LET'S TALK: The Shroud

[MadFloyd]

This thread assumes you are familiar with the Shroud and are aware of how it played before and after recent changes.

Designers had noticed that more often than not, players weren't completing all phases of the Shroud and in the spirit of 'making things better', it was decided that more incentive was called for. Loot changes were made. However, while he was 'in there', the designer felt compelled to fix a longstanding bug with the blades.

Controvery ensued.

It appears that we've taken what was a very pug friendly experience for pugs and changed it such that's it no longer - well - pug friendly.

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?

[Scraap]

Just fix the multi-proc nature of the damage dealing mechanic.

[Havok.cry]

Please do not. Once a player learns how to avoid the blades it is not much harder than it used to be. Instead please devote time to fixing any lag/hitching/whateveratechnicalpersonwouldcallit that is in the shroud.

[Maxallu]

Honestly, IMO groups seem to have adapted and normal runs are being completed at a high rate. Now I prefer to run hard with all 20s to have a shot at 4 largest. I do think the end table could lose the smalls all together. They are a waste of an end reward.

[morticianjohn]

I think things are (nearly) back to normal for shroud PUGs. The requirements for people to be somewhat competent in HP and playskill have gone up so fewer lvl 16-17's are running it though I don't know that this is all bad.

[Niv-mizzet]

No. They're fine. Groups have quickly adapted, and I haven't seen a fail since the 1st week after the change. I always thought it was silly to have the blades in there in the first place before when they were virtually no threat. Kinda glad that got changed.

[Galeria]

Honestly, I hated the new blade issues in the Shroud at first. Now, I think they add another obstacle but are not impossible.

I would probably vote to dial down the damage that they do on normal, but leave other difficulties alone. The extra chests IMO are worth the extra risk, but on norm it shouldn't be instakilling a level 17 player.

[Drwaz99]

Either make them much less lethal or not have the ability to hit 20 times in an instant. Both together is the true problem. On normal..Hard or elite, hope you have some TR HP if you accidentally get hit by a few. And the end rewards still just plain suck.

[zavozod]

Cut back damage 30% on norm/hard. Elite is fine. Throw a reflex save in there.

[pSINNa]

Pugging this one a lot of Ghallanda under the new regime, and in pug a set of tactics has emerged that see's these pugs complete 8/10 times (the few failures come when listening skills and party co-ordination are zilch).

I'm a fairly lazy raider, but i can live with change as it stands. I lead a shroud a few days ago that everyone agreed was the most relaxing they'd had since the change, it can still be a bit of a cruise with a little know how and co-ordination, and i don't really see that as a bad thing.

Of course, when it does fail i shake my fist at the sky! lol.

(i'm' more concerned with edq, with not a single completion in pug since it's change, and only one completion running with a raiding channel gig once since then - lfm's have dried up to almost nothing, and the drops remain extremely miserly on this one....)

Coit out~

[Stringer_Bell]

I rarely post on the forum but I would love to see it changed back. I am a fairly casual player with a family so I found it nice that I could log in and quickly join a shroud and go as there would be many shrouds posted. My guild is small so in order to run shroud I need to PUG. Nowadays, shroud runs are rarely (really rarely) posted and I miss running the shroud, as I think it is one of my favorite quests. It would be nice to see them posted again. The idea of switching the blades back on normal and keeping it for hard would likely make most happy.

Thanks for asking the community,
D

[BurnerD]

The only issue I still see is occasional game performance issues. In the past you could survive a little lag. Now it is much harder and sometimes just impossible. Kinda stinks when you get to part 4 and wipe because of party wide lag spikes.

I could see normal being toned down slightly maybe, but not much. Leave hard and elite alone.

I'm ok with the blades hitting as hard as they do. I am wondering if some changes to how they act would help. There are times will blades will sit on Harry at the beginning of the round and not move or disappear, making it difficult to melee him. This might not be intended.....

[RedDragonScale]

Honestly, I hated the new blade issues in the Shroud at first. Now, I think they add another obstacle but are not impossible.

I would probably vote to dial down the damage that they do on normal, but leave other difficulties alone. The extra chests IMO are worth the extra risk, but on norm it shouldn't be instakilling a level 17 player.

That was going to be my point.

At-level toons/parties are probably a little overwhelmed with how much damage the blades are doing in Part IV mostly.

I like how they spawn from when the bearded devils die but honestly, they do a little too much damage.

Just tone down a bit how much damage the blades do (in Normal difficulty only) so at-level parties will run Shroud and have a better chance to complete.

[Riggs]

The blades hit harder than other monsters in the same raid do.

Part 4 - people are more likely to wipe/die when the blades come in than from the pit fiend itself. People jump and scatter out of mass heals etc. I have not even done a hard or elite Shroud yet but people say the blade damage is really excessive.

The blades went from doing very little damage to a very large amount of damage - and they key here is damage that is;
Large AOE,
Unevadable,
No to hit roll is is needed to take damage,
No save of any kind to reduce damage,
DR does not stop the blades.

Either the damage should be cut to halfway in between what it was before and now, or else some way of a character being able to avoid the damage should be added.

Other than through twitch skills in a laggy game environment where it is a known issue that what you see on the screen and when you are hit with something happen at not quite the same time - there should be a way to have a save/tohit roll/dr reduce damage.

(Even jumping into lava has a way to mitigate damage from fire resists/reduction/absorption)

[FranOhmsford]

Dialing the damage down seems to be the consensus from what I''ve read here on the forums. There are some who want the blades gone completely and others who seem to think Shroud should be made even harder.

I'd go for the middle option of lessening the unavoidable damage in normal AND hard - Leave elite as is for those who have the mouse + keyboard / joypad skills to cope.

[Myznar]

yes!! those blades are annoying, i understand them on harder diffs, but in normal is easy to die, dying on normal is not fun :(. I think they will be ok on hard and elite

[Rawel_San]

Leave hard and elite alone. Either lower damage on normal or get rid of the following blades on normal. Either
would be good with the latter being my preference. Essentially insisting that a player be able
to self heal through 200+ dmg on normal due to following blades is stupid imo other then that it's all fine.

[MartinusWyllt]

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?

If you had a way to guarantee there won't be server-side lag-induced mass casualties then they're fine as they are. It is incredibly annoying to watch most of the raid group go from alive to dead within a 5-10 second stutter.

I still don't see nearly the same number of shrouds, nor am I back on the 2 toons per night schedule.

I vote for just reverting it since it is such a meat-and-potatoes raid whose gear has become as essential as "con is not a dump stat" especially since everyone's hp and sp are revealed. Some people like the tabasco added but I'm guessing most people do not.

[Missing_Minds]

When the shroud was released the designers also stated that they figured people would not complete the full raid. REMEMBER this fact. Players were told point blank it was ok not to finish.

The issue with the blades is that they allow for ZERO chance of not being hit which is frankly a #$@#$#@@$ in the world of DnD. (save when you tick off the DM) By PnP rules they should be rolling to hit us via our AC score.

Given the auto hitting and the fact that the it just an area check so client server issues exasperate this 5 fold.... The blades have always been, frankly, a really [frustrating] move by Turbine.

There are several ways to fix this.
1. keep the auto hitting but make it like a charge such that they can only strike once every second max.
2. Make it roll an AC check.

Heck, just thinking about it, given the fact they are constantly doing area checks, no wonder shroud lags like crazy at times. Eladrin stated that area checking his heavily expensive. Those things are roving area checks in a concentrated area.

I can appreciate the fact that the blades do more damage and are deadly. I have zero issues with this. Infact I'm in the group that applauds that. However, I have major issues with how they were designed as listed above.

[dopey69]

1, you should have normal the way it used to be loot and all

2, leave hard and elete the way they are now
ramped up blades and hitpopints with ramped up loot

[Calebro]

Do not revert to the way that it was.
The Shroud was boring, but necessary. It has become fun again.

With that said.... they're too unforgiving on Normal. Normal is the difficulty that newbies should be running. Newbies do not have the gear and/or experience to survive the blades as they are now. So you've created a situation where the targeted demographic for that particular difficulty is doomed to fail unless they have players from outside of that demographic there to carry them .
This is a poorly implemented mechanic, as it stands.

Leave the blades mechanically, but tone down the damage that they do on Normal.
And *only* on Normal. Anyone that wants to run anything harder should **** well know what they're getting themselves into.

[oradafu]

As others have said here and elsewhere, because of the nature of the blades, lag can cause players die instantly on normal. The two suggests I have for the blades are 1) tone that the damage on normal and add a reflex save or 2) tone down the number of hits per second and add a reflex save. Either way, add a reflex save. What's the reason for having a high reflex save or evasion if it doesn't work in situations like the blades?

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

For the betterment of the modern DDO gamer, I feel that normal difficulty should be dialed back to the way it was, or at least have the blade damage tuned way down. Hard and elite are fine.

I feel the way it is now, it leaves many newer players feeling that greensteel is just an impossibility to make now. Some longer time players feel no different.

Our guild was insistent on getting the duke, and we did in short order. However, we were beating Shroud regularly before "the fix". Many on the forums however are astute and will state Shroud is "fun/challenging again", and I must agree with that sentiment.

The problem I see is that not all guilds found it easy to beat a shroud before "the fix", and now many dont even bother trying. That's unfortunate.

Puggin shouldnt be the only way for those folks to complete a shroud, but thats reality now for many in newer or smaller guilds.

[Aelonwy]

As I said in the other Lets Talk thread, elite is the difficulty to challenge players till they cry uncle. On normal please lower the blade damage some, and/or add a reflex save. Do NOT remove the blades because they need to be there for players to gain the skills to avoid them should they wish to challenge themselves with higher difficulties.

[Yokido]

I agree that the end rewards should definitely be tucked to a list of interesting (but BTC) ingredients..
From shavarath goodies to larges or shards, or how about throwing in stacks of 25 greater crafting essences while we're tweaking it? I know you guys are working on the list, and this isn't me criticizing what it is now,
because what it is now is better than what it used to be, that can be said.

Here's a list of what the end reward list slots should be filled with in my opinion(not sure if I got the number right)
Shavarath goody or Vale goodyx2(no duplicates please)
Largesx2(no duplicates please)
Greater crafting essences stack(variable)x1
Renown(variable)x1
Shard(of variable size)x1
Eberron shards(any size)/Tome/Major sp pot/tiny xp(or slayer) potx1
-The list provides plenty of choices, none of which should be considered game breaking..
The rarer objects would obviously have to be rarer, an existence of them would be nice though.

Also, to provide you with a possible fix for the blades.
Hide a feat on everyone that allows them(much like the deflect arrows feat given to monks)
to make a save against blades every few seconds.. Damage is reduced, being swiped
by blades is less deadly(to ease things on squishies), but standing in them is the same amount of deadly.

[HGM-Chi]

The requirements for people to be somewhat competent in HP and playskill have gone up so fewer lvl 16-17's are running it though I don't know that this is all bad.

Whaaa? It's a level 17 quest. I would expect level 16 and 17s to be running it.

Anyhow, generally speaking I think the shroud be returned to the level of difficulty it was before the blades fix, and before the HP increases on hard/elite difficulties, but keep the increased rewards on hard/elite and the newest end rewards system.

Why? This allows newer players to acquire their greensteel more quickly than was previously available, and helps narrow the gap between newer players and long standing ones. Lets face it... the increase in difficulty on hard/elite has little impact on the people that are already well geared and knowledgeable, in tight guilds and well formed social networks... they'll be able to take advantage of the new chests and additional ingredients with little extra effort, which actually widens the gap between the new and the old.

[Calebro]

I'd also like to point out that an attack roll and/or a reflex save would be greatly appreciated on the blades.

[FranOhmsford]

When the shroud was released the designers also stated that they figured people would not complete the full raid. REMEMBER this fact. Players were told point blank it was ok not to finish.

The issue with the blades is that they allow for ZERO chance of not being hit which is frankly a #$@#$#@@$ in the world of DnD. (save when you tick off the DM) By PnP rules they should be rolling to hit us via our AC score.

Given the auto hitting and the fact that the it just an area check so client server issues exasperate this 5 fold.... The blades have always been, frankly, a really petulant jerk move by Turbine.

There are several ways to fix this.
1. keep the auto hitting but make it like a charge such that they can only strike once every second max.
2. Make it roll an AC check.

Heck, just thinking about it, given the fact they are constantly doing area checks, no wonder shroud lags like crazy at times. Eladrin stated that area checking his heavily expensive. Those things are roving area checks in a concentrated area.

I can appreciate the fact that the blades do more damage and are deadly. I have zero issues with this. Infact I'm in the group that applauds that. However, I have major issues with how they were designed as listed above.

As long as the Thac0... sorry to hit of the blades is within reach for people other than tanks / monk splashes I'd agree but we're probably better off giving the blades a reflex save with AC the way it is atm.

[KillEveryone]

The Shroud is still pug friendly.

Every one of my completions of Shroud is mostly pug, with maybe 2 guildies if they run when I'm doing them.

It takes a while for divines to make an appearance so it may take a little bit longer but it is still totally puggable.

People are also completing more often instead of doing the farm thing. There are still a few farming but not like they used to. This is why there had been somewhat of a reduction of Shroud LFMs. Really though, if someone want's to toss up a Shroud LFM when none are on, nothing is stopping them. They may need to be patient to get the group to fill but it will fill.

I'm quite happy with the blades. They should be painful. We should not just be able to stand inside the blades and just brute force heal through them. That was a total joke even at level.

Tactics on how to deal with them have now evolved and we adapted. It just took time.

[CaptainSpacePony]

I like it how it is now. Everyone wailed right after the change. Now many/most are/have adapted. Everyone talks about part 4, but I enjoy the blades now in part 3. They used to be a joke, but now they are a real factor! Huge improvement there.

It seems silly that we used to fight through the blades in part 4 and survive. If you feel compelled to nerf, please do so gently. If you have a lot of zots to blow, make the blades targetable so we can nuke them!

Oh, and extend the forums login session time! It's really annoying to have to relog in after I type my post only to learn I've timed out!

[Galeria]

However, while he was 'in there', the designer felt compelled to fix a longstanding bug with the blades.


BTW... what's his name?

And.. um... where does he live?

:D

[Hafeal]

It appears that we've taken what was a very pug friendly experience for pugs and changed it such that's it no longer - well - pug friendly.

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?

Yes.

I have no doubt, just from the fact that you posted this thread as a separate topic, that you know Shroud PUGs are down significantly. Aside from the dynamics of the quest, right or wrong, difficult or not, the ancillary benefits of how players interacted, were welcome to interact, and did interact, was the unwitting victim of this change.

The change to make Hard and Elite more difficult - with a corresponding increase in reward - was a good one. Players HAD asked for it. No one asked for the change to Normal. In addition, as my last Shroud run demonstrated, it is easier for one twit to have 'fun' start wacking devils without listening to the group and possibly causing a wipe (as they did in my last run). That is a bad outcome for DDO and the players. Further, for any player who wanted more challenge, you gave them the option - run Hard and Elite. Any player claiming they "like" the challenge of Normal now but don't run Hard and Elite is simply trolling. As you asked in your thread on game difficulty, Normal should be a completion for an at level PUG group, of first lifers, with little to no gear and average skill. Old shroud was PERFECT for this.

Not only did the change result in a significant reduction in Shroud runs, it really redcued players incentive to log into the game. In our guild, many players built their DDO schedule around Shroud runs and counted on logging in, picking up a Shroud. Now, they just don't log in nearly as often.

Truly, I am at a loss to understand why the change was made to fix "normal" Shroud when it wasn't nroken and was one of the most run, if not the most, quests in the game - something ALL caliber and style of players could enjoy together. :(

My worry now is this - even if you change it back, will the players return?

[bhgiant]

For me, now, the Shroud is not that hard. After getting used to it, I can pug it regularly without fail. However, I am level 20 with multiple GS items and even an epic. So I really should be running Shroud at Hard or Elite. I don't. Why? Because the risk of failure is too high. To get that far and not complete is too much of a drain on my time, even if I do get another chest.

Normal difficult is NOT ok the way it is right now. Multiple threads have discussed this so I will summarize. The Shroud is a level 17 raid. New players should be able to run it as a group at 17 and still have a chance of completing it on their FIRST LIFE. As it is right now, they would wipe, hands down. The blade damage is just too high. It should be difficult at 17 (it IS a raid) but it shouldn't be impossible which I feel it is at level. The blades should do less damage on normal, and scale with difficulty. Also, I don't mind the blades hitting higher damage, but the blade mechanic hitting 5x a second seems odd to me. I think this should be "unifxed" imo, even at higher difficulty settings.

As far as the loot goes. Thank you for giving us a better selection at the end reward. Thank you for giving us extra chests at higher difficulties. These were needed changes that give greater rewards for greater effort and make the grind more enjoyable.

Thank you for making the Shroud more original as well. Really like the devils spawning blades and that Harry reigns fire down on us after round 1 etc. More minor flavor changes like this are what we want and call for when we say "The Shroud is boring..."

[Captain_Wizbang]

Adapt, Improvise & Overcome.

Tough call. As we have adapted to the changes, I'd rather Have Harry get a face lift & get to the gym (not insane hp or saves) just a little extra casting is all, and trash the blade changes.

[dejafu]

As I said in the other Lets Talk thread, elite is the difficulty to challenge players till they cry uncle. On normal please lower the blade damage some, and/or add a reflex save. Do NOT remove the blades because they need to be there for players to gain the skills to avoid them should they wish to challenge themselves with higher difficulties.

Definite agreement on this. The problem with the blades isn't the damage, it's the fact that the damage can't be avoided in any way other than going around them. Give us a reflex save for half damage, and let evasion work on them.

Also, any way at all they can be coded in such a way that we can safely jump over them?

[HGM-Chi]

Do not revert to the way that it was.
The Shroud was boring, but necessary. It has become fun again.

With that said.... they're too unforgiving on Normal. Normal is the difficulty that newbies should be running. Newbies do not have the gear and/or experience to survive the blades as they are now. So you've created a situation where the targeted demographic for that particular difficulty is doomed to fail unless they have players from outside of that demographic there to carry them .
This is a poorly implemented mechanic, as it stands.

Leave the blades mechanically, but tone down the damage that they do on Normal.
And *only* on Normal. Anyone that wants to run anything harder should **** well know what they're getting themselves into.

My argument for leaving it as was on all difficulties but with the increased loot returns is that the shroud really isn't supposed to be fun for players like you and me anymore. We should be playing the shiny new super hard content, and the only reason we're running shrouds is to reslot an item we've replaced with an Epic item, or kit out a new character we're leveling. Leaving the difficulty alone but increasing loot means you spend less time in there at all... you pug out elites get faster returns and get back to the fun content. It also means first character first lifers and casual gamers can acquire greensteel quicker by learning (and enjoying) the shroud as is with better returns. It helps them catch up, essentially, getting more people to the newer end game, which provides impetus to the devs to continue focusing on new more challenging end game content.

[grayham]

The change was good. My own opinion is that some very strongly worded threads post-changes were knee jerk, and groups have now adapted to the changes.

Change can be good.

[blkcat1028]

This thread assumes you are familiar with the Shroud and are aware of how it played before and after recent changes.

Designers had noticed that more often than not, players weren't completing all phases of the Shroud and in the spirit of 'making things better', it was decided that more incentive was called for. Loot changes were made. However, while he was 'in there', the designer felt compelled to fix a longstanding bug with the blades.

Controvery ensued.

It appears that we've taken what was a very pug friendly experience for pugs and changed it such that's it no longer - well - pug friendly.

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?

Please NO!!! The Shroud was one of the most boring runs in the game. It was truly a snooze fest. The Blades make it fun again.

The only change I would make to them would be to add a reflex save (a high one so it's not an insta-save) and make evasion work against them. That would encourage more diversity in party make up.

[bhgiant]

...The change to make Hard and Elite more difficult - with a corresponding increase in reward - was a good one...

...Any player claiming they "like" the challenge of Normal now but don't run Hard and Elite is simply trolling....

...Truly, I am at a loss to understand why the change was made to fix "normal" Shroud when it wasn't broken...
+1 to you sir. Echo my sentiments exactly.

[Vengeance777]

Elite is great please don't change the blades on it. Its a fun challenging raid again where people can't go afk with autoattack on.

A lot of wipes seem to be coming from lag hitting and being unable to dodge the blades, so I'd focus on fixing the lag over the blades damage. Most of the lag wipes seem to be caused by lag hitting as the blades close in and players being unable to move. When they can move they suddenly take a ton of ticks of blade damage and die. Not sure if its DPS causing the lag or calculations for blades hitting or what, but the lag seems to be like the preupdate 5 dps lag.

[Hafeal]

+1; an excellent observation and one that has been understated in conversations about the new Shroud.


My argument for leaving it as was on all difficulties but with the increased loot returns is that the shroud really isn't supposed to be fun for players like you and me anymore. We should be playing the shiny new super hard content, and the only reason we're running shrouds is to reslot an item we've replaced with an Epic item, or kit out a new character we're leveling. Leaving the difficulty alone but increasing loot means you spend less time in there at all... you pug out elites get faster returns and get back to the fun content. It also means first character first lifers and casual gamers can acquire greensteel quicker by learning (and enjoying) the shroud as is with better returns. It helps them catch up, essentially, getting more people to the newer end game, which provides impetus to the devs to continue focusing on new more challenging end game content.

[Nataichal]

How's this for a solution:

Shift the difficulty down one tier.

Thus, old school normal blade damage Becomes Normal blade damage.

Current normal blades damage becomes Hard Blade Damage.

Current hard damage becomes elite blade damage.

[Lifespawn]

revert normal or make blades not follow as in blades spawn and go in 1 direction till dispersing

[sirgog]

My personal suggestion:

Leave blade damage exactly as-is BUT consider removing heat-seeking blades from Normal altogether. Dealing with those blades requires more complex tactics than 'avoid the obvious trap that moves in a clearly predictable pattern', and IMO this isn't called for in a Normal difficulty raid. (Hard/Elite kid gloves are off, you should go out of your way to code Hard and Elite to kill us).

The blades change (and the U11 20% HP buff to Normal Harry) combine to make the fight generally last 2 rounds, which means players actually see the gnolls. The gnolls are, IMO, a major strategic part of the encounter that makes part 4 different to every other fight in the game.

I highly support the reward changes to dissuade 1-4 farming. It's bugged me that if a veteran and a newbie group together in Shroud and the newbie recalls before the altar is hit, they put in the same effort as the vet but get ~70% less XP and ~65% less large ingredients than the vet does.

One change I'd consider is tweaking Harry's stats to make melees a little more effective in part 4 (as they now can safely attack for what, 55 seconds per round while casters can DPS him for ~80 seconds). Specifically, I'd drop his hit points a smidgen, but give Harry 25% elemental absorption to Cold, Acid and Light. Particularly on Elite, the raid is presently a lot easier to beat if you do not invite any melees at all.


Edit: Oh and Harry really should learn Black Dragon Bolt on Elite, so that he can do something a little different. DBFs and Meteor Swarms are doing the same damage on each difficulty, and while they slaughter newbies left right and centre, they just don't do very much to players with Fire Absorb 33% and decent saves.



One final alternative suggestion. You could consider adding an Epic difficulty to the raid.
The new Normal would have the live version of Normal Harry, with weaker blades (think 15+2d8 damage, getting hit by that 5 times hurts but anyone can survive it)
New Hard would take the blades from live Normal, with the versions of Arraetrikos from live Hard
New Elite - blades from current Hard, versions of Arraetrikos from current Elite
and Epic would take the blades from current Elite, and add the already-in-game Epic Arraetrikos after 'modernizing' his stats a little. Think of part 4 with 420k HP, 80% Fort, 130 average melee damage, 70 AC, Chain Lightning, Meteor Swarm, Horrid Wilting, Black Dragon Bolt, Divine Punishment, and maybe part 5 having 550k HP and 140 average melee damage.

An Epic version of Shroud could just have a 'good stuff' chest like Epic Devil Assault has, with no shards/seals/scrolls/exquisite greensteel items, but some subset of +4 tomes, cleansers, time-limited +8 red and blue augments, Silver/Good timed red augments, Adamantine/Good timed red augments, +7 and good timed red augments, metal-threaded handwraps and 'blank' unbound Large Guild Slot items that come pre-loaded with 'Craftable +15'.

[die]

I vote leave the blades as they are, 20's running a lv 17 raid dont need it any easyer, even with one or two noob's

and this wont be very popular, but make harry fly around and jack people up not just stand there in one spot and take a beating .. maybe grab a barb by the throat and fly into the air and bite he's arm off .. that would be diffrent..:) you get my point :)

[grodon9999]

The blades do too much damage, cut the damage in half on all difficulties and it's fine.

Unless of course you intend for Elite Shroud to be harder than Elite ToD.

[bbqzor]

Same format as I've used in the previous threads.


This thread assumes you are familiar with the Shroud and are aware of how it played before and after recent changes.
I am... over 500 completions total, with plenty since the change.


Designers had noticed that more often than not, players weren't completing all phases of the Shroud and in the spirit of 'making things better', it was decided that more incentive was called for. Loot changes were made.
And, with the recent tuning to end reward lists, I think this was a very well done and much needed change. There are now reasons to do higher difficulties, and the event is weighted more towards ingredients and less toward vendor loot (as much as it can be, really). Also, it continues to benefit people not recalling out, which is, and always has been, a rather foolish way to do things (although I understand why people with only one lv20 guy might choose to do so) and something I think is good for the game to move away from where it can.


However, while he was 'in there', the designer felt compelled to fix a longstanding bug with the blades.
Before I move on, let me point out something. Multiple times before, long standing "bugs" have been suddenly "fixed", kind of out of nowhere. At some point, when the game works a certain way for literally years (what, 3.5 in this case?), people kind of assume thats how it is. At some point, consider leaving things alone kind of like 'if it isn't broken don't fix it'. Now, this specific change isnt all bad, so I'm not trying to say this is one of those things. Only that it could easily have been one, and I hope that kind of consideration comes up more frequently than it does in the future when 'adjusting/fixing' things which have essentially become status quo.


Controversy ensued. It appears that we've taken what was a very pug friendly experience for pugs and changed it such that's it no longer - well - pug friendly.
Its still pretty pug friendly... what its not is new player friendly. Its still a safe bet to hit any old lfm and likely get a 25-40 min completion, while any guild/friends/etc run can easily do 15-25 (obviously those trying for speed can do better). But if you're new, and lack gear (specifically a good max hp total) this raid suddenly became pretty brutal.


I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?
Overall some adjustments should be made, in my opinion. Not a total reversion, but some tuning. It'd be nice to see new players be able to learn how the event works on Normal, so that eventually they can feel comfortable doing the other difficulties without being surprise killed, or accidentally wiping the party. However, making it a bit more forgiving for people learning, or people not running top hardware, etc would go a long ways to making it more 'pug friendly' in your words.

On Normal, in part 3 the blades could do a bit less damage so people who lag (and some folks do) aren't immediately killed. On Normal, in part 4, the green devil spawned blades should perhaps move slower. Realize that this is essentially a unique mechanic, nowhere else in the game does a mob hurt you for killing it. Here it does that, and does so quickly. Tuning down the damage some (as in part 3) and slowing the blades down (so that you can safely run away even without striders, or if lagging) would both make it less punitive to folks who may be a bit green and react slower, or folks who are lagging and don't realize they're in a blade right away, or folks in groups suffering heal lag where it may take a second to get topped off. Right now, those are all things which have become punitive, that previously weren't, and which shouldn't really make or break a Normal level run. On Normal, in part 4 when the circle blades come in, and again if they show up in part 5, Id also like to see slightly less damage so people clipped from lag jumping out, or with heals lagging slightly, people aren't torn up so bad.

Basically, consider blanket lowering the dmg per 'hit' on the blades in parts 3/4/5 and consider slowing down the move speed of the devil kill ones in part 4 for Normal difficulty. This is aimed at making it more learning friendly, more accommodating towards different system specs, and more forgiving of lag. All things which shouldn't really be potentially preventing completions on a regular basis for the general population.

On Hard/Elite, consider leaving things how they are. People going in on hard should know what to expect, and at least have enough gear to withstand the raid they're in, if not other endgame events. For Elite, they should be pretty ready for other end game events. With people knowing the event and bringing the right tools, it really is pretty manageable.

On Casual, should casual raids ever be implemented as suggested by some in the previous thread, that is a scenario where reverting the changes totally would probably be well received. Anyone there for the story, and to learn the event for the first time, almost assuredly does not have gear, nor the desire to die some learning event scripts. They probably want to go in on their first characters first life and feel like they have a reasonable chance to win and see what the dungeon looks like and how the story plays out, and to do that they probably shouldn't get hit in the face with unique and 'sudden death' like mechanics.

Thanks for the opportunity to post my 2 cents, I hope it is helpful. Cheers.

[Calebro]

20's running a lv 17 raid dont need it any easyer, even with one or two noob's

The problem with that line of reasoning is that the level ranges that the raid was designed for are now left behind.
It's like the 500 point Disintegrate in Reaver, which no level 14 character can survive.
Running these raids at level should be a challenge for a newbie. It's shouldn't spell certain doom for that newbie.
That's what higher difficulties are for.

[Kushiel]

I have never run it. Only a couple of my lives have I even been flagged to go in, because I find various aspects of those flagging quests completely unfun.

If that series is meant to provide key gear in the form of Greensteel items that then make taking on certain Raid content or the newer/harder House C content (or standing a chance at enjoying Epic and accumulating Epic items), then the mechanics and the monsters of the quest would be best served by making the content accessible to *more* players.

[BladeTricks]

New Shroud is still very PUG friendly. Not failed a normal run yet, and my toons are from uber.

With that said, I would tone down the blade damage a little bit. Reason being: they are now a bigger threat than Harry itself, which is in and of itself ridiculous. Don't put them back to pre-update damage level though, they made things a little bit more interesting.

[MartinusWyllt]

..
It's like the 500 point Disintegrate in Reaver, which no level 14 character can survive...

Another raid where a longstanding bug fix...air elementals...knocks the whole experience up another level.

[FrancisP.Fancypants]

I'll echo this: The Shroud is getting back to PUG friendly, provided that a few of the players have a clue. Lag is the bigger issue- it happens; it's not just a phantom excuse, and it doesn't care how experienced or prepared you are. Suddenly you're down a healer and half your DPS.

Toning down the damage would be fine, even in hard and elite. I don't think anyone would cry over that.

*As an aside, I have trouble seeing the blade paths under normal circumstances. I can usually avoid them but I still have trouble figuring out when they've paused for a second, and I think it has to do with not being able to judge the depth of the blades to the environment. I haven't heard this from anyone else though, so it could be just me.

[QuantumFX]

When the shroud was released the designers also stated that they figured people would not complete the full raid. REMEMBER this fact. Players were told point blank it was ok not to finish.

The issue with the blades is that they allow for ZERO chance of not being hit which is frankly a #$@#$#@@$ in the world of DnD. (save when you tick off the DM) By PnP rules they should be rolling to hit us via our AC score.

Given the auto hitting and the fact that the it just an area check so client server issues exasperate this 5 fold.... The blades have always been, frankly, a really petulant jerk move by Turbine.

There are several ways to fix this.
1. keep the auto hitting but make it like a charge such that they can only strike once every second max.
2. Make it roll an AC check.

Heck, just thinking about it, given the fact they are constantly doing area checks, no wonder shroud lags like crazy at times. Eladrin stated that area checking his heavily expensive. Those things are roving area checks in a concentrated area.

I can appreciate the fact that the blades do more damage and are deadly. I have zero issues with this. Infact I'm in the group that applauds that. However, I have major issues with how they were designed as listed above.

This. And Mad, FYI, the problems with the blades cause the exact same problem with Air Elementals.

[Mellkor]

I think it should be changed back to what it was on normal difficulty. Hard and Elite are just fine. If it is for no other reason other than to encourage casual pugs again, then do it!

[blkcat1028]

Most level 20s don't run the Shroud for a challenge or fun. They run it for easy green steel ingredients. That's why there's been such an uproar over increasing the blade damage. It's no longer worthwhile to ransack parts 1-4.

It's a level 17 raid on normal and therefore a party of level 17 first lifers should be able to complete it. (and they still can)

The two options that I see are as follows;

1. Revert the raid back to the snooze fest that it was but remove the chance of large ingredients at the end of part 4. Add another chest with a 50% chance of larges upon completion. Leave the end reward as is.

2. Make the blade damage scale based on the CR of the party. If it's possible have the scaling take TRs into consideration as well.

[Calebro]

Another raid where a longstanding bug fix...air elementals...knocks the whole experience up another level.

Yes, but that bug appeared when Gust of Wind didn't exist.
Air Elles ridiculous knockbacks made that raid fun. When they stopped knocking us around it became boring.
Gust of wind introduced a mechanic that allowed the Air Elles a way to remove persistant AoE that we'd laid out, which added a bit more challenge once again.
Now that the bug has been fixed, the combination of No-AoEs-Allowed and constant knockbacks just make that raid annoying.
And that's not even commenting on the instakill nature of a 500 pt Disintegrate on a level 14 toon.
But that's another topic for another thread.

[toaf]

the blades are abit nasty on normal.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I think the easiest fix is to adjust the blade damage, down. Mostly on normal.


But... what I would really like is for the blades to work differently.

They should need attack rolls. Or Ref saves (evasion :D )
DR should work against them.

Maybe they should be destroyable.

Anyway, yes. the current blade damage has made the Shroud very un-PUG friendly.
And as much as I enjoy trying to solo Harry in part 4 :p I do think that other players are being hurt by the current blade damage.

[karl_k0ch]

Before the changes, I pugged shrouds on a casual basis. Now, I'm too scared to run into a wipe at part4, and consequently run this on a more sparse schedule, often only with people I know.

Also, I've stopped to lead shroud completely on a pug 2 healers + 9 other guys, first come first served basis.

I think the blades need to be toned down on normal at least, and at least allow a reflex save to mitigate damage across all difficulties. The reward to run the more challenging parts is already there.


Yes, I am a chicken.

[dunklezhan]

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?


Its' still pug friendly, but there's a lot less of them than there used to be. Please don't *revert* the changes. But if you could tone down the damage output on normal only a little so totally random death isn't quite so unavoidable, that would be awesome.

[die]

The problem with that line of reasoning is that the level ranges that the raid was designed for are now left behind.
It's like the 500 point Disintegrate in Reaver, which no level 14 character can survive.
Running these raids at level should be a challenge for a newbie. It's shouldn't spell certain doom for that newbie.
That's what higher difficulties are for.

all im saying is , all i see is lv 18- 20 norm shroud runs yes there are a few hards very rare elites that i see..(must allbe in private channels)..

so it says lv 17 raid?.. is it still a lv 17 maybe not, so lets up it too a lv 19 raid.

shut man i dont know it still seems pretty easy too me the only problem i see are 250-350 hp toons and yes i see that alot getting hit by the blades and dieing and in all fareness i did die on my 450 hp bard when a bunch of blades were kited in to the middle . wish i had all the awnsers, my opinion is it dont need changed.If any thing raise the lv of the quest know one rarely goes in ther under 18 any more any how

[sirgog]

The problem with that line of reasoning is that the level ranges that the raid was designed for are now left behind.
It's like the 500 point Disintegrate in Reaver, which no level 14 character can survive.
Running these raids at level should be a challenge for a newbie. It's shouldn't spell certain doom for that newbie.
That's what higher difficulties are for.

They survive it by making a Fortitude save, or (with skill) moving out of the way.
Should they fail, it's not game over. Someone else takes over tanking, and the raid continues.
The Reaver seldom casts the spell. Last time I tanked it at-level, it was cast on me three times - two dodged, one hit but I made my save.

I do think the Disintegrate should be replaced by Black Dragon Bolt, however. BDB is more average damage by far (and serves the goal of the Reaver's casting, which is to harm high AC players and kiting players), but does give you one last chance to be saved by intense healing.

[Zephea]

Yes please revert on normal.

But the danger value is great fun on elite so please don't change it there.

Hard, idk.

[Natashaelle]

My feeling is they weren't doing enough damage before, and now they're doing too much.

The most negative aspect is that this increased damage has in one stroke increased the minimum amount of hit points that you need to be an endgame toon.

This therefore mechanically reduces the number of builds that are viable in the endgame.

Which is not a good thing, IMHO.

[Thrudh]

This thread assumes you are familiar with the Shroud and are aware of how it played before and after recent changes.

Designers had noticed that more often than not, players weren't completing all phases of the Shroud and in the spirit of 'making things better', it was decided that more incentive was called for. Loot changes were made. However, while he was 'in there', the designer felt compelled to fix a longstanding bug with the blades.

Controvery ensued.

It appears that we've taken what was a very pug friendly experience for pugs and changed it such that's it no longer - well - pug friendly.

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?

The Shroud is the best raid in DDO.

You guys have a resounding success with this raid, and here's why...


Almost everything is tradeable (i.e. not bound)
You're always making progress towards your goal (unlike some quests where you can complete 100 times and with bad luck be 0% closer to your goal)
You're rewarded more for hard and elite
But you don't HAVE to play hard or elite to get the best stuff (like LoB). Hard or elite just makes it faster. But you can get all the gear doing nothing but normal.
There's good loot, and experience even if you fail.
And it's fun.


I think the Shroud is just about perfect. You could slightly lower the damage the blades do, especially on normal, but nothing else needs to be changed.

Seriously... The Shroud is pure awesome. Kudos to you guys.

[Infant]

Keep it as it is now. I find normal Shroud PUGs are fun.

Infant

[Hellllboy]

This thread assumes you are familiar with the Shroud and are aware of how it played before and after recent changes.

Designers had noticed that more often than not, players weren't completing all phases of the Shroud and in the spirit of 'making things better', it was decided that more incentive was called for. Loot changes were made. However, while he was 'in there', the designer felt compelled to fix a longstanding bug with the blades.

Controvery ensued.

It appears that we've taken what was a very pug friendly experience for pugs and changed it such that's it no longer - well - pug friendly.

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?

I am all for making this raid more challenging on Hard and Elite difficulty-however, the challange you have asigned to the Normal difficulty is not very fun for the casual player.

My suggestion is to tone down the "Normal" version. :)

[blkcat1028]

The Shroud is the best raid in DDO.

You guys have a resounding success with this raid, and here's why...


Almost everything is tradeable (i.e. not bound)
You're always making progress towards your goal (unlike some quests where you can complete 100 times and with bad luck be 0% closer to your goal)
You're rewarded more for hard and elite
But you don't HAVE to play hard or elite to get the best stuff (like LoB). Hard or elite just makes it faster. But you can get all the gear doing nothing but normal.
There's good loot, and experience even if you fail.
And it's fun.


I think the Shroud is just about perfect. You could slightly lower the damage the blades do, especially on normal, but nothing else needs to be changed.

Seriously... The Shroud is pure awesome. Kudos to you guys.

Nicely said. +1

[Missing_Minds]

I'm going to make another comment now. Just something I've been wondering.

With the gear released sense Shroud was released, is the need to run the raid 20+ times reasonable?

When most raids are "run x to get the gear drop" vs. "Run 20+ times to get the grocery list to drop".
Now add in "Oh, I've got it already, I'll put it up for roll" vs. "I could use more of those ingredients"

I frankly don't think putting ingredients in the end rewards cuts it anymore. It was a cute idea but I didn't like it much. Too much of trying to dangle a carrot in front of the player, but the person doing the dangling is standing right in front of the player also.

Putting in fully formed essences, gems, and focus would be better. And maybe even 3 inferor makes a standard, 3 standards make a superior version of them trade/turn in also.

I don't know, random thinking.

[voodoogroves]

Reduce the blade damage on normal; up the mob damage espescially from the named in 3 & 5.


It isn't horrible, but it's gratuitous.

Otherwise, the mechanic here is much better than in other places where partial progress isn't a total waste - you still get something. Other raids even succeeding you only get a small random change to pull that named item ... that's kinda like a fail but with some XP and plat (and for generally caped toons, it's pretty much just plat)

[Shade]

The damage ramp up was well, warranted really.

Calling it a bugfix really gets me though..

Because what makes the blades challenging and annoying IS definetely a bug.

They can hit you up to 20 times in 1 second if you move along with them and have a certain runspeed.. With the natural instrict being to run away from them, for character with just the right movement speed, they just die.. 1000+ dmg in 1 second on elite, its pretty dumb. Or around 500+ on normal even..

Tweak them so they have a 0.5-1s cooldown on how often they can hit you, and hell even up the elite damage a bit.. then it would be fun. The massive spike 1000+ dmg your cant even react to isnt much fun.

It's just not fun to suddenly die in 300 millliseconds when your sitting at 1000 hp and 4 very fast healers are looking right at you cuz of bugs.. Fix that and it will be good again.

[Maxallu]

I'm going to make another comment now. Just something I've been wondering.

With the gear released sense Shroud was released, is the need to run the raid 20+ times reasonable?

When most raids are "run x to get the gear drop" vs. "Run 20+ times to get the grocery list to drop".
Now add in "Oh, I've got it already, I'll put it up for roll" vs. "I could use more of those ingredients"

I frankly don't think putting ingredients in the end rewards cuts it anymore. It was a cute idea but I didn't like it much. Too much of trying to dangle a carrot in front of the player, but the person doing the dangling is standing right in front of the player also.

Putting in fully formed essences, gems, and focus would be better. And maybe even 3 inferor makes a standard, 3 standards make a superior version of them trade/turn in also.

I don't know, random thinking.

I really like that idea, but make them rare. How cool would it be to pull an imbued shard? I love that idea actually.

[paraplegic]

to say the truth i have played few pugs on the shroud (since update), and from those i found everyone too bravery and many were "taking the hit" (i live to fight another day) . needless to say on those groups the fail was 100%.

however let me say something the blades there make o sense why? well a DM that justr trow some damage is a bad DM at least give players some save or AC check.


yep its fun, but the larger portion of the players dont get into the forums, those newbies just log in 1 hour a day top enter shroud fail and rage quite.


Devs you have changed the shroud to make a challenge to "the ubers" well i think its easier to just make a really hard raid insted of make a level 17 raid harder than a 20 level raid.

[BananaHat]

My suggestion would be to make the blades less prone to lag deaths.

Since you now have tech to allow stacking debuffs, have the shrouds apply a stacking DoT and maybe a healing amp debuff (to represent the cursed blades).

Have it allow up to 10 stacks, last 10 seconds, tick every 2 seconds for 4d10 damage per stack (around 20 damage per stack per tick; getting a new stack resets the time), and each stack gives a 10% healing amp penalty (for everything, positive/negative/repair). Make it multiplicative, so that at a full 10 stacks, you are immune to all healing, so essentially it is a death sentence (~200 dmg/tick over 5 ticks). Now hopefully people can avoid getting a full 10 stacks, that is part of the difficulty, but when you lag or accidentally run with the blades and get dinged 8 times quickly, it doesn't kill you instantly, it just makes a dire situation. Obviously, the healing amp penalty means you keep the awareness of not allowing blades to get to the center.

That arena is a large area and sometimes people spread out to avoid the new blades. Our divines in the last run were complaining of everyone running out of range of healing. What a new DoT would allow is the chance to run screaming to the healer if you get lagged and get a large amount of stacks. Each hit effectively does 100 damage, it just gives you more time to deal with the incoming damage. Still dangerous but less twitchy and less prone to lag, which is a good thing.

Maybe allow remove curse to remove the stacks, but only with a caster level check. Have curse pots be 1 CL shy of clearing them, so it has to be an actual effort to remove a large stack (or have it scale by difficulty so that curse pots work 50% of the time on norm/25% hard/0% elite).

You could have hard/elite apply either a stronger DoT (6d10/8d10) or more stacks per hit, either 2 and 3 respectively or something like 1d2/1d3 stacks per hit if that is even possible. The stacks could just last longer on higher difficulties, giving the blades more time to add to and reset the stack timer.

Obviously, all numbers would be subject to scaling based on play testing. A longer DoT, more or less stacks, etc. might be more desirable.

[Bladedge]

Add a reflex save and adjust damage of blades by -25% on all difficulties.

Give Arraetrikos the ability to toss players in the air on parts 4 and 5.

Have part 2 chest drop small shards.

[ericrd]

pre change it took 5 pugs untill i finally got in 1 that didnt wipe, post change is even worse ,an at norm shroud is lvl 17,make it for first life soso gear lvl 17s, with little experiuence in it . the people who were dominating shroud were experienced shrouders. those exp shrouders will run hard and elite if you give them better loot and leave norm alone for the less experienced . expecially if you give loot penaltys for 20s running normal shrouds. decreasing ings for over lvl runs is something thats done to random loot tables anyway. the experienced over geared players were the ones making a joke out of it. not us no gs no raid experienced players (lvl16thru18) it was hard for us at norm prechange.

[nomaddog]

Since the update, our guild has run only 1 normal shroud and that was the first one. Since then, we've run hard shrouds exclusively. I am of the opinion that we might want to ramp down the damage on normal and maybe include a reflex save (very high one).

Leave hard/elite alone. It presents enough of a challenge for geared higher level toons. Just my 2 cents.

[Angelus_dead]

Designers had noticed that more often than not, players weren't completing all phases of the Shroud and in the spirit of 'making things better', it was decided that more incentive was called for. Loot changes were made. However, while he was 'in there', the designer felt compelled to fix a longstanding bug with the blades.
There are two real problems with the new Shroud blades:
1. It feels weird if the Pit Fiend boss is less damaging than environmental effects shuffling around his room. At minimum, if the blades are the most dangerous part, they should've been presented more prominently.

2. The shroud blades are animated differently from DDO's regular monsters and spells, so their movement and intersection-detection is worse than most movement, which makes avoiding them non-fun. For comparison, the blade discs in the Laliat raid don't have that problem.


It appears that we've taken what was a very pug friendly experience for pugs and changed it such that's it no longer - well - pug friendly.
The unfriendliness of the new blades is pretty much independent of you being in a PUG or not.

[twiliteslayer02]

Now as always, give a reflex/dodge save, and make the blades attackable, or at the very least aggro -able in a dependable way, it seems to me that if its hard enough to hurt you you should be able to at least hit it to disrupt its damaging ability, to fight back in essense.

also the damage amounts are ludicrous, if my blade barriers cant do it the **** unguided blades definately shouldnt. nuff said.

[Dragavon]

Hard/elite is fine as it is now. Added risk, added rewards.

Blade damage should be toned down on normal tho :)

[Tolastun]

i love the changes, but hate the lag, the lag causes more Blade deaths then anything from what i have seen. anytime you lag and the blades are near, you are dead because when the lag spike ends, all te hits from the blades happen without you being able to move

[BruceTheHoon]

Of all the changes to the shroud, blades had, without a doubt, the most negative impact on PUGs.
I like the blades, but I can clearly see how they can still indirectly bring frustrations for the whole group, again and again. I see three problems with them:

1) Damage is unavoidable. A rule of thumb with characters is, No evasion - must have higher HP, evasion - may have lower HP. Making the blade damage ignore evasion transforms everyone into bags of HP. It therefore impacts characters built with evasion in mind disproportionately to all others. My suggestion here would be, that blades should be made some percent avoidable. Halving the damage might be too much - the idea is, that the blades should still be certain death to stand in, but their relative DPS should be the same across the character spectrum.
This would also allow for more classes to participate at lower levels (the normal raid is still listed as CR17), since it's would not be the amount of HP, but how you use it :)

2) They affect melee characters far more than others. You might take this as a personal irritation, but comparing melee to arcanes, the choice really isn't between danger exposure + higher DPS, or comparably safer environment + lower DPS anymore.
Melees don't have the luxury of avoiding the blades while beating on Arraetrikos. I don't really have a solution for this one. Not without some additional radical changes to the quest. This is also coupled with the third issue.

3) Blades follow characters the devil had aggro on. I have a dilemma here. On one hand, this makes the blades controllable. On the other hand, it is the most frustrating part, when one or two players can unwittingly single-handedly fail a quest. Kill last devils, then run into the clerics' aura or into the melees, gathered around Arraetrikos. If the blades were to move randomly, it would rectify this (still present) source of frustration and make the arcanes dance a little at the same time. The good ones do it already, since they are the ones to kill the last wave of devils.

Of the three issues, it's only the first one I'd really like to see fixed.

[Aliss7]

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?

No. Please do not "revert the changes to the blade section". I'm not opposed to you tweaking the blades in some fashion I guess, but if you revert them wholesale you just bring back the original problem that you were seeing people purposefully not completing.

Anyway, fwiw, this was my suggestion after the shroud changes:


Two suggestions:

1. Make the blades slightly more noticeable. Maybe add some color to them... it might just be me, but the blades seem to blend into the background (or maybe that's the point?).

2. Place penalty death boxes above, like box seats at a stadium. The main reason here is then people can see and learn what's happening from above. (don't make it like reaver's, where a. your stone is too far away from the window and b. you don't have a clear view of what's happening below).

[Aashrym]

I'm fine with the blades remaining in and not reverting back. I would like to see either an attack roll or a reflex save for half in there that makes sense for each difficulty level.

[Bladedge]

Fix or remove the Collectable sidequests.

[justagame]

First of all, thanks for starting this thread, it's good to know that you're inviting this feedback.

My 2 cp on this:

1. Anything that promotes shroud completion is, IMO, a good thing. However, getting smalls/mediums in the end reward isn't going to help at all, you can get those by farming. A better chance of larges / more valuable items would help.

2. On the blades -- I like the idea of making part 4 more challenging/interesting. However, as is the case sometimes, I think the changes were a little overboard. Guild runs and experienced players do just fine with the new shroud; however, a pug group of level 20's can go in, and it only takes one person to ruin the raid now. The concept is great, just tone down the blade damage a *little bit* on normal, or provide some change to avoid/reduce damage (DR, AC, evasion/save, etc.)

By the way, this goes for all raids and high end content -- if completing on normal means you either need a group of uber-outfitted veterans, or else a cleric willing to go through a tons of resources, you will see a dearth of pugs. Established guilds and elite players will be just fine, and won't see a problem. However, it is primarily through the pug experience that new players BECOME those more experienced, more knowledgeable players. And if you hamper the pug environment, even unintentionally, it cuts down that ladder for a great many players.

I know this sounds like a dead horse, but the biggest thing hurting me in shroud and other high end content right now is lag. I've reinstalled, defragged, turned off dx10 and just about every graphics option, and am running on a fairly new computer, and the lag is just unplayable at times.

Thanks for the opportunity for feedback!

[Combat_Wombat]

2. The shroud blades are animated differently from DDO's regular monsters and spells, so their movement and intersection-detection is worse than most movement, which makes avoiding them non-fun. For comparison, the blade discs in the Laliat raid don't have that problem.

This the blade damage is fine but they proc to often and its hard to tell when you are going to get hit. Keep the damage the same, add a reflex save as it should be and make them more like laliats blades. Poof you have a shroud that everyone can enjoy with blades that still hurt but don't smack you with 15 hits a second and insta kill you. Also increasing mini-boss damage for parts 2 and 5 isn't a bad idea snooze fest for the healers currently.

Seeking blades are great please please don't remove them it keeps people from just auto-attacking and going to sleep.

[Missing_Minds]

I really like that idea, but make them rare. How cool would it be to pull an imbued shard? I love that idea actually.

Not a shard, but one of the three crafted pieces to imbue a shard with. Shards are bound to character, but the crafted ingredients are not.

[Taskmage]

a) the blades:

First point, to all those "leave it as it is it is finally fun now"-sayers - how long will it be fun? 10 times? 50 times?
It might (for some) be fun now because it is different..."almost" new...but i will be the same old "i have to run another shroud"-routine soon.

That said, and leaving aside the tapestry-green-slime-aspect (* see below), the changes, at least for me, made it not more fun - they made it a "i hope no one screws this part up".

What, please, is fun in "no, don't kill that last devil yet" or "guys, jump out now"?

I'm ok with the blades on hard/leet. There should be a challenge, and it is ok. On normal however, please, just remove them. Entirely. No, not the circleing ones, only those that spawn from the devils.

There is absolutly no reason why a new player, perhaps is running his first "real" raid (lets be honest, Tempest Spine doesn't count) should get the shock of his life. No, you can't expect a firstimer to have 400++ hitpoints. Actually, he may quite well need that shroud hp item to even get close to 400 hp. And now he makes a (very minor) mistake, and he is dead. Or even worse, he kills a devil at the wrong time, and causes several party members to die. On his first raid. Everbody is either silently laughing, or cursing him. At least that is what he will think. I see no point in that.

b) end reward

The reward is ok. Not good, but ok. I have run around 15 shrouds since the updateded reward (i'm talking about the second update), and so far i count 1 Demon Blood, 1 large arrow and 1 impressive trophy. In my opinion not much better than before the first change, but well, seems i've been not that lucky. Heard of +3 tomes and large devil scales, so it might be ok.

However, might i suggest a little change?

Make the end reward list special at every 10th run (like in LoB(?) or MA(?)). Make that list look something like this:
- one of each of the shards
- one of each large ingredient (with a moderate (~30%) chance for a stack of two instead of one)
- good (~60%) chance for (unbound) +2 tomes (maximum of three different tomes)
- small (~20%) chance for (bound) +3 tomes (maximum of three different tomes)
- high (~80%) chance for a cleansing essence
- impressive (70%) or legendary (30%) trophy

Also, if that is possible (don't think so), remove smalls from the standard hard reward list, and mediums from the standard elite reward list, instead add rare items like large ings or (+3) tomes.

c) chest loot
Only one recommendation: Adjust the probability for each large ingredient to drop to the most used recipies. I currently have 32 large bones, that is about as many large bones as i own other large ings in total. Since the update i have pulled around 10 large bones, and only 2 other large ings (two arrowheads), not counting horns and energy cells. As background information, i have made around 10 greensteel items in total so far. Seems a bit off for me (even so the large ingredients seem to be equally distributed in drop rate).



*from an old 40 dm types list:
3. Killer
"As you pull aside the tapestry, a green slime jumps upon you from behind it, killing you... nope, no 'to hit' or saving throw allowed, it says so right here."

[BOgre]

I don't have any problem with Shroud's Normal difficulty in pugs, but I'm sitting at level 20 and have a couple pieces of higher end gear. I'm not in any danger of failing, knowing how to avoid blades and whatnot, but I'm not an at-level raider. If I was running this at-level, I think that Shroud normal would be VERY tough. Too tough.

[wax_on_wax_off]

I think the new shroud is great until whatever it is happens and I'm dead in a split second with multiple blade procs all hitting at once.

It would be nice if there was some possibility to avoid the blades whether by more predictable hit boxes, reflex saves/evasion, blur/displacement or DR.

[BadBuy]

My suggestion would be to make the blades less prone to lag deaths.

Since you now have tech to allow stacking debuffs, have the shrouds apply a stacking DoT and maybe a healing amp debuff (to represent the cursed blades).

Have it allow up to 10 stacks, last 10 seconds, tick every 2 seconds for 4d10 damage per stack (around 20 damage per stack per tick; getting a new stack resets the time), and each stack gives a 10% healing amp penalty (for everything, positive/negative/repair). Make it multiplicative, so that at a full 10 stacks, you are immune to all healing, so essentially it is a death sentence (~200 dmg/tick over 5 ticks). Now hopefully people can avoid getting a full 10 stacks, that is part of the difficulty, but when you lag or accidentally run with the blades and get dinged 8 times quickly, it doesn't kill you instantly, it just makes a dire situation. Obviously, the healing amp penalty means you keep the awareness of not allowing blades to get to the center.

That arena is a large area and sometimes people spread out to avoid the new blades. Our divines in the last run were complaining of everyone running out of range of healing. What a new DoT would allow is the chance to run screaming to the healer if you get lagged and get a large amount of stacks. Each hit effectively does 100 damage, it just gives you more time to deal with the incoming damage. Still dangerous but less twitchy and less prone to lag, which is a good thing.

Maybe allow remove curse to remove the stacks, but only with a caster level check. Have curse pots be 1 CL shy of clearing them, so it has to be an actual effort to remove a large stack (or have it scale by difficulty so that curse pots work 50% of the time on norm/25% hard/0% elite).

You could have hard/elite apply either a stronger DoT (6d10/8d10) or more stacks per hit, either 2 and 3 respectively or something like 1d2/1d3 stacks per hit if that is even possible. The stacks could just last longer on higher difficulties, giving the blades more time to add to and reset the stack timer.

Obviously, all numbers would be subject to scaling based on play testing. A longer DoT, more or less stacks, etc. might be more desirable.

Sounds nice in theory, but I'm afraid that in reality this would be just another toil on the healers. It would be more amping up the difficulty for them than the others.

About the current situation:
I have been in many successful pugs after the update. The amount lfms for them is quickly increasing again and on my server is back to about 70% of the before the update numbers and should be back to 100% in a month or less.
If the pug has a leader that instructs the people about basic strategy it goes well even if it's dominated by at-level characters (I just haven't seen a shroud that would accept only lvl 16-18). I really don't think that people should be given completion for face bashing the blades or ignoring them and auto-attacking while the blades slice their backs.
This is an introductionaly raid so it should teach people that brute force is not the key, Hulk should smash with tactics.

I agree with others that the biggest problems are that the blades can hit you multiple times in one second, the lag deaths, the unevadability/no ac effect of the blades and the blade hit boxes (the area in which you are hit is bigger than the visual size of the blades).

So I think that it would be best to solve the quick multiple hit from a single blade and the other issues and keep everything else the same. If nothing can be done about it or is too time consuming for the devs than yeah, lowering the blade damage could be the solution.

Just by lowering I mean making them less likely to kill someone that is TRYING to dodge them. If you ignore them you should not be encouraged.
Also no brute force = still no healing through the blades closing in even on normal. By allowing that you would encourage the mentality: "I'll just swing my blade ignoring all else. The damage is not my problem - it's the healer's problem".

[sephiroth1084]

There are two real problems with the new Shroud blades:
1. It feels weird if the Pit Fiend boss is less damaging than environmental effects shuffling around his room. Agreed. I'd prefer for the blade damage to get reduced a bit and for Harry to become more interesting. He just stands in the middle of this arena and lets players surround and beat on him. We know that he knows how to teleport both himself and other players, as he does so occasionally in part 5, but doesn't at all in part 4 (I'm guessing because of the blades). He currently does some strafing runs after he teleports out of the blades, but is essentially a piece of the environment there: he can't be attacked, doesn't aggro and doesn't aim his spells, he just moves back and forth carpet bombing the middle of the arena for no reason.

He tosses Mass Hold, but doesn't dispel anyone of their buffs, so that's largely irrelevant.



2. The shroud blades are animated differently from DDO's regular monsters and spells, so their movement and intersection-detection is worse than most movement, which makes avoiding them non-fun. For comparison, the blade discs in the Laliat raid don't have that problem.


If the blades stay as a major focus of the encounter I'd like to see:


Their hitboxes or whatever reduced to represent their visual area in order to make dodging them, such as by leaping over them, actually possible.
Their damage to remain the same as it is currently on all difficulties.
For them to gain either a roll to hit vs. AC, or a Reflex save for half damage. My preference is for the AC, since Reflex is already a very big deal in The Shroud, while AC in parts 4 and 5 is not all that relevant.
If they don't get the above, and maybe even if they do, change their effect to something like Ice Storm, where they deal damage at regular intervals, rather than every time a character intersects with them, and not stacking up multiple blades on each character at the same time. Maybe change the tick rate to 1 per seconds, instead of 1 every 2 seconds for these.

The Shroud part has become more interesting than it has been in a long time, which is a step in the right direction. That said, The Shroud needs some other major improvements as well...


Part 1: Portals need to have their HP reduced--they pose no threat, are uninteresting individually, and are insanely boring as a collective. Part 1 takes longer than all of the rest of the sections of the raid, and is the least enjoyable.



Increase the spawn rate at the portals, moving to orthons, devils and bezekira faster. The trogs are pathetic, and do nothing but give casters something to do with their mana, since the portals are immune to most of the spells they have in their repertoire.


Remove the fail condition associated with leaving a Portal Keeper alive for too long, but have a Portal Keeper do something significant while left alive, like doubling the spawn rate of trash at all active portals.



Part 2: Pretty good as-is. Bosses could use some more HP maybe, and Sagrata could stand to have his AI tweaked a bit to be less annoying (he runs away, throws a spear at something, then runs back, but if someone moves to chase him, he ends up moving farther and farther away from the group).



Part 3: On hard, cut the time it takes for the wall to spawn in half. On elite, cut it in half again.



Part 5: Have Harry use his ability to teleport people around a little more often.

[sirgog]

I don't have any problem with Shroud's Normal difficulty in pugs, but I'm sitting at level 20 and have a couple pieces of higher end gear. I'm not in any danger of failing, knowing how to avoid blades and whatnot, but I'm not an at-level raider. If I was running this at-level, I think that Shroud normal would be VERY tough. Too tough.

At-level Normal is easier than overlevel Hard.


Of all the changes to the shroud, blades had, without a doubt, the most negative impact on PUGs.
I like the blades, but I can clearly see how they can still indirectly bring frustrations for the whole group, again and again. I see three problems with them:

1) Damage is unavoidable. A rule of thumb with characters is, No evasion - must have higher HP, evasion - may have lower HP. Making the blade damage ignore evasion transforms everyone into bags of HP. It therefore impacts characters built with evasion in mind disproportionately to all others. My suggestion here would be, that blades should be made some percent avoidable. Halving the damage might be too much - the idea is, that the blades should still be certain death to stand in, but their relative DPS should be the same across the character spectrum.
This would also allow for more classes to participate at lower levels (the normal raid is still listed as CR17), since it's would not be the amount of HP, but how you use it :)...

Damage is entirely avoidable if you get out of the way.
In part 3 it can be tricky to not get hit if you are the first to solve your puzzle and leave your room (it's easier if you can hide in rooms on the way), but the number of hits you take should not kill you.
In part 4, one set of blades follow a completely predictable pattern spiraling inward then flying out one final time, and the other set spawn at a predictable time and then chase people, moving at a lower speed than a hasted player. Both can be completely avoided with extreme care, or (as more frequently happens) players get dinged one or two times by them (mostly the 'flickback' 10-15 sec after the blades get to the centre, that's quite hard to dodge) and survive.

[Gimpinator]

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?

I would support this change for NORMAL DIFFICULTY ONLY, and would like to see Hard and Elite remain unchanged. If I had it my way, normal would remain unchanged also. However, in the spirit of Festifuvlt, we can give the casual players this one.

[Backley]

1. Fix the multi-hit on the blades, on all difficulties. Running through the wall of blades shouldn't hit me 12 times. Also, they should be Evadable, have to actually Hit you (so AC would work), and should have to get through your DR (they should do Slashing damage).

2. Fix the collectables quests while you are in there.

[LookingForABentoBox]

It was definitely too easy before and I'm glad that it's slightly harder. That said, I think it would be reasonable to allow a reflex save/DR/attack roll to the blades. Will make high-saves more interesting, instead of hp being the only thing that matters.

On that note, what about having Arraetrikos cast some reflex save spells instead of only meteor swarms? For the same reason, to give more damage mitigation opportunities, but will still require effort to mitigate the damage.

[Deathdefy]

I 100% would revert normal back.

I appreciate it's doable consistently with the changes once you know it, but as a new player without any Greensteel I really looked forward to my timer expiring so I could go have a fun Shroud run (and maybe get a large oh boy).

I imagine it's simply less fun with the significant chance of death in part 4; it used to be just the right level of guaranteed completion plus feeling challenging that makes quests really enjoyable even in a pug.

I'd obviously leave hard and elite. And this is from someone who is still so clueless about the blades' movement that they haven't managed a single completion above normal from 3 attempts.

[oradafu]

Designers had noticed that more often than not, players weren't completing all phases of the Shroud and in the spirit of 'making things better', it was decided that more incentive was called for. Loot changes were made. However, while he was 'in there', the designer felt compelled to fix a longstanding bug with the blades.



1. Fix the multi-hit on the blades, on all difficulties. Running through the wall of blades shouldn't hit me 12 times. Also, they should be Evadable, have to actually Hit you (so AC would work), and should have to get through your DR (they should do Slashing damage).

2. Fix the collectables quests while you are in there.

Yeah, I find it funny that the person who felt compelled to fix the blade bugs (something that no one had really asked for) ignored the collectibles bug (something that people have asked to happen and new players seem to always ask about when they do the shroud).

[EvilI]

I'll subscribe to the opinion that the multi-proc nature of the blades should be limited by way of a cool down or period of grace after being hit by a blade. If you're casting a mass heal or activating a spellpoint clicky when a blade turns up behind you you are dead. On normal there should be bigger margins of error than that. By not allowing multiple hits within the blink of an eye the blades would remain a therat that couldn't be ignored, but a threat you'd have time to handle.

I also share the sentiment that it's a bit strange how blades sometimes linger right in front of Arraetrikos after he's dropped down to fight. A reasonable alternative would be to despawn all randomly moving ("heat seeking") blades at the moment Harry drops.

[protokon]

The blades need to be changed, one way or another. It's not only just for being "pug friendly", the bigger problem is being "melee friendly".

Currently my guild only runs elite shroud once a week at most - and when we do, we fill the group with casters/divines. It is the only practical approach. Why? because the blades screw over melees big time where they are needed the most, in parts 4/5.

I'll explain why. In part 4, while clearing trash mobs killing a devil will spawn blades right where it drops. If you were a poor soul meleeing the sucker down, like you were supposed to, you get penalized for killing it at close range and get torn up by the blades - and if unlucky on your rolls, are killed very quickly.

Same scenario, a caster walks into part 4. He uses power word kill on a devil across the map, the blades pop up far far away from him, and he laughs at how harmless they are to him.

Now we get to the Harry Fight. The melees surround him and beat on him, the blades form a very, very static circular pattern that does not affect casters - simply don't stand in front of the blades and they are harmless. the blades close in, if you are a poor melee soul who stays in a second too late - which is easy to do, the blades will start hitting you before they physically are toughing you in game, you get torn up and take massive blade damage + harry's physical damage. Everyone's natural reaction is to run away, it shotguns all melees in various directions and if your lucky, one or two of them might make it out alive, if your unlucky those few who did make it out will get hit with a meteor swarm in the back .

Part 5 is much, much less of a big deal. Part 4 is the extremely unforgiving part in which someone dies, they are out of the fight - too many deaths and the party cannot recover, you have nearly 25 minutes wasted.

The blades need to be changed - you don't necessarily have to nerf the damage they do, but change how they spawn and how they move - I don't know, give harry a tell so he calls the blades in on him, or has the blades shotgun outwards so that both melees and casters are in danger of them.

Either way, a lot of changes to the game recently have penalized playing melee characters - In fact, the only reason to play a melee at this point is to tank raid bosses, and even that is getting to be nearly pointless since anyone (including casters) can take the shield mastery feats for the DR bonuses.

[waterboytkd]

It's a level 17 raid that acts as the stepping stone for newbies to get into the other raids (VoD, Hound, eventually ToD and LoB). On normal, Newbies should be able to complete. As it is now, with the large blade damage, Newbies can't do this without veterans carrying them. I still hear about shroud wipes to this day (often when I put up an lfm for a quick normal shroud, and I accept someone with 300 hp--they're the ones with the horror stories about wipes in part 4).

I would say, return the Normal blades to the old damage (so newbies can handle the raid). On hard, I would set the blade damage to what Normal currently is (a tough challenge for those toons with raid gear, but still working on their first pieces of epic gear; not difficult for vets geared to the teeth). Leave Elite as it is.

Then again, I think the Normal/Hard/Elite difficulties need to be adjusted so that a level 17 toon that's geared to the teeth (probably a TR/multi-TR as well) should be able to contribute and complete a level 17 quest/raid on elite. It can be hard, but it shouldn't be nearly insurmountable.

[Standal]

The OP asks only if the changes to the blade section of the shroud should be reverted. If my only options are to revert the blade changes or keep them, I reluctantly have to choose revert.

I personally really enjoy the changes, and have no problems avoiding the blades. Barring obvious server-wide lag, I don't experience any serious lag in the Shroud. This leads me to believe that a huge percentage of the "Shroud lag" is client/IP lag.

Given that Part 4 is stay alive or fail, I think that the current mechanic is doesn't work. Failing a quest because a couple of key players lag and can't be rezzed is not an acceptable mechanic to me.

[DocBenway]

No. Please do not "revert the changes to the blade section". I'm not opposed to you tweaking the blades in some fashion I guess, but if you revert them wholesale you just bring back the original problem that you were seeing people purposefully not completing.

The only reason folks were purposely not completing was to farm materials, nothing to do with blades. Now people are accidentally not completing entirely due to blades.

[MrWizard]

This thread assumes you are familiar with the Shroud and are aware of how it played before and after recent changes.

Designers had noticed that more often than not, players weren't completing all phases of the Shroud and in the spirit of 'making things better', it was decided that more incentive was called for. Loot changes were made. However, while he was 'in there', the designer felt compelled to fix a longstanding bug with the blades.

Controvery ensued.

It appears that we've taken what was a very pug friendly experience for pugs and changed it such that's it no longer - well - pug friendly.

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?


portal level is extremely boring, making it harder would be worse...less portals better.

blades less damage and that would be great. Make part 4 allow the boss to move around, maybe that will liven it up....or add one red named between each round that must be defeated or something.
Blades with no way to stop, 60-80 a hit, not fun.

[JasonJi72]

I can't really comment on the 'blades' since I have not been able to run it since the changes. I have been leveling a TR and one of the new moncher builds. I also don't really like playing my other high level toon that much.

FACT: You cannot join a pug lfm for the Shroud on normal under level 18 on Thelanis. I have tried every time I have seen one up since I hit level 17, but I do not even get a response, just an auto decline. All my characters have been flagged since level 15. They are not even MYDDOing me since there is no way they could do it that quickly. I know I am an elf, but I have over 350 hp at level 17, and I'm a decent player. This is absolutely ridiculous for a quest that you have to run several times in order to have any chance in the end game content.

FACT: It was boring before. That is why I don't have all of the items I need yet. I only ran it about once every other week before. Now I can't even get a few completions in as I'm leveling. Sad, but true. This means it will be even more of a grind when I can finally run it.

FACT: I will be less prepared for level 18-20 and Epic content than I would like. I only need a few more runs to complete a Lit II bow and then I can work on a Conc Op HP Item and a Crowd Control bow (What would you suggest btw? I was thinking earthgrab).

So anyway, if the blades are not that bad, and make it fun, then why do people only accept level 18 or higher characters for a level 17 normal raid?

The thing that really sucks is that this raid is required to farm.

To the devs: Please don't make required quests too difficult to run at level on normal.

To the players: Man (or woman) up, and allow level 16's and 17's into your Shroud runs.

Well, I am a quest away from 18, so maybe I'll finally get to see what all the ruckus is about... maybe... if I can get in with just under 400 hp on a first life level 18 elf. *sighs*

[Ungood]

This thread assumes you are familiar with the Shroud and are aware of how it played before and after recent changes.

Designers had noticed that more often than not, players weren't completing all phases of the Shroud and in the spirit of 'making things better', it was decided that more incentive was called for. Loot changes were made. However, while he was 'in there', the designer felt compelled to fix a longstanding bug with the blades.

Controvery ensued.

It appears that we've taken what was a very pug friendly experience for pugs and changed it such that's it no longer - well - pug friendly.

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?

I would like to address this issue on several parts:

Demographic.

As it stands, even players that enjoyed the change openly admit that at-level players do not run this raid because it is currently over powered and well known to be designed for higher level groups, IE: 18 - 20 as opposed to the 16 - 19 that it was supposed to be targeted to.

That alone should be telling that this raid not scaled right for the audience that should be running it.

Should capped toons with epic gear run this raid expecting it to be a challange?

The short simple answer is No.

Is the problem at this point, the Blades?

In many ways, Yes.

They create an issue, mainly with how fast and hard they hit. If they hit slower, or even if they were reduced to mob status as opposed to this ambient indestructible moving damage thing that offers no save. As others have said, putting something like that in reeks of being cheesy.

Offering reflex saves, evasion saves, and other means to mitigate the damage would be a step in the right direction. In many ways. this would teach players who use Shroud as a Stepping stone the fine art of Damage Mitigation, and how to survive these kinds of situations.

But the warning bell here, is that players who seem happy about this change admit they over-level the raid when they run it. As a designer that is not a good review.

In fact to go a step further, as the Game Designer you have put the gauntlet down that Bravery is 2 levels above Normal. IE: You are no longer "Brave" if you are 3 or more levels above the quest.

In this token, is the Shroud really doable by a group of 19th level players? Well on Orien, we tried. We failed. We were going though the raid as intended with good time and a decent pace, up to those blades, at which point, they just tore us apart. And this was not a group of half-geared toons, all of were TR2+, breaking out the best we could have short of epic and some of us, were itching for 20th to get out Epics out our TR banks, only Elite Shroud was in our way. Well, it remained that way.

Irony was, We had no shortage of 20's willing to pitch in, but, when it was all 19's or less, it seemed no one wanted to jump on that wagon. That alone should tell you something was wrong here.

Synergy:

Most raids in the Game, do not Exist in a Vacuum. They have complex flagging procedures. Notable Exceptions are Tempest Spine, VoD, and HoX.

Thus every raid should work within the dynamic of the Pack/Flagging Quests it belongs to.

Flagging Quests:

The Flagging Quests should serve two purposes.

They should Cull the Herd.

Flagging Quests should, for lack of a better way to put this, serve as a Sieve to ensure that those not ready to run the raid will stopped while allowing those that are ready to pass though and move on to the Raid itself.

The Flagging should prepare players for the Raid the Follows.

The Second Purpose of the Flagging Quest should be to prepare the players for the Raid that Follows, as well as be indicative of their chances to overcome it. If a group of players can run the flagging quest on Elite, They should be able to run the Raid itself on that difficulty after completion of the flagging Quests.

Now, because of the Flagging Quests and how they should interact with the Raid that follows, you can't just slap a higher number on the Raid and call it a day.

You need to work within the synergy of the corresponding quests that liken to the raid itself. If a group is running the GH flagging Quests on Elite they should not walk in and get owed by the Reavers Fate raid. That to me would be common sense. You do the flagging and you should be ready for the raid. If you could only do normal. then maybe you should stick to doing the raid on normal, if you plowed though the elite, then you should be ready for an elite run of the raid.

Nor should they have to then go get 4 more levels before they come back and do the raid.

In this regard, I believe that Raids like Shroud and Abbot fail hard. They are disjunctive from their flagging quests, and that gives a feeling of poor coordination of the overall package.

It should be the acceptable way of the game that if 12 of the people who can do the elite flagging quests got together, They should be able to do the Elite raid. Perhaps, because Shroud is 17th, they may need to wait till they get to 19th, But, Such is currently not the case.

In that vein, I do not feel that this is a faulting on the players parts.

Final Note:

Now, I am open to admit I could be looking at it the wrong way, The Flagging Quests could be just there for pointless EXP grinding fluff, and if that is the case, or how you envisioned how they would interact, then that is your call on this matter.

Thank you for your time if you read all of this. Sorry for the Length.

[OldCoaly]

, while he was 'in there', the designer felt compelled to fix a longstanding bug

"Fixing" things that don't seem to need "fixed"

Even though we all saw the blades, nobody thought they were broken. The moved about, did things, and even though they weren't a danger to anyone who was aware of them, they were still exciting if you have less than 300hp or it was your first time in the raid.

The previous state of the blades didn't irritate anyone.

Were there really no threads or bug reports about the uncollectable collectables?

Every time someone new to the raid tries to pick one up, everyone who no longer looks at them is reminded of how long this open issue has been ignored.

The collectables LOOK BROKEN.

Why would someone "fix" something that didn't look broken instead of deal with something that does?

[Ytteri]

Since the changes I've failed 1 shroud out of about 15. It's still really not that hard provided you have at least 2 or 3 people who really know what they're doing and the remaining people who don't know it listen well. Success in shroud now depends mostly on group communication, and I think that's a good thing, it remains a good "introductory" for people.

One of the things I don't like about the blades though is that there's really no way to protect yourself from the blades other than high HP, and some/most people may be relying on a greensteel item to get them reasonable HP.

Maybe on normal only you could reduce the damage from the blades by 5-10 and allow a reflex save for half damage (undecided on whether evasion should apply to that reflex save)?

[Calebro]

Maybe on normal only you could reduce the damage from the blades by 5-10 and allow a reflex save for half damage (undecided on whether evasion should apply to that reflex save)?

If you want a reflex save for half damage on the blades, then evasion applies. That's what evasion does. That's evasion's entire purpose.
If you don't want evasion to apply, then you don't want a reflex save. You'd instead want an attack vs. AC, or something else entirely.
But reflex for half and evasion (http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Feat:Evasion) go hand in hand.

[Cauthey]

The Shroud is okay the way it is currently. Having to actively watch for blades makes things spicy, and spicy == GOOD!

If you soften it on Normal, I would not scream "EASY BUTTON!" But, I would probably think it.

If you revert the changes to the blades fully, I would cry "EASY BUTTON!"

[sweez]

Blade damage, as such, isn't an issue. However, blade damage coupled with latency issues, hit-box issues, and the fact they offer no save can make part 4 quite an unpleasant experience.

If you really want environmental damage like the blades to be dangerous, fix the underlying coding issues first. Otherwise they're just too random.

[TDarkchylde]

This thread assumes you are familiar with the Shroud and are aware of how it played before and after recent changes.

Designers had noticed that more often than not, players weren't completing all phases of the Shroud and in the spirit of 'making things better', it was decided that more incentive was called for. Loot changes were made. However, while he was 'in there', the designer felt compelled to fix a longstanding bug with the blades.

Controversy ensued.

It appears that we've taken what was a very pug friendly experience for pugs and changed it such that's it no longer - well - pug friendly.

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?

Normal, most definitely yes. All the "new" blades have done is further separated the haves from the have-nots and only made it harder for first-timers, fresh alts and most Rogues to get into what is now a staple raid in the first place. Everyone benefits from Greensteel - not everyone can get it now.

"Sorry, you can't get in without Greensteel." That's like saying you can't get into ATDQ2 without a Torc!

The below quoted poster nailed the proper solution for this square on the head:

How's this for a solution:

Shift the difficulty down one tier.

Thus, old school normal blade damage Becomes Normal blade damage.

Current normal blades damage becomes Hard Blade Damage.

Current hard damage becomes elite blade damage.
Powergamers still get their more difficult runs in, while those who are new to the raid, bringing in an alt for the first time or just don't feel like running Elite tonight can still run (and hopefully complete - that was NEVER as certain as some may have believed) without being complete liabilities.

[blkcat1028]

FACT: You cannot join a pug lfm for the Shroud on normal under level 18 on Thelanis. I have tried every time I have seen one up since I hit level 17, but I do not even get a response, just an auto decline. All my characters have been flagged since level 15. They are not even MYDDOing me since there is no way they could do it that quickly. I know I am an elf, but I have over 350 hp at level 17, and I'm a decent player. This is absolutely ridiculous for a quest that you have to run several times in order to have any chance in the end game content.


I'm sorry that you are having so much trouble getting into a pug, but to say that it is impossible for a level 17 character to get into a Shroud run on Thelanis is not accurate.

I've PUGed my squishy ranger in several Shroud runs since the update and haven't been declined yet. If I were you , I'd make note of the group leaders and see if there's a connection.

[Glenalth]

The blade damage was a new obstacle, most have figured out how to deal with it now. The one thing that would be nice would be a way to mitigate damage from the blades themselves by some method other than just dodging.

Some options...

Give the blades an attack roll, keep it somewhat low so that characters with a decent (ie non-dumped) AC could stay in with reduced damage and that high AC characters would have very little problem with them.

Allow blades to be debuffed via dispel magic or a similar spell to reduce their closing speed, attack rate, and/or damage dealt.

Allow blades to be destroyed in some manner, either through magic or physical damage. Allowing archers to clear out the blades a bit would give then an interesting niche role in the raid. This would also allow for the old "collect bladestorm pieces" quest to be completed.

Have some sort of optional during phase 1, 2, or 3 that reduces the number of blades for part 4/5.

[Ovrad]

The blade damage is fine, however the proc rate is off the chart. We need more time to react to it (easily 600-800 in a little more than 1 second elite). Considering there is no room for margin (death = penalty box), this is too extreme, especially with the usual slight lag.

Needs to be 0.5-1 proc per second. Right now, it's more like 3-4 proc per second.
Keeping the spinning circle of blades a little more dangerous would be fine, as it forces movement instead of tank and spank.


As of now, the boss of shroud is the blades, harry is just another trash mob. That ain't right.

[k1ngp1n]

I am of the opinion that the blade mechanic is fine, it is the extremely high damage output, especially if it coincides with a meteor swarm or lag. I see a lot of new-to-higher levels characters getting absolutely thrashed by the blades. Just a bit of a dip in damage (drop it to 2/3ish of current) would even it out perfectly - we'd still have to avoid them, but it would be a bit easier on lesser geared characters.

Either that or Ungood's call of adding some method of damage mitigation - DR, evasion, displacement - whatever. As it stands the blades do just a bit too much damage on normal.

Everything else is butter.

[taurean430]

Do not revert to the way that it was.
The Shroud was boring, but necessary. It has become fun again.

With that said.... they're too unforgiving on Normal. Normal is the difficulty that newbies should be running. Newbies do not have the gear and/or experience to survive the blades as they are now. So you've created a situation where the targeted demographic for that particular difficulty is doomed to fail unless they have players from outside of that demographic there to carry them .
This is a poorly implemented mechanic, as it stands.

Leave the blades mechanically, but tone down the damage that they do on Normal.
And *only* on Normal. Anyone that wants to run anything harder should **** well know what they're getting themselves into.

This was essentially what I was going to say, but worded better. Therefore I steal and second this.

Newer players do not yet have GS hp items. Unfortunately, many of them are not wearing heavy fort, a con item, or a false life item either. This means that they essentially get one or two shotted when making a mistake. It becomes more problematic when the person making the mistake kites the blades into the party.

Best solution would be for players to learn to increase their skills a bit before attempting to run Shroud, even on normal. Yet this isn't going to happen. It's a struggle already trying to convince newbies that they need the aforementioned items slotted somewhere. I mean let's face it; new and old players waltz into that raid with the expectation that they can turn auto attack on and the party healers will keep them alive regardless of how many mistakes they make in the raid.

Normal should be more or less as it was. Please consider reducing the blade damage on that difficulty *only*. It offers no additional reward of value to run it. And newer players have opportunities at getting geared up. Hard and Elite should stand as they are. On those difficulties it requires players that have some idea on how to gear and run their characters. The disappearance of auto attacking the loot pinata while yelling heal me is a very good thing.

[Ninety]

I liked it the way it was, but leave the new chests/end rewards.

I would love to see elite shrouds more often due to that.

[pjstechie]

I say dont return the blades to where they were, its always been silly they been so ignorable.

Perhaps a more interesting idea would be for them to stack DoT style (each hit does progressively more damage). It would make them a touch more forgiving, but still very deadly.

The issue i see with them is more that this is the first i've heard of them being bugged (granted i dont pay that close attention, but i do casually and that should be enough) AND it took what, 3, 4 years to fix it?? I'm a firm believer that you guys do a great job in the dev pit - but at some point a bug becomes a feature doesnt it?

[Zess-wolf]

I think that elite must be toned down a bit, hard even less, normal can be done :)

Simply :D

Zess

[badbob117]

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?

Revert normal back.,

Some of us like running at level content. I used to love going in there at level 16-17 with a bunch of random players the same range and Conquering it. We all got xp and had a blast. Some runs were easier then others but in the pug scene that can all change in the blink of a eye. Some runs we wiped miserably and left licking our wounds! But we came back and prevailed in the end.

Now that kind of behavior is unheard of with these new changes. Now people wont even join your level 15-17 shroud run. It really put a dent in the "at level" pug scene. It killed the raid for the new guy just breaking into the raiding! No one wants to be carried along a level 16 raid by epic geared level 20's on normal! Most would rather be amonst players their own level.

In the past any level 20 geared out player will tell you that shroud was easy on normal. Of course it was! They had dr breakers. They had all the cool Amrath belts! They had epic gear! even +3 and 4 tomes. Some had up to 3 items cleansed and on! Of course normal shroud was easy for this type of player. But it was never meant for that guy. He should have been grinding elite mode, not normal!

Normal in my opinion is meant for the guy who wants to Make his first shroud weapon or item. For the new player it is still a overwhelming task making a green steel item. It is a stepping stone into harder content! The new guy does not have a bag full of ingredients and millions of plat to buy them. 20 completions still takes 2 months give or take!

I Remember what it was like when i first started running it. It was crazy man! But it sure was a fun experience! I started playing a bit after it went f2p and quested with the surge of puggers who were new to the game and still learning by the day. Everyone needs to go back and remember what that was like! Before we had our minII or artificer to buff our litII ! Before we could just craft ourselves a perfect dr breaker. When we had to scour AH for a metaline greataxe of pure good and cringe at the price tag on it! Put yourselves in the new guys shoes..

Join a group of casual puggers who goes in there at level 16 with 300 hp and tries their darndest to beat up a massive ugly evil pit fiend with half assed weapons and poor gear. These were still real crazy runs in old shroud. Completion was far from guaranteed. For these players the old raid on normal was a blast.

I Miss these runs! They were always a hoot! So i say change normal back to the way it was. Nothing was wrong with old Normal shroud.

[Phemt81]

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?

MadFloyd please take note of the subscription date of the replies...

[BOgre]

The blade damage was a new obstacle, most have figured out how to deal with it now. The one thing that would be nice would be a way to mitigate damage from the blades themselves by some method other than just dodging.

Some options...

Give the blades an attack roll, keep it somewhat low so that characters with a decent (ie non-dumped) AC could stay in with reduced damage and that high AC characters would have very little problem with them.

Allow blades to be debuffed via dispel magic or a similar spell to reduce their closing speed, attack rate, and/or damage dealt.

Allow blades to be destroyed in some manner, either through magic or physical damage. Allowing archers to clear out the blades a bit would give then an interesting niche role in the raid. This would also allow for the old "collect bladestorm pieces" quest to be completed.

Have some sort of optional during phase 1, 2, or 3 that reduces the number of blades for part 4/5.

Or have an appropriately difficult, trapped corridor or swimthru, requiring a rogue, or even two rogues, to navigate, pull a switch or solve a puzzle, thereby stopping the blades from closing in. If they're quick enough, the blades stop before they've closed in completely, if they're slow or they fail, the blades continue unhindered.

Just a thought to help 'fix' it without actually 'nerfing' anything. Something like this, and by that I mean a REAL change to the quest design, would have the added benefit of encouraging more team play. You'd loose two dpsers during the fight, but potentially make the fight easier to survive in the long run.

[Terminus-Est]

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?

My experience with blades has been fairly bland. Before these changes, I died once to them because I was having connectivity issues and stood in the middle of them with a sorcerer. This happened once out of say, seven runs.

After these changes, I have died once to them, with my Artificer, because I was trying to scroll-heal some melee types because the healers had died to the blades. This is once out of nine runs and counting.

As a primarily ranged player, the blades are zero threat to me, so I don't have a stake in whether they are changed or not. I think for the most part, players have adjusted to the new reality of how to run the quest as I haven't been in a shroud that wiped in weeks. (Been in a few elites as well, yes)

I think they can be adjusted, but not rolled back to pre-patch levels. They present threat and should do so as they present an interactive mechanic.

[Edwinge]

I'm sure that I'm repeating the sentiment of some, but I didn't bother reading the whole thread. I think that the damage of the blades would be fine in all difficulties if there was a way to avoid them in addition to twitch skills. I'm talking via game mechanics like AC or saves. Personally, I think that AC is the better option, but a reflex save could work too I suppose.

For the AC option you could make the attack bonus on the blades scale with difficulty (along with damage as current), perhaps something like 25 on normal, 35 on hard, and 50 on elite. In that way everyone could be in the ballpark for avoiding some hits on normal, but low AC characters would have to be more careful on higher difficulties. Also, let them get grazing hits so super high AC guys won't only take damage when they roll a 1. I'm not sure how the damage is calculated for the blades currently and therefore I'm not sure how potent grazing hits would end up being from them, but if you could make them be roughly half the damage of normal hits that would probably work. After all, grazing hits are only going to apply to those whose AC is in the upper bounds of or above the attack range of the blades and you don't won't anyone to be able to just ignore them completely. Half damage hits 40% (and full damage 5%) of the time on high AC characters is reasonable for elite and enough to make them want to move out of the blades while still rewarding them for building their character with high AC.

The blades should be dangerous, but it should also be possible to build your character in such a way as to mitigate (not negate) the threat from them. I think there's enough reflex saves already and it's trivial for classes with evasion to have high reflex saves. The blades shouldn't be that easily trivialized. That is why I think AC is the better mechanic to use for them. It actually takes some effort to get higher AC.

As an aside, I've seen other people say that DR is not affecting blade damage, but I've not verified that myself. Is that really true? What about physical damage vulnerability reduction from the shield mastery feats, etc? Both of those things should surely apply to the damage from blades if they do not already.

[mobrien316]

This thread assumes you are familiar with the Shroud and are aware of how it played before and after recent changes.

Designers had noticed that more often than not, players weren't completing all phases of the Shroud and in the spirit of 'making things better', it was decided that more incentive was called for. Loot changes were made. However, while he was 'in there', the designer felt compelled to fix a longstanding bug with the blades.

Controvery ensued.

It appears that we've taken what was a very pug friendly experience for pugs and changed it such that's it no longer - well - pug friendly.

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?

If the lag was not a regular occurrence, I would say to leave it as is.

However, regular lag is a fact of life in this game, and it is frustrating when a second or two of lag is enough to kill you because for some reason the devs decided to make the blades deal huge amounts of damage.

The extra chests are on hard and elite. Give hard and elite more of a challenge by keeping the blades as is. If it's a good night with no lag we can run hard or elite. If it is a usual night with a few seconds of lag every minute or two, let us run Normal with the blades the way they used to be.

Part three and part four are no harder than they used to be on the days/nights there is no lag. When there is lag (which is at least as often, if not more often than when there is no lag) part three and part four are a huge annoyance and multiple deaths that have nothing to do with player skill or awareness are common.

Please change the blade damage back to normal on normal. It seems like a much easier fix than eliminating the lag, though if you could do that, please do.

[LOOON375]

Tone down the damage on normal or at least allow a save against the damage.

Since the change, I have yet to see a Shroud up that includes 16's. Rarely I will see them allow 17's. Mostly 18's-20's are asked for to run a level 17 quest.

The raid is supposed to be about beating Harry and his LT's. Now it's all about surviving the blades.

Some are crying to leave it alone on normal as it provides an added challenge. Well folks can run it on hard and or elite for the extra challenge.

I lead shrouds quite often and have only had one wipe out of those. And even though I have it down and can lead to a completion, it's just stupid how EVERYTHING depends on the blades.

The amount of shroud LFM's on Argo have dropped through the floor since the update. Is that better for the game? I think not.

[Kerplunk]

As I have already stated before, here: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=352524
I really like the added challenge of the blades.
I don't know who the people are that are having difficulty with part 4, because I've had a 1-rounder every single time since the update.

Note, I run it in straight, honest-to-goodness PUGs. I'm in no special channels, and run with no particular guilds, other than the one I'm in, but have yet to have a guild run.
I play a healer, a FvS, as well.

Seriously, get some teamwork together, talk it through before running headlong into pt.4, and use some crowd-control!
Hell, just have someone charm the last devil, wait till the blades clear, drop him and rock-n-roll.
Easy-peasy, every time.

[Hecore]

I've pretty much run all the elite raid/epic content in the game, including Epic Chains of Flame, Epic Chronoscope, and Elite ToD. I'm multi TR and am geared out in raid and epic loot. I have also run elite Shroud, both pre and post patch. I feel that the current elite Shroud ranks up there with the hardest content in the game - epic LoB included.

I won't repeat what everyone else said, but this is a non-endgame raid that heavily favors casters. The blades do tons of damage on normal alone; 500+ hp shouldn't be reduced to 0 in a second. They need to do less damage, or be avoidable (blur, reflex, w/e), or both.

Current normal should be old normal, current hard should be current normal, and current elite should be current hard - AND the blades need the aforementioned tweak. Elite Shroud really shouldn't be harder than most epics for a group of properly geared 20's, and normal Shroud should absolutely be doable by 16~17's. Please fix this.

[dkyle]

PUGging this on Khyber has barely changed at all, except way more Hard/Elite runs than before. The difficulty is entirely reasonable, and well rewarded. Failure mostly comes from poor play, and bad builds, as it should.

While the difficulty is not out of line, I don't think the blades are very fair, since they bypass almost all defenses. There should be a reward for high AC or Reflex/Evasion.

[wemery73]

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?

yes:D

[UrbanPyro]

Deleted.

[Claransa]

As a casual gamer I hated the shroud before the change and now i'm just plain afraid of it. I'd very much like to see normal difficulty revert back to the way it was before the change or at least be more like it use it be than it is now, a nightmare.

As it is now I won't even run the shroud, you can keep your greensteel it's not worth the effort or the risk to me.

[Carpone]

The blades hit harder than other monsters in the same raid do.
^^ This ^^

[Meetch1972]

Some combination of:

1. Make reflex saves and evasion work against blades.
2. Give blades an attack roll.
3. Reduce the blade attack rate a smidge. 5 x 60hp ticks in the approximate ping time while group DPS is high is the biggest problem. (my ping time ramps up from an expected 310ms while idle up to 1200-2000ms while we're beating down portals).

If the above are dealt with appropriately, then there's no need to adjust the blade damage - allowing DR to apply is probably worth considering though.

There have been a couple of times on normal when my ~450ish hp evasion toon has been shredded at the start of the beatdown in part 4. Both times I saw those blades it was already too late...

Another suggestion - how about mixing up part 1 a bit by randomising portal spawn locations somewhat? It might be a bit more interesting if we actually had to spend a few seconds figuring out where the next portal every time instead of using autopilot.

[Hakushi]

This thread assumes you are familiar with the Shroud and are aware of how it played before and after recent changes.

Designers had noticed that more often than not, players weren't completing all phases of the Shroud and in the spirit of 'making things better', it was decided that more incentive was called for. Loot changes were made. However, while he was 'in there', the designer felt compelled to fix a longstanding bug with the blades.

Controvery ensued.

It appears that we've taken what was a very pug friendly experience for pugs and changed it such that's it no longer - well - pug friendly.

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?

I think Normal should be reverted back to what it used to be, maybe a bit more damage. Elite should be the actual Hard and Hard should be in between Normal and Hard. It's true the Shroud pugs have dropped considerably, it's still run and pugged, but much less than it used to be. Also, it should be possible to either Evate the blades, or avoid them with AC or having some DR to lower the damage. The environment shouldn't be that much more dangerous than the boss itself which is almost trivial compared to how dangerous the blades are. You could even replace Harry with a huge Training Dummy for all the difference it would make.

[red_cardinal]

I only know Shroud lag happens always on completing the part on the way to shrines. That's mostly noticable after part 2,3,4. I don't know what's causing the lags - DDO is like a comic book for a few seconds, but it's nasty. Maybe you're doing some cleaning up - freeing memory or something, maybe you're just postprocessing something in order to send to all the clients, maybe it's just old DPS calculation traffic which still hasn't been sent to clients.

Just wandering...

[Terebinthia]

It's depressing to be squashed by a lag spike in part IV - I got sliced and diced on my DOS pally with over 700 hp without even the time to throw a lay on hands a few weeks back, and that's just annoying. Wipes from people being chuckleheads I can deal with. I would dial the blade damage back a little to try and encourage PUGGles simply because the game is so quiet ATM and normal Shroud was one of those things always available if you had nothing else to do, you know?

I've not run Hard or Elite post the blade ramp up so don't really have an opinion on those difficulties.

[MRMechMan]

Fix the lag and it would be fine.


Getting mown down by a bladespawn with a hitbox the size of an elephant that ticks incredibly fast is not fun...especially when you don't even see it or didn't appear to be anywhere near it. Really, we should be fighting the big devil in the middle, not the blades. They should do some damage but shouldnt be the cause of 90% of deaths.

Throw a save in there or make AC relevent or DR or SOMETHING...it's too easy at the moment to lag for just a second and get hit for 12x50 damage and DING.

It's still a level 17 raid...if you want to change it to make it challenging for average 20th level groups on normal, then at least have the stones to change the quest level as well...it's deceptive at the moment.

[soloist12]

Normal should be reverted back to how it was. Hard should be all applicable monster cr level ups and such, but with the current normal mode blade damage. Elite should have the current hard mode blade damage.

This makes the higher difficulty levels more accessible to a wider player base. Currently, groups performing the raid on the current elite have no use for the ingredients anyway at this point.

It's 2011 - an enormous amount of players have 20+ shroud runs and know the raid inside and out - hard mode should be a very real possibility to an experienced pug.


Lastly, the reward system should have smalls and mediums removed - keep the larges, vale ingredients and random loot, but spread those 3 categories out where the smalls and mediums are now - we see them in the list, nobody ever picks them though and therefor are pointless. Besides, you can farm smalls/mediums easily and they are never a greenscale bottleneck - only larges are.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I'll just add that I "do" like the changes.

But my Rgrs now feel way too squishy to melee in part 4. I feel like Ive actually gone backwards in a way.

And I have seen a lot of PUG fails. (I've also seen victories)

(and it will be another year or two till I feel sympathy for those poor melee guys who are no longer top dog.)

[Dark_Helmet]

20's running a lv 17 raid dont need it any easyer, even with one or two noob's

QFS (Quoted for stupidity). It is a LEVEL 17 RAID, not level 20! That is like saying WaterWorks should be deathly harder since level 20s can run it easily. :rolleyes:
They made the same bad decision with Reaver (insta-kill for people at-level who can't be rez'd).


The problem with that line of reasoning is that the level ranges that the raid was designed for are now left behind.
It's like the 500 point Disintegrate in Reaver, which no level 14 character can survive.
Running these raids at level should be a challenge for a newbie. It's shouldn't spell certain doom for that newbie.
That's what higher difficulties are for.

Totally agree that at-level shouldn't require quick-twitch to survive. They will not get rid of lag any time soon, so make it more lag friendly - or at least let people be able to rez. Making it so that one hitch virtually wipes a party is pretty sad.

I don't run shroud and reaver at level anymore in pugs. It isn't worth the time for a fail.

It is just plain stupid to not expect your sample builds to be successful in the normal dungeons AT LEVEL.

[avery61]

Change the blades back, at least on normal. I lost one player already in our static group because he got peeved about the baldes. Lot of deaths at 1st, people have adjusted somewhat, but the shroud is a must run raid to get greensteel items to run other content with. LFM's for shroud are much rarer now.

[fuzzy1guy]

Yes. Absolutely. At the very least for normal shroud the blades should not wipe a 700hp toon in 4 seconds. AND THEY DO RIGHT NOW! They should in no way put out that kind of damage in that short of a time. ESPECIALLY with the lag we're starting to see on a regular basis around here. A 700hp character should be able to stand in those blades for a good 25-30 seconds on normal without dying.


I'd say even tweak them down 25% for hard as well.


Elite.. Leave them alone. You want the extra chests. You better be damm well prepared and pay attention in there. The blades hurt. Alot.

That said however i'd like to see some sort of serious boost to the loot and end rewards on elite runs as well. Instead of 4x the same ol low level junk. Level 12 loot out of those chests on elite is an insult and a waste of time.

[sirgog]

I only know Shroud lag happens always on completing the part on the way to shrines. That's mostly noticable after part 2,3,4. I don't know what's causing the lags - DDO is like a comic book for a few seconds, but it's nasty. Maybe you're doing some cleaning up - freeing memory or something, maybe you're just postprocessing something in order to send to all the clients, maybe it's just old DPS calculation traffic which still hasn't been sent to clients.

Just wandering...

I think the cause here is that all that space between the five actual sections of the raid needs to be rendered when you first see it.

It's worst when you walk out of part 1.

The one spot I get inexplicable lag in Shroud is in part 3. The first time I wander from 2 o'clock to 4 o'clock on the outside, I freeze for a good 1500ms every time.

[Dandonk]

No, do not take the blades away. The mechanic makes the raid phase somewhat less /autoattack on /afk, and this is good.

I think the damage could be toned down on normal, though. (just normal, don't mess with hard or elite)
It is a little silly that the blades are much more feared than the big evil nasty mean pit fiend. And with the blades being a little less dangerous, the raid will be more pug friendly again - and will be less prone to failure simply due to lag spikes. It might also make the raid accessible to at-levels again, which I think it should be (on normal, if nothing else).

[Dexol]

I vote to revert / tweek normal and keep the increased damage on hard / elite
If people want more of a challenge, they can run harder difficulties

[walkingwolfmike]

I've seen it mentioned a few times throughout the thread, but, just to throw my 2cp in:

If the lag in Shroud wasn't so horrendous, the blades would not be so deadly. For me personally, parts 1 and 5 of Shroud is just stop and go like the 101 freeway through Downtown LA. Just terrible.

I have noticed that it is MOSTLY content with Shavarath influence that have crazy lag. Being around a portal can get really bad. As mentioned, part 1 is stutter stepping all over the place, but a few quest out in Amrath come to mind as well. I think it is Genesis point where you can get different end battles based upon what levers you have pulled. The end fight there with the portals that have to be destroyed is very Part 1 of Shroud-esq.

At any rate, I feel like the blades change has made Shroud more fun as a whole. Smash that Lag Monster lurking in there and i will be a happy Kobold.


YARK!

[Lalangamena]

This thread assumes you are familiar with the Shroud and are aware of how it played before and after recent changes.

Designers had noticed that more often than not, players weren't completing all phases of the Shroud and in the spirit of 'making things better', it was decided that more incentive was called for. Loot changes were made. However, while he was 'in there', the designer felt compelled to fix a longstanding bug with the blades.

Controvery ensued.

It appears that we've taken what was a very pug friendly experience for pugs and changed it such that's it no longer - well - pug friendly.

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?

I am not familiar with the old shroud.
I did only the "new" one.
I have done "normal" several times, and "hard" once, never did Elite.
I have never wiped in shroud.
from what i have seen, normal shroud is easy. you can cross the blades two/three times and still be alive.
normal shroud can be completed flawless (no deaths)
Hard is more difficult, but still, if you aware of the environment and dont kill all the devils at once, only 1-2 people will die.
my first shroud was "hard" and i managed to stay alive and contribute with healing.

I believe both difficulties are puggable.

never tried Elite.

[Glenalth]

Or have an appropriately difficult, trapped corridor or swimthru, requiring a rogue, or even two rogues, to navigate, pull a switch or solve a puzzle, thereby stopping the blades from closing in. If they're quick enough, the blades stop before they've closed in completely, if they're slow or they fail, the blades continue unhindered.

Just a thought to help 'fix' it without actually 'nerfing' anything. Something like this, and by that I mean a REAL change to the quest design, would have the added benefit of encouraging more team play. You'd loose two dpsers during the fight, but potentially make the fight easier to survive in the long run.

I like the decision making of possibly faster vs possibly safer.

[extraocular]

What I would like to know.

How many of the people who are saying normal shroud is ok the way it is, do not already have a greensteel hitpoint item?

[Coldin]

On Normal Difficulty, the blades should be dangerous, but perhaps not deadly.

Perhaps Blade Damage could scale upwards the longer you're being dealt damage? Start it out as a miniscule amount. Enough to sting, but not enough to kill. Stay in for a bit longer, say 15+ seconds, and it starts tiering up quickly. Basically make it so players have a chance to get out, but hard enough that healers won't be able to keep up if the player lingers in the blades.

The reason I suggest that is simply because with how lag is, and how the blades are rather hard to judge, you can't have them insta-killing players. You need to give a warning before that.

[Meat-Head]

Sign me up for the shift the blades down one difficulty.

So, current norm blades become the new hard; current hard becomes the new leet.

New norm should have a lil tamer blades.

Other than that, it's solid.

[noinfo]

This thread assumes you are familiar with the Shroud and are aware of how it played before and after recent changes.

Designers had noticed that more often than not, players weren't completing all phases of the Shroud and in the spirit of 'making things better', it was decided that more incentive was called for. Loot changes were made. However, while he was 'in there', the designer felt compelled to fix a longstanding bug with the blades.

Controvery ensued.

It appears that we've taken what was a very pug friendly experience for pugs and changed it such that's it no longer - well - pug friendly.

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?

While I don't mind a reversion on normal and I love the changes at other difficulties and rewards my primary issue is blades should be evadeable. At the moment high HP toons have all the advantages going for them, epic where AC is completely useless and now shroud. Now most times the blades can be avoided but they are far less of an issue on a 800+ hp character who can hit a SF pot at will or live long enough for healing. Evasion is meant to help ballance those HP out in certain areas and blades most certainly should be one. They should by their very nature be save for half and evadeable.

[Memek]

The chasing blades spawned by killing a Devil seem to be a bit unfair and unintuitive and on occassion proc like a machine gun. Remove those, leave the rest.
Moving out of the regular blades that move in a spiral motion really isnt asking too much from the players.

[noinfo]

MadFloyd please take note of the subscription date of the replies...

Please do and remember that those with early dates were running shroud without greensteel when the cap was 16 and there were no PRE and loot was much much weaker in leveling and NO cannith crafting (though we did have transmuting weapons). It was never a true level 17 RAID as there were no level 17's to run it.

I don't mind if they drop normal shroud back to where it was but I have an issue with people who think that those who have been around longer have had shroud "Easier". The only real change I would like to see is blades and evasion.

[Cognoscentus]

The fact that there is no way other than twitch skills to mitigate it is.

Like others have said, give reflex saves/ac/dr/shield mastery the potential to lessen or even avoid the damage from the blades. Also, create a mechanic that shows the party who the blades are following (blade curse bloom?). As it is, the party has no way of really knowing who is bringing blades to the other party members. It would be nice to know who they are following so that those people can direct them away from that main group. Also, this would allow us to (cough) instruct those who bring the blades where they are not wanted.

[le_goat]

The only controversy is that long standing bug stood for so long it became the normal. change the normal and people get upset, yet they did not know that it was bugged.

[Nospheratus]

Amazing how shroud is still fun and so often run 13 mods/updates later :D (mod6 -> 9, U1 -> 12).


I would change only two things in shroud:
- Add a reflex save to the blades on all difficulties, obviously scaling the DC. Leave the damage as it is. It will still be painful to remain in the blades if you don't have evasion+good enough saves.
- Add an essence of cleansing to the reward of every 5th run. It's not gamebreaking and 20th rewards are generaly good to have a chance at a +3 tome. It's possible to have several tier2 GS items before you reach the 20th shroud. Considering the amount of new items we'v seen in the last updates, tier2 shroud items aren't that overpowered anymore. IMO, most of them are more useful than they are "must have".

[MarDeRoam]

Concidering it is a LVL 17 raid, i think the blades on Normal should be toned down. Not taken away, just toned down in damage output.
For any first life chars without the twitching gear those blades are deadly.
They should be dangerous yes, but not insta-kill when you have to cross them. (not only thinking part 4, part 3 can be just as deadly).

[luvirini]

I would say that the blades in themselves are fine. It is just that with bursts of lag a single blade can hit you 10 times.

Even without lag the single blade can hit you multiple times.

Reducing the hitbox size and giving some sort of avoidance would go long way towards fixing the issue.

Prefered solution: Reduce the blade hitbox size. Single blade can damage you only once/3 or 6 seconds, multiple blades, like if you stay in when the blades close in can each damage you once/3 or 6 seconds. Allow migating of the damage. For the migating it would be best if it was reflex based save to allow rogues in front line again. The damahe/6 seconds would be damage based not "hit", so a rogue who stayed in when blades close in would thus need save really often or still take that damage every 3-6 seconds, but single blades and such could be evaded for no damage.


If that is too complex to do: Reduce blade damage at lower difficulties and mark who the blades that spawn from green devils are following.

[Kriogen]

...
It appears that we've taken what was a very pug friendly experience for pugs and changed it such that's it no longer - well - pug friendly.

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?
People where happy, where doing Shroud. You can say Shroud was "selling" good.

Now people no longer "buy" Shroud.

Why do you even ask?

[StrixAluco]

It appears that we've taken what was a very pug friendly experience for pugs and changed it such that's it no longer - well - pug friendly.

Thank a lot for noticing and asking the community!

To me as a casual player dependent on pugs the pug friendliness of the shroud is an essential part of the game. As a lvl 17 raid and great way to gear up (especially regarding hp as they are now more of a ticket to pugs in general) the challenge at least on normal should be more with the untwinked lvl 17 in mind than the experienced lvl 20. I waited until lvl 20 on my first toon before I dared click a shroud LFM to try and make up for the lack of gear and hp, and that really shouldn't be the case as it wasn't fun letting the blades scare me away from the most popular raid.

I don't mind how the shroud is made more pug friendly once again, I would just be really thankful for an improvement to the shroud pugability as I would feel much more welcome to the game overall as casual player.

[Morlen]

I agree with the points of adding evasive saves/DR/AC/whathaveyou to work vs. the blades.

[Thorin2001]

Honestly, I hated the new blade issues in the Shroud at first. Now, I think they add another obstacle but are not impossible.

I would probably vote to dial down the damage that they do on normal, but leave other difficulties alone. The extra chests IMO are worth the extra risk, but on norm it shouldn't be instakilling a level 17 player.

This.
I like the changes after being very negative at first.
It is a raid after all and should be a kind of a challenge.
But remember: it is a lvl 17 raid on normal and lvl 17 chars should be able to complete it without beeing fully equipped. Maybe tune down the damage of the blades ~25% (on normal only) and/or add a reflex-save to halve or negate the damage.

[jejeba86]

We were told that the blades that spawn after a bearded devil death would hunt the player that struck the killing blow. But these wandering blades aggro seems as crazy as the bearded devil's.
Everyone that come close gets aggro from the blades.
But what I find most anoying about them is that, almost 70% of the time, the blades start roaming around the arena, not following anyone. But when Harry drops and people start fighting him, suddenly one of these blades that didn't have anyone's aggro goes to the middle and bam, lots of deaths. And its hard to see just one blade coming.
If this blade was hunting someone, this person wouldn't join the group in the middle.
Well, I don't know if I'm getting this wrong, but it seems to me that this is what happening.

Also I vote in favor of lessing the blades damage on normal, just on normal, as its meant to be ran by a full 17 group, and as it stands, its kind of intensive for them. That's not what normal should be.

I also think the blades should be evadable, and get DR applied. As they stand now, they are insta kill to some rogues and casters. If they can be evadable, less problem to the low HP evasion char, and with DR, the caster can shield block and tumble away.

If you think as a D&D player, if you see several floating magical enchanted blades that try to strike you, an evasion character should have an advantage dodging the blades hits. And as they are magical blades, they should do slashing and magical dmg, so being lessened with DR.

Besides that, I really loved the changes to the shroud reward and the extra chests. That was a great job, and specially tasty as you heard people's claims to make the raid better.

Keep up the good work.

[dTarkanan]

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?
Personally I think the blades on normal should be a happy medium bewteen what they once were and what they now are. The other difficulties need some challenge.

[moops]

1- The arguements about this being a lvl 17 raid and can't be run at level are rather silly-
---Considering that Even before the change 99% of groups only wanted 18-20s, heck some were even 19-20. My Guild would run at lvl once every TR life and pug some spots, and people would send us tells saying that we were crazy.
---My guild has done this at lvl since the change with 6 or 7 pugs, and it was still just as easy as ever--it just meant communicating, and 2 rounds instead of one as we were extra careful about the blades. We did have a 20 in the group but it was my gimp cleric. But this run actually had no deaths in part 4 as people paid extra care to what hey were doing.

2-As can be seen in a Sarlona Thread I started a week after the change, I went out and pugged this night and day to really get a feel for it, many times in groups with 3 languages being spoken, and Sarlona adapted awesomely to this.

3-I think that people that came to the forums at first had knee jerk reactions, and others are just P.O'd because they can't dual/triple box OR go afk in pugs for the whole raid as easily as they could b4.

4-I run shroud more than I have in a year, even bring out some really gimp alts to do it, I LOVE the end rewards changes--love getting twigs and boot ingredients. This also means that I am putting together an leading more pugs.

5-I'm reading what some people are posting here, and I think that due to the surround and pound mentality that has taken over the game, that people still don't understand the mechanics of the blades, for instance on Sarlona, half the pugs still start part 4 where the blades spawn, while the others start center or where you step in. Another example is that many pugs still kill the last 4 devils as quickly as possible, even with wail or implosion. . .we've found it easier to track the blades and who they are on if we kill devils one at a time. They don't understand that one person can drag the deadly blades to the middle. . we ask people to look around b4 running to the middle, on normal and hard it seems that most people can out run the single blade targeted on them for most of the damage.

6-There should be a reflex save for the blades--but, this encounter is already evasion friendly, and always has been easier with evasion builds, as much of DDO content is, and many DDO bosses are. I do wonder if a reflex save is added, if it adds even more incentive to splash evasion.

7-I'm not sure that the blades should be more threatening than the boss, tho, the boss is a caster, and in Master Artificer when you finally get to TOven he is an absolute wimp compared to every single thing you had to fight b4 him, as boss casters have minions, and better minions. And certainly when you do get hit with the bosse DBFs,
even b4 the change and you had low hp with no evasion or gear you could die.

8-As a raid leader, I actually want this to stay the same, but with a save perhaps for the blades since, well, there should be some kind of save. Why do I want it to stay "harder" well, because it will teach new people to be better team players and make it easier for me to lead them thru the more complex raids.

For instance, VOD and HOX have always been a crapshoot in pugs, because there are no flag quests for those raids, and besides not understanding DR breakers, and what cc works on those mobs, many people who have stepped into these raids over the years have not learned the teamwork skills. . .Since the changes to shroud, I've noticed as a leader, that teamwork and people listening has gotten better overall.

Edited to add:
Someone said to look at post dates--
so my experience doing this raid when it first came out? We wiped quite a bit on normal for the first month or so even in guild groups--in pugs, it was not uncommon to have a wipe in a pug on normal for the first year. We used a lot of pots, esp in pugs. We went out and got better gear to help survive the DBF--I farmed and bought Firestorm Greaves and Ice Cloaks for my Clerics and Melees. The blades, were more dangerous --I swear that they were toned down a year and half or so ago. . .But I always had to avoid the blades on my healers, never stood in one place--we also called for people to get out of meleeing Harry during blades. Oh and guess what? When the Casters all got their Glacial Sets Harry started to zoom across the room--sometimes killing half the group until we acutally learned to use this to our advantage and would move harry so that the melee could stay on Harry the whole time as the blades didn't adjust to the new boss position. Shroud was actually nerfed to be much easier.

[Blackmoors]

Greetings everyone!

First of all, ty @MadFloyd and all the Devs for this idea and this new feedback threads, it really made the forum a much nicer place, not to mention the fact everyone here likes to contribute a little with his ideas and feedback.

Regarding the Shroud and the changes:

When Shroud was released, it was supposed to be the toughest challenge in the game, hence the fact it was a level 17 raid and the level cap only 16. It was a great challenge and every completion was an achievement. From then to now, the level cap has been raised to 20, we now have prestige enhancements that really boost your character, we have new classes and stellar items, and as such, what was challenging back then became somewhat trivial. The Dev team understood this and went and upgrade it a bit to make it once again challenging and I understand and approve that really, the game needs to evolve and content needs to be adapted to the changes. That said, recent changes gave mixed feelings to everyone since the scaling was a bit too much for such a raid...

Shroud is a level 17 raid, meaning it should be something that everyone should complete at appropriate level without the need for stellar items/builds. The raid itself works like this until you reach part 4 really... In part 3, the appearance of the blades actually makes sense since the challenge there is to free yourself and everyone else from a prison and the process in doing so is to purify some water that keeps you trapped, so it makes sense that the corridors of your prison have traps and/or patrols, making the blades a challenge to avoid (you can dodge them, sop and heal or even get to safe spots). Personally I dont like the blades mechanics itself, im against "non savable" things but since you can avoid by dodge them with relative ease, we can let it go on this part since theres no other thing that can pose a threat in part 3. Blades in part 4 thou, are a different matter...

Part 4 blades hit for too much and too fast. Sometimes you cant avoid them at all due to lag or even a slow machine (have in mind not everyone play in optimum settings and not all are based in USA), meaning, as Shade said, you can have 1000hp shredded in 2 seconds and theres nothing you can due, theres no player skills here involved, just being in the wrong place at the wrong time due to the arbitrary nature of the blades and the hit blade mechanics.

I think that the blades should deal enough damage to threaten, but not kill, the killing part should be for the boss to do, not his army of blades. In other quests/raids in the game, mobs and traps pose threats to the party and each player but the most deadly force is (or at least should always be) the boss itself. That said, I think that a kind of a formula should be implemented for every raid and quest ingame. On my next posts Ill show what I have in mind for each difficulty, something that in my opinion should be

Sorry for the long posts that will follow :o

[Blackmoors]

SHROUD LEVEL 17 RAID (normal)

:: The difficulty template for this raid should be a casual level 17 player and what a character at that level can have in terms of build and items. A level 17 human fighter, with starting Con of 14, a +6 Item, greater false life item, toughness feat, toughness item, 30 hp from enhancements, draconic vitality, should have 387 Hit Points - This should be the template for a normal shroud character in terms of HP (or the magical number), meaning that damage should be oriented according with this target (having in mind most of the classes will have less and a few can have more). Not counting saves, buffs or any other items, just setting a HP threshold for a base of what a player can take before he dies. If you have that in mind when defining what a mob, trap, raid boss, etc., can do in terms of damage (be it spells, abilities or just hit), you can more easily and certainly design your quests, making them challenge but on the same time accomplished! Taking part 4 of the shroud as example: since you cant be raised, damage players take, should be oriented for this template. Assuming you want the blades to be a threat but not be a show stopper, they should hurt you and even kill you if you dont move away when they appear, but they should kill you straight in 2 seconds if you arent fast enough moving away when you kill a devil...

:: As it is right now, the blades on normal deal +/- 60 dmg per hit and they can hit you 4 times per second it seems, meaning that this character would die in 2 seconds if hes caught in a blade. Did you projected the blades to work like this? IMO they shouldnt, each blade hit should hit for 8 to 10% of this template health, so they should deal around 30-40 dmg tops, in order to let each player have a chance of surviving a lag spike, a distraction from his part, a delay in heals, etc, etc.

:: Another thing to take in account should be the blades mechanics. They're "target" area seems strange, blades seem to hit you even thou they graphically shouldn't (dont know if its latency or lag perhaps) since you are seeing your character dodging them! Also, the hit 4 times per second seems a bit too much here (dont know if its lag again), maybe they should have a slower hit proc rate. Finally the last thing for me its the bales movement. While some seem erratic, following a pattern of they're own, others seem to folow a character, which seem like a bug to me or at least not working as intended. They're pattern should be circular or in some way you can avoid it since there is no save or damage mitigation for this, meaning you must, at all times, have a chance to avoid them!

:: CONCLUSION: tone down the blades dmg for normal and make the blades movement and AI in general accordingly with what they are, meaning its a magical blade that moves in a pattern and not follow someone around! Changing that, the rest seems on scale for this template!

[Blackmoors]

SHROUD LEVEL 18 RAID (hard)

:: The difficulty template for this raid should be a experienced level 18 player with a competent character. Taking a similar template but upgrading it: level 18 human fighter, with starting Con of 16, a +6 Item, +2 CON tome, 2x toughness feat, greater false life item, toughness item, 50 hp from enhancements, draconic vitality, should have 480 Hit Points - This should be the template for a hard shroud character in terms of HP, meaning that damage should be oriented according with this target (having in mind most of the classes will have less and a few can have more). Not counting saves, buffs or any other items, just setting a HP threshold for a base of what a player can take before he dies.

:: In this setting, completion shouldn't be a guarantee although manageable if played it correctly. Mobs should deal more damage, spells should be more deadly and traps (blades) should be more lethal. Again not kill you straight, but harmful and deadly if you dont avoid them and play carefully. Part 2 should have 5 bosses instead of just 4 (as in normal) to increase the challenge. In part 3 there should be a bit more blades then in normal so people have some challenge and not just free loot on this part! Boss should be dangerous and his spells almost deadly (not one shot in part 4 since you cant raise). Gnolls in part 4 should be faster at healing the boss if not deal quickly by the players. Following the same principle but increasing difficulty, each blade hit should be for 10 to 12 % of this template health, so they should deal around 45-60 dmg tops, in order to let each player have a chance of surviving a lag spike, a distraction from his part, a delay in heals, etc, etc. OFC if the blades mechanics were to change and they dont hit as often per second, the damage per hit could be raised.

:: CONCLUSION: difficulty on hard should be set for a level 18 player with shroud experience and some near high end items. As it is now, the difficulty is set for level 20 chars with epic items, they are the ones that run this for better loot odds. IMO, it shouldnt be like this, this raid should be completed at level, by level 18s! Tone it down so it can be a level 18 raid!

[Blackmoors]

SHROUD LEVEL 19 RAID (elite)

:: The difficulty template for this raid should be a very experienced level 19 player with a very competent character with some greensteel items. Taking a similar template but upgrading it: level 18 human fighter, with starting Con of 17, +1 human enchancement, a +2 CON tome, +6 item, 3x toughness feat, Shroud 45 hp item, greater false life item, toughness item, 70 hp from enhancements, draconic vitality, should have 597 Hit Points - This should be the template for a hard shroud character in terms of HP, meaning that damage should be oriented according with this target (having in mind most of the classes will have less and a few can have more). Not counting saves, buffs or any other items, just setting a HP threshold for a base of what a player can take before he dies.

:: In this setting, completion should only be possible if played it correctly, following tactics and teamwork. Mobs should deal more damage, spells should be more deadly and traps (blades) should be more lethal. Again not kill you straight, but harmful and deadly if you dont avoid them and play carefully. In part 2, instead of 4 bosses there should be 6 to make the fight more dangerous and challenging! There should be more blades in part 3, making it a risk to just run fro water without paying attention of the blades! Boss should be dangerous and his spells deadly (one shot you even in part 4 if your not protected accordingly). Gnolls in part 4 should heal boss at lightning speed, making it a priority for everyone to kill them straight! Following the same principle but increasing difficulty, each blade hit should be for 12 to 15 % of this template health, so they should deal around 70-90 dmg tops, in order to let each player have a chance of surviving a lag spike, a distraction from his part, a delay in heals, etc, etc. OFC if the blades mechanics were to change and they dont hit as often per second, the damage per hit could be raised.

:: CONCLUSION: difficulty on elite should be set for a level 19 player with shroud experience and items (and with top gear for his level). As it is now, the quest is not worth running since the resources and time dont equal the reward. The challenge itself its out of whack since its now way more difficult to complete than epic raids and other raids on elite. Its clearly designed for top characters and to be run in guild/channel only since pugging it it not very viable. Personally I find it a very frustrating challenge since you can get shredded rather quickly in the blades and theres no much you can do. For a quest that we used to complete on elite with the level cap at 16, it just doesnt feel right anymore, seems its out of place and the only reason its the blades mechanics and not a increase of the boss powers, more mobs, extra puzzles or challenges - just a buggy blade pattern combined with some delay and lag. Rewards seem very good for elite and I really wished this idea could be adapted for other raids/quests, but as it stands, its not a fun quest to do on epic nor is it worth it...

[Scraap]

As a follow up, let me address



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!'


specifically in this regard.

I'm seeing a lot of calls for saves here, and that's fine for a certain design approach. The thing you have to ask yourselves as designers, is are you pushing the players, or are you pushing the character builds?

If it's a case of pushing character builds, then set ac/reflex benchmarks (Probably about half and half, since it's essentially a sentient swarm of metallic locusts with electricity jumping amongst them, if I've interpreted the lore right.) and be done with it, but that's not catering to uber players, that's catering to power-gamers, like it or not, because they will find a set of values that let them ignore the hazard at some point, though it may take another year of gear inflation to reach that point, at which pint I guarantee you, the whining about 'too easy' will start again.

If the intent is to push the player to excel to a given point, then you absolutely need to understand what the given average reaction time is, the factors that can throw that off significantly, how that impacts things, and take steps to account for it.

I had a long talk with a buddy of mine over this thread yesterday, and the simple fact of the matter is that while I personally enjoy being pushed as a player, he prefers being pushed as a character designer.

One of us will be unhappy with a few of your decisions.

Accept that.

But be consistent about it.

That being said, I think he brought up a fair point in terms of a different way to push folks: Cursed Wounds when struck by the blades (after reverting to thier pre-boosted damage/proc-rate). This puts the onus at least a bit on each character to bring resources to the table, rather than what we've had prior, which was simply another case of getting a big enough set of damage numbers coupled with a big enough set of hitpoints to ignore the hazard personally, while 2-3 dedicated folks bite their nails over the defense aspect.

[Monkey_Archer]

Normal

Blades are just too much for normal. These are the only reason shroud on normal is not pug friendly. Either reduce them to the previous ~20 damage a hit, or remove them entirely on normal.

I personally, would like to see shroud on normal nerfed even further (possibly reduce Araetrikos's hp by 30% or so and reduce damage slightly), but also reduce the reward in compensation: Perhaps only have 1 chest per phase.
The ideal behind this is to make normal shroud a casual raid where even new players at level 15-18 with 250 hp can survive, learn and complete without ever being declined from a pug.


Hard

The current Shroud on hard is more or less where it should be IMO. A reduction in blade damage to current normal levels would be a good idea though.

I'd like to see this as the default difficulty for experienced semi-PUGs, and average guild runs. The current reward for hard is appropriate IMO.


Elite

Blade damage on elite is currently ridiculous and should be dropped down to current hard level damage. However, I'd like to see this raid become even more difficult, even achievement worthy for completing it. Insane blade damage is not equivalent to difficulty, its stupid.
I'd like to see all 4 lieutenant receive a massive buff for elite, so they would each have to be treated like a raid boss in their own right. Perhaps double, maybe triple their hp and damage output.
The rewards for this increased difficulty should be rewarded as well... perhaps 3 chests per phase, or add 5 more chests at the end similar to how Schemes of the Enemy end loot works.

[Angelus_dead]

When the shroud was released the designers also stated that they figured people would not complete the full raid. REMEMBER this fact. Players were told point blank it was ok not to finish.
What the devs expected was that people wouldn't complete because they weren't able to finish.

That's an important demonstration of how fundamentally wrong their evaluation of the Shroud raid was: the hardest section was actually phase 2, and once you made it through there the rest was downhill. They completely never expected that anyone who beat phase 5 would actually decide to recall instead of completing.

[Jendrak]

Please do and remember that those with early dates were running shroud without greensteel when the cap was 16 and there were no PRE and loot was much much weaker in leveling and NO cannith crafting (though we did have transmuting weapons). It was never a true level 17 RAID as there were no level 17's to run it.

I don't mind if they drop normal shroud back to where it was but I have an issue with people who think that those who have been around longer have had shroud "Easier". The only real change I would like to see is blades and evasion.

^This^ (almost) shroud was being run by "capped" lvl 16's on all difficulties before it got nerfed (yes it was nerfed to what most people call normal) accidentally. The pit fiend always did the fly byes and blades weren't quite as powerful as they are now but neither were we so it pretty much balances out IMO. Part 4 would go a minimum of 3-5 rounds even in good groups.

Considering all the old tatics work just as well as they did prior to everyone just powering through the blades I think no change is needed. If it was something that was causing serious issues like making the raid unplayable then yes something should be done. As it stands people just need to adapt, which is already happening successfully I might add.

[Sarisa]

Normal Shroud IS manageable now, especially to capped experienced players. Even though it's manageable, it's still a bit too much for someone's first character, who is only marginally equipped. At level, the blades are way too much damage on normal.

Normal Shroud is the stepping stone to the more difficult raids and end game content. It's where players finally start picking up good weapons (if they're not heavily invested in Cannith Crafting). It's where people can make their vitally important HP accessories. It's where people first start learning about gear customization.

Normal Shroud needs to be accessible and able to be completed at level (16-18) by a group of players with nothing better than a Metalline of Pure Good DR breaker, Heavy Fort, and +6 items in the appropriate stats. It needs to not have "cheap" instant kills if there is any sort of latency or graphical lag.

The biggest problems with the blades, and I'm echoing numerous other posts, are that the damage is not able to be mitigated.

Your only option is avoiding them with movement skills. That can be difficult if even ONE person in the raid is on a high latency connection since one person's connection can impact every other player in the instance. With one person "lagging the instance", now you end up with damage boxes that don't match up to the animation of the blades at all.
The hit box is much larger than the animation. Partially, it's due to "lag", but I feel you need to be IN the blades to take damage, not just 2-3 feet away like what happens now.
You cannot effectively jump over a blade. The hit box extends far above them. Being able to jump over them adds a bit of tactical manoeuvring to the raid.
That there is no way to mitigate the damage is ridiculous. No DR, no AC, no saves. This is also the biggest complaint about the (Epic) Partycrashers illusionary spikes. Those spikes are will save based traps, with DC's so high that even a 45 will save Cleric or Monk cannot reliably save on them.
The blades can hit a player way too many times in an instant. There needs to be a "cooldown" or "tick" timer on them. That you can get hit 3-6 times in under a second just for doing what your EXPECTED to do (run away from them) is unacceptable.
The homing blades are the killers. I think we need developer confirmation as to exactly how they work. Do they chase the person that killed the devil (where they are predictable), or do they chase whoever happened to have aggro last (which is unpredictable due to the devils schizophrenic aggro). The design of the circling blades is perfectly fine.


I can accept the current damage settings of the blades IF: The hit box issues are fixed; they're less sensitive to latency; and they can't tick on you multiple times a second.

If not, the damage NEEDS to be reduced on normal difficulty.

Hard could use a slight reduction in blade damage. Elite is probably fine, I just haven't tried elite since because Shroud is simply not enjoyable any more.

Note that this was not just a Shroud issue. Blades in the Shavarath wilderness area are also affected by this change. It can be worse in the Devil's Battlefield because of the graphical lag a lot of people get from the smoke, and due to the obnoxious behaviour of the Titans. Getting knocked down, then having a homing blade grind you to bits is not an enjoyable experience.

[pjw]

It does seem a bit silly.to have a level 16 raid that would be rough to complete at level, but my vote most definitely goes to fixing the end rewards:

- replace all small ingredients with random loot or something actually useful
- always have a large or a blank ingredient
- probably remove the mediums too

[Pwesiela]

One of three things needs to happen:


1) Reduce the damage on normal, perhaps a bit on hard. On elite, I think they're fine. After all, it's elite.

2) Eliminate the double-triple proc damage from the blades. If I'm standing in them for 1 second, I shouldn't see 4 numbers show up over my head. Now, if I stand in them for 4 seconds, sure, I should see a few. But not for only the initial hit.

3) Let them be evadable or have a to-hit check. They're whirling blades. They either have to hit me when I'm not looking (evasion) or get through the cracks in my armor (AC). The no-save-massive-damage-multiple-times is inexplicable.

[shadowhop]

I think the blades deal good damage, only there should be a way to tone the damage down for the players.
(thinking about evasion for lesser damage or let ac have effect it and damage reduction should always work against it)

In D&D there should be no attack where you can't lower or evade the damage.
Even a firewall where you stand in gets reduced with fire resistance and fire protection.

And there are already to many reasons to have as much hitpoints as possible, else some classes are even less liked (melee rangers, rogues).

[Dendrix]

Shroud is the 1st time we fight a pit fiend, a top end devil, a general.
And he's not the scarey part, the dumb blades are the scarey part.

They do too much damage and too quickly, the slightest lag is death. Reducing the frequency of their damage would solve it.

[TempestAlphaOmega]

Normal should NOT allow players to totally ignore the blades (i.e. stay in the healers will just mass through the blades).

I believe we are seeing less Shroud runs right now because more people are completing rather than farming, so the incentives (loot and raid difficulty) are working to encourage people to complete without forcing them to do so.

Pugging normals I see completions except when people ignore directions (i.e. don't drag blades to the middle and wipe the melees) other than listening skills (and I don't mean on people who don't speak English, these are people speaking in voice chat who just choose to ignore what is said or have a really short memory span).

A change to how the blades work is something I would not be opposed to. DDO allows saves vs just about everything, why not these blades? Don't want reflex saves so people with improved evasion can practially ignore them, then change the blades to some type of energy/force and use a will or fort save.

[Xufang]

Most people seem to have already said much as I was thinking. Hard and Elite should be as they are, a real tough challenge with great rewards for well equipped seasoned players.

Normal should be for under-geared first-lifers trying to craft their first Greensteel items.

In order to do this, Normal should be scaled down to a manageable level with those people in mind.

Thanks for taking the time to ask these questions, Mad. I'm sure the community as a whole really appreciates it.

[Jandric]

It does seem that Shroud is Pugged alot less on Thelanis since the changes, but I think this is a product of:

1. Elite players wanting to do hard/elite runs and sticking to private channels/guild groups.
2. People that were traumatized early and didn't adapt to the changes.

The elite players aren't going to go back to pugging no matter what you do to normal, because they want their extra larges. That's unfortunate, really, but that's product of the new incentives.

Normal is extremely survivable even after the changes. Don't wail the devils, watch the heat seeking blades, and get out of dodge when the blades close in. The last few Shrouds that I've run were still 1 rounders, due to great DPS. The problem is that any lag at the wrong moment=death. The best way to tweak normal at this point would most likely be to shrink the hit boxes on the blades to reduce the amount of overlapping damage that can be dealt. Hopefully news of a change might enhearten some of the folks that just stopped running it to come in and adapt, because I reaaalllyy miss the days when you didn't have to wait more than a few minutes to hit a Shroud run.

[ulticleo]

Normal should be reverted to what it used to be
Hard needs to be toned down, equivalent to what norm is now
Elite should be toned down considerably, perhaps a hair above what norm is now.

I am in a reasonably competent guild, and we went at elite shroud 6 times with a "traditional" party (3 healers, 2-3 arcanes, mellee). mostly 20s. The best we did is get harry down to 20% in part 4 before a wipe. AFAIK, the vast majorities of elite shroud are being completed with arcane/divine groups. that simply should not be.

A level 17 raid on elite should be tougher than a level 20 raid on hard, let alone elite. Right now, elite shroud and elite abbot feel tougher than elite tod and hard lob (I have not done elite lob, so can't comment).

Not a complete roll back, perhaps, but some toning down is definitely in order, and a reflex save would go a long way.

[Lormyr]

I would like to see the blades allow a reflex save for half damage (make them the same DC as the pit fiend's spells for the given difficulty being ran), and be slightly less tracking/clingy.

I am not a fan of attacks that allow neither a saving throw nor make an attack roll against armor class for this game. What is the point of having these attributes and calling the game dungeons and dragons if we are just going to ignore and circumvent the things that make it dungeons and dragons?

[Mrmorphling]

For me it's fine as it is and on my play hours PUGs fill resonably fast for normal and incredibly faster for hard (before the change they were almost non existent) so i wouldn't touch anything.

[Thrudh]

I'm okay with them toning down the blades a little, but so far in my experience (a dozen normal runs and two hard runs), it's not that hard to handle the blades with a little communication.

Kill the devils one at a time, preferably from a distance with a caster or ranged character... Stone or dance the last one, and don't kill it until all the other spawned blades have disappeared...

Pay attention to those spawn blades and keep away from them...

When Harry drops melee him for two action boosts (1 minute), then everyone run together in the same direction towards the clerics (south is good). Voice communication is key here.

If you get out early, then the blades aren't bunched up together, and you don't get that hurt running out...

However, getting out early means he's going to throw meteor swarms so everyone needs to keep moving on the outside (casters can still DoT and ranged characters can still do damage..)

Repeat.

2 rounds so far every time... (One 1 rounder where everyone ran out, but the casters and the ranged characters finished him off)

All that said, normal could be slightly more forgiving so new players can handle the raid.. But Shroud is NOT hard with a even a semi-decent leader and people who listen.

(One last caveat - All this assumes little to no lag - obviously lag is much more dangerous in the Shroud now because of the blades)

[~Cavalier9999]

Yes, please take normal back to where it was.

Then dial back hard and elite to somewhere in between where they were and where they are now.

Agreed with dropping small and mediums from the end reward. The potential for larges and vale mats was a great change, but I would rather have trash loot than smalls and mediums.

[keefer1]

At first I was a little upset with the change to the blades. I felt like "so this is what we get for grinding this run for years starting at lvl13" !!

Now after calming down, What you kinda of did was bring the fun back into running the shroud...like when we where lvl13's again and there was a chance that we would die in part 4!!


I also agree that evasion/ac should have an effect on the blades and the proc should be looked at though.
The blades are a bigger threat than Harry and thats a problem.

Maybe on norm the blades may need to calmed down a bit for the toons that have never run it. But I think H/E should pretty well be left alone.

And thanks for asking the players their opinions....Devilsbane

[gloopygloop]

This thread assumes you are familiar with the Shroud and are aware of how it played before and after recent changes.

Designers had noticed that more often than not, players weren't completing all phases of the Shroud and in the spirit of 'making things better', it was decided that more incentive was called for. Loot changes were made. However, while he was 'in there', the designer felt compelled to fix a longstanding bug with the blades.

Controvery ensued.

It appears that we've taken what was a very pug friendly experience for pugs and changed it such that's it no longer - well - pug friendly.

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?


I was not happy with the new Shroud when it was first changed in 12.0, but I figured I'd wait a week or two before shouting vitriol from the rooftops. I'm glad that I waited.

I like the new Shroud now. I'd like it even better if you reduced the portals' HP by half just because that part still isn't exciting after the several hundredth time of running it, but I've always liked parts 2 and 3 and now part 4 is exciting too.

I know that there are a lot of people who really don't like the new change, but I will ask this: if you do decide that the "new Shroud" is too much on Normal, please consider eliminating just the spawn-from-devil blades and not reducing the damage at all OR reducing the damage somewhat, but not reverting the quest all the way back to its U11 version.


Also, I absolutely LOVE the new end reward list. LOVE IT!

[voodoogroves]

Not only are they a bigger threat than Harry, but whenever we remove D&D mechanics and replace them with active keyboard components, that can be painful for those who are experiencing lag.


Lag will happen. People will play this game in far away places across wide networks on a range of PCs. Raid synchronization where each PC is also getting updates on 11 other PCs will have times where things aren't quite exactly as they may be painted on the screen. I'm not saying it's the game, the individual PCs, the networks involved ... no finger pointing. Regardless lag does and will happen - and for the biggest threat in a long quest to be one that is impacted so much by lag, it's a downer.

[zeonardo]

I will swing my Greater Dead Horse Bane again, just so people won't say I complaint but did nothing to help.

Revert normal, leave hard and elite as it is now.

Just for the kicks:
I'd like to have a system where you could get the names of all the "blades are good" on the forums, link to their characters and prevent them to run any other difficulty than Elite. You would be helping them since they like it so much. And it keeps the streaks! (I made this unreadable on purpose) ;)

[Qaliya]

First, thanks for making these sorts of threads. Regardless of the topic and the end result, they are appreciated.

I still think the whole issue with the blades is overblown, but I do think toning them down a bit on normal would be fine.

Strongly opposed to the reflex save. Do this, and people with evasion will end up taking nothing, and we'll be back to the blades being considered a joke again. Worse, it will set up a huge divide in "shroudability" between those with good reflex saves and evasion, and those without.

I think there are many other changes that would make Shroud more enjoyable that have nothing to do with blades. Starting with making part 1 a lot harder and a lot shorter. Right now it is tedious and, frankly, pointless.

[gloopygloop]

One other thought: it might be worth considering an option to open up Casual as a difficulty for Shroud that would have old-style Shroud mechanics (i.e. blades that are no threat to the party). You could eliminate the chests from part 4 on Casual and either drop the Large drop rate in the part 5 chest to 50% or even leave the part 5 chest alone.

If people want a sleepwalk-through-the-raid difficulty level, that's exactly what Casual was made for.

[Meetch1972]

Ok, what about variations on what the blades do rather than just DPS?

What about lower damage per tick but a 15/25/35% (N/H/E) chance to hamstring whoever they're chasing when they hit them?

Or - talking about the blades that spawn when a devil is dropped - if the blade damage is the same per tick between N/H/E, but on normal it runs out of power after it chases you for a while, on hard it stops only after it's done 300 or so hp damage, and elite it only stops after doing 600 or so in total? Scale as appropriate - I'm yet to run hard or elite... possibly double those numbers? But still in smaller increments. Of course, the circling blades should still behave as they currently do since we have the option of chickening ou... I mean exiting them before they close in.

[Fejj]

/Skip to end of thread and reply

1 - Blades should have a reflex save on all difficulties.
2 - Normal - blades should hit for much less, and hit less often
3 - Hard and Elite are just fine as is.

Thank you for your intrest

[Moltier]

Just fix the multi-proc nature of the damage dealing mechanic.

Scraap!

Thats the only problem with the blades. They often do more damage then epic queen, on normal.
(or just add some kind of character defense)

[dynahawk]

For the most part things are back to normal for the pug scene, but what I really worry about is the first time shroud experience for a new toon/new player. Those blades aren't mistake friendly.

The extra rewards are great for the harder difficulty, and I believe the harder difficulties should remain unchanged.

Multiple difficulties settings are great as long as there is some extra reward along with it, but what should not be forgotten is that everyone needs to start somewhere. On my first toon all my preparation went to becoming shroud ready. Not sure how I would have handled it walking into todays shroud getting slaughtered by the blades. I could see some people giving up, and that would be a shame.

[redspecter23]

However, while he was 'in there', the designer felt compelled to fix a longstanding bug with the blades.

Controvery ensued.



I'm wondering about the specifics of this action here. Do the designers have the authorization to do that without checking with anyone first? Sure, on the design side of things, it may have been a bug since day 1, but on our (player) side of things, we never even knew anything was wrong. "Fixing" something that we think is WAI on our end is not only completely unnecessary (if we don't think anything is wrong and there is no exploit going on, why change anything), but also extremely risky as the results of this "fix" showed. I may be wrong, but I don't recall the known issues list stating anything about shroud blades not working as intended.

I don't mean to come across overly negative here and maybe I'm reading too much into your statement, but one would think that such a huge change would not be in the hands of just one single person acting on, what they believe to be, the good of the game, but what turned out to be one of the biggest controversies of the year. From the way you've described it, if this one designer hadn't tinkered with that aspect, not only would the players have gone on, completely oblivious to what could have been, but no other Turbine employees would have given it a second thought either.

The Shroud was changed based on the single actions of one person who clearly didn't think of the complete repercussions of that action. An action that really wasn't intended by anyone else besides perhaps the original designer of ever seeing the light of day. If something works a particular way for many years, it's irrelevant how that thing was designed to be originally. It's been around for so long that how it is, is accepted to be working as intended.

If I were to choose one thing to change about the shroud, I think it would be the design process described above.

[Hordo]

This thread assumes you are familiar with the Shroud and are aware of how it played before and after recent changes.

Designers had noticed that more often than not, players weren't completing all phases of the Shroud and in the spirit of 'making things better', it was decided that more incentive was called for. Loot changes were made. However, while he was 'in there', the designer felt compelled to fix a longstanding bug with the blades.

Controversy ensued.

It appears that we've taken what was a very pug friendly experience for pugs and changed it such that's it no longer - well - pug friendly.

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?

FTFY ;)

And now to address your main question: No.

Do not revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud, just back them down a tad. The blades went from an annoyance to being able to take out an 800+ HP Barbarian in nanoseconds (I've witnessed this...Shade just vanished in a heartbeat...was funny and frustrating at the same time). They should present a real danger, but for Gornn's sake just dial it down a notch. There is no reason to turn it to 11 just because the amp goes all the way to 11. ;)

All-in-all, once the initial pain of the Shroud was understood it again became a pretty good raid to PUG and we have been doing that successfully, granted on Normal mostly, much like in the past. The main problem is that the blades don't just pose a threat to a PUG, they pose a threat to any party with their devastating amounts of damage and unless there is proper party leadership and coordination part 4 gets overly-difficult. There should be a threat of failure, to be sure, but a party wipe by the blades is much different than when we were all learning the Shroud and Harry wiped us out. You expect that from the Raid Boss, but not instant-deaths of 800+ HP party-members who just killed a devil.

Back it down a bit...like a 5 on Normal an 7 on hard and a 9 on elite...save 11 if you ever go to epic that raid, because right now they are dealing an epic amount of damage.

[Meetch1972]

First, thanks for making these sorts of threads. Regardless of the topic and the end result, they are appreciated.

I strongly agree with this. Inviting constructive criticism is a win-win situation.


Strongly opposed to the reflex save. Do this, and people with evasion will end up taking nothing, and we'll be back to the blades being considered a joke again. Worse, it will set up a huge divide in "shroudability" between those with good reflex saves and evasion, and those without.

I tend to disagree with this for the following reasons:

1. To survive in the blades with a lag spike you either need hit points or evasion. A decent (not legendary) evasion toon should not be able to avoid them 95% of the time on normal - perhaps tune for ~80% with pretty darn good gear already, and an unlucky streak for a glass cannon is all it should take for the blades to shred them. A DoS tank on the other hand should be shredded over time, and healers should have ample time to react to their hit points dropping if that's the plan. The balance between the rate you take damage and the hp buffer you have should IMO be reasonably balanced so there is always the possibility of getting unlucky and you get the nasty end of the blades' average DPS with a string of failed saves.

2. Casters in the right position are ignoring the blades, 'cos they're not in them.

3. Playing it smart when the blades close in is always an option, as long as you don't lag out when it happens or you ensure you give them plenty of space.

4. There are, and should be, reasonable saves for practically everything.

However it's done though, yes the blades should not be a joke. I don't think anyone's asking for an evasion easy button - just mitigation.

This thread is a winner. I look forward to seeing what the developers do to keep Shroud interesting and dangerous, without the biggest threat being lag spikes.

[Postumus]

I think things are (nearly) back to normal for shroud PUGs. The requirements for people to be somewhat competent in HP and playskill have gone up so fewer lvl 16-17's are running it though I don't know that this is all bad.

Except it is a Level 17 Raid, so fewer level 17s running it is a BAD thing.

[quijenoth]

Whatever designer thought that blades hitting 3-5 times for 50 odd unavoidable damage on a NORMAL level 17 raid would be a good thing needs some serious help!
The average 20 rogue pre-shroud has 250 hitpoints - at 16 its closer to 200. thats INSTANT DEATH! Now add in 4-5 more blades and its instant death for anyone. I dont care how uber you are, fact is sometimes you can be unlucky. if you happen to be one of the healers whose unlucky the whole raid goes south pretty quickly.

Now if this was any other raid I probably wouldnt argue the point so much but shroud has a "Special" element: When you die in Part 4 you end up in Part 5 with no chance of res or rejoining the fight. for me (on normal) this is bad quest design. Nothing should be instant death without a chance to recover. if you die from PK, FoD or other monster ability/spell you can always rely on someone to res you. This isnt the case in shroud.

I hear people say, oh its only the lazy people, or inexperienced that die, those who know it avoid it all the time! well thats a lie. Blades are random and while you "can" reduce the chance of being eaten by them there is still a chance you will die to them. Lag is one factor, Being stuck in the middle of a long casting spell (or clicking that mystical bauble) makes it difficult to avoid a blade that pops on you. I posted a suggestion about allowing reses every time harry disappears and goes airborne on another thread to soften the impact of unavoidable deaths instead of reducing the damage but perhaps thats too much coding to work in.

I've completed over 80 shrouds now and run more if you include failures in the 2 years I been palying, I have never jumped out and never intend too. Pre changes, the only groups that I saw fail included at least half the raid being level 16-17. Post changes I have mostly seen 18+ shroud groups or at most 1 or 2 17s in a shroud (usually the person who posted it and often specifying 18-20 in the grouping window!) yet these have also failed.

Bottom Line: Make Shroud a level 20 raid and I have no problems with the changes you have introduced. However if you want to keep shroud a level 17 raid reduce normal damage of blades. I havent run many hards but all have failed so far except one which was all level 20s and a part guild raid topped up with pugs.

If you want people to complete the shroud more instead of farming parts 1-5 consider doubling the loot rewards at the end on all difficulties; 2 ingredient chests on normal, 4 on hard and 6 on elite while changing part 4 to a medium ingredient chest! Part 5 has to have an incentive to complete beyond anything the other parts can offer to keep people inside.

Currently people are still running normal shrouds over hard or elite, they arent willing to risk the extra chests on a chance of failure and as such people doing normal still find it more productive to jump out early.

[Flavilandile]

It appears that we've taken what was a very pug friendly experience for pugs and changed it such that's it no longer - well - pug friendly.

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?


Shroud has become definitely PUG unfriendly with those changes.
The important thing to remember is that the Shroud is a LVL 17 ( on normal ) raid, and should be doable by 12 LVL 15-17 28 Points-characters equipped with items found from loots in previous levels. ( as it was originally done )
Right now with how the blades hits it is not possible, unless you have done hundreds of shrouds and know the blade timing by heart.

At the moment Shroud is the domain of guild/channel groups that goes there with capped characters ( and capped TRs ) with lots of greensteel, epic and end game named items.

Now, while I appreciate the fact that staying in the blades should hurt, I think you went overboard and made them hurt too much.

there's two ways to fix that IMHO :
- the first one is easy, divide the damage dealt by the blades by 2 or 3 for all the difficulties.
- the second one is more tricky, keep the damage as it is, but make the blades evadable and resistable by DR, as well as make them hit you only once by cluster. Right now, from all the gathered information and from the personnal experience, the blades hits you once by blade in a cluster when you enter the area of said cluster. As there's 3 to 6 blades in each cluster, it can hurts a lot really fast.

[Postumus]

One of three things needs to happen:


1) Reduce the damage on normal, perhaps a bit on hard. On elite, I think they're fine. After all, it's elite.

2) Eliminate the double-triple proc damage from the blades. If I'm standing in them for 1 second, I shouldn't see 4 numbers show up over my head. Now, if I stand in them for 4 seconds, sure, I should see a few. But not for only the initial hit.

3) Let them be evadable or have a to-hit check. They're whirling blades. They either have to hit me when I'm not looking (evasion) or get through the cracks in my armor (AC). The no-save-massive-damage-multiple-times is inexplicable.

I agree with this.

[Riggs]

...
The issue with the blades is that they allow for ZERO chance of not being hit which is frankly a #$@#$#@@$ in the world of DnD. (save when you tick off the DM) By PnP rules they should be rolling to hit us via our AC score.

Given the auto hitting and the fact that the it just an area check so client server issues exasperate this 5 fold.... The blades have always been, frankly, a really [frustrating] move by Turbine.

There are several ways to fix this.
1. keep the auto hitting but make it like a charge such that they can only strike once every second max.
2. Make it roll an AC check.

Heck, just thinking about it, given the fact they are constantly doing area checks, no wonder shroud lags like crazy at times. Eladrin stated that area checking his heavily expensive. Those things are roving area checks in a concentrated area.
...


Yeah, part 4, I was on my level 20 cleric, first wave of devils got beat down quick by the entrance. Within 1, maybe 1.5 seconds I was down 300 hp - if I had of lagged even a little bit I would have missed that frantic heal and poof - down one cleric 5 seconds into part 4.

Blade Barrier was changed to be a 'get damaged only once when in an area, no matter how many spells are cast'. Roving blades need to be given similar treatment.

If area checking = lag. Then fixing blades would be a double win for the game.

[gloopygloop]

Shroud has become definitely PUG unfriendly with those changes.
The important thing to remember is that the Shroud is a LVL 17 ( on normal ) raid, and should be doable by 12 LVL 15-17 28 Points-characters equipped with items found from loots in previous levels. ( as it was originally done )
Right now with how the blades hits it is not possible, unless you have done hundreds of shrouds and know the blade timing by heart.

How often did 12 level 15-17 28 point characters equipped with items found from loots in previous levels complete a Shroud between U1 and U11?


It's possible that you might need a two hands to count them instead of just one hand, but it's possible that the count might squeak in on just one hand.

[Sillk]

Drop small ingredients from the end rewards
Add a Reflex Save to the blades, and dial their damage down a little.

(While you're at it, add a Reflex Save to the Reaver's Fate spears in the ceiling and on the way to the 2 levers...)

[Tom_Hunters]

i think it's alright,

yeah sometimes ppl wipe now, including me if careless
but the game mechanic itself is not devastating, it just need some reformation of strategies

as for discouraging non-completions, i dont think the end rewards help much though.
it is actually due to tier 2 shroud stuffs are good enough for many occasions
well of coz i don't like nerfing tier2's, so maybe buffing tier 3 items can solve the issue?

[Ilundel]

Good morning MadFloyd & Turbine designers

I have had countless shroud runs before & after the change, so I will chime in to this thread in the hopes of giving some veteran players perspective.

I have always wondered why the blades in shroud never allowed a reflex save, but before the change the damage was so underwhelming that it did not matter much in the grand scheme of things.

After this change, I noticed a couple things that bug me about them:

1 - Multi hits within short periods of time from 1 blade: This is an issue with scaling damage up as 1 blade will more often then not hit you 2-3 times in a single second. Most pug non geared characters will have a tough time surviving the 120-180 damage that this represents from 1 single blade. On elite this is worst.


2 - Lag: Sometimes a player lag will make it impossible to see where the blade actually are, you sometimes get hit while no blades are on your character on the client side. This is worst due to point 1.

I like the new damage these blades produce and the challenge it implies, BUT I think it is overwhelming just because of these two points. I have two potential solutions:
Either implement something that when you are within a blades AOE you cannot get hit more then once per second from that blade or allow a reflex save that is relatively high so that characters have a chance of evading or cutting this damage in half. This effect is not much different from a blade barrier so i've always wondering why reflex saves were not allowed.

BTW, this applies to all difficulty, Harry already does a tremendous amount of damage on elite in part 5 and these blades make it extremely hard to melee him. His body takes enough space that you are almost garanteed to have someone in blades path and coupled with Harrys damage output, it makes a 800 hp barbarian die in 1-2 seconds...

[Systern]

Hi! I'm specifically not in the demographic you asked for. I'm a newer player, I've been playing less than three months. I find that statement funny, since I can't recall playing any computer game in my life for more than three months, and certainly wouldn't say that I was 'new' to it after the first three days.

But Yes, I'm a 1st life player. Non-twinked. Still learning these new quests as they open up to me. I have a 28pt level 12 rogue, a level 15 Drow bard, and now a 32pt level 11 Artificer. I don't think I'm the typical respondent you'll get in the forums here.

I'm premium, not VIP. I've paid cash for certain packs and perks, but I'm not your monthly bread-and-butter. I understand this. My other posts in the forums have been about buying the Challenge Pack, and being disheartened that the reward system is biased towards those that have Level 20 TRs and are inclined to farm for things. (you need to have a level 10 to get the mats for a level 8 item; You need to have a level 15 to get the mats for a tier 2 level 8 item. Human nature is to work towards the future, not the past. This is bad design.)

From what I've gathered from reading this thread, I have the following understandings:

Vale is 3.5 years old.
Green Steel has become 'baseline' in expectations both from the player base when running higher level content, and from design when making new content such as Secrets of the Artificers.

So, I have two questions for you:

Why are you changing the parameters for hitting this baseline?

and

How do you expect me, as a new to your game customer, to get to this baseline?

Do I need to find a guild for a mentor to teach, train, or twink me? Do I have any hope of finding a group of peers that we can discover and experience this together? Is this just like Vaults of the Artificers, where the content is being refactored for the bread and butter, and me as a new-guy have just been sold a Bill of Goods in buying Vale; Caveat Emptor!


DDO has a large history and longevity. The barrier to entry is already large because of the huge learning curve of all the things that have been added over the years. Why make it harder for us new guys to enter?

[MrFister]

I'm sure it's been said but I'll add a little weight through repetition.

Blades:
Change them to have one or more of the following: To Hit Check, Reflex Check, don't bypass DR
If you pick good values for +hit and reflex DC, you can make Normal "like it used to be" and still make hard and elite, well, harder and more elite.

End Rewards:
I basically never "farm" anything. I have so many small ingredients I'll never use them all. We don't need smalls in the end chest. Even mediums are a stretch.
Vale ingredients, larges, tomes, mana pots, random gear (esp weapons) of +8 or higher (for making high energy spheres), renown, boot ingredients?.

[nibel]

The blades went from doing very little damage to a very large amount of damage - and they key here is damage that is;
Large AOE,
Unevadable,
No to hit roll is is needed to take damage,
No save of any kind to reduce damage,
DR does not stop the blades.

This.

I think the blades should have an "attack ratio" (like, one "swing" every half second) and a to-hit check. Yep, AC. Not Reflex. There is already many things Harry throw on us that reflex are useful. Throw a bone to the people that maintain a reasonable AC.

I bet changing blades to attack twice per second will lower the server load instead of checking area each milisecond for some AoE damage.

Other than that, I think shroud actually is perfectly balanced. My non-TR level 17 bard survive blades without any trouble.

[Synthetic]

The changes to shroud were excellent. The new rewards cut the time for new players and old to finish greensteel items. The blades keep the quest from being a snooze fest as you now die if a sleep. It also lowered the 'required hit points' because you can simply play well and not get hit a lot if you have low hit points and no one expects you to sit through the blades - where as before you went to sleep and relied on have 300+ hp depending on difficulty and heal spam.

With the changes to everything else in the game - Cannith crafting being the number one change - everyone can be much better equipped for handling their first shroud - my first run I had an anarchic lawful outsider bane weapon new players can now fairly easily acquire silver holy lawful outside bane weapons increasing the amount of damage they can do in comparison to when I first ran it.

The designer did a great job as the blades were never meant to be sat through and fixing game mechanics is a good thing.

[rdasca]

This thread assumes you are familiar with the Shroud and are aware of how it played before and after recent changes.

Designers had noticed that more often than not, players weren't completing all phases of the Shroud and in the spirit of 'making things better', it was decided that more incentive was called for. Loot changes were made. However, while he was 'in there', the designer felt compelled to fix a longstanding bug with the blades.

Controvery ensued.

It appears that we've taken what was a very pug friendly experience for pugs and changed it such that's it no longer - well - pug friendly.

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?

The blade damage is fine on all levels; however, the idea that there is no save and the fact the blades are worse than the Boss is a bit much.

Set the blades to either have a save or make it so they do not proc more than about three times per second or something.

Getting hit nine or ten times in a row before you can even jump out of the way is a tad much.

If adding a save or the number of hits cannot be changed due to code reasons then, I would say cut the damage of the blades in half.

[TheGish]

Normal blades are too hard, end of story.

Whether they are working as intended we can't say, but I've gone from over 400 HP to 0 in under a second just by standing in the wrong place. Blades hit you 3-4 times each without warning in the midst of a lot of server lag from them spawning and harry jumping down.

Hard/elite? I'm sure they're fine if they are a similar mechanic to the present normal. I'm not in a guild so I stick to Normal with pugs.

My thoughts on blade damage, though, as a matter of feel:

No way to resist = bad. DR doesn't apply, no save, no AC check, nothing. Hit = dead. Only 1 stat matters and that's raw HP. And even then, the HP required to survive the initial blade spawn appears to be in excess of 500, which is absurd for the casters and healers taking that initial spawn in the face.

No way to see the initial spawn coming (in part 4) = bad. Standing in the wrong spot? DING! Time-out box for you, sorry. Was that your healer, standing on the perimeter where it by all logical reasoning would be safe? Awww, party wipe time.

As it stands right now, I don't do the Shroud. I have over 1000 lifetime completions of that quest and rather enjoy it. But I'm not stepping foot in there again unless something changes.

[cforce]

Mechanics-wise, I think they're fine. Total damage dealt should probably be addressed, with the following rule of thumb in mind:

Harry should be the most dangerous thing in part 4 and 5.

It's not that they're necessarily too hard, but it feels kind of silly to explain to new players: "That big devil in the middle? Nah, he's just the decoy. Watch out when you kill his minions -- they're waaaaay more dangerous."

[Flavilandile]

How often did 12 level 15-17 28 point characters equipped with items found from loots in previous levels complete a Shroud between U1 and U11?

No idea in the US., I wasn't in US in U1... I was in Europe and it was called Modules, and for a time an European Module was one or several Ux bunched together... and between the Module Shroud was released and the European Shutdown numerous time.

[gloopygloop]

No idea in the US., I wasn't in US in U1... I was in Europe and it was called Modules, and for a time an European Module was one or several Ux bunched together... and between the Module Shroud was released and the European Shutdown numerous time.

That's actually why I mentioned between U1 and U11. Because when the Shroud first came out, people kind of had to do it at level since level 20 didn't exist.

And those people who were completing it at-level when it was introduced were very well geared because many of them had been sitting at the level cap for a while AND there were a lot of failures when people tried to do the Shroud in the beginning, when "at level" was all that was available. I would really like to know where this "it was easy and we always completed it with no resources (pots) used when it first came out" myth came from.

[BOgre]

Hi! I'm specifically not in the demographic you asked for. I'm a newer player, I've been playing less than three months. I find that statement funny, since I can't recall playing any computer game in my life for more than three months, and certainly wouldn't say that I was 'new' to it after the first three days.

But Yes, I'm a 1st life player. Non-twinked. Still learning these new quests as they open up to me. I have a 28pt level 12 rogue, a level 15 Drow bard, and now a 32pt level 11 Artificer. I don't think I'm the typical respondent you'll get in the forums here.

I'm premium, not VIP. I've paid cash for certain packs and perks, but I'm not your monthly bread-and-butter. I understand this. My other posts in the forums have been about buying the Challenge Pack, and being disheartened that the reward system is biased towards those that have Level 20 TRs and are inclined to farm for things. (you need to have a level 10 to get the mats for a level 8 item; You need to have a level 15 to get the mats for a tier 2 level 8 item. Human nature is to work towards the future, not the past. This is bad design.)

From what I've gathered from reading this thread, I have the following understandings:

Vale is 3.5 years old.
Green Steel has become 'baseline' in expectations both from the player base when running higher level content, and from design when making new content such as Secrets of the Artificers.

So, I have two questions for you:

Why are you changing the parameters for hitting this baseline?

and

How do you expect me, as a new to your game customer, to get to this baseline?

Do I need to find a guild for a mentor to teach, train, or twink me? Do I have any hope of finding a group of peers that we can discover and experience this together? Is this just like Vaults of the Artificers, where the content is being refactored for the bread and butter, and me as a new-guy have just been sold a Bill of Goods in buying Vale; Caveat Emptor!


DDO has a large history and longevity. The barrier to entry is already large because of the huge learning curve of all the things that have been added over the years. Why make it harder for us new guys to enter?

So true. I can't even set foot into the level 19-20 content, House C stuff, as a level 20 toon, even though I've been playing a year now. Without mid-level crafted beaters I wouldn't stand a chance in Shroud, to get the GS I'll need for that stuff. Overall character progression design seems very backwards to me.

[noinfo]

How often did 12 level 15-17 28 point characters equipped with items found from loots in previous levels complete a Shroud between U1 and U11?


It's possible that you might need a two hands to count them instead of just one hand, but it's possible that the count might squeak in on just one hand.

It was mods back in the day and Shroud came out at cap 16. It was level 13-16 who ran it. Infact many of my toons in there leveling cycles left giant hold at 13 to get to vale to flag as fast as they could to get into shroud and often ran it at 13/14! Especially my clerics. The only advantage back then was that to break harrys dr you only needed a transmuter. Harry has more hp now and meteor swarm has a bit more kick to it being non evadeable (rock bits) and now of course the blades, but I can tell you that we often pugged normal shrouds 13-16 and completed. Part 2 could be nasty and part 4 as well often took 2-3 rounds sometimes more but it got done. Part 5 was an art form since no one has mass heal, it was run the fountains and alternate mass cures/scrolls usually with no metas to maximise spell points. Now I will be honest and say many were 32 point builds not 28 though both my clerics and my wizard certainly were 28 pointers and they were not loaded up with gear anywhere near what beginning players get today and that is the truth of it. On Kyber Arranticus, Boldrins and Balar (when he could not pike the other 2s) in my time zone pugged it every day since it was end game for so long and while after quite a bit there were a core of people who hade GS items and that helped alot there were alot more in those groups who had basic transmuters. Of course this changed as people ran more and more particulary since there was nothing else to do and it was the ONLY source of crafted specific gear.

[noinfo]

That's actually why I mentioned between U1 and U11. Because when the Shroud first came out, people kind of had to do it at level since level 20 didn't exist.

And those people who were completing it at-level when it was introduced were very well geared because many of them had been sitting at the level cap for a while AND there were a lot of failures when people tried to do the Shroud in the beginning, when "at level" was all that was available. I would really like to know where this "it was easy and we always completed it with no resources (pots) used when it first came out" myth came from.

There were certainly failure but once people developed stragegies it was more of the person leading the raid that controlled much of the success ratios.

Oh and you might want to think about what very well geared meant for those who were capped at level 14 (abbot was broken so don't even think about the gear from there)
We had
Deathnips
Cloudburst? and um...

Banisher and Vorpals/Disrupters were more poweful back then I will admit however only vorpals worked in shroud and of course the mighty WOP reached its peak during those times.

Oh as far as resources goes, they were used particulary cure mod scrolls however pots were only needed in emergency situations and normally only in part 4 when it was going longer than expected. Part 5 was much easier to manage via pool running alternating scroll heals (cure mod) and no meta cure spells with your potency item (no 75% boost healing items)

[mobrien316]

It also lowered the 'required hit points' because you can simply play well and not get hit a lot if you have low hit points and no one expects you to sit through the blades - where as before you went to sleep and relied on have 300+ hp depending on difficulty and heal spam.

I have seen just the opposite on Thelanis.

Before the blade change, I don't recall ever seeing a Shroud LFM with minimum hit point requirements. Now I see them often, though not all the time.

The blade damage is such that a second or so of lag (which is unavoidable many nights) if fatal if you have less than 450 HP. I can recall one Shroud group that I joined and finally dropped after twenty minutes, as the leader would admit someone and then immediately drop them if they didn't have enough hit points. After twenty minutes we were still only three people and I left to join a different group.

[Geonis]

My argument for leaving it as was on all difficulties but with the increased loot returns is that the shroud really isn't supposed to be fun for players like you and me anymore. We should be playing the shiny new super hard content, and the only reason we're running shrouds is to reslot an item we've replaced with an Epic item, or kit out a new character we're leveling. Leaving the difficulty alone but increasing loot means you spend less time in there at all... you pug out elites get faster returns and get back to the fun content. It also means first character first lifers and casual gamers can acquire greensteel quicker by learning (and enjoying) the shroud as is with better returns. It helps them catch up, essentially, getting more people to the newer end game, which provides impetus to the devs to continue focusing on new more challenging end game content.

This is my exact feeling about all content. As it ages, rewards levels should be turned up a bit, since that is no longer the "end game" grind.

[Flavilandile]

That's actually why I mentioned between U1 and U11. Because when the Shroud first came out, people kind of had to do it at level since level 20 didn't exist.

And those people who were completing it at-level when it was introduced were very well geared because many of them had been sitting at the level cap for a while AND there were a lot of failures when people tried to do the Shroud in the beginning, when "at level" was all that was available. I would really like to know where this "it was easy and we always completed it with no resources (pots) used when it first came out" myth came from.

There is no comparison possible with the items we had then and the ones we have now. When we first did Shroud nobody had Greensteel, GEOB and GLOB weapons were not there. At best we had a Transmuting weapon, a vorpal or a WOP weapon.
There was some failure, but you could reliably do it on normal with a pugged party of LVL 16.
As for ressources consumption... Mana potions were rare, elusive stuff looted from chest and quest reward. They weren't to be used except in the most dire circumstances and for exceptionnal tthings [ read : Elite Shroud ]. We mostly had to make do with what we had in our blue bars... ( without SP Item, without ToD Belt, without... well without 200/300 SP less )
That meant people waited in Part 3 for refill at the pond after group buffs, People waited in Part 2 for caster to hug the trees, People kited one lieutenant in part 5 to give time to the caster to refill at the ponds.

All in all, and to make sure things are understood : Shroud is a LVL 16ish raid, it's not an end game content anymore ( and it hasn't been once since Amrath ) and it should be breezed through by parties of LVL 20 characters equipped as they are right now. ( at least on normal and maybe even hard... they still should have to be careful on elite )

[KraahgDaAxe]

Pages 2-10 were TL/DR, but at the expense of repeating what others have said...

Saves for blades. DR should count (I get damage reduced from Horoth but not the blades?).

Otherwise I find the RAID just slightly more challenging on normal then it was before. Only run Hard once, pre update and it wasn't that difficult. Keep it the same other then the above.

Loot changes are eWin.

Kraahg

[muffinlad]

From what I have read, my view is someone contrary to others I have seen expressed.

A) I think the blades on Normal are Fine. People have adapted. There are still occasional failures, but not as many as there were in the first week.

B) I think the blades on Hard/Elite are overboard, and the overall rewards from the quest that you have "upgraded" do not match the risk/Reward scale level of difficulty that most folks are expecting.

I would suggest making Elite the same as the current Hard, and Hard somewhere inbetween E and N.

OR

Upping the rewards even further. As it stands now, these are way beyond level, and the extra chests do not cut it.

Regards,

muffinlad

[arkonas]

blades should stay but the damage should be scaled back on normal. it shouldnt be that freaking dangerous. also it makes some new people hate shroud. i dont think they should lose it just scale it back a little

[RandomKeypress]

Please don't get rid of the blades entirely from normal, as one person has suggested - people need to learn a little about them on normal before trying proper difficulties.

That being said, a reduction in danger (at least at normal) is in order. As someone who's first toon was a rogue, I had difficulty getting into pug shrouds with my measley 330HP. How could I get a first-timer rogue in any top raid or end-game content now? The GS HP item isn't an optional piece of equipment for most toons. The impact of con-opp is also significant. Pushing out the time when people can get that gear pushes out the time before they can start serious raiding and frankly levels 18-20 are not that fun if you can't raid - the exp is slow in coming and the quests aren't all great.

If you keep the blades as they are, please consider changes to the penalty box in stage 4. Properly handled blades don't kill informed people any more than Harry does. Lag, however...

Can you give people a chance in stage 4 - maybe take up the LoB anti-rez tactic rather than a penalty box? They'll miss a round, but if someone can escape the lag monster then there is at least a chance of recovery.

[GermanicusMaximus]

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?

Absolutely not.

Before update 12, Shroud was a joke, particularly part 4. Zone in, kill a couple of mobs, melee run to center and auto-attack/AFK, and divine casters throw heals. (BTW, when we start to talk about class balance, we also need to talk about the minimal effort required to play a melee toon in this game compared to any kind of caster.)

In a raid where something as important as green steel is handed out, that isn't acceptable.

Last night, my cleric ran a Shroud hard. Its the holidays season so it was a slow fill, and the group leader had to fill the last spot with a non-evasion melee toon who had less than 300 HP and didn't even know what fortification is. (By some miracle, he had acquired 25% fortification along the way.) The group leader was playing a quality arcane, we had couple other good players, and the rest were some where between the top 4 and the last spot in terms of quality.

Frankly, I expected to wipe on hard, and thought normal might be a struggle, but I'm always up for a challenge so in we went. Part 4 did take 3 rounds, but after round 1 it was already clear we were in no danger of wiping, and part 5 was the usual victory lap.

Even the updated Shroud is amazingly easy.

For some perspective, lets imagine swapping Shroud and Abbot. Put Abbot in the Vale pack, Shroud in Necro 4, keep all flagging in place so its just a matter of stepping into the alternate quest. Abbott drops green steel ingredients, Shroud drops the loot that previously dropped in Abbot. Seriously, make the code change and patch it into the live servers.

The forum complaint threads would stretch into the 100's of pages.

The ONLY reason we are even having this discussion is that Shroud drops mats for green steel weapons and everything in this game that affects melee has to be one immense easy button.

Leave Shroud alone and fix Abbot.

If you still believe you have to trivialize Shroud, adopt the LoB model. Have normal drop smalls, hard drop mediums, and elite drop larges. Make the NPC end reward sync up with quest difficulty, so no larges given out for running normal.

[gloopygloop]

There were certainly failure but once people developed stragegies it was more of the person leading the raid that controlled much of the success ratios.

Oh and you might want to think about what very well geared meant for those who were capped at level 14 (abbot was broken so don't even think about the gear from there)
We had
Deathnips
Cloudburst? and um...

Banisher and Vorpals/Disrupters were more poweful back then I will admit however only vorpals worked in shroud and of course the mighty WOP reached its peak during those times.

Mostly, I was thinking 100% fortification, Greater False Life, a +something Con item, Transmuters and similar gear. Just the basic stuff that you would expect from anyone who has been sitting at cap for a short while to have, but that you wouldn't expect from a first life character that doesn't have capped "big brothers" to pass twink loot down to him and that doesn't know where to go shopping for important gear.

And if people had a 10-20% failure rate in the Shroud when it was "at-level", that matches my experience with U12 Shroud after the first week.



Oh as far as resources goes, they were used particulary cure mod scrolls however pots were only needed in emergency situations and normally only in part 4 when it was going longer than expected. Part 5 was much easier to manage via pool running alternating scroll heals (cure mod) and no meta cure spells with your potency item (no 75% boost healing items)

Part 5 was always fine once you got past part 4. But part 4 went longer than expected more often than most people are willing to remember. People certainly weren't chugging big numbers of mnemonic pots on every run, but if a healer went through 5 PUG Shrouds in a row without running out of spell points in part 4 because of poor DPS, then I think that healer would be pleasantly surprised.

And really, is it that big of a problem that a new player with a first life undergeared level 17 character can't contribute as much in a Shroud as they would like to? Even if they pike their first Shroud, they'll be 18 or 19 by the time that their raid timer cools down. How long do people stay at level 17, anyway?

[Aganthor]

I think the new changes to the blades makes it a little more fun strategy wise for DPSer. Instead of just clicking auto-attack and stay there while the blades go down, you now have to time your retreat in order to stay alive.

BUT, it would be more fun design wise that you could have a reflex save on the blades and scale it according to difficulty: 25-30 on normal; 30-35 on hard; 35-40 on elite (as an example).

My two cents.

[smatt]

Leave hard/elite as is... Drop blade damage by 33% on normal...

Done...

The change was a good one, it's teaching more players that coordination is a good thing, that working together is a good thing.

While the following isn't jsut Shroud related it does happen in the Shroud as well as many of the other raids, so i think it's relevant to the conversation.

BUT..... As I see it while many of the raids have been updated, and raids are a key part of the DDo experience. The ignored factor is the lag/lag like issue. Now of course we will get the usual 10 people come in and say. It's all the players fault IE: Bad connection, Outdated CPU, RAM, Graphics card, etc.... Bullocks, it happens too often in Shroud, DQ, E-Dragon, E-Chrono to just be related to player side issues.

I would like to see soem real work put into the causes of the sometimes extreme lag/lag like/latency issues in the raids. I have my hunches about it such as when the party UI was updated, the way the clients of the various peopel in the raid group communicate was slowed down. It needs to be streamlined liek you did back around the time of the great TWF change. I remember you did do some work on it at that time. I also believe related to this that another cause are the many aura type effects, which goes back to client to client communications. And lastly, the issues surrounding the build-up of incoming damage as well as out going healing whne 1 player is DCing, which isn't a big problem in normal quests but many times has caused disaster within raid groups.

These issues cause frustration for many people raiding, especially during the primetime playing hours of 7PM EST till 2AM EST. Which also points to server side issues, if not then why would the increased server populations affect such things?

In the end raiding should be fun and the issues I've pointed to detracts fromt hat fun for many. Raids should be harder than the regualr questing, and more rewarding... But NOT due to the issues I've pointed out. This has been left on the back burner for far too long.....

[countfitz]

Well, it's no longer a level 17 raid. If that's what you want, change back Normal. If you're okay with it being a level 18-20 only, with 17s only getting in if they send tells to the leader, and only if they prove they're vets on TRs, then keep it as it is. As a player with lots of capped toons, I enjoy the extra rewards. As a player that only has healers, I don't have to wait for groups to get healers. So I'm fine. The question is, as a dev, what is your goal for the raid? A beginning raid that teaches raid mechanics, like Chrono was supposed to do (but didn't, it's also only run by level 20s, and also never at level) or is it just another end game raid? And is it supposed to make people happy in PUGs, or do you think it's supposed to be like any other PUG where people can't just sit back and have fun?

These are real, not rhetorical, questions.

[markusthelion]

The problem with that line of reasoning is that the level ranges that the raid was designed for are now left behind.
It's like the 500 point Disintegrate in Reaver, which no level 14 character can survive.
Running these raids at level should be a challenge for a newbie. It's shouldn't spell certain doom for that newbie.
That's what higher difficulties are for.

/This.

Well said, for the level of the content the blades are hitting too hard. I'm fine with hard and elite being more challenging but not on normal difficulty. The shroud is the starting ground for any new raider to actually start learning how to cooperate with a team and use his head. With the way things are now, one mishap (with a healing class mostly) can spell doom for the party on normal. There should be a little 'forgiveness' in that aspect on a normal difficulty setting. This builds confidence and makes those newer raiders a better player over time (or should), so that they can run harder content.

my 2cp.

[GermanicusMaximus]

In addition, as my last Shroud run demonstrated, it is easier for one twit to have 'fun' start wacking devils without listening to the group and possibly causing a wipe (as they did in my last run).

And this is one of the reasons why it is so important to make Shroud non-trivial.

For new players in the game, the leveling strategy tends to look a lot like one of the following

1) 1 player, 1 cleric hireling
2) 2 players, 2 cleric hirelings
3) 3 players, 3 cleric hirelings

New players run through quests, doing whatever they want, are healed through all their mistakes and never learn game mechanics or how to play content without being nannied.They reach Shroud, and simply believe they can continue what got them there. Too many of them don't listen and don't understand that raids require teamwork and strategy.

In short, there's a game lesson they need to learn, and you can either pull cleric hirelings from the game or pick the spot where new players learn how to act as part of a team in endgame.

If you revert Shroud normal to trivial, you simply push the problem into VoD and HoX. Yes, the joys of running through the SubT with someone who thinks he can run wherever he wants and hit anything that looks interesting.

Is it really a surprise that most divine casters don't want to join PUGs and spend their time logged on as "anonymous"?



Truly, I am at a loss to understand why the change was made to fix "normal" Shroud when it wasn't nroken and was one of the most run, if not the most, quests in the game - something ALL caliber and style of players could enjoy together. :(


As Jeets said when we rolled our first toons in the game: "Oy! Can you walk? Can you talk?"

Its all that is really required to run the current Shroud normal on a level appropriate character.

[GermanicusMaximus]

and this wont be very popular, but make harry fly around and jack people up not just stand there in one spot and take a beating .. maybe grab a barb by the throat and fly into the air and bite he's arm off .. that would be diffrent..:) you get my point :)

Does the barb get his arm back as part of a successful completion? :D

[Missing_Minds]

I would really like to know where this "it was easy and we always completed it with no resources (pots) used when it first came out" myth came from.

Until it was learned, resources were used, and it took a while. But once it was understood, and people using correct weapons (harry beaters) zero resources were used back then at the lower level.

Now, the normal group was 2-3 healers as well as 2-3 arcanes also.
We did not have any PrEs save for... 1 tier of bard spellsinger, and I think rogue assassin? or was it TA? I forget. And I may even be remembering this wrong.
There were no monks.
There was no store.
We did it on Elite as well. yes we use a bit of resources.

Also our DPS was not as high as it was then again lag was different also, and if anything worse than it is now.

And as yet, even back then we had all ranger runs, arcane runs, WF runs, etc. Some things just don't change.

[sephiroth1084]

I would really like to know where this "it was easy and we always completed it with no resources (pots) used when it first came out" myth came from.
What myth?

I started playing DDO just when Shroud came out, so I was first running it at around 4 or 5 months after it was released. By that time, completions were at well over 80% success rate, and most decent groups were completing without any resource usage. Sure, some people were very well geared by that point from having been sitting at cap for a while, but that wasn't universally the case. It was more the case that, even the people that were first getting into range of The Shroud were making an effort to get some of the basic, important gear for running stuff like that (a DR-breaker, fortification, Con +6, etc...).

Mind you, we were completing this in 12-15 or 13-16 groups without any PrEs to speak of, without Cannith crafting, without TRs, without monks, favored souls or artificers, without airships, without Mass Heal, without the DDO store, and without many of the very powerful items that have been given to us in the past couple years in the 9-15 content.

The Shroud LFMs almost universally required 3 clerics (some good groups would run with just 1 or 2), 1-2 arcanes, and DPS. Sometimes a bard, if one could be found. Part 4 typically went 3 rounds, 2 in very good groups, 4-5 in mediocre groups, and anything beyond that was usually just a failure on life support. Occasionally, we'd have such an uber-DPS group that we would drop Harry in 1 round, just before he teleported away. Groups rarely stayed in through the blades, but that was dependent upon the healers and HP of the melees.

And remember, there were likely players at level 13 in those runs. Hell, I did a Shroud in those days when the chat channels were all screwed up and we had neither voice chat nor party chat and had to do all of the organizing and instructions using /say and /tells during the raid.

The game went F2P, the level cap went up, we got PrEs, stronger equipment, TRs, airship buffs, better spells...and PUGs started failing The Shroud more often. Why? because there was a huge influx of new players rocketing up to cap without taking the time to acquire DR breakers, HP, etc... Maybe it was because a larger community doesn't keep tabs on each of its members as closely, so if you were bad, you could get by okay. Or maybe it's because of dungeon scaling and casual difficulty making it easier for people to level without gear, and without learning?

Meanwhile, The Shroud remained relevant for everyone, vets and newbies alike, and became incredibly boring for long-time players who were no longer challenged in there, because everyone became more powerful, but the raid didn't change.

Normal Shroud isn't all that difficult now. It just requires a little bit of communication and strategy.

[Inkblack]

In quote.
Ink


This thread assumes you are familiar with the Shroud and are aware of how it played before and after recent changes.

Designers had noticed that more often than not, players weren't completing all phases of the Shroud and in the spirit of 'making things better', it was decided that more incentive was called for. Loot changes were made. However, while he was 'in there', the designer felt compelled to fix a longstanding bug with the blades.
What was the longstanding bug that was fixed? Honestly, I didn't mind the blades before, even when I had a low hp character in there, because they only hit me a few times. Play smart, choose when to get out (if necessary) and go. Now I feel like if I get near even a single blade I may get hit 10 times instantaneously, and I'll be dead before I even realize it's on top of me. I stopped running the shroud after a couple of failed runs, although I've started looking for groups again but there haven't been any LFM's for it when I've been looking.

Controvery ensued.

It appears that we've taken what was a very pug friendly experience for pugs and changed it such that's it no longer - well - pug friendly.

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?
I guess what I'm asking is, what exactly was changed? If they did a lot more damage but only hit as often as before, I'd be fine with that. It's getting hit with the blade aura 3-4 times in milli-seconds that really stinks.

[GermanicusMaximus]

The damage ramp up was well, warranted really.

Calling it a bugfix really gets me though..

Because what makes the blades challenging and annoying IS definetely a bug.

They can hit you up to 20 times in 1 second if you move along with them and have a certain runspeed.. With the natural instrict being to run away from them, for character with just the right movement speed, they just die.. 1000+ dmg in 1 second on elite, its pretty dumb. Or around 500+ on normal even..

Tweak them so they have a 0.5-1s cooldown on how often they can hit you, and hell even up the elite damage a bit.. then it would be fun. The massive spike 1000+ dmg your cant even react to isnt much fun.

It's just not fun to suddenly die in 300 millliseconds when your sitting at 1000 hp and 4 very fast healers are looking right at you cuz of bugs.. Fix that and it will be good again.

Shade, I certainly hope that you aren't talking about one of YOUR toons. My cleric (yes, my slow footed cleric) wearing 30% striders can outrun the blades. Last I checked, striders are standard recommended raid gear. I would expect anyone in part 4 to have a pair of striders, and be wearing them. Anything less simply isn't adequate preparation for a level 17 raid.

[Varashad]

I have no problem with the blades; if people pay attention, then even with lag they won't die.

With that said, people do not pay attention, so I nominate that the blades be given a reflex save. Give us a chance to save for half.

[gerardIII]

Surely people can adapt, but for new players those flying blades are already scary on their own. 20-30 like they used to do is enough on Normal.

[Hendrik]

I LOVE new Shroud and I personally prefer to run it on Hard.

However, I don't really care for the multi-hits from the blades. IF the multi-hits cannot be addressed, solution I prefer, then add a Reflex save for half damage. The save should scale for difficulty.

Shroud is a great learning experience. Helps promote teamwork and situational awareness. Both are needed if players are going to do any Raiding.

Shroud is back to 1-2 rounders, so the players HAVE adapted, met and overcame the change and learned from it. Most are better players from it.

[jkm]

This thread assumes you are familiar with the Shroud and are aware of how it played before and after recent changes.

Designers had noticed that more often than not, players weren't completing all phases of the Shroud and in the spirit of 'making things better', it was decided that more incentive was called for. Loot changes were made. However, while he was 'in there', the designer felt compelled to fix a longstanding bug with the blades.

Controvery ensued.

It appears that we've taken what was a very pug friendly experience for pugs and changed it such that's it no longer - well - pug friendly.

I guess the question here is pretty straightforward: should we revert the changes to the blade section of the Shroud - perhaps just on Normal difficulty?

MF, the blades can be the first step to fixing the problem with AC.

Give the blades a mid level attack roll of 40 or so to give a reason to have a 45+ AC

[jkm]

What myth?

I started playing DDO just when Shroud came out, so I was first running it at around 4 or 5 months after it was released. By that time, completions were at well over 80% success rate, and most decent groups were completing without any resource usage. Sure, some people were very well geared by that point from having been sitting at cap for a while, but that wasn't universally the case. It was more the case that, even the people that were first getting into range of The Shroud were making an effort to get some of the basic, important gear for running stuff like that (a DR-breaker, fortification, Con +6, etc...).

Mind you, we were completing this in 12-15 or 13-16 groups without any PrEs to speak of, without Cannith crafting, without TRs, without monks, favored souls or artificers, without airships, without Mass Heal, without the DDO store, and without many of the very powerful items that have been given to us in the past couple years in the 9-15 content.

The Shroud LFMs almost universally required 3 clerics (some good groups would run with just 1 or 2), 1-2 arcanes, and DPS. Sometimes a bard, if one could be found. Part 4 typically went 3 rounds, 2 in very good groups, 4-5 in mediocre groups, and anything beyond that was usually just a failure on life support. Occasionally, we'd have such an uber-DPS group that we would drop Harry in 1 round, just before he teleported away. Groups rarely stayed in through the blades, but that was dependent upon the healers and HP of the melees.

And remember, there were likely players at level 13 in those runs. Hell, I did a Shroud in those days when the chat channels were all screwed up and we had neither voice chat nor party chat and had to do all of the organizing and instructions using /say and /tells during the raid.

The game went F2P, the level cap went up, we got PrEs, stronger equipment, TRs, airship buffs, better spells...and PUGs started failing The Shroud more often. Why? because there was a huge influx of new players rocketing up to cap without taking the time to acquire DR breakers, HP, etc... Maybe it was because a larger community doesn't keep tabs on each of its members as closely, so if you were bad, you could get by okay. Or maybe it's because of dungeon scaling and casual difficulty making it easier for people to level without gear, and without learning?

Meanwhile, The Shroud remained relevant for everyone, vets and newbies alike, and became incredibly boring for long-time players who were no longer challenged in there, because everyone became more powerful, but the raid didn't change.

Normal Shroud isn't all that difficult now. It just requires a little bit of communication and strategy.

Yes, but you are leaving out the fact that transmuting was insanely powerful. It was a sad day when I had to vendor my +2 transmuting khopesh of GEOB :(.

[Ralmeth]

Personally, I like the extra challenge of the new blades, but I've also been playing for a long while. I recommend for the sake of the newer players that on normal the damage of the blades is reduced somewhat.

[dragons1ayer74]

I think the difficulty should be changed back at very least on normal. Greensteel is almost a requirement for end game and it should be as easy to get as it was last update for all players partaking in it.