One: The end fight in this quest makes me mad. Why? Well, it comes down to versimlatude. We have an armored divine caster with a unrealistic (from a metagaming standpoint.) 60+ AC. OK, where does this +6 Fullplate of Protection +6 with Dodge +4 drop in DDO? Cause it’s obviously not a named drop from the final chest. If you guys ever feel the need to revisit this fight: Look at the endfight of Frame Work. *That* is some nice work. Some swarming and prioritization of kills is much better than artifical stats.

Update 11 Cannith Quests: Don’t get me wrong, I like these quests. Even on Elite. However, these quests should give epic tokens at the end.


What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU?

Continuing on the levelling PoV. In regards to every quest created after Eberron Unlimited. Why does every new mid-high level quest chain wuss out on the XP? You want people to buy these adventure packs, right? No one grinds the Xorian quests for XP. But, they will run the hell out of Litany of the Dead though. People actively make levelling plans that don’t involve Amrath. The only reason to run Cannith is for Boots of Propulsion or Cannith Favor. Most of these quests are a “Once and Done” quest. Why would you want to make quests like that?

[wetheril]

Just want to add that I agree completely with people who have said this game isn't so much targeted to uber-players as much as it is to the uber-connection, or uber-group. I consider myself to be decently geared and have a solid knowledge of the majority of the quests and raids in the game. I do not have as much time to play now as I did in the past due to real life issues, and sometimes I really need to grab a group quick just to get something done. I can't wait around for friends to get on, or sometimes I can't make it to a guild run. PUGs are just terrible now, and there needs to be something done so that raids are more PUG-friendly.

[umeannothing]

I think basically at this point in time, easing back on the old content, making it more new player friendly, content to gear up on, would be a good idea, more or less, leave old content where it is for now with the exception that if it has a level range on it, i.e. 12-15, 2-4, 17-20, make it doable for those level level ranges in a manner that encourages growth;new players to play it.

Future content that gets released, I would suggest to make that end game player quality and difficulty. New content should be something that new players and old alike will want to work towards, making the game interesting by re-running old content relentlessly for whatever reason: TR's, uncomfortable with current end game so one rolls a new character, want to solo, want to short man content, whatever reason you can think of worked to tide the game by during dark times, and the times are not as dark as they once were. I would bet that old players that had a reason to buy future packs aimed at giving their power characters something to do would purchase the packs like wildfire....... Assuming the quality is good and has been gone through with a fine tooth comb to minimize issues with content upon release and may even get a few new/returning vip's.

I still say that level 1 - 20 content should be considered pretty much finished, I think making it on par for the level ranges of the respective quest/raid assuming that a level 17-20 raid is going to be played by characters on casual/normal at level 17-18 (I know, no casual on them as yet) hard on 19-20 and elite on 20+ using basic non twinked new players that have not TR'd anything or gotten gear yet.

but overall, I would say difficulty is ok. There are, as some have said, differences in one quest chain over another over that one over there all in the same level range that should be looked at, but overall, I feel difficulty is good.

And please, when you are thinking of difficulty, do not forget to include solo/casual players. Many casual players (myself included) play solo just because we do not want to inconvenience a group if we have to go AFK repeatedly, as in my case, my 4 year old son I am watching during the day, often as I am playing, and then I have a wife and 2 other older kids in the evening that seriously hampers my being able to just group and run as often as I would prefer.

I don't mind dying in quests, I mind not completing, as I said before, and still think getting rid of the 5 minute timer for reseting is a good idea, and add an option on the quest difficulty selection for reset this quest, with an auto reset when you enter a new dungeon, this would let a person that forgot to bind, gets lag booted, zone in/out DC'd, or whatever the chance to go back where they were to get a complete.

[sirgog]

Rather than looking at quest difficulty (casual, normal, hard, elite, and in some cases epic gives you plenty of opportunity to tune and re-tune to cater to the broadest possible spectrum of player skills and desires), I hope you consider another aspect of what can make DDO excessively difficult for some players.

This game's ability to customize character builds is one of its biggest strengths but also one of the most potentially punitive mechanics facing a new player. This game (and many of the players in it) do not forgive "build mistakes". What is a new player who makes their way to the mid upper levels faced with when they're told taking Power Critical or Acrobatic or Improved Mental Toughness were big mistakes, or that their mix of classes is 'gimp', etc? It wont be altogether clear to many new players just how useless some of the feats are or how bad of an idea mixing certain classes is until they've invested some chunk of playtime - and then said investment looks like a big loss in light of the harsh reality of their options:

- reroll: do you want new players to feel like they've wasted all that time?
- pay for lesser/greater reincarnation: expensive.
- pay for one-by-one feat swaps that may not even work given feat selection progressions: potentially expensive.

'Expensive' is subjective, sure, but when you guys shifted the capability of players to swap feats for siberys shards by a couple magnitudes you essentially made real money the only option for repairing bad leveling decisions.

Some ideas for reducing this hurdle:

- revert siberys feat swap 'costs' to their previous levels (i.e. 1,000,000 shards for the flawless needed to feat swap at level 17 is nuts)
- provide every character slot with a one-time usable Greater Heart of Wood +5. This one time use does not renew across True Reincarnations. This would basically function as a single use 'oops' button for, so to speak, un-gimping a character. Maybe tie this to a certain level or maybe a certain favor threshold, but not so high as to be a grind unto itself.
- improve the feat swap and lesser/greater reincarnation interfaces to be more intuitive and forgiving. Consider a two or four hour timer after changes are made: within that window of time there is an 'undo' option, because the only thing worse than making critical mistakes building your character is compounding them because you didn't change out the right class at the right level or so on.

One more suggestion: Improve the pre-generated builds (IMO you should get the 'power gamer' community to design these, and award in-game prizes as an incentive), and also add to the DDO store level-appropriate 'equipment packs' for each of them (at 6, 12 and 18), that contain OK introductory-level equipment.

As an example, a level 12 Stalwart Defender's kit might cost 400 TP and include (all BtC):
- +5 Mithril Full Plate
- +5 Steel Tower Shield
- +5 Dwarven Axe of Bleeding
- +2 Metalline Dwarven Axe of Pure Good
- +2 Cursespewing Returning Throwing Axe
- +6 Con belt
- +6 Str gloves
- +6 Dex boots
- Heavy Fortification ring
- Greater False Life ring
- Bracers of Dodge +2
- Amulet of Resistance: Saves +4
- Helmet of Natural Armor +3
- Cloak of Protection +5
- Trinket of Inspiration: XP gain +2%, does not stack with Voice of the Master or Threnal cloak.

All of that is 'good stuff' without being uber. Veterans have far, far better, but it's a functional starting kit that will serve players well in at-level Hard dungeons, while not taking away the incentive to acquire more loot. Plus I think people would be more willing to spend real money on that than an individual +3 elemental burst weapon.

As for your 'once ever free respec' suggestion - a '75% off the first Lesser Heart purchased per account' offer would work too.

[bbqzor]

Skimmed the thread, and wanted to highlight a few things I caught in this post which I feel are very well said and/or very pertinent. Props sirgog.



The worst experiences of wiping come about in higher difficulty runs of VON6, LOB or tMA. If your group is powerful enough to consider running, say, hard LOB, you will not find the preraid area and initial LOB trash to be entertaining at all.
This. Adding a lot of trash clearing prior, or in, raids added nothing to the game. Its not fun, its not challenging, it doesnt consume resources or drop loot, it just takes time. Not fun.

It's my position that raids strongly require a Casual difficulty setting, even though that setting would not be designed for me at all. Casual difficulty is, at its heart, all about experiencing the storyline (and a lot of the game's best storylines revolve around raids) and seeing the sights of the game - experiences I don't think newer players should miss out upon.
This makes a lot of sense. DDO has a segment of players much more into such an experience. I am not one of them, so would not have considered adding this, but I do know people both in game and real life which would be very happy with this kind of addition.

Where I feel difficulty should be in raids:
...
Epic: For new content, the difficulty that is designed to mercilessly wipe powergamers over and over, until they finally get it down. Server firsts should take a while. Example: LOB elite/epic, Shroud elite post U12. Existing pre-U11 epic raids are currently tuned closer to 'level 20 hard', but it's not worth changing them as too many people are part-way to getting items from them.
in reference to the purple line: Again, as this mirrors one of my strongest thoughts about DDO, changing the current situation likely upsets the time people have currently invested. Solutions going forward are better than disruptions going backwards, unless its assured that people who wish can still access the old version. Prime example would be the pre-change Epic Chimeras Fang or the pre-change Enduring Conviction. I would happily craft/loot more of those if I could get the older ones, as apparently I used them differently than most people and the older versions are more appealing to me. The new ones result in wasted effort spent trying to get the old ones. A removal of appealing choices is almost never wise, consider provisions allowing picking from different versions of items in cases like these.

Item drop rates vary a lot in DDO. Low drop rates do not in any way add difficulty to the game, they instead add grind - mindless repetition.
This. Often what the devs call challenging, is in fact grind. Its not challenging to repeat something easy dozens of times. Nor is it rewarding to replace dozens of easy wins with one hard win, because it still takes dozens of hard wins to get anything. If the challenging wins paid off appreciably faster, this might change.

IMO the design principle here should be: "Will this raid be fun on the 20th/50th completion?" If no, then drop rates should be high enough that players should have everything they are likely to want within 20/50 runs respectively.
Yes. I suppose there may be some concern about people 'finishing' the content too fast if it took only 5 or 10 runs, instead of the currently typical 40-60, but in a game like DDO I feel they would just roll another character or TR again, and feel like they were getting more for their time than repeating the same thing a dozen more times. MA has a 5 run reward list and that hasnt affected its popularity much, nor have people moved on even with the weapons being tradeable... possible case in point.

These are all, with one or two exceptions, too easy to be entertaining for the number of runs that are required to complete items. Not because of the quest designs, but because the spells Wail of the Banshee, Implosion, Circle of Death and Undeath to Death obliterate them, and then almost all bosses are just 'surround and beat down for 1 minute' fights.
Two points. One, this again highlights how repetitive people feel the game is. Two, I disagree on changing those spells. Rather, Id like to see other solutions. Currently, I frequently run in a low/no caster epic group, relying on monks and a bard mostly. And it runs as fast as the caster centric ones generally speaking. Casters are easier to play in epics, and easier to make viable in epics. That doesnt mean theyre overpowered, but it does mean the whole epic category could use some tuning (if the mobs didnt have a billion attack, melee wouldnt be as difficult to run, and thats wholly independent of instant kill spells since casters rarely have appreciable ac... as one example).

A lot of this is tied to class balance, as well. Give us a reason to take melees again. And if you see anyone successfully solo an Epic, that's an indication that either the quest is under-tuned, or their class or build is way out of whack.
Finally, give mobs some way to tone down player kiting. If mobs spawn too fast to kill without kiting them, reduce the spawn rates.
I respectfully disagree here. Sometimes I need to afk frequently which would annoy most groups, or dont have time to make a group and want to do something fast, or simply dont want to be sociable. For those times it is nice to have the option to solo some epic quests on some characters. I would hate to see every epic quest categorically force grouping. Many people enjoy soloing in MMOs, and as such it should be viable at all levels and stages of the game, save raiding which is traditionally a group effort in MMOs with rewards to match. Soloing raids should be likely fall under the OPs comments, but I feel epic quests should be something people can solo at some level to cater to all play styles, situations, moods, and desires within an MMO setting.

Its great to see some good discussion here, and especially with so many people having similar feelings. I hope some good development can come from this thread and others like it. Cheers.

[stockwizard5]

I have discussed this for years now ...

New content (especially raids) should be extremely challenging (much much harder than they are released now) - beating them should take time, skill, and creativity, not fastest to organize flag and run day one. All the previous raids/quests should then regularly be made easier and have increased drop rates.

1. I am perfectly happy having the newest coolest toy a year earlier, I don't need it to be a permanent advantage. This is in contrast to recent moves to increase (rather than decrease) the difficulty of old content.

2. It is reasonable that we ran each raid 100s of times when they were first released. It was the newest, toughest (ish), thing with the best loot. It is not reasonable (I would go so far as to say impossible) to expect new players to run them that many times. The game is bigger, the raids are only level appropriate for a few levels (rather than capped), and the loot is a mix with a only few select items still really end-game useful.

Example: Velah was an awesome experience when released and we spent months learning how to run it. New players deserve the same awesome experience but since they don't have months to learn it - make it easy and fun for them to win, enjoy, and loot.

Who cares if we had to walk uphill, through the snow, both ways to get our loot, there is no reason new players need to go through the same process, let them ride, we are all busy walking up new hills anyway.

[GermanicusMaximus]

We've gone through some rebalancing of difficulty lately, and for the most part I think we are at a pretty reasonable place at this time.

Of the recent changes, I think eVon6 and Shroud were exceptionally well done.

Shroud has received a fair number of complaints, but I don't consider that a negative. Whether it be AFK vets or new players not used to following directions and working as a team, the Shroud changes served as a wake up call that was desperately needed. Complaints from people who needed to be nudged out of their complacency is a small price to pay.

Raids that seem to be a bit overdone in terms of difficulty:

Reaver's Fate elite: My level 20 cleric who has over 60 epic raid tokens has died in there. Really? That seems AMAZINGLY wrong.

Abbot: As a player who really loves to play casters, I should be running this raid just based upon the loot it hands out. If it was merely annoying, I would be. Its just obnoxious. I'm sure there are players who like this raid, but I have never met one. The people I know won't even attempt elite after the latest changes. I don't know how to fix this raid, but a single point of failure = wipe doesn't seem reasonable. If this raid handed out loot needed by melee toons, I suspect this would have been fixed a long time ago.

[sigtrent]

I like the range of difficulty, that the game can play really easy or very challenging.

I think that Normal and Hard are often not much different, but elite is clearly a big jump in difficulty. The XP rewards are fairly proportional.

I think there are a good number of quests with inconsistent level evaluations where the quest is much harder or easier than others of its level. Sometimes the XP follows that, sometimes not. I think you should have quest XP be much more even based on level and expected length of time to complete and that is it.

As it stands, some quests are bonanzas and others are busts.

Trap difficulty is a bit out of whack. It starts out rather challenging to find and disarm traps in game and becomes almost trivial at high levels. This often distorts new players views of trapping and making a rogue.

Overall I give DDO very strong marks on hitting a good spot on game difficulty. I can always find a challenge and rarely feel frustrated.

Grade: A

[sephiroth1084]

I just typed out a response to this and lost it because your forums don't keep people logged in over 10 minutes anymore (I got up to tuck daughter in in the middle of it so it wasn't really that long).http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=4142223&postcount=4


Some could be fixed but honestly ask yourself do you want lots of developer time spent in making gianthold more like lordsmarch or vice versa? Actually, I'd prefer the devs to just change the level indicator to represent what level the quest actually is. Some quests would be moving up, some down. For one, we'd probably end up with a better distribution of quests through the leveling curve from such a change with hardly any dev work.



Overall my thoughts on challenge probably boil down to this. The game has often been in a run it once on elite for favor and now bravery and then just normal again for most content. I would like to see game design focus on making people want to run elite everytime if possible and normals left to those who cant run elite or not up for the challenge that day or similar.
I'd like to see the game organized such that skillful players (not necessarily vets) with solid (not great) gear for their level are incentivized to attempt Elite, but are likely to run Hard if they can't find a good group. Where newer, weaker, less geared players are going to run normal. And where vets are always going to be trying to run elite.

I agree that the focus on running quests 3x on E, H, N is kind of a silly direction for the game to lead us...why should we be rewarded for tackling something we just finished on an easier difficulty? I'd propose that You would simply gain the hard first time bonus the second time you run something on elite, and the normal first time bonus the third time. For quests you run on hard first, you'd gain the normal first time bonus on your second run. If you then ran elite, you would get that first time bonus on that run, but no further first-time bonuses would be available.

People would be encouraged to run E, E, E instead, or H, H, which is more reasonable.

[Calebro]

I agree that the focus on running quests 3x on E, H, N is kind of a silly direction for the game to lead us...why should we be rewarded for tackling something we just finished on an easier difficulty? I'd propose that You would simply gain the hard first time bonus the second time you run something on elite, and the normal first time bonus the third time. For quests you run on hard first, you'd gain the normal first time bonus on your second run. If you then ran elite, you would get that first time bonus on that run, but no further first-time bonuses would be available.

People would be encouraged to run E, E, E instead, or H, H, which is more reasonable.

If we're going to discuss the first time bonuses.... why do you even get one for later runs? There should only be one "first time" bonus. If your XP report reads "you have completed this quest 1 time" then you shouldn't get a first time bonus at all, even if you run it on a higher difficulty than you did last time.
That would remove the E, H, N chain of events, and possibly promote running different quests altogether, which was the point of the Bravery Bonus to begin with.

[sephiroth1084]

If we're going to discuss the first time bonuses.... why do you even get one for later runs? There should only be one "first time" bonus. If your XP report reads "you have completed this quest 1 time" then you shouldn't get a first time bonus at all, even if you run it on a higher difficulty than you did last time.
That would remove the E, H, N chain of events, and possibly promote running different quests altogether, which was the point of the Bravery Bonus to begin with.
True.

[sirgog]

I have discussed this for years now ...

New content (especially raids) should be extremely challenging (much much harder than they are released now) - beating them should take time, skill, and creativity, not fastest to organize flag and run day one. All the previous raids/quests should then regularly be made easier and have increased drop rates.

1. I am perfectly happy having the newest coolest toy a year earlier, I don't need it to be a permanent advantage. This is in contrast to recent moves to increase (rather than decrease) the difficulty of old content.
....

I quite like that approach. WoW does this to some extent - if you look at the Firelands raid (which was just obsoleted as the 'cutting edge' of endgame raiding), it was launched with two difficulties - Normal (two encounters close to new Elite Shroud part 4 in difficulty, one easier than that, maybe around Hard Shroud part 4, and four much harder ones), and Heroic (immensely harder, DDO has nothing to compare).
Blizzard gave groups about 2 months to work on that initial difficulty, then dropped all mob stats by around 15-20% (which with the way WoW works is a huge nerf). Suddenly the easier three bosses plus one of the formerly hard ones were widely PUGgable on Normal, and guilds that had hit a brick wall after downing only one or two Heroic bosses were able to make progress on the next 3-4 of them.
The final 'nerfs' are indirect: Gear released in later content makes players more powerful, and this lets them return to encounters they might not have beaten and get it down. You see this in DDO sometimes too, consider how much easier Tower of Despair became when your Horoth tank gained access to the Epic Gloves of the Claw, which comes from content that is easier than ToD.
Interestingly, since then Blizzard have added their equivalent of a Casual difficulty to their new raid (where most of the raid is close to DDO's post-U12 part 4 Normal Shroud in difficulty) and it has been a smash hit.



If we're going to discuss the first time bonuses.... why do you even get one for later runs? There should only be one "first time" bonus. If your XP report reads "you have completed this quest 1 time" then you shouldn't get a first time bonus at all, even if you run it on a higher difficulty than you did last time.
That would remove the E, H, N chain of events, and possibly promote running different quests altogether, which was the point of the Bravery Bonus to begin with.

I do think that for someone that has beaten a quest on Hard, returning to it and beating it on Elite is somewhat of an accomplishment, however.

XP requirements in this game are too high for me to endorse anything that increases the TR grind. If a change was made to dissuade E/N/H running, it should be accompanied by a revision of the XP curve on TRs (making the XP requirements a quadratic function of level rather than cubic).

[Kaish]

Game difficulty for many players now, if limited to running a TR into completionist crazyness.

Running the game, when you are cap is kinda bad. All you can get is loot, and just that can make the game boring as well as anything else.

We need to go beyond 20 somewhere in the next year.
Go Prestige Class (that probably would make sens to finish the Prestige enhancement first... which have been neglected for years...)

In my opinion, that would help people enjoy there high lvl toon more and would allow many to run.. let say Amrath on a higher difficulty level then Normal (I know, most people on the forum run Amrath on Epic (!) but the rest of us.. dont)

[Dandonk]

Generally I think the level of difficulty is fairly spot on, normal being generally easy throughout and elite being a big jump up.

However, there are a few quests that are clearly much more difficult than normal. Proof is in the poison comes to mind, and Enter the Kobold.
I do not so much mind that EtK is difficult, it's more that I mind that the entire quest is a walkover until you get to the boss fight. I think that this makes for bad feelings when you have been leld to expect something other than what the quest turns out to be.
In the case of PiitP I think the rewards for actually running it ought to be turned up some, so the effort put into completing it can pay off.

There are also a few quests that are not so much "hard", but more annoying. East Threnal quest 3, and in some ways West Threnal quest 2 as well. I haven't run Faithful Departed in ages, but that at least used to be annoying too.
I do not mind that these quests take some skill to run, but it's annoying when the NPCs can be more or less one-shotted by mobs. Every other quest in the level range can be fairly easily soloed, but these can be very hard even in groups.
I would like these quests to be revisited and made less tedious. Especially the 15 minutes of pure agony that is East 3. Cutting down on quest length, upping rewards a little, and making the NPCs you're protecting more hardy would all be nice.

EDIT:
As regards to raids, I think it is a little silly to keep changing year-old raids around. People were still running those you changed, so I'm not sure what the point was. If you'd changed something like Titan instead, I'd have understood.

Also edit: While I'm not an uber powergamer, I have played for a long time, and do have both decent gear and (somewhat) thought-out builds. So that's the perspective my thoughts are from.

More edit: Dungeon scaling seems over the top. It's generally better to solo than to pug, which I think is a bad thing. Dcaling should be a help, not an incentive to not group up.

[redspecter23]

I think overall the difficulty of the game is ok. I wish that you wouldn't change old content to be harder later on. I like to think my character is becoming more powerful over time, but if the content I play just ramps up to keep pace with my character growth, then not only does it make it feel like a waste to progress with that character, but it makes it that much harder for fresh toons attempting the same content. Not everyone will agree, but I like crushing old low level content if my character is powerful enough. I find that rewarding.

One area of difficulty that I've never agreed with is extreme spikes of damage in quests that otherwise don't have any other threats on par with that particular aspect of it. The new Shroud comes to mind. The much more deadly blades trivialize the damaging aspects of the boss himself, making him look like a secondary player in the fight. Elite traps are another. It's odd that an elite quest that has traps is so much more threatening than one that doesn't have traps. The traps scale to a much higher degree than the rest of the quest. I don't mind high damage, but again, I don't want the main threat to be the fact that the quest has traps. The mobs should also be an equivalent threat in most cases. Compare elite Shadow Crypt to elite Von 3. In the first case, the jump from normal to elite is hardly worth mentioning, but in the second, your chance of extreme spike damage leading to death is much higher.

I believe the larger problem that needs to be looked at and would directly effect difficulty is class balancing. If for instance, casters and divines get toned down significantly in order to achieve balance, some content becomes much harder, but if melee is buffed to be more on par with casters than some content becomes much easier. If you're looking seriously at rebalancing classes, then game difficulty should be looked at after that.

[voodoogroves]

As you monkey with difficulty, some things I think are worth considering.

I kinda think you need to provide some sort of incentive for "grouping down". Give me a reason to grab some random strangers in some quests. As it is ...

Normal - is still and should still be fun and challenging to new players who lack both experience and twink gear

Hard - is fine if you give it the caveat that it is meant to challenge players with either experience or gear, but not necessarily both

Elite - should be the challenge spot for people with both experience and gear ... and someone without both would need to be on their toes and play smart (this is how the permadeath folks do it - planning and coordination replaces gear).

... and those all kinda work. Some are off balance. Some are off balance within themselves (mostly easy, one much harder fight at the end) ... but in general that kinda works.

What it does not do is give my multi-TR riding his elite streak any reason to open an LFM and grab some random strangers for the quest. Perhaps dungeon scaling is to blame ... but if I'm challenging myself to solo content on elite, adding 5 other random people into the mix shouldn't make it insanely harder.


===========================

The bravery bonus may provide too much incentive. Personally, I hate repeat "farming" to get the necessary XP ... I like the idea of running more of the quests on harder difficulties - and for this the bonus is awesome. I find though that I'm further dis-inclined to group or run on normal so I don't disrupt my streak ... I imagine most others are like me and if they do a few quick normal runs it is AFTER they hit that quest on elite first.

I almost think it needs to go away and be replaced by a simple strict bonus to running the first time on elite. No disruption, no fear of jumping in that normal group and taking the XP hit to do so. Make it so I can group with less experienced folks on a lower difficulty without penalty.

===========================

The challenges are rarely run. Part of the reason I think folks talk so much about how to solo them is that, frankly, they are not run much. I'm not sure what the answer to that is (and really, I'm unclear how they work with Premium / F2P folks anyway) but some other mechanism to get more people running them (and able to run them) would be a bonus.

Ya'll spent some time there building them. Shame they aren't run more in groups.

[lugoman]

I think everyone in the game should be able to play any of the non-epic content in the game. I think all raids should be pug-able in some way. Maybe add casual to the raid difficulty with a reduced drop rate so people can learn the raids cheaply.

[Deathdefy]

Long quests with the difficulty massively backloaded are the most disappointing.

I think that's ameliorated if you have a 'you can repeat this in the event of a wipe' mechanic, but there needs to be more of these + tweaking of existing implementations!

Tweaks:
1) Still keep the 'you can repeat in the event of a wipe' mechanic on Elite... I mean you still have to actually beat the end fight, and as long as it resets after a wipe it's just as difficult. A New Invasion is infuriatingly designed in this respect. In The Flesh is dodgey in that if you kill the beholder that spawns at the start on your first attempt, it won't spawn on later attempts.

2) Have the mechanic not require someone to re-enter. Looking at you 'In The Flesh'. Either put the soulstones just outside the end fight where the shrines are, or add a res shrine to wherever you teleport the stones to.

I'd add this mechanic to:

P2P:
Enter the Kobold - it's not fun to have to place someone on 'lever' duty so people can get back to the res shrine. Just port the stones there in the event of a wipe. Kobold flavor text opportunity! "Mystical Kobold magic purifies the great kobold's sanctum of your soulstones".

Monastery of the Scorpion - I'm always certain I can make it to the end fight; on normal I'm certain I'll be able to complete it too, but on elite it's a huge gamble as to whether it's a total waste of time or not. I'd very much like this to dump you back at the previous shrine (just before you air-jet over to the final corridor with the puzzle and scorrow at the end).

Shadow Crypt - It can be an extremely long quest, and has an enormously more difficult end fight. I'd give it a 'party wipe teleport to res shrine in previous room' mechanic. At the worst it would confirm to people that yes, they need to bypass his DR, and it wasn't a one-off unlucky fight.

Jungles of Khyber - Not for the 3 champions; the shrines are close and forcing some strategy to deal with the possibility of a wipe isn't a bad thing. For the Marut though, come on. You could easily plot justify it too. Veil has temporarily forced the marut back out and re-warded the room (with a fresh coat of paint for being good). Soulstones transported to shrines.

Lord of Eyes - Longish, and I suspect the last fight claims exponentially more wipes than anywhere else. I'd just port the stones back outside in the event of a wipe.


F2P:
Diplomatic Immunity - while a relatively simple end-fight if you know what you're doing, it's a very long quest, and is F2P. I can imagine this would be very disheartening for new players. Just dump people outside where the friendly orcs are and add a shrine.

Eyes of Stone - same reasoning as Diplomatic Immunity. Just put people back outside the trapdoor.

The Pit - Another F2Per with a huge sting in the tail. I'd reset the switches, spawns and trogs that start spawned on the platforms in the event of a wipe. I'd also add a res shrine just outside and place stones there. I'd even add a rest shrine on all difficulties including elite. If you made it to the end fight in that horror story of a quest, you deserve at least a few decent shots at a completion.

Halls of Shan To Kor - Again, massively backloaded. If they managed to pass the fire room, they deserve multiple shots at that guy. In that this boss fight in particular has earth eles and a giant with an enormous club, every earthgrab check is a 5% chance of a death sentence.

Proof is in the Poison - Maybe? Maybe just more rest shrines along the way. I feel less strongly about this than the others.

Xorian Cypher - The end fight is again by far the most difficult in what can be quite a long quest. That said, part of the difficulty is navigating the respawns in the final corridors to get to it. I'd teleport the party soul stones all the way back to the rest / res shrines in the center of the quest.

Relic of a Sovereign Past - Very long. Very backloaded. Get teleported to Res/Rest shrines in room that you pull the lever in.


That's it off the top of my head, but could easily be many more. I honestly don't think you need flavor text to justify any mystery soulstone teleportation, but flavor's fun. I hope this wasn't too specific.


Final thought for normal difficulty:
Generally I'm happy with the difficulty in DDO. Bravery bonus was very much a double edged sword though, in that the VIP and TR population won't run normal quests anymore, which is where new players should be.

For that reason, I'd make normal (particularly low-mid level quests) even easier since parties will often be composed purely of new players, which is different to any other time in DDO's history.

By easier, I don't mean normal = casual now since that's just not fun.

I more that if you have a party wipe on normal, maybe every stone automatically teleports to a res shrine regardless of where the wipe was. Provided all important quest items either reset to their original location, or drop on character death, it'd be difficult to abuse, and would make wiping much less frustrating.

[rkreutz]

My take on difficulty on ddo is: its way way to easy and too difficult at same time. Guess i need to elaborate it.

With all the changes made to the game in the past 18 months, the game in general became way too easy, especially low level to late mid-level on normal and hard setting. Additionally, all the new added missions have 'dozens' shrines, which make it even for caster classes trivial!

Changes im talking about are:
- poisons and deseases are no threat, ppl simply ignore them
- negative levels are no threat in a grp (no chance to accumulate too many) and they go away by themself, and resting at a shrine completely removes all neg levels
- negative levels in solo play are only a threat in very special situations or 'the most difficult dungeons' (aka invaders!)
- trap-damage is only a threat for the worst built toons (on normal/hard)
- adding shrines to existing missions or unlocking doors
- ship buffs (my personal grudge #1, i will find a way to put all my trapparts to some use, some day, and blow up those buff-shrines)
- streak-xp inflated xp for non-TR toons, which makes them fly through levels
- cannith crafting (reaching lvl 20 in each school is a, well, lets say very very easy) made equipping low level toons trivial
- new named loot, especially at lower and mid-levels
- raid loot made bta

The result, ppl will simply fly through the levels and do not have time to get accustomed to game mechanics, rules and strategies.

some examples:
- lvl 18 wizard - pure - who was in shroud and did NOT have resist-energy, he didnt even knew there was such a spell
- regularely melees in epic do not flank, even though its absolutely clear, they do not hit on a 2, not even on a 10
- ppl - lvl 20 - generally stay in the middle of several cleaving mobs and have no clue whats happening, told that they make it hard for the healer, often they just 'shrug'
- sorc in a grp with an additinal wizard in epic small problem, complains that we do not fight one moob at a time, cos his cc works best against single mobs (earth savant)
- ppl do not 'lock down' mobs, which tend to move arround alot (surrounding, so the the mob cant move) - epic caster bosses (eg. into the depths)


At some point i wondered myself, is the game really that easy? Or is it just my metagaming, my knowledge, that makes things so easy. The openeing of wayfinder was the perfect testbed. 14 days after the server opened, i was the very first one who did lvl to 20. I started there fresh, with a 28pts build, without ressorces, no friends, no guilds or shipbuffs, was quickly amongst the highest lvls on the server (leveld almost completely alone with hirelings), after lvl 16, i was completely alone (transfered in characters were mostly 20 and did just take a look arround and logged off), the ah was empty (in fact i was the one who fueled ah quite a bit with usefull stuff). The only 'cheating' i did, wast at lvl 18, when i was almost 19. A friend transfered in a character and i gathered all the ingredients for a GS-Greataxe until that point, except the large horn. I asked him to borrow me that and made a gs-gaxe. Was somehow like gifting myself with some toy to reward myself (thx again merkades, for the gift). Until then, the maelstrom gaxe (one of 3 or 4 items i got from ah) was my best weapon.
Addmitedly, i choose a build that is solo friendly, still. Metagaming alone shouldnt allow me to level that quickly with the circumstances like i stated.



So why am i saying, the game is too diffcult as well? The 'lower level' raids. Compared to what ppl experience when they level, how easy they can get xp, suddenly they face a wall. In fact, on orien (no longer a fresh server but still 'newbish') its impossible to do chronoscope, vault of night, against the demon queen/zawabis revenge, reavers fate at level. Everytime i put up a lfm for elite, lvl range base level (normal) till +2, i get tells:
- Its impossible
- You would get ppl if u opened it to lvl 20
- No rogue/arty ever can disable those traps

Then i sit there for 2 days, trying several times a day to get a grp and nada.
I am getting in VOD normal, it goes really ******, ppl die, ppl steal aggro, healers have to use pots and at the end ppl say/write: gj, well done, nice work !?????
Doing HoX normal, with an Intimitank (no fail intimi) *** high hp and 3 healers, optimal grp setup. And it goes south cos ppl dont know about basics.


Another thing, some of the new missons (harbor eg) on elite are real showbreakers. Thats no longer being a challenge and totally different from what ppl experienced on normal/hard. Even for twinked out toons and experienced players, those are suddenly really hard missions. Not saying that is completely wrong, but its inconsistent and there is no sign for it, until ur at that endfight in harbor final mission and suddenly realize: There is no way i can fight a boss and a bunch of respawning beholders and mindflayers and renders.



My point is, the game was made too easy during leveling, ppl dont care about being not a dead weight (to improve themselfs) and then are faced with 'tougher' (thats their perceiving), impossible difficult raids. While i agree that the original beef up in shroud (blades) was way over the top, the outcry only came from, not being able to steer one owns toon properly (at least in my opinion, i dont wanna know how many ppl dont know about mouselook, without that, certain things are almost impossible to do - shroud blades and fighting/casting, lob avoiding damage, vod positioning urself making room, chronoscope watching battlefield and reacting according to things happening).

As a GM (and here for ddo, turbine is the gm) its my job to make sure the grp does know my rules, make it a entertaining and challenging and rewarding experience. Because of the mentioned inconsistencies quite a bit of ppl deem ddo too hard and quite abit deem it too easy. Im well aware that turbine is not our mommy and that almost all ppl are too old to have a teacher. Despite that, turbine needs to make certain things sure, enforce them, lead ppl to. At least thats my opinion.

- choices have consequences
- nothing comes for free
- there are things i need to know
- there are things i cant do, but others can
- there is difference in power for different toons
- investment bears rewards


I personally would prefer it if leveling wouldnt be as easy. If ppl would be guided to learn something about their toons, game mechanics, strategies etc. Cos i think that would lead to more ppl that could take a challenge and thus i wouldnt be forced to play alone that often. But i dont know what direction turbine wants to go. The hearing of: I have 132 store sp pots from a healer/arcane, after i offered compensation cos things went bad, makes me cringe everytime. And sadly i hear it more often lately.

[Esmyra]

I've found that the game does get balanced to the uber-player. I play a fair amount, and I can't even get into a good number of quests simply because they're so hard to time, and if you don't know exactly what's going on, no one will take you into the quest. It's frustrating and has been making me consider giving up my subscription. Add to that the changes to Elite Reaver's Fate...gods that just frustrates me.

Quite simply, I think a quest on Normal, with a character at-level, should have better than a 75% success rate. Regardless of actual build. I know that several friends that I introduced to the game have all but left because they can't get through quests, and because the bar to actually be effective in some of the new content is so high.

To be perfectly honest, if the next set of quests/updates are anything like the last few, in that regard, I'm absolutely certain that you're going to lose me and at least a few of my friends. Which would suck, because otherwise I love the game. It's just too bloody hard better than 90% of the time past level 14.

[Barazon]

One problem is that the adventures in the world are all over the map. You've got quests that give 20-40k xp in under 10 minutes, and others like elite abbot that are ridiculously overpowered, and in fact discriminate against the people for whom most of the raid's loot is geared. You have quests in which exact timing is required, but lag is the norm; sometimes even when the game is running smoothly, voice chat is a second or two behind what is happening inside the game, making that exacting timing difficult to accomplish (watch an abbot raid: "go on my swing" replaces voice chat).

You've produced a chicken-and-egg problem with epic raids, in that to get epic raid gear you need to be equipped with epic raid gear, producing a great deal of frustration amongst those who don't already have it. You've also produced a world in which, like most MMOs, grinding quests over and over to have good gear is the norm. Remember those hamsters and their levers: if you make the food pellet come out on random pulls, they'll pull it all day! However, you keep raising the bar on raids making them harder and more likely to fail. No one wants to pull the lever if 50% of the time they die. Stop using the "Achievements" forum as a list of "omg 3 people solo'd this raid, it must be nerfed!", ignoring the fact that they are all wearing 8+ pieces of epic gear, took 2 hours, and used 100 mana pots each.

After an online game exists for a while, the power level goes up, so new equipment, spells, quests, etc must be introduced to keep up, and it is a vicious cycle. This is what we used to call "Mudflation", back in the old days of MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons). This problem is not new: it existed long before the first graphical multiplayer online fantasy game, let alone the first MMOs. However, instead of doing what most other games have done, and increase the level cap periodically, you have chosen to go back and make existing raids harder, raising the bar too high for many new players (see chicken-and-egg above). You have to make a decision about what you want to have happen: long-standing, top notch players completing the highest level quests at a high success rate, new players getting frustrated and leaving, or adding new bars without moving the existing bar up out of reach.

[Calebro]

Jungles of Khyber - Not for the 3 champions; the shrines are close and forcing some strategy to deal with the possibility of a wipe isn't a bad thing. For the Marut though, come on. You could easily plot justify it too. Veil has temporarily forced the marut back out and re-warded the room (with a fresh coat of paint for being good). Soulstones transported to shrines.


A Marut is an Inevitable. An Inevitable is an extraplanar construct designed to uphold the natural laws of the universe. A Marut's specific goal is to seek out and punish those that use unnatural ways to cheat death. The transportation of soulstones to the shrine after a party wipe should absolutely not exist in this fight, nor in any fight that involves a Marut.


/derail

[Willibold]

ok, my 2d.

Overall I think that the game is fairly balanced in terms of difficulty, my only gripe, and it is purely from my point of view, is that as the game progresses the quests get longer. I have a relatively short window to play of an evening and the longer and very long quests just elude me/frustrate me/annoy me. It is ok if you can schedule a run and everyone turns up on time, but how often does that happen? And then real life pokes its nose in and one or more folk have to bow out,it just doesnt happen. Is there possibly someone who could produce some higher level but short or medium length quests please?

[Coldin]

I'll work on a longer post later, specifically about the difficulty of Epic quests.

But my main probably with difficulty for the general game is how simple easy running a quest on Normal solo can be. With dungeon scaling how it is, any decent player can run on level quests and pretty much walk through without issues. So casual then becomes incredibly easy and not at all challenging.

The funny thing though, is that it seems to 180 to hard the more people you bring into the quest. This has been one of key complaints about dungeon scaling since it was introduced way back when Shavarath was introduced. Frankly, a group of four heading into a quest, should never have an easier time completing it than a group of six.

It used to be picking up a PUG was always a good idea, because it was still some extra damage to help out. But now, unless that PUG is fully contributing, it's better to simply go with less. So you end up in a situation where people don't want to grab unknowns and would rather just bring a cleric hireling. It's simply not good for a game that thrives on promoting people to interact and work together.

Anyway, I feel like I went a bit off-topic. :)

Basically, running quests on solo need be a bit more challenge (without simply boosting the monster's health and damage), and running quests with full parties should be easier than running quests with just a few players.

Edit: Regarding the key topics in the OP.

I go into a normal quest expecting to have a decent chance of success. I don't mind dying once or twice, knowing I simply did something wrong. Some high level quests on normal though do feel just silly in difficulty. Everything will be going swimmingly, and then you run into that boss that can take out half your health in a few hits. That's not fun.

The only difficulty I'd never expect to die though is casual. Honestly, just remove the xp penalty on running quests on casual. It's really not needed.

Epics really do feel completely catered to the hard core "uber" player though. And it really bugs me, since that is essentially DDO's end-game right now besides the few high level raids we have. The grind is ridiculously long, only a few of them are worth doing because of the risk/time/reward benefit, and any players that are sufficiently min-maxed tend to have extreme difficulties running them. Simply put, they are too difficult. Monsters have too much HP, too much AC, and too much damage. It tends not to be any significant challenge in terms of strategy, but simply having built a character to have 600 HP and deal heavy damage....or be a high DC Pale Master that can actually get spells to land.

[Vengeance777]

Difficulty is great unless its where the quest is made difficult by dragging a fight out. When it becomes a battle of stamina the game gets very unfun and resource intensive, especially for the healers, more time usually means more mnem pots or heal scrolls spent. Examples:

Elite Abbot - With the last update the abbots hp was increased to around 300k making the fight really time intensive. The abbot is crit immune, immune to the majority of spells in the game, and teleports constantly dragging out the fight much longer than it needs to be. Spending 5-10 minutes playing cat and mouse with the abbot between infernos isn't very fun. The single chest for elite is really unfair for the time it takes to run the quest, need to up the chest rate by 1 per difficutly, 1 normal, 2 hard, 3 elite with chances for seals in those chests.

Lord of the Blades and Master Artificer Wilderness areas - Takes 10 mins to get to the quests. These quests really needs a TOD type of teleport to the door after making the run once. Part of the frustration learning these raids at higher difficulties is having to spend another 10 mins running back if your party fails. If a teleport can not be added perhaps the best thing to do would be to make it like VON 5. Turn these wildernesses into a preraid that rewards the party with xp, loot, and favor.


Lord of Blades raid- Add a shrine to the Lord Of blades on higher difficulties. Currently everyone with a blue bar just stands in place for 10 mins in the elevator shaft getting Torc/conc op procs to refill before the fight, and the poor guy without those has to drink pots. Its boring standing around for 10 mins, just add a shrine so the blue bars can get sp so we can get to the raid.


Master Artificer - Tone down the electric floor damage just a bit or make it so it can be disabled by a rogue or by doing optional. Its really frustrating that characters equipped with Green steel Electric absorption and 33% electrical absorption can't even survive the floor on higher difficulties. Most of the wipes I've experienced in higher difficulties come from the floor not the battles.

That said I think you guys got the other raid redos right last update.

Von 6 Epic is fun again. The eggs break up the monotony of swinging away at Velah for 5 mins straight.

Reavers Fate is fun again, on elite it plays similar to how the raid was first run. The raid reminds me of the fun I had when I first started playing the game.

The Shroud on Elite is a perfect update. Thanks a ton for this one. Players just have to learn to dodge the blades and its fun, no more going afk with auto attack lol. Five chests in part 5 is awesome. All raids should have more chests on elite like this raid does. I haven't ran normal since the update but most of the complaints I've read are about the blade damage. Maybe tone the blade damage down a little bit on normal. Please don't touch elite though its great the way it is.

Adding new tricks as difficulty goes up is definitely the way to go in the future. Shroud Elite, VON6 Epic, and Reavers Fate have all been funner this update with the new tricks instead of higher hp.

[FuzzyDuck81]

IMO rewarding higher difficulties is a good thing - the recent changes that give an extra tier of named loot in HoX & VoD is a pretty nice way to implement it.

I think the difficulty in most places is about right - about the only real exception to this i've noticed is in LoB (not tried MA yet) where even on normal that sudden rush of spawns at the end can cause a nasty wipe in a hurry even if you've been doing well up until that point - maybe reduce the number of enemies, or keep the same amount but have them in waves with a reduced number of mobs in each?

Personally, i think attaining a completion of on normal should be doable for a halfway decent 1st time PUG at level without the high-end raid loot, so long as they still have appropriate tools for the job, then harder difficulties ramp up the risks & reward appropriately.

Another thing i'd like to see implemented are more optional objectives, even in raids, which could be handled in a few different ways:

- early objective: something that takes a little bit of time & has its own loot (with small chance of some nice named or special loot maybe) that you do before the "main" fight, but can be bypassed completely. I'm thinking like in the phiarlan carnival, where theres all those optional side bits, and as you complete those it reduces the end fight a little by meaning less reinforcements, maybe a debuff on the boss etc... you can still complete without too much problem, but taking the time to do them makes life easier.

- middle objective: like in bastion of power with those lightning-locked chests... something extra you can do in the middle of the quest or boss fight - the rewards can make the extra time & risk of diverting attention from the main boss can make it worth it, but again the quest is totally doable without it

- end objective: as in LOB with the optional elementals, or more like the end optional in weapon shipment where you assault the stronghold.. the main quest is already done & there are some decent rewards, but you can carry on & do that too for some nice extra rewards.

I guess if they were included as a kind of "challenge raid" scoring (extra favour for completing certain of the optional objectives) in addition to the regular methods, that could further incentivise having the extra time & effort taken to do the more interesting & challenging runs

[dunklezhan]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?



There are a few quests that feel like this at about L11-13 (e.g. the one in House J with the mindflayers and all the frost skellies felt way tougher than similar quests). Mostly I think normal balancing is ok. I'm much more concerned with the fairly random nature of how much the difficulty jump can be between normal and hard, and hard and elite. Sometimes its just a little tougher, other times its overwhelming (in the flesh prime example). I'm happy with elite being overwhelming, but hard should be about half way in between and some of the new content doesn't quite manage this balancing act.



What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?




Pfft. Failure is always an option. Or it should be, even on casual.

[luvirini]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?


There are few quests where the difficulty is just wrong compared to the quest level.

Basically we have lately been running as two man group on our TRs and most quests even at elite are pretty easy. The notes from below are based on soloing/pug groups first life characters.

Too hard at level on normal compared to others at level(these are all ofcourse too hard on elite too unless noted separately):

Redemption: The gimp mage that does not buff himself, has low hitpoints and does melee instead of casting is supposed to save the island? really? Hard if you cannot buff/heal him. And the note says it is easier than normal for the level...

Rescue: Again the agression level of the one you escort and his low hp make this annoying unless you leave one party member to just babysit him and thus be out of half the quest.

Escort the expedition: Again boring for one in the group who has to stay way behind the rest and babysit as the gimps you escort die too easy. Also the need to have a trapmonkey just so the gimps do not die is annoying.

Hold for reinforcements: Ok this quest is just silly. The gimp caster wants to agro everything and then melee them and is one shotted by enemies. This quest is the reason why we could not twoman elite threnal even with hirelings that we definitely do npt need normally. (2 powerfull monks+2 healer Hirelings+1 mage Hireling and 1 bard hireling can not hold of enemies is just.. on the four tries most of the deneith defenders were still alive when the gimp that was invisible, knocked out, displaced, element protected, stone skinned and had 2 healbots standing closeby to heal him and with disco balls flying all around and most enemies stunned cannot survive)

Shroud part 4: The blades just do too much damage on normal if you hit any lag.

So the common thread for me seems to be the escort/protect people who are just too weak. The last stand is about the only quest where the target you are supposed to protect is actually not a gimp.


Too hard at level on Elite compared to others at level:

Missing in action: The rare shamans and the end boss damage output is way higher than most other level 2 quests.

Swiped signet: The fact that the only shrine is 3/4 the way into the quest makes this quest very demanding on casters/healers in terms of resource management. Basically you need self sufficent characters to do this at level. "The standard party" of a mage, healer, rogue and couple melees will be out of spellpoints both for the mage and the healer way before it.

Reposession: The traps just do insane damage if you do not have a trapmonkey on elite. More than 100damage*dozen attacks at effective level 6? really?

Freshen the air: There is too much difference if you have protection vs magic missiles(shield or nightshiled) or not.

Jungle of khyber: The end room electric thing that fills the whole room is just silly. Having to stand in one specific spot AND have the 30+120 resist or evasion+high saves to survive is..

The threneal side quests with giants that are not in the quest journal and the threneal arena: Opponents hit very hard for level, lots of them and no end reward and no favor and the loot and xp is just bad.

Against the demon queen: Has several couple with difficulty: The shrine is pretty far in the quest. The image of the queen is annoying to fight in the room with the pilars, as she does kind of extreme damage for the level so unless you have a very optimised tank+healer you need to range/spell her and the room layout is annoying. The "end fight" in circle of eternity is a joke compared to it.



If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?


Overall the balance is pretty good.



What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?


Basically I see normal as something I can run when falling asleep on a first life with bad gear and still succeed being pretty experieced. No need for 100% success on such, but should be forgiving of some mistakes.

Hard is something I expect to solo on my well geared TR characters with very high success rate if I am carefull. Should punish for mistakes but should really not one shot you.

Elite is something I expect to fail at occasionally even on a TR.

Basically I like when there is a real difference in the difficulty between normal and elite. That way I can select how challenging I want to run things today.

That is the reason for my dislike for changes like more hitpoints for abbot and the blades ofn shroud on normal. I mean Elite:sure make it extremly hard, should be a challenge for a farly optimal party. But normal should be pugable at level.

I would love for a few devs to just test running shroud or abbot at level with pugs, just log into the game some evening with a level 17 character and run normal with a pug with max level being 17. If you still think that the raids in question are fine as level 17 raid on normal...





I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.


There are several quests where the quest itself is fairly easy and the end fight very nasty, that can indeed be frustrating if you fail.

I however find the quests where I know going in: Ok this quest has a x% probabilty to fail base on some stupid NPC doing stupid things or hitting lag most frustrating. This thus includes things like protecting coyle and the blades in shroud.

As for progress, if the quests have chests and optional objectives that give fairly good loot/xp the progress would be higher. I personally find the current progress good (Except for the TR xp thing that I will vent about in the TR thread)



We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

Overall I like the more challenging quests, but I hate when the challenge is shifted to the healers, thus I have stopped playing my level 20 cleric except to solo a bit and instead do my level 20 running with my warchanter bard(just sing and buff and then melee-easy) or wizard(palemaster is more skill needed than bard, but really only reponsible for own behavior). I think healers could use some love with the raised difficulties.

Also there should be a real difference between normal and elite, that way the game could cater to both the hard core and the casual players.

[red_cardinal]

From my perspective, this game has the best game difficulty settings of all the games in the market.
You shouldn't change anything really. It all scales quite nice, with a glitch here and there...

Players should be able to fail on normal - and why not? However, Shroud blades in U12 did hit to much on normal difficulty, but also they were a new tactic.

[blkcat1028]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

I would like to thank you for these threads. It makes me believe we have a lot to look forward to in the upcoming updates.

1. The fact that we have four difficulty levels to choose from pretty much ensures that we can have as much of a challenge as we want. The main issue is that there is an inconsistency across content. Someone cited the example that the Lord's March quest on elite were much harder then elite Gianthold quests. The real issue is can this inconsistency be addressed without having an impact on the advancement of the game as a whole.

2. There's just too much consistency throughout.

3. I always want a challenge. With the exception of some raids, I rarely play on the normal difficulty. Having a chance of failure and overcoming the challenge is what I find fun about any game, not just DDO.

4. If you put in enough time you will advance. Failure is the greatest teacher. There's an old saying that Good decisions come from experience and experience comes from bad decisions. For every quests I've failed, I've come out the other end a better player. As far as spending 45 minutes on a quest to fail. We have mechanisms to recover form a non-raid wipe... one player stays in the instance while the others release, heal up, buff up, and re-enter. ("In the Demon's Den" on elite, anyone?) The five minute delay before the quest resets also allows you to recover from a wipe.

5. It does indeed appear that a lot of the recent content has been geared towards uberness, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. We needed more high level, high challenge content. What we don't need is low to mid level content that a group first lifers can't complete on normal. The changes to the blades in the Shroud are an example of this. While I REALLY like the changes, I've made several hundred Shroud runs. A group of moderately geared first timers would have a nightmare of a time completing. The solution is not to revert the changes but to revamp a lower level raid to help prepare players for the challenges of the Shroud. Re-work "Tempest Spine"!

Over-all the difficulty choices of the content provides a pretty balanced game for most people. The real issues will come to the forefront when we discuss other things such as AC and class balance.

Thanks again for the opportunity to have my say.
R

[Moltier]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO?
- Overall its easy (easy enough for the casual players, which is good).

Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

- Normal raids can be tough for the first time, as they should be.
Some exceptions: New Shroud, Abbot, (possible) Chrono, and im sure there are a few more. For different reasons these raids can be a killer for a newbie, even if he/she is geared up for the task.

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

- If we do hard or elite, i think we rightfully expect MUCH better chance for loot. Let see Shroud: now hard and elite gives more chest. Awesome. Blades are silly but thats another story. Now let see Abbot... Normal. 1 Chest. Loot? Huh, when, where? Hard? Maybe next time, or after that, naaah, im just kidding, you have to wait till your 20th. And you believed that? Hah! Wait till 40th. Oops, sorry. End reward is bugged, but dont worry, we upped the challenge again, so you can have more fun till your 60th... Also have fun on your other characters doing this as well... I think i did nearly 100 abbot so far (~half on elite). Im looking for 2 items from there. Guess how much i pulled from that lonely chest.

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

- Its not the 45minute fail that bothers us. Its that we have to do a raid 20-40 times to get the base item we want. 2raid/week means 2+months, and then possible another 2...
Btw fails can be fun. :) Forgetting auto run on in von6 in a guild run as a key member... :)


We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Balance for the casual AND the vets. Casual and normal for the newbies (vets can be newbie for a new quest/raid), hard for the somewhat experienced/geared, elite for the "uber-players". Elite should give the same loot as hard but with much better chance.

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

Thanks for making this thread. :)

[Monkey_Archer]

Most low-mid level quests on normal seem to be easy as they should be, with some exceptions
Some high level quests even on normal may be a bit unforgiving for newer players (shroud comes to mind)

Some mid-high level quests on Elite may be too hard for some groups, and in many cases are much harder then epic
Many epic quests are way too easy for their intended player-base, and are much easier then some lower level quests on elite (amrath, acute delirium, demons den, dreaming dark, cannith etc...)

Most of the low-mid level challenges seem to be pretty well balanced, although I haven't played them much.
Epic challenges are a complete mess with the current scaling: Solo/2-person they can be way too easy, while full groups are sometimes way too hard/tedious due to overinflated hp and extra spawns


Also important to note: Risk/Reward ratios are poor in most high level elite quests/raids/epics/challenges... For example, shroud on normal could be made easier for newer players but with a reduced reward, while the reward for elite could be raised to actually make it worth the effort.


In the most general terms: I think high level quests/raids on normal should be easier but reduce their rewards so newer/inexperienced players can get a better handle for them. High level quests/raids on elite/epic should be be harder but with increased rewards. Raiding on Hard should be a comfortable middle ground where both experienced players and less experienced players can get pugged raids done, but with a moderate challenge.

[Calebro]

Also important to note: Risk/Reward ratios are poor in most high level elite quests/raids/epics/challenges... For example, shroud on normal could be made easier for newer players but with a reduced reward, while the reward for elite could be raised to actually make it worth the effort.

Maybe they should add a couple of extra chests that drop ingredients or something. Maybe one chest on Normal, two chests on Hard, and three on Elite. Or something like that.

:eek:

[Tid12]

I think the overall difficulty is fine.

What i dont like is the end reward compared to the quest difficulty. Epic quests shouldnt have lv2 trash loot in the end reward and, like someone else said, Elite/Epic quest should have at least 1 more chest added at the end with high level trash on it.

[Calebro]

What i dont like is the end reward compared to the quest difficulty. Epic quests shouldnt have lv2 trash loot in the end reward and, like someone else said, Elite/Epic quest should have at least 1 more chest added at the end with high level trash on it.

There is nothing to be done about the rewards from Epic quests under the current design. The quest giver doesn't know that you just ran the quest on Epic. All he knows is that you're coming to collect a reward from the level 5 (or 7, or 9) quest that he offers.

[sirgog]

On Shroud, as it is the poster child of the 'this change made XXX unPUGgable' commenters, I wanted a little more evidence.

So I just ran two back-to-back Hard Shrouds on Khyber, PUGging them and accepting the first 11 to hit the LFM. 0 then 6 deaths, 1 major mana potion used total (and that was by a caster trying to do an extra 5000-odd damage to avoid a third round in part 4, they weren't able to). Neither run stacked any specific class (run 1 was 3 divines, 2 arcanes, 7 melees, run 2 was 4 divines, 1 melee warchanter bard, 3 arcanes, 4 traditional melees)

New widely-known tactics have let groups adjust to the raid changes, and Normal is now completed by every group that isn't on total autopilot, Hard is easily beaten by groups that use coordinated tactics, and Elite - well Elite still requires your A-game.

[Rizzia]

While I wouldnt say Im a veteran at DDO I'd like to say Im experienced, I have been solo leveling an under-geared first lifer and going for a hard BB, its fun for the most part (I enjoy pushing myself) and most nights grinding my first legend with a group of friends.

Standouts for me are traps, for classes without disarm skills, and/or evasion some quests are impossible. I certainly wouldnt mind if its an optional guarded by a super nasty trap, but not when its the only route to the finish. I like the way "cabal for one" deals with this, "no trapper thats ok..but if you do, you get more xp (tho I would personally award the extra chest to those who do the traps themselves not the way it currently is)"

Im not 100% sure but I think I remember reading old posts about getting more xp for doing quests that were of a higher lvl, surely this would be the best way to let those that want to challenge themselves do it, (for a considerable bonus I would say) while leaving the balance for new/casual players intact. Im sure my TR group would gladly do some quests underpowered if it meant an xp boost (and needless grinding).

For me the biggest challenge is loot...and the obtaning of it^^ I can learn and build better characters, learn the ins and outs of quests, but that that doesnt help me obtain the items that are required in some cases to procced.

Ive started to slowly loose interest in epics as the items are just too far out of reach, I have never even layed eyes on an SoS shard (thats in around 60 completions) even so, be it shards/seals or even the scrolls the epic ingredents droprate is just too low. The 3-1 scroll trade for sands is a good start but what about the seals/shards? and the other packs? Heck i had my 20th epvon6 the other day, would have been nice to have a choice of shards in that list .

[TheMarek]

I read this thread and decided to make my first forum reply. Piking at work and cannot really force myself to work before the start of my charismas vacation :-)
I think that game difficulty is fine until you are close to level 20. Some quests are easier and some harder, not a real problem, even good thing because you can chose. What I hate are rewards. It is game killing to finish ADQ on elite on level to get nothing and see that all get nothing in fact. It is nice that now in Shroud you can get at least something useful as a quest reward. Consider something like a guaranteed/chance to get raid loot (also Epic shards, seals and scrolls) as a regular (not only 20) quest reward. Then difficulty does not matter then because it comes with satisfaction from the reward.

The main difficulty problem I think are quests from level 16 above, especially raids. These quests are run on daily basis by EPIC geared characters along with fresh players. From my experience there is significant gap between such characters. Guild runs are maybe less affected but PUG parties suffer greatly and a lot of drama comes from this. I believe content difficulty CANNOT be balanced for such players. There always will be fresh players running elite Shroud, even when they cannot contribute much and probably die in part 4, because of better loot and EPIC geared players running normal Shroud complaining about the difficulty (to easy), HP and DPS of other players.

I think possible solution is to change epic items (and maybe count TOD rings as epic items as well) so that they can be used exclusively on epic difficulty. Then it will be easier to balance difficulty in the high level content.

Also there are minor things affecting balance. For example guild 30 resists from level 1. They broke the game and make low level content to easy. Please make them the same as the spell. Resist 10, 20, 30 based on character level of the user.

And if you want to balance quest difficulty, then don’t change HP and fortification only. I like changes like eVON6 where on epic elemental spawns. Consider similar changes for other quests/raids (for example Harry healers spawning in Shroud part 4 on elite the whole time, Shrine and possibility to return to fight in The Reavers Fate on normal…) .

[Monkey_Archer]

Maybe they should add a couple of extra chests that drop ingredients or something. Maybe one chest on Normal, two chests on Hard, and three on Elite. Or something like that.

:eek:

I was thinking more along the line of: remove all the blades and cut harry's hp in half, but remove a chest as well. Make elite even harder by buffing the lieutenants to each be a raid boss in their own right, but adding 3 more chests :)

[Dallanin]

Hi everyone!
I don’t really know how to change things but I wanted but I wanted to share my story as a new player who really enjoys challenge. I recently completed almost all f2p content at level +1 with my brother playing as duo with hirelings. Only one that is still left is ‘In the Demon’s Den’ hard and elite. We took many bad sorcerer spells on the road, didn’t realize that hirelings can do wonders before level 4, had no adventure pack gear, ship buffs or any other easy buttons whatsoever. In addition, I’m definitely not an uber-skilled player, I normally play only turn based games. My brother is somewhat better.

Overall game was fun and made us buy more content. I hadn’t played much MMOs before that and I was really skeptical at start. I thought that ‘MMOs, they are all just games where you grind uber-easy content to get exp and gear to be able to grind another similar content. Maybe in high levels there is something else but I’m not going to play hours and hours to have fun some day in the future’.

My first impression with DDO was really bad. I found myself playing Korthos island quests on normal and I was instantly bored. I kept thinking ‘you just can’t die in these quests. Why I must play normal first and get bored in order to try real difficulties…’ I understand now that elite unlock is an important selling point for VIP but it really didn’t help with my first impression back then.

What would have helped:
-Clearer classification which quests are easy and which are hard. Fortunately there exists both quests in this game but it would really have helped to know that at the beginning. It is easier not to get frustrated with too easy/too hard quest if you know beforehand what it is meant to be and you can be mentally prepared for that. Also it makes easier to find things you like from the game when you know better what to try out. Even an unofficial one like a thread in forums or page in ddowiki would help.

I played Korthos island quests, many harbor quests and I was at level 4 when I quit playing. Mostly because playing normals frustrated me (VIP would have fixed this one) and I felt that difficulty in the early levels wasn’t challenging in an interesting way. Adding randomness would be one way to make things more interesting. Right now there isn’t that many things that I can do differently at low levels and then it just comes to that whether you have good character/gear or not. Fortunately that changes at higher levels. However, I really liked kobold shamans how they can hold or lightning bolt you and you really need to beware them. In addition they are shooters so many times I can figure out a working plan how to kill them efficiently.

Many many months later I restarted with my brother. We both made sorcerers and began playing. We had some fun at early game, enough to keep us waiting and hoping that the game will get better at higher levels with more options what to do.

It did. I want to share some highlights from the road. I really hope that these interestingly difficult quests won’t get nerfed. I would be better just to warn that ‘this quest is more challenging’ and let them exist for ‘No challenge, no fun’ players. I understand talks about raid difficulty but single difficult guests don’t do as much harm for people who don’t want them.

For me the moment when this game I got me hooked was level 6 and some kind of concerned citizen on the street, something about Proof is in the Poison. We had tried that one at earlier levels really unprepared and died instantly. But this time we knew that hirelings exist, had Resist Energy and SLAs from savants to kill stuff with 0-12 spell points. At least for sorcerers level 6 is when game changes a *lot*.
What I really liked in that quest:
- I still remember how nervous I was when you had to jump with acid pool down waiting to kill you.
-Quest was long and kept you constantly alert and had boss fight in the end. I just wish that DDO quests had better consolation prizes in long quests. It feels nice to get at least something for making it to almost end but still to be left yearning for more. That chest you got from optional boss earlier doesn’t feel like a reward at the moment you lose. It just feels completely different to get something after you lose. In addition, if you would really get more/better rewards at higher difficulty levels it would motivate you to keep trying something that isn’t so easy. Right now reward improvements feel too marginal.

But overall I began to enjoy DDO more and more at level 6. At that moment DDO began to feel hard in a way that you could have done something differently to win. After Proof is in the Poison I would have bought all pay to play content that resemble that quest if I had knew which one they are. Other highlights from early levels were kobold shamans and Freshen the Air and The Swiped Signet. Taming the Flames felt really rewarding to play. One of us was even fire savant at that one but we managed to figure out a strategy how to defeat it. The Pit was absolutely awesome. Strangely both Taming the Flames and The Pit were really difficult at hard but easy at elite. We already knew what to do and therefore increased difficulty didn’t do much. They still were fun to play at elite but I was surprised how easy they were.

The next time when game really changed a lot was when cleric hirelings got raise dead spell. I think that one was the most significant changing point for us in an entire game. That changed entirely what difficult quest meant. Overall, game got really easy (and somewhat boring) for a moment but fortunately it changed again when we got more levels.

We also had a mixed feeling about traps elite. We understood that they must do a lot to make rogue skills useful but as a duo without those skills they ruined some quests. I’m still hoping that there were be some other way to design meaningful traps other than putting almost instant killing force traps in quests. But sometimes jumping over them was fun. The Xorian Cipher was one of my favorites. I think that we died almost 20 times to those elite traps before figuring out how to get past them and it was also fun before and after traps so dying didn’t feel frustrating. I loved Invaders! and I think that beholder is my favorite high level enemy. They feel always dangerous. Delirium was funniest f2p DDO quest ever and beholders made it challenging enough to make it to my favorite ones. In the Demon's Den was promising at normal and I’m hoping that it will get better at higher difficulty levels. Best dungeon design for me so far has been Rainbow in the Dark. It’s interesting, has a lot of variety, has an optional boss and some jumping over the spike pit that I have been missing ever since I got feather fall. I really like the idea of dangerous optionals and I’m looking forward to see more of them.

Okay, that is the story. I have tried early game again with new characters and with more platinum and better gear. It is easy to say that I wouldn’t be writing this one if the game had been as easy as it is with platinum to spend for better AH gear and decent consumables. Even Proof is in the Poison was a cakewalk with resist acid potions and better gear. I refuse to imagine what early game playing is with airship buffs. Not something that I would enjoy playing. I can’t say anything about raids and other real endgame but for me existing easy buttons would have ruined the entire early game if I had had access for them.

So overall, I know that I’m not target audience for normal quests but I hope that game gets balanced in a way that difficult content is allowed to exist. I don’t feel that making all content easier (by making characters more powerful for example) is a right way to make normal easier.

[BuuWantCone]

Bah! First post and managed to put it in the wrong thread, I'll try again....

Making my first post after lurking for a good while, but this is a major issue to me.

I currently play in a small group consisting of me, my wife and my father in law.

We live in the UK while my father in law still lives in the states. He isn't a great player by any definition of the word but he loves spending time with us in this way. We've managed to scrape our way through most of the quests in the game and had a great time, but with the way things currently are most raids are just not playable for us. We don't really want to group as we like playing as a family, and frankly too many people out there are just not pleasant when people make mistakes during quests/raids. So far the only raids he has managed to experience are reavers and dq, because we could just about manage those with the three of us.

I see no reason why raids(on normal at least) could not scale and allow hirelings. I mean I know hirelings ai leaves a lot to be desired buts its still handy to be able to drag a healbot along. For the people that want a challenge there are other difficulty levels. People talk about easy buttons, but hey, I pay for this game - maybe I want an easy button. It's not like this is a competitive game, if I get some raid loot it's not like it comes out of your pocket.

We'd just like to be able to experience all of the game, which currently we can't.

[zwiebelring]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?
Ascension Chamber and Shroud.

I really do not want to have a challenge when I run Shroud normal with a toon on 3 lvl.s above quest. The Abbott... I am sure I never will run this raid ever again. Ran it twice in 2007 and had big problems as a newbie and still the community didn't change about the attitude towards newer players.
All indications for a way too high difficulty setting not mentioning the bugs (where some might be fixed, dunno for sure) and yet you bumped him up... no fun for me and well, you killed the whole Abbott pugs on Orien.


What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?
The right balance for me is Lordsmarch Chain 1 & 2, Harbinger of Madness and Reign of Madness chain as well as Master Artificer pack, Amrath and Inspired Quarters. You give progress by reward, explorers and questing. I want to have a challenge once I play the quest for the first 3-4 times maybe but if there is a grind for special items attached I do not like it for more than 10 times. Exceptions are made if the the quests atmosphere is awesome. For example you did everything right with Crystal Cove.

Therefor, overhaul older packs like Sands, Giant Hold and especially Necro4 and Shroud normal. DDO wants to put people into longterm grinding as I see it, I do not know why, many people I know think this is a whole duress and nuissance. Think about it, that is why people are tempted by exploits. And still you keep up enforcing higher challenge for that grind...

Personally I want to say I have seen everything in DDO at least once. But with changes like recently you exclude people since there is a difference between how people should behave and how they actually do. I am sure it is not your responsibility to give education but keep that in mind as socializing is what people do in this game right? So while being an option it should be enforced in a positive way. And that is another important point for me playing this game. Meeting other people to have fun with.

The overall difficulty is fine, maybe old endgame content like Gianthold, Sands (Lailath is too difficult), Necropolis might need a finetuning again. As the rest of endgame content I think it is okay, I have the choice to work for it or leave it. But it is endgame, so it should be a challenge. And while we are at that, what about introducing totally new monsters for higher difficulties other than normal? Actually I am bored by just upgraded Cows, Kobolds and Troglodytes on epic. Where are the real epic monsters? Where is the epic action? The most enjoyable fight I had was Dreaming Dark endboss as an example for what I mean with action.



We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.
Yes, absolutely. The changes on hit points, fortification and general mob immunities are totally reflecting this argument. Self found gear is not half of worth the money you can sell it. Random loot sucks. Really it does. I do not want the 100000....s Tendon Slice 4% weapon with ****** pre- and suffixes combined. Even if I start from 0 I find one weapon maybe within the first 4 levels I can use and then I have to stick with it for the next 4 lvl.s Not competitive on lvl. 8 as melee means dead and frustration.

Epic loot and raidloot should be an exceptional option but still an option, right now, its mandatory (by hardcore gamers) to own eSoS, epic claw set etc. just to run epic Chronoscope... it is clearly made for uber player since the first goal is surviving in this content, secondary is collecting epic ingredients but why not give them as a reward option in total?

Some day, the hardcore player might have to confess he has seen everything in this game and has to move on. I have a lot to discover as a less dedicated player and I was happy with the former difficulty since it gave me the option to participate as a pugger and learn everything. Not any more. I really hate saying this because you have so much love for detail in some packs, especially Kobolds and their voice overs. Love it! but then, you act like the worst railroading DM in pnp and restrict people in options by handing out not anyway plausible immunities to mobs and bosses just to have balance on a party or a class. As it is important for you what we as people see as challenge vs. reward I like to know what do you think about the quests and how people should beat them?

[wax_on_wax_off]

I think the difficulty is fine.

I think most of the complaints that I've seen so far are for specific quests - abbot, titan etc. These being difficult is totally fine as it is totally acceptable for players to avoid those specific quests when the rest of the game falls into much more manageable realms.

Only casual should fall into the never fail category. Normal is fine to fail in as it is usually possible to simply reenter the quest if you value completion/progression more than a persistent run.

Hard and elite are fun and entertaining and I'd be very upset if they were made easier in any way (if anything in some ways they should be scaled up to be comparable to trap damage as discussed in another thread).

Epic is great how it is. There are easy epics and there are hard epics. I don't mind the suggestion elsewhere to add normal/hard/elite versions of epics but I think that it's fine as it is. Any new players who adequately educates themselves (about character builds and other things) and makes a reasonable effort to gear their character (100% fort, +6 con item, GFL for instance) and is interested in playing their character well can participate in most epics.

If changes need to be made then I think it should be aimed at lowering the barriers that prevent a new player from becoming an experienced player. Remove scaling on elite so streaking vets are more likely to allow newbs along rather than just soloing, help new players get better builds by fixing up paths (refer to Tihocan's thread for ideas), encourage them to visit the forums before creating characters, provide tooltips with accurate information, provide messages on specific level ups as to what items would be appropriate to look for (like nightforge gorget when you level to 9 and what quest it comes from, minos legens at 11 and what pack it comes from - good avertisement here, greater false life at 11 too which is accessible from the AH or elsewhere).

The issue isn't with the difficulty of the game but with the lines of communication that helps a new player become a good player (making the game easier will just exacerbate the issue).

[aerendhil]

Difficulty is fine.

The ONE thing I hate is Abbot raid : 12 players are punished if 1 makes a single mistake. Punishment should scale with difficulty but there, it feels like the DM says : "a piano just fell from the sky and hit you on the head, no need to roll a save"

[.Revenga.]

Overall i think difficulty is fine. Good variation, ability and necessity to gear up towards harder quests at end game so the game doesnt stop at lvl 20.

Difference between hard - elite can be very big in some quests, while normal - hard doenst make much of a difference.

Regular epic quests are too easy imo. Even without a few casters that wail their way through in a few minutes. Only sands epic quests pose some kind of challenge.

Making quests harder by improving AI would be awesome.

[Tid12]

There is nothing to be done about the rewards from Epic quests under the current design. The quest giver doesn't know that you just ran the quest on Epic. All he knows is that you're coming to collect a reward from the level 5 (or 7, or 9) quest that he offers.

Thats what im saying, they should know IMHO.

They could add the extra chests in the dungeon and this. I wouldnt mind a choice of Impressive trophy or Legendary victory dropped more frequently in the end reward based on the difficulty of the quest or just a high level junk for crafting.

[MRMechMan]

I like how it really pays to do things on harder difficulties now...elite runs the first time with bravery bonus have to potential to alliviate the grind a bit, and add challange. The +40% for hard and +80% for elite is a nice change too.

Shroud normal SHOULD be near-auto complete with a decent 20th level party...the uberest of the uber have hard and elite, don't punish the newly capped chars that DON'T have greensteel/epic items. It's still a level 17 quest on normal.

Dungeon scaling could do with a bit of a work around...a geared/TRed/experienced caster has 3 reasons to ever party with anyone:

1. Quest mechanics need more than 1 person/trapper for xp/melees on breakables
2. Feeling generous
3. The other player is the same as them-geared/TRed/selfhealing

90% of quests are easier solo, even on elite...consider removing scaling from elite quests at a minimum. Sins of attrition and such with a party is WAY harder than solo...to the point where it easier just to do the quest and then put up and lfm at the end...I don't see why that should be how the game is played.

Also consider making the 10% XP penalty for deaths apply half to full party (5%) and only the full 10% to the person that died...there is very little incentive when farming to take anyone that you don't know when leveling a TR. Making that persons actions effect your bottom line LESS might be a good thing. Of course, divines have less reason to keep them alive, so it's a double edged sword I suppose.

Elite traps are generally fine...beefy characters will get 75-90% of their HP taken away, and squishies will be 1 shotted...elite is not for the faint of heart and most traps are avoidable through skill and knowledge...on elite if you don't have that skill/knowledge, getting 1 shotted is realistic and OK. Only place I might tune them down is elite monstary.

Hard difficulty in general feels the same as normal. Elite is often quite a big step up. IE, boost hard difficulty.

House P epics need to be made harder...snitch is an absolutute snoozefest.

Anyway good luck sir...making everyone happy at the same time is not an easy thing to do.

[Flavilandile]

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.


Definitely...

Shade Changes and Bravery Streak killed PUGs.

While Bravery Streak might have been nice ( I'll come back to that below ), Shade Changes were not wanted by the vast majority of the players.

Raids that were done by LVL 14-16 parties years ago, are now LVL 20 ( with gear ) only and still have ridiculous success rates if pugged. ( they are not end game content and should be a walk in the park for a LVL 20 party )

On the other end, a lot of Epic quests, since the Shade Changes are way easier to run than these not end game raids.

Bravery Streak is the second part of the PUG death problem. In all fairness, the chagne is nice, especially for those that want to go completionist... but why did you have to put that mechanism in, when the original XP system took that into account. ( you could have up to 50% bonus or more [ not sure ] for doing quests that were way above your party level... Doing VON3 normal with a LVL 5-6 party was something in the 40KXP range... That would have satisfied all the TR maniacs, while not hurting pugs more )

[Ungood]

People talk about easy buttons, but hey, I pay for this game - maybe I want an easy button. It's not like this is a competitive game, if I get some raid loot it's not like it comes out of your pocket.

We'd just like to be able to experience all of the game, which currently we can't.

This is a very good point. Making the game more appealing to the masses, does not hurt the top players. Sure, they might cry easy button, but, maybe, some people want a fun relaxing game to play, get some shiny loot and feel like they are, playing a game.

[twiliteslayer02]

Disclaimer: I didn't read the other posts to gather a sentiment, so kI mau repeat or inflame those who posted before, none of which is intended.

Game balance overall isnt broken, but it has a few places where it is simply ridiculously too difficult for the level and or rewards it offers.

For instance, one thats simply too much a pain in the backside to bother with is that keep the elfie mummies alive one, keepers sancuary?? what were you guys thinking?????

Most of the vet players wont bat an eye at proof in the poison at level, but any newer or inexperienced player encountering it will be frustrated beyond belief, and this is just one of the quests it seems is simply OP for the level its set to,and the end rewards for itare more of an insult.

I do, and always have thought the level 10 and up stuff is fairly difficult, with appropriiate balance other than that some, or rather most have lame lame loot tables.

some of the raids are too easy, others are just right , but I absolutely hate the loot mechanic for raids on every level
not sure if you want specifics, but will expand later if you do.

I do think overall that its a learning curve, and atm it feels balanced twoards the grinders/uberplayers. thats not what d&d is or ever was about and its a far cry from what you began as. It needs a bit less grind to be able to get good to decent gear, and alot less dependance on the AH to acquire said gear.

[Mrmorphling]

Overall difficulty seems fine to me; we have many options and lots of different contents to choose from.

I really liked the raids changes as it was a step in the right direction as i still think that at level normal raid should require efforts, collaboration and good leadership/tactics: you cannot expect to grab the first 11 lvl 14 and be sure to do complete a reaver; you are still quite sure while overlevelled as nearly any decent caster can either kite stormrevaer (lvl <20) or just tank it (lvl 20) at any difficulty.

Shroud now rewards hard/elite and, infact, you see some hard PUGs (which where non existent before changes) and, on Thelanis, i don't recall normal wipes past the first week of adjustment (which just meant pretty please don't afk+autoattack) or barring weird server side spikes of seconds at the wrong moment; hard is still entirely puggable with some cohordination (i've seen multiple runs with half the party under 400hp succeed) while elite is harsh to pug as it's less lenient on mistakes and you need some kind of gear to not be a burden.

Abbot has never been my favourite raid as if you are not assigned to tiles it's usually an afk fest while 2/3 ppl do the puzzle so i won't comment as i just did like thrice after the latest changes and always in 'controlled environments'.

Titan suffers the same problem, long boring, lagging and 3/4 ppls do the raid while rest is piking: uhm not my definition of well thought and balanced raid :)

New raids are perfect as normal means a pug with a leader will usually succeed (perhaps expending resources), hard is still puggable but you need some control over the appliants, elite is challenging for good groups and epic is a real test of skills of teamwork (and even more while minimizing resources and time spent). We could use some more incentives to run MA pretty please as after doing it 5 times at normal you either hunt for favor or stop doing it :/

Epics as a whole are ok as you have a wide variety of difficulties: from The snitch (hardly harder than many elite quests from lvl 14+) to Chains of flame (a real test to resource conservation) to VoN3 (with its many nasty surprises) to LoB (probably the most challenging content out now and not just for being a bag of HP).

[MRMechMan]

Bravery Streak is the second part of the PUG death problem. In all fairness, the chagne is nice, especially for those that want to go completionist... but why did you have to put that mechanism in, when the original XP system took that into account. ( you could have up to 50% bonus or more [ not sure ] for doing quests that were way above your party level... Doing VON3 normal with a LVL 5-6 party was something in the 40KXP range... That would have satisfied all the TR maniacs, while not hurting pugs more )

I can see the lfms now..."normal enter the kobold, max level 13" "normal shadow crypt, only level 7 and under!"

Bravery is fine. I see more lfms for elite quests than ever before. Chains that had poor xp are often worth runnin elite 1x for bravery. It makes 1 and done more viable.

Having to do quests SUPER under level would not satisfy TRs...have you even TRed? Touching von3 at level 6 is a huge no-no. That's absolutely a "do at 11 and then farm on hard" type quest". Shadow crypt is even more extreme-best to do 1x on elite at level 11 then 10x elite at level 13. Bank xp for as long and as much as you can and do quests at level as LATE as you can is the easiest way to do it.

Particularly if you are missing a major xp pack (I myself am missing necro4 still, sadness :(), doing the big xp quests too early=thousands of slayers for you, enjoy.


Which brings me to another point I suppose...for TRs the xp needed is INCREDIBLY backloaded...about 2.4 million to get from levels 1 to 16, then another 2 million to get those last 4 levels....


and yet, astonishingly, the XP/minute goes down, WAY DOWN, from level 10 onwards. Von3/shadow crypt xp is huge, sands is great, GH ok, vale ok but poor in places, reavers great, IQ1/2 good, shavarath mediocre, cannith BEYOND abysmal into the realm of laughable...I see no reason to have the places where TRs need by FAR the most xp to give the SLOWEST xp.

At least bump the new cannith XP...the three quests have base XP on normal of 3,500/4500/4100...comparable to quests that are snoozefests and quick...such as gywlans stand (10min quest), deleras part4 (3min quest), fathom the depths (2min quest), OoB (6min quest), maraud the mines (1 min quest), relic of a sov past (6min quest), trial by fire (3min quest)... etc etc ...at least make them viable...

They aren't even options for TRs who often REALLY need xp at that level. It's no wonder most TRs need to bank XP for so long, the XP NEEDED is all at later levels, but the best place to GET it is way earlier...

[CanuckWisdom]

Shroud: The blades do too much damage, this needs a nerf in all settings. I cannot believe your intention is for Elite Shroud to be harder than Elite ToD.

Yes. I think its a bad idea to have amped up the difficulty of this quest by increasing the damage output of something you have zero chance or disabling/killing.

Ive got 3 characters right now that Im trying to equip with green steel items, more leveling their way towards it. Its gonna take me a very long grind to get all the larges I want and now there are more shroud failures and less LFMs.

I thought my virtuoso was useless in part 4 before, but now...

[Antheal]

...such as gywlans stand (10min quest), deleras part4 (3min quest), fathom the depths (2min quest), OoB (6min quest), maraud the mines (1 min quest), relic of a sov past (6min quest), trial by fire (3min quest)...

And for the other 95% of the player base...?

[zebidos]

I think raids should provide a challenge on normal, then more of a challenge at hard and elite.

For everything else I think you should look at it is: "is this quest annoying or not annoying"

I think that non-raids and non-epic content should be soloable by any well built class, I know this is supposed to be a social game but not everyone is on the same times as other people and getting a group going can be a pain, for e.g. at the moment I want to get all necro out of the way on my barbarian to get the silver flame pots.

To do this solo on a melee is, I dont want to say hard, just extremly annoying, while on a caster it would be alot less annoying. Same goes for quests like let sleeping dust lie, not a hard quest to solo just very annoying on a two handed barbarian, while easy on a caster.

And conversley I am sure that some quests are more melee friendly vs casters.

If it is all possible, some kind of scaling for solo play based on class, for e.g. if a melee solo's a certain quest make it less annoying for the melee.

[sweez]

I for one like mob AC being all over the place.

In theory, I agree. In the actual game, it however almost always means a longer, more boring beatdown. Mahlurat (the render in Sinister Storage) is almost completely harmless, even on elite, as long as you have some elec resistance. I was able to scroll heal myself through the whole fight using the cleric dilly with little difficulty. All it did was make the encounter boring, and resource intensive, without ever making it challenging. His AC is IIRC in the 60s-70s, even with a crafted +4 to-hit item, fighter passive past life, fighter active past life clicky, recitation scroll, haste clicky, gh clicky, +5 weapons, I had trouble hitting him. You might think there's some balance in that, but IMHO, seing 'miss miss miss' on a heavily twinked character just isn't fun.

A completely different matter (for melee) are vamp bosses, that are due to encounter mechanics (disappearing/reappearing, mirror image, wolf summons, DR) already much more challenging for melee than casters, having high AC making them even more of a pain.


An encounter in an Epic dungeon where the boss has 55 AC and 100% Fortification, but at a certain point 72 AC 0 Fort trash spawns gives different types of melee builds different opportunities to shine. Monks are excellent DPS against the heavy fort 55 AC boss but lacklustre against 72 AC; a Barbarian might pull less DPS than the monk on the 55 AC boss, but when the trash spawns, they are the god (well, among melees) of killing it.

Yes, an encounter in an epic dungeon, where toons are 20, have all their gear, enhancements, feats at disposal.


Likewise, I'm fine with elite requiring players to use all the tools at their disposal - Destruction weapons, Sunder/Imp Sunder, etc - to hit certain opponents reliably. Normal, OTOH, should see players in poor gear for the level hit on a 10 if not lower.

Here's the thing though - using all the tools at their disposal for a melee player means carrying a full inventory tab of weapons, another inventory tab full of clickies, another inventory tab full of potions/scrolls, not to mention having certain feats at certain levels (I usually take imp sunder as my last feat for example). Using all the tools at their disposal for a caster? 1-2 superior element clickies, displacement, 1-2 spells.

Note: I'm not, in any way, calling for a caster nerf. I think casters are currently insanely fun to play, and that more effort should be made to make melee similarly fun to play.

[somenewnoob]

I think difficulty for the most part is just about right.

There is a tendency towards balancing for people who are well geared, TR's etc. IMO in the newer content and some of the revamped content.

It's a hard thing to balance between too easy and too hard, elite Abbott.....lil too much......shroud blades on normal.....little too much.

Overall though I think the game difficulty is good, but then again I'm not a multi TR decked out in epic gear.

[sweez]

I think that non-raids and non-epic content should be soloable by any well built class, I know this is supposed to be a social game but not everyone is on the same times as other people and getting a group going can be a pain, for e.g. at the moment I want to get all necro out of the way on my barbarian to get the silver flame pots.


I absolutely agree with this. For me, when I log on, it looks like this:

a) I see an LFM up for something that I want to do - unless I see some no-no names in it, I'll join
b) I see no interesting LFMs up, so I go solo something
c) No LFMs up, and the stuff I want to solo is very solo-unfriendly, meaning I'll give it 2-3 more minutes for something to pop on the LFMs, if not I'll just shut down the game

If c) happens more than a) and b), I'll most likely eventually quit the game. Not everyone is a leader, I for example don't own a mic, am a horrible leader, and most importantly, even if I was good at leading, I still don't like leading. Soloing is a very important part of the game for me - I know I'm maybe not in the majority, but I'm sure there's a *lot* of people that have the same views.

Sure, some of these people have builds that are completely optimized for soloing, nearly unlimited resources and/or are just better at the game than I'll ever be, so they solo the seemingly 'impossible' stuff, but the thing is - I don't expect to solo raids, I'd just like most 6-man non-epic quests to be a bit more solo-melee friendly.

Sleeping dust is a good example of a quest that's Dungeons and Dragons Online on a caster, but Dungeons and Masochism Online on a melee.

[jsaving]

I do not think the overall difficulty of DDO is "too hard," but I do think specific design choices make particular aspects of each difficulty level more frustrating than they should be to the average player.

On normal, every player ability should have a shot at working on every monster -- no exceptions. There's nothing more frustrating than suddenly being told that the ability you've worked so hard to advance has a 0% chance of success on the foes you most need it to work on, whether that be an end-of-quest boss at level 7 or a swathe of raid foes at level 20.

On elite, quests and raids shouldn't be balanced by throwing umpteen hit points at bosses to compensate for questionable monster AI. "Wars of attrition" make people lose interest, and these huge enemy hit point pools significantly disadvantage classes that don't have reasonable sources of inexhaustible damage.

Thanks for listening.

[MRMechMan]

And for the other 95% of the player base...?

Well I am talking about TRs. Most Trs like to quest at a reasonable rate.

But, any way you slice it, TRed/unTRed/geared/ungeared/elite/casual/knowledgable/noobs/zerging/strolling...the Cannith quests XP/min is shockingly bad.

Given the 2million XP needed for levels 16-->20 for TRs, there is no reason to have all three of those quests be WAY worse XP per minute then almost any quest at level 5-15, that was the point I was trying to make.

[Targonis]

Since I wrote my previous response in this thread, the idea that equipment is such a driving force in the difficulty of a quest has gelled a bit in my thoughts, and I have come up with a solution. Make it so the difficulty is based on the equipment the characters have. Every item has a + rating on it, so what if characters get a "average" loot rating for what they have, both equipment as well as what they CAN equip in their inventory? This would now give a "current power" level that is a combination of class, level, and equipment.

So, a level 1 character that has equipment passed down from previous lives might be level 1, but TR would bump power by 1, equipment might bump the character by 3, leading to a power rating of 5. Quests then would be for a range, so quests would have a suggested power rating, and XP rewards would scale with that rating. Obviously this would require a bit of work, but when it comes to quest difficulty, dungeon scaling does not take equipment into account, and quests become trivial due to equipment from higher level adventures.

I remember quests that used to be horribly difficult(think VoN 3, Jungles of Khyber on elite) are now almost trivial due to how much more powerful characters are now. The entire game needs something to re-evaluate the level of quests, and being balanced around those with equipment gained from previous lives or other characters is the wrong approach. A re-normalization of difficulty, taking equipment into account would really help.

Note that a "naked" level 15 character might end up with the power level of a decently outfitted level 7 would also open up grouping options...just leave some of your equipment at home.

[Sarisa]

For normal quests:
Recent changes are (in most cases) very good. There is a good bit of difference between difficulties, with normal being accessible while elite is a decent challenge. A few quests, elite is a big challenge even for highly geared and experienced players and requires good coordination.

A few examples of well done quests are the entire Lordsmarch 2 chain, In the Flesh, and Sane Asylum. Acute Delirium may be a bit overtuned on elite, but otherwise is well balanced.

Environmental changes and traps, however, got a lot more dangerous in update 9. Many traps no longer match their animations, and thus are WAY more dangerous than you expect. You can be hit (sometimes many times) without even being anywhere close to the traps visual effect. Prime examples are: Jungle of Khyber (VoN3) electric trap at the Marut, Against the Demon Queen sonic traps in the Bat hallway and the fire blast when you approach the end chest, Acid jets in the black dragon fight in Gianthold Tor, and Shroud blades. At the very least, trap damage from these needs to match the visual effects.

In older quests, there are cases of "artificial difficulty" due to behaviour or settings of an NPC you have to protect. The prime example (mentioned many times already) is Coyle in Hold for Reinforcements.

Finally, I feel that reward needs to match the effort.

Abbot NEEDS more chests. If you get one of the junk raid items (or are a melee and get one of the MANY caster items), you roll that off and you get absolutely nothing for your effort. You won't even make back your repair costs. There needs to be at least one vendor-loot chest on normal, and more on harder difficulties.
Drop rates in the most difficult non-raid epics (Sands) are pathetic. Grinding for six months or more for a single niche item's shard or raid item seal is becoming unacceptable. The scroll trade-in helped a great deal, but there are still problems with the very low drop rates of shards (especially explorer area items), and the high degree of randomness of getting a specific seal. VoN, Desert, and to a lesser extent Sentinels are the most "grindy" of epics.
Some epic dungeons (Haywire's Foundry and Spies in the House in particular) are much more difficult and time consuming than others, yet don't even give a complete dungeon token.
In the Demon's Den, while F2P, has little incentive to run aside from doing it once to "experience hell". It's one of the more challenging quests around on elite, so it needs some sort of draw to get people to run it.
SoS elite needs more reward, since it's among the most difficult of quests around.


Now raids:
My opinion is that raids need to be balanced around people AT level. Normal should be accessible to a full group of first life players with just basic gear (Heavy Fort, +4 to +6 stat items dependent on the raid's level, decent lootgen or common named weapons). Hard should be for twinked first lifers, or TR's, or at least those with enough metagaming experience. Elite should be difficult, but should NOT have some of the ridiculous changes that exist now.

VoN: Elite is WAY too much for a group of level 12's. Melee damage from the dragon is in the realm of 100-120 damage a swing, which is beyond the mass healing capability of players now. The addition of high fortification greatly harms damage capabilities. Velah also has massive regeneration, which can be tough to beat if you have to hide behind the rock for an Inferno. Elite VoN6 for Bravery is probably the most difficult quest in the game until you get to Elite SoS or maybe Elite Enter the Kobold. Normal is fair, and Hard is probably about right as well. Epic is perfect now. The eggs are an instance of making things challenging that works, unlike the huge HP boost she had in u11.

Titan: Fine as is. The pre-raid elemental guns are possibly a small bit too strong on elite, but otherwise the pre-raid is fine too.

DQ: Elite is a breeze for level 20's, but is quite difficult at level. This results in pretty much just kite strategies being effective, and multiple tries to try to complete. Lowering the elite damage and to-hit (so AC/hate tanking is effective) would make it much more fair. Epic is perfect now.

Reavers: The 500 point disintegrate needs to go. This is a raid with a penalty box, and getting unlucky with a dice roll is not fun for anyone. Since it's a level 16 raid on elite, the Disintegrate (if it's present at all) needs to be balanced according to what a "tanks" HP should be at that level, with decent gear. The elemental change doesn't add a lot of challenge, just a massive amount of frustration. This raid is simply not fun to run, especially as a "healer" or a melee.

HoX: Good as is. The added loot brought back some interest in the raid, and got more people attempting elite.

VoD: Good as is. See above for what I said about HoX.

Shroud: Normal is doable, but is a bit overtuned. The blades should NOT be more of a threat than the pit fiend. Graphical lag or client/server latency should NOT cause you to get hit 3-5 times before you even see a blade is near you, or get you hit by a blade that is not anywhere close to you on your screen. Blade damage should precisely match the animation. This is a penalty box raid, so on normal, the blades should NOT be so punishing. Hard could stand for a reduction in blade damage by about 10 points. The blades would still be a major threat, but they wouldn't be as much of a killer if you get any bit of latency or graphical lag. Elite is fine.

ToD: Aggro in part 1 seems to get a bit out of whack at times. I've had cases where both my caster and Cleric have gotten aggro of BOTH devils even though I have done NO damage at all to either devil. That happens every single time one of the devils teleports. This feels like an old "Wi-flag" type of issue. I've noticed it most on hard difficulty. Otherwise, the raid is fine. Especially now that more people are tanking rather than kiting the shadows, and there is more incentive to have AC tanks.

Chrono: At level, this is incredibly difficult. I did do a bravery streak elite at level on my Paladin's TR, in a 10-person group, but it was through guild/channel. It would not be effectively PUG'able. It should be difficult, but it should not be impossible for a PUG. The Cannith raid-scaling system would be a nice thing to have for normal-elite runs. Epic is fine as is in u12. u11 skewed the HP of the CAD way too high.

LoB: Right now, normal is what I feel hard should be. Epic is fine.

MA: No real opinion besides fixing that bloody graphical lag during the crystal bursts.

Abbot: This is the worst raid right now. This is a raid HEAVILY skewed in loot toward casters, but changes to the Abbot make casters a very poor choice to bring. Evasion, the Disintegration ward, and MASSIVE HP boost (almost 6 times what it was pre-u11), along with the difficulty of the puzzles and how sensitive they are to latency just marginalizes too many people. There is also the "sting" of having several items nerfed heavily (Vile Blasphemy, Noxious Embers, Enduring Conviction) in update 12. There is also the buggy reward list, and the lack of chest rewards in general.

[grodon9999]

In theory, I agree. In the actual game, it however almost always means a longer, more boring beatdown. Mahlurat (the render in Sinister Storage) is almost completely harmless, even on elite, as long as you have some elec resistance. I was able to scroll heal myself through the whole fight using the cleric dilly with little difficulty. All it did was make the encounter boring, and resource intensive, without ever making it challenging. His AC is IIRC in the 60s-70s, even with a crafted +4 to-hit item, fighter passive past life, fighter active past life clicky, recitation scroll, haste clicky, gh clicky, +5 weapons, I had trouble hitting him. You might think there's some balance in that, but IMHO, seing 'miss miss miss' on a heavily twinked character just isn't fun.

.

Especially since this doesn't effect casters, all high mob ACs do is marginalize melees in favor of casters.

[Ungood]

I swear, I must be missing something, I see all these posts about how:



Oh yah, that is easy,
It's just AFK&Autoattack
Anyone can kite that.
It's a Pike Fest

and you know, I have done these raids, and I have no idea what these people are talking about. It is like, it seems as if we are playing the same game but not even close to the same worlds here.

[avery61]

I'm quite happy with the blades on a normal shroud run but on elite it can be quite harry.. pun intended. It should be toned down a notch. I've recently had one member quit, in my static group, because he hated what had happened in shroud, and another is contemplating it. I can see their point, which is that the shroud is a raid you have to run to get the gear to run other high end raids/epic content.

[Targonis]

I would like to add that there is nothing wrong with the highest level quests having a requirement of power level 55 when your casual players at level 20 only hit power level 32(due to not having a lot of raid equipment). At least it won't mislead people into thinking they are ready for high end content when they really are not. The idea of "level 20 newbs" would be offset by power level being the key to grouping rather than pure class/level.

[Dandonk]

<snip>

Meh. Why can't I say things as well as that?

Anyway, well said and reasoned.

[Edyit76]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard? Not usually no, though this may depend on the group i am in at the time

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout? (there is a lot of inconsistency, a level 14 raid should not be harder than a level 20 raid when both are run on normal difficulty)

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?
i honestly dont expect to fail on normal. it should be challenging for any first life character but still completable with some strategy. also reward should scale with difficulty.

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.
indeed. spending time in anything in life only to fail is frustrating. failing due to stuttering server lag that all 12 members in the party are experiencing at the same time is even more frustrating

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'
yes. i do find this to be the case. you have people that have multiple past lives and a ton of twink gear and knowledge of the game at their disposal. its going to be easier for them. thats why you grind gear, raise DC's learn which tactics work best. to make the game easier. i'm sorry if the game is "too easy" for those people, but its not for the vast majority of us that play. so yes i do believe that most of the people crying that the game is too easy are the players that already have all the gear and tactics to make it that way for them. the majority of players on DDO dont even look at the forums. hell the only reason i'm on them now is because the game is having down time on my day off.

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

[Niv-mizzet]

On raid difficulty:

I like difficulty. I do NOT like repeating said difficulty over and over to get whatever I'm looking for.

If I have to run something 20 times, any difficulty at all is just going to annoy me.

If I just have to run it once, then by all means I'd love to be really challenged.

At the very least, I believe that every raid should do what Shroud did and should offer +1 chest per each difficulty step WITH the possibility of raid loot in it. Also, 20th ER lists should be the whole list. Period. If you've run it 20 times (2 months!!!), you have proved that you deserve whatever elusive item you're looking for.

On bravery

Bravery bonus is good all around. GOTTA KEEP MAH STREAK is bad. When I'm on a healer, and I see 5 guys waiting on a healer at my level, and they're doing a quest I want to run, but they want to run it on hard....I just ignore it and look at other lfm's. Thankfully with a stable full of alts I can usually find SOMETHING to do, but the streak stopping a group from forming is silly.

Keep a static bravery bonus for first time hard/elite at level. Remove streak. Its just making me not group with people.

[grodon9999]

Can we actually expect some dialogue on this or is this just something posted to troll out our ideas and make us think you are taking in our feedback?

9 pages and no dev replies since the OP.

[Bogenbroom]

Just another 2c...

My biggest concern in terms of game difficulty is the variation from pack-to-pack at the same level. Lordsmark and Gianthold has been mentioned and is an excellent example. Newer content, especially on harder difficulties, is significantly more difficult. I don't have much problem with normal and hard on newer stuff, but elite seems to be a bit too elite.

Also, the ability to fail is not a bad thing, but all-or-nothing in those scenarios is better avoided. The best implementation of this I can think of is Stealer of Souls. That is a good solid quest all of the way through with good difficulty, but completing is perfectly do-able. Then the Sorjek fight is optional and is for non-critcal (but highly valuable) loot. I do dislike the idea of spending 45-60 minutes on something only to fail at the very end and get nothing out of it. Yes, the Boss fight *should* be at the end... only makes sense, but incremental rewards help with that sort of disappointment.

[Carpone]

From the perspective of someone who has completed 1300 raids and 10 TRs over the past two years, these are my opinions:

The most difficult part of this game to deal with is lag. On Orien where I play exclusively, raid lag makes me not want to log in. The recent lag fixes have helped, but it's far from solved. This week my guild wiped on epic Velah because of lag (everyone died to her breath, with people's soul stones located behind pillars). This is a quest we've run over 200 times on epic. It completely destroys morale and makes people want to go play SW:TOR over DDO. I certainly can't blame them for wanting to play another game that doesn't have soul crushing lag. No one likes spending their time only to have it wasted on something they have absolutely no control over.

The elite streak bonus is the best change ever for level 1-20 non-raid quests. The only improvement I'd like to see is a reason (XP bonus) for running the same quest multiple times on elite difficulty. The first time bonus and streak bonus is great, but after that there's little reason to run good XP/min quests on elite.

Ascension Chamber elite is overtuned. The combination of 100% fortification, 303k HP, lich immunities (lightning/cold/mantle) and DR is too much. The challenge in that raid should be the puzzles, not the Abbot. Wizards, Sorcerers, Artificers and Arcane Archers are mostly dead weight in this raid (arcanes don't spec fire typically since it doesn't work on devils/demons; piercing can't break DR). You only ever want one arcane for the invisible mobs; more arcanes than that is a complete waste of a raid spot. My guild completes it, but I've seen all of the Abbot pug raids dry up on Orien because of the U11-U12 changes. Artificers need a spell to break blunt DR.

I really dislike the amount of time it takes to get to The Lord of Blades and Master Artificer raids. There's way too many trash mobs on the way to the raid to kill with no benefit. There's no challenge in killing trash mobs, it's just boring. Kiting the hounds in the Lord of the Blades is more efficient than killing them, and given the length of the fight on harder difficulties, it's a snoozefest for the kiter. Add an optional to reward killing the hounds three times. Also, the drop rate on the Toven's Hammer parts is ridiculously low. I really hate the fact that the hammer parts and spirits are BtC; they should be BtA. Lastly, not having a shrine on elite/epic for TLOB is just silly. All it means is people will spend 10 minutes Torcing mana back on the 4 assassins right before the start of the end fight. Please stop wasting my time.

As for Shroud, elite is a great challenge. The blades are still a bit ridiculous though.

Epic Chains of Flame should reward two full epic dungeon tokens instead of the one full epic dungeon token it provides now. eCoF remains one of the most challenging epic quests. I love it.

The drop rate of seals for Ring of Elemental Essence, Mask of Comedy and Brawn's Spirits in A Small Problem is still too low. It's demoralizing to run these quests day after day to not get the seals you're after.

Ever since the last update to Big Top, I haven't run it. It used to be a great way to quickly get a full epic dungeon token daily, now it's not worth running. I'd rather spend my time running Epic Devil's Assault for two tokens, large mats and a chance for a devil's ruin crystal and silver threaded handwraps.

I absolutely love Epic Red Fens. Whoever created those quests needs to do more in the future.

[Postumus]

I don't think Normal difficulty should be increased.

I remember as a new player that normal difficulty was a good challenge as I learned the game mechanics, the classes, the builds, the enhancements, and the gear.

I think most players who have been playing for more than six months have a jaded view of normal because:

1- they know the quests and know what to expect
2- they have twinked their characters so they should have an easier time on normal
3- they know the game mechanics

I think the traps on hard could be boosted a bit.

I think Elite might be just about right. I like that traps are actually deadly and require a trapsmith or cautious play.

I think Epic is ridiculous.

[aarant]

Couldnt be bothered to read all the walls of text so just skimmed off the top of my head any 1 mention removing scaling in all its forms as well as the -10% xp from the new guy strolling through the trap of insta death, people would be far more likely to put up lfms and let just about any1 in.Also saw the blades from shroud mentioned skimming through yeah u need to add box's to disable or somthing thats a feeder raid that the newer players who cant solo amreth to get larges are trying to farm and it to top it off its completly unfair to melee toons ive already seen the shroud getting the chrono treatment

[Terebinthia]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

I think that the balance is reasonably good throughout. I've been running up 28 point builds with no twink gear whatsoever on my husband's FTP account, and had no major issues with elite completions in Harbour PUGs. Experience and quest knowledge play a huge part, far more than the character builds / access to airships IMO.

I think what you did with the Harbinger of Madness and Lord of Eyes chains in terms of difficulty is pretty good - you can run through them fairly easily on normal difficulties, but In the Flesh is a major challenge at level. Those chains in particular seem to offer options for both the more casual players and the twinked out power gamers.

I love the bravery bonus and have done a lot of running of elite quests at adjusted level with one or two of my primary running partners, often running henchies. These are challenging and fun. Occasionally we faceplant but always get a sense of achievement from completion. I would ask that XP rewards on the 17 - 20 quests be looked at - it's still better it appears to farm Reaver's Refuge than run some of the new content, and I would prefer that that not be so.

Raidwise, I think you should be able to go into a normal raid and have a reasonable chance of completion excluding someone doing something incredibly stupid. I think increased rewards for harder difficulties are a good thing (the extra chests in Weapons Shipment, for example, although I've yet to see someone pull a perishing Bauble post changes to the quest).

I've not really had a chance to look at the adjustments to epic raids - the lack in server population posted LFMs in my timezone post the adjustment to make things harder precluded that, and so I've not really got a sense of the adjustment down. I do think a decently geared PUG that works together should have a reasonable chance of completion, however. If epic content is only accessible to channel / guild groups that's not great for server dynamics IMO, and my concern is that you are tailoring to a vocal minority that play almost exclusively with channelmates, and that's not the environment most of us mere mortals are working with ;)

[Calebro]

Can we actually expect some dialogue on this or is this just something posted to troll out our ideas and make us think you are taking in our feedback?

9 pages and no dev replies since the OP.

Well, to be fair, the OP was posted right around the time that the work day would have been ending. And it's getting to right around the time that the following work day would be starting.
These ten pages came fast.

[Hafeal]

Sarisa -

Well said, I particulalry agree with your assessment of raids.


My opinion is that raids need to be balanced around people AT level. Normal should be accessible to a full group of first life players with just basic gear (Heavy Fort, +4 to +6 stat items dependent on the raid's level, decent lootgen or common named weapons). Hard should be for twinked first lifers, or TR's, or at least those with enough metagaming experience. Elite should be difficult, but should NOT have some of the ridiculous changes that exist now.

Keeping loot drops as they are on Normal gives the casual player a chance to experience the raid balanced against decision to 'grind' for their raid loot or try to 'pick up' their game and go for Hard, Elire or Epic - which all need to have extra opps for great gear for those players. Of course, the risk of failure, damage to equipment, and the use of consummables should scale to be significantly harder at those higher difficulties.

If Hard, Elite (and Epic) are too easy - then players become bored. And mind you, each higher level of difficulty must have appropriate scaling because as they do succeed they are getting better loot which makes lower difficulties easier; and as has been said, it seems new quests are being planned on the better gear expereienced players have and not the gear new or casual players have, echoed by ungood:


I swear, I must be missing something, I see all these posts about how:



Oh yah, that is easy,
It's just AFK&Autoattack
Anyone can kite that.
It's a Pike Fest

and you know, I have done these raids, and I have no idea what these people are talking about. It is like, it seems as if we are playing the same game but not even close to the same worlds here.

P.S. I have to say thumbs up to the forumites, I think this thread has been drama free and constructive. Kudos.

[Hellllboy]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

There are a lot of casual players involved in this game that do not spend millions of hours getting the absolute best gear, and your endgame solution is simply not an option for them.

It creates an environment that is based around MIN/MAX builds with every piece of gear to survive quests.

Players can no longer build a character for the fun of doing something-for fear they will not be accepted into a raid unless their DC or HP are high enough.

Its a little silly to see certain level raids (below 17) with some of the challanges involved-just because level 20 players breeze through it-at level players have a great deal of problem with them.

[Inkblack]

MadFloyd,

Thanks for doing this. It feels good to be asked. Answers below.

Ink


What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?
It is very hard to make a blanket statement here, but with a few exceptions (raids) I think normal is exceptionally easy. I cannot imagine failing a 6-man quest on normal difficulty prior to level 16 unless some of the following conditions apply:
a) there is some atypical game mechanic involved, such as failure conditions
b) the party is almost entirely new and is trying to rush
c) the party has a couple of people that are just raising the dungeon scaling and are not actually participating
d) the quest is being run by characters substantially under level

Even then, I would think the chance of failure is somewhat low, <10%.

After level 10, I think some quests such as VoN3, GH (mobs do high damage versus previous levels), vale quests (Running with the Devils thanks to the healing ghaels and their SR and good saves), Enter the Kobold (super easy then evasion spell-fest), and Amrath in general (much more difficult than other quests of similar level) have a higher chance of failure. I can't imagine a party of new players stepping into an Amrath quest and succeeding 1st time more than 10% of the time without spending tons of resources.

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?
I think it does ramp up, but prior to level 10 it's almost mind numbingly easy.

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?
I think normal now is too easy, because I do not expect to fail even when speed rushing through the quest and not paying much attention. I think normal should be easy enough that an inexperienced (but careful!) group can complete 80%+, but that if you screw around you should get punished for it.

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.
Good point. I think you (Turbine) have addressed that somewhat by having chests throughout quests, by having optional experience earned earlier in the quest. However, it is definitely backloaded and based on succeeding, which I think is good. I think players that want front loaded rewards benefit from the wilderness areas.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'
At the higher levels, I think this is true, and I'm not sure it is bad. I personally would prefer a bigger difference in difficulty (and rewards) for the N-H-E settings, similar to the way LoB and MA are done. However, I do not have experience with these raids on anything other than normal.

At the lower levels (<10) the game is strongly slanted towards the new player with almost no chance of failure.

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

[Zaodon]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

Yes, absolutely, without a doubt, you've been "creeping" the difficulty of Normal up, and up, and up until Normal is just too hard for most people at high level.



If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

Its definitely high level content (14+) in which Normal starts to scale up disproportionately. It starts at 14, hits again at 16, and then 18+ is all pretty much insane. Again, talking about Normal difficulty here.



What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

Here is how I, along with just about all my friends (ages 43 and over) feel about DDO, and Normal difficulty specifically:

Normal difficulty should only be a challenge the first few times through a quest when it is new to you. Once you "learn" the quest, the ins, the outs, the tricks, the monsters, the traps, etc. then yes, it should be trivial and boring to run it on Normal. That is why there is Hard and Elite (and in some cases, Epic.) So long as there is Risk vs Reward (i.e. better rewards on Hard and Elite), then Normal SHOULD bore people so they have incentive to run Hard and Elite.



We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

IMHO, you are 100% guilty of this. Period. No question in my mind.

Please realize that DDO is not like other MMORPGs. I know you know this, but sometimes I think you forget. Its too easy to see the kinds of players in other MMOs, and then see a *few* of those types of players here, and think to yourself "gotta make it a challenge to get those players here in DDO". But, there are those of us who are old people, who are D&D fans primarily, who find it fun to get together in DDO and play D&D online with each other. We are not "mmorpg" hardcore players like you find in other games. We're just D&D players. Most of my friends would never in their life play an MMO. Ever. For them, DDO is a singular exception.

It is SOOOO easy for you to fix this by simply making Normal, "Normal", and restricting the "hardcore ramping up of difficulty" for Hard, Elite and Epic. By making Normal, Normal, you are giving incentives for players to run the harder difficulties.

[cforce]

Old Content vs. New Content

As many have mentioned, there is a huge disparity between the difficulty of the original content in the game, and the difficulty of more recent quest packs, especially at lower levels. Sentinels Elite vs. Delera's Elite is a great example. Twinked vets can do the first at-level, and will absolutely crush the latter. Newbs with only the equipment they've cobbled together, on the other hand, won't be able to handle the former and will find a decent challenge in the latter.

While I recognize the challenge in creating content that will be engaging for both newbs and vets alike, there's a difficulty system in place for that. If "New Normal" is the Normal in new content, and "Old Elite" is Elite in content that's been around a while: nerf New Normal to match old normal, and increase the difficulty of Old Elite to match New Elite. I, for one, would really enjoy a Waterworks Elite where all of the kobolds have twice their current hit points!!! (Please note: I'm not advocating for hit-point related difficulty increases in general, but doubling up Elite mobs in the original launch quests would still be kosher -- these guys fold like a card house when you look at 'em ;)

Rock-Paper-Scissors

Beware mechanics that make things incredibly difficult for one particular class or build. Strengths and weaknesses are fine, but in some cases, they've gone much too far. A fine example of this is Pale Master light vulnerability. It's very off-putting to do many quests at level, but defer one-in-ten to run 7 levels over-level just because it has caster who use Searing Light! I'm fine with the vulnerability for thematic reasons, but it's tuned right now to "insta-kill" vulnerability, which just seems...weird. A 25%-50% multiplier would still be enough to make Pale Master careful around light damage, while removing the caprious "certain mobs can kill you instantly" factor with the current 100-200% implementation.

See also: blanket immunities!

Also note that I'm deliberately not arguing for the inverse -- things like "need a trapsmith for this raid", or "should be done with at least one arcane", especially for raids. Having a particular class in the party grease the skids is OK -- having a single party member have to play the "6th wheel" because they match up so poorly vs. a quest is not. I love Elite traps making people actually stop and pay attention! (Big tangent: for god's sake, reduce the time of the Search and Disable animations! Traps are almost always out of combat, and making the whole party tap their feet waiting for two 5-second animations sequences adds nothing to difficulty -- only to impatience!)

Risk/Reward

More chests on higher difficulties is grrrrreat. If it could be done with minimal effort, it would be a great idea to do a pass on all existing quests and add an extra chest at the end on Hard, and two extra on Elite, as copies of whatever the "boss chest" typically drops.

Random Mechanics

This is a tricky one. I'm really in favor of some randomness -- Part II of the Shroud, for example. Randomness adds real-time planning, and hence challenge and difficulty. However, random mechanics are only good when the possible outcomes are, "close to the same difficulty, just different tactics". They can go awry when bad rolls can radically affect the difficulty. Challenges are a recent extreme example of this -- nothing is quite as frustrating as getting an unlucky set of crests in Rushmoor.

Difficulty through Geometry

This manifests in several ways, but the best and most often-cited example of this is Coalescense Chamber. If this quest were laid out in a linear, flat manner, it would be fun! Making it difficult by negotiating a vertical, having to manage camera angles and weird physics reactions when you jump is bad. The DDO game engine isn't made for geometry challenges like this!

The Specter of Lag

Another problem that I'm glad I don't have to solve! Beware of ways to make things difficult that are *also* hyper-sensitive to lag! Until such time as lag monsters no longer haunt the game (projected for Update Never), mechanics that make things difficult and are prone to failure from a small lag-spike should be handled with extreme care! I recognize that there's only so much you can do, here -- metering damage, for example, to such a degree that a couple missed seconds were survivable would mean eliminating all challenge from the game. On the other hand, areas where a single small movement hiccup could cause a big failure should be avoided -- the tile puzzle in the Abbot, for example. Use extreme care when introducing challenge that's heavily dependent on your exact position!

[grodon9999]

Please realize that DDO is not like other MMORPGs. I know you know this, but sometimes I think you forget. Its too easy to see the kinds of players in other MMOs, and then see a *few* of those types of players here, and think to yourself "gotta make it a challenge to get those players here in DDO". But, there are those of us who are old people, who are D&D fans primarily, who find it fun to get together in DDO and play D&D online with each other. We are not "mmorpg" hardcore players like you find in other games. We're just D&D players. Most of my friends would never in their life play an MMO. Ever. For them, DDO is a singular exception.



I play this game because it's close to D&D (not the D&D I played 20 years ago but close enough). I've never cared about any other MMO nor will I. Every "MMO" thing in DDO is what makes it stupid.

If this wasn't D&D many of us would never have bothered.

[Captain_Wizbang]

9 pages and no dev replies since the OP.

Dude! It's going to take another entire team just to read the massive walls of text we posted.


Glad to see everyone focused on what they are posting, and not what others are. refreshing.

[Targonis]

Can we actually expect some dialogue on this or is this just something posted to troll out our ideas and make us think you are taking in our feedback?

9 pages and no dev replies since the OP.

I would not expect to get a full dialog on this, but I fully expect that the devs are reading our responses and will use them to help adjust the direction of the game going forward. Some of the better ideas may even get used.

Keep in mind that it has not been very long since the thread was started, and you should NOT expect the true development team(the ones who bring us new content) to be posting on here all night. It is only 10:20am here on the East coast, so with a 8am-5pm work day, there has not been a lot of time to read through the content, pick out the better thoughts, and try to find a pattern.

[Lormyr]

I really appreciate this topic. Thanks for conversing about it with us Madfloyd.

I think a strength of this game is that there are 3 or 4 difficulty settings for every quest. This allows the player to have a strong hand in just how much of a challenge they feel like facing from a given adventure. Because of that though, I feel like it is a mistake to balance the normal setting against highly geared, multiple epic item characters - which does seem to be the way the design team has been handling things.

Now I know your sig says "no challenge, no fun", and that is a perfectly fair and reasonable view to have. But I feel like this needs to be balanced by those players (including myself) who enjoy building extraordinarily powerful characters and dominating gameplay, and see the fruits of their strategic character building/gearing as the most rewarding aspect of their gameplay.

It's my opinion that if you run a well built, all epic item 750 hp, 90 AC, all saves 36+, 40 str dual-wielding melee through just about any quest on normal, that character should be able to complete that content without being scathed. But being that it is only the normal setting, the chance for rewards shouldn't be terribly high. This gives the power players/characters incentive to run elite or epic settings for a better chance at getting the loot they are after, while placing such power characters in a difficulty setting more appropriate to challenge them in.

Regarding raids specifically:

Abbot: Lower his hp pretty significantly on hard/elite, and drop the evasion. Up the drop rate of loot on all settings, it's so disheartening to run this raid just to get skunked which happens so often.

Titan: Massive boost to loot drop rate across the board. This quest skunks you even more often than Abbot, which is down right miraculous. This raid is innovative and fun, but never gets ran because we all know it's a 45 min time sink from which no loot will come.

Shroud: Either lower the damage of the blades, or get rid of their rediculous tracking/clinging tendencies. Only one change is needed.

Reaver: Rebalancing a level 14 raid to be more challenging to level 20 characters is just silly. Taking a 500 damage hit at level 14 is rather absolute.

Lord of Blades: This raid is fun, but the enemies in there even on normal are in serious need of an attack bonus reduction. 90 AC getting torn up by even the trash mobs is a bit rediculous. Just how much higher do you think is appropriate in order to avoid the majority of melee damage in there? Also, specifically on the epic setting, no shrine? Really? C'mon guys:(

Master Artificer: I don't find this raid very enjoyable. Chasing enemies around and kiting can be a rewarding experience if you are an arcane archer or something, but for the 11 other people in your group it beomes very tedius very quickly.

E-chrono, E-dragon, E-dragon, ToD, VoD, Hound are all fine as they are at the moment under the current overall system balance.

Edited to include Titan.

[grodon9999]

Abbot: Lower his hp pretty significantly on hard/elite, and drop the evasion. Up the drop rate of loot on all settings, it's so disheartening to run this raid just to get skunked which happens so often.

Shroud: Either lower the damage of the blades, or get rid of their rediculous tracking/clinging tendencies. Only one change is needed.

Reaver: Rebalancing a level 14 raid to be more challenging to level 20 characters is just silly. Taking a 500 damage hit at level 14 is rather absolute.

Lord of Blades: This raid is fun, but the enemies in there even on normal are in serious need of an attack bonus reduction. 90 AC getting torn up by even the trash mobs is a bit rediculous. Just how much higher do you think is appropriate in order to avoid the majority of melee damage in there?

Master Artificer: I don't find this raid very enjoyable. Chasing enemies around and kiting can be a rewarding experience if you are an arcane archer or something, but for the 11 other people in your group it beomes very tedius very quickly.

E-chrono, E-dragon, E-dragon, ToD, VoD, Hound are all fine as they are at the moment under the current overall system balance.


What he said.

[taurean430]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

Not at all. The problem with making the game too easy is seen often with newer players reaching endgame. When i started playing this game, you were destined to fail in a quest without preparation. It required planning, modification, or in some cases reroll to obtain the necessary scores to defeat dc's in content. It required learning how to conserve sp on casting classes and balance spell use to not fail a task. The majority of this has been taken away at low levels. Many players step into mid level and up quests completely unprepared for the jump in difficulty. I used to look at the harbor as a training ground. There were many of what I termed 'stop checks' to help determine if a build idea would be viable later in the game. Nowadays I run through most of the harbor and marketplace quests solo. It's far easier than trying to explain to newer players the need to invest into a skillset for their character. They don't understand because there is virtually nothing left to actually challenge them. End result being lfm's full of toons at peak times with members lacking fortification/skillset/appropriate gear for the task at hand. It widens the gap imo between different types of players in this game. Not talking raid gear either. Rogues without search disable items. Arcanes with unworkable dc's. Melees without weapons to handle dr or do any damage to what they are swinging at, etc... Learning curve replaced by easy button is not conducive to good grouping experiences.


If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout? I think that the glaring variance in difficulty between different quest chains should be addressed. What works in gianthold/desert will result in quick death in newer content like madness chain or invasion on stormreach. It would be good to have them be more consistent.


What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you? That is a tough question. I expect to fail if unprepared. I expect to fail if I make too many mistakes. This is true regardless of difficulty.


I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

From my vantage point I can say that there would be much less failure if newer players had more indicators of what works when the kobolds you are facing now graduate to barbazu. I don't think failure is bad. Failure is necessary to learn.


We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

Omg yes. But in endgame, not the harbor.

Update 11 caused me to delete most of my divines. Out of 8, I kept two. Putting the onus of success or failure squarely onto the shoulders of divine casters in the way you guys did was difficult to stomach.

Raid bosses hitting harder and having *some* increase in hp/fort is good. When the increase becomes multiplicative it's rather egregious. We are looking at some substantial changes that are live now. Melee bosses that are best handled by shield blocking/self healing casting classes. A lich that with an outrageous hp/evasion buff makes arcanes unwelcome in a raid with loot designed for them etc...

My opinion is that the more you listen to the players who farmed out every piece of gear available on easier versions or raids - the more you enable segregation amongst the player base. Many of them complain a lot on the forums because they have everything and nothing better to do while waiting for new content. The changes instituted to provide challenge to them have alienated players who need the same gear from running content that will improve their effectiveness. Yet the same players who have everything gearwise (and brag about it endlessly), still complain daily on the forums. The rest of us are locked out of running content that requires grouping. This because the folks with everything can still brute force easy button it. And the rest don't stand much of a chance of getting a completion.

[Meetch1972]

Difficulty for me comes from being unaware of what's around the next corner. Unfortunately with some quests as scripted as they are, many know exactly when to chug this resist pot, cast that buff or run along the wall.

On normal, this is probably fine. A first timer will still have a lot of fun, and if they carry a stack of resist pots they can backpedal and chug one before heading back toward the spray, or find another way to deal with the problem. With just starter gear and what I'm picking up from chests, I find the low level quests suitably dangerous.

Random encounters are the first danger factor. In say Irestone Inlet, if I push ahead too fast then I am taking risks - but slowing down a bit gives say an FVS' echoes of power a chance to charge up for some cures before the next bunch of mobs if I've already burnt all through my mana. I can control that with the pace I use, but add to that the roaming mobs and I find there is a reasonable seasoning of danger at level for a first-timer. The spot/listen skill should sometimes be the earliest indicator of a mob turning up where you're simply not expecting it, and I only really see this in some wilderness areas.

The other thing for me content-wise is traps. Randomised locations and randomised boxes in many areas just adds to that uncertainty, but mixing them up is extremely rare. Add to that, on normal the traps still aren't very dangerous and only really a first-timer has enough respect for traps to consider investing in spot as well as search. Because some things never change, it's very common for the anything-but-rogue to be found bouncing up and down in front of the hidden control box. On the second life, second toon, or second time around when farming xp, 99% of the traps encountered are anticipated and worked around. But if say, the spikes came out of the floor in a different pattern, or they rippled along faster than the barb zerging through them to catch 'em multiple times, then maybe folks would think twice, or trigger the trap as safely as they can to figure out how it's supposed to be timed *this time around*.

What makes quests too easy?
Above level buffs. I should not be able to get resists greater than 10 at level 1!
Familiarity. Quests that are so scripted that one might be able to linearly script a toon as a bot to zerg it.
Gear power creep. It's very hard to dial back power on so-called named items which everyone has. There are also no sinks for this stuff - the hardest part is figuring out which of the 150 BtA/BtC items in the bank to vendor/trash to make room for a newer, slightly shinier artifact in a coming life.
TRs may not really be that much powerful than non-TRs, but at the lower levels that 1 point or minor boost to something does seem to make a lot of difference.

What makes quests too hard?
Reliance on ship buffs and what happens when they're gone. There's a lot of players who get the full suite of buffs from a L80+ ship in the mid levels who don't have any reason to play smart. There are more skilled players who can grab them and solo a raid on normal, and others who might add ship buffs then solo elite. I'm seeing more and more reliance on them, and must admit that I'm more inclined to take them myself when a year ago it was no issue managing without.
Haves and Have-nots. I know a founder who gets on 10-20 hours a week with a guild of like-minded/resourced individuals will play more efficiently and acquire more gear than me who gets on maybe 10 hours and runs with a small guild so ends up PUGging most content if I can't solo it. It's a problem for which I know no solution...
Pot/DDO item dependency. Fine for those who can afford them, or are geared to avoid it (see previous point). But those who cannot afford do tend to be left behind when there's a 500k hp boss to beat down and the PUG is full of toons still to be geared. A 500k beatdown is not fun - it's just a resource drain. Make it 100k and give the boss some way of inflicting a very small fort bypass chance perhaps. Make there be a slim chance that a well geared main tank can be 2-shotted by the boss at least on elite, maybe even on hard, but let the boss be squishier to compensate.

Anyway that's all I got for now.

[Razcar]

[Since I have played since 2006 my thoughts are mainly for making the game more accessible for new players]

The quest difficulty at each given level varies quite much. This might not be a problem for experienced players who know what to expect, but for new players it must be frustrating to run one level 11 quest fine and then get trashed at the next level 11 one. Personally I kind of like that it is this way, because it builds atmosphere to have some "notorious" quests around, but for new players I think it can be confusing. (There is a warning in the quest entrance box, but I don't think people notice that.)

Unfortunately, there are also many cases where the difficulty and time required to run the quest does not reflect at all in the rewards. An example is the Restless Isles quest. They are hard to reach, long, sometimes confusing (especially Slavers of the Shrieking Mines), quite difficult for new players at level, and give very low XP. If you have quests at the same level that vary a lot in difficulty and length, the rewards should always reflect that.

I also believe there should always be some easier way to continue the quest after a wipe than releasing and run back again. Now if you wipe, the party often dissolves and people leave frustrated - the price and time for restarting after a wipe is a little too high. Ways to achieve this could be a question if you want to teleport your soul stone to the closest shrine when you die. This could be an option on Normal and Hard only, or maybe only on Normal. And if there was an easier way to recover after a wipe, quests could instead be made harder.

Another problem is that quests and raids are seldom tiered enough. There should be some sort of accomplishment and reward even if you don't make it the whole way. The Shroud is great in this, giving XP and rewards for each of its five parts.

Many quests are very schizophrenic in their internal difficulty, where the quest itself can be quite easy and then you reach a boss fight that is much harder than the rest of the quest. That can be disheartening and feel unfair, especially if you were doing fine in the quest until the end. Examples are Enter the Kobold, In the Flesh, A New Invasion and Stealer of Souls, all especially on Elite difficulty. Make the whole quest as hard, or make the end fight more in line with the rest.

Lastly I would also like to see Casual difficulty for the raids. The Casual raid difficulty should not include any raid loot whatsoever, not count for your 20 completion rewards, but maybe have a shorter raid timer. It should be included mainly for casual players that want to experience all the story lines, and for new players that want to check a raid out and/or learn it under easier circumstances. I think this would lower the entrance bar to the raiding end game quite much and in the end benefit the "real" raiding community, while also providing a more complete gaming experience for the casual crowd.

Parting words - Just piling on the Fortification and Hitpoints for bosses only makes the game more boring, not harder, and is also very unfair since it affects casters much less than other characters (for example rogues - sneak attacks).

PS. And yeah. Put in a timer on Mnemonic Potions. Please.

[Cyr]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

I have posted on this subject in length before so let me see if I can sum up my thoughts...

There are a few things here. The most important being that viewing the game as too hard or too easy is simplistic and not the source of the real complaints that you get about difficulty.

The real issues are...


Content is not consistently difficult for it's level or difficulty setting. It is an enormous mistake to have difficulty differences between equal level and equal difficulty setting content. It filters people into easier content and when they hit one of those hard quests it feels like they hit a wall.
Jumps in content difficulty based upon difficulty setting is random and sometimes just plain badly designed for it's level. Into the Flesh on elite is one of the hallmarks of this bad design. It is dramatically harder then alot of other content on elite of it's level range. This was done to cater specifically to players who were annoyed at the easy mode high level quests in IQ and DD that were produced to cater to the opposite side of the player base...both being extremes that did not understand nor care that difficulty level needs to scale upwards as you get higher in level and be consistent so that players feel that they are both being consistently challenged, but not suddenly hitting a brick wall. There are lots of easymode elite ones that I could point out, but I do not really think I need to do that as they are the same issue as the too hard for it's level elites.
Reworking of old favorite quests to make them 'fresh'. Lots of wasted dev time. People like those quests or they would not be favorites. Shroud was the most successful raid made. The only things which should have been touched were the real issues in it having to do with no incentives to run higher difficulties and not monkeying with mechanics in any way shape or form. Another problem with this approach is that it recently (note recently because prior to that it could have been the polar opposite) catered to the same element that thought that Into the Flesh elite was awesome...because they do not actually understand how critically important it is to have content balanced for it's level NOT for level cap.
Dungeon Scaling. This was the worst idea in DDO's history. It made in many places it better to solo then to bring a group which is the opposite of what MMOs are all about and hurts the main sticking point for having people stay...strong connections to the community and other players. It also had a crippling effect on challenge scaling. By making content easier (which is it's direct result not the intended, but impossible to actually achieve goal of making the content equally challenging in a group or solo) it lead to lots of players not having the same scaling challenge that helps prepare them for the harder challenges later in the game (which have scaling removed...). This then makes the wall when they hit it even higher and more frustrating for them. There is also the critical issue that it never worked right and in theory was an idealistic dream that was impossible to implement...so instead of having that equally challenging in a group or solo which could allow the dungeon to be balanced properly for it's level and difficulty rating...instead you got a whole bunch of different challenge levels based upon the group size and composition. Dungeon scaling needs to be removed if you are serious about addressing challenge in the game. Without it's removal it will be impossible to ever balance all the content for it's level and difficulty rating in a comprehensive fashion.
Lag is often the most challenging part of quests and when quest design makes it even more dependant on lag then you have the recipe for annoyance. Instant wipes in raids when someone DC's is a HUGE issue. It killed my enjoyment of raids after too many occurances. Blades in the shroud and abbot in general is another example of design which highlights the issues with lag in the game...shroud blades and the abbot are dramatically easier with less lag and with heavy lag can become incredibly difficult to overcome.
Incentives need to truly scale dramatically based upon difficulty level. That is a real issue that the developers have finally started to pay attention to. The reward/time ratio has to be MUCH higher each difficulty level you go up in a quest/raid. A flat scale does not work (remember harder difficulties take longer to complete in almost all cases). Again the work done so far is encouraging, but much more can be done and should be done.
Epics are the ultimate random developer desire of the moment. It really is frustrating to have a quest change numerous times (through specific or universal changes) in a year. Even more so when it yo-yo's around in difficulty so much that the only conclusion one can draw is that a random dice roller is being used each update to determine it's difficulty. Knock it off. Pick a difficulty for each dungeon and stick with it already.
Mana pots (particularly being available in the store) completely distort endgame play. You can power through stuff you would have failed and people do...sometimes alot.
The spell pass...well that is class balance partly...but it also created a huge power jump for parties in general (particularly all caster parties!). Casters were critical parts of parties before the spell pass. Apparently people were upset that the average number of casters wanted for content was the same as the number of caster classes compared to the total number of classes. It was a mistake to take those complaints seriously unless the developers actually think that some classes should be more desirable then others...if so tell the players so we know to delete our melee non-tanks now.
Unequal difficulty throughout the dungeon. This is a huge one. It's not a huge deal to wipe at the beginning of a dungeon, realize it is too much for the party, and go in on a lower difficulty. It is much more annoying to fairly easily run 40 minutes of a quest and then hit an end fight that is leaps and bounds tougher then the rest of the dungeon.
Some suggestions that may not have been apparent from the above...


Pick a desired success rate for normal/hard/elite based upon certain party criteria which gets higher the higher the difficulty setting and scale challenges of the content to that. My concern is less the particular rate decided on, but more that it is consistent throughout the game. It is desirable to have this success rate scale downwards as you increase in level. At no point in time should higher level characters be considered when balancing. They should have much higher success ratios in lower level dungeons.

My personal example is...normal at level party (always full party), balanced enough to have heals and respectable dps, average non-rare gear has a 80% success rate. This would equate to a near 99% sucess rate for well geared for the level....it's normal after all. Note, the rates given are for mid-level play to endgame play with better rates for lower level parties (balanced by the fact that lower level parties tend to be less skilled).
Hard at level party, balanced with cc if they need it and heals, decent but not really great gear has a 75% success rate. This would equate to near 95% succss rate for a well geared party. Better xp and loot then now.
Elite at level party, balanced, well geared. 75% success rate. So one time out of four they would still fail. That is not easy...actually harder in most cases compared to elite dungeons currently. Much better xp and loot then now.

Epic is special. It is one difficulty setting. Either split it in three (again with heavy duty boosts to loot) settings or have different dungeons set up as different difficulties based upon their listed level (which of course would mean no more lazy button all the same level listed). I prefer the latter with better loot from the higher level ones of course.
Put a three minute shared cooldown on all mana pots. This should reduce the powering through options and allow the developers to finally balance based upon these very powerful items.
Add a save to the new caster dots for half damage.
Never ever again cater to the must have super easy content at high level or must have really super hard content at non-cap players again. Seriously, it has messed the game up enough already. Balance the content consistently for it's level and difficulty setting. If it is easier then the rewards should be MUCH less (difficulty setting).
Do NOT go through the entire game and rework the difficulties of all the quests. Change the level of the quests to reflect their true difficulty. Then go through and make changes on a case by case basis where needed in specific cases...like end fight of elite Into the Flesh which will not make sense no matter what level you set the normal quest to.

[MrkGrismer]

(I apologize for the length here)

Difficulty... a difficult subject. Games walk the line between challenge and frustration. Too difficult and game becomes frustrating and not fun, too easy and there is no challenge and no fun. The trick is to find the right balance.

However, while some things are difficult they are not necessarily fun.

Things that I, personally, find more frustrating than challenging:

Automatic failures for things that are overly 'luck' influenced. Don't kill more than 5 spiders in Let Sleeping Dust Lie as an example. Especially with 4 spiders in the final boss fight. Ways this frustration could be made more fun: make the spiders killed an optional with a bonus chest for completion, two bonus chests for no spiders killed. XP bonus for the optional. Cut the base xp for the quest in half. And/or make the spiders healable or add an optional objective that would allow you to still complete the quest even if 5 spiders threw themselves on your blade.

Boss fights that are an 'order of magnitude' more difficult then the entire rest of the dungeon. As an example: Enter the Kobold is either a cake walk or challenging until you get to the boss fight (depending on the party). And then you die. Well, if it was a cake walk then you probably don't die, but if it was challenging you do. Devil Assault is similar. A party that can handle the end challenge is going to find everything leading up to it to be a bore, those that find everything before the end challenge to be challenging will find the end fight deadly and frustrating. <-- While I give two specific examples here this set-up seems to me to be a little too common in the game. At least when soloing with hireling. Yes, by now I've learned which ones are which but there are a number of quests I just skip because it isn't worth the frustration.

On the plus side of Devil Assault you get XP for each wave (and loot for the third wave), which means if you never complete it you could still (in theory) use it to level.

Backtracking for no good reason. A lot of console games did this in the past to artificially inflate game length. Go thru a somewhat linear adventure to a certain point, you can't get into this section until you find something or do something further on, and then you have to come back to do this part, and then you have to go back to be able to continue. Coalescence Chamber is one of the big culprits in this one and it certainly does not help that certain sections of that dungeon repeat almost exactly, making it somewhat easy to loose track of where you are even if you've done the quest until your eyes bleed.

Making something more challenging does not mean adding more hit points IMO. If you want something to be more difficult to kill, then add some type of defense to certain things but make it bypassable or mitigatable. For instance, add cleric minions that heal the boss, but can be killed. Add some sort of magic item that gives the boss DR or extra resistance to certain spells (or immunity) but it can be destroyed.

Bosses that self-heal; it can be extremely frustrating to fight a boss that you can whiddle down to 50% health only to have them instantly and uninterruptably heal themselves. Over and over. Perhaps a reduced chance of healing themselves as time goes on or if certain other conditions are met (they are being meleed for instance, since they don't seem to have to worry about concentration checks).

Random rare 'must-have' loot. Come on! I have a character that has run Weapon Shipment over 20 times and not gotten a Mysterious Bauble, while another character got it on the first run of the quest. The item is considered a 'must have' for pretty much any caster (if not any character with a blue bar) but the randomness is just plain crazy. Either increase the chances as the quest is repeated (not necessarily to 100%) or put it as an automatic in a '20th completion' or such.

Epics: Epic should be a level range, not a difficulty setting. Epic dungeons should be dungeons that are level 20+ and should have the same 5 difficulties as everything else (c/n/h/e). I don't see any problem with taking the current 'epic' quests and changing them to level 20+ quests with those difficulty settings, even if they are 'repeating content'. Just put a 'return to ' on the quest name or something (I know this would make a certain part of Delera's funny).

On another note, but spot-on topic:

Green Steel. Available at 12th level to TRs, available at 16th level to all others. It appears that all pre-free-to-play 16th level and above content assumes the characters will all be green steel equipped. If a person mentions that a quest is 'overly difficult' the response from the community tends to be 'grind out some green steel'. Loot that has been added since F2P, and especially Cannith Crafting has been limited to 'not be more powerful than green steel' unless it also has similiar or greater grind involved.

I think this detracts from the game for newer players. Because it is a grind and not fun after a certain amount of time. But it doesn't have to be. The reason it is a grind is because each player must run each of the 5 vale quests for the stones and a random chance at the base ingredients, and then run shroud 5 or more times for sufficient ingredients to make a tier 3 item, which (with some abberant exceptions) can only be worked on inside the shroud itself. Yes, there have been improvements to the system over the years, like the portals that open at the end of shroud so you can go back and now the latest addition of Vale ingredients (Chipmunk Funks, etc.) to the end reward list in Shroud. Some guilds have access to the shroud altars on their guild ship. Perhaps some of the guild items should be looked at from the perspective of guilds that have both high-level and low-level members (like the resist shrines).

But why? Why not just make the altars available in Meredia? Or in the crafting halls? Let the big guilds slot something else in those spots. As it stands if a player doesn't want to be part of a 'mega-guild' they loose out on the easy access to green steel altars.

Some green steel ingredients drop in quests other than the vale, but they are rare and really why not drop from any quest that is 16+? Or at least any quest with a devil in it.

Why not allow turn-in's of other high-level crafting ingredients to a 'crafting trader' for green steel ingredients? Or green steel ingredients for Alchemical ones? Maybe even a turn-in to get the stones for making blanks.

Regarding difficulty for uber-geared players/groups: I think this is what Elite is for, balance Elite for the uber-geared player/group, but don't expect people to have uber-gear on normal. Give appropriate rewards for elite. And not necessarily just uber-gear. Unique cosmetics can go a long way, you might be surprised. Especially if the only way to get that re-apply-able armor/weapon/hat/etc. cosmetic is to beat a quest on Elite. Even better would be each such quest has a list of unique cosmetics. No power-creep with cosmetics.

Perspective disclaimer: I have limited time to play. I mostly solo quests with a hireling. I made my own guild and it has one other casual member. I understand that the game is created for groups and I do not expect to be able to solo everything on elite at level. I do, however, like being able to have a good chance at completing quests on normal that are one level below my character or at level. I have capped 6 characters, have another at 16, another at 11 and the rest are 9s. Once I cap a character I don't enjoy playing the character as much because I feel I am loosing out on xp since the character is capped. I like leveling.

[AsburyParker]

I am a relatively new player (highest level character is level 9). And due to time constraints, I tend to solo content on normal so far. The difficulty level seems appropriate. I tend to die on certain quests mainly due to lack of experience. This is how it should be. I am trying to learn the game and as long as I am able to make progress, I am fine with the difficulty levels.

One thing that does bother me is non-soloable content (particularly quests) at any level. Quests like rest for the restless, tomb of the burning heart, and from what I have read the xorian cipher, which are non-soloable even on normal because of game mechanics is annoying. It is my perspective that all content in the game should be soloable. I have to specify that this does not mean soloable at all levels, but there should be a setting where a person who wants to learn the game, on their own, can solo. Apparently, some of these mechanics were implemented when the game and player base was more group oriented. And hirelings were the answer to making the content more solo-friendly. IMO this is a cheap/lazy fix, and it still leaves some content unsoloable. In short, certain difficulty level(s) (causal/normal or maybe solo) should be soloable always without the use a hirelings; other levels hard/elite should require the use of hirelings and/or other players. Leave the simultaneous lever pulling/pressure plate pressing mechanics in the group-based difficulty levels.

[dkyle]

There are several basic types of difficulty:

Gear tests: content that just expects a lot of gear. High attack bonus, high DPS, high HP, that require a lot of gear to achieve. This is mostly a test of how much time has been spent progressing the character by getting new gear. TR benefits also fall into this, essentially.

Skill tests: content that expects players to understand the game, and play it well. There are two components to this:

Gameplay tests: things that test player tactics, communication, cooperation and keyboard/mouse skills.

Build tests: Yes, this is a matter of skill. Understanding the game, and building a good character is a matter of strategy and analysis. This also includes choice of gear.


A very new character is likely to be wanting on all those things. Korthos and the Harbor are very forgiving, and as a result, anyone with even a little skill and/or gear can blow through them like nothing. But not a problem; we need content for the newest players.

But were does the much vaunted "casual" player fit in? Do they simply not have much time to play, thus rating lower on Gear tests, or are they just not very good players, and so rate lower on Skill tests?

On the gear side, the game should provide content for every level of advancement. It's obvious when we talk about quest levels vs. character level. But gear is just another form of advancement, not so different from XP. The game needs a stronger sense of what "level" of gear is expected, and ensure a clear, well populated path up. Now, that doesn't mean we need to mimic WoW, with gear scores, and Raids mathematically designed to be impossible without sufficiently high scoring gear. DDO's gear is too widely varied, too eccentric, to capture in a score, and I don't want to see that change.

On the skill side, the more the game predicates success and failure on skill, the better. That doesn't mean requiring perfect play at all times, but it does mean that it's OK to expect players to think, and put forth an effort to understand the game. Part of that is smoothing out the nature of the game as we level. The game changes very quickly, and the lessons learned while leveling tend to not apply at end-game. It's all too easy to get to level 14 and not think that HP is anything worth worrying about, and that AC is more important.

The new normal Shroud is something that's a hot-button. Ultimately, I think it primarily increased on the Skill test side, and not the Gear test side, and so I'm OK with it. Die from blades, and under 300 HP? Skill test failure. Bad build, bad gear choices. It's not really a Gear test, because the gear needed to break 300 is easy to get if you actually decide to seek it out. Kill all the Devils, and wipe as all four blades swarm the melee on Harry? Skill failure. Bad tactics. Ultimately, a "casual" player doesn't need to spend an inordinate amount of time preparing to run Shroud. They just need to care enough to play the game well. Ultimately, the more a player feels that their skill and preparation paid off, the sweeter success tastes. But the flipside is that bad play should mean failure.

To me, "casual" shouldn't mean "unskilled", but I think they get grouped together too often.


On the topic of failure, I think there are three factors that make it sting especially hard:

1. All the time consuming, boring stuff you need to go through again to get to the boss fight you wiped on. In almost every raid, there's a bunch of long, boring pre-boss stuff that it is utterly trivial, and in most cases, doesn't really even matter for resource consumption. If a failure at a challenging boss meant hopping back in, and trying again, right away, I don't think we'd mind so much. Perhaps have a "boss flag" that gets applied to all group members when the party first engages the boss. The flag lasts for 2 hours, and if everyone in the group has it applied when they enter a new instance of the Raid (or enter the Subterrene), they can choose to skip right to the boss fight.

2. Extreme resource consumption when things go badly. One of the worst parts of failure is that it tends to be accompanied by a bunch of SP pots drank to try to squeeze through, with nothing to show for it. SP pots in general need to be adjusted, and doing so would help here. I suggest putting a difficulty scaling cooldown on them (normal: one minute; hard: two minutes; elite: five minutes). In addition, to avoid pressure to drink as early as possible, even if things are going well, only allow them to work at under 10% (don't waste them if drinking is attempted; just display an error message). For implementation, I'd suggest not using the normal cooldown system, since it can put people on cooldown even if the action doesn't actually register. Instead, just apply a "buff" to the drinker that prevents SP pots from being drunk for that duration. The "buff" would only be applied at the same moment the SP are actually applied. End result here is that a failure is likely to only have cost a single pot, but pots are still useful for "we almost got this, just a little more time!" situations.

3. Lack of satisfaction from success. Even if it takes a bunch of attempts, finally getting that Elite ToD completed is exciting until you invariably get basically nothing out of it but 1 more completion to 20. It's a difficult balancing act, to be sure, but I think ultimately the rewards do not scale well enough with difficulty. Perhaps allow Hard and Elite to count as multiple completions towards 20 (2 and 3 respectively)? If it takes 3 attempts to finish an Elite ToD, then it feels less bad when the rewards are 3 times as great.

[MrWizard]

The easy button saying comes from those who have all the grinded gear and have taken the horrid amount of time to get it all...and there are those that short cutted by exploiting.
Now they have the best stuff and yes, for that toon the game is perhaps a bit easy and not as challenging.

However, for the rest of the people, especially the ones that do not play 8 hours a day, the thought of getting a fully geared toon is IMPOSSIBLE.

Think of it. To get a lot of gear for your toon.
You need a cleansing item to wear two shroud items. That's a minimum 2 months. Actually nowadays with the 'harder' shroud it may take longer. 4 Months if you want three items. 4 months at the least.

Items that can mean something to you may take hundreds of runs. I have played since 2006 and still waiting for a chattering ring. Really.
I have only seen a leviks shield drop twice and I do that raid a ton (or used too).

The difference is staggering between a well geared oldie and a less geared newbie, regardless of skills in playing.

You make it impossible to get gear. Then to go to epic you may take, as a casual player, a year and still not get your scroll for that one item....really.

The crafting is neat, but it would be better if you could craft items you actually needed that could group together items that fill slots (resist energy, hit points, deathward, etc)...but in a purely custom way...

But your crafting system is again something a new player could take forever to get up in level by standing at that machine and just pressing buttons for hours.

Again, the older player can easily outfit new toons, the newer player is stuck taking 6 months (as a casual player) to get crafting levels high enough..and that is if he/she works at it diligently.


Lastly, and most importantly, I think it is wonderful the work the people of the community do to figure out crafting, ac, to hit, attack, and loot lists. However I believe the devs could easily print out something much better with little work.

Leaving it to the players mean unless someone is a massive forum and wiki person they will not even know what to do or where to go and spend the first 6 months NOT advancing their character.

This 'mysterious' hiding of the information always seemed strange to me. Take for instance the shroud. Working as intended makes shroud crafting a completely random and unknown quality. The rarity of the drops and no actual dev or game information means that 'as intended' would result in 80% loss of materials and no gain, and 100% chance of just vendor trash loot.
It is only because some players sat there and wasted a huge amount of time and resources to mix all this stuff and wrote it down.

Something the devs could have done in a matter of minutes and put it in game or on the site.

AC stacking is only understood because players had to figure it out to help others. As is most of the mechanics of intim, feats, etc.

Now you can see where a new player is beyond lost, has no official place to go and read official instructions. It can take some players a very long time to understand basic stuff by word of mouth, months. Casual players checking it out are really lost.

I would suggest the game would be easier, attract more players, and allow for more fun play if the devs hired one manual writer...one. And put that writer in a room and made him read all the wiki stuff, crating stuff, ac threads, build threads, mechanics threads, etc...and then make him put it into a manual that others can understand.

Now, this may seem like a mighty big task... And now you know the task facing a new player.

One person putting all this together, updating it via devs, is better than 10,000 trying to piece it together on their own.


Edit: Last thought. Why not combine more ac stuff so us ac people can actually free some slots? all the dodge items, etc..I have no room for anything. Adding one epic item and I have to redo every single piece to adjust things..not worth it.

[Zzevel]

What it should be:

EPIC - A bit grindy, elite should have been the real elite, drop upgrade fragments at other difficulty levels or full tokens for upgrade on epic. The more optionals you complete in the quest, the better % you get a good drop. This should be Epic with more HP, more SR, more OOMPF, but not blanket immunities and DR. More thanwhat we see in Ellite, Groups Fail.. OFTEN (7/10 times), but it can be beat, no way this can be Solo'd, its a TOUGH TEAM EFFORT. You get rewarded with xp/loot for your risk (3x normal, double festival drops, epic upgrade materials)

Elite - Groups Fail.. OFTEN (5/10 times), but it can be beat, no way this can be Solo'd, its a TOUGH TEAM EFFORT. You get rewarded with xp/loot for your risk (3x normal, double festival drops, drop 3x upgrade fragments) *on your 20th completion on elite you get an end reward of all named loot in that quest, you have earned it.

Hard - Groups still fail (3/10 times), can be soloed by very good high level players on occasion, loot/xp is slightly better than normal (1.5x xp/loot than on normal, drop 2x upgrade fragments)

Normal - A group can fail but not often (1/10) can be soloed by higher level toons with a couple skills. Normal drops on XP, loot & fragments

Casual - No real chance to fail, just get it done, anyone at a higher level can solo it. (.25x the xp/loot from normal, no +1/+2 loot gems uesable or festival drops availible, no fragments)



High reward for the risk, but your never completly shut out on upgrading items if you choose to not run epic.. TODAY, after you upgrade a couple things, you may run it in the future. Note Fragments are generic upgrade materials, each item does not need it's own fragments as we have plenty ot cary around already. Kinda like the dragonsard pieces, you combine them up until you get the perfect upgrade material, then you upgrade any epic item one step to the next tier.

[hit_fido]

One more suggestion: Improve the pre-generated builds (IMO you should get the 'power gamer' community to design these, and award in-game prizes as an incentive), and also add to the DDO store level-appropriate 'equipment packs' for each of them (at 6, 12 and 18), that contain OK introductory-level equipment.

[example cut]

All of that is 'good stuff' without being uber. Veterans have far, far better, but it's a functional starting kit that will serve players well in at-level Hard dungeons, while not taking away the incentive to acquire more loot. Plus I think people would be more willing to spend real money on that than an individual +3 elemental burst weapon.

As for your 'once ever free respec' suggestion - a '75% off the first Lesser Heart purchased per account' offer would work too.

That's a great idea re: combining improved pre-built paths and the equipment packs. Partly because it would be such a big boon to new players and partly because it keeps an eye on Turbine's revenue motivation. A very reasonably priced newbie equipment pack available at certain levels would replace the absurd nickel and dime approach of trying to sell +2 acid shortswords for ~100 or so TP a pop and I agree with the assumption that it would sell better.

75% off is alright, it's going to depend on the brand new player. A one time use free safety hatch seems to me to be more likely to engender more interest and playtime, whereas I'm afraid that if that first get-out-of-gimp card costs (more) real money a player is more likely to blame the game and react with caution or rejection. Maybe another alternative is to provide this option only to vip/premium on the basis that they have sunk some real cash into the game to get started already.

Anyway to pull this back toward the theme of most responses, I see these ideas as a mechanism to help struggling new players tune themselves (up) to the content they want to play rather than Turbine tuning content (down) to the struggling new players who are having trouble overcoming first timer issues that this game's wonderful customization features can sometimes exacerbate.

[EvilI]

Wow, this subject is almost as popular as rogues with epic Sword of Shadows.

I haven't had time to play any of the artificer raids yet, so I won't comment on them beyond saying I think it's a poor idea to have loot that can *only* drop over a certain difficulty level. That strips a lot of players that dont have good gulid connections from the hope of ever getting that loot, and makes them less inclined to try the material at all.

I find the general difficulty level for quests level 1-19 to be pretty good. For most quests Normal was just the right challenge when learning the game, some Elites (mainly Reavers Refuge and parts of Amrath) can still be challenging in a group of TR:s. There are a few outliers where a specific part of the quest on elite just becomes vastly more difficult than the rest, such as the swim in Elite Crucible. But I'm told that some gamer-savy youngsters can do that without getting hit by the spikes at all so I guess it's OK.

I do have a few minor grievences. It's annoying to have long, tedious transports to some quests that are run repeteadly (or failed). Against the Demon Queen for one (there may be other examples) should have a teleporter �* la ToD for those who have completed the quest/explore point before.

Effects that leave you helpless repeatedly of for a long time with no realistic save are very punishing for soloers or small groups. Prime example would be the re-buffed air elementals.

And please dont let players who are unable to loot the raid or epic chest go on timer for that quest. Tie the completion to the clicking of the chest or something. This should just never be allowed to happen, period.

As for raids, Chronoscope normal at level is perfect, and the most entertaining raid or adventure there is in the game imo. If I could wish for one thing for christmas it would be for this raid to scale like Devil Assault, and not break bravery streak. I realise World Peace may be more realistic though.

Abbot is a joke, and I would be ignoring it even if there were PuGs coming up more than bi-weekly. I previously thought that the Abbot himself needed to be somewhat more challenging, but that was so that the whole focus of the raid would not be the inferno/deadly water. Now the lich is a Beast, the inferno is just as deadly as ever, and the goggles puzzle did not get any easier. I am sorry if this sounds harsh, but I can not think of any curteous way to put my feelings on this particular raid.

Number of deaths in Normal Shroud are going down, but the blades are still over the top. Despite what some posters would claim, I also find they make Hard difficulty inaccessible to PuGs at all because the risk of failure is so high, and the time invested to grind through the boring part 1-3 before you fail again is just not worth it. Maybe when you increased the difficulty for parts 4 & 5 you could have reduced the hitpoints for portals, or the number of portal spawns, in part 1? (Or better yet, let us climb a small rock, jump over a wall and go straight to the parts that really matter ;-)

VoD, ToD, HoX are all fine imo. DQ is hard to find groups for at level, which implies that it is probably a little to hard. Tempest Spine is great, and my vote for second most entertaining raid to run at level. It seems to lack some luster concerning loot, but is still well woth it for xp.

Epics definitely seem better to me, the way they are now. There are "Epics light" where you can learn the tricks, and there are some quite gear-demanding where I mostly feel like a piker after a year of steady playing. Like all high level content it is very dependant on having at least one good arcane caster in the group, and this may be something to look at - but I cant see removing mass instakills as being the solution to this, unless you at the same time remove the ability for Mass Hold Monster, Ottos Sphere of Dancing, Web and several other extremely powerful spells to affect multiple enemies in a similar manner.

[Furbitor]

QUOTE=MadFloyd What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

I have entered quests on normal that played too much like epic! And its random, the mobs seem to have much more punishment than usual. Wish I could give you more, but its rare enough.

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

I think its a glitch in the scaling programming that causes the extra difficulty on the wrong setting. It just doesn't occur so often.

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I consider failure on normal Okay until you know the quest. What Bores ME is the utter non-random mobs and linear design of most quests. Knowing exactly what mobs and how many are just around that corner takes a great deal of fun out.

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

I disagree about failure being bad, you shouldn't get rewarded for not completing. But, 45 minute end boss fight with endless self healing boss(es) is ridiculous. I did a Foundation of Discord elite run and wound up swapping to lvl 20 toons to kill the end boss. Instant aggro of Ele's made the quest impossible for at level geared toons.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

The purpose of better gear doesn't necessitate retooling every quest. It makes the quests easier for those that got them thru due effort. Wether or not players use that gear and blow through quest is up to them. New content also shouldn't require gear that only veterans have.

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

I would like to bring up the subject of difficulty. What exactly makes a quest difficult?

I would say:
a. Monster HP
b. Monster quantity
c. Monster type
d. dungeon path
e. dungeon environs
f. dungeon length
g. Traps
h. obstacles
i. puzzles


Any of those items above can be altered changed to give various level of difficulty. But while any of them alone can be dealt with, what makes a quest ridiculous is when the combination of these items are arranged to near impossible.

Like say, Abbot. Failure of any puzzle usually mean wipe of the quest. Spending time in party while one member tries to figure out the puzzle just to blow it (Litnany of the dead) over and over for months Made me sick to run it again. I thank God for the man that posted the answers. Instead of instant failure, we should have had the option of battling the black dragon (for failing his questions).
That more than anything is poor quest design. And Abbot has been retooled many times, still is a failure in my eyes.

My views are this... Having puzzles is great and dandy, brings fun and challenge, But it should never be a hard fail if a puzzle is lost or skipped. Like in the Abbot, if a puzzle is completed, it should make the quest that much easier to finish, and if a puzzle is skipped, it should be that much harder, but still able to complete.

So as it stands, the Abbot is Invulnerable until his Sarcophagi are destroyed. This means the puzzles are mandatory. Well, If the quest Had alternate routes to reach to the sarcophagi, the objective can still be met, with an alternate method. This would relieve the strain this quest has on many groups, yet still make them "earn" their loot. Those groups doing the puzzles would have a boon of doing it easier.

Wanna make quests more fun or challenging? Try these:

1. Random mobs in quests / adventure areas
2. random mob types at level in quests/ adventure areas
3. Random quest entrances in adventure areas (its more fun when you have to find the quest)
4. adding subterranean areas/pathing to existing Adventure areas desert, vale, etc.
5. Adding new random rares in old Adventure areas (mixed level mobs)
6. multiple path questing. giving choices.

[voodoogroves]

I play this game because it's close to D&D (not the D&D I played 20 years ago but close enough). I've never cared about any other MMO nor will I. Every "MMO" thing in DDO is what makes it stupid.

If this wasn't D&D many of us would never have bothered.

I may play the 40k one too ... but same deal

[Montoya]

I think that there should be options for getting decent gear that small groups or solo players can reasonable accomplish. The mindsunder quests are a good example of this, although mostly the gear is not worth it. Epics and end game are balanced for well geared toons but it feels like you need to be well geared to get the gear. Cannith crafting is a good option but still crafted items for the most part don't compare to most end game loot.

I agree that the best stuff should be in raids but it would be nice to have a preliminary step for those of us not inclined to get into big groups.

[voodoogroves]

The problem with "epic" is that once you hit 20, what do you do? How do you know "epic" quest A is tougher than quest B?

What should a player be doing in terms of progression?

1-19 makes sense ... do quests around your level, increasing as you level.

Once you hit 20, we really need some way to identify which ones are scaled to be entry-level accessible, and which are going to require more skill/gear/etc.

[dkyle]

I play this game because it's close to D&D (not the D&D I played 20 years ago but close enough). I've never cared about any other MMO nor will I. Every "MMO" thing in DDO is what makes it stupid.

If this wasn't D&D many of us would never have bothered.

My point of view is a bit different, but similar. I like DDO because it's not like other MMOs, which I also don't care for. I like it for the active combat, the variety of builds, and the interesting quests. I can't say I'm all that concerned about the "D&D" aspect of it, though. I don't really care how close or far the rules are from any PnP edition of DnD, as long as they're good rules, that produce a balanced game. Or how close or far it is to PnP's Eberron setting.

[GoldyGopher]

In skimming through 10 (plus) pages of posts I saw the word schizophrenic, while the true meaning of the disorder means something else, it is a good word to describe game difficulty in general.

To me the problem starts once a player enters the Harbor and starts doing quests and continues all the way through epic. Difficulty may not be the correct word, rather a time, risk and reward analysis, and the problem is Veteran Players know how to take advantage of it and new players do not.

In low level quests the disparity of risk, time, and reward is apparent in comparison of “Kobold’s New Ring Leader” and “Walk the Butcher’s Path”. The Butcher’s Path on Normal has a base XP Value of 1,148 while Kobold’s New Ring Leader bas XP value is 1244. The problem is there is so much less risk and less time needed to complete New Ring Leader Butcher’s Path is barely run in comparison. I with a well equipped toon solo can complete new Ring Leader, earn most of the XP bonuses and be in excess of 2200 XP on a first run in under two minutes, while a flat out sprint through Butcher’s Path takes six minutes and nets about 1800 XP unless a couple of rares pop than its 2000 to 2200 and eight to ten minutes. Which quest are people going to run?

The problem is it doesn’t matter which level quests you are talking about it there are clearly easier and quicker and quests to run. Pick a level it doesn’t matter, Halls of STK vs. Two Toe Tobais? Tangleroot vs. Necro 1? Gianthold vs. Necro 4?

The next problem is scaling works in a poor way, I am going to pick on the poor Kobolds because they are easy to see. In a full party (5 players or more) a Kobold Warrior has for instance 40 HP, solo it is 13 HP, yet a Kobold Shaman has 50 HP and drops to 40 HP? What huh? So Kobolds warriors die before they can do anything yet a Shaman can blast away, but there damaged is scaled so far down 1 to 3 points, whats the point? Again pick you level pick you monster damage and HP aren’t scaling correctly, or at least not as correctly as I can see.

When DDO was first released there was a clear difference in the difficulty levels, normal was a challenge to 4 characters at level, hard required a balanced party and Elite took a full party usually at level and people didn’t zerg. What changed, 32 point builds, twinkage, the monty hall show in Korthos, Scaling, player knowledge base, and the list could go on and on. The problem is quests got easier to complete, there is less risk, and in many cases more XP. What used to be a challenge for a group at level is now run three levels under. See Elite Stormcleave Outpost.

What I would do to fix these problems?
The first quick things I would look at are.
1) XP Normalization. If the quest is longer and has more risk it should get more XP.
2) Adjust Scaling. Right now it is too easy for a pair of Melees to cruise through most quests.
3) Delineate difficulty levels. Right now there is virtually no discernable difference between normal and hard. Something has to separate these levels of difficulty, be it spells casts by casters or special attacks by melees.
4) Drop scaling on Elite. Sorry making elite easier for small parties is stupid in my book, even when most people scarcely see the difference, one swing per mob however sure adds up.
Long Term adjustments
1) Relocate a number of quests to more appropriate locations based upon difficulty. Moving the Solo Quests (Miller, Arachnophobia, Havadaser, Et All) to Korthos would be a good start. Followed by moving Missing in Action and the Sunken Sewer to Harbor. Moving the Depths series to the Market Place. Replacing the Depth Series with a New Adventure Pack of Level 6 Quests.
2) Look at combining a number of the lower level quests into more of an adventure area with rare encounters. For example taking Warehouse quests (Baudry Trilogy, Kobold Ring Leader, Smuggler’s Warehouse, Stealthy Repossession) and combing them into one zone where each of those final items becomes an always present rare encounter (for the lack of better description at the moment) and mobs becomes Slayer and so on and so forth.
3) Can XP set based upon how Twinked a Character is? I mean the more twinked a character is the less XP they should earn. There are lots of things to consider here, like how you would let people in party know for example and requirements of LFMs. But it is at least something to consider.
4) Psuedo Random encounters. There should be a variety interchangeable mob encounters (A Kobold Shaman, two Kobold Sneaks, and Four Kobold Warriors vs Two Kobold Shamans and Six Warriors, vs Four Kobold Sneaks.) that could occur at many of the little fights. Yes I know the troubleshooting problems but it sounds exciting doesn’t it.

When we get to Raids, I shake my head. Difficulty does not equal MORE HP for one mob. While this isn’t always the case it seems to be the MO however of the current philosophy.
If "I" were going to redesign the Shroud end fight for example on Normal Arry calls the four LTs Back basks in the Power of the Eclipse and like the old version after they are defeated you bask Arry. In Hard when you start fighting Arry every 45 seconds or so he calls one of his LTs back, so a group has to go deal with them. On Elite it is every 30 seconds and he calls two LTs back. That would be scaling of challenge. Not that idea is completely though out but you get the idea.
I think all the Raids need help and some reworking, you need to have a Raid Zone Explorer zone for the Titan (think the Canath Factory) getting rid of the Teleport Zone. With worthwhile rares and treasure. Tempest Spine even needs an update (and an Epic Version) as I still think it is one of the funnest Raids to do.

[Aelonwy]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?


The overall difficulty of the quests seems to be fine. After level 12, the quests do get much more difficult, but with adequate gear and preparedness I've not come across any regular quest that was impossible on normal. Although I do have trouble with quests that lack useable ingame maps... like the Pit. The only inconsistency I've observed is that strange bump in difficulty between levels 10-12. I also don't do much on hard or elite, all of my alts being on their first life. I've only done a few raids... frankly, I'm too intimidated by the other players attitudes towards them to really feel incentive to run more. From what I understand about Shroud you may want to tune the Normal setting down just abit on the blades. Just a teensy bit. Or fix lag whichever comes first. And I will probably never run Abbot as its currently implemented. More on that later.

The overall difficulty of the game... eh... I would mention that there is a great deal of reading/research that feels necessary to build an adequate character, and to understand the game mechanics. This may be normal, I wouldn't know this is the only MMO I've given more than a week or two trial run. You should also know, your pre-generated character paths are more or less openly called a "new player trap" by long time players.... this should not be so.



What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.


Casual - Always succeed.
Normal - Should succeed by third attempt at least, with adequate gear and preparedness, unless collassal incompetence, lag or a series of mischance 1's are rolled.
Hard - Should take caution, good skills, good equipment, good teamwork, preparedness, and should find success at least by fifth attempt. Failing lag of course.
Elite - Should never be a guarantee of success on elite, no matter what...

Yes failing after 45 mins or longer is extremely frustrating.... maybe some shorter quests at higher levels could help.



We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

It does feel alittle like this is the case, and honestly as a casual player I don't have much against this except where you balance even the normal setting in their favor and make it very difficult and frustrating to get the gear, game knowledge and skills as a casual player that they have as elite players. By all means balance elite towards them, they want the challenge... so give it to them, in a big, mean, nasty and terrifying way. But leave normal setting alone please. I'm mostly looking at the raids here. Shroud normal, Abbot normal, Gianthold normal (500 dmg?! really?!), these should be doable by the right level players in gear that they can get with little trouble at their level... I'm not saying it shouldn't take a couple or even a handful of tries 2-4 for a first success but the fail rate should go to nil eventually with practice on NORMAL (unless lag kills you of course.)

Abbot has all kinds of problems... not sure how difficult they'll be to fix, no raid flagging mechanic should ever have been random... talk about frustrating, thats so frustrating its insulting. The pre-raid is weird. The raid puzzles are unforgiving. Abbot HP is way out there beyond reasonability on every difficulty, why is he immune or so higly resistant to soooooo much? If I might make a suggestion... would it be at all possible to have a casual-learning setting for some raids? Not the same casual setting that normal quests have, but a setting that perhaps gives no loot or XP and doesn't count towards raid completions, and exists solely for newer players to get a feel for the team work needed in the quest, and a time and place to learn the puzzles/minigames without the pressure of messing up and screwing 11 other players out of loot and/or a completion? This would greatly help for Abbot at least that has puzzles like nothing else in the game. Failing that, perhaps you could include a couple new Silver Flame quests that have very similiar puzzles as in Abbot for people to practice in prior to the raid.

As for easy buttons... I'm not sure how many casual players feel comfortable posting on the forums, mostly we haven't been around as long, we don't know the game as well, some of us who have been around awhile prefer to spend any and all free-time ingame rather than on forums because we have so little time to spend freely; not to mention contradiction and criticism can be swift and painful.

Overall, I think your quest design and stories are awesome, so keep up the good work.

[Cauthey]

It's fun to fail!
-FlimsyFirewood's signature

Actually, it's not fun to fail. But you are close- it's fun to almost fail.

Failing is frustrating, leading you to feel like you have wasted time and resources for no good reason. It can make you ragequit or just logoff and walk away.

There's another quote in a signature out there somewhere - don't remember who's it is:

"No Challenge, No Fun."

I don't agree with you. What is most frustrating is HUGE time committments; a quest dragging along right to the end and then failing miserably. Or, a 20 minute slag-fest that suddenly goes south when the boss at 10% HPs, only to have him fill back up to full when the creative "ditch/regroup" plan triggers his reset (or, a total reform is required).

I think that most well-adjusted players can deal with a fail after a 10-15 minute committment. But, if players have been at it for more than 45 minutes, and there is ZERO payout because of a fail in the last phase (no loot or XP along the way), then yes...ragequits and "I'm done for the night" logoffs are going to happen.

[Joseph]

Summary Paragraphs: - MMO games are based on time investment being equal to an acceptable reward. That reward in most cases is character advancement (whether through loot or experience gain). In DDO, if you fail a quest, you end up with no real experience gain. That equates to wasted time (and why should I risk wasting my time in a PUG that will fail, and cause me to waste hours for nothing).

To correct this, quest XP should be given in percentages (such as 15% xp at 25% completion, 15% more at 50% completion, 15% more at 75% completion, and the final 15% at 100% completion, plus the remaining 40% as a 'bonus' for completing the quest).

This is just an example, but one that would move DDO light years towards being more well received. One thing I prefer in LOTRO to DDO is that every kill my party makes gives us experience - and turning in the completed quest gives us considerably more - but if we do not complete the quest, we can start again, and did not lose all of that time.


What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO?

The overall difficulty of DDO is all over the place, and is very build dependent (compare Crucible, or other 'must-have' xyz build quests as an example).


Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

I honestly do not think that you are addressing the root issue from a player risk vs reward balance perspective in asking this question.


If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

The power creep begins around level 12 - when things just become stupidly difficult for certain builds, and trivial for others.


What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I expect to never fail when playing 'casual' - that should be easy button. I think that normal should have some challenge, hard should be more, and elite should be much harder.


I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

This is the single area where DDO 'fails' and every single other MMO on the planet succeeds. If I spend hours in a quest, and then I fail - I get more or less zero experience (let's use the example of The Pit - great quest - hours into it and we just do not have the jump skills - so we fail - no one gets anything - not a happy moment).


We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

To a certain point, anything 'easy' is dictated as much by skill as experience. When my wife first started playing, I could take any character through any quest better than her. Now that she has some skill and experience, that is not the case - though I still have more experience and skill. She could never solo Korthos - but now she says it is too easy.


Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

All quests are different, so you are asking a question that will really return no quantifiable value save a few specific quests that are usually a PITA (pain in the apple), or that are trivial for certain builds. :)

[GermanicusMaximus]

Abbot - Not the puzzles, they're fine provided you have no server lag, no ISP lag.. whatever. ...snip...
Quests where the trash/effects/etc end up becoming more of a threat than the boss mob - For example, Elite New Invasion. Barnzidu? I could care less about. But his traps, combined with the aforementioned Super-Air-Elemental? Different story. In this situation, you've got a relatively weak boss, to the point that he is on the back burner. The bigger concern is evading traps, getting a Power Word : Kill off the moment the Air Elemental spawns and hoping you don't get the "You are not facing..." Error that's been cropping up so much lately, and then you can deal with "the big bad". His Binding Chains are only scary and dangerous not because it allows him to close on you, but because it makes it very difficult to avoid the traps - again, the traps become the highlight, not the boss. Likewise, Shroud on Hard or Elite shares this issue - instead of the Boss, Arraetrikos, being the "difficult part", the new difficulty is instead the Blades, an "Effect". By Effect, of course, I mean that they do not follow the rules for either a Mob, or a Trap, or a Spell. They do not have AC, HP, and are immune to all player interactions attempting to stop them (Web, Dancing Ball, Massive Damage, Disable Boxes, other attempts to "Thwart" them.) They also do not have To-Hit, so player AC is irrelevant, and they do not have a standard Trap/Spell Save, so player Saves or status of Evasion is irrelevant. This is again where Turbine basically deviates dramatically from a D&D perspective. There really is no "Cure" for Blades, no resist, no buff, no offensive or defensive action aside from Large HP Pools, and Fast Response Healing. Different from that is Arraetrikos : He is an enemy mob with a To-Hit, spells with DCs and specific damage types, etc. He can be Debuffed, he can be destroyed, his spells can be saved or buffed against, etc. So... again, rather than the boss who intends to make Shavarath coterminus taking the spotlight... some "effect" of dead Barbazu becomes the focal point of Parts 3, 4, and 5.





I don't understand how you can consider the Abbot puzzles to be "fine", and then believe the blades even in Elite Shroud are a problem. A blade in Elite Shroud is not insta-kill. If damaged by a blade, you can be healed back to full health.

I suspect Turbine does data collection for stats like number of failed attempts and number of successful completions for each quest in the game. If so, I would further surmise that

1) the failure percentage on Abbot far exceeds that of Shroud

2) there are far more completions of Shroud than there are of Abbot, to a large extent because people have simply opted out of Abbot at this point

These are both level 17 raids, and they should have comparable difficulty.

MadFloyd, consider this my official request to nerf the puzzle damage in Abbot down to the same level of damage as a blade hit in Shroud. Oh, and let the damage be healable while still in the Abbot puzzle.

As an alternative, we could give a Shroud blade hit the same effect as a misstep in an Abbot puzzle, but really, I don't think you want to go there :D

[CaptainSpacePony]

Whew! Just finished reading all the posts so I can kick in my informed 2 cents.
I’ll be throwing some rep around shortly.

First direct answers to MF’s questions:
Does Normal difficulty feel too much like hard? Yes, but only because Hard is too easy. Normal is about right.

(Is this) associated with a given level in the game? No, but game play changes A LOT around level 10-14. At that point solo/casual styles of play often become untenable for novice players. PUGs and long quests become the norm.

What's the right balance of challenge vs. success for YOU? I will quote DDO:
“Casual is for easier solo play or those having trouble on normal.” Near auto success for a poorly built 28pt solo player.
“Normal is recommended for solo play and small parties.” A poorly built solo player should succeed about 60% of the time on 1st attempt at the quest. Experienced solo players should succeed nearly always. I’d personally prefer it harder than that, but that would make the game less accessible/inviting to new players, which is bad for everyone.
“Hard is for experienced soloers and large parties.” I am an “experienced soloer” with 32 builds, twink gear, and TR toons. I should FAIL 5-20% of solo hard runs.
“Elite is for veteran parties seeking a challenge.” Challenge implies a chance of failure. At this point, “veteran parties” could be targeted at 3 or more players like myself.

Now my general discussion:

Failure MUST be an option. Few like to fail, but without the risk/challenge, interest wanes.

As a near-uber player I like the more challenging stuff. As a player who frequently groups with newbs, I think most content on normal is about right. I don’t play much casual so can’t say much about that. Hard and elite, on the other hand, fall short of my expectations. Hard is WAY TOO EASY. I think hard should be just a little bit below where elite is now. Elite should be ratcheted up even more than it is now. Let hard be the play ground for veteran players to solo or breeze through with their guild buddies as they power level. Make elite live up to its label—a Challenge for veteran parties... which brings me to dungeon scaling based on party size: get rid of it! Make all scaling based solely on difficulty setting, not party size. There is nothing wrong (and a lot right) with making most content soloable—but not necessarily on hard, and certainly not on elite. IRL bringing my pals (even the flabby ones) to a fight, increases my odds of winning.

Many have already said it, but ship resist shrines should cap at your level (10 pts to lvl 6, 20 to lvl 10).

I have introduced several new players to this game, and for a 1st character, the game becomes a drag shortly after level 10. Poorly built 28pt toons struggle to complete quests and their xp bar barely moves. Many abandon their higher level toons and roll new ones so they can replay the lower lvl content. I recommend some zots be devoted to developing shorter content for levels 10-17. (5-15 minute quests). A cheaper heart of wood, or a quest that sold you 1 for like 10 TP (the old Korthos cake-trick) around level 15 would be good.

Difficulty, quest by quest is a bit all over the place. It would take little coding to adjust the level of some quests or you could merely update the “difficulty” rating on them. Outside of level 1 and 2 quests, are there any that say they are below average? Other than extreme challenge, are there any that say they are above average? Labeling goes a long way to managing expectations. The community could probably provide a good measure of what these levels or labels should be for each quest. This applies to quest length too. Just how long is a “long” quest anyway?

As a general guide, about 30-40% of a quest’s rewards (loot and XP) should come before the climax. This lessens the sting of failure while keeping players focused on succeeding. The Shroud is NOT the best example of this. Too much of the loot is pulled before finishing. Intentional non-completion farming should only be in the margins, and the Shroud missed that mark. (I would not change it though. This is more a point to consider for future content).

Pregen builds are gimp. Nice call for equipment packs, Sirgog!

Raids:
I think all at level raids, should have a real (5-15%) chance of failure.
Sirgog’s casual raid with a longer timer idea was intriguing and addresses a portion of the player base that can feel alienated at high levels. As mentioned, Chronoscope difficulty settings should mirror DA (6, 12, 18, epic). Because a lot if not most raids are ran by with a number of capped toons, all raids should scale to that. Elite VoN, DQ, Titan, Reaver’s etc should all be in the neighborhood of lvl 18-20. Hard somewhere between normal and elite (ie 17 for a hard Reaver’s). Btw, I personally think normal and hard shrouds are just about the correct difficulty. (Haven’t run post-update elite.)

Raids
To recap my recommended changes:
1. Increase the difficulty for hard and elite.
2. Eliminate party size scaling.
3. Cap ship resists at level.
4. Develop shorter mid-high level quests.
5. Offer a discount heart of wood.
6. Adjust quest levels or make use of the quest difficulty level (and update length).
7. Design content with 30-40% of the rewards given prior to completion.
8. Fix pregen builds, and sell them packages.
9. Scale Raids from Casual (with extended timer) to elite at lvl 20.

[noinfo]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

On the whole the normal-elite thing works quite well. I am not looking at it from a beginning player perspective but there are many things that make the whole thing reasonable on normal difficulty that most parties should be able to finish, dungeon scaling works strongly in the favour here.

I do agree that the newer quests seem to be significantly more difficult than older quests. Obviously due to the enhanced power of characters at that level now. Initially I had a problem with this but upon reflection the new quests tend to have better loot and a variety of difficulties at that level are good, however xp should be proportional to difficulty (I don't want old quest xp nerfed btw)

I have significant issues in the way AC works during the scaling of difficulties in quests and grazing hits can be a serious issue with this as well in higher difficulties for a particular subset of characters. Getting hit 1/3 of the time regardless of your AC is NOT fun and equates strongly to a DPS toon being told that 1/3 of their hits will be reduced to minimal damage. This subset get both ends of the stick with mobs too hit values going up, extra damage from attacks that hit AND automatic damage from 1/3. I will be saving most of this area for the AC thread, can't wait for it. :D

Epics are still a separate game. Changes to casters and epic ward have taken things in the right direction and given casters a use outside of buffing and holding however there are many builds that work fantastic out of epic that are far less useful in it due to the nature of its design. This will probably be more on class ballance issues and I look forward to those as well.

Raids are for the most part fine, I like the changes to elite on most of them, and normal is still pretty much a walk through (shroud blades evasion should be a given though) Epic RAIDs suffer the same issues as Epic quests with regards to difficulty for some builds.

The only Raid I have an issue with is Abbot. Instafail is what makes you feel like you are wasting your time. The buff in the boss was to put the focus back on him as it should be however everything else is still a PITA. Normal completions should be pretty much the same as the shroud in difficulty.

Have Abbot go back to the way it was intended. Puzzle fail does not mean RAID fail but makes the boss more powerful (as he is now) each puzzle finished removes part of ability or increases timer between its use in the case of inferno etc. Fighting to the last man in an epic battle to stop the rise of an insane god = fun, recalling because someone fell off a tile = waste of time.

[Meat-Head]

I know you guys are working on PrEs for next year. I assume there will be SOME level of power increase to toons. So, please be careful not to simultaneously buff PCs and nerf quests/raids.


I think the general feeling is that:

Casual= NEWB to quest and/or newb soloing

Norm= NON-vet players at level should NORMALLY be completing unless they do something stupid

Hard = At level should be challenging and/or require some gear/experience

Elite = TOUGH at level. Requires experience and/or gear.



***All diffs: SCALE LOOT and/or have ALL QUESTS have a 20th reward list- **INCLUDING EPICS for shards/seals etc**



Raids need a casual setting.

Shroud normal needs to be a little more forgiving.

[Cauthey]

Rather than looking at quest difficulty (casual, normal, hard, elite, and in some cases epic gives you plenty of opportunity to tune and re-tune to cater to the broadest possible spectrum of player skills and desires), I hope you consider another aspect of what can make DDO excessively difficult for some players.

This game's ability to customize character builds is one of its biggest strengths but also one of the most potentially punitive mechanics facing a new player. This game (and many of the players in it) do not forgive "build mistakes". What is a new player who makes their way to the mid upper levels faced with when they're told taking Power Critical or Acrobatic or Improved Mental Toughness were big mistakes, or that their mix of classes is 'gimp', etc? It wont be altogether clear to many new players just how useless some of the feats are or how bad of an idea mixing certain classes is until they've invested some chunk of playtime - and then said investment looks like a big loss in light of the harsh reality of their options:

- reroll: do you want new players to feel like they've wasted all that time?
- pay for lesser/greater reincarnation: expensive.
- pay for one-by-one feat swaps that may not even work given feat selection progressions: potentially expensive.

'Expensive' is subjective, sure, but when you guys shifted the capability of players to swap feats for siberys shards by a couple magnitudes you essentially made real money the only option for repairing bad leveling decisions.

Some ideas for reducing this hurdle:

- revert siberys feat swap 'costs' to their previous levels (i.e. 1,000,000 shards for the flawless needed to feat swap at level 17 is nuts)
- provide every character slot with a one-time usable Greater Heart of Wood +5. This one time use does not renew across True Reincarnations. This would basically function as a single use 'oops' button for, so to speak, un-gimping a character. Maybe tie this to a certain level or maybe a certain favor threshold, but not so high as to be a grind unto itself.
- improve the feat swap and lesser/greater reincarnation interfaces to be more intuitive and forgiving. Consider a two or four hour timer after changes are made: within that window of time there is an 'undo' option, because the only thing worse than making critical mistakes building your character is compounding them because you didn't change out the right class at the right level or so on.


I would just like to remark that the idea in orange is a fantastic one! And, it should be relatively easy to do with the DDO store and the coupon mechanics.

Offer a one-time, once per account, coupon code that allows for 1 free +3 Lesser Heart of Wood. I would suggest to not give away the whole farm - but a +3 Lesser can fix A LOT of newbie "first character" screw ups. Heck, make the coupon code "OOPS-REROLL." Veterans that take the time to take new players under their wings can tell them about the OOPS-REROLL code.

This might be a huge player retention tool for new players. Think about those that sign up, check it out, and then drop because so many people are "mean" to them telling them that the Snake Blood feat is worthless (my son really wanted this one, heh!) and CON is NOT a dump stat.

I'm out of +1's, but if I remember, I'll come back and hit you tomorrow. :D

[danotmano1998]

Overall, I enjoy the content and it's difficulty.
I love that you can choose what you want to run, and how hard it will be.

Here are my concerns from a regular player with a year experience:

1. Quest difficulties are all over the place.
Some normal quests are far more difficult than other elite quests at the same level. There is a high degree of randomness here, it feels like some were balanced in the past, some current, and others forgotten. I don't see a lot of linearity.

What I see for difficulties:
Normal: At quest level
Hard: usually feels like quest level +1 or maybe +2
Elite: usually twice as hard as the hard setting. Usually the quests feel like they are at least twice as hard as hard, but is supposedly only one level harder than hard, which I don't believe for a moment.

2. XP is all over the place.
A good balance that rewards xp equally for various quests is in order. Why some are so ridiculously good and some are equally poor seems sloppy to me. I get that the length of the quest factors in, but look at the stats. I'm willing to bet that Delera's and Von4/5 are run at least 10 times more than other quests of the same level, because the XP is THAT good. A balancing of the base quest xp is in order, IMO.

3. Raids should NOT count towards bravery bonuses. Ever.
I want to run them as soon as I can. Putting together a pug for an at-level elite raid is nearly impossible. I want to run raids on normal, as these are THE MOST DIFFICULT ASPECTS OF THE GAME. (and the most fun to me). Penalizing my bravery bonus on these seems silly.
Quests are one thing, raids are another.

[Chai]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

Normal difficulty is too easy. It was about right when hold person was autocrit, debuffs were semi perminent (lasted entire quest or until shrine, unless removed via spell or potion) but with dungeon scaling, debuff durations being shortened, and the helpless change, normal feels like players almost have to try to fail.


If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

As the levels increase, the quest difficulty increase somewhat in relation to how they are labeled. Running a level 3 quest on normal with a level 3 toon is not the same challenge as running a level 12 quest on normal with a level 12 toon.


What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

75% success rate when running quests with toons that still need the gear from the quest being run, at level.

In the current state of the game I would never expect to fail a quest run on normal.


I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

Most MMOs are easy until max level, then super hard from then on in.

Questing and XPing in DDO is still more difficult than questing and leveling in most other MMOs.

While Xping and questing are still easy on normal in DDO, in most other MMOs its mindless to the point where players get a quest to kill 10 animals, bring back 5 of their pelts and 3 of their teeth to the quest giver, run 200 feet away, mass AOE a bunch of those mobs, loot em and bring back the goods to the quest giver and gain 1/3rd of a level for that work.

Raiding in DDO is still far easier than raiding in other MMOs. Raiding in other MMOs is usually done on a one week timer, where 25 people are needed to kill one boss that drops two items, and takes 90 minutes to clear trash and kill.


We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

It seems ironic that the playerbase seems to have waffled on that issue until you consider the following.

When its the powergamers who are the ones complaining about the "easy button", and adjustments are made due to that feedback, it limits the options of everyone else. When people whose toons are decked in epic claw set, epic 5 item chronoscope set, and epic red scale armor are complaining that the Shroud is too easy, making it harder for them puts that raid off limits (for the time being) for people who were on the cusp of being able to run it gear wise and experience wise previous to the adjustment.

Seems those power gamers are the ones that get listened to the most when providing feedback. I have even seen specific people post feedback threads where Turbine employees responded with "we were hoping you specifically would provide us feedbak on this."

I also see several instances of where adjustments and nerfs are implemented due to feedback provided by power gamers, where the rest of the user base is largely ignored. The FvS wings nerf is a perfect example of this. It did not really resolve any issue or create a situation where FvS cannot do anything they could do before, so no power balance was corrected there. What DID happen there is the power gamers whose mains are not FvS complaints were sated, even though the conditions which they complained about did not change. The class is still powerful enough to solo raids on harder difficulties. The class is still outDPSing classes whose only real contribution is DPS, while still being able to keep the rest of the raid healed.

[Kriogen]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

Its very "hardcore". This hardcore starts even before you enter quest instance. It things like:
- when you die you don't respawn at the nearest "red shrine", but you have to re-enter or someone (if its not a party wipe) has to carry you to that red shrine.
- my red-bar and blue-bar does not regenerate out-of-combat. It means I'd had to do quest before to know in advance how many resources to spend or not.
- perma gear damage
- to do level 10 quest i'd need gear that is around ML:8. But that ML:8 gear does not drop in level 8-9 quests. It drops ML 2-4 stuff. ... to do level 10 quest I'd need to run level 12-14 quests to get solid gear. How!?! Plus whith **** "luck", I'd be level 16 before something useful drops
- this continues to Epic. You better have epic toys to enter Epic. Really?
- DDO is super gear obsessed. The difference between "average" and "the best" is more or less double. Have seen many times. A friend starts DDO and dies on Casual, while I can solo that on Elite. All because of gear.
- Chanith crafting didn't helped in anyway. Its like "to craft Harry beater you need Devil Scales ... that drop from Harry ... and for everything else there is VISA".
- ...


...
What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?
..
Screw "balance". Its a game. Its has to be fun. If its not, players jump to other games in hope to find that fun.

If I'd want "challenge" or "balance" I'd play PvP oriented game.


...
I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating..
People expect to have fun. Who brainwashed you (devs) with this progress/reward. Its a game, not Real Life. I have enough of this **** in RL. I just want some fun, entertainment.

Maybe long time ago this was the case. But things changed. Seen it with RL friends. World, gaming market got older, changed. So if you are reading some books/rules about "How to make MMO game for dummies", don't. Problem is that they are "old".


...
We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!' ..
No you don't. You balance it for "uber devs" with "uber programing skills". And thats the problem.

Do it for fun. My fun. The dude that will use your product. Make players happy and you will be rewarded. You see, I have to have fun, you, developer must be rewarded. Not the other way around.

Realize that your product is "fun".

[Carpone]

Bloody Crypt and Shadow Crypt need to change so the four prerequisite quests aren't required to re-run every single time. It's inconsistent with other quests: Cursed Crypt, Into the Deeps, VON5 and ADQ don't require the pre-req quests to flag after the first time.

Kobold Assault and Hold for Reinforcements need a huge XP boost if you want people to run them at level for XP. In fact, take the 20 lowest XP/min quests that require an adventure pack and boost them significantly. Great way to increase adventure pack sales.

[Krumm]

Re: spending 45mins to fail a quest with no progress at all is frustrating, It's worse when doing epics or raids, and spending 45 mins on an epic quest, or elite raid, with no epic ingredients or raid loot. Getting epic tokens or fragments is not enough progress, and getting just a completion with no loot for any of the 12 people is not enough progress. I'd like to see a system where hard counts as two raid completions, and elite guarantees loot and counts as 2 raid completions. Regarding epics, the drop rates on seals and shards needs to be increased.



Great idea!
+1
/signed

[brightfang]

I think more things in quests and raids for DDO should be randomized so no player can just walk in and say: this is what we will do. Mobs have new spells, Enable/disable Stances and metamagics depending on the situation, and use a learning AI: AKA if the tank dosen't die, the boss messes up the aggro and charges the healers, DPS and casters. I want the Shroud to be a challenge again and Elite TOD to be deadly to even the best raid party. Horoth, Sulu and Harry should be wizards with spells. (They know every spell in the game and prepare randomly.) Also, make a level 20 Dragon Raid with Epic mode for a 1 and a half million HP boss, like say Tiamat (not lore defying, look in the 4e Draconomicon Chromatic. It will say this man is the head of Tiamat's Cult in Ebberon.) Most of all, make bosses do unexpected things like cast Heal-Boss (Heal spell that heals for 50k).

[Meat-Head]

Re: spending 45mins to fail a quest with no progress at all is frustrating, It's worse when doing epics or raids, and spending 45 mins on an epic quest, or elite raid, with no epic ingredients or raid loot. Getting epic tokens or fragments is not enough progress, and getting just a completion with no loot for any of the 12 people is not enough progress. I'd like to see a system where hard counts as two raid completions, and elite guarantees loot and counts as 2 raid completions. Regarding epics, the drop rates on seals and shards needs to be increased.




Freakin DING. +1 and awesome ideas

[Zenako]

"Hardness" of quests is a very dynamic term. The exact same quest can be easy for some characters, but almost impossible for others. (Thinking of Kobold for example, where Evasion is/was almost a prereq for the longest time.)

Have quests difficulties been watered down? Sure, some by actual quest changes, but more significantly by the effects of Dungeon Scaling. That feature just ends up making a lot of content very easy for many. The introduction of the Bravery Bonus ended up more of less forcing many people to attempt to run on Elite (just to maintain that bonus) even if they are not ready for it. Likely results in more quest failures, since more new players head into quests without foreknowledge of what they will face (often learned before on Normal where it is FAR easier to overpower) and end up toast. So a unintentional side effect of the BB, was to increase the number of quest failures by the less prepared portion of the player base. (Since they are more likely to fail, that discourages veterans from teaming with them to help learn the quest in the first place, making them that much more likely to fail. Its a vicious circle that feeds on itself.)

(Disclaimer, I used to relish the chance to beat a quest on Elite back in the "good ole days" before DS, DA and Hirelings (which I still avoid using). It was a bit more of a challenge back then. So yeah, I am not your average gamer, at least in approach to this game or MMO's. I could care less about hitting level cap in X-weeks. I have some characters only hitting level 16 who started in 2006, while others have been capped for years. I more focus on the journey along the way and used to spend hours and hours and many failures refining approaches to beating quests. It was a real pain back when you lost EXP when you died, but I did it anyway.)

I agree that the challenge steps between Casual-Normal-Hard-Elite are not uniform and some things could be done on that axis, perhaps simple DS adjustments behind the scene without changing actual mobs in the quests.

Another change that could be made (and I have not read all the pages of this thread so sorry if it was already covered), would be to award EXP based on accomplishments within the quest. Right now you get small lumps of EXP for minibosses or secondary objectives that are met along the way, but if you wipe on the end boss, you get nothing for the bulk of the quest. If you got EXP for all the mobs and traps and other bonuses you accrued along the way (Conquest, Ransack, etc boosts to base EXP award) and the base award was just modified to reflect that. Give the leader of the quest, an END QUEST option on their RELEASE Button. That would dump everyone out at their bind point (assuming all were dead) or the quest entrance for anyone still living, and it would close the quest with a partial EXP award which was merely a fraction of the normal base award. No favor or end rewards since you did not succeed, but a chunk of EXP would go a long way to softening the blow of failing and keep the progress bar inching forward.

More help in the dialog trees from the quest givers and NPCs in the quests. Let players know that some of the mobs need special DR beaters, even spell them out perhaps. Changes nothing for the vets, but gives the new players at least an option to learn about what is needed before they need it. The old end boss in STK was a perfect example of that. Someone with a Adamantine weapon (or 2) could rip thru that guy, even thou he LOOKED just like a giant (unless you "EXAMINED" him that is), while those without were royally challenged to hurt him fast enough at those levels. Since the biggest difference many times if PLAYER knowledge, there are many ways to lessen that gap inside the game.

[slimkj]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?
I think it's nearly right; it offers a broad spectrum of difficulties through choice at quest window, quest itself, party composition and quest type, i.e. raid/normal q/almost-raid (something like SoS I would say is an almost-raid).

Never find normal too hard. Never, not any on char I've played to date since launch.


If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?
The only inconsistency I would highlight is that Elite is much more Elite for newer chains than old chains. Otherwise, yes L1-3 can broadly be said to be easier, but that's good as a) it's beginner area and b) you want a gradual curve so new players aren't scared off.


What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?
I expect difficult quests when I choose it. I would say, having never thought about it before your question, that given I would assess myself as a fairly competent gamer having been one for 30 odd years, that yes, I would never expect to fail on Normal. That's not to say someone else might not feel the same about any given same quest, dependent on skill.

Once I click other difficulties than N, I expect it to scale. I also don't expect that to just be HP/HD/CL values though, I would love (I know it's tough) better AI and variation in mob types/clusters/frequency or even maps.

I do like dungeon scaling to a degree; I would never want to run DD Elite in a fg, for example, not least because of the pick-up crazy loot mechanic on the 'dweller, but also because mindlessly farming for loot is generally a solo activity for me after a hard day at work, so I'm in that autopilot zone where challenge is not really wanted. Changes to loot mechanics is another way to allow that without keeping Elite less Elite though.


I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.
I think this is more the product of DDO being (thankfully, I think) mostly instance quest based. Farming kills in explorer areas can give you a consistent, achievable goal if that's what you want. Other games where public areas are littered with mobs have similar but infesting the game world.

I think it's ok to fail a quest a couple of times as long as practice and learning can get you to a no-fail point at some point in time, and should not be gear dependent. The whole "X DC or don't join" or "this many HP or don't join" is a product of poor design, in my opinion. (Sorry).


We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'
I think you have both in the game and both are fine.

Like Bravery Bonus; one of the best things Turbine did this year. You reward those who want to test their skill with a greater reward. If I want to slowly Nx8/H/E my way to cap I can, or now I can E/H/N my way to cap, or E/done if I want. As always, choice is good.


Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.
I think the tuning to Enter the Kobold is a good example of returning to old quests and doing some good. Now virtually any half-sensible PUG can battle out a N completion if they want, but you'd better be prepped and thinking on E.

Bad example of tuning; inflated HP bags. Sorry, but this is the easy way out and something the team have been guilty of a little too often. There's nothing more dull than prolonged, repetitive fights based on HP values (theirs or ours, frankly).

--
Overall, I think you could do a little to appease the baying melee crowd. They need some more CC options and some decent AOE dps so they can compete with casters if they want to solo certain things, or contribute in certain quests.

That, combined with a 5-10% difficulty (not HP :P) increase across the board would make the game about right, imo. IMO though, I don't expect others to have the same experience or desires, nor do I mind if they don't.

This is a difficult topic as it's entirely subjective. You have a good platform with the N/H/E/Ep system, and the levels in challenges if that's your thing. It might just need tuning a bit, particularly around class balance.

And by class balance, I don't mean bring back blanket immunities or mess around with casters more. Overall the spell pass went down very well with most casters.

[RangerOne]

First of all, thanks for asking.

I'm more of the casual player even though I am on daily. I've done a lot of soloing. Once upon a time my ranger feared kobolds in waterworks, but that was more my mindset. AD&D was my frame of reference. to that I do not understand the CR. A kobold by definition should have about 8 hit points. When it has a thousand it shouldn't be a kobold anymore. I realize this is 3.0 rules at work, but it still makes little sense. You may occasionally in nature see a larger, stronger, faster member of the species, but not by that much.

I've rarely had an issue with normal quests. What currently frustrates me is quests where you can get through (easily or with a struggle) to the end, only to be pounded unmercifully by the end boss. He should be a bit more of a challenge, but some seem totally out of line. Nurse Ratchet for example. I have not gotten that one done yet and it leads to frustration and eventually not even trying.

Another puzzlement is the "Extreme challenge" quests. If "Proof is in the Poison" is a level 4 quest, then it should be a level four quest. What does extreme challenge mean? Why not call it a level 6 quest so players do not have the expectation that they can waltz in at level four and conquer it.

A bit off topic to your main point, but a contributin factor, is the flaky nature of hirelings. I took a level 13 wizard/rogue into the fens quest (name forgotten) where you must help Viercha (sic) survive, on hard. Not once did the hireling respond to the blade barrier button. If he had thrown just one bb, I would have completed.

Shroud has been most talked about lately. I actually like what the changes have wrought, because shroud had become pretty much an automatic run through. I do think the blades are hitting too hard. I realize it is a fantasy game, but even fantasy should be consistent. Devils do not spawn blades anywhere else. I can get past that anomaly, but do think the blades damage is a bit too high.

I'm not sure how much of a programming feat it would be, but would it be possible for quests to have a selectable drop down a la "Crystal Cove" allowing a full range of difficulties.

[Winded]

Id like to take this to thinking outside the Trapezoid, ( sorry I sat on the box).

Casual - Make it a spoiler, equivelant to a walk thru that Ive seen used on other games. Make the Map visible on first entry and provide spoilers, ie, what to expect for monsters and what weapon is best, are there traps, And suggest party make up. By lifting the 'Fog of War" on the map , you coudl include showing shirines, baddies locations , etc.
This shoudl serve to close the gap between new palyers and vets that have run things a million times.

Normal - I have no issue

Hard - No isuse other than sharing sentiments with others that Id like to see more random occurences, like trap locations and types. Id also like to see mobs use better spells. I think the most annoying mob spell and therefore the most effective is dispell. It keeps you on your toes. Miss that you got your deathward dispelled and your are dead. it may promote better team play over all.
ELite - Same as hard but introduce challenging mini bosses to proceed to the next part of the dungeon or to the end.

All of the above woudl benefit by providing XP thoughout the dungeon so a failure is not a failure across the board, I failed but still earned "x" xp. And the most visible and reapeated items related to all dungeon difficulty is the variance between like level quests and their respective difficulties. Amrath is far more challening at any level than the new House C quests.

EPIC is an Epic Failure - It is silly to me that I progress thru the game to find epics and epic gear I want , but once I have it theres no place to go. I hate when people deny a member access because they dont have epic gear. How the heck are they supposed to get it if they dont run Epics.

Id recommend, providing collectibles throughout leveling that can be put togethger only at level 20. This should make Epics far more accesible for all.

Introduce new content for "Legend" where we can realy test out our now epic geared and TR'd toons.

Ultimately the only way to maintain challenge at end game and the level of randomness and therefore challenge is a PVP environement. Not single player vs single player but team against team. There is no AI available to provide the same challenge as another live player.

[Targonis]

"Hardness" of quests is a very dynamic term. The exact same quest can be easy for some characters, but almost impossible for others. (Thinking of Kobold for example, where Evasion is/was almost a prereq for the longest time.)

Have quests difficulties been watered down? Sure, some by actual quest changes, but more significantly by the effects of Dungeon Scaling. That feature just ends up making a lot of content very easy for many. The introduction of the Bravery Bonus ended up more of less forcing many people to attempt to run on Elite (just to maintain that bonus) even if they are not ready for it. Likely results in more quest failures, since more new players head into quests without foreknowledge of what they will face (often learned before on Normal where it is FAR easier to overpower) and end up toast. So a unintentional side effect of the BB, was to increase the number of quest failures by the less prepared portion of the player base. (Since they are more likely to fail, that discourages veterans from teaming with them to help learn the quest in the first place, making them that much more likely to fail. Its a vicious circle that feeds on itself.)

(Disclaimer, I used to relish the chance to beat a quest on Elite back in the "good ole days" before DS, DA and Hirelings (which I still avoid using). It was a bit more of a challenge back then. So yeah, I am not your average gamer, at least in approach to this game or MMO's. I could care less about hitting level cap in X-weeks. I have some characters only hitting level 16 who started in 2006, while others have been capped for years. I more focus on the journey along the way and used to spend hours and hours and many failures refining approaches to beating quests. It was a real pain back when you lost EXP when you died, but I did it anyway.)

I agree that the challenge steps between Casual-Normal-Hard-Elite are not uniform and some things could be done on that axis, perhaps simple DS adjustments behind the scene without changing actual mobs in the quests.

Another change that could be made (and I have not read all the pages of this thread so sorry if it was already covered), would be to award EXP based on accomplishments within the quest. Right now you get small lumps of EXP for minibosses or secondary objectives that are met along the way, but if you wipe on the end boss, you get nothing for the bulk of the quest. If you got EXP for all the mobs and traps and other bonuses you accrued along the way (Conquest, Ransack, etc boosts to base EXP award) and the base award was just modified to reflect that. Give the leader of the quest, an END QUEST option on their RELEASE Button. That would dump everyone out at their bind point (assuming all were dead) or the quest entrance for anyone still living, and it would close the quest with a partial EXP award which was merely a fraction of the normal base award. No favor or end rewards since you did not succeed, but a chunk of EXP would go a long way to softening the blow of failing and keep the progress bar inching forward.

More help in the dialog trees from the quest givers and NPCs in the quests. Let players know that some of the mobs need special DR beaters, even spell them out perhaps. Changes nothing for the vets, but gives the new players at least an option to learn about what is needed before they need it. The old end boss in STK was a perfect example of that. Someone with a Adamantine weapon (or 2) could rip thru that guy, even thou he LOOKED just like a giant (unless you "EXAMINED" him that is), while those without were royally challenged to hurt him fast enough at those levels. Since the biggest difference many times if PLAYER knowledge, there are many ways to lessen that gap inside the game.

And this is where my idea of character "power" level comes into play, which is a combination of race, class, level, TRing, and finally, the EQUIPMENT that a character has, both worn, as well as in inventory(for swapping and such). A true level 1 beginner with no equipment would have a total power level of 1(or even less than that for certain classes). A level 1 character with equipment that averages +2 or +3 on the other hand would clearly be more powerful. If a quest expects characters of power level 5, characters could get there as a very well equipped level 1 or 2, or a level 5 character with an average equipment that is only a +1. The newest raids might have a power level of 55 or 65, meaning a level 20 character would need some VERY powerful equipment to be ready for that raid. The result is that people SHOULD know how high their overall power level would have to be to do their job in that raid/adventure.

If all quests were moved to provide a "power level" guide, rather than a "level", it would also mean that a level 16 without good equipment SHOULD be running the same adventures/raids as a level 10 that had good equipment, and you could see that. Since power level would reflect the combination of class, race, equipment, and even past lives, it would really help to properly balance adventures. Groups would have the ability to see if that fighter level 20 has really good equipment, or if they need better equipment as well. Power level could also reflect class abilities(rogues don't always need good damage output if their primary contribution is being able to find and disarm traps for example).

[ArcaneMelee]

I think if you want to challenge the power gamers without blowing the casual player out of the water, you should release "challenging" content where the only reward is that you are able to say (and prove) that you did it.

Releasing content only for the best of the best that provides rewards that you can't get anywhere else will always be a slap in the face to the casual player who doesn't have a chance of completing. At the same time, giving the ultra-elite players rewards that make them even more powerful is self-defeating if you're trying to challenge them.

If a elite power-gamer won't run a challenging quest without a suitable reward, they aren't really looking for a challenge - they just want to become more powerful to make the existing challenges trivial.

[Phemt81]

Game difficulty is strictly connected to quests difficulty, which can vary a lot in this game. About this matter I'd like to point out this thread:

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=302501&highlight=quest

where we talk about most hated quests, and why they are considered that way.

In particular we can find that most people agree that some are some way more frustrating than any other, for specific quest objectives or phisics. Devs can really have a wide specific view of what players would not want to play...
I can signal that most people find annoying:

1) The pit, it's really out of all the quests i have played in this game. You can't compare this one to any other(in fact this quests give more favor rewards than any other ftp quest). The diffculty is so much boosted up by its design that no one can afford to complete without a guide. This should be taken in consideration in this kind of quests, and avoid giving mobs same kind of benefits they receive in "regular" designed quests.

2) Coalescence of chamber. Mostly as above, but the flawed game phisics play a worse role here: often you get stuck under a rock when you try to jump it cause the game phisics thinks you are under it, even when it's a round rock, not a "spiked" one.

3) Proof is in the poison. Level 4? Really?

4) Tomb of the blighted. The mechanics in this quest is really bugged AND broken, should be reviewed as soon as you can.

5) Tomb of the tormented. Most hated quest ever, for what i have read.

6) Taming the flames. On ungeared 28 pts build, no chances to win that one on elite. Personal experience.

7) Into the deep. Too much struggle, pain and time to complete that onw on epic, please tone down a bit!

8) Recently most people complain about shroud blades, i still got to see those...

9) Swiped signet. Just put a shrine near the entrance and it can go the way it is. Just my opinion for this one...

Hope this is a good sum of what the community think about quests difficulty.

*All quests are considered for the legit run on same/+1 level, please take note of that*

[avery61]

On bravery

Bravery bonus is good all around. GOTTA KEEP MAH STREAK is bad. When I'm on a healer, and I see 5 guys waiting on a healer at my level, and they're doing a quest I want to run, but they want to run it on hard....I just ignore it and look at other lfm's. Thankfully with a stable full of alts I can usually find SOMETHING to do, but the streak stopping a group from forming is silly.

Keep a static bravery bonus for first time hard/elite at level. Remove streak. Its just making me not group with people.

I agree with this. Less PUG's are not a good thing.

[ArcaneMelee]

And this is where my idea of character "power" level comes into play, which is a combination of race, class, level, TRing, and finally, the EQUIPMENT that a character has, both worn, as well as in inventory(for swapping and such)...

I can see assigning power level to gear (kinda), but not race/class. Given the virtually unlimited combinations of race & class, how would you go about assigning the "power" level?

There are many builds that 99% of the population dismiss as a gimp, but turn out to be surprisingly powerful and effective builds.

[Zenako]

I can see assigning power level to gear (kinda), but not race/class. Given the virtually unlimited combinations of race & class, how would you go about assigning the "power" level?

There are many builds that 99% of the population dismiss as a gimp, but turn out to be surprisingly powerful and effective builds.

It is granted non-trivial, BUT, Turbine has already indicated that Race/Class levels did at one time enter into the equations used for Dungeon Scaling to tweak the magnitude of the scale for any given character. So that mechanic is possible, and could work if you can get any sort of agreement on the metrics to apply to each class for example. In some ways it is not much harder than figuring out CR in D&D would be. Special features and abilities give a boost to CR. It need not be 100% spot on, but like horseshoes close can be good enough to count.

The challenge depends on context. For example, a character with EVASION is undeniably more powerful than one without, BUT that feature only matters if the quest exposes the character to attacks in which evasion can come into play (traps, REF based spells primarily). Otherwise it is a useless feature and a meatshield fighter might be just as useful if not more so.

The real problem comes from gear. Character holding their Haggle items ends up with Power Ranking 38, but switching to questing mode and they end up Power Ranking 51 or something like that. Now how to modify rewards vs power ranking of the characters in the quest. On the other hand, if you do not measure gear, then you can "game the system" in a big way. One way would be to use a complete inventory scan/listing. The system tracks (just like on the inventory screen) the most powerful items you have for each slot and uses that as the power ranking tool for the character. Your most powerful weapon, highest power ranking helm, gloves, etc all go to add to your overall ranking. That would be a way of capturing the potential of the character by looking at everything on that character. Magic items already have a Power Metric, just look in the upper right hand corner for a crude measure that could be a viable baseline for something like this.

[waterboytkd]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

When I first started this game, I remember when I started doing level 5 content. On Normal. There was certainly a learning curve there. Things like running into incorporeal mobs was a big problem (especially since I didn't have any ghost touch weapons). But, as a veteran D&D player, I understood quickly that I was going to need versatile gear if I was going to survive. How easy does someone new to D&D and DDO pick up on that? Maybe, for the early quests that have mobs with special resistances like Incorporeal or high DR (my first VoN3 was a failure, because we were all melees and no one could hurt the Marut at the end), there could be a hint button on the opening quest panel where you choose difficulty. That way newbies could get hints and advice that would prepare them for the rest of the game.

For a new player, I think normal represents about the right amount of learning curve. BUT, there needs to be standardization between quests at a given quest level. As someone (maybe Sirgog) mentioned, compare the second half of the Attack on Stormreach chain vs. the Gianthold walk-up quests. Huge discrepancy. As far as tweaking the Normal difficulty, I would just make sure your challenge ratings are more uniform.


If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

As said, too much inconsistency. The biggest move to making Normal difficulty more...appropriate, for lack of a better term, is to make sure that people know what they're getting into. We have to know about how hard a quest will be just by looking at its CR.


What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

Me, personally, I don't expect to fail Normal anymore. I know the quests now, I have twink gear. Normal is a breeze. That's part of the reason why I love Bravery Bonus so much (also, that it makes leveling a TR much less monotonous). Leveling TRs pre-Bravery was boring. Not so much because there was never the risk of failing (that would have changed it from boring to frustrating), but because it was running the same quests over and over again. That said, if I want more of a challenge than I want an easy completion, I'll up the difficulty. It happens when I raid (sometimes, we decide to up the diff just to shake things up).

Normal should be the difficulty at which a new player without twink gear succeeds on a quest with, at most, 1 retry. If an experienced player wants a challenge, they should go to hard or elite (and getting rewards, like xp or shiny new loot, to compensate is great).

Normal difficulty should just never be considered an appropriate difficulty for an experienced, heavily geared player.


I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

A quest often has multiple objectives (not talking optional here, either). What if you started granting xp whenever an objective is completed? A % of the total xp, depending on how long or difficult the objective is? That, of course, could lead to lower xp returns as the total xp of a quest is getting split up, and you would get some with smaller slayer or trap bonuses, but maybe make all those cool +% that apply to completion xp apply to optional xp, as well, to make up for it? You would simply apply the +% that had been obtained when the xp is given. This, of course, would make WizKing even more amazing, but I don't mind. :B


We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

First, easy button. When I see that on the forums, it's almost always because someone says that word when they don't have anything of actual value to say. It's easy to look at something beneficial and say easy button. It's much harder to convincingly argue that something beneficial to the players will actually hurt the game. BUT, as for the community complaining about ease of this game, there's only a couple posters, though prolific, that really lead that movement. Making new content that is meant as the end-end-game (like epic-only quests and raids that are very challenging) would be a much better move to sate those few than to tweak existing stuff.

As for the balancing for the uber-player, I think the evidence is blatant. Scaling hp up to ridiculous amounts, adding fortification, increasing damage on non-end game raids to challenge capped toons with raid loot and even epic loot. All these are changes for the uber-player. Raids like DQ, Reaver's Fate, Shroud, VoD, and Hound should be completed by people without raid loot. Why? Because these are the raids from which you get your starting raid loot. Reaver's Fate, even on elite, should not require a player to have a full suite of raid loot/epic gear. It should be possible for level 16 characters to complete. Currently, it's not. One disintegrate, and you're in the time-out box. Upping the Shroud blade damage, especially on Normal, was a bad move, too. Sure, Shroud was a cake-walk for the twinked capped toons, but it had to be. Why? So characters without GS items could complete it. Now, you pretty much need a GS hp item to survive a couple blade hits.

Part of the problem here, and the cry of "easy button" by some of the forumites, was that there was little incentive to run quests on elite. That's being addressed, with more chests in Shroud and new loot in VoD and Hound. But still, these quests are not level 20 quests. Nor are they epic. Shroud is a level 17 quest. It should be conquered by level 17 toons. On elite, it should be able to be beaten by level 17 toons with twink gear and good players. That's how I would like to see raids, especially, but all quest difficulties interpreted: the quest level is the level at which a toon should be able to beat the quest; the difficulty is the experience/gear required to beat that quest at that level. Elite Reaver's Fate should be able to be taken down by level 14 vets on TRs with amazing gear. Even that's not currently the case.

Also, adding hp and fortification to raid bosses, even on epic, does not make a boss harder for uber-players. By and large, the best players in this game are running arcanes. Why? Sorcs have the highest dps potential in this game--and it's pretty much sustainable--coupled with perfect self-healing (as WF), and extreme damage mitigation by never needing to close to melee. Wizards aren't quite as high dps, but still very high, and deal with trash much better than any melee could ever hope to. So, upping hp and fortification just makes the uber-players not want to bring melees into their groups. Example: the other night, we decided to do an only sorc and fvs run in echrono. 22 minutes to complete. Faster and MUCH easier than a normal run with a slew of melees that need support from healers and a bard.

I know with the bump to fortification, you also gave us more ways to lower it, and that was an attempt to make melees more interactive than just auto-attack. But, really, it just lowers melee dps. Either make fortification apply to spell crits as well (and give melees more, stronger forms of fortification reduction), or drop the amped fortification idea altogether. It makes NO sense to make the game harder on melees, as they are already so far behind casters.

Adding tricks to the raid bosses that forces the group to be better managed, and for everyone to play important roles, is a better idea. Eggs in Velah was a great move. Lord of Blades, in my mind, is the best designed raid in the game for the sake that it requires people to do things other than surround the raid boss and auto-attack. That said, for LoB specifically, I'd make it so that it's required to kill the dogs every round, but lower their hp on the higher difficulties so that's not so onerous. Got my first hard completion last night, and I noticed that by the end of the first round that killing the dogs just isn't worth it, so we devoted one arcane to kiting them, while for rounds 2 and 3, it felt like any other raid against a pit fiend. BUT, their hp would have to be dropped quite significantly even on hard for this change not to be frustrating rather than interesting.

My last point about tuning to uber-players, and this is specific to TRs and lower level quests. Don't tune quests on Normal to TRs. It can't work out well, as you'll exclude new players from that content entirely. Hard and Elite are the difficulties for TRs.

[Theolin]

For me I don't mind difficult as long as it is worth the investment by that I mean

Time + Resources = XP + Rewards
This goes with why I think most don't run elite after the first one if I get 2000 xp on normal and only 2200 on elite and elite takes twice as long then it just won't be done especially for very similar rewards; I know that the chest are +2 levels on elite its just that the quest feels about +5 levels compared to normal.

The second part is scaling,

solo elite difficulty < 6 man normal difficulty
I really don't think it is good that solo elite is easier than a normal 6 man, this just seems wrong. This is the reason I solo much of the content unless its a raid. It is easier to solo it & the rewards are about the same, and with bravery bonus & no death bonus well .......

[Thrudh]

Seems those power gamers are the ones that get listened to the most when providing feedback. I have even seen specific people post feedback threads where Turbine employees responded with "we were hoping you specifically would provide us feedbak on this."

Yeah I saw that too... The one dev was talking to Shade.... Shade has some good ideas, but when he's wrong, he's REALLY wrong...

Please be careful taking advice from ANY powergamer. They live in a different world than the rest of us.

[Carpone]

The horrible low level divine caster gameplay needs some attention. Details here: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=351860

[LOOON375]

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case?

Feel free to reference specific quests.Yes it appears from where Im sitting that you guys keep adjusting the game to suit a very small group of people.

I play a ton. Probably more than most, but not near as much as some. I know the game well enough and now have my toons geared ENOUGH to start running epics. But there have been unintended consequences to making the game more of a challenge to 'that group' of players: Most Epic LFM's require epic gear to run epic content. That ruins it for 'new to epic' players to get into epics.

Most folks playing this game do not have a large guild to make guild runs with, therefore they have to pug epic content and raids.

While I can run some epic content with my guild mates(3 of us total) and none of us have a single epic piece of gear, I personally still can't get into PUG epics because of the requirements (unintended consequences).

As far as a specific quest: You guys ruined NORMAL Shroud. Unintended consequence: Greensteel and epic gear and over 400 HP's are now an accepted REQUIREMENT to run the raid........ON NORMAL. Hard and elite? Sure. They are dame difficult to run and should be. To get into the high end content to include epics, you should strive to get to making GS weapons and items.

Most hi end raid LFM's anymore specifically state "No new people" or "no non GS or Epic geared NOOBS" etc.........

After constantly looking since the content first came out, I was finally allowed into my first Master Artificer raid last night.

I know that you guys aren't purposely trying to exclude any group of players, but the UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES are there and are hurting the game.

In the last 48 hrs I have only seen 3 or 4 Shroud LFM's up on Argo. Im sure there were more up at different times, but before the last update, there was constantly 1 or 2 LFM's up at any given time, all of the time.

I usually lead Shroud and constantly accept new people. I have no problem teaching the raid. New people to the raid and or the game are afraid to speak up do to the UNINTENDED consequences of making the game harder for a select few.

When you make certain changes, it causes a select few people to turn into complete idiots because they are afraid of failure. "new to the raid? You can't join because I don't hold hands".

There are side effects to every change that you make.

[macubrae]

We are casual gamers and we play every other day or so. Because of children and RL we find it difficult to do many raids and epic quests, so our chances of making GS or epic upgrading items is slim. Yet we've managed to cap a toon each and are well on our way with a dozen more.

Overall difficulty? It seems more or less accurate until level 12. Some of the quests after seem to assume that we have GS/raid loot and they are more challenging. It was at this level that we started using hirelings.

Inconsistency? If the quest is an extreme challenge, they warn you before you enter. If you are not geared for an extreme challenge don't go in. There's your easy button.

Challenge vs. success? I feel that there should always be a chance of not being able to complete a quest(tank commanded, healer stunned, big trap before the first shrine blows up on the rogue, etc.). On normal there should be 95% successful completion at level. Hard, more like 85% and leet should be 75%. With farm geared twinks, add 10-20%. There is always a chance for one of the key characters to miss a save and get knocked down, stunned, or dead right at the wrong moment. Epics should be 50/50 but their drops should increase.

45min frustration? As many clerics will tell you, you can't fix stupid. Some players will attempt to zerg and wipe in the first room, then act like it's the clerics fault. Some will be over confident going into the final fight and 'DING'. On a few of the quests, there is a mid-quest fight that seems harder then the end fight, maybe on upcoming quests, there can be an early fight that puts players on their heals and makes them run that one more carefully.

Balance? IMHO, it just can't be done. As it stands now, melees can trot through the first five levels on DDO, while rogues and casters are a bit more squishy. The next five are spent looking for any and all bane weapons by a melee and casters get real DPS spells but still have to watch their SP. Levels 10-15, casters get CC, great buffs, major damage spells, and SP gear while melees begin the never ending farm for DPS gear and carefully pick and choose feats, enhancements and Pres. By endgame casters can instadeath multiple foes, summon IX, debuff baddies, and let's not forget GODmode(for some). While melees, who require buffs, heals, and a splash of something else(for that feat that they just don't get), will still be farming that DPS equipment, getting vorpals nerfed, having to break fortification, and their AC is made irrelevant, But they have alot of HP(they'll need it).

I've been a PnP gamer for almost thirty years. I've made characters for every class with almost every combination. I've made every fun/tweeked/minmax/gimped build just to see how it would play. I've continued doing so on DDO with roughly 20+ toons(total) spread across 5 servers. Barbarian halflings, Bard horcs, and toons based on comic books(Hellboy, Ironman), I'm here to not fit in the cookie cutter and to have fun.

[Book_O_Dragons]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

I never played most p2p content for the first time "at level" but subsequent toons usually find that part fine except for a few specific quests (the commonly complained about ones).

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

No, it seems to be fairly spread out.

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

That would be boring but if you have experienced players with moderatly geared toons you shouldn't. Its a reason to pug though.

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

I think there should be points in the longer quests that will guarenty XP but not as optionals. Optionals can be farmed without reduction in value; these should increment the completion counter some but not a full completion.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

The forums aren't the general community of players it is TOO hard to get a forum account. I posted a guide to creating an account on my guild forums because it isn't intuitive. The ingame browser should take you to a screen where you can create an account for my.ddo.com/forums if you dont have one it takes you to a login screen that doesn't tell you where to make an account.

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

Yesterday I went from the necro 4 adventure area (Orchard) to Gianthold which is listed as 1 level lower but the enemies are around twice as hard.

Answers in red.

[twiliteslayer02]

I couldnt edit my post , so ill do so here.

After reading several more posts, I dont feel I made my point , and so I will attempt to clarify.


Some of us have been extremely vocal about that "easy button" and the "dumbing down" of ddo in general for more than one update, the unbalance isn't in the content, its in that content's mechanics most often.


The difficulty choices in MY opinion are meant like this ( a non-twinked veteran level player to disallow for level breaking gearouts)

- Casual : No real challenge until boss, puzzles should give one or two hints cleverly hidden. overall a no sweat no resource run.


-Normal : Equals to the appropriate level, if a level 5 quest, the most badassed monster should be cr 7 at max, and the player should use no more than the shrines and maybe a few potions to complete.A 50-50 chance to drop the named loots/specials.


-Hard : A challenge, using more that a few potions, all of the shrines, probably want to have a group of at least three to do without twink gear, and every creature/puzzle/trap capable of one-shot killing a fully buffed character of any class. loot table should have a high chance of dropping the special loots.


-Elite : Crazy hard to complete, should be the epitome of NEED HELP and require the expenditure of serious resources and time, all shrines used, maybe even auto fails, not impossible, but **** hard to complete and nearly impossible to do so solo. Guaranteed special loot.


I know I dont give specifics, Im not a power gamer, and I only see this as an effort vs reward thing, its how I choose what to run, and there are quests I simply wont run anymore because they dont have sufficient reward or require special named gear , or semi serious tactics that everone in the group needs to know to be able to complete. Those arent fun, its more like a job and IMO is what needs the attention. My statement doesnt even come to those quests where the mind numbing lag can cause fails, thats gonna be a totally different post.

[zebidos]

I have to add to my previous comment after some further comments that elite quests (not raids) SHOULD be soloable by a well geared and skilled player.

With the current game set up for favour rewards and how XP works and the amount of XP needed for someone with multiple lives I personally would find it annoying as heck to have to group with people just to run elite content and run the same content multiple times.

As it stands, elite is fairy easy to solo (for someone well geared and knows the quest) until about level 14 then gets way too time consuming, and soloing elite in any quest with undead in it is something I do not like to do, hence I avoid the necropolis like the plague.

So in regards to elite quests (not raids) I say tone it down a little for solo play at higher levels, and make it more accesable for any class that wants to solo it, melee or caster.

Or, if DDO's intention is to make elite only playable with a group please rework how favour rewards work as it is not possible or enjoyable for me to find a group to run every quest on elite for house favour.

[fuzzy1guy]

Overall the game difficulty is just right. Except for the latest changes to some bosses and newest content. (LOB/MA)

Abbot is just silly. lich with evasion and a bjillion hp? it's not level 20 content. An average equipped player is no longer of any use in there.

Reaver. There was no need for that to be ramped up the way it was. It is NOT a level 20 raid. It should not need a bunch of 20's to do it. The penalty box death is just the icing on the sillycake.

People complain the old ones were too easy? Well those people are all 20's with plenty of gear and epic items. IT SHOULD BE EASY AT THAT POINT! I would expect moderately geared 20's to stomp the crud out of a raid 3 levels below them.

Shroud is still ok. EXCEPT for the blades. those are just much too much over the top. at level people have almost zero chance to get into anything but shroud normal now. and usually one of the lower levels will have to start it and do it themselves. The groups of 20's wont take them anymore. The blades need a reflex save perhaps. Or their damage cut by another 30%. Or both.

I'd also include epic von and epic DQ in this list of way too much now. When one tiny thing can make 12 people waste an hour+ of their time and wipe. And have zero way to recover.. Not much fun. von might be the worst since a fail in the dragon means they have to rerun von5 again.

HOX is just fine. it still relys on people paying attention, doing what they are told, and doing their part. However maybe its time for an OFFICIAL view on what works and what doesnt. I STILL see people claiming that gh is bad and other misinformation.

VOD is also just fine still. It's difficult. But very doable by most moderate groups. Recovery is possible if things go bad as well.

TOD still just about right. However the penalty box style death in here is just silly. If you screw up and die. You still won't be learning anything because you can't see whats going on anymore. And i'd like those tod boots we are REQUIRED to make have some other use or buff on them. Keeping a piece of equipment around for one specific raid you run a limited # of times till you get your ring/trophys and never run again.... Pretty silly.

LOB/MA i won't even address. You KNOW they are geared to the high end players. You have to know. I hope.


Overall for most quests in the game. Something needs to be tweaked with the dungeon scaling as well. When a solo or duo can complete the dungeon with less mess than a group of 6... Why exactly would most people take a full group?

Sum up.. You've done pretty well with difficulty thru most of the game. However the last round of changes to raid bosses and the last couple of packs.. You really dropped the ball here. Both for the players. Who want stuff to do that they can do. And for your own bank accounts. Whos outside of the power gamer big guilds is going to buy a pack when they know they have a near zero chance to complete the raid to build the items?

[Aashrym]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a position where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

This is far too subjective. I see an issue with gap in the players at most given levels and that gap comes from gear, guild buffs with slotted items and ship buffs, and general game knowledge. If I solo at level on a wizard with twinked gear and buffs I do not find most of the game challenging.

This was not always true because I did not always have that knowledge, or gear, or past lives, or guild buffing, or dungeon scaling. I would be concerned newer players who don't have those will see things very differently than where my characters would be at now. I think players who have had more play time, more experience, and more gear could see it differently as well.

What I think it should be is:

Casual: This should be soloable for a player of any class, easy for any misfit group, and a cakewalk for a balanced group. That is pretty much the point of wanting to go in on casual in the first place.

Normal: This should be soloable but not necessarily easily, possibly slightly challenging for any misfit group, easy for a balanced group.

Hard: This should be difficult to solo but not impossible, difficult for any misfit group, challenging for a balanced group.

Elite: This should be very difficult to solo, very difficult but not impossible for any misfit group, difficult for a balanced group.

Epic: The gap in level 20's is also extreme. Start adding epic ranks and possibly listing the level for these by rank.


In all of those cases the target group for difficulty is what a new player with new player resources should be able to realistically achieve. Balancing difficulty based on what someone who has run the quest a bajilliion times with twinked gear and multiple TR's makes it too difficult for new players compared to seasoned players. This is especially true for seasoned players running raids that are several levels below them. It's a bad idea to adjust a level 14 or 17 raid to level 20 characters just because those characters don't feel challenged running something several levels below them. ;)

In so far as the gear gap and player knowledge gap I would like to suggest a change in the XP award system. Not just for specific quests that might warrant it but in the progression tables. A person can go through to level 20 fairly quickly and does out level quests and raids before the player acquires the drop or crafting ingredients. I am thinking make all characters lives the same XP rate as a 2nd life on TR, or at least closer to that scale. This would slow down that first life to build more level appropriate gear and learn the game better. This would also promote more past TR's because those additional lives can be a bit intimidating with the current XP cost. Just a thought.

I also think the dungeon scaling is counter productive to grouping and alters the parameters of the previously existing difficulty settings. What is really the point of a high difficulty setting that we can make easier?


If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

I see a lot of inconsistency with the have's and have not's because of twinking, guild benefits, plat accumulation, and TR'ing at all levels. Several quests could be rebalanced but, just for example, proof is in the poison is a 20 minute run for one group and can be more than an hour for another group if that second group doesn't wipe or just become frustrated.


What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I noted this above. This is DnD. In DnD the DM's goal is to provide a gaming experience the players will enjoy, not to try and kill them all. Players who want a challenge should have that option with hard or elite but not on normal. Normal should be where you are participating with your character with high success rate regardless of being new or being a completionist in a level 75 guild.


I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

I would agree it can be very frustrating but that is why we have multiple difficulty settings. I think everyone should be able to play but players need a way to learn at what difficulty they should be playing. Jumping into an elite shroud on 12 level 16 characters and those players either better be very prepared or should expect failure. That is something development might look at but definitely something a player needs to consider. Elite shroud I would expect to be difficult but not impossible for an organized group of first life characters at level 19. Not so much with capped and geared level 20's with a lot of resources.

Being able to take subpar characters through higher difficulty settings and power their way through with SP pots also creates issues with difficulty settings. Balancing content with the expectation to chug pots would deserve a finger wagging and then some while balancing without the SP pots can trivialize difficulty.


We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Often that easy button response is incongruent with player behavior. Groups of level 20 characters running shroud on normal (to bring it back to the example) for green steel crafting is an example of such. Those players are obviously more interested in getting those materials more easily than running it on higher difficulty sessions for challenge.

I think more difficulty settings might be a better answer for challenge for the players who do want more challenge. I would also think that if having this set up as a solution for higher challenge for enjoying higher challenge then do not add extra benefits for completing it on those higher challenges.

Adding those extra benefits increases the gap between the players because suddenly the expectations go up. Higher challenge settings don't need more favor, they don't need more gear only attainable in those settings, etc. Adding things only obtainable through those settings changes those settings into a normal requirement for favor and gear and anything else. Adding those extra benefits only creates the need to get everyone into those difficulties and creates the need to give more challenge to more players again.

If someone really just wants an increase in challenge they will use it without incentives other than the challenge. Otherwise they will simply show that the challenge was never really the priority. ;)


Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

Those were some of my thoughts. Looking forward to the class balance thread.

[moops]

Inconsitent lvl raitings.

Our Big saying is that end game Elite is harder than Epic. There was no question that we would try Epic LOB before Elite LOB. . .

For instance, take those devils in elite VOD, many TRs can't even CC or zap them effectively--yet we do not have this prob in 90% of Epic. Elite Amrath is harder than most Epic Quests. Elite TOD and Shroud are harder and less forgiving of mistakes than eDQ, eVON6 and eCHRONO.

THere needs to be more class balance, it seems like DDO is trying to get everyone to roll cookie cutter builds with the same few classes and all of them Half Orcs or Humans.

Stop pigeon holing Clerics into just healing positions, and healing pres--Clerics are some of the most powerful casters in PnP. I play a caster cleric and I don't think that there has been any actual new gear for me in years outside of the Epic Spirit Site goggles.

I really can't believe that people are still complaining about shroud normal, its just as easy as ever even in pugs, if people communicate.

And really all the content is easy, if the group uses strategy and communicates--however, if people just want to zerg and hack and slash, then yes some of the content is too hard.

This game is so much easier than when I started to play. I do join pugs at all levels and sit back and let them discover the quest, etc--Im not one of those people who will run ahead and kill everything or tell first timers what to do--and for the msot part everything has been smooth--i remember wiping and wiping in new dungeons the first couple years I played.

Of my 2 most memorable failed groups, they both went in on elite which was 2 lvls than us and everyone went in different directions causing red alert, and one quest was Dreams of Insanity which no one had ever even done on normal.

[dragons1ayer74]

For the most part you guys get it fairly good but every once in a while the difficulty scale is so out of whack with the quest on easier difficulties that it is not even anything the same. Some examples: New Invasion on elite the end fight is completely different and very unforgiving why does blade barrier not work on the boss it is not like it would all of a sudden make the quest easy. In the Demons Den each difficulty the quest gets harder IMO elite should be as tough as hard. Acute Delirium the respawn rate is to high and endless for monsters of this caliber and the sprinkling of regular beholds in with the existing mobs is just plain cruel. Monastery of the Scorpion, good until the end fight and then on elite it is a completely different quest that becomes extremely hard for a group of players to complete unless you have both an extremely good kiter and an extremely good puzzle solver. TOR DRAGONS on hard and elite these fights are very difficult and made worse by the mechanic that they both have to be killed at the same time the environmental effects should not scale as severe as they do. In the Flesh good until end fight, then on elite it is a completely different quest that has some very unforgiving mechanics a ranged psionic attack that can kill/disable you, a sprinkling of random beholders and never ender tough trash mobs.

Quest that have a fail point should also offer better XP rewards, quests that are high fail should offer better XP rewards, quests that are higher level in general should offer better XP rewards.

Epics should have the option to have a difficulty set (casual to elite).

Also the game should look at one higher level of difficulty that offers pure challenge for a minor incentive (leader board, small bonus to XP, extra guild renown).

It does suck to spend 45+ minutes and fail with no recourse to continue other than try again from scratch. I think most quests that have the fail condition could be slightly redesigned to have a big objective (ie: “Reach the boss” that grants a nice bit of xp (ie: 50% of quest base) and if the quest allows a small random quest appropriate chest right before the end fight.

Also raids should have a casual setting (slightly less drop rate but still a chance, longer raid timer, and still counts as a completion).

[herzkos]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

I'm going to make this short and sweet. no wall of text here:
Thanks for posting this thread Madfloyd.

1.Difficulty level is a scattershot depending on quest and class in this game.
It's all over the map, one 8th level quest is easily soloable to a ranger on norm and hard
while another is impossible for the same character. (first life one, not a twinked to the gills
multi tr type). (pick your target audience please, whether it's the hardcore or the casual and
balance to that standard, that way people know what they're getting into when they play the game)

2.too much inconsistency throughout.

3. Normal should be the most played difficulty level, challenging but not overly so.

4. 45 minutes into a quest should not guarantee completion, it should guarantee no
arbitrary you lose situation unless it's a timed quest :)

5. NUKE THE REP SYSTEM. Of course the most die hard, vocal, and extreme are going to sound
the loudest on any forum, but when you combine it with the ability to neg rep into oblivion anyone
who disagrees with them, what do you really expect to hear?

[Gizeh]

I think assigning difficulties that are ok for everyone is close to impossible - the differences between a greared multi tr who knows every quest and is a member of a level 60+ guild and a new player's first 28 pt guildless character who doesn't have any twink gear, let alone any quest knowledge, are humongous.

In my opinion, normal quest difficulty should cater to the newbie, especially as trs can open quests on hard (1st tr) or elite (2nd+ tr) anyway. Don't get me wrong, quests shouldn't have an easy button beyond the casual setting, but the standard for normal quests should be 1st life characters, played by people who just started the game, ie don't have twink gear, but who are willing to learn the game.

Prime example: Taming the Flames, a level 7 quest. I first ran it on my (back then) guildless first life ungeared rogue. It was VERY hard to complete the quest on normal. Meanwhile I played the game for about a year, and I recently ran the quest with a 32pt twink geared character who is in a level 51 guild. I also know the quest by now, and I had no problems whatsoever.