Korthos Island vs. Epic Hard Demon Queen

[aurum1]

**Apologies in advance - I am not a video guy and am stuck playing on an old desktop since U14 crashes like crazy on my new machine**


So what happens when you throw korthos island geared toons against a CR33 epic hard raid boss?

The boss gets steamrolled like a red headed step kobold of course....

First run - ok I am clueless that free fraps is 30 seconds only.
http://youtu.be/iWtLPU9mzG0
Trust me that is a 5 minute completion after everyone equips basic no effect weapons and takes off their armor.

Second run - more of the same
http://youtu.be/YK7ItAJbC6w
Down to 9 guys for the repeat. I made people not run casters just since that is even easier button

With one caster she gets to teleport away once before coming back
http://youtu.be/d152fkAdmsw

We are really lazy in the second run
http://youtu.be/N2S0exUaxvg
Yup no one could be bothered to cast true seeing. Yellow numbers on the queen and displaced. So what.

No really that is a CR33 raid boss
http://youtu.be/2e1-GYt0VlI

And this is what passes for an epic 'hard' raid in U14
http://youtu.be/gvpjr_EwNAI

And no this wasn't a long drawn out fight.
http://youtu.be/AAFM0RT-Hk0
6 minutes on one run, 5 on the other. Not rushing. Zoning in, buffing, taking time to strip and take pics. Could be 2-3 minutes in a full party naked zerg. Don't even get me started on a blue bar run.

So what is wrong with this picture?
Ummm really if this doesn't scream 'fix me' then I am not sure what will. Take off all the gear and beat her down barehanded?
Epic normal should be easy. I haven't seen anyone arguing against that. Epic hard should present some kind of challenge but it doesn't. This is bad for vets since it causes boredom and bad for any new player that actually cares to advance. Yes even the halflings....with the current state of the game the only content that will actually prepare someone for epic elite is to go back in time and run Tower of Despair or Lord of Blades on Heroic hard and elite. That is nonsense. Epic hard raids should be a stepping stone to epic elite not a nekkid lol fest.

Epic 'hard' raids should revert to the old 'epic' difficulty setting or something similar
This gives some challenge to vets that used to run it (but not much with U14 power boost) and gives a logical difficulty progression for new players to advance. This exact same thing could be done to Velah and the CAD. The Lord of blades on epic hard would just be a grind due to reduced spell damage and lack of adamantine but could be done. VON/ADQ/Chrono on epic hard all should go back to 'old epic' difficulty. Lord of blades is basically borked and broken with U14. Overlapping heroic and epic challenge ratings, epic hard weaker than heroic hard, having to run heroic to get some ingredients. All nonsense. That raids need a separate and complete overhaul. Maybe boost epic difficulty and drop some completed T1 and T2 spirits or have a trade in mechanism or something. Nonsense to run that on heroic hard at level 25. But I digress....

But wait you guys are uber raiders and I am just a halfling I could never do that!
Nope. You obviously don't play on Cannith. Platinum Knights is not a hard core raiding guild.

But wait you have multi-TRs and I am just a lowly 28pt build
So what. Not breaking DR is -40 strength. A couple build points means nothing here. TRs are marginal power creep.

But wait you have uber gear!
Not a 'scimitar' and a 'greataxe'

But wait I dinged 20 and tried an epic hard quest and it was hard
Just wait 2 weeks. The power boost from epic destinies and even the basic gear from king's forest is HUGE. Caping a melee destiny is like picking up an epic-SOS.


TL:DR
Turbine - your epic hard raid bosses are spanked like red-headed step children
Epic 'hard' raid difficulty needs a significant boost
There is no valid argument against this

[Edyit76]

if eHard is "too easy" for you, run eElite.
if eHard is "no fun" for you, run eElite.

[aurum1]

if eHard is "too easy" for you, run eElite.
if eHard is "no fun" for you, run eElite.

Will do - read the rest. If updated hard is too hard for you run epic normal. Works both ways!

[Aldieb]

if ehard is "too easy" for you, run eelite.
If ehard is "no fun" for you, run eelite.

+1

[Dwarfo]

No, you guys, he can DESTROY this EPIC HARD raid with korthos level gear. KORTHOS LEVEL GEAR. If you really think that is fair, and that the game should be that easy...thats uhh, kinda sad.

[Aurora1979]

There is no valid argument against this

lol. I love this. In my head I'm picturing a little girl poking her tongue out says "so there!"

[grgurius]

Agreed, epic hard needs a difficulty boost, somewhere between pre u14 epics and current epic elite.
As for so called "casual" players, there is epic normal.

[Edyit76]

honestly how many times did you fail at this raid on the old version of epic?
the hardest part was forming and splitting to run the pre-raid

[Dunklerlindwurm]

Thats what the gaming world is now.

They would even say its fair if they could kill the Queen with a single attack.




Anyway.....

And what if Epic Elite is way too hard for me but Epic Hard is way too easy for me?

Shouldt there be a difficulty between 3 super easy ones and 1 super hard one?

[DeafeningWhisper]

No, you guys, he can DESTROY this EPIC HARD raid with korthos level gear. KORTHOS LEVEL GEAR. If you really think that is fair, and that the game should be that easy...thats uhh, kinda sad.

Wait, so they can take out a raid boss that was created before destinies, which have greatly increased a toons powers, and the cap was 20 with only Korthos gear?!

Meh, call me back when they take Lolth out with the same gear...

[FrostBeard]

Perhaps turbine should do a census and find out how many under 14 yr olds play because the game is going that way.

[Aurora1979]

Thats what the gaming world is now.

They would even say its fair if they could kill the Queen with a single attack.




Anyway.....

And what if Epic Elite is way too hard for me but Epic Hard is way too easy for me?

Then there should be 26 sub divisons of each epic level.

So you could have epic normal a-z, epic hard a-z etc......

that should cover all bases. :)

OP. if you have a multi TR character with capped out epic destinies and a guild running with you, why are you even in epic hard? Surely thats epic elite territory there? Maybe I'm mis-understanding the tiers.

[GentlemanAndAScholar]

Sadly, your argument doesn't hold. A CR23 quest/raid should require a CR23 party with gear and solid builds. Any quest with an 'Epic' in front of it implies a certain level of difficulty. When a quest in Epic hard or Epic normal, at level, it's much easier that the same quest on Heroic normal or hard, you know the system is broken. At no time an Epic quest should be easier than the Heroic counterpart and that's where the difference lies. If they want to scale them down for party makeup, sure, but don't neuter those quests and raids to the point that the same quest in Heroic, at level, it's more difficult, relatively speaking.


if eHard is "too easy" for you, run eElite.
if eHard is "no fun" for you, run eElite.

[Fomori]

In DDO, knowledge is a huge factor in quests. Gear is close second. Thus for people with the knowledge they can overcome quests that others could not.

So they made Epics less "epic" and more DDO Epic (ergo level 20+ content). So what? Is it that you are less challenged or that a less skilled player can get the same shinys you slaved and grinded to get... be honest... I ask because they have a level to challenge you; Epic Elite.

Lastly, I didnt see the screenshots but in order to test your true Korthos newbie hypothesis the raid was run with all 28pt toons, korthos gear, and all new players using a stone to go from 8 -> 16 without alts, and they were drug through the content? I say that because there are many factors besides "just the gear" that need to be removed from your equation.

PS: Yes epic hard is only a little harder than epic normal, that I agree with and I find it less challenging to run than old epics. However, it still doesnt mean that it doesnt have a place in DDO. Not everyone is a veteran of DDO and they are entitled to have fun too.

[DeafeningWhisper]

Sadly, your argument doesn't hold. A CR23 quest/raid should require a CR23 party with gear and solid builds. Any quest with an 'Epic' in front of it implies a certain level of difficulty. When a quest in Epic hard or Epic normal, at level, it's much easier that the same quest on Heroic normal or hard, you know the system is broken. At no time an Epic quest should be easier than the Heroic counterpart and that's where the difference lies. If they want to scale them down for party makeup, sure, but don't neuter those quests and raids to the point that the same quest in Heroic, at level, it's more difficult, relatively speaking.

Actually your arguemnt is the flawed one "Epic" only means 21+ quest, that is all.

[Dunklerlindwurm]

Then there should be 26 sub divisons of each epic level.

So you could have epic normal a-z, epic hard a-z etc......

that should cover all bases. :)

OP. if you have a multi TR character with capped out epic destinies and a guild running with you, why are you even in epic hard? Surely thats epic elite territory there? Maybe I'm mis-understanding the tiers.

I give you a simple example



A wolf in small problem on Epic Normal does about 10-20 damage per hit

the same wolf on Epic-Hard does 15-25 Damage.

the same wolf on Epic-Elite does 120-150 Damage.

Dont you think that there is...a littlebit inbalance here?

[aurum1]

Wait, so they can take out a raid boss that was created before destinies, which have greatly increased a toons powers, and the cap was 20 with only Korthos gear?!

Meh, call me back when they take Lolth out with the same gear...

I don't want to take out any raid boss with that gear. Today epic elite velah, dq, and cad can be. Heroic hard harry and horoth and sally would be more challenging. That is silly.

[Aurora1979]

I give you a simple example



A wolf in small problem on Epic Normal does about 10-20 damage per hit

the same wolf on Epic-Hard does 15-25 Damage.

the same wolf on Epic-Elite does 120-150 Damage.

Dont you think that there is...a littlebit inbalance here?

im not disagreeing with the premise that epic elite is a big step up from EH, or even that the step is excessive.

The OP said he and his trounced eh DQ and found it too easy.......

Let me give you an example too.

I run epic normals solo. I run epic hards 2 or 3 man.

Even my "gimp" characters are not too bad, I have good quest knowledge and i'm in a good guild.

If I was full on my epic destinies and running a proper guild run that I was going to discuss on the forums then it would be in an epic elite run. I would EXPECT epic hard to be easy for us.

Why?

Becasue there are pug groups out there with average gear, average quest knowledge and they will:

Run normal fairly easy with a group, find hard pretty tough.

I don't think hard needs buffing, I dont disagree that elite could do with (a bit of) a nerf.

TLDR:

Some people are thinking about this scaling to their skill, characters and their ability where as I think the devs tried to scale it to the populations skills chars and abs. They went a bit far with elite though.

[Moltier]

Wait, so they can take out a raid boss that was created before destinies, which have greatly increased a toons powers, and the cap was 20 with only Korthos gear?!

Meh, call me back when they take Lolth out with the same gear...

So every old epic hard difficulty can remain broken?
You know those are quests people would like to run? Just because we have some new areas, we may still like the old ones. In the current state, there are 3 difficulty for casual players, 1 for top end players, and non for the rest. But i guess you and the "hard easy then do elite" players will just keep saying the same... while dont even know how big the difference between these is. Go into some of the broken quests on hard, mobs hit for 20-40, try epic elite and they do 150+ damage.

[FrostBeard]

Simple fact - if something is too hard, you always try again...

[Qhualor]

/popcorn

Its proven how the difficulties are in need of rework and some people are screaming "NOOO!!! Dont nerf my easy button!"

[Dwarfo]

Wait, so they can take out a raid boss that was created before destinies, which have greatly increased a toons powers, and the cap was 20 with only Korthos gear?!

Meh, call me back when they take Lolth out with the same gear...
Plz dont try to combat me if you don't know what the hell you're talking about. This raid, on epic hard, should not be beatable as lvl 25s with korthos gear, let alone beatable by fresh lvl 20s with mediocre gear. It shouldn't take one five minute try BOOM DONE. Are you that ignorant that you think this raid should be beatable because it was created before destinies with korthos level gear or something? I'm really not understanding your post.

[MRMechMan]

Soloed epic hard on my broken wf fvs...easier than heroic elite. Chrono is even more broken.

Honestly, I love when people say "do epic elite" if epic hard is too easy. Clearly they have not played both difficulties. There is just no way a person with an ounce of logic who has actually attempted epic normal, hard and elite difficulties will claim hard difficulty is not borked.

And if you haven't done the difficulties, don't post about them!

Here is a rundown for those who don't know...very simply, Epic casual, normal and hard are basically the same thing as each other, and then epic elite is 10x as hard. Out of 10, it is casual=1, normal=1.5, hard=2, elite=10.


99% of groups cannot do epic elite. 90%+ of groups find epic hard a snoozefest.

There is no middleground.

I don't really care if epic normal is pathetically easy...undergeared new players need epic content to do as that is the new "thing"...but epic hard is supposed to be somewhere in between, a bridge between normal and elite. Right now it is not. At all.

[aurum1]

To answer a few questions -

1) OP. if you have a multi TR character with capped out epic destinies and a guild running with you, why are you even in epic hard? Surely thats epic elite territory there? Maybe I'm mis-understanding the tiers.

- Snugglez is level 20 no capped destiny. Snuffles is 23/4 with some destinies. Most of the guild has a mix of toons. When we have 12 guys with gear and destinies sure we will run epic elite. When we have 9 guys with some undergeared or level 20/21 epic hard should present 'some' challenge.

2) So what? Is it that you are less challenged or that a less skilled player can get the same shinys you slaved and grinded to get... be honest... I ask because they have a level to challenge you; Epic Elite.

- I couldn't care less what gear someone else has. I don't run any of this content for gear any more. I run it to have fun with friends.

3) Not everyone is a veteran of DDO and they are entitled to have fun too.
- Have fun in epic normal. There should be a difficult between normal and elite. Hard doesn't fit that bill right now.

4) Some people are thinking about this scaling to their skill, characters and their ability where as I think the devs tried to scale it to the populations skills chars and abs. They went a bit far with elite though.

- They went too far with hard. These are not full runs. These are run with non-DR breaking gear. Any 28pt level 20 melee toon with a +1 metalline of pure good would have out DPS's our raiders.

[DeafeningWhisper]

So every old epic hard difficulty can remain broken?
You know those are quests people would like to run? Just because we have some new areas, we may still like the old ones. In the current state, there are 3 difficulty for casual players, 1 for top end players, and non for the rest. But i guess you and the "hard easy then do elite" players will just keep saying the same... while dont even know how big the difference between these is. Go into some of the broken quests on hard, mobs hit for 20-40, try epic elite and they do 150+ damage.

I'm not saying Ehard doesn't need a small boost, just that gear is not all that important in a toons viability anymore.

Take my bardcher for example, with full Shiradi destiny/Fury twist 95% of my dps/survivabilty comes from my destiny, feats, spells and songs.

My gear compliments all that but is the tiniest contribution to my over all power.

[DeafeningWhisper]

Plz dont try to combat me if you don't know what the hell you're talking about. This raid, on epic hard, should not be beatable as lvl 25s with korthos gear, let alone beatable by fresh lvl 20s with mediocre gear. It shouldn't take one five minute try BOOM DONE. Are you that ignorant that you think this raid should be beatable because it was created before destinies with korthos level gear or something? I'm really not understanding your post.

Then read the next one and take a chill pill.

[grgurius]

One more example that ehard is pretty broken now would be Velah, you can stand in her breath on ehard, if thats not broken i dont know what is.

[danzig138]

Simple fact - if something is too hard, you always try again...

Either you're missing some words, or that isn't a fact.

[Dsav101]

One more example that ehard is pretty broken now would be Velah, you can stand in her breath on ehard, if thats not broken i dont know what is.

Yup did that last night too.

All those that are saying run Epic elite etc etc pls re-read the first post. Epic hard should be a stepping stone towards epic elite. It should not be as easy as heroic in any way shape or form. Epic norm should be a step above Heroic elite, Epic hard a step above epic norm etc etc. There should be a good progression that people can learn and adapt to get better and move up.

-Hustla

[DeafeningWhisper]

Yup did that last night too.

All those that are saying run Epic elite etc etc pls re-read the first post. Epic hard should be a stepping stone towards epic elite. It should not be as easy as heroic in any way shape or form. Epic norm should be a step above Heroic elite, Epic hard a step above epic norm etc etc. There should be a good progression that people can learn and adapt to get better and move up.

-Hustla

Last time this came up the consensus was that epic hard should be only slightly less tough then old epics, is this still enough for everyone or do you guys need it to be a challenge for lvl 25 with full destinies? I hope not because that's what Epic Elite is for.

[Raithe]

I don't really care if epic normal is pathetically easy...undergeared new players need epic content to do as that is the new "thing"...but epic hard is supposed to be somewhere in between, a bridge between normal and elite. Right now it is not. At all.

I don't agree with this. Perhaps with certain quests epic hard has been made too easy, I haven't run them all since the expansion. For most of the new content, however, epic hard is a noticeable step up from epic normal. Stat damage stops working as well, trap DCs are increased, and damage is scaled less dramatically when running solo or short-man. Is it still soloable? Yes, of course.

Epic elite is for the most part just stupid. Is it harder in difficulty? No, not really. The same tactics that work well for the other difficulties still work well - you just don't have much (or any) margin for error. Plus, the content doesn't really scale for smaller groups so if you bring a full group of purely competent players you will notice the gap between hard and elite much less. IMO, making content that doesn't scale for smaller parties to some degree provides less of a challenge. The game, historically, has usually (exceptions likes some of Amrath have been noted) been far more challenging by running smaller groups than by any check box selection on the entrance window. Lots of game mechanics and statistical interactions simply go away in epic elite (you aren't going to make a concentration check on a level 9 spell when you are getting hit for 125 damage, non-crit). That makes it a much simpler game that relies mostly on broken game mechanics. It's boring.

Like I said, there may be particular quests (like DQ2) that need some adjustments. For the most part, however, epic normal and hard have sufficient gap between them and can provide a decent challenge for first-timers who aren't afraid to run in smaller groups without all the dedicated support personel.

[MRMechMan]

Epic elite is for the most part just stupid. Is it harder in difficulty? No, not really.

Sorry, I stopped reading there.

Ok, I lied, I kept reading, but I couldn't take it seriously after that.

[Ivan_Milic]

I give you a simple example



A wolf in small problem on Epic Normal does about 10-20 damage per hit

the same wolf on Epic-Hard does 15-25 Damage.

the same wolf on Epic-Elite does 120-150 Damage.

Dont you think that there is...a littlebit inbalance here?

Look at heroic elite traps dmg,people said elite is for the best,so epic elite is also for the best,dont see nothing wrong here.If trap on normal does 20 dmg and on elite 200+ dmg,do you think that is balance?

[grgurius]

Last time this came up the consensus was that epic hard should be only slightly less tough then old epics, is this still enough for everyone or do you guys need it to be a challenge for lvl 25 with full destinies? I hope not because that's what Epic Elite is for.

Now there is the core of the problem, currently ehard is not slightly less tough then old epics, as it can be seen from damage, spell and trap dcs etc.

Just compare Velah damage pre u14 and now on ehard, or Lailats damage, Marut in von3... The list simply goes on.

[Dwarfo]

Look at heroic elite traps dmg,people said elite is for the best,so epic elite is also for the best,dont see nothing wrong here.If trap on normal does 20 dmg and on elite 200+ dmg,do you think that is balance?

The gap between normal and elite is non-existent. A hard trap hits for 10 or 20 more points of damage than a normal trap, if not a bit less. That same elite trap hits for insane amounts. There needs to be a middle ground, not easy-easy-OMGHARD?!?!? that only 10% of people can complete. Most of the time, people don't want to sit around waiting for those 10% of people.

[My2Cents]

Please Please Please!

Stop complaining DDO is too easy already!

I get to deal with nerfed weapons, LFM issues, and I'm just now getting to explore a few things I couldn't before the expansion.

Some of you seem in such a rush to make things I haven't even played yet harder, please hold off a couple of updates to give me at least a chance to fail at what you claim is so easy, eh?

I admit, I am a suboptimal, less knowledged, inferior player. Ok, are you happy now? Then please let me enjoy my DDO experience in my inferior uninformed way for awhile before constantly ranting that it be changed.

Sorry, but all this Easy Button stuff is just getting way too outta hand for me. It's almost as if this is a separate game on its own, try to raise as much heck as yo9u can in the forums to try to see if you can get the devs to make changes for you.

DDO Dev-v-P?

[Raithe]

Sorry, I stopped reading there.

Ok, I lied, I kept reading, but I couldn't take it seriously after that.

/Shrug

It's your lack of comprehension. Epic elite and the old epic difficulties were still being run into the ground by people who memorized strategies and could pull the same old tricks over and over again. Fascinate, otto's irrestible, symbol of death then wail, command undead, wall of fire, etc and so forth. That doesn't comprise difficulty, that is merely compensation for stats. Under a normal role-playing game where both sides are equally intelligent and can adapt - a CR 35 is simply never going to lose to a single level 25 player. It's not supposed to happen, and it simply doesn't (except in maybe extremely rare unlucky/lucky situations).

Defenseless (the challenge) is much easier on level 30 than several of the others are on level 25. It's because of the design and layout of the challenge, not because of the CR and damage of the mobs. Likewise, Rushmore's mansion and some of the Kobold Island challenges (Colossal Crystals, too) are much more difficult to 5-star than the other Cannith Challenges. Difficulty really has nothing to do with CR. If you don't get that, then there's no point in me trying to reason with you further.

[Ivan_Milic]

Just went in lvl 7 quest Graverobber to check trap dmg.
Normal 10 dmg
Hard 30-100
Elite 100

[DeafeningWhisper]

Now there is the core of the problem, currently ehard is not slightly less tough then old epics, as it can be seen from damage, spell and trap dcs etc.

Just compare Velah damage pre u14 and now on ehard, or Lailats damage, Marut in von3... The list simply goes on.

That's what I'm saying, last time this sort of thread came up increasing the current difficulty to slightly less then old epics was the acceptable fix.

Ik now how broken Ehard is, I've stood in the fire dancing on my bard last VoN6 I did and seen Devastator tripped and helpless on the floor in Ehard Chrono...

[FrostBeard]

so the real question we should be asking each other is.

How do we get Turbine to listen to the players and respond?

[Dsav101]

Last time this came up the consensus was that epic hard should be only slightly less tough then old epics, is this still enough for everyone or do you guys need it to be a challenge for lvl 25 with full destinies? I hope not because that's what Epic Elite is for.


No it does not need all that. Merely pointing out the progression that should be.. That is all I am saying. Shrug, just makes sense. Work your way up etc. Epic Elite should be the best. Epic hard should not be one step removed and a joke. That is all.

-Hustla

[DeafeningWhisper]

so the real question we should be asking each other is.

How do we get Turbine to listen to the players and respond?

Speak often, in a polite way, avoid personal attacks and writting in caps.

It has worked before.

[MRMechMan]

/Shrug

It's your lack of comprehension. Epic elite and the old epic difficulties were still being run into the ground by people who memorized strategies and could pull the same old tricks over and over again. Fascinate, otto's irrestible, symbol of death then wail, command undead, wall of fire, etc and so forth. That doesn't comprise difficulty, that is merely compensation for stats. Under a normal role-playing game where both sides are equally intelligent and can adapt - a CR 35 is simply never going to lose to a single level 25 player. It's not supposed to happen, and it simply doesn't (except in maybe extremely rare unlucky/lucky situations).

Defenseless (the challenge) is much easier on level 30 than several of the others are on level 25. It's because of the design and layout of the challenge, not because of the CR and damage of the mobs. Likewise, Rushmore's mansion and some of the Kobold Island challenges (Colossal Crystals, too) are much more difficult to 5-star than the other Cannith Challenges. Difficulty really has nothing to do with CR. If you don't get that, then there's no point in me trying to reason with you further.

The quest we are talking about, EDQ2...epic elite is MUCH harder than epic hard.

Exponentially so.

CR has nothing to do with it, you are right about that. But mobs doing 6x as much damage on elite vs hard, and having many, many more hp...yes, it is harder.

To say otherwise is just foolish. There will always be tricks and tactics that good players use, but to say elite is not anymore difficult is false in 90% of quests.

Sure there are a couple quests were it isn't any harder, just longer, as maybe you can find a safespot and just use a throwing weapon to kill the boss..but the VAST majority of the time, epic elites are way, way harder than hard epic.

[aurum1]

Look at heroic elite traps dmg,people said elite is for the best,so epic elite is also for the best,dont see nothing wrong here.If trap on normal does 20 dmg and on elite 200+ dmg,do you think that is balance?


This discussion has nothing to do with heroic elite. Devs have acknowledged heroic elite is borked and they are making it easier. Devs need to acknowledge that epic hard is borked in the other direction.



Please Please Please!

Stop complaining DDO is too easy already!

I get to deal with nerfed weapons, LFM issues, and I'm just now getting to explore a few things I couldn't before the expansion.

Some of you seem in such a rush to make things I haven't even played yet harder, please hold off a couple of updates to give me at least a chance to fail at what you claim is so easy, eh?

I admit, I am a suboptimal, less knowledged, inferior player. Ok, are you happy now? Then please let me enjoy my DDO experience in my inferior uninformed way for awhile before constantly ranting that it be changed.

Sorry, but all this Easy Button stuff is just getting way too outta hand for me. It's almost as if this is a separate game on its own, try to raise as much heck as yo9u can in the forums to try to see if you can get the devs to make changes for you.

DDO Dev-v-P?


You lost me at 'never tried it'. Also not talking about changing epic normal just hard.

[DeafeningWhisper]

Devs need to acknowledge that epic hard is borked in the other direction.

They have, they said something to the effect "thank you for the info, we had no feed back on epic hard in the beta, only norm and elite. We will look into it."

[Naera]

OP, the icon next to remove fear in video 2 is from anger step i suppose?

I do agree in fact ,that EHard feels too easy for old content and could use a little boost, but i cannot see how shooting show off naked runs with deceitful titles can prove this, e.g. dreaming dark is lvl 22 on elite, the boss is CR38 and has DR crystal+good, still you dont need boss beaters for completion (and can take off the armor/outfit if you really want it and prepared beforehand to have all the important modifiers covered from other slots), and you can easily complete it in a PUG, why don't I see laments that DD is broken?

[FrostBeard]

Perhaps Epic Hard was swapped with Heroic Elite.

With a failed new naming mechanic, that many didn't like in the first place.

This is probably what happened lol.



I guess thats what happens when you rip the guts out of a game and try to redesign it 6 years later.

[Bigrtt]

I don't have a toon at 20 currently. I haven't ran any of these new epic modes.

With that out of the way, I've heard ALOT of talk about how easy it is to do epic normal and epic hard. Even as much that some have said hard and elite shrouds offer more of a challenge, this isn't how it should be at end-game.
Wasn't the whole point in adding epics to give the 'power players' something to do at the end-game other than endlessly TRing? It sounds like with MotU this has taken a massive step back. EN EH EE should be a progressive creep up in difficulty, not a slow then massive jump.


Epic normal should be a little easier than what Pre-MotU epic was. But still above Heroic Elite (certain raids I think need a rebalance on the heroic levels...LoB/MA/ToD to name the top contenders). EN should be a challenge to complete, but not impossible. Something that should easily be Puggable.
Epic Hard should be at or ever so slightly above what Pre-MotU epic was. A challenge for sure, puggable with the right group. Think of HoX with new players vs experienced HoX raiders.
Epic Elite should be something for the hardened raiders. They know the raids inside out, couldn't be pugged. Something that needs to challenge people who are used to raiding together...more or less I'm saying this should be like a guild event. Pot use, gear, build etc should all be essential parts of bringing in a completion. Something that shouldn't be puggable. Think of the Abbot raid.

That's at least my opinion, I'm sure people disagree. My point is coming from an average player, not a power gamer nor a casual player. I want a challenge in epic, that's what the name should represent. I don't want more of a challenge from an elite shroud.

[aurum1]

OP, the icon next to remove fear in video 2 is from anger step i suppose?

I do agree in fact ,that EHard feels too easy for old content and could use a little boost, but i cannot see how shooting show off naked runs with deceitful titles can prove this, e.g. dreaming dark is lvl 22 on elite, the boss is CR38 and has DR crystal+good, still you dont need boss beaters for completion (and can take off the armor/outfit if you really want it and prepared beforehand to have all the important modifiers covered from other slots), and you can easily complete it in a PUG, why don't I see laments that DD is broken?

1) Quest difficulties don't matter to me. Quests are not made for 20+ repeats at end game.

2) The point of doing this naked was simply to counter the common argument that 'of course it is easy with x gear'. Doing this with basic gear is a -40 str debuff. It counters any off screen gear, builds, TRs, or whatever.

3) The icon I imagine you are looking at is shintao set. Sorry that counts as +4 str...Can take it off next time if 2 seconds more completion time matters.

4) Would you prefer we go run korthos next time and use that exact gear? The title isn't deceitful. Get over it. Look at the point of the run. -20 damage on every melee. -every damage effect. -a slot of gear effects.
The point is epic hard does not present an appropriate challenge.

[Raithe]

The gap between normal and elite is non-existent. A hard trap hits for 10 or 20 more points of damage than a normal trap, if not a bit less. That same elite trap hits for insane amounts. There needs to be a middle ground, not easy-easy-OMGHARD?!?!? that only 10% of people can complete. Most of the time, people don't want to sit around waiting for those 10% of people.

How hard a trap hits should be the same in all scenarios and should be based on the type of trap. Whether there are 2 traps or 200 would be the actual difference in degree of difficulty (though I do think that Turbine has taken some slightly absurd viewpoint that multiple game objects can be combined into one with increased stats - which doesn't really work).

The philosophy that appears to have been behind the new difficulty settings of the game is that they conceded hard difficulty to the masses who like to enjoy the game experience without undue amounts of grinding and metagame preknowledge. Elite was reserved for the people who want to grind forever and then test their "ultimate build" against insane statistics. Depending on which camp you are in, you should avoid the difficulty settings that weren't meant for you. You don't need Green Dragon Scale armor if all you want to do is run through the storyline quests once or twice. You probably will need Green Dragon Scale armor if you plan to grind out all the elites several dozen times for your perfect "toon."

The problem that truly becomes evident from this thread is that several people don't realize they are being segregated. Pick your camp and stick to it.

[Qhualor]

Apparently, if you are level 25 with maxed destinies, it doesnt matter what gear you wear. You can obliterate everything and everything is too easy.

I call for a nerf to ED and everybody at 25 should be wearing Korthos gear! j/k

Seriously, it doesnt matter your level, gear or experience. The older raids are a joke on ehard. There is no challenge whatsoever. Ive been in groups with max level 23 players that have little to no experience in those raids, have level appropriate gear and walk all over the abishai, velah and demon queen.

[erethizon]

If I am not mistaken epic destinies have to be purchased which means not everyone has them. If you balance all of the game around only characters that have epic destinies then the game becomes unplayable for those that don't. Were any of these Korthos Island-wearing players without epic destinies?

[countfitz]

Shenanigans!

You had on a blood stone! Try again.

[arminius]

From what I have experienced so far, yes, Epic Hard is too easy and will likely be fixed.

But please don't fix it yet. My spouse was in the hospital so I haven't had a good opportunity to really exploit it yet like everybody else apparently has. Thanks!

[doomboy]

(■_■)

( ■_■)>⌐■-■

(⌐■_■)

[DarkForte]

Please Please Please!

Stop complaining DDO is too easy already!

I get to deal with nerfed weapons, LFM issues, and I'm just now getting to explore a few things I couldn't before the expansion.

Some of you seem in such a rush to make things I haven't even played yet harder, please hold off a couple of updates to give me at least a chance to fail at what you claim is so easy, eh?

I admit, I am a suboptimal, less knowledged, inferior player. Ok, are you happy now? Then please let me enjoy my DDO experience in my inferior uninformed way for awhile before constantly ranting that it be changed.

Sorry, but all this Easy Button stuff is just getting way too outta hand for me. It's almost as if this is a separate game on its own, try to raise as much heck as yo9u can in the forums to try to see if you can get the devs to make changes for you.

DDO Dev-v-P?

No one here is saying to make epic normal harder. It's fine as is. If they boost eHard, it will in no way impact your ability to do eNormals. It'll still be doable to you.

[Forzah]

It makes perfect sense to have a linear progression in difficulty from normal to hard to elite. Honestly, I wonder what objection anyone can have to making difficulties increase progressively and comprehensively. Currently, there's not really a choice for those players who have a skill level somewhere between 'normal' and 'elite'. More variation in difficulty will suit more players.

[azmodeus1]

its been pretty obvious since day 1 the xpac went live that EN and EH are completely broken and much to easy for groups under 6. try an EH with a full group, then go solo it, you'll see what i mean.

[Raithe]

It makes perfect sense to have a linear progression in difficulty from normal to hard to elite. Honestly, I wonder what objection anyone can have to making difficulties increase progressively and comprehensively. Currently, there's not really a choice for those players who have a skill level somewhere between 'normal' and 'elite'. More variation in difficulty will suit more players.

No, it will most definitely suit less.

People saying there is no difference between Epic normal and Epic hard have simply not done enough testing. When I started with the expansion, I started (as is absolutely typical for most players) on normal. I quickly found that to be unsuitably easy and rather boring. Switching to hard, running solo or shortman, was a sufficiently adequate upgrade. I've been playing for 6.5 years and know the game mechanics in, out, and sideways. For many, many other players (and the LFM panel has confirmed this) running Epic Hard is akin to running elite (heroic) quests before the expansion. Of course, running heroic elite seems to have been upgraded past that point now...

Stop comparing the old Epic and the new Epic Hard. They were not meant to be the same. You get Epic Elite favor for having completed the old Epic. The old Epic was trashy, unplayable garbage designed by metagamers for metagamers. If you want that sort of "challenge" (not), go ahead and play Epic Elite. If you want a challenge out of Epic Hard, then create a new untwinked character and run it underlevel and shortman.

There are a myriad of ways of controlling the difficulty of the content in the game. Moving Epic Hard more towards Epic Elite is a step away from providing the largest amount of variety and a step in the wrong direction.

[aurum1]

No, it will most definitely suit less.

People saying there is no difference between Epic normal and Epic hard have simply not done enough testing. When I started with the expansion, I started (as is absolutely typical for most players) on normal. I quickly found that to be unsuitably easy and rather boring. Switching to hard, running solo or shortman, was a sufficiently adequate upgrade. I've been playing for 6.5 years and know the game mechanics in, out, and sideways. For many, many other players (and the LFM panel has confirmed this) running Epic Hard is akin to running elite (heroic) quests before the expansion. Of course, running heroic elite seems to have been upgraded past that point now...

Stop comparing the old Epic and the new Epic Hard. They were not meant to be the same. You get Epic Elite favor for having completed the old Epic. The old Epic was trashy, unplayable garbage designed by metagamers for metagamers. If you want that sort of "challenge" (not), go ahead and play Epic Elite. If you want a challenge out of Epic Hard, then create a new untwinked character and run it underlevel and shortman.

There are a myriad of ways of controlling the difficulty of the content in the game. Moving Epic Hard more towards Epic Elite is a step away from providing the largest amount of variety and a step in the wrong direction.

Please stop talking about quest difficulty. I don't care how easy or hard EN & EH quests are.
This discussion is ONLY about raid difficulty.

This raid was STEAMROLLED with undergeared shortman groups. We didn't take level 25 all destinied out characters in there. This was a mix of lvl 20s with zero destiny xp and some 21,22,23, etc. The fight wasn't even close.

That is silly nonsense. It should be fixed.

[Forzah]

Stop comparing the old Epic and the new Epic Hard. They were not meant to be the same. You get Epic Elite favor for having completed the old Epic. The old Epic was trashy, unplayable garbage designed by metagamers for metagamers. If you want that sort of "challenge" (not), go ahead and play Epic Elite. If you want a challenge out of Epic Hard, then create a new untwinked character and run it underlevel and shortman.

This argument doesn't really work. The other way around I can tell you to play epic normal if you don't want a challenge. It's not a good argument.

[Raithe]

Please stop talking about quest difficulty. I don't care how easy or hard EN & EH quests are.
This discussion is ONLY about raid difficulty.

This raid was STEAMROLLED with undergeared shortman groups. We didn't take level 25 all destinied out characters in there. This was a mix of lvl 20s with zero destiny xp and some 21,22,23, etc. The fight wasn't even close.

That is silly nonsense. It should be fixed.

According to you. Having a raid steamrolled by people (geared out or ungeared) who most likely have steamrolled the old epic version of the raid is not particularly compelling evidence. Once your completion count for any quest or raid goes above 5, you should have things figured out to the point that you only need one or two items to "steamroll" it.

The point you seem to be making is that your group would like to run the raid on hard, but are insufficiently challenged by it. I submit your group was most likely insufficiently challenged by the raid before the expansion - you just don't want anyone else making your previous accomplishments seem trivial. Having run that particular raid on Epic before the expansion, I can tell you that with particular groups that had some preknowledge of what spells to use and how to use them - completing that raid was most definitely trivial.

That said, I'm not arguing that they shouldn't look at adjusting quests and raids on a case-by-case basis. Perhaps DQ2 should be adjusted to provide large groups a greater degree of stat testing. I just don't think you are providing the appropriate evidence to support that conclusion. Testing needs to be done with new players, moderately geared, and experiencing the raid for the first time.

[aurum1]

Testing needs to be done with new players, moderately geared, and experiencing the raid for the first time.

Feel free to do that but I call that nonsense. We are not talking about epic normal. We are talking epic hard. If you don't feel my group represented equal DPS to new moderately geared players then I am not sure what would convince you. Your first completion of a raid should not be cake on hard.

[Raithe]

This argument doesn't really work. The other way around I can tell you to play epic normal if you don't want a challenge. It's not a good argument.

Your saying your argument isn't good? Why make it then?

The game is as it is now. It is you who needs to provide developers the evidence they need to instigate a change to the status quo. If the developers decide to take your side and upgrade the stat allocations of Epic Hard, it may leave me with no good choices for difficulty selection. Since many peoople seem to be choosing normal over hard for full groups now, I think a lot more people would be in my same boat than in yours.

I would probably support the argument that dungeon scaling needs to be modified somewhat for most quests in the game so that damage isn't so pitiful and easily mitigated. That is NOT what this thread is about, however. Run epic hard in a full group, but go out and try to solo (heck, try the King's Forest even). I think you'll find that the difficulty is there if you actually want it.

[Gremmlynn]

Please stop talking about quest difficulty. I don't care how easy or hard EN & EH quests are.
This discussion is ONLY about raid difficulty.

This raid was STEAMROLLED with undergeared shortman groups. We didn't take level 25 all destinied out characters in there. This was a mix of lvl 20s with zero destiny xp and some 21,22,23, etc. The fight wasn't even close.

That is silly nonsense. It should be fixed.Did you ever stop to think that maybe you guys are just that good? That gear, destinies and levels are just crutches for the under proficient?

The new epic system provides Normal and hard setting for the vast majority of the player base (customer base) that plays builds ranging from "no clue" to "this seems right", with gear ranging from "whatever they pick up on the way" to "casual gear farming" and skill levels from "Charge!" to "make up tactics as we go".

The devs also added an elite setting for those who take the game much more seriously. As well as a casual setting for those who just want to play through the content without any real opposition.

While it might not seem right to some that the game doesn't reward success and increasing proficiency. It was never designed to determine who the best were. It's purpose has always been to make money by providing entertainment to as many as feasible (though at one time it may have confused the former for the latter, they seem to have learned from that mistake).

[Rizzia]

Did you ever stop to think that maybe you guys are just that good? That gear, destinies and levels are just crutches for the under proficient?


We (Platinum knights), shamefully had our fair share of wipes on epic DQ2 pre u14, admittedly mainly due to horrendous lag and cometfall spam. Maybe thats the issue, they fixed the lag, we arent fighting that beast and laliat at the same time anymore.

As for the gear optimizing posts..nope I was on the first run, and my only source of fort was on my armour^^. Didnt matter tho.

[Phidius]

The only argument that Turbine is going to "listen" to are the hard numbers indicating what percentage of runs on eNormal, eHard, and eElite fail/succeed. Rest assured that if the majority of the paying customers are steamrolling any portion of the game's content, Turbine WILL adjust it.

In the meantime, if eHard isn't sufficiently difficult to provide you some excitement in your hum-drum dreary playing time, I recommend eElite naked.

[GentlemanAndAScholar]

Actually your arguemnt is the flawed one "Epic" only means 21+ quest, that is all.

So now I'm sure you are just trolling, just in case there were any doubts.

[wolflordnexus]

4) Would you prefer we go run korthos next time and use that exact gear? The title isn't deceitful. Get over it. Look at the point of the run. -20 damage on every melee. -every damage effect. -a slot of gear effects.
The point is epic hard does not present an appropriate challenge.

If your going to say your running it in Korthos gear were going to expect it to be with Korths gear The title is in fact deceitful. Therefore we can assume any information you provide to be slanted. I Have not gotten a chance to run any epics yet as I just came back in the middle of my TR train but From what I keep hearing people are expecting something to be the case that never has before. People seem to expect hard to be a noticeable increase in difficulty from normal. I can't imagine where they would get that expectation Being that it has never, ever been the case outside of maybe devils assault.

Here is how it has always been remember epic is supposed to now mirror heroic levels.

Normal you can pretty much go afk in a fight and come back without even taking damage.
Hard you can go afk and come back and expect to still be alive.
Elite you have a good chance of dying from any mistake you make.

I'm not saying that's how it should be I'm saying that is how it has been.
I'd be all for a general increase in hard difficulty across the board myself. But to single out epic hard I'd have to honestly get a better chance to critique them.

One thing I do know old epic was an epic failure and using that setting for hard will see epic hard seeing hardly any play time at all most of the folks running old epics have moved on to EE most of those who didn't are running EN EH.

So in review it sounds to me that everything is WAI, but that doesn't mean there's no room to fiddle with things but I'd honestly prefer to see it be more far reaching than just make EH old epic.

[Xynot2]

All I know is that heroic elite is harder than epic normal and that epic elite is ridiculous. Im sure that they are working on it and that it will be balanced out *soon*. http://forums.ddo.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Qhualor]

after spending days, weeks, months, years trying to pull all the pieces of gear that i want for my toons, if i want a challenge, i have to do it nekkid. thats not fun in my book.

i check the lfm constantly whenver i play and its rare to see lfms looking to pug EE anything. EH is the norm. it seems a good amount of people would rather take advantage of something thats so easy looking for what they want from these quests/raids than to actually challenge themselves.

on the bright side, the wait for 2 or more healers has decreased and normally in EH raids, they roll with just 1. in quests they are usually IP, regardless if a healer joins or not. for EH raids, i havent and i have not heard of anybody getting screened to join these groups either. its pretty much take first 5 or 11 and go. some that i have grouped with were obvious they didnt know how the raid normally flows and what to do, just followed along (or carried).

it is tempting to take advantage of the easy button that has been handed to us, but i havent raided in a few days and i logged onto my ranger to get him closer to being flagged for the FR raid, which is broken atm. im not going to sit around and wait for an EE quest/raid and i dont put up my own because i dont like leading. since all i care about right now, until i build a brand new toon, is endgame, im glad im busy with a tr.

if i dont feel challenged with gear i worked so hard for, than i get bored and do something else.

[DarkForte]

All I know is that heroic elite is harder than epic normal [...]
Yes. And it should be, since it's marketed towards the more casual players. How many casual players do you see running elite amrath (level 21 quests, remember) regularly? How many casual players do you see running elite house C quests?

[Xezrak]

The only argument that Turbine is going to "listen" to are the hard numbers indicating what percentage of runs on eNormal, eHard, and eElite fail/succeed. Rest assured that if the majority of the paying customers are steamrolling any portion of the game's content, Turbine WILL adjust it.

In the meantime, if eHard isn't sufficiently difficult to provide you some excitement in your hum-drum dreary playing time, I recommend eElite naked.

Thank you, thankfully it look likes Turbine is taking a somewhat sensible approach to difficulties and not adjusting it 24/7 to cater for uber players who have time to complain on the forums 24/7.

Similarly I am glad epic elite is hard as it is right now, some players do want a challenge and its there for them. If you find epic elite too hard and the rest of the game too easy you should consider gearing/leveling yourself up and then coming up with an appropriate strategy and attempting said quest or raid, if a challenge is what you truly want.

[Xezrak]

All I know is that heroic elite is harder than epic normal and that epic elite is ridiculous. Im sure that they are working on it and that it will be balanced out *soon*. http://forums.ddo.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Heroic elite should be harder than epic normal, remember the term 'epic' is only used to reference level 20-25 not difficulty. Elite does refer to quest difficulty. A level 20 Elite quest should be harder then a level 21 normal quest.

[darksol23]

I pretty much agree with one of the other posters as far as difficulty goes on 1-10 scale.

EC = 1
EN = 1.5
EH = 2
EE = 10

The middle ground is missing, badly...


But FFS Snuffles... Next time you want to film one of our raids just ask... Thankfully we all aren't playing on a 486DX2 w/ 15" CRT using the unpaid version of fraps... It was painful thinking that's how you see the game, no wonder you play a grumpy dwarf.

[wolflordnexus]

I pretty much agree with one of the other posters as far as difficulty goes on 1-10 scale.

EC = 1
EN = 1.5
EH = 2
EE = 10

The middle ground is missing, badly...


But FFS Snuffles... Next time you want to film one of our raids just ask... Thankfully we all aren't playing on a 486DX2 w/ 15" CRT using the unpaid version of fraps... It was painful thinking that's how you see the game, no wonder you play a grumpy dwarf.

The same problem exists in heroic though.
C=1
N=1.5
H=2
E=5-10

Hard has never been hard it has been slightly less boring since I started playing.

[DarkForte]

The same problem exists in heroic though.
C=1
N=1.5
H=2
E=5-10

Hard has never been hard it has been slightly less boring since I started playing.

The thing is, most elite quests are around the 5-6 mark, so the vastly overpowered people blow through it, and middle of the ground players like yours truly get an appropriate challenge. Old epic was around 6-7, so it provided me with appropriate challenge in most cases (hellooooo, eCoF). I don't have that option of appropriate challenge anymore, because normal and hard are very easy and elite is too ridiculously hard (for the old epics at least, the current epics seem more balanced in hard difficulty).

[Xynot2]

The same problem exists in heroic though.
C=1
N=1.5
H=2
E=5-10

Hard has never been hard it has been slightly less boring since I started playing.
I disagree. I would have it

C=.5
N=2
H=4
E=5-10
Example... ToD, pardon my memory but the Amarath quest that is a maze and at the end you drop into a hole with a big red devil. (hate that quest)

[Ivan_Milic]

I disagree. I would have it

C=.5
N=2
H=4
E=5-10
Example... ToD, pardon my memory but the Amarath quest that is a maze and at the end you drop into a hole with a big red devil. (hate that quest)

I think its new invasion.

[aurum1]

I pretty much agree with one of the other posters as far as difficulty goes on 1-10 scale.

EC = 1
EN = 1.5
EH = 2
EE = 10

The middle ground is missing, badly...


But FFS Snuffles... Next time you want to film one of our raids just ask... Thankfully we all aren't playing on a 486DX2 w/ 15" CRT using the unpaid version of fraps... It was painful thinking that's how you see the game, no wonder you play a grumpy dwarf.

Haha I am grumpy playing on that machine. Get Turbine to fix U14 so I can play on my good machine.

For the rest of the posters - thanks for the lols. I love the 'well I have never played it but I think it is fine posts'.
I tried to present data. If you want to nitpick what gear we are using then go ahead and post a video of how to fail ADQ, VON, or chrono on epic hard without either gross incompentence, lag, or not trying. If someone can't see how incredibly gimped our run was vs. anything that would be remotely expected of a level 23 character then they are beyond any hope.

Doing the EXACT same thing as I just did on heroic hard shroud at level 15, heroic hard vod at level 17 or heroic hard tod at level 19 would be a wipe or huge resource burn. Doing this on level 23 raids is a steamroll fest. If you think that makes sense have fun. Maybe they can just replace the genie in zawabis with a barter interface useable every 3 days... Click genie. Press 'a'. Take loot. Yay fun!

[DarkForte]

Maybe they can just replace the genie in zawabis with a barter interface useable every 3 days... Click genie. Press 'a'. Take loot. Yay fun!

No... you'd have to go to the desert first!

[KillEveryone]

I'm fine with epic normal as it is. I feel that you should be able to complete this difficulty on a first lifer, and I think you should have a moderate amount of gear.

I do agree that epic hard could use a bit of a bump up but it depends upon the content. I do think this should be doable on a totally twinked first lifer.

Ran a epic hard (one after lords of dust can't remember the name) anyway tried to do the optional with the reavers and we got our butts handed to us. Someone swapped to another character but we still had difficulty just trying to recover(we gave up on the optional itself and ran for the shrine and wiped at the shrine. We finally got things shook out after several more deaths and was able to carry on.) The end fight was also quite difficult and we finally failed the quest.

In some parties, it may be easy, others it may be difficult. It all depends upon the encounter so I don't care to see a general buff across all mobs because that will bump up some fights more than they need to be, especially for the XP or loot involved for that encounter.

There is also a different problem.

Difficulty increase doesn't involve any difficulty in tactics.

Mobs get more HP and saves but it is still mostly the same tactic. CC, kill. Sometimes you neg level then kill but it is mostly CC and kill. It doesn't require much though process in dealing with fights. If you have melee, they get to beat on the cc stuff but otherwise I would think that it can be a bit more difficult.

You either have the necessary gear and/or stats and/or spell pen to be able to land your spells or you are not going to be very useful DC wise. Maybe if you can nuke with AOE but then having increased saves and HP doesn't really do much for that(maybe a few more HP but it doesn't really increase any difficulty because you still kite to another group of mobs and kill the mostly dead when you nuke your new mob of mobs.

I think difficulty as we know it is mostly gear and build check, not player ability or reasoning check.

For the most part, I don't like the idea that you have to have the perfect build or party to be able to accomplish anything. I can see requiring a very good build with good gear for epic elite but I don't care to have it require a certain party formula to complete. Then you'll just make some classes not useful or players of certain classes won't run certain quests since they would essentially be piking in those quests.

This opinion is from a first life cleric with no raid gear. Best things I have is my alchemist and magewright's sets, a couple of scepters from the madness chain, and the crystal cove dagger epic lvl 20 but not upgraded. I do have a couple of WIS from epic destiny and epic spell pen feat for lvl 21. I have played other caster classes and I think I've had more difficulty in Amarath on those classes than I have had on epic hard on my cleric. (Edit...my cleric isn't updated in myDDO. Figures.)

I haven't tried to do epic elite. On this difficulty I do think you should have a twinked TR but then how do you really balance for that? Do you require 3 wiz and 3 fvs or just 3 of one or the other or a mixture? How about for DC fighter/barbarians? Do you require 3 fighter past lives for that also? Do you base the DC on how much STR one can get? You'll just make some feats not worth taking on other classes then since they can't hit the same STR a barb or fighter can get and pretty soon you'll see more cookie cutter builds since it won't be worth taking several of the offered feats. Some players don't care to TR that much. Some of us are a bit OCD so I will. :D

I do think epic elite should be for the best of the best but then you have to figure, Turbine is here to make money and if nerfing epic elite to be doable by the widest player population makes them more money, they probably would. I don't know what their plans are regarding the player population or if they care that only a small population is willing do the hardest stuff. Could be a better business decision to nerf epic elite.

I don't really care though. It is their game and I'll adapt. If something is easy and I'm following the rules, yes, I'm going to do like every other human and take advantage of it and only do the harder difficulty for a challenge when I'm in the mood for a slog unless there is a enticing carrot to be had.

[Socio]

-Snip-


Didn't see it mentioned anywhere in the thread, but sense you was kind enough to show how awesome sauce your korthos gear is, would you be kind enough to let me know if the casters and healers in your party was using level appropriate spells, caster gear, and enhancements in the level range of korthos as well?

If the answer is what I think it is then yeah I can do EhDQ2 with a few casters in the group naked, blindfolded, with my keyboard hidden in a vast abyss while taking a nap! Epic Hard MUST be broken due to these circumstances *Rolls eyes*

/Sarcasm off

Socio :D

[aurum1]

Didn't see it mentioned anywhere in the thread, but sense you was kind enough to show how awesome sauce your korthos gear is, would you be kind enough to let me know if the casters and healers in your party was using level appropriate spells, caster gear, and enhancements in the level range of korthos as well?

If the answer is what I think it is then yeah I can do EhDQ2 with a few casters in the group naked, blindfolded, with my keyboard hidden in a vast abyss while taking a nap! Epic Hard MUST be broken due to these circumstances *Rolls eyes*

/Sarcasm off

Socio :D

Thanks for contributing!
Also thanks for proving the point as well.....because it makes perfect sense that having a single caster makes a raid a cakewalk. Because you can run ToD on hard with a caster and all your melee blindfolded right?

[Phidius]

I don't agree that Epic Hard needs to be made more difficult - it feels very similar to the difference between Heroic Normal and Heroic Hard when run at level.

Converting Epic Casual to 20, Epic Normal to 21, and Epic Hard to 22, and Epic Elite to 25 would be what I'd recommend. And then adding 23 and 24 levels in too for the additional difficulty that people are asking for to bridge eHard and eElite.

And then when everyone's twisted out their level 25s, we can add 26+ without having to come up with new names that sound harder than "Elite"!

[Socio]

Thanks for contributing!
Also thanks for proving the point as well.....because it makes perfect sense that having a single caster makes a raid a cakewalk. Because you can run ToD on hard with a caster and all your melee blindfolded right?


Psh I don't run TOD :p

I made that jab to show how silly that post was. That's like me saying epic elite easy cause I took videos and screen shots of me naked with a masterwork shuriken while the other 5-11 Players are still blasting out full throttle with spells and abilities not within the range of the stated items, level range, or gear :p.

But please continue though, my inquisitive nature got the best of me. Thinking can be a dangerous thing :p

Socio

[wolflordnexus]

Thanks for contributing!
Also thanks for proving the point as well.....because it makes perfect sense that having a single caster makes a raid a cakewalk. Because you can run ToD on hard with a caster and all your melee blindfolded right?

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=326633

Actually you can run it solo on elite.

[AdamSmith]

Heroic Elite is easier than Epic Hard ADQ2. That's a fact. Yes, Queen Lailat has much more hit points on Epic Hard. And yes, the Djinni take much longer to kill on Epic Hard.

The title of this thread is a joke. If you were truly fresh off Korthos Island, you wouldn't even be flagged for the raid. No one cares what gear you're wearing.

I see several divines in the videos linked and that's most of what matters. Not to mention, several people were making use of their epic destiny abilities and ship buffs. You guys are level 25 and complain that a raid previously designed for level 20s is too easy? Give me a break. Go do epic elite then.

[DeafeningWhisper]

So now I'm sure you are just trolling, just in case there were any doubts.

*Looks at contribution to the thread from himself*, *looks at contribution to the thread from Gentleman* yeah, I'm the troll here.

[MRMechMan]

You guys are level 25 and complain that a raid previously designed for level 20s is too easy? Give me a break. Go do epic elite then.

It was designed for 20s.

Now it is designed for levels15s on epic normal, level 16-17s on epic hard and level25s on epic elite.


And ah...the "go run epic elite" argument. How refreshing.

Epic elite is not completable by 90% of groups, and epic hard is too easy for 90% of groups. See a problem? If you don't, I don't know what else to say.

[Ryiah]

Agreed, epic hard needs a difficulty boost, somewhere between pre u14 epics and current epic elite.
As for so called "casual" players, there is epic normal.

There's a problem with this statement - it is called Bravery Bonus. Turbine made it enough of a benefit that most people want it. Even casual players. So either that add Bravery for Epic Normal, or you'll be stuck with an Epic Hard that is easier than old Epics.

[AdamSmith]

It was designed for 20s.

Now it is designed for levels15s on epic normal, level 16-17s on epic hard and level25s on epic elite.


No, now it's designed for level 20 and above. You can't enter epic hard if you're level 15-17. Sorry! You had better go level up now.

[Qhualor]

i would suggest, since people dont want to admit that EH dragon, dq and chrono are easy and dont want to lose their free lootz if turbine found out, that someone should put this to rest by running these raids well undergeared and not using any ED.

using the OPs example, we can only go by what the numbers on the screen showed and it was obvious he was undergeared for that raid. everyone else was naked too, but someone did ask for TS, there was a healing aura up, i saw dots on the queen and she was being sundered.

i totally believe the OP since i personally have run those raids sine U14 started and despite how good or bad the group i was in, i found those raids quite easy.

if anybody is willing to put one together to post and prove it (screenshot or it didnt happen kind of thing) on khyber, look me up and ill join. i have a warforged fighter, level 20 with borked healers friend and only 1 rank in ED that i could bring. i could run korthos, get the set and starter flaming axe.

[Socio]

And ah...the "go run epic elite" argument. How refreshing.

Epic elite is not completable by 90% of groups, and epic hard is too easy for 90% of groups. See a problem? If you don't, I don't know what else to say.

I see the WE NEED MOAR HARD NOAW used alot and by this statement it seems it was brought in the form of epic elite. Now to simply dissect what you said:

Problem: Epic hard is to easy so you are presented no challenge.
Solution: Instead run the difficulty designed to give you a challenge.

Problem: Epic Elite is only completed by *according to your figures* 10% of the groups that run them.
Solution: If completion is your goal they offer those quests in a variety of difficulties to get you to the end.

So what is it? Do you want a challenge or do you want to finish it? If you want both perhaps you need to move into the 10% that can accomplish such daring feats and bathe in the blood of your fallen enemies and shower with their gold. If not you got 2 options to pick and choose from.

I can see it now "Misery Peak is too easy!!1!1!!1!ELEVEN!" and then level 20+'s will be required just to pull a lever lol.

Watch out for that red named Ice Flenser :p


-Snip-

Frankly people was taking out level 25 epics long before destinies and shiny new gear, so beating it really won't prove anything as it has all been done before on weaker characters then we have now.

I could care less if they leave it alone or "Fix" it. What does rub me the wrong way is when people go slinging around so called "Facts", "Conditioned Accomplishments used for Proof", and make snide remarks towards people who prefer it differently then they do along the lines of this quote:
dont want to lose their free lootz if turbine found out

How do you know it was "Easy" or "Free" to them? It may have been the most overwhelming challenge to them and what they got in drops was payment for the work they put into it and we have no right to judge them for it! Not everyone is geared out with past lives, max/min builds, destinies, guildies, and epic items.

Casual should be for learning.
Normal should be testing the waters.
Hard should be taking it out for a spin.
Elite should be a challenge.

You want items, run Casual-Hard
You want your mind blow, hit up elite.

Socio

[Forzah]

I see the WE NEED MOAR HARD NOAW used alot and by this statement it seems it was brought in the form of epic elite. Now to simply dissect what you said:

Problem: Epic hard is to easy so you are presented no challenge.
Solution: Instead run the difficulty designed to give you a challenge.


For some people epic elite will prove too hard, and they want to have a challenge somewhere in between normal and hard. A challenge that is just appropriate is the most fun. With a higher variation in difficulty, you will be able to target more than the casual and the elite group. That's the whole idea of having three difficulties.



Problem: Epic Elite is only completed by *according to your figures* 10% of the groups that run them.
Solution: If completion is your goal they offer those quests in a variety of difficulties to get you to the end.

So what is it? Do you want a challenge or do you want to finish it? If you want both perhaps you need to move into the 10% that can accomplish such daring feats and bathe in the blood of your fallen enemies and shower with their gold. If not you got 2 options to pick and choose from.

Three options is better than two options.

[Muspellsheimr]

Last time this came up the consensus was that epic hard should be only slightly less tough then old epics, is this still enough for everyone or do you guys need it to be a challenge for lvl 25 with full destinies? I hope not because that's what Epic Elite is for.

Yes, epic hard should be roughly as difficult as it was on epic pre-U14. Because of the higher level cap & epic destinies, it would appear to be easier. Now here is the problem - this is not the case. Before the update, epic Demon Queen required a competent & organized group to complete. What used to take 12 people, my pale master, without epic destinies and still level 20, could solo epic hard. Easily.


Lets take a look at the difficulty of epic hard Demon Queen and Chronoscope, compared to other previously 'end-game' raids (as I am not very familiar with Vault of Night post-update, I will not include that in the comparison, although everything I have seen points towards it being about the same as the other two). Comparisons will be assuming an identical group for all the raids.

First, note the levels:
Epic Demon Queen, level 22 raid (23 hard difficulty)
Epic Chronoscope, level 21 raid, (22 hard difficulty)

Now,
Shroud, level 17, normal difficulty - HARDER than epic hard Demon Queen or Chronoscope
Vision of Destruction, level 18, normal difficulty - HARDER than epic hard Demon Queen or Chronoscope
Tower of Despair, level 20, normal difficulty - - HARDER than epic hard Demon Queen or Chronoscope


You begin to see the problem? I fully expect a group capable of completing heroic normal Shroud to be capable of completing epic hard Demon Queen. I do not expect every group capable of completing epic hard Demon Queen to be able to complete normal Shroud.

Lets take another look at the new epic scaling, this time regarding Lord of Blades (please remember, this is a per-group comparison, not an 'at level' one). Heroic normal Lord of Blades (level 20 raid) is more difficult than epic normal Lord of Blades (level 22 raid).


And finally, all of that is simply regarding the broken nature of the current epic raid difficulty settings, which are visible throughout all the 'old' epic quests, but more pronounced in the raids. This is not even touching on the difficulty disparity between epic normal, hard, & elite. Given all that, can you honestly say epic is just fine where it's at?

[sirgog]

if eHard is "too easy" for you, run eElite.
if eHard is "no fun" for you, run eElite.

What if you are in the overwhelming majority of high level players that find eHard way too easy but eElite too hard (maybe not too hard for them to complete at all, but too hard for them to PUG?)

That would be probably 80% of people I've encountered in PUGs.

The worst 10% of players have Epic Normal for them. They don't need Epic Hard designed for them too.

[Anthios888]

Please Please Please!

Stop complaining DDO is too easy already!

I get to deal with nerfed weapons, LFM issues, and I'm just now getting to explore a few things I couldn't before the expansion.

Some of you seem in such a rush to make things I haven't even played yet harder, please hold off a couple of updates to give me at least a chance to fail at what you claim is so easy, eh?

I admit, I am a suboptimal, less knowledged, inferior player. Ok, are you happy now? Then please let me enjoy my DDO experience in my inferior uninformed way for awhile before constantly ranting that it be changed.

Sorry, but all this Easy Button stuff is just getting way too outta hand for me. It's almost as if this is a separate game on its own, try to raise as much heck as yo9u can in the forums to try to see if you can get the devs to make changes for you.

DDO Dev-v-P?

I'm just curious, but what's wrong with doing the quests on epic normal? Why do you have to be on a harder difficulty to play through content?

Players are frustrated because for a lot of folks, epic normal lacks the challenge that makes people form groups in the first place, or come up with strategies. It's great for learning, for soloing, for showing new players, and for shortman. The players who want to form a group for something try bumping the difficulty up to hard, but it feels virtually the same as epic normal. You take a level 24 boss and make him level 26. But epic elite is much much harder, and that boss is suddenly level 44. Making hard more in the middle of the scale lets you do the quest when you've got a party (lfm, guild, or otherwise), but don't necessarily want to micromanage every detail of your adventure. Players advocating for pushing hard want something for when you're familiar with the quest, but don't want an extreme challenge right then.

Likewise, some people really enjoy the nosebleed epic elite, but wonder why they bother when they could have done it on normal five times in the span. They want the loot drops to reflect the increased difficulty so that they're not actually disadvantaged by running a hard difficulty vs. farming it more times on normal.

The idea is that there is something for everyone, so you can actually scale your difficulty to your ability, knowledge, group make-up, and comfort.

Few people want to change epic normal, because it's a great design for many players and many situations. Even ubers want to relax and stomp through quests sometimes without worrying about whether the party has this or that class.

I just never really expect to go into quests I don't know on hard and succeed with an ember greataxe. I generally tried normal first when I was new, and figured that I would work my way up the ladder when I got to know the quest better and prepared for the encounters.

[mwgarn]

There is no valid argument against this

.... Umm ok Thanks for the post!!


Personally I find epic hard to be a decent challenge corse then again I solo and I don't have any uberz gear.. And so far nothing from the new expansion has been better then what I already have.. Heroic Normal DQ is about as hard as I want to solo.. Now and then it's fun to try hard or elite though.

I wouldn't want anything to change on epic hard or epic normal, remember epic means level 20 and above now..

[Ew_vastano]

i havnt read the whole of the thread but on epic hard adq lailat is CR 33 just before we ran the hard wich fyi was much much easier then adq heroic elite we tryed elite epic the djinn and mephits were CR45 lailat was CR55

unfortunatly she bugged so we didnt get a chance to see wether we would beat her or not

not to me that CR 33 lailat should be the epic norm (way to easy for hard)
hard edq she should be CR 43
and elites should stay exactly where they are

[Vulgari]

There are more difficulty options than just hard and elite.

"Casual is intended for solo players, or groups looking to enjoy the storyline while not worrying about the combat."
-quoted from wiki

If you want to solo, go casual. Don't complain that normal, hard or elite are too tough. If you can solo those difficulties more power to you. But if you can't solo normal, hard or elite, understand that there is a difficulty mode for you - casual.
Casual will still allow you to advance the storyline and flag.

"Normal difficulty is intended to be the default choice for the large majority of players looking for a balanced experience." - quoted from wiki.

The majority of the players should be in epic normal. That should be the design. Unfortunately, epic hard is so easy that the majority of people (who have done epics since U14) feel that epic hard is where they should be.

For those who don't want epic hard changed, I understand. Epic normal is too easy for you. So when they change epic hard, they should also change epic normal to be what epic hard is now so that the level of challenge you so dearly cherish and love is still there for you to run all you want to your heart's content. And if they make epic hard appropriately challenging, I'll probably be right there in the new epic normal with you.

On a side note, the first epic since the update I ran was Beyond the Rift. Based on what I saw folks post, I decided to solo it on epic hard. And lo and behold it was actually easier than I thought it would be. I expected my lvl 20 w/o any epic weapons or destiny skills to just get beatdown in the lvl 22 quest. At the end I was a bit sad, that I was able to solo the quest (and several others) on the second hardest difficulty setting available with little difficulty and zero quest knowledge with an underlevel, undergeared, suboptimal character. In the "old" epic quests, I wouldn't have been able to solo any significant portion of any old epic version quest, let alone the whole quest itself.

[Shinjiteru]

What was the most difficult raid pre u14? I'd say LoB, MA and Abbot. So a heroic raid for level 16 beeing harder than an epic raid? ;)
It's been a long time since heroic was easier than everything which was called epic. House C and Amrath elite groups who succeed were harder to pug than house P and house D epics.
I never saw any abbot elite pug, but at least epic VoN was semi pugged and much more common than semi pugs for abbot hard.
Heroic and epic was not a viable option to messure the difficulty of raids since some updates already.

And from my adq elite completions runs I don't recall that adq elite was harder than current epic hard. But I completed that with very noobish toons of mine (caster with only 300 HP (buffed)) and when I think about my last epic hard adq with 450hp + (buffed) caster I still wouldn't want to go there with my 300 HP caster. I probably should try. (I even survived the reclaiming the rift quest with my caster duoing the quest and having only 150 HP because I used the portal 6 times(lvl 21 and ED lvl 2) although many people say a good caster needs 600+ HP)
And elite chrono... think last time I did that I tanked/kited the endboss with my lvl 20 caster.

And if you were talking about at level low/mid level raids compared to epic raids... wonder who felt elite chrono at level would be easier than old epic chrono...
Most of the at level (low/mid lvl) raids seem to be harder because casters/healers still missing some important spells to beat the encounter. Encounters which deal mass damage to the group are insane if you don't have good mass cures/heals already...
So I'd say that's a design problem of DDO. It's hard to make a raid for mid level with the same encounters in epic diff setting and having a challenge for the capped toons without making the raid too hard for at level elite completion with the normal/hard/elite scaling DDO is using.

Think the main 'problem' is that epic normal and epic hard are not engame content anymore. It's there for leveling your way to level cap. Are the quests you used to run for xp to get to 20 any challenge? Most of them were not, even on elite... I always capped befor reaching amrath/house C content. And with a good group doing normal or hard didn't make much of a difference. Amrath and House C always seemed to be somewhat endgame content too and therefore between usual heroic and epic difficulty setting.

Why should diff settings ment for leveling be harder after lvl 20? Just because they are called epic? Epic is not epic anymore...

The old epic was the ultimate endgame difficulty setting. Either be able to deal with it or grind better gear. That's the new epic elite too. Since the new epic elite is ment to be the new endgame diff it has to be much harder than epic norm/hard.
And making epic hard only slightly easier than old epics would be a strange design since it's now a diff for leveling and not for endgame challenge/gear grind. Since old epics were more than slightly too hard if you are lvl 20 for your first time and want to level.
I still remember which tricks were used to do house P epics when I capped my first toon...

And about standing in the velah fire... I already saw melees with 600+ HP die in the fire on epic hard (they had full HP befor the breath attack started). Yeah my Monk can stay in the fire breath now but if you are unlucky with your saves you can still die there on epic hard.


Was doing last chain in eveningstar on epic elite yesterday without any usual cc (no bard, wiz, sorc). Were some lvl 23 toons with capped or nearly capped ED (not using much twist slots).
And you know what? It was a challenge but possible. The only thing that felt a bit ridiculous were the boss fights. 200-300 dmg each hit and hitting pretty fast? Maybe it was the lack of a tank (no melee with 1k HP and the monks AC+ dodge didn't seem to be good enough) but the bossfights changed from 1 tanking to 1 kiting while the others deal damage and start kiting as soon as they got aggro...
This reminded me of all the discussions I read about diablo 3's hardest difficulty beeing too hard and mostly kiting.
Not sure if you need 2 healers for these kind of fights now or if a really good/fast healer is able to heal against this damage by spamming heals on the tank until the boss is dead. But guess whole group was very surprised how hard the bosses and trash mobs hit.
And my barb is not investing 3 AP of his ED into +6 DR/- now if the mobs are dealing 150+ damage and bosses even double of that. (I did these quests with my monk)

Korthos gear is a -40 str debuff? Really? That would explain why my barb is dealing less damage than the people in the forums always mention. I only know gear to boost str by 20
+8 Enhancement
+3 insightful
+1 exceptional
+2 ToD Set
----
14
+ 6 with titans grip (can't be used while raged... )
---
20

So I guess the other 20 str come from house D, Yugo, store pots and some other short time buffs/pots?

[Edyit76]

What if you are in the overwhelming majority of high level players that find eHard way too easy but eElite too hard (maybe not too hard for them to complete at all, but too hard for them to PUG?)

That would be probably 80% of people I've encountered in PUGs.

The worst 10% of players have Epic Normal for them. They don't need Epic Hard designed for them too.

i'll actually take the time to answer that question sirgog.

yes for most of the people that post on the forums and probably most of the people you group with ehard is "too easy"
but that's the same group i'm betting that was running the old version of epics almost no fail as well right? multi tr'd
fully geared toons that trivialized raids and quests before the new version of epic.

i personally have been pugging eHard in the expansion and showing the pugs some tactics and tricks that work, and when you find yourself in a decent group suggest trying eElite. I've pugged the entire expansion (with the exception of the raid) on eElite.

that's actually my answer to your question. run it on eHard with pugs, show them some tricks. elevate them to your level of play then run eElite. step out of your closed circle of uber twink geared players, guild only, multi tr'd toons
(not meant towards you directly sirgog) and run with some 1st life 28 point players. don't just go in and solo the quest for them actually run it with them.

and for all you guys that are going to respond with i don't want to hold hands or be a babysitter, well then eElite is meant for you, go enjoy it. ;8^)

[Qhualor]

Frankly people was taking out level 25 epics long before destinies and shiny new gear, so beating it really won't prove anything as it has all been done before on weaker characters then we have now.

I could care less if they leave it alone or "Fix" it. What does rub me the wrong way is when people go slinging around so called "Facts", "Conditioned Accomplishments used for Proof", and make snide remarks towards people who prefer it differently then they do along the lines of this quote:

How do you know it was "Easy" or "Free" to them? It may have been the most overwhelming challenge to them and what they got in drops was payment for the work they put into it and we have no right to judge them for it! Not everyone is geared out with past lives, max/min builds, destinies, guildies, and epic items.

Casual should be for learning.
Normal should be testing the waters.
Hard should be taking it out for a spin.
Elite should be a challenge.

You want items, run Casual-Hard
You want your mind blow, hit up elite.

Socio

pre u14, i was wiping and feeling more challenged in standard pug groups, even experienced ones. if i was looking for a completion, sometimes i would be picky before requesting to join an lfm. now, nobody is really picky and you dont need 12 men and you dont have to have the "perfect" party makeup.

ok, my experiences you wont accept as facts. what do you accept? you might want to take your hands away from your eyes so you can actually see that not just me, but many people feel the same way as i do.

i used the words "free lootz" because when echrono normally would take 30-45 minutes to complete without optionals, you actually had to earn it. now you can complete it in 15 minutes, do all optionals, surround the boss, stand in his fire and ice shards and have him killed in 2 minutes with a take first 11 group. that to me is free lootz.

according to you, the difficulties from casual to hard should be cake. i disagree:
casual should be for learning
normal should be fairly solo challenging and group challenging
hard should be challenging
elite should be "best of the best"

[Ivan_Milic]

There are more difficulty options than just hard and elite.

"Casual is intended for solo players, or groups looking to enjoy the storyline while not worrying about the combat."
-quoted from wiki

If you want to solo, go casual. Don't complain that normal, hard or elite are too tough. If you can solo those difficulties more power to you. But if you can't solo normal, hard or elite, understand that there is a difficulty mode for you - casual.
Casual will still allow you to advance the storyline and flag.

"Normal difficulty is intended to be the default choice for the large majority of players looking for a balanced experience." - quoted from wiki.

The majority of the players should be in epic normal. That should be the design. Unfortunately, epic hard is so easy that the majority of people (who have done epics since U14) feel that epic hard is where they should be.



Active

The Heal skill is actively used to save incapacitated players. This skill uses 1 healer's kit per attempt. The incapacitated player can be revived but they will only be healed to 1 hit point if a successful Heal check is made. To make a successful Heal check, your Heal skill + 1d20 must equal or exceed the DC check for reviving an incapacitated player. The DC of the Heal check to revive a wounded player is 20.

This is also from wiki,tell me who uses heal skill?
Maybe 1 player out of 10000.

[grgurius]

Ok, whats with the entitlement, casual and normal should be default difficulty for inexperienced and players reasonably geared for their level. Hard should be default difficulty for experienced players. Elite should be smash your face, kick you in the nuts, make you run home to mommy difficulty.

Now that aside, epic raids are seriously borked on all difficulties. There are plenty of examples as Velahs breath, CADs special attacks, LoBs special attacks, stuff that was designed to kill you if you are not paying attention. Now all that is laughable. You shouldn't be able to simply ignore that, Velahs breath should kill you even on normal, LoB should slice you to pieces with his special attacks even on normal etc...

[aurum1]

Thanks for all the useful replies people - some good comments coming in now.

On the comment of numerical difficulty vs. named. It sounds good in theory, but in practice numerical difficulty is meaningless. Can you walk up to a challenge and really know the difference between 22 or 25 difficulty? I sure dunno.

/rant on
But please for the love of all that is dwarven. STOP TALKING ABOUT QUESTS. Half the comments here are 'I can barely complete king's forest on normal don't take that away' or I just ran kobold's new ringleader on hard and it felt hard. This has absolutely nothing to do with 6 man adventures. This is only about raids.
/rant off

[DeafeningWhisper]

Yes, epic hard should be roughly as difficult as it was on epic pre-U14. Because of the higher level cap & epic destinies, it would appear to be easier. Now here is the problem - this is not the case. Before the update, epic Demon Queen required a competent & organized group to complete. What used to take 12 people, my pale master, without epic destinies and still level 20, could solo epic hard. Easily.


Lets take a look at the difficulty of epic hard Demon Queen and Chronoscope, compared to other previously 'end-game' raids (as I am not very familiar with Vault of Night post-update, I will not include that in the comparison, although everything I have seen points towards it being about the same as the other two). Comparisons will be assuming an identical group for all the raids.

First, note the levels:
Epic Demon Queen, level 22 raid (23 hard difficulty)
Epic Chronoscope, level 21 raid, (22 hard difficulty)

Now,
Shroud, level 17, normal difficulty - HARDER than epic hard Demon Queen or Chronoscope
Vision of Destruction, level 18, normal difficulty - HARDER than epic hard Demon Queen or Chronoscope
Tower of Despair, level 20, normal difficulty - - HARDER than epic hard Demon Queen or Chronoscope


You begin to see the problem? I fully expect a group capable of completing heroic normal Shroud to be capable of completing epic hard Demon Queen. I do not expect every group capable of completing epic hard Demon Queen to be able to complete normal Shroud.

Lets take another look at the new epic scaling, this time regarding Lord of Blades (please remember, this is a per-group comparison, not an 'at level' one). Heroic normal Lord of Blades (level 20 raid) is more difficult than epic normal Lord of Blades (level 22 raid).


And finally, all of that is simply regarding the broken nature of the current epic raid difficulty settings, which are visible throughout all the 'old' epic quests, but more pronounced in the raids. This is not even touching on the difficulty disparity between epic normal, hard, & elite. Given all that, can you honestly say epic is just fine where it's at?

Oh I agree Ehard could use a boost in old content, new content on the other hand? Demonweb on Ehard is plenty tough as is. The quote above comes from the fact that some have asked that EHard be a challenge for their fully capped toons in the past, despise the fact EElite exist for that purpose.


Curious, how did you solo EZawabi on epic hard? I tried Enorm on my lvl 21 PM with magister destiny to no avail, my guess is that I'm using a bad strategy here.

[AdamSmith]

Curious, how did you solo EZawabi on epic hard? I tried Enorm on my lvl 21 PM with magister destiny to no avail, my guess is that I'm using a bad strategy here.

They didn't. They're just bragging that they "could" without any proof that they can actually solo epic hard adq2 with a level 20 palemaster.

[aurum1]

Korthos gear is a -40 str debuff? Really? That would explain why my barb is dealing less damage than the people in the forums always mention. I only know gear to boost str by 20
+8 Enhancement
+3 insightful
+1 exceptional
+2 ToD Set
----
14
+ 6 with titans grip (can't be used while raged... )
---
20

So I guess the other 20 str come from house D, Yugo, store pots and some other short time buffs/pots?

She has DR20 good and cold iron. Intentionally not bypassing that is 20 less damage a swing which you need 40 str to overcome. I would assume we can expect a 28pt 1st life character to need an understanding of basic game concepts to run a raid on hard difficulty. In that case give them at least a metalline of pure good weapon and they can out DPS anyone in the videos.

[wolflordnexus]

/rant on
But please for the love of all that is dwarven. STOP TALKING ABOUT QUESTS. Half the comments here are 'I can barely complete king's forest on normal don't take that away' or I just ran kobold's new ringleader on hard and it felt hard. This has absolutely nothing to do with 6 man adventures. This is only about raids.
/rant off


You can not discus this in a vacuum you know as well as anyone here that Turbine will look at all this E Hard is to easy **** and just bump the difficulty across the board.

[MRMechMan]

They didn't. They're just bragging that they "could" without any proof that they can actually solo epic hard adq2 with a level 20 palemaster.

Soloed it on my now-broken WF fvs after update. It WAS a joke. She literally cannot pass the DR from my now-nerfed leviks and docent of defiance-even with a mere 10 PRR she hits for ZERO if I use DOD. To get back sp from torc I needed to not use DOD.

Of course, I actually DID solo it on epic before xpac too, so not the best example :P


Would be tougher on a palemaster for sure, as bursts healing is quite a bit more expensive. But would imagine it is certainly possible on a 500hp+geared palemaster with torc/concops/demons consort bracers/good shield etc.

I mean...I attempted epic hard with my AIR SAVANT that DOESN'T have a torc, NOR docent of defiance, and would have gotten it if had a torc. Ran outta sp but with torc that wouldn't have been an issue.

Did normal epic and got it done...on an ungeared air savant using a ****** shield, no sp regen gear and no docent of defiance, if that doesn't prove that the raid is broken, I don't know what does. She has a lot of HP still compared to non-epic but she really doesn't hit hard at all.

The point is, these epic raids on normal and hard FEEL like casual-that nothing you do matters because the group will win no matter what happens...Teamwork? Buffs? Strategy? Nah, it's epic hard, why bother....

[Faent]

The point is, these epic raids on normal and hard FEEL like casual-that nothing you do matters because the group will win no matter what happens...Teamwork? Buffs? Strategy? Nah, it's epic hard, why bother....

Have you tried an Epic Casual? I was doing a low level quest-arc for an item, and I was setting the quests to Heroic Casual so I could just run through. I accidentally set one of them to Epic Casual, and didn't notice that I'd done so until the end when an epic chest popped up. Epic Casual plays about like level five content. It's hilarious.

[Muspellsheimr]

Would be tougher on a palemaster for sure, as bursts healing is quite a bit more expensive. But would imagine it is certainly possible on a 500hp+geared palemaster with torc/concops/demons consort bracers/good shield etc.

More or less, but you should be using an epic Robe of Shadow or Shroud of the Abbot, and most of the time you shouldn't even need negative energy burst.

With a good shield & bit of other DR, and good luck on temp HP procs, Boon of Undeath will often result in net healing, and the BoU/tempHP procs result in a high effective DR that you get torc procs through. Honestly, for a well geared pale master, having your gear break is the biggest concern, and with how low her HP is now, that's... unlikely.

[MRMechMan]

More or less, but you should be using an epic Robe of Shadow or Shroud of the Abbot, and most of the time you shouldn't even need negative energy burst.

With a good shield & bit of other DR, and good luck on temp HP procs, Boon of Undeath will often result in net healing, and the BoU/tempHP procs result in a high effective DR that you get torc procs through. Honestly, for a well geared pale master, having your gear break is the biggest concern, and with how low her HP is now, that's... unlikely.

I know what you mean...against her right now the 2% leviks heal proc and 47 DR is a net heal. :D

Palemaster DR depends a lot on gear-a geared palemaster should have no problem going toe to toe with her on epic hard.

[aurum1]

Not sure that being able to solo a raid by default makes it too easy. ToD has been solo'd.
Making some raids extremely easy to solo without resource burn is bad.
Making raids easy to steamroll without bothering with basic game mechanics (true seeing, DR breaking, thinking) is bad.

[Orangine]

Just completed epic last stand on hard with 2 of my friends and we were completely naked lol ( no gear at all on ). Seriously... epic hard is a joke.
Afterwards we tried epic elite with our gear on and we failed.
There should be a middle between "My grandmother could solo it with her level 18" and "Very challenging".

[Araleas]

She has DR20 good and cold iron. Intentionally not bypassing that is 20 less damage a swing which you need 40 str to overcome. I would assume we can expect a 28pt 1st life character to need an understanding of basic game concepts to run a raid on hard difficulty. In that case give them at least a metalline of pure good weapon and they can out DPS anyone in the videos.

I am sorry, but that argumentation is very flawed and most likely used to over-dramatize your point.
You are doing 20 pts less damage, that's a fact, but you hardly need +40 str to compensate this.

Second you are telling me that a 28 pt 1 st life character just needs a metalline of pure good weapon to out DPS "anyone" in the videos. WOW. I didn't know that metalline of pure good gives me the ability to DOT my target with 3-digit damage values. Or did the Favoured Souls and the other blue bars forget to cast those ?

What i see in the video is a bunch of people running around without armours. Please tell me, where is the difference to before the last updates? When AC meant: "If you have less than 80, you can have Zero"
So basically the majority of players have been running this raid always like you did. With an armour that made no difference at all.

Another thing i see are your HP. Almost 1200. When i started playing in 2010, i was told that having 450-500 was decent for a melee. Now you have 1200 and ask yourself why things seem easy ???

To summarise it. For me you arguments are the equivalent of a pile of the things coming from the behind of a male cow. The destinies and several changes before have caused a huge power creep. That causes old things to become more easy. If that is to easy for you, run Epic Elite.

[Qhualor]

I am sorry, but that argumentation is very flawed and most likely used to over-dramatize your point.
You are doing 20 pts less damage, that's a fact, but you hardly need +40 str to compensate this.

Second you are telling me that a 28 pt 1 st life character just needs a metalline of pure good weapon to out DPS "anyone" in the videos. WOW. I didn't know that metalline of pure good gives me the ability to DOT my target with 3-digit damage values. Or did the Favoured Souls and the other blue bars forget to cast those ?

What i see in the video is a bunch of people running around without armours. Please tell me, where is the difference to before the last updates? When AC meant: "If you have less than 80, you can have Zero"
So basically the majority of players have been running this raid always like you did. With an armour that made no difference at all.

Another thing i see are your HP. Almost 1200. When i started playing in 2010, i was told that having 450-500 was decent for a melee. Now you have 1200 and ask yourself why things seem easy ???

To summarise it. For me you arguments are the equivalent of a pile of the things coming from the behind of a male cow. The destinies and several changes before have caused a huge power creep. That causes old things to become more easy. If that is to easy for you, run Epic Elite.

If you watched the video, you will see dots. Im assuming it was just to get the queen to come down from her perch. Their point was slightly flawed but they were showing how quick and easy it is to do the raid with korthos gear. Its hard to make a point when you already have epic levels, enhancements and level ups on your character. The point is still good and a month later, people have finally realized and admitted how easy eh raids are.

[Moonsickle]

Maybe they need to adjust the difficulties this way:


drop Epic Casual... replace with Epic Normal


replaced Epic Normal with Epic Hard


make a new and more suitable Epic Hard


Leave Epic Elite for those who will say that even a middle ground Epic Hard is too easy even in regular Chronoscope gear.




as some Epic Casuals drop quest level below 20 which doesn't make sense.



and I'm sure there was tweaking to be done to the difficulties...

I mean until people ACTUALLY leveled characters up to lvl 25 with a full Destiny, I believe they had no idea what characters would be capable of let alone a party of 6 or 12 of them.

We are doing the beta for that right now... think they went with the lower end on EHard to make it that they didn't have people all bent about "I can't play this game any higher than Epic Normal" as I believe it is easier to adjust things like damage up as needed... rather then have Shock & Awe leaving people in fear playing content then have to "dumb-down" the content so then others could be bent about "you're making this game too easy"...

think the former is a bigger pool of players than the latter, so the choice would make sense.


They piled too much on at once and not sure how it was all going to play out, they decided they needed people be able to play the Epics not like before with the old Epics...

where if you weren't comfortable with the Epic quests, your choices were make an alt, TR or quit.


.

[krackythehoodedone]

Hang on a second

We are talking EADQ2 yes ?

I'd love to know how many in this 7 page thread

1, Did EADQ2 regularly
2, Have tried EE EADQ2 cos last few times we tried it is bleedin Broken !!!

So have they fixed it or is everyone droning on about Epic Elite for this raid talking ???

Having said that EH is a joke for well equipped VETs (or ill equipped knowledgeable ones) but on the other hand i can see what Turbine is trying to do.

Their was an ever widening gulf between the just capped and the Vets. EH I think will be a reasonable challenge for those just hitting 20th who don't know every speck of dust in the raid inside out and back to front. Ok they could make it a bit harder but for the purpose I think it was supposed to fulfill it is working. It gives those players a crack at some of the best loot when before they were getting declined.

I would agree a difficulty level in between EH and EE would be appropriate.

Epic Elite should be for those well equipped 20-25's and should feature a bonus for completing, such as an increased chance of the ultra hard loot. Pretty easy to do in EADQ2 seeing as how the most difficult drop in the game is right their, not to mention +4 tomes and some of the best raid loot in the game

[Loriac]

Seems to me a bunch of vets are annoyed because they can't steamroller EE, and they can't brag about how easily they can do EH when more casual players are now able to complete those difficulties with effort.

As has been repeatedly pointed out (and repeatedly ignored by some of the loudest folks on this thread) epic no longer means what it used to mean. Now, its shorthand for 'Level 21-25'.

The difference between EN and EH is comparable to the difference between HN and HH. I say that as a player who pugs a lot, and who when I first got to the xpac content was pugging on EN, and now pug at EH. For the average PUG (on Cannith, perhaps other servers are different), EN is a straightforward difficulty and EH is challenging in parts. This is very similar to how most non-TR pugs are at heroic levels.

I think what can cause confusion is the scaling that currently operates: if you solo EN or EH, you definitely get a step up in difficulty between the two, but EH is still not too bad for a reasonably self-sufficient toon. However, if you step into EH with a full group, and have 5 people afk at the entrance, you do get a much more difficult time of it.

If you have 6 well geared vets, ofc they will find EH on a full group not particularly challenging; however, the same is true on heroic levels (e.g. with the recent problems with elite spell casting mobs, it was very noticeable when you tried to run say running with the devils on elite and got obliterated at the first fight, but then stepping in on hard it was a piece of cake).

I think thats the point thats being missed here: the difference between hard and elite is much more noticeable now, and perhaps this is intentional. EH is a solid difficulty level that caters to relatively new people in the game, or those who are not hardcore players. Its also a difficulty that scales (whether intentionally or not) meaning its a challenge for those same people either solo or in a full group.

EH doesn't cater to the well-geared hardcore, just as heroic hard is too easy for TRs.

EE is the appropriate difficulty for hardcore players looking for a challenge, and it seems to me that many of them are finding it too hard for themselves at this stage. However, they're not taking into account the fact that it takes time to fully understand the new capabilities you have from EDs, so over time EE will become much easier for them to tackle.

Finally, the idea that the mainstream player should be provided one real difficulty, EN, to play with whilst the hardcore 5% get EH for when they want to kick back and EE for when they want a challenge, is ignoring the commercial reality that the hardcore is a small subset of the player base.

I'd be happy for turbine to slightly tweak EH as necessary on a quest by quest basis, but I think they've got it broadly right as it stands. It'd be a shame to see them revert to old mistakes just to please a very vocal minority of hardcore forumites who are never really satisfied with whatever they do in any case.

[Chai]

Seems to me a bunch of vets are annoyed because they can't steamroller EE, and they can't brag about how easily they can do EH when more casual players are now able to complete those difficulties with effort.

As has been repeatedly pointed out (and repeatedly ignored by some of the loudest folks on this thread) epic no longer means what it used to mean. Now, its shorthand for 'Level 21-25'.

The difference between EN and EH is comparable to the difference between HN and HH. I say that as a player who pugs a lot, and who when I first got to the xpac content was pugging on EN, and now pug at EH. For the average PUG (on Cannith, perhaps other servers are different), EN is a straightforward difficulty and EH is challenging in parts. This is very similar to how most non-TR pugs are at heroic levels.

I think what can cause confusion is the scaling that currently operates: if you solo EN or EH, you definitely get a step up in difficulty between the two, but EH is still not too bad for a reasonably self-sufficient toon. However, if you step into EH with a full group, and have 5 people afk at the entrance, you do get a much more difficult time of it.

If you have 6 well geared vets, ofc they will find EH on a full group not particularly challenging; however, the same is true on heroic levels (e.g. with the recent problems with elite spell casting mobs, it was very noticeable when you tried to run say running with the devils on elite and got obliterated at the first fight, but then stepping in on hard it was a piece of cake).

I think thats the point thats being missed here: the difference between hard and elite is much more noticeable now, and perhaps this is intentional. EH is a solid difficulty level that caters to relatively new people in the game, or those who are not hardcore players. Its also a difficulty that scales (whether intentionally or not) meaning its a challenge for those same people either solo or in a full group.

EH doesn't cater to the well-geared hardcore, just as heroic hard is too easy for TRs.

EE is the appropriate difficulty for hardcore players looking for a challenge, and it seems to me that many of them are finding it too hard for themselves at this stage. However, they're not taking into account the fact that it takes time to fully understand the new capabilities you have from EDs, so over time EE will become much easier for them to tackle.

Finally, the idea that the mainstream player should be provided one real difficulty, EN, to play with whilst the hardcore 5% get EH for when they want to kick back and EE for when they want a challenge, is ignoring the commercial reality that the hardcore is a small subset of the player base.

I'd be happy for turbine to slightly tweak EH as necessary on a quest by quest basis, but I think they've got it broadly right as it stands. It'd be a shame to see them revert to old mistakes just to please a very vocal minority of hardcore forumites who are never really satisfied with whatever they do in any case.

This.

Especially this.


Finally, the idea that the mainstream player should be provided one real difficulty, EN, to play with whilst the hardcore 5% get EH for when they want to kick back and EE for when they want a challenge, is ignoring the commercial reality that the hardcore is a small subset of the player base.

If you are a vet who used to steamroll old epics, epic normal and epic hard are not balanced with you in mind. The entire reason to make N and H on epic comparable to N and H on heroic is to attract the rest of the MAJORITY of paying customers to that content. These are the people who were NOT playing epics before, due to a few reasons, one of which was the high level of exclusivity that was enforced in the past.

Gone are the days of "must have X DC or cant run epics" etc. Gone are the days of "know it or dont join" - yeah people still put that into their groups, but its not legit anymore. Which brings us to this:


Seems to me a bunch of vets are annoyed because they can't steamroller EE, and they can't brag about how easily they can do EH when more casual players are now able to complete those difficulties with effort.

With the addition that theres no more legit high level of exclusivity. That gear we are looting from endgame content is available to everyone. If vets exclude everyone else, they can just make an LFM and run it anyhow, still loot the best items in the game, and enjoy ALL CONTENT, as well as feeling like they have the ability to progress their toons further than just capping them out. The commercial success depended on the majority getting involved in that end game content, and now they can and are involved in it.

[Ranncore]

I'm a TR and a "vet" but not a powergamer. I don't want to be able to blitz thru EE. What I want is a "Hard" difficulty. Something that is challenging, but able to be completed without using 10 mana pots. Hard is not hard, it's a joke. There is no difficulty setting in the game that I can play for fun now. I either spend too many resources on EE, or have to settle with a boring monotonous grind with EH. The new Epic Elites completions seem solely based on how many pots the healer has, and the new Epic Hards are too easy.
The old Epics were perfect.

[Ranncore]

But that's just my personal opinion. A more objective way of measuring the difficulty of current Epic Hards is by comparing them to The Shroud. I do this because there is a forum specifically for the Shroud, and the devs worked long and hard to get it balanced just perfect, because of it's popularity.

Shroud is level 16, so 17 on hard.

What's more dangerous, the blades in The Shroud, or Lailats blades on E-hard?

Who is more dangerous, Harry or Lailat?

How about the Luitenants vs the red Djiins?

I think you'll find that the Shroud is more difficult in every respect. And since, as I stated, there was A LOT of work put into the Shroud to make it balanced and of appropriate difficulty, we can only assume that if a lvl 21 quest on hard is not as difficult as The Shroud, it is the lvl 21 quest that is broken.

[Stormvent]

Seems to me a bunch of vets are annoyed because they can't steamroller EE, and they can't brag about how easily they can do EH when more casual players are now able to complete those difficulties with effort.

As has been repeatedly pointed out (and repeatedly ignored by some of the loudest folks on this thread) epic no longer means what it used to mean. Now, its shorthand for 'Level 21-25'.

The difference between EN and EH is comparable to the difference between HN and HH. I say that as a player who pugs a lot, and who when I first got to the xpac content was pugging on EN, and now pug at EH. For the average PUG (on Cannith, perhaps other servers are different), EN is a straightforward difficulty and EH is challenging in parts. This is very similar to how most non-TR pugs are at heroic levels.

I think what can cause confusion is the scaling that currently operates: if you solo EN or EH, you definitely get a step up in difficulty between the two, but EH is still not too bad for a reasonably self-sufficient toon. However, if you step into EH with a full group, and have 5 people afk at the entrance, you do get a much more difficult time of it.

If you have 6 well geared vets, ofc they will find EH on a full group not particularly challenging; however, the same is true on heroic levels (e.g. with the recent problems with elite spell casting mobs, it was very noticeable when you tried to run say running with the devils on elite and got obliterated at the first fight, but then stepping in on hard it was a piece of cake).

I think thats the point thats being missed here: the difference between hard and elite is much more noticeable now, and perhaps this is intentional. EH is a solid difficulty level that caters to relatively new people in the game, or those who are not hardcore players. Its also a difficulty that scales (whether intentionally or not) meaning its a challenge for those same people either solo or in a full group.

EH doesn't cater to the well-geared hardcore, just as heroic hard is too easy for TRs.

EE is the appropriate difficulty for hardcore players looking for a challenge, and it seems to me that many of them are finding it too hard for themselves at this stage. However, they're not taking into account the fact that it takes time to fully understand the new capabilities you have from EDs, so over time EE will become much easier for them to tackle.

Finally, the idea that the mainstream player should be provided one real difficulty, EN, to play with whilst the hardcore 5% get EH for when they want to kick back and EE for when they want a challenge, is ignoring the commercial reality that the hardcore is a small subset of the player base.

I'd be happy for turbine to slightly tweak EH as necessary on a quest by quest basis, but I think they've got it broadly right as it stands. It'd be a shame to see them revert to old mistakes just to please a very vocal minority of hardcore forumites who are never really satisfied with whatever they do in any case.

this!

[ckorik]

Well Shroud was done when the cap was 16 - on elite - by people that were naked and using only clubs of holy flame (to be fair they did spend a boatload of effort putting adamant. rituals on the clubs so they wouldn't break.

I guess my point is - what game were you playing where you thought the raids in the game were gear dependent? This didn't just change overnight. The old 'epic' difficulty is still there on elite - just don't play 'hard' if it's that big of an issue.

[Ranncore]

The old 'epic' difficulty is still there on elite

That is a terrible misconception that shows your inexperience with both current epic elites and previous epics.

[ckorik]

That is a terrible misconception that shows your inexperience with both current epic elites and previous epics.

/sarcasm
Oh yes I forgot - they added a pony level to the game and firewall was replaced by the 'carebare stare'. How silly of me.
/sarcasm

My opinion however seems to be the prevailing one amongst those I play with, and the forum community - so I stand by it.

[My2Cents]

As a Melee I can tell you there's a big difference between EN and EH when you have to hack and slash the mobs. I suppose you wouldn't notice it with instakill spells.

I ran an EH yesterday and in the end could not get the final boss down fast enough to make it worth completing, but I sure did give ti a try. Got to the final boss after three deaths and fought quite long and hard (2 hours?) to get there.

Hasty generalizations across different player expertise, gear, build, quest knowledge, TR status (and TR desire<-) etc., is, to me, of little value.

[Qhualor]

I'm a TR and a "vet" but not a powergamer. I don't want to be able to blitz thru EE. What I want is a "Hard" difficulty. Something that is challenging, but able to be completed without using 10 mana pots. Hard is not hard, it's a joke. There is no difficulty setting in the game that I can play for fun now. I either spend too many resources on EE, or have to settle with a boring monotonous grind with EH. The new Epic Elites completions seem solely based on how many pots the healer has, and the new Epic Hards are too easy.
The old Epics were perfect.

this^^

[Muspellsheimr]

As has been repeatedly pointed out (and repeatedly ignored by some of the loudest folks on this thread) epic no longer means what it used to mean. Now, its shorthand for 'Level 21-25'.

What has been repeatedly pointed out (and repeatedly ignored by people like you) Zawabi's Revenge is a base level 22 raid.

It is now easily completed on hard with poorly geared level 20 characters, without epic destinies. It is now easier than normal difficulty Shroud (level 17 raid), with the same group.



The difference between EN and EH is comparable to the difference between HN and HH. I say that as a player who pugs a lot, and who when I first got to the xpac content was pugging on EN, and now pug at EH. For the average PUG (on Cannith, perhaps other servers are different), EN is a straightforward difficulty and EH is challenging in parts. This is very similar to how most non-TR pugs are at heroic levels.

The current difference between epic normal & hard is roughly comparable to the difference of heroic normal and hard at level 10 & below. Epic is end game content, and should have a similar difficulty range as other late-game content, which it does not. The difficulty increase between normal & hard is to small, and the difficulty increase between hard & elite is to big.

Additionally, epic (level 20+) quests should be more difficult than level 17-19 quests at the same difficulty setting. For the most part, they are currently easier.

[Charononus]

As a Melee I can tell you there's a big difference between EN and EH when you have to hack and slash the mobs. I suppose you wouldn't notice it with instakill spells.

I ran an EH yesterday and in the end could not get the final boss down fast enough to make it worth completing, but I sure did give ti a try. Got to the final boss after three deaths and fought quite long and hard (2 hours?) to get there.

Hasty generalizations across different player expertise, gear, build, quest knowledge, TR status (and TR desire<-) etc., is, to me, of little value.

Honestly I'd take a look at your build and gear if this has been your experience (not knowing of course what you completed). I've soloed (me+hire) quite a few of the epic quests with a barb that only had an eAG, dt armor, and the fabricators set. While yes it is much easier to solo on a blue bar, melee can do it with thought and tatics, the problem being not so much killing the mobs as lack of self healing.

[Raithe]

It is now easily completed on hard with poorly geared level 20 characters, without epic destinies. It is now easier than normal difficulty Shroud (level 17 raid), with the same group.


I think people need to come to grips with a few minor details:

1) Quest difficulty is based on quest design, not on its level. Xorian Cipher is harder than In Need of Supplies (Threnal), both are level 8. Proof is in the Poison is harder than The Depths of Darkness (House D), both are level 4.

2) Quest difficulty is often dependent on group class makeups... some things are not very hard at all for a group of casters.

3) The few times I ran the old epic DQ2, the group I was with made that look pretty short and simple, as well.

4) Normal difficulty Shroud is probably a bit tougher than it was back when the level cap was 16. It's been beefed up over the years because people ran it to death. DQ2 doesn't quite have the same appeal and may need to be attractive to shortman inexperienced groups.

5) I'm fairly certain I already said this earlier in my life in this same thread, but if you already completed DQ2 on epic before the xpac, your mission, if you choose to accept it, should be to practice EE DQ2, unless it really is broken - in which case you should probably make a thread about that.

[Loriac]

The current difference between epic normal & hard is roughly comparable to the difference of heroic normal and hard at level 10 & below. Epic is end game content, and should have a similar difficulty range as other late-game content, which it does not. The difficulty increase between normal & hard is to small, and the difficulty increase between hard & elite is to big.


You are wrong on this. There is a similar gulf in difficulty in heroic quests between hard and elite.

Perhaps due to incorrect spellcaster mob scaling, perhaps intentionally, elite difficulty is significantly harder than hard for heroic quests across all level ranges, but particularly noticeable at L15+ because the insane spell damage can one-shot even multi-tr'd toons.

Outside of guild runs or other well-equipped / knowledgeable groups of players, taking on an elite PUG in heroic quests L16+ is a recipe for disaster these days. I know this because I pug a lot, and since update 14 came out I took a character from L10 or so to L24 (life 2 for that toon). I've lost count of the number of times that I have joined a PUG group that wanted to do a quest on elite to preserve some idiot TR's bravery bonus, with a subsequent wipe because of the way the difficulty has been adjusted. One memorable elite Mindsunder run springs to mind; we had about 6 deaths in the first two minutes because someone decided to run forward and aggro the opening room. By the time we eventually completed, we had about 25 deaths in total, and a couple of re-entry penalties. Most of that group were TRs incidentally, and more than one of them commented on not remembering that quest being so hard before.

If I ran in guild groups with 1 or 2 puggees joining meanwhile, we generally stood a much better chance of completion. If you, or others in this thread, are basing their opinions on how difficult epic hard is based on running with your fellow vets, then you've missed the point. Epic hard for the majority of players in a pug setting is challenging. Heroic hard meanwhile is not as challenging, but heroic elite is brutal relative to what it was.

Epic is end-game content purely in the sense that its for levels 20+. True end-game content is epic elite; other epic difficulties should not be considered end-game imo. Epic normal and epic hard are fully comparable with heroic normal and heroic hard. My own experience (which I'm aware is not fully applicable to a typical player, as I have been playing DDO on and off since the max level was 10) is that my toon can solo pretty much anything on heroic hard, and anything on epic normal. Epic hard is usually solo'able (because of the way scaling works), but is challenging in places. In a random pug, I would expect to complete epic hard, but wouldn't be suprised if the run turned out harder than it should have been, and often with a death or three.

Finally, I will point out that you and other posters are being extremely disingenuous when you state that this thread is about a L22 raid. If you were asking only for this raid to be looked at, sure, thats fine. In reality you want epic hard to be made more challenging across the board, and are using a raid as your broken paradigm.

[Muspellsheimr]

You are wrong on this. There is a similar gulf in difficulty in heroic quests between hard and elite.

No. Not even close.

I just finished a 1-20 elite streak, pugging about half the quests in the 16+ range. The spell damage bug has been repeatedly been stated & confirmed a bug, and attempting to use it to justify anything is just sad. And yet, even if it was intentional, the few quests significantly affected by it barely come close to the difference between epic hard & elite - Running with the Devils, Enter the Kobold, etc. Both of which I completed with a pug, on a not-so-good character. The vast majority of quests in that level range are not noticeably affected by the bug, easily pugged, and the difficulty between hard & elite is about the same as between normal & hard.

Not so for epic hard vs. elite.



Finally, I will point out that you and other posters are being extremely disingenuous when you state that this thread is about a L22 raid. If you were asking only for this raid to be looked at, sure, thats fine. In reality you want epic hard to be made more challenging across the board, and are using a raid as your broken paradigm.

Yes, epic hard does need a significant buff across the board, and probably normal as well. I have discussed that elsewhere. Here, I have been consistently replying specifically to those who think the raids (by far the worst offenders) are "just fine". Most heroic level quests at level 18+ are harder to complete with a 6-man group than the epic raids - raids intended as end-game content for groups of twelve players 4 levels higher than those quests.

[Ungood]

No. Not even close.

I just finished a 1-20 elite streak, pugging about half the quests in the 16+ range. The spell damage bug has been repeatedly been stated & confirmed a bug, and attempting to use it to justify anything is just sad. And yet, even if it was intentional, the few quests significantly affected by it barely come close to the difference between epic hard & elite - Running with the Devils, Enter the Kobold, etc. Both of which I completed with a pug, on a not-so-good character. The vast majority of quests in that level range are not noticeably affected by the bug, easily pugged, and the difficulty between hard & elite is about the same as between normal & hard.

On this alone I am going to blow off your post as bravado and bragging.

And as much as I love posts by elitist with a chronic case special snowflake syndrome, if you are not challenged by elite either heroic or epic, then maybe you have won this game and it's time to move on.

[MRMechMan]

I think people need to come to grips with a few minor details:

1) Quest difficulty is based on quest design, not on its level. Xorian Cipher is harder than In Need of Supplies (Threnal), both are level 8. Proof is in the Poison is harder than The Depths of Darkness (House D), both are level 4.

2) Quest difficulty is often dependent on group class makeups... some things are not very hard at all for a group of casters.

3) The few times I ran the old epic DQ2, the group I was with made that look pretty short and simple, as well.

4) Normal difficulty Shroud is probably a bit tougher than it was back when the level cap was 16. It's been beefed up over the years because people ran it to death. DQ2 doesn't quite have the same appeal and may need to be attractive to shortman inexperienced groups.

5) I'm fairly certain I already said this earlier in my life in this same thread, but if you already completed DQ2 on epic before the xpac, your mission, if you choose to accept it, should be to practice EE DQ2, unless it really is broken - in which case you should probably make a thread about that.

1. Quest difficulty should absolutely be based on level...character power directly scales with character level so obviously higher level quests should be harder. While some level 5 quests might be tougher than level 4 quests, having level 16-17 content being harder than MOST of the level 20+ content is just weird, and poor game design.

2. Sure, but who do you balance it for? It seems epic normal/hard raids are balanced for stone of experience level 16 naked new players. At a minimum epic hard should be somewhat of a challenge for moderately geared/knowledgeable players at level 20.

3. Sure, I had a pretty good success rate with old EDQ2. Even soloed it on a character. But not every group succeeded. You had to actually...pay attention.

4.I'll agree with this, but they went WAY too far in the easy direction, so much so that it is UNappealing because it is too easy.

5. I don't understand why the middle difficulty, Ehard, was decided to be EASIER than old epic, when the majority of the players were getting vastly more powerful. If the easiest epic difficulty is easier than old epic, I get that. Newer players who didn't find epic appealing before want something to whet their appitite. But EPIC HARD being made MUCH easier as well...I don't get it. Sure, there is epic elite, but sometimes you just want to get in a completion that is fairly challenging but you don't need everyone to be max geared/twisted.

Again, Ehard is a joke for 95%+ groups, and Eelite is too hard for 95%+ of groups. Old epic is smack dab in the middle of em, and was pretty much perfect IMO.

[My2Cents]

Honestly I'd take a look at your build and gear if this has been your experience (not knowing of course what you completed). I've soloed (me+hire) quite a few of the epic quests with a barb that only had an eAG, dt armor, and the fabricators set. While yes it is much easier to solo on a blue bar, melee can do it with thought and tatics, the problem being not so much killing the mobs as lack of self healing.

I agree. Of course its doable - just a significant difference between EH and EN. My gear could be better, I haven't done many raids, but there is probably a segment of the population just like me. I was just stressing the breadth and depth of players' types.

The biggest difference with EH is that with a melee weapon it can take a much longer time to accomplish and thereby exposing one to more risk due to the increased time. I'm working on farming a better weapon, but of course this takes time to do properly.

[Ungood]

1. Quest difficulty should absolutely be based on level...character power directly scales with character level so obviously higher level quests should be harder. While some level 5 quests might be tougher than level 4 quests, having level 16-17 content being harder than MOST of the level 20+ content is just weird, and poor game design.

Actually, any level 4 quest on elite is harder them any normal level 6 quest, and I would wager harder then most level 7 quests on normal as well.

Thus it makes sense for a level 20 quest on normal difficulty to not be any harder then say, a level 16th quest on elite.

[Qhualor]

1. Quest difficulty should absolutely be based on level...character power directly scales with character level so obviously higher level quests should be harder. While some level 5 quests might be tougher than level 4 quests, having level 16-17 content being harder than MOST of the level 20+ content is just weird, and poor game design.

2. Sure, but who do you balance it for? It seems epic normal/hard raids are balanced for stone of experience level 16 naked new players. At a minimum epic hard should be somewhat of a challenge for moderately geared/knowledgeable players at level 20.

3. Sure, I had a pretty good success rate with old EDQ2. Even soloed it on a character. But not every group succeeded. You had to actually...pay attention.

4.I'll agree with this, but they went WAY too far in the easy direction, so much so that it is UNappealing because it is too easy.

5. I don't understand why the middle difficulty, Ehard, was decided to be EASIER than old epic, when the majority of the players were getting vastly more powerful. If the easiest epic difficulty is easier than old epic, I get that. Newer players who didn't find epic appealing before want something to whet their appitite. But EPIC HARD being made MUCH easier as well...I don't get it. Sure, there is epic elite, but sometimes you just want to get in a completion that is fairly challenging but you don't need everyone to be max geared/twisted.

Again, Ehard is a joke for 95%+ groups, and Eelite is too hard for 95%+ of groups. Old epic is smack dab in the middle of em, and was pretty much perfect IMO.

/agree

i think if they changed eh to old epic, people who are so called whiners for wanting more challenge at that level would be happy. i know i would.

[MRMechMan]

Actually, any level 4 quest on elite is harder them any normal level 6 quest, and I would wager harder then most level 7 quests on normal as well.

Thus it makes sense for a level 20 quest on normal difficulty to not be any harder then say, a level 16th quest on elite.

I was refering to all quests on normal difficulty.

Epic normal raids and quests are easier than normal abbot, normal shroud, normal RR quests, certainly easier than normal amrath.

Being a level 20-25 character in an epic hard raid feels like having a level 18 character doing sands.

[Ungood]

I was refering to all quests on normal difficulty.

Epic normal raids and quests are easier than normal abbot, normal shroud, normal RR quests, certainly easier than normal amrath.

There is a vast disparity between Shroud and Abbot in difficulty when it comes to raids.

Not to mention there is a huge disparity between RR and say Reign of Madness Chain (both 17th level) not to mention that most of the time RR is a ghost town because the quests are so hard and at best you get farm/flag runs on casual, with the rare crazy TR vet who wants to try for bravery.

I do not share your feelings on the ease of things as it is, and until the day that Turbine makes doing "elite" offer nothing more then bragging rights, and all quests offer the same exp, favor, and loot, making quests harder does nothing but discourage players and make the game a trial.

I may have run my morning commute to work every day to the point I could do it blindfolded, never once in my life did I wish it was harder, same applies to games. Given the grind mechanic Turbine uses, since I am going to have run this quest a dozen times, the last thing I want is it "Harder"

Thus I don't endorse this mentality, and I honestly do not like it.

A level 20 Quest should offer some opposition to a level 20 player in the form of time to complete the quest (perhaps a trick or puzzle to solve), it should not simply throw opposition with the intent to defeat them.

If we part ways in that belief, so be it.

There is Epic Elite for players who seek to be daunted, and from what I read, their wish is granted, to turn around and say that it is too hard is rather hypocritical.

[Ranncore]

There is a vast disparity between Shroud and Abbot in difficulty when it comes to raids.

Not to mention there is a huge disparity between RR and say Reign of Madness Chain (both 17th level) not to mention that most of the time RR is a ghost town because the quests are so hard and at best you get farm/flag runs on casual, with the rare crazy TR vet who wants to try for bravery.

I do not share your feelings on the ease of things as it is, and until the day that Turbine makes doing "elite" offer nothing more then bragging rights, and all quests offer the same exp, favor, and loot, making quests harder does nothing but discourage players and make the game a trial.

I may have run my morning commute to work every day to the point I could do it blindfolded, never once in my life did I wish it was harder, same applies to games. Given the grind mechanic Turbine uses, since I am going to have run this quest a dozen times, the last thing I want is it "Harder"

Thus I don't endorse this mentality, and I honestly do not like it.

A level 20 Quest should offer some opposition to a level 20 player in the form of time to complete the quest (perhaps a trick or puzzle to solve), it should not simply throw opposition with the intent to defeat them.

If we part ways in that belief, so be it.

There is Epic Elite for players who seek to be daunted, and from what I read, their wish is granted, to turn around and say that it is too hard is rather hypocritical.

There was a difficulty setting for players like you - casual. Now, you have casual, normal, and hard. And players like me, who are not elite, but who ARE TRs, and vets, have no "Hard" to run on. Hard is too easy, elite is too difficult. How many difficulty settings do you want? Do you want the whole game to cater to the casual gamer? I don't think it's too much to ask for the setting "Hard," to be HARD. Elite is fine where it's at. Let the Elitists have it. Make it more difficult, if they want it that way.

The problem is that Hard is designed for Casual gamers (I don't even know who the Casual setting is for - the only reason people run it is to farm gear).

And are you suggesting that Shroud is too hard? Because there's a forum here specifically for the Shroud, and the devs worked pretty hard to adjust the difficulty to a level that all players are comfortable with. The Shroud, I think, is just about perfect, and is a great place to start balancing quests from. That being said, if a lvl 21 raid on normal is easier than a lvl 17 raid on normal, it is not the lvl 17 raid that should be changed.

Look at your PUG lfms for lvl 20+ quests - on my server, every single one is Ehard. Because EVERYONE can complete it. Because it is NOT HARD.

Is it really too much to ask that there be a setting for Casual players, Normal players, Hard players and Elite players? The names of the settings seem to imply as much, but the Casual players are having too much fun running Hard for the devs to make adjustments. No one is complaining about Elite except for the Hard players, with no where to go.

[Tusket]

I agree wholeheartedly. Before U14, EPIC was quite hard. eChrono was challenging - it required a strong group and good coordination. I only ever ran LoB on normal (and still failed at it half the time). But I liked those quests a lot. The Epic destinies made all the Level 20 toons much more powerful, the gear is also more powerful. The quests shouldn't be easier at the same time. I would have appreciated if Epic Hard was about the same as the original Epic, and if Epic Elite were harder than the original Epic.

[MRMechMan]

making quests harder does nothing but discourage players and make the game a trial.



Yes, we absolutely part ways in this belief.

"making quests harder does nothing but discourage players"? Wow. Just...wow. How are you still playing then? Why didn't you leave the game after your first death/blown trapbox/failed reflex save?

Heaven forbid a group actually had to have gear, or work as a team, or have strategy.

Maybe you want epic casual/normal/hard all to be loot pinatas, but I actually get a lot of satisfaction from having a quest be somewhat challenging, and beating it.

Right now almost no one runs casual or normal epic because hard epic is not possible to fail anyway for these raids.

Have you seen a single lfm for epic casual ANYTHING? It is a waste of pixel space on the quest selection window.

Advocates of mediocrity, like yourself, should stick to the difficulty that reflects your mentality, casual, instead of trying to claim 3 of the 4 and then telling the 90% of the player base in the middle to run off to elite.

"If it is so easy, go do epic elite!" Really, it is getting tiresome. Asking for the middle difficulty to be moderately challenging for the typical player should not be asking THAT much.

[deahamlet]

There is a vast disparity between Shroud and Abbot in difficulty when it comes to raids.

Not to mention there is a huge disparity between RR and say Reign of Madness Chain (both 17th level) not to mention that most of the time RR is a ghost town because the quests are so hard and at best you get farm/flag runs on casual, with the rare crazy TR vet who wants to try for bravery.

I do not share your feelings on the ease of things as it is, and until the day that Turbine makes doing "elite" offer nothing more then bragging rights, and all quests offer the same exp, favor, and loot, making quests harder does nothing but discourage players and make the game a trial.

I may have run my morning commute to work every day to the point I could do it blindfolded, never once in my life did I wish it was harder, same applies to games. Given the grind mechanic Turbine uses, since I am going to have run this quest a dozen times, the last thing I want is it "Harder"

Thus I don't endorse this mentality, and I honestly do not like it.

A level 20 Quest should offer some opposition to a level 20 player in the form of time to complete the quest (perhaps a trick or puzzle to solve), it should not simply throw opposition with the intent to defeat them.

If we part ways in that belief, so be it.

There is Epic Elite for players who seek to be daunted, and from what I read, their wish is granted, to turn around and say that it is too hard is rather hypocritical.

I haven't found a post on this debate with which I agree so fully. Well put.

[deahamlet]

Right now almost no one runs casual or normal epic because hard epic is not possible to fail anyway for these raids.

Have you seen a single lfm for epic casual ANYTHING? It is a waste of pixel space on the quest selection window.

Advocates of mediocrity, like yourself, should stick to the difficulty that reflects your mentality, casual, instead of trying to claim 3 of the 4 and then telling the 90% of the player base in the middle to run off to elite.

"If it is so easy, go do epic elite!" Really, it is getting tiresome. Asking for the middle difficulty to be moderately challenging for the typical player should not be asking THAT much.

1. Casual was always skipped other than for end reward farming. I don't see why suddenly you have an issue with epic casual being exactly the same. Nobody wants to run through a quest for 50% usual chance at the named loot. It doesn't take that much less time really than normal and provides far lower rewards. Also I guess the whole "wow, how weak, you have to run casual" probably did not encourage casual.
2. I run epic normal all the time. As the toon advances in the destiny, I go to epic hard. When I'm farming gear, epic hard or elite. Sometimes I run elite if friends are on that are in the mood. I'd be bored to tears if I had to group for everything except normal. Blah. Also I know plenty of casual and not so casual players who play epic normal... In weaker destinies in the beginning, to test out a fresh new toon and gearset before they feel strong in it, even on some life they feel weak in... And sometimes just because they're not in the mood for hard or parties.
3. The reason people run hard has less to do with difficulty and more to do with bloody repeat penalties. People are grinding xp for destinies, they don't want repeat penalties on normal repeats. It's the same reason people repeat on hard (TRs on elite with exception of some strenuous quests) on heroic rather than normal nowadays. Repeat penalties are a harder pill to swallow on lower xp. Epic grind is worse... As you try to minimize repeats before cap... That means run hard and elite only, do not waste repeats on normal, etc. I shrug my shoulders and am fine with grinding a lot longer than the rest because I like my choice of play style... But many people want smoother grinds. That's why they run hard. They'd run hard even if it 100% required a party and it was more strenuous. Because the Xp is that much of a pain.
4. Let us compare to heroic. I'm sorry to inform you but hard is extremely not difficult in most areas of heroic. Notable exceptions are some Amrath quests due to ****** boss fight or crazy dungeon alert mechanics... Otherwise Amrath would be a snooze fest on hard as well. Why is epic hard supposed to be more difficult at level than heroic hard is at level? Makes zero sense. Epic sands used to be a shellshock for newish people even with gs and some gear, even after running Amrath and raids. Epic hard does not need to be a shellshock and should not be a shellshock.
5. Other than requiring intelligent players, elite is not that dreadful. Yes, requires gear. It is especially ruthless for casters... You're either above the level or you are not. But it is not the end of the world if all the 6 players are smart about it and each brings their A game. It is excruciating in pugs, sure. But that doesn't make it so if you have the gear to snooze at hard, that you cannot do elite.
Between the whining that elite doesn't offer enough incentive and the whining for more difficulty... I'm very confused. You either want challenge and you go get it (go do elite, I've known gimpier people than you by far who have been farming elite one week after u14 came out, in groups)... Or you want material incentives to run the hardest challenge... In which case, why do you want more challenge? So only you can do it, only you can get the lootz and toot how much better you are than the rest?!

[Sarnind]

Atm 0 sense and 0 incentive to run in EE mode

[Galacticos]

C,mon guys....we have Guild Wars 2 coming on 28th August!!!!
See u there :)

[Vallin]

TL:DR
Turbine - your epic hard raid bosses are spanked like red-headed step children
Epic 'hard' raid difficulty needs a significant boost
There is no valid argument against this

With guildies/friends I find that two-manning quests (including the raids) with no healing class at epic normal and epic hard is often still a reasonable challenge. Yesterday we ran epic dq norm raid with a (ranged) ranger and a monk and it was a little challenging.

Short-manning is a great strategy for upping your challenge. This does not address your concern if you are interested in large groups - but for those experiences there is still always epic elite levels, LOB, etc.

Vallin.

[Loriac]

There was a difficulty setting for players like you - casual. Now, you have casual, normal, and hard. And players like me, who are not elite, but who ARE TRs, and vets, have no "Hard" to run on. Hard is too easy, elite is too difficult. How many difficulty settings do you want? Do you want the whole game to cater to the casual gamer? I don't think it's too much to ask for the setting "Hard," to be HARD. Elite is fine where it's at. Let the Elitists have it. Make it more difficult, if they want it that way.

The problem is that Hard is designed for Casual gamers (I don't even know who the Casual setting is for - the only reason people run it is to farm gear).



DDO TRs / vets have typicallly been playing this game so long that they now zerg through content as quickly as they can, with much of the sense of accomplishment being in breaking their personal best speed run records. I have no issue with this, and I don't use the term zerg perjoratively - I enjoy speed runs at times, they are like playing a different game.

Now, knowing that thats the mentality held by a lot of the hardcore players who appear to be over-represented on the forums, I have to wonder what the real motivation is in them asking for EH to be made harder. The answer I keep getting to is that they find EH to be too easy for there to be any real bragging rights to speed runs, whilst EE doesn't allow them to speed run - its simply too difficult (at the present time) for even well geared vets to blow through it.

The question in my mind is this: what would a sufficiently challenging EH run look like for vets / TRs? Would it be a run that involved slow and methodical use of tactics, or would it be a fast completion run where there is a risk of dying if you make more than a couple of mistakes?

To ask this question is to answer it: EE currently provides the slow runs that require tactics (are any vets / TRs stating that, outside of a couple of outliers, they are unable to complete EE?). EH meanwhile, is forgiving enough for them that they can make more than a couple of mistakes and still speed run it.

So, because at a sufficiently challenging difficulty (EE) they are being forced to play the game contrary to their fast completion style, they are looking for EH to be beefed up. The side effect that this would have, viz mainstream players finding EH content to be as frustrating as the hardcore currently finds EE to be, is a non-issue for them.

It doesn't seem to occur to many forumites here that a large proportion of the player base cannot run EH in anything approaching a fast completion style, and that those groups are challenged by EH. Maybe not as much as the vets are challenged by EE, but challenged nonetheless.

All of the above points don't even get into the question of loot and rewards; despite protestations to the contrary, many hardcore players aren't in this for the 'challenge', they just want better loot than mainstream players. This is where the outrage about EE rewards not being noticeably better than EH rewards is really coming from imo, and is one of the drivers for asking for EH to be made significantly harder.

I wonder what the response would be if Turbine said "we will make EH harder, but we will equalise loot across EN, EH, and EE difficulties". If the majority of vets / TRs ended up running EN (which I suspect is what would happen), it would expose the hypocrisy in threads like this that are nominally asking for 'more challenge' but in reality are asking for exclusivity to be maintained between the mainsteam and the self-perceived 'elite'.

[Loriac]

Yes, we absolutely
Advocates of mediocrity, like yourself, should stick to the difficulty that reflects your mentality, casual, instead of trying to claim 3 of the 4 and then telling the 90% of the player base in the middle to run off to elite.

"If it is so easy, go do epic elite!" Really, it is getting tiresome. Asking for the middle difficulty to be moderately challenging for the typical player should not be asking THAT much.

The real question here is, who is the typical player. We have some very experienced, very good players like yourself claiming that their capabilities are either 'typical' or representative of 'typical players'.

90% of players in PUGs however are not at the level much of this thread assumes. Even well geared vets / TRs in my experience are often unable to deal with novel challenges in this game, never mind more mainstream players. Sure, with a few repetitions quests and challenges become far easier, but to assume that 90% of the players are blowing through EH is simply untrue.

If I had to guess, based on my random PUG experiences, I would say that most players are not finding EH to be a complete walk in the park. However, when I've been in strong guild runs or in groups with multi-TRs, those are the players who do tend to find things easy.

One thing that is massively tilting this entire argument imo is the scaling if you go in solo on EN or EH. Solo, those quests are much easier with a well built toon, because the scaling is adjusting mobs perhaps too much. If you're in a PUG of 6 however, with maybe 1 or 2 well built toons carrying the party, the challenge does ratchet up. If you're in a guild group of 6, with every single player being good at what they do, then suddenly EH is going to seem like a joke (just as heroic hard seems like a joke).

So anyone who says 'I can solo EH, therefore it must be too easy because I couldn't solo the old epic' is missing the point. The old epic difficulty was by design intended for full parties, and afaik didn't scale (or if it did, the scaling was very minor). EH scales fully, and therefore can only even begin to be compared if you're in a full party.

[Sarnind]

C,mon guys....we have Guild Wars 2 coming on 28th August!!!!
See u there :)

True, for me ddo is death.

[Shade]

Yea we did an echrono epic hard other night.

He went black form, cursed us early on.. He was around 80% health.

For a laugh, i didnt bother drinking a curse pot. Just to see if I actauly needed any healing at all tanking him.

We won, i had 300 hp left.. Yea the raid boss delt about 700 dmg to me in whatever teh span of time it took us to bring him from 80% to dead (seemed like 30 seconds or so). This was a pug filled late at night with the first 9 to sign up and 3 of my guild.. This wasn't on my super sturdy tank build either, was my zero AC, minor prr bbn.

Being hes a spellcaster and they seem ot have nerfed the **** out of spell damage, he dealt nearly nothing with each spell.

All legacy Epic hard raids are pathetic atm.

EEs are ok where they are, they are correctly way above what you average pug can easily handle. The fact epic hard isnt, is a mistake. The defacto default difficulty should be nornal, not hard. Its why its called "normal" and not "rarely ran" mode.

Though imo even hard as is barely qualifies and an easy normal. Epic hard raids all remain a TON easier then normal ToD for example.

It's mainly just the legacy raids though.

The new one, caught in the web is somewhat challenge for pugs on normal, and a decent one on hard. If only in the "it takes a long time" sense since it has zero failure condition and allows unlimited re-entry. Still more so then choron/dq/dragon, none of which anyone ever fails on epic hard, despite the fact dragon and dq have serious fail conditions.

[krackythehoodedone]

I know someone asked earlier after my first post. EADQ2 on EE was certainly broken

I have tried Epic Elite three times now and she sits on the ledge refusing to play so you cannot complete.

That was a fair few weeks ago and because I or others that group with me have not heard anything to the contrary we have stuck with EADQ2 on Hard.

Can someone or Turbine confirm if this is still the case

Shade I know you've tried and had same problem, any news ?

An incentive for your hardcore types to run EE is really needed. A slightly better loot drop is all that is required.

[Ssdprref]

If you want EH as old Epic that's fine, BUT increase EE difficulty by 20-35 percent.

EE is so for the best of the best.

[Ungood]

The real question here is, who is the typical player.

This is a very solid point. Normally on these forums, you are not dealing with a "Normal" player, in fact, this forum is normally full of power gamers, even Mayfloyd mentioned such, and admitted they may have been going in the wrong direction trying to design for them.

It has been my personal experience that players who advocate for harder settings are not anywhere near "typical" players and in fact do not make up even a moderate percentage of the higher tier players.

Mainly because, in my sampling, the higher tier players I know do run Epic Elite, and enjoy it, looking at hard and lower as nothing but zerg farm runs, which makes good sense from the design standpoint.

Those that want to challenge themselves will find a way, they won't come to the forums and demand that everyone needs to have this thrust upon them.


Advocates of mediocrity, like yourself, should stick to the difficulty that reflects your mentality, casual, instead of trying to claim 3 of the 4 and then telling the 90% of the player base in the middle to run off to elite.

As you put it, I am an advocate of Mediocrity, that means that I am in fact speaking for 90% of the player base, thus I am the voice of the "Typical Player" and this I speak for the players who should own 3 of the 4 settings, and thus the remaining 10%, which would be the camp you are speaking for, should be limited to elites.


"If it is so easy, go do epic elite!" Really, it is getting tiresome.

I don't suppose you see the hypocrisy in your own post telling others to do Casual while making a fuss that you don't like being told to do elite?

[Ungood]

C,mon guys....we have Guild Wars 2 coming on 28th August!!!!
See u there :)

I wonder. Just a slight pondering, when GW2 comes out, will all the power gamers leave and thus DDO will be made up of a more relaxed casual type base, or will most of the casuals leave, leaving DDO to be a power gamer heaven.

I suppose a split of the two would make the most sense, but since there are far more 'casual' players then power gamers, I almost feel a slight jittery feeling of excitement wondering what the gamer-landscape will be after the summer ends.

[krackythehoodedone]

It is common knowledge that only a tiny minority of players come to the forums.

And that the vast majority of them are well informed old timers ( in game terms and in my case reality as well) that like nothing better than a good old moan.

Myself included

Nothing like a bit o' Doom or some meaningless drama.

I think the Devs take this into account or try to. Its just that most of the forumites are so long serving and knowledgable about the game it is sometimes difficult for the newer staff members who literally dont know what we are on about sometimes.

Honestly the depth of knowledge of the game that comes from players never ceases to amaze me

[Uhtred_Stark]

Completely disagree with OP. If you want a difficult challege run EE. EH has now made all the raids accessable to the general population, not just the 1%. Now all guilds can run the raids and get epic completions and epic gear. Increasing the difficulty of EH will destroy that because no loot drops on EN (or at least its a very very low chance). You now see lots of pug raids for EH that don't screen every character down to the minute detail. The changes to EH raiding has been one of the best community changes in the game and something Turbine got right.

[Qhualor]

Yes, we absolutely part ways in this belief.

"making quests harder does nothing but discourage players"? Wow. Just...wow. How are you still playing then? Why didn't you leave the game after your first death/blown trapbox/failed reflex save?

Heaven forbid a group actually had to have gear, or work as a team, or have strategy.

Maybe you want epic casual/normal/hard all to be loot pinatas, but I actually get a lot of satisfaction from having a quest be somewhat challenging, and beating it.

Right now almost no one runs casual or normal epic because hard epic is not possible to fail anyway for these raids.

Have you seen a single lfm for epic casual ANYTHING? It is a waste of pixel space on the quest selection window.

Advocates of mediocrity, like yourself, should stick to the difficulty that reflects your mentality, casual, instead of trying to claim 3 of the 4 and then telling the 90% of the player base in the middle to run off to elite.

"If it is so easy, go do epic elite!" Really, it is getting tiresome. Asking for the middle difficulty to be moderately challenging for the typical player should not be asking THAT much.

This^^ every line.

No middle ground

A lot of catering to casual players

No standing argument when people say "if hard is too easy, do elite"

[grgurius]

So, why does it "make it easier" camp always ignore the fact that there are epic casual and epic normal settings when the difficulty of epic hard is debated? I mean really, every time players who want a small bump in difficulty are delegated to epic elite, leave epic hard to the casuals. Mind me asking for what type of player are normal and casual designed for?

About that vocal minority thing, so called casuals are as big of a minority here as are so called power gamers, and usually more vocal then power gamers, rest usually fall somewhere in between, so please lets not use there is more of us then there is of you as an argument.

[Loriac]

A different angle on this topic.

Suppose you're turbine, and you are reviewing difficulty statistics, i.e. at what difficulties are groups attempting raids and quests.

What would the optimal split be across casual - normal - hard - elite?

In my opinion, and particularly at high level range, i.e. 17-25, I would hope to see statistics something like:

10% - 40% - 40% - 10%

Reasoning:

Casual is most likely being solo'd, and therefore puts more strain on my servers per player than difficulties run by groups. I don't particularly want people to run at this level, and to disincentivise them loot etc would be lower along with the lowered difficulty.

Normal and Hard are the difficulties I expect the majority of players to be playing at on average. These difficulties should be fun and rewarding, and encourage people to play more (if for nothing more than fueling revenues via pack purchases and consumables purchases). If hard in particular is made too frustrating, its likely that revenues will end up going down, as people will be more likely to quit the game, believing it to be designed for the hardcore elite which they are not.

The normal difficulty should be designed for the casual player in a group, who is likely to be challenged by most content due to lack of knowledge of the game and possibly underdeveloped capability.

The hard difficulty should be designed for the mainstream player who knows his way around; this is the usual difficulty I'd expect most vets to play at (they'd probably find it a bit easy) as well as the challenge that the more casual players aim to be able to do (with some difficulty) after they gain experience.

Finally, the elite difficulty is intended to be punishing, and pretty much no holds barred.



Now, none of us has access to these statistics, so its guesswork just what the ratio currently is. A lot of people on this thread are assuming that the majority of players (90%) are playing on hard difficulties across the level ranges. Further, the impression I get is that they believe that the majority of the groups playing on hard (say 75%+) are finding it a complete breeze playing at this difficulty. If this was true, I'd agree that turbine should rebalance normal and hard so that they achieve whatever target ratios they are aiming at.

However, my strong suspicion from having pug'd with typical lfm groups is that i. hard is not being played for 90%+ of groups and ii. where hard is played, groups generally aren't breezing through them (unless the players involved are experienced and overgeared for the content).

In a lot of ways, this discussion around epic difficulties reminds me of when the f2p model was launched: at the time, there was great concern amongst the established player base about the great unwashed coming in and ruining the DDO atmosphere for the VIPs. Not many VIPs then realised just how important it was for DDO to be opened up to a much wider player base than it had previously enjoyed, or if they did, they preferred to whine on the forums regardless.

Perhaps the best way around this whole issue would be for Turbine to rebalance EE back to the old epic difficulty, and create a Legendary difficulty or something that would be the equivalent of the new EE. However, my gut feeling is that the new EE difficulty is about the same as the old epic was, once you adjust for the increased power from the new EDs. What we're seeing at the moment is a lot of forumites complaining because EE feels too hard right now, but in reality probably isn't once new ways of using the power of the EDs are understood and applied to quests.

[aurum1]

Completely disagree with OP. If you want a difficult challege run EE. EH has now made all the raids accessable to the general population, not just the 1%. Now all guilds can run the raids and get epic completions and epic gear. Increasing the difficulty of EH will destroy that because no loot drops on EN (or at least its a very very low chance). You now see lots of pug raids for EH that don't screen every character down to the minute detail. The changes to EH raiding has been one of the best community changes in the game and something Turbine got right.

Nonsense. If epic hard is a 'take the first 12 lol fest' then what is there to prepare anyone for a challenge? Epic normal should be the joke level. Hard should present some challenge and elite should be hard. I won't get into elite right now but suffice it to say it isn't much different than old elite so yes we run raids on elite also.

[aurum1]

I am sorry, but that argumentation is very flawed and most likely used to over-dramatize your point.
You are doing 20 pts less damage, that's a fact, but you hardly need +40 str to compensate this.

Second you are telling me that a 28 pt 1 st life character just needs a metalline of pure good weapon to out DPS "anyone" in the videos. WOW. I didn't know that metalline of pure good gives me the ability to DOT my target with 3-digit damage values. Or did the Favoured Souls and the other blue bars forget to cast those ?

What i see in the video is a bunch of people running around without armours. Please tell me, where is the difference to before the last updates? When AC meant: "If you have less than 80, you can have Zero"
So basically the majority of players have been running this raid always like you did. With an armour that made no difference at all.

Another thing i see are your HP. Almost 1200. When i started playing in 2010, i was told that having 450-500 was decent for a melee. Now you have 1200 and ask yourself why things seem easy ???

To summarise it. For me you arguments are the equivalent of a pile of the things coming from the behind of a male cow. The destinies and several changes before have caused a huge power creep. That causes old things to become more easy. If that is to easy for you, run Epic Elite.

LOL
Try some math.
1st comparing casters and melee is nonsense. A 28pt 1st life caster can and will out dps my 36pt tank any day and that caster will do about as well as any of the very few casters we had in either run we did.

Now on to melee-
My 36pt dps build vs.a newly geared 28pt with metalline of PG.
+1 damage for me if you only had 16 str to start
+1 damage I guess I could have had a monk life but didn't
+1 damage from a str tome maybe giving me a higher tier
+2 damage from shintao set
+4 damage from claw set
+2 damage from abishai set maybe giving me 2 str tiers
So where am I overcoming the -20 damage hole vs the new guy with zero gear other than a metalline of pg? By the way that weapon would likely have a plus bonus on it for 1-5 more damage and the good is 3.5. Damage a hit but whatever. No point in argueing with the 'a TR gives some magic uber powers' crowd. As far as the armor slot goes that is more than just AC, that is a slot of effects lost and compensated for elsewhere.

[Sarnind]

Completely disagree with OP. If you want a difficult challege run EE. EH has now made all the raids accessable to the general population, not just the 1%. Now all guilds can run the raids and get epic completions and epic gear. Increasing the difficulty of EH will destroy that because no loot drops on EN (or at least its a very very low chance). You now see lots of pug raids for EH that don't screen every character down to the minute detail. The changes to EH raiding has been one of the best community changes in the game and something Turbine got right.

Non sense and no incentive for runs in EE, drop rate is same in eh.

[Ranncore]

What part of the word HARD do you people that enjoy HARD being EASY not understand?

[Ungood]

Non sense and no incentive for runs in EE, drop rate is same in eh.

So the mantra of challenge for the sake of challenge is a total myth, and really is just a facade that players throw out because they want what they can get to be inaccessible to others. Got it. Thanks for clearing that up.

[Sarnind]

What part of the word HARD do you people that enjoy HARD being EASY not understand?

Eh eh probably is really hard for ours devs casual bad players.

[Charononus]

So the mantra of challenge for the sake of challenge is a total myth, and really is just a facade that players throw out because they want what they can get to be inaccessible to others. Got it. Thanks for clearing that up.

Most games give a carrot for completing max difficulty, for the most part ddo does not anymore. Yes there is pdk favor but that's it.

You can actually get everything out of epic normal as well it just has less of a drop rate. Currently casual players can run epic casual, normal, and hard. Someone wanting a challenge can run epic elite but they don't recieve a reward for doing so in fact they are penalized with less xp/min loot/min ext.

[Sarnind]

Most games give a carrot for completing max difficulty, for the most part ddo does not anymore. Yes there is pdk favor but that's it.

You can actually get everything out of epic normal as well it just has less of a drop rate. Currently casual players can run epic casual, normal, and hard. Someone wanting a challenge can run epic elite but they don't recieve a reward for doing so in fact they are penalized with less xp/min loot/min ext.

U lost u time , better if u ignore him

[My2Cents]

Most games give a carrot for completing max difficulty, for the most part ddo does not anymore. Yes there is pdk favor but that's it.

You can actually get everything out of epic normal as well it just has less of a drop rate. Currently casual players can run epic casual, normal, and hard. Someone wanting a challenge can run epic elite but they don't recieve a reward for doing so in fact they are penalized with less xp/min loot/min ext.

I mean no disrespect to the theme of your post, but I did notice one of the devs mention at least a -couple- of things that could happen apparently only on epic elite, in the hopes that pleases you.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?&postid=4631837#post4631837

These are beyond my reach, but I hope you can find a carrot or two somewhere in there.

[slarden]

Will do - read the rest. If updated hard is too hard for you run epic normal. Works both ways!
Not really. Epic elite is intended to be an extreme challenge and epic hard is not. They intentionally made epic hard easier than the old epic even though characters are getting stronger.

She still hits hard on epic hard. We 6-manned it on epic hard with 3 sorcs, 1 wiz, 1 fvs and 1 barb. All 6 of us got aggro and died at one point.

Epic hard is easier than the old epic for sure, but that is as intended. Get better so you can handle epic elite if you want a challenge.

[THOTHdha]

Completely disagree with OP. If you want a difficult challege run EE. EH has now made all the raids accessable to the general population, not just the 1%. Now all guilds can run the raids and get epic completions and epic gear. Increasing the difficulty of EH will destroy that because no loot drops on EN (or at least its a very very low chance). You now see lots of pug raids for EH that don't screen every character down to the minute detail. The changes to EH raiding has been one of the best community changes in the game and something Turbine got right.

Epic Normal is right there for no-effort guaranteed completions as well. Epic Hard should at least require an effort, and right now it doesn't. Under geared fresh 20s can stand in Velah's breath and laugh. The eggs might as well not even be there, because they never get to hatch. No one is asking that Epic Hard be buffed up until PUGs are no longer able to complete it. It would just be nice to be expected to ~try~ when running them.

Players have been horribly failed by the Epic Hard setting in that there is are only really two options, and the extremity of the range between them is staggering. Either you can get a solid group to run some Epic Elites, or you can snooze your way through Epic Hard. Epic Hard is a poor joke, essentially just EN with Epic Ward added to protect from stat draining and such. It should instead be a viable step up from EN, expecting that the players understand the tactics involved and have appropriately prepared themselves for it. Not requiring insane gearing that would put it out of reach for average PUGs or anything. Just asking for ~some~ effort to be put into the run, above walking in, auto attacking, and looting the chest. Epic Hard Velah should at least call for more than Heroic Elite Reaver does.

And I am not a part of some top end guild. I PUG all of the raids that I run, which haven't been any since I saw the pathetic state of Epic Hard and the insanely buggy new raid. It sounds like Lolth is starting to work better now, though, so I will likely give it another try soon. But if it is still more of the same effortless waste of time I will go back to not playing for awhile and hope that they manage to fix things eventually.

[Ape_Man]

So the mantra of challenge for the sake of challenge is a total myth, and really is just a facade that players throw out because they want what they can get to be inaccessible to others. Got it. Thanks for clearing that up.

That's not really true . . . you run things once maybe twice for a challenge after that it becomes work.

With the way the favor system works you cannot fault people for not bothering with EE more than once when the rewards are the same as EH.

The rewards needs to be worth the effort, right now it's not. As things are now I've been seeing numbers in guild/channel dwindle as people are getting bored.

[Ungood]

Most games give a carrot for completing max difficulty, for the most part ddo does not anymore. Yes there is pdk favor but that's it.

You can actually get everything out of epic normal as well it just has less of a drop rate. Currently casual players can run epic casual, normal, and hard. Someone wanting a challenge can run epic elite but they don't recieve a reward for doing so in fact they are penalized with less xp/min loot/min ext.

Why should they need to carrot you at all for wanting to challenge yourself. The Challenge itself is the reward.

In fact most games don't offer any "carrot" for the players who want to challenge, for example Day Z, or hardcore Setting on Diablo III.

If all you were in it for was the exp and loot, then you were not in it for the challenge.

[DarkForte]

Completely disagree with OP. If you want a difficult challege run EE. EH has now made all the raids accessable to the general population, not just the 1%. Now all guilds can run the raids and get epic completions and epic gear. Increasing the difficulty of EH will destroy that because no loot drops on EN (or at least its a very very low chance). You now see lots of pug raids for EH that don't screen every character down to the minute detail. The changes to EH raiding has been one of the best community changes in the game and something Turbine got right.

Classic epic raids were accessible before, and I've been in numerous successful PuG eChronos and eDQs (can't tell for eVoN 6 because I never wanted anything from there pre u14).

eHard is just an autocomplete killfest. In VoN6, now you can take a party where people spam cleave on fascinated mobs and kill the djinni on first base while the bard is still fascinating on his way to the second one, ignoring any semblance of tactics and strategy and no one bothers calling for inferno/eggs and everyone still completes. This party would have been easily annihilated before.

Nowadays, to have a challenge on eHard raids, you have to surround yourself with undergeared people who don't know the quest and deliberately fail at following instructions and tactics.

[zebidos]

Umm you might have level 2 gear but you don't have level 2 arcanes and level 2 divines.

Try it next time with a level 2 healer and arcane then we will talk :)

Gear is not such a huge deal with heals, buffs, knowledge and arcanes and divines. Just takes longer with less DPS and requires more heals.

Get the heals out of the picture and your doomed, doomed I tell you.

[Uhtred_Stark]

I go back to the popularity of shroud, why was it so popular? Because it was an 'autocomplete' and it dropped useful items that everyone wanted. Classic Epic raids like eVon, Echrono and eDQ were just not accessable to the general population before or they required so much resource expenditures to complete that than any LFMs for them extremely hard to get into and many classes/builds were discriminated against. All this has now changed and it has opened up raiding to everyone. Why is that a bad thing? To me it just smacks of the 1% being 'power jealous' and they don't want to see general or casual players getting the shiny toys. In a PUG evon hard today a guy didn't even know what epic dragon scales were and pulled on then rolled on and won a shard of the red dragon. He had a blast in the raid and you can tell he'll be back because he had an enjoyable game experience. He would have never been allowed in a pre u14 evon, if he could even find a pug for it. Now eVon is probably the most run raid because the xp and scales/sos chances. Again, what is wrong with that? If you want to be pushed to the limit run EE.

The raiding culture now reminds me of the time before epics were introduced and you could run a bunch of raids in a day, shroud, hound, vod, reavers, abbott because there were constant LFMs for them. You got in a group of people, met new characters and got a chance at good loot. Most of these were 'autocompletes' but no one was complaining. It was the introduction of epic difficulty that created a social stratification in the game that instantly barred the general population from accessing the content of epic raids. This wasn't and is never good for a game to cater to the few die hards or uber raiding guilds. The 1% can still run EE and get a challenge! But the read between the lines comments of them is why should we run EE when it doesn't offer us new shiny items that ONLY we can get for running EE and the rest of the players have to do without. That is what this is about, pure and simple.

[aurum1]

I go back to the popularity of shroud, why was it so popular? Because it was an 'autocomplete' and it dropped useful items that everyone wanted. Classic Epic raids like eVon, Echrono and eDQ were just not accessable to the general population before or they required so much resource expenditures to complete that than any LFMs for them extremely hard to get into and many classes/builds were discriminated against. All this has now changed and it has opened up raiding to everyone. Why is that a bad thing? To me it just smacks of the 1% being 'power jealous' and they don't want to see general or casual players getting the shiny toys. In a PUG evon hard today a guy didn't even know what epic dragon scales were and pulled on then rolled on and won a shard of the red dragon. He had a blast in the raid and you can tell he'll be back because he had an enjoyable game experience. He would have never been allowed in a pre u14 evon, if he could even find a pug for it. Now eVon is probably the most run raid because the xp and scales/sos chances. Again, what is wrong with that? If you want to be pushed to the limit run EE.

The raiding culture now reminds me of the time before epics were introduced and you could run a bunch of raids in a day, shroud, hound, vod, reavers, abbott because there were constant LFMs for them. You got in a group of people, met new characters and got a chance at good loot. Most of these were 'autocompletes' but no one was complaining. It was the introduction of epic difficulty that created a social stratification in the game that instantly barred the general population from accessing the content of epic raids. This wasn't and is never good for a game to cater to the few die hards or uber raiding guilds. The 1% can still run EE and get a challenge! But the read between the lines comments of them is why should we run EE when it doesn't offer us new shiny items that ONLY we can get for running EE and the rest of the players have to do without. That is what this is about, pure and simple.



This and all the posts like show a complete lack of understanding of a whole population of gamers. There are many gamers like me that continue to play a game for the sole reason of hanging out with friends and joking around. This is easiest to do in raids with 12 people. I don't run these raids for loot anymore. I run them because that is what we do. If what we do is walk up to every mob and yawn while it dies then it becomes boring.

And yes we can and do run them on elite. It is not very hard, but sometimes you want a difficulty setting between pay attention and alt-tab through the boss fight.

[Ungood]

This and all the posts like show a complete lack of understanding of a whole population of gamers.

No. Those posts autually do understand gamers and their populations, and how the social mechanics really work in the long run across the board and spectrum of players. Yours don't.

[Qhualor]

I go back to the popularity of shroud, why was it so popular? Because it was an 'autocomplete' and it dropped useful items that everyone wanted. Classic Epic raids like eVon, Echrono and eDQ were just not accessable to the general population before or they required so much resource expenditures to complete that than any LFMs for them extremely hard to get into and many classes/builds were discriminated against. All this has now changed and it has opened up raiding to everyone. Why is that a bad thing? To me it just smacks of the 1% being 'power jealous' and they don't want to see general or casual players getting the shiny toys. In a PUG evon hard today a guy didn't even know what epic dragon scales were and pulled on then rolled on and won a shard of the red dragon. He had a blast in the raid and you can tell he'll be back because he had an enjoyable game experience. He would have never been allowed in a pre u14 evon, if he could even find a pug for it. Now eVon is probably the most run raid because the xp and scales/sos chances. Again, what is wrong with that? If you want to be pushed to the limit run EE.

The raiding culture now reminds me of the time before epics were introduced and you could run a bunch of raids in a day, shroud, hound, vod, reavers, abbott because there were constant LFMs for them. You got in a group of people, met new characters and got a chance at good loot. Most of these were 'autocompletes' but no one was complaining. It was the introduction of epic difficulty that created a social stratification in the game that instantly barred the general population from accessing the content of epic raids. This wasn't and is never good for a game to cater to the few die hards or uber raiding guilds. The 1% can still run EE and get a challenge! But the read between the lines comments of them is why should we run EE when it doesn't offer us new shiny items that ONLY we can get for running EE and the rest of the players have to do without. That is what this is about, pure and simple.

autocomplete EH will do that for casual players or the inexperienced who didnt do much epic content for whatever reason. they get into a group with people who remember how difficult epics used to be and they can struggle to keep up while the rest of the party zergs to the finish. theres usually no flower sniffing with a vet as the pilot.

i remember how old epics were briefly. the change from old epics to pre-u14 epics was made maybe a few months after i hit 20 for the first time on my main. epics than were tough and you couldnt take the first 5 -11 that hit the lfm. you had to link gear, have the right dc's and spells at least. the chance of failing was high.

many changes have been made to epics over the years and by far its gone from a mana guzzler, really picky groups, strategy, expect death and time consuming to first come first serve, zerg, rinse, repeat with 3 easy to little difficulty settings to 1 beyond challenging for a good portion of the endgame community.

personally, i dont run EE not because the loot drop is the same as EH, its because its not challenging. you have to be in a really, really good group to expect a chance at succeeding and not just a pug, throw up an lfm kind of group. i want challenge and not do EH chrono, EH dragon and EH demon queen in an hours time and while walking up and down mobs and boss in a thrown together party.

because theres a clear difference in difficulties between EH and EE, the people like me who are just asking for challenge and not a cake walk and not a resource intensive difficulty are going to be either bored or frustrated and walk from the game. im busy tr'ing my main for past lives and dont do much epics right now. hopefully when im done, a change is made to epics again more fitting to a large portion of the player base.

[Charononus]

I go back to the popularity of shroud, why was it so popular? Because it was an 'autocomplete' and it dropped useful items that everyone wanted. Classic Epic raids like eVon, Echrono and eDQ were just not accessable to the general population before or they required so much resource expenditures to complete that than any LFMs for them extremely hard to get into and many classes/builds were discriminated against. All this has now changed and it has opened up raiding to everyone. Why is that a bad thing? To me it just smacks of the 1% being 'power jealous' and they don't want to see general or casual players getting the shiny toys. In a PUG evon hard today a guy didn't even know what epic dragon scales were and pulled on then rolled on and won a shard of the red dragon. He had a blast in the raid and you can tell he'll be back because he had an enjoyable game experience. He would have never been allowed in a pre u14 evon, if he could even find a pug for it. Now eVon is probably the most run raid because the xp and scales/sos chances. Again, what is wrong with that? If you want to be pushed to the limit run EE.

The raiding culture now reminds me of the time before epics were introduced and you could run a bunch of raids in a day, shroud, hound, vod, reavers, abbott because there were constant LFMs for them. You got in a group of people, met new characters and got a chance at good loot. Most of these were 'autocompletes' but no one was complaining. It was the introduction of epic difficulty that created a social stratification in the game that instantly barred the general population from accessing the content of epic raids. This wasn't and is never good for a game to cater to the few die hards or uber raiding guilds. The 1% can still run EE and get a challenge! But the read between the lines comments of them is why should we run EE when it doesn't offer us new shiny items that ONLY we can get for running EE and the rest of the players have to do without. That is what this is about, pure and simple.

That's great and there's a place for that guy epic normal, right now there is a place for him in epic normal and epic hard. A player that wants a decent challenge where you have to pay attention has epic hard. That means casuals have 3 difficulties for them epic casual, epic normal, and epic hard. Those that want to not fall asleep can do epic elite and probably have to use sp pots no matter how perfectly everything goes. I'm not in the 1% but I find epic hard too easy by far. Honestly I think this change will reduce the customers turbine gets because you will now lose the players that had all the packs ext, from them being bored by endgame. I hope they get enough new casuals to offset the monetary loss of these vets.

[Ungood]

hopefully when im done, a change is made to epics again more fitting to a large portion of the player base.

This change is befitting the majority of the player base. You know, the normal players who don't have a ton of past lives and a full set of epic gear.


Honestly I think this change will reduce the customers turbine gets because you will now lose the players that had all the packs ext, from them being bored by endgame. I hope they get enough new casuals to offset the monetary loss of these vets.

Among all the nerfs, bugs, and general upheaval of the game as a whole with U14, I have no doubt that some players have left.

However, I sincerely doubt that making the end game more accessible to the majority of their player base will be cause of a single loss.

[Ranncore]

This change is befitting the majority of the player base. You know, the normal players who don't have a ton of past lives and a full set of epic gear.



Among all the nerfs, bugs, and general upheaval of the game as a whole with U14, I have no doubt that some players have left.

However, I sincerely doubt that making the end game more accessible to the majority of their player base will be cause of a single loss.

Doubt again. I have a few past lives, and a nice set of epic gear, but I don't feel like there's any place for me in either E-autocomplete or E-Elite. And those are the only 2 difficulty settings available. Casual, or powergamer. I'm not either - I'm just a normal player. I really wish there was a "Hard" setting.

It's funny - I had all but lost interest in Guild Wars 2 until this expansion came out. Now I'm really looking forward to it. I've already cancelled my subscription.

[easyaction]

i think what they really need to do is make an Epic Epic difficulty, maybe break that into 3 difficulties, normal epic epic, hard epic epic, and elite epic epic... or maybe 4 with Epic epic epic. thats replay value for you.

[Charononus]

This change is befitting the majority of the player base. You know, the normal players who don't have a ton of past lives and a full set of epic gear.



Among all the nerfs, bugs, and general upheaval of the game as a whole with U14, I have no doubt that some players have left.

However, I sincerely doubt that making the end game more accessible to the majority of their player base will be cause of a single loss.

It's mostly lost me, I dropped my sub with no plans to buy a single thing. I've been shopping quite a bit for a new game because of it and I know several others that are doing the same.

[DarkForte]

I go back to the popularity of shroud, why was it so popular? Because it was an 'autocomplete' and it dropped useful items that everyone wanted. Classic Epic raids like eVon, Echrono and eDQ were just not accessable to the general population before or they required so much resource expenditures to complete that than any LFMs for them extremely hard to get into and many classes/builds were discriminated against. All this has now changed and it has opened up raiding to everyone. Why is that a bad thing? To me it just smacks of the 1% being 'power jealous' and they don't want to see general or casual players getting the shiny toys. In a PUG evon hard today a guy didn't even know what epic dragon scales were and pulled on then rolled on and won a shard of the red dragon. He had a blast in the raid and you can tell he'll be back because he had an enjoyable game experience. He would have never been allowed in a pre u14 evon, if he could even find a pug for it. Now eVon is probably the most run raid because the xp and scales/sos chances. Again, what is wrong with that? If you want to be pushed to the limit run EE.

The raiding culture now reminds me of the time before epics were introduced and you could run a bunch of raids in a day, shroud, hound, vod, reavers, abbott because there were constant LFMs for them. You got in a group of people, met new characters and got a chance at good loot. Most of these were 'autocompletes' but no one was complaining. It was the introduction of epic difficulty that created a social stratification in the game that instantly barred the general population from accessing the content of epic raids. This wasn't and is never good for a game to cater to the few die hards or uber raiding guilds. The 1% can still run EE and get a challenge! But the read between the lines comments of them is why should we run EE when it doesn't offer us new shiny items that ONLY we can get for running EE and the rest of the players have to do without. That is what this is about, pure and simple.

Your guy could be running epic normal for the same effect. eNormal should be the de-facto difficulty for the unexperienced, as it is in most other raids (LoB, Shroud, ToD, Abbot). We're not talking about undergeared casual players (you could say that's the case for most of my toons), we're talking about people just running in with no thought to CC, tactics, group composition or anything.

I'll tell you something: the old eChrono, hard as it was, was my favorite raid. It's now just a snoozefest. My friggin wizard was tanking ehCAD one of these days holding aggro with dots, while having 0 PRR and 15 AC. My favorite raid in the game is now just another zerg-rush on the only difficulty people bother running (I did run elite a few days ago, and it's up to the standard of old epic. It's seldom run though).

[Ungood]

Doubt again. I have a few past lives, and a nice set of epic gear, but I don't feel like there's any place for me in either E-autocomplete or E-Elite. And those are the only 2 difficulty settings available. Casual, or powergamer. I'm not either - I'm just a normal player. I really wish there was a "Hard" setting.

With several past lives and epic gear, you sir are so far removed from what a "Normal" player is, you seem to have forgotten what "Normal" even is.

Run some Auto-Groups. (Gosh I wish they would fix the Teleport Feature)

[Ranncore]

With several past lives and epic gear, you sir are so far removed from what a "Normal" player is, you seem to have forgotten what "Normal" even is.

Run some Auto-Groups. (Gosh I wish they would fix the Teleport Feature)

Then I don't belong in Normal difficulty - fine. I'm still not an Elite player. I guess they should make a "Hard," setting for me.

[nebogloee]

I ran a pug heroic elite VoD the other night. Mostly new players with no gear. It was a 45 minute completion with many pots drank. We then went on to epic chrono hard. It was a joke. The same players who sucked every last bit of resources for elite VoD STEAMROLLED echrono hard. What is not broken about that?

[Loriac]

I ran a pug heroic elite VoD the other night. Mostly new players with no gear. It was a 45 minute completion with many pots drank. We then went on to epic chrono hard. It was a joke. The same players who sucked every last bit of resources for elite VoD STEAMROLLED echrono hard. What is not broken about that?

Normal / Hard / Elite is the way things scale now. Heroic and Epic are not supposed to be different as such, they just represent different level ranges.

What you've described is exactly as it should be. A Level 18 elite raid should be harder than a level 21 hard raid, exactly as a Level 15 elite quest should be harder than a Level 18 hard quest.

Turbine really should have thought about calling Epic levels something different, its led to this kind of confusion.

[Ranncore]

Normal / Hard / Elite is the way things scale now. Heroic and Epic are not supposed to be different as such, they just represent different level ranges.

What you've described is exactly as it should be. A Level 18 elite raid should be harder than a level 21 hard raid, exactly as a Level 15 elite quest should be harder than a Level 18 hard quest.

Turbine really should have thought about calling Epic levels something different, its led to this kind of confusion.

Not exactly. Vision of Destruction is base lvl 18, so on elite, it would be level 20. Chronoscope is base level 21, so on hard, level 22.

[Ape_Man]

Not exactly. Vision of Destruction is base lvl 18, so on elite, it would be level 20. Chronoscope is base level 21, so on hard, level 22.

a level 22 quest should always be harder than a level 20 quest regardless of whether it's "elite," "hard," or "epic." This current state of the game is really confusing.

[Loriac]

Not exactly. Vision of Destruction is base lvl 18, so on elite, it would be level 20. Chronoscope is base level 21, so on hard, level 22.

I think you understand the point without having to nitpick. Elite has always had very high mob adjustments vs hard, so a level 6 quest on elite (designated level '8') has always been harder than a level 7 quest on hard (again, designated level '8'). Where the mix up is occurring, and what I posted about, was thinking that heroic and epic are also linked in a way similar to how 'hard' and 'elite' are linked; they're not, they're simply linked by reference to the level of the quest (i.e. 1-20 vs 21-25).

The individual mob adjustments for elite can add 5-10CR or more to mobs.

As to the poster who thinks that a level 22 quest on any level should be harder than a level 20 quest on any level:

hi, welcome

[Qhualor]

I ran a pug heroic elite VoD the other night. Mostly new players with no gear. It was a 45 minute completion with many pots drank. We then went on to epic chrono hard. It was a joke. The same players who sucked every last bit of resources for elite VoD STEAMROLLED echrono hard. What is not broken about that?

exactly.

[deahamlet]

Is VOD AT LEVEL on hard a streneous exercise compared to epic HARD Chrono AT LEVEL? (VOD would be level 19 so toons at max level 19 and eChrono with toons at max level 21, NOT ALLOWED full destinies that were leveled in previous life)

Stop comparing level 21s going into VOD ELITE versus eChrono HARD. Elite was always a PITA. compare AT LEVEL heroic hard with AT LEVEL epic hard.

I don't see a freaking difference.

Snoozefest other than stupid quests (yay for auto-dungeon alert Amrath) on heroic, snoozefest other than stupid quests on epic. And the snoozefest is for people with game experience, which btw counts a ton more than gear, PLs and anything else you want to throw at the game.

[nebogloee]

Is VOD AT LEVEL on hard a streneous exercise compared to epic HARD Chrono AT LEVEL? (VOD would be level 19 so toons at max level 19 and eChrono with toons at max level 21, NOT ALLOWED full destinies that were leveled in previous life)

Stop comparing level 21s going into VOD ELITE versus eChrono HARD. Elite was always a PITA. compare AT LEVEL heroic hard with AT LEVEL epic hard.

I don't see a freaking difference.

Snoozefest other than stupid quests (yay for auto-dungeon alert Amrath) on heroic, snoozefest other than stupid quests on epic. And the snoozefest is for people with game experience, which btw counts a ton more than gear, PLs and anything else you want to throw at the game.

This topic is a moving target.

"Epic levels don't mean epic, they are just levels 21+"

"It is all about the difficulty setting, not the level"

etc. etc. etc.

Pick an angle and stick to it. Before U14, VoD elite was easier than epic chrono because is WAS about difficulty. Now its a mess. Some heroic hards at level are harder than their epic hards (VoN anyone?). While others are much harder on epic elite at level than their heroic counterparts (just about everything).

Just admit it, the current scaling/difficulty/CR levels are aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall messed about.

Our complaints have nothing to do with epeens or loot denying members only elite clubs. It has to do with capped reasonable geared toons no longer having a "fun" difficulty. Our "fun" may be different than your "fun", but heck, why do you get 3 difficulties while we get none other than "the insanely elite bring your best toons for the right party balance and do exactly what the leader says" difficulty? Share your toys, don't be so entitled.

[Kamode_Corebasher]

But that's just my personal opinion. A more objective way of measuring the difficulty of current Epic Hards is by comparing them to The Shroud. I do this because there is a forum specifically for the Shroud, and the devs worked long and hard to get it balanced just perfect, because of it's popularity.

Shroud is level 16, so 17 on hard.

What's more dangerous, the blades in The Shroud, or Lailats blades on E-hard?

Who is more dangerous, Harry or Lailat?

How about the Luitenants vs the red Djiins?

I think you'll find that the Shroud is more difficult in every respect. And since, as I stated, there was A LOT of work put into the Shroud to make it balanced and of appropriate difficulty, we can only assume that if a lvl 21 quest on hard is not as difficult as The Shroud, it is the lvl 21 quest that is broken.

^THIS

...and I'd like to stress another point thats been well said many times, but seems to be ignored--the jump between ehard and eelite is too big. Players currently unable to contribute in eelite or are unable to survive in an eelite are players who will progress in time, and this current gap does not readily allow them to get there on their own nor with others in the same boat (read - they'll need to get lucky in finding someone or somegroup who will teach them techniques and strategies that they haven't already figured out themselves).

[Uhtred_Stark]

Here is the problem with the group of people that don't want nice solid completions on ehard raids, Turbine doesn't balance things, so then what will Turbine do? They will not balance quests but they will give a base % increase to mob hps. This has been seen time and time again. So once again, the only viable classes to deal with the new uber hp mobs will be the uber dps/cc/instakill builds and then they will resume back slapping each other about how awesome they are. Pass.

We have a newly reborn raiding community that only benefits from the current end game. I love being able to pop into the game on a given evening and join a raid cause I know that there will 3 or 4 raids up on the server. If you want to take your uber toys and go home then do it. You are the 1%, the game does not live or die on you, it survives on the rest of us HAVING FUN. Remeber that? It's a game that we play to have fun. Raids are fun! They give us some challenge, we get loot and our fictional avatars get stronger. There is nothing wrong with this! In almost every raid now every day there is a new person who has a blast and that can only grow the game.

As I have stated before, this game was more fun before epics were first introduced and divided the population into the haves and have nots. Most people came to DDO because they played some form of dungeons and dragons, whether it was the basic d&d, advanced d&d or any variation of 2nd edition and beyond. The vast majority of those d&d players liked to quest and have fun. We are all gamers, don't let the fun of the group be corrupted by the greed of the few.

[Charononus]

Here is the problem with the group of people that don't want nice solid completions on ehard raids, Turbine doesn't balance things, so then what will Turbine do? They will not balance quests but they will give a base % increase to mob hps. This has been seen time and time again. So once again, the only viable classes to deal with the new uber hp mobs will be the uber dps/cc/instakill builds and then they will resume back slapping each other about how awesome they are. Pass.

We have a newly reborn raiding community that only benefits from the current end game. I love being able to pop into the game on a given evening and join a raid cause I know that there will 3 or 4 raids up on the server. If you want to take your uber toys and go home then do it. You are the 1%, the game does not live or die on you, it survives on the rest of us HAVING FUN. Remeber that? It's a game that we play to have fun. Raids are fun! They give us some challenge, we get loot and our fictional avatars get stronger. There is nothing wrong with this! In almost every raid now every day there is a new person who has a blast and that can only grow the game.

As I have stated before, this game was more fun before epics were first introduced and divided the population into the haves and have nots. Most people came to DDO because they played some form of dungeons and dragons, whether it was the basic d&d, advanced d&d or any variation of 2nd edition and beyond. The vast majority of those d&d players liked to quest and have fun. We are all gamers, don't let the fun of the group be corrupted by the greed of the few.

You've completely missed the point of the complaints, and the 1% is in ee, it's probably a good chunk of the majority that's complaining because they want some challenge without having their face caved in by ee. At the moment these players can sleep thru epic hard or fail (or consume obscene amounts of resources) at epic elite there are no other options.

[Loriac]

This topic is a moving target.

"Epic levels don't mean epic, they are just levels 21+"

"It is all about the difficulty setting, not the level"

etc. etc. etc.

Pick an angle and stick to it. Before U14, VoD elite was easier than epic chrono because is WAS about difficulty. Now its a mess. Some heroic hards at level are harder than their epic hards (VoN anyone?). While others are much harder on epic elite at level than their heroic counterparts (just about everything).



There is no inconsistency in stating that epic NOW means levels 21-25. The old epic difficulty does not exist anymore (closest would be epic elite, which has been adjusted upward to reflect extra power attained from max'd EDs).

When judging difficulty, its all about whether you're running it on normal, hard or elite.

The correct comparisons are:

Compare VOD Elite to EElite Chrono

Compre VOD Hard to EHard Chrono

Compre VOD Normal to ENormal Chrono

Comparing VOD Elite to EHard Chrono is NOT comparing like with like.

The level a quest is is a secondary factor, as is the 'base' difficulty of the quest. By 'base' difficulty, I mean some quests simply are harder than others at level (classic examples being things like Proof is in the Poison, particularly pre-Ship buff era, and VON3 pre-Marut nerfing era).


One other thing - there is a huge power uplift at level 20 once you access EDs. However, this applies only to people who have access to EDs, and who have worked to max them (for the more beneficial twists that are usually in higher tiers). The reason an at level VON Heroic Hard feels harder than an at level VON Epic Hard is largely because of this power creep for those people who have EDs max'd.

Turbine has created a bit of a rod for their own back with the optionality of EDs: they will have to continue to tailor content to a range of players, with a few of them having max'd out EDs (for whom Epic Elite will be the most suitable difficulty) and the majority with basic EDs (one tree max'd) or no EDs - for these players, EHard is challenging (often very much so) whilst ENormal is a decent difficulty level whilst PUG'ging.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that ENormal is now a difficulty that is completeable without EDs; EHard requires some EDs (one tree max'd, a twist or two at low tier); EElite requires fully max'd ED trees.

What we're seeing are growing pains, as not enough vets have fully max'd EDs to run epic elite, but conversely have enough power and knowledge / experience to run through EHard easily. This still does not make them the majority; I'd be surprised if more than 10% of the player base was in this category at the present time.

[Charononus]

There is no inconsistency in stating that epic NOW means levels 21-25. The old epic difficulty does not exist anymore (closest would be epic elite, which has been adjusted upward to reflect extra power attained from max'd EDs).

When judging difficulty, its all about whether you're running it on normal, hard or elite.

The correct comparisons are:

Compare VOD Elite to EElite Chrono

Compre VOD Hard to EHard Chrono

Compre VOD Normal to ENormal Chrono

Comparing VOD Elite to EHard Chrono is NOT comparing like with like.

The level a quest is is a secondary factor, as is the 'base' difficulty of the quest. By 'base' difficulty, I mean some quests simply are harder than others at level (classic examples being things like Proof is in the Poison, particularly pre-Ship buff era, and VON3 pre-Marut nerfing era).


One other thing - there is a huge power uplift at level 20 once you access EDs. However, this applies only to people who have access to EDs, and who have worked to max them (for the more beneficial twists that are usually in higher tiers). The reason an at level VON Heroic Hard feels harder than an at level VON Epic Hard is largely because of this power creep for those people who have EDs max'd.

Turbine has created a bit of a rod for their own back with the optionality of EDs: they will have to continue to tailor content to a range of players, with a few of them having max'd out EDs (for whom Epic Elite will be the most suitable difficulty) and the majority with basic EDs (one tree max'd) or no EDs - for these players, EHard is challenging (often very much so) whilst ENormal is a decent difficulty level whilst PUG'ging.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that ENormal is now a difficulty that is completeable without EDs; EHard requires some EDs (one tree max'd, a twist or two at low tier); EElite requires fully max'd ED trees.

What we're seeing are growing pains, as not enough vets have fully max'd EDs to run epic elite, but conversely have enough power and knowledge / experience to run through EHard easily. This still does not make them the majority; I'd be surprised if more than 10% of the player base was in this category at the present time.

I don't find eh challenging even in a destiny such as shadowdancer that does nothing for me, (might as well be no destiny).

If you want to compare hards to hards, as has been stated above look at hard shroud on a lvl 25, much more danger chance of death as compared to a lvl 25 in eh chrono.

EH Chrono
No tanks are needed anymore
Only one healer is needed
You can spread out and do the optionals in the begining

basically you can treat eh chrono like an elite chrono loot farm, no tactics, no group comp is needed.

HH Shroud
Two Healers needed
One Caster if not more greatly useful
Balance between ranged damage dealers (casters, arti's ext) and melee useful to box harry in

Yes a good group will still roll thru shroud no problem but it takes more thought and tactics even if those tactics are second nature by now.

Next example
eh lob is generally easier than hh lob, that should say enough about how broken the system is right there.

[nebogloee]

Next example
eh lob is generally easier than hh lob, that should say enough about how broken the system is right there.

How many examples do we need to prove that there are VERY odd imbalances in difficulty? Most of teh people who find epic hard difficult are fresh to 20s or soloing. I want to hear from someone that runs with a group where everyone has 1 completed ED. I want to know if they find epic hard still difficult. If not, then they should be able to do elite judging by the opinions of many here. But they will not, unless they are the 1%.

There is no way that only 1% of Turbine's paying customers have EDs, surely there are more of them. So speak up. I have yet to see a pug ehard von6/adq2 fail since u14, and most of them didn't have destinies - ***?

[Ranncore]

I have never been in a group that failed an epic hard quest. Many, including raids, have been shortmanned.