What went wrong with DDO?

[~GUETech]

Hello all!

New forums. Meh. They look fine at my end - everything changes... Anyway, I've seen alot of people leaving DDO lately, and felt like I needed to post a message to everyone else, to the devs...to anyone listening and thinking about it.

Some will say that this is just another DOOOOoooooom! Thread. Maybe so.

For background, I've been playing this game now for a good three years or so. I've enjoyed it for hours and hours and hours - to the detriment of my REAL life on some occasions. Regardless, I have fond memories of many hours of play, and thank the devs for many enjoyable times.

That being said, something changed a few months ago. The turning point was the extended downtime (was it 3 days?) during one of the updates. This sort of "cold-turkeyed" my DDO addiction long enough for me to try Skyrim again, which until then had sat un-opened on my desk since the day Skyrim had come out. Actually, it HAD been opened, but after the first 10 minutes of Skyrim on release day, I said to myself "I miss DDO...badly..." and I never turned Skyrim on again until that unexpected downtime event. (I think it must have been 1.5 years...) Still, I digress.

I do still love what this game WAS. But its changed, and ultimately, I found that I didn't care to play it anymore. Recently, I will login maybe once per week, for 10 minutes, just to roll my GOLD/SILVER dice, to check who in the guild is online, and to see which LFMs are up. I might even take my capped PM or Clonk out for a quick head bashing or two in a slayer area....but the desire to continue playing just isn't there anymore.

I attribute this loss of interest to a few things, and this is my main reason for posting, so hopefully some dev is tasked with reading all these posts.

1 - Recent changes to the game, and to the items in it, have OVERLY-leveled the playing field.
2 - The devs should create some mechanisms to promote guild adhesion better.

If you've read this far, I'll explain.
First, I spent alot of time in this game - first I was the newb, then the noob, later just a regular, eventually becoming experienced enough to be an officer / co-leader of a high-level guild. I knew what I was doing. I have multiple TR-ed toons, with reasonably decent epic gear. This is all before the EN/EH/EE type of epics, and I can solo-farm ADQ or Wiz-King for epic scrolls / seals etc. I have a few Torcs, and most of the pieces to make an eSOS etc. I'm having fun, though I'm starting to recognize that there is a grind for those last few items, or for past lives to get passive feats or increases in spell pen etc.

All of a sudden, epic destinies come along. With a guildie, we both maximize ALL of the EDs over a month or two (on one of our toons). That being done, you start to notice that the extra few points gained from TR-ing (28-32-34 point builds) doesn't matter, since you can easily add stat points from ED choices. At the very least, the benefit from TR-ing has been lessened.
Furthermore, when MOTU came out, alot of new gear appeared, which frankly, was often better that the epic gear I had SLAVED to get for so long.
When EN/EH and EE came out, it didnt make much sense to run EE. Most of the epic gear could be solo-farmed with a decent toon on EN, so why spend the extra time and effort doing it on EE.
Don't even ask me about the +3 and later +4 tome SALES. I dont mind the P2W thing, but I dont think these tomes should have been on the SELL list.

There are other examples, but my point is just that after several years of making myself a better player, and acquiring the gear and past-lives to be an effective player, it was frustrating to have that entire grind NULLIFIED by newer gear, EDs or a variety of DDOStore bought items.

Sure I was a bit hardcore. Sure new items will be better than 4 year-old items. But the devs should have been aware that putting an item on the random drop list, which is equivalent/better than an epic item diminishes the time an effort I spent to acquire the epic item.

......and if THAT grind is not worth anything in the game, then why would I continue to play a game which is essentially all about GRINDing...

How many people can honestly say they only ran a quest one time?, or that they ran a new quest with a bunch of people and nobody in the group had ever done it?
The reality is that people grind through quests repeatedly for the XP and the gear. If you make that grind of no value, then you take away my reason for playing. When the new loot tables came out, the devs should have upgraded the old epic stuff to a level commensurate to the degree of effort required to get the item.

If you've read this far, you deserve a medal. In fact, if you REALLY read this far, please just post a quick sentence of agreement/disagreement when you're done.

My second issue with the guilds is much shorter.

Presently, I am a member of Templar on the Cannith server. As you may know, its one of the biggest guilds there, as far as membership. Prior to that I was in Gods and Heroes for a few years, which I enjoyed immensely, until it essentially imploded. I was in Endless before that for a few years, when it imploded. When these guilds imploded, it was a bit difficult as a player, since the people I would be playing with would disperse, or have grudges against one another, or whatever. The end result is that I have fewer people who all know they enjoy grouping with one another. When I don't have a good group, I'm less likely to enjoy myself/stay online.

SOoooo, I just think the devs need to come up with ways to promote interaction AND adhesion within guilds. When a guild implodes, I'm willing to bet that the Turbine folks can actually measure how much less "stranded players" come online.

Templar is a decent guild - though when I came onboard, it was a little after it had suffered a bit of its own implosion. Many of the old guard had left, and Kmn cleaned house shortly thereafter. My impression is that it used to be VERY elitist, but had morphed into a very inclusive guild of a wide variety of skill levels. However, it did not (and does not) have the "family feel" that I came to enjoy with Gods&Heroes. I recall on many occasions jusy coming online because I had agreed to help out a group with a certain quest on a certain day/time. So...incentive for guild cohesion are required to keep us coming back for the social network of DDO.

The last time I played more than 20 minutes of DDO was probably 3 months ago. Skyrim was fun, but I've essentially beaten that game, since once the novelty wears off and main questlines are complete, it doesn't have the same degree of re-playability as DDO. I do miss the old DDO, but its current incarnation leaves me flat, not caring to login. I peruse the forums occasionally to see what's new, or what people are happy/unhappy with.

Devs / Turbine, I hope you've considered what I had to say. Thanks for the years of fun, but something soured in DDO over the past 6 months. Let me know if you fix it, since I'd love to come back someday.
To everyone else, I've enjoyed playing/grouping with many of you, and maybe we'll see one another again some day. Until then...
Cheers.
- Tarshyn (Templar); Ralindar (Templar); UndeadJim (Gods&Heroes) and a few others.

[Banshee22]

At the moment what annoys me most is that players outside USA or Canada are apparently unwanted and unwelcome to this game.

The proof is obvious: When registering you can only list your country of origin as USA or Canada.

Maybe registering from another country and having no choice but choose the "wrong" country will even mean a violation of forum rules and result in account termination, so it may be used as an excuse to ban any non US and Canadian players from the game?

I'd like an official statement about this.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Hello all!

New forums. Meh. They look fine at my end - everything changes... Anyway, I've seen alot of people leaving DDO lately, and felt like I needed to post a message to everyone else, to the devs...to anyone listening and thinking about it.

Some will say that this is just another DOOOOoooooom! Thread. Maybe so.

For background, I've been playing this game now for a good three years or so. I've enjoyed it for hours and hours and hours - to the detriment of my REAL life on some occasions. Regardless, I have fond memories of many hours of play, and thank the devs for many enjoyable times.

That being said, something changed a few months ago. The turning point was the extended downtime (was it 3 days?) during one of the updates. This sort of "cold-turkeyed" my DDO addiction long enough for me to try Skyrim again, which until then had sat un-opened on my desk since the day Skyrim had come out. Actually, it HAD been opened, but after the first 10 minutes of Skyrim on release day, I said to myself "I miss DDO...badly..." and I never turned Skyrim on again until that unexpected downtime event. (I think it must have been 1.5 years...) Still, I digress.

I do still love what this game WAS. But its changed, and ultimately, I found that I didn't care to play it anymore. Recently, I will login maybe once per week, for 10 minutes, just to roll my GOLD/SILVER dice, to check who in the guild is online, and to see which LFMs are up. I might even take my capped PM or Clonk out for a quick head bashing or two in a slayer area....but the desire to continue playing just isn't there anymore.

I attribute this loss of interest to a few things, and this is my main reason for posting, so hopefully some dev is tasked with reading all these posts.

1 - Recent changes to the game, and to the items in it, have OVERLY-leveled the playing field.
2 - The devs should create some mechanisms to promote guild adhesion better.

If you've read this far, I'll explain.
First, I spent alot of time in this game - first I was the newb, then the noob, later just a regular, eventually becoming experienced enough to be an officer / co-leader of a high-level guild. I knew what I was doing. I have multiple TR-ed toons, with reasonably decent epic gear. This is all before the EN/EH/EE type of epics, and I can solo-farm ADQ or Wiz-King for epic scrolls / seals etc. I have a few Torcs, and most of the pieces to make an eSOS etc. I'm having fun, though I'm starting to recognize that there is a grind for those last few items, or for past lives to get passive feats or increases in spell pen etc.

All of a sudden, epic destinies come along. With a guildie, we both maximize ALL of the EDs over a month or two (on one of our toons). That being done, you start to notice that the extra few points gained from TR-ing (28-32-34 point builds) doesn't matter, since you can easily add stat points from ED choices. At the very least, the benefit from TR-ing has been lessened.
Furthermore, when MOTU came out, alot of new gear appeared, which frankly, was often better that the epic gear I had SLAVED to get for so long.
When EN/EH and EE came out, it didnt make much sense to run EE. Most of the epic gear could be solo-farmed with a decent toon on EN, so why spend the extra time and effort doing it on EE.
Don't even ask me about the +3 and later +4 tome SALES. I dont mind the P2W thing, but I dont think these tomes should have been on the SELL list.

There are other examples, but my point is just that after several years of making myself a better player, and acquiring the gear and past-lives to be an effective player, it was frustrating to have that entire grind NULLIFIED by newer gear, EDs or a variety of DDOStore bought items.

Sure I was a bit hardcore. Sure new items will be better than 4 year-old items. But the devs should have been aware that putting an item on the random drop list, which is equivalent/better than an epic item diminishes the time an effort I spent to acquire the epic item.

......and if THAT grind is not worth anything in the game, then why would I continue to play a game which is essentially all about GRINDing...

How many people can honestly say they only ran a quest one time?, or that they ran a new quest with a bunch of people and nobody in the group had ever done it?
The reality is that people grind through quests repeatedly for the XP and the gear. If you make that grind of no value, then you take away my reason for playing. When the new loot tables came out, the devs should have upgraded the old epic stuff to a level commensurate to the degree of effort required to get the item.

If you've read this far, you deserve a medal. In fact, if you REALLY read this far, please just post a quick sentence of agreement/disagreement when you're done.

My second issue with the guilds is much shorter.

Presently, I am a member of Templar on the Cannith server. As you may know, its one of the biggest guilds there, as far as membership. Prior to that I was in Gods and Heroes for a few years, which I enjoyed immensely, until it essentially imploded. I was in Endless before that for a few years, when it imploded. When these guilds imploded, it was a bit difficult as a player, since the people I would be playing with would disperse, or have grudges against one another, or whatever. The end result is that I have fewer people who all know they enjoy grouping with one another. When I don't have a good group, I'm less likely to enjoy myself/stay online.

SOoooo, I just think the devs need to come up with ways to promote interaction AND adhesion within guilds. When a guild implodes, I'm willing to bet that the Turbine folks can actually measure how much less "stranded players" come online.

Templar is a decent guild - though when I came onboard, it was a little after it had suffered a bit of its own implosion. Many of the old guard had left, and Kmn cleaned house shortly thereafter. My impression is that it used to be VERY elitist, but had morphed into a very inclusive guild of a wide variety of skill levels. However, it did not (and does not) have the "family feel" that I came to enjoy with Gods&Heroes. I recall on many occasions jusy coming online because I had agreed to help out a group with a certain quest on a certain day/time. So...incentive for guild cohesion are required to keep us coming back for the social network of DDO.

The last time I played more than 20 minutes of DDO was probably 3 months ago. Skyrim was fun, but I've essentially beaten that game, since once the novelty wears off and main questlines are complete, it doesn't have the same degree of re-playability as DDO. I do miss the old DDO, but its current incarnation leaves me flat, not caring to login. I peruse the forums occasionally to see what's new, or what people are happy/unhappy with.

Devs / Turbine, I hope you've considered what I had to say. Thanks for the years of fun, but something soured in DDO over the past 6 months. Let me know if you fix it, since I'd love to come back someday.
To everyone else, I've enjoyed playing/grouping with many of you, and maybe we'll see one another again some day. Until then...
Cheers.
- Tarshyn (Templar); Ralindar (Templar); UndeadJim (Gods&Heroes) and a few others.

Somehow a "doom" thread from soneone with maxed destinies doesn't have much impact on me.

[~Sarghi]

Hey, I read *past* where you said to read! And I agree.

But seriously I agree with much of what you said. While I am a far more casual player than you, my main toon is on his 10th life, which is much further than most people get. I finally bought EDs a couple months ago, and the power change was monumental. My 9th life toon was gimpy in EH quests, but with a little time spent getting only 1 ED up to level 4 (Sentinel) I was rocking out. The epic items I had were near-worthless, other than the AGA, and for a bit of plat I could buy vastly better items on THE AH. I mean, I like being stronger, but I couldn't help but think "why did I waste so much time on that other stuff any way?"

The guild stuff bothers me less, perhaps because the way the game is designed it's so much for soloing that I don't interact with my guild alot.

Oh, and I'm thinking of taking a break from the game to go play some Skyrim.

[Primordial_Soup]

Somehow a "doom" thread from soneone with maxed destinies doesn't have much impact on me.

did you have to quote his whole post?

@ OP: sad to see you go, never played with you, but it always sucks when a player leaves the game.

[~chrisdinus]

I don't think it is changes to the game, per se, that are your issue. It is just good old fashioned attrition. DDO nullifies your grind at a much slower rate than most MMOs. Every year or two, WoW releases an expansion which makes all the old gear worthless. And you can't get permanent past life type bonuses either. Heck, every content update releases new gear that is clearly superior to the old gear. So, to keep up, you have to restart the grind.

The point of playing is to have fun, if your not having that anymore, then by all means leave, and best of luck to you in finding something fun. But I don't think the game changed so much as it has just become an old hat, and so the grind is no longer fun.

[~wellpers]

I think there is a big disconnect between players and Turbine at the moment.

The guild system is awful - mostly because of guild decay. First large guild lost their members because they couldn't advance and now small guilds are losing their members because they can't advance or can't advance nearly as fast as large guilds. Turbines updates just cause more decay. They don't seem to get that decay costs them players and/or goodwill.

Turbine gets mad at a few people criticizing their ribbons - so how does Turbine respond? By not giving a bonus for the weekend. Good move Turbine this gives everyone a chance to do something else or try out a new game when there is obviously a lot of frustration because of down time, the forums, the enhancement pass, the guild system you name it. This is the way Turbine responds - the exact opposite way a good business person would respond.

Turbine discourages grouping in many ways. The 10% penalty for a party member dying should be changed to a 10% penalty If your character dies. Otherwise vets aren't going to want to put up lfms and lose 10% every quest because a new or casual player dies. Turbine should get rid of or change outdated things that encourage not accepting people in your party.

The gap between power gamer and casual gamer grow more and more all the time. While some players think EE is too easy there are many that don't like to run anything above EN.

Turbine is looking to make a buck every way possible it seems. I won't deny a company profit, but the way Turbine is going about this seems like everything they do is a money grab.

Turbine can bounce back if they respond well. At the moment I would rate their response a solid D+.

[PermaBanned]

{the games'} current incarnation leaves me flat, not caring...

That's exactly how I perceive the DDO decision makers feel :(

[Magusrex]

Making me wait because I wanted to use TP on XPAC caused me to find something else to do and my wife and I have never returned.

[Lerincho]

I think there is a big disconnect between players and Turbine at the moment.


This has been the case since pre-F2P.

[~lowkster]

I think there is a big disconnect between players and Turbine at the moment.



I find it odd what they decide to spend time and resources on. The forums are full of posts listing bugs that need fixing and good game play ideas, but Turbine decides to waste time doing XXXXX ( I was going to list some examples, but the release notes seem to be 404'ed. Hey there is an example - the forums. What was wrong with the old ones? Anyone ever mentioned the forums should be updated?).

[forummuleonly]

I know this is not for everyone, but I really really wish they would put another crafting system in the game, but have no recipe list for it. Something that does indeed have recipes, and TONS of them, but leave it to the players to figure out what they are. Something that is not too awful hard to figure out, something that will give you some sort of lesser stat, say a +1 exceptional bonus to a stat on an item no matter what you you do in it.

Something to occupy the players so that we have something to do, you know, how gamers do it, we figure things out. We experiment, we like to solve puzzles and learn secrets.

I think that would bring back a ton of players just for the sheer challenge of conquering the crafting system.

Like GS was at one time. Only consider it an upgraded GS, maybe even have secret recipes to upgrade your GS items to be even better, on par with/better than current EE gear.

I know this wouldn't be for everyone, but it would certainly occupy a very large portion of the people that do/used to play and hopefully for a long time.

It would also allow for a means of slowing the hell down when rushing out things that the EP wants to have in the game, regardless of functionality. They can slow down a bit and make quality content, instead of rushed and broken content.

That is my thoughts, I honestly feel it would be good for the game if it were done. Hell, I would grind out ings/power cells/whatever to crack the vault and learn it's secrets, and I know many others that miss the old days of GS.

[ForumAccess]

I strongly disagree with the position that the 'newb epic' gear provided in Update 14 was a bad thing. Games have to progress in order to remain relevant in the MMO market. All of your gear will eventually be replaced, because if it is not there is no real reason for you to go out and do new things. When changing things over from the former, so called 'hardcore', epics to epic simply being post 20 quests there was a need to close the gap between players who had it all, and those who had barely managed to hit level 20. This was a simple and absolute necessity.

The biggest problem came in what players were given to work towards. Players got a massive hand out of very easy to acquire, very nice epic gear. Which solved the problem of getting ungeared players up to the ability to run these new epic quests. And then quests and the (broken at the time, and still terrible) raid had items that were a bit better than these handout ones. The problem, however, is that these items were not terribly difficult to acquire, and there were not really all that many things to run. Before long, the only things that really gave people any progress were CitW, then ransack on the Green Dragonscale chest, and then..... idle on the airship and chat with friends.

In the old epic system timers gave people pacing, and the wide range of things to do gave them some variation and options. Even now, three updates later, that is something that is missing. Update 15 failed to deliver the second raid option that was promised. The new gear all became Bind on Equip, which gives most players very little reason to keep running the content when they can just trade for what they will actually use. When Fall of Truth first came out most of the serious players had been building stocks of Timer Bypasses, and ended up getting their completions in during the first few weeks. I still see it run quite often, but from all of the complaints on the old forums it seems that there is not a great deal of qualified leadership for many runs. Largely due to the fact that people were able to 'finish' it so quickly, and have little reason to go back again aside from running it for fun with friends.

With the announcement of the level cap increase again this summer, DDO has taken on an even worse 'lame duck' feel. Where is the incentive to get the U17 and upcoming U18 gear, when it will all likely be wiped away by the new expansion's gear? Rather than expanding the range of things that are relevant to run, things keep rapidly making even the relatively new things obsolete!


With regard to the point about guilds, I think that you have a very important idea to discuss. Even when the game lacks compelling things to keep people playing, their friends can still keep them logging in. If there were systems in place to reward guilds for playing and doing things together, it just might be enough to get people still logging in for more than just long enough to find out how their online friends are doing.

[Casalon]

UndeadJim (Gods&Heroes) and a few others.


I have personally run with you on more than a few occasions and very much appreciate the good times.

Honestly, I feel your pain too. This once great game is but a shadow of its' former self and (IMHO) anyone who disagrees with that simple statement, is lying to themself. I won't even get started on that point besides the previous statement....

UndeadJim (among others) was a cool dude to run with and we won many and lost a few quests... Personally, I really enjoyed the tough losses compared to the easy wins.

I too am having a hard time playing this game anymore. It saddens me because this has been my favorite hobby for the last 6+ years. I have high hopes for Neverwinter Online but actual hopes for ---Elder Scrolls Online--- to fill the void this game is going to leave in me and my wife's respective lives.

I will continue to log on here and there just to see what's new... but my VIP status is no longer valid after this weekend and again, it saddens me. I felt pride in supporting the one and only honest (at first) attempt at bringing our beloved table-top sessions to life via online gaming.

F2P for me from here on out, assuming I even play anymore.

Good luck to ya buddy. :(

Happy hunting.

[~bob117]

It works both ways though,

I was pretty fed up of ddo before the xpac hit! Before the destinies and stuff went live i was in a slump. Tr'd to much. Was sick of end game. Was plain old bored with nothing to do. Was rolling up wierd builds just to have some fun. The xpac and destinies along with all the new gear revitalized the game for me. Got almost a solid year of game play from it on multiple toons. Sure the gear is better, It would suck if it was worse!

The game changed. It is about to change drastically again soon. You either adapt and move along or you play something else. That said there is nothing wrong with taking breaks from a game. Or playing other ones. Wait it out and come back in a few months. Hopefully it will have changed for the better!

[~Grumpycat]

Warner Brothers started letting Daffy and Elmer do the programming.

[forummuleonly]

Warner Brothers started letting Daffy and Elmer do the programming.


I think I have reached the point that I doubt Warner Brothers even knows about the inept leadership this game has.

Warner puts out some top notch stuff. A majority of their movies are excellent work, and based on that I feel that Warner takes pride in putting out quality money making stuff.

I really think if Warner knew about the irresponsible leadership in this game that is driving down the player base, and the revenue opportunities they would come in and clean house.

I honestly feel that the poor leadership of this game is probably unbeknownst to the corporate decision makers.

[~Grumpycat]

Stuff

Way to kill a good joke =P

[forummuleonly]

Way to kill a good joke =P


Well, the 'stuff' Turbine is putting out these days.....


Oh, I see what you did there.

[Casalon]

Back on topic...

Life is good.

DDO is not.

Please discuss that.

(At the very least.................... In this thread).

[~Grumpycat]

Back on topic...

Life is good.

DDO is not.

Please discuss that.

(At the very least.................... In this thread).

I dont care how bad you THINK DDO is, you're wrong. Go play WoW, NWO, EQ2, SWtoR or any other non-turbine MMO. THOSE are garbage. While there is some programming issues (like the afore mentioned Daffy and Elmer as programers) DDO is pretty good

[Casalon]

I dont care how bad you THINK DDO is, you're wrong. Go play WoW, NWO, EQ2, SWtoR or any other non-turbine MMO. THOSE are garbage. While there is some programming issues (like the afore mentioned Daffy and Elmer as programers) DDO is pretty good

Yes... yes...

We love you too.

There is actual sunlight outside your walls. I and most others promise that to be true.

Good luck in your future endeavors. :confused:

[Captain_Wizbang]

OP, I gave some thought to your post (yes the whole thing)

When MotU was released with the new items that made most everything we spent countless hours grinding for, obsolete. It threw everything out of whack. I didn't like it then, and don't like it now.

ED's have been a decent (not great) addition to the game game. However, the biggest single problem IMO is the lack of content. If our tweaked out toons don't have the content to be challenged, then what good are they? Sure Epic GH is very cool, but people are running the quests just to flag for FoT & gear. Gear that is level appropriate, but to use for what?

SO, to cover the end-game aspect of your post, I agree. And the obvious solution is expanded lvl appropriate content.

As for high lvl equipment in the store, meh... It's a profit center, and vital to the health of the game, so I tolerate it. (and ignore it all)

Guild; Decay is just foolish this long after it's placement in the game. Airships & amenities are in dire need of an overhaul. With pvp pits, better training aids and a few other gizmos we all could use and enjoy. I submitted ideas to certain devs 6 months ago with these and other ideas for guild, decay & housing. They responded with "we'll take these into consideration". If the expansion this year does NOT include some kind of guild system overhaul, then any chance we could have of your concern would be just that; A thought... Let's keep our fingers crossed.



I'm not saying the ship is sinking, but it most certainly is listing to starboard or port more than a few degrees.
All is not lost, things can be balanced, new content developed, and some the OP'ed gear toned down.

So OP,
/signed

[FestusJr]

I've only been playing the game for about a year and a half, so i guess i don't remember these good old days everyone keeps referring to.

Sounds like most of the complaints in this thread are just personal things that Turbine doesn't really have any control over. If a guild implodes because don't get along, how is that Turbine's fault?

The only complaint i could see with guild decay was that there used to be a penalty for having less active players in your guild due to their decay exceeding their renown earned. Turbine seems to have come up with a good solution for this by removing individual decay for the most part.

Now i hear people in small guilds saying they are being penalized. How? Maybe i'm stupid, but i don't get it. What new penalties came for small guilds with the new system? I'm in a small guild and we consistently ding levels every week or two. We ding on days right after downtime, so apparrently the decay from that is as insignificant as i always thought it was.

People like to complain about the grind. So Turbine introduces items that you can get with less grind, and then the same players complain that there isn't enough grind. Again, this is a personal problem beyond Turbine's control. As far as gear getting better over time, well no kidding. Are they going to put out an update with worse gear?

Finally, I think it's funny that so many people say it's ok for Turbine to make money, as long as they don't, you know, do things to try and make money. Everything you can buy for money are completely optional, and it is good that it is there as an option. This is how companies make money.

Is the complaint that they are selling things that people want to buy? I guess that putting tomes in the store bothers some people. Why? What should they be selling? Stuff that nobody wants to buy? Stuff that you can easily get in the game without effort? (there is lots of that stuff in the store, most people refer to it as newb traps)

The power gap. Apparently a lot of people need to feel like they are better off than the next guy. I buy a new car, and it's great. Then my neighbor buys a better car, and all of a sudden my car sucks, even though it hasn't changed at all. This is just stupidity. Lack of perspective. Nothing Turbine can do about that.

[khamastus]

Haey! A car analogy!

To the OP, it sounds to me like you're suffering from burnout. A quick read of your post and the only thing I would suggest for you to keep in mind is that experience equals power in this game.
Game experience to you as a player, not as a toon.
There arent many games that can claim that as they're too watered down.
Sounds to me like you've hit your ceiling, or as far as you care to hit anyway.
You asked how many people only complete a quest once.
I'm not a powergamer, I only game a couple hours 4-5 nights a week in ddo. I may not hit every quest only once but I hit it with that attitude.
I dont farm is what I mean.
I probably have a few hundred hours playing ddo so far. Thats a lot of hours. And I still know I'm only on the 'casual' level because theres just so damned much in this game to learn. It's nuts. (this is probably subjective as I've never really claimed to be intelligent or anything)

ANyway, thats my guess. You burned out, son.

[Firepants]

I do still love what this game WAS. But its changed, and ultimately, I found that I didn't care to play it anymore. Recently, I will login maybe once per week, for 10 minutes, just to roll my GOLD/SILVER dice, to check who in the guild is online, and to see which LFMs are up. I might even take my capped PM or Clonk out for a quick head bashing or two in a slayer area....but the desire to continue playing just isn't there anymore.
Here's my take on the current state of DDO, but first a little background.

I am a Founder in this game, I was on the Alpha and Beta trials before the game was released and played this game hard until about 2.5 years ago, then because of life plus the game having gotten stale (I mean really, for over a year or so we have a cap at 20 - meaning that no matter what you did, for an extended period of time, we as capped players were basically done with the game. Sure, towards the end of that time they introduced the reincarnation mechanic, a mechanic I initially protested having been a D&D fundamentalist, but which I eventually embraced. And yeah, that helped extend the shelf life of the game a bit, but it still lacked something. So I bounced for a couple years. Tried some other online games, like Guild Wars & WoW (yes - I went TO WoW from DDO, not vice versa like most), but none of them worked the way D&D works (A system I literally grew up with).

So two and a half years go by, and I fire up DDO and find my old account still in existence (thanks DDO!) and many of the people I call friends still playing the game. But now it's a new game. There's epic destinies and 5 epic levels. Sure, they're not classed epic levels (which I feel they should be - based off of your highest class level), but they exist and offer a new level of character customization that, quite frankly, is awesome as hell. So I quickly grind out 3 TRs from my previously capped toons and start leveling them in EDs. This was 5 months ago.

Just recently Neverwinter Online was released, and I got into the Alpha and Beta again. And yeah, that game is fun in it's own way and I can totally see some DDO players migrating over for now, but for me that game is a no-go. The main reason being the constant mouse-look mode. That is some terrible UI decision making in action. Maybe default to always mouselook, but don't make it the only option. So I came back, again to DDO, because it has the BEST combat experience in any fantasy MMO out there, plus I know the system like the back of my hand at this point.

And yeah, it was a bit demoralizing to see all of these crafted epic items I busted my figurative ass to build, all relegated to "nice twink gear for leveling" in the wake of MUCH easier to acquire epic level gear from MOTU and then GH. So I ground out gear from those new packs, and the game is fun for me again because I am not being constantly housed by everything in Epic level content. But here's the problem, those crafted Epic items were and still are very difficult to obtain but their power has not been increased on par with the game. It's still WAY harder to craft a set of, say, Epic Spectral Gloves, but who cares now? They're not worth the effort anymore when you can run a few repeats and pull some epic-hard Nether Grasps, which are infinitely better than the Epic Spec Gloves. But actually crafting a set of Epic Spectral Gloves is still much more difficult than farming ANY modern epic level drop item. And I think this is wrong. Crafted Epic items should ALWAYS be more powerful/valuable than non-crafted Epic items to better reward the player for actually taking the time to acquire all of the components to craft said item.

Other than that, I feel DDO is finally getting its stride as a game. It no longer feels partially complete to play, as it did before my hiatus. But along the way to this state, the game decision makers made some choices that don't make much sense (like harder to acquire farm items being less powerful than one-shot drop items). But until someone makes an online matchmaking service that connects people with online PnP games as fluidly as making a party in DDO, this game is my online default because, for all of it's real or perceived problems, there is no other game out there that gives me the same feeling of taking part in an adventure as DDO does. I will disclaim that I am biased towards the D&D stat/feat system so implementation of a system like that, with as much build flexibility that this games gives a player, is such a major pro that most, very valid, cons evaporate like so much water in a desert.

So that's my take. TLDR: crafted Epics got the shaft and should be amped commensurate with the difficulty involved with acquiring them, but DDO is still the only online D&D game that actually gets being D&D mostly right.

[backandforth]

With the expansion they wanted to attract new players to the game.

This is why the stones of xp and the easy to get items.

Newbies and very experienced players had to meet half way so that they can party together.

They have made some mistakes but in general it is a game I love and they managed to keep it alive and growing .

[jalont]

Most of the basic problems in the OP stem from the 2 percent of the playerbase that can quickly fill out destinies, grind out past lives and grind out good gear. Turbine has made a concerted effort to now develop for the other 98 percent, while throwing the 2 percent a bone with EE. I'm not sure what to say. If you're part of that 2 percent, most all MMOs have a short shelf life, and it's okay to just move on when you've achieved everything you've achieved.

[Chai]

Most of the basic problems in the OP stem from the 2 percent of the playerbase that can quickly fill out destinies, grind out past lives and grind out good gear. Turbine has made a concerted effort to now develop for the other 98 percent, while throwing the 2 percent a bone with EE. I'm not sure what to say. If you're part of that 2 percent, most all MMOs have a short shelf life, and it's okay to just move on when you've achieved everything you've achieved.

Its not about the challenge difficulty, its about the easy of acquisition of items. This development for the other 98% for the most part constitutes "here, pay us to buy an item someone else farmed". The game was already much much easier post expansion than pre expansion as far as item acquisition, then they made it even easier using p2w mechanics to buy loot, with the technicality that someone else had to farm it.

So when I say "making the game too easy" Im not talking about how easy EE is or how fast I can rack up completions. Im referring to how easy it is to acquire what I want out of those quests. Over the last 18 month period of time ithas gotten easier in orders of magnitude.

[Peter_Stauffenberg]

I think there is a problem with DDO that many quests, especially raids have become superfluous. How many are now running Vision of Destruction, Hound of Xoriat, Master Artificer etc. ? Even Shroud struggles to fill groups.

1-2 years ago you could login and be sure these raids were up within 15-30 minutes at the most.

I think one reason for this is the introduction of level cap 25 and epic destinies. Before this new cap the gear you got from the raids were end game gear you would spend time to farm for. After MOTU you can get better gear by farming rares in King's Forest, using commendations to build what you need.

Before it was too hard to get certain raid gear. E. g. the famous eSoS required the base item, scroll, seal and shard. Players have tried for years to get all 4 items and still failed. For Greensteel items you need 3 types of shards and a lot of materials. Still, GS is easier to get. With enough runs you will eventually be able to craft.

The newer epic quests offer epic gear that drop in end chests with no need to craft them. You get them in 3 different strengths (epic normal, epic hard and epic elite). So if you farm some quests you get those items faster. I ran caught in the WEB about 15 times on my melee and got the 5 different weapons I needed. I have run Epic VON 5-6 over 100 times and still haven't seen the shard of Sword of Shadows drop a single time, I have a lot of other seals and shards I might be able to use at some time.

The end gear from HoX and VoD don't seem to be in demand anymore either. Even greensteel isn't used as much as before. GS items are nice for TR'ed toons until you get to the epic level. The HP and conc opp items are still used, but the weapons have found better ones in regular end chests in the epic quests.

So I think Turbine need to make a revamp of the existing raids and maybe do something about the gear there and how you acquire them.

Epic gear: I think quite a few of the original epic gear could benefit from being upped in power so they can compare with level 25 quests. How to acquire them should change too. Either you should get them directly at the raid end reward (EN, EH and EE variants) or you should change the crafting requirements. One thing that Turbine could do is stop having separate seals and shards for each item. Instead you could have generic seals and shards for the quest chain. This way you get a Vault of Night seal and Vault of night shard you can use with the base item and scroll to craft the epic version of the item. In the Vale you have generic Greensteel shards and that works better in my opinion. That means ANY seal and shard dropping at epic quests will be valuable to you.

For Greensteel I think it could be nice to have an epic shroud with a tier 4 crafting. Introduce epic shard and epic devil scales etc. THis way the GS gear can be usable at level 25. Then you will see epic players farm shrouds again.

Master Artificer, HoX, VOD, ToD etc. can get epic versions of their gear if you run the raids on epic.

However, I don't think Turbine have their focus on Eberron quests anymore. Their focus seem to be to create a "new" DDO in Forgotten Realms. In the new expansion you can create new toons there (at level 16). I expect to see more quests there at lower levels so eventually you can start level 1 toons there. It seems the Forgotten Realms quests are more in line with what people want. That means special gear drop directly in chests if you're lucky. That means no crafting to be able to use them.

[~Effewe]

I think I have reached the point that I doubt Warner Brothers even knows about the inept leadership this game has.

Warner puts out some top notch stuff. A majority of their movies are excellent work, and based on that I feel that Warner takes pride in putting out quality money making stuff.

I really think if Warner knew about the irresponsible leadership in this game that is driving down the player base, and the revenue opportunities they would come in and clean house.

I honestly feel that the poor leadership of this game is probably unbeknownst to the corporate decision makers.

I can all but tell you firsthand that Warner absolutely does not care one way or another about what's happening with DDO as long as the expected revenue goals are being met.

If the game starts to fall short of those goals consistently, they'll stop content production and let the game float along until it's not worth keeping the servers on anymore.

[Ironclans_evil_twin]

Personally I like where the game has gone, and where it is, with notable exceptions (the cutesie junk and a few systems in the game that are still Alpha) I find it more fun than before. My main problem with DDO right now is the grouping system that makes it hard for me to play in PUG groups as much as I'd like to. Maybe because I took a year off when they Nerfed a freshly capped build, and I wasn't enjoying the game because I had started to focus on the grind to "farm gear"... Nothing is less fun for me than repeating the same thing over and over.

I don't think DDO's main problems are the myriad of reasons listed so far in this thread. People get bored of playing the same game, they need fresh things or to take time away and do other stuff. A lot of what I'm reading here really boils down to that. "gear is obsolete too quickly" or "there's not enough reason to play a quest if the gear isn't good" are the reasons a bored person comes up with.

I play quests because they are fun... I played the same Half Life, Counter Strike and TFC maps over and over for probably 10 years if I count Source, DoD and TF2. With absolutely no items to grind for and no "carrots"... just the fun of playing. DDO has that... but it's hidden under this illusion that many players seem to share; that they NEED X item, and more importantly, X item NEEDS to be the best in slot or there's no reason to play.

I enjoy DDO because while I am a powergamer and have been for 30 odd years, somewhere along the line, not even all that long ago I have fiugured out that the best way to keep enjoying the "hamster wheel" that all MMO's and long lived games are (like multiplayer FPS's previously mentioned); Is to do WHATS FUN, and refuse to do anything that isn't, or stop doing anything that becomes less and less fun until you complain on the games forums about "Having to".

If you "have to" because its "required" (I.e. I HAVE TO farm eSoS because it's REQUIRED for my build) then you've taken a step in a direction that is MOST LIKELY not actually much fun. You've intentionally decided to subject yourself to a MONSTER GRIND... So unless you find a Korean MMO sized grind to be FUN, you're making a mistake, even setting that as a firm goal.

I have a Rogue Assasin build that wants eMNG, yeah just like all of them... if I set that as a hard set goal I am opening myself up to a grind... instead, I jump into those LFM's on occasion with various characters and if I get the account bound pieces, great... if not I'll try again later... I wont start LFM after LFM and while I'll farm a few times, I am not going to go at it for weeks. Same with SoS, I join the very occasional VON, some day I might end up with all the pieces.. If not... well The Drow Greataxe + ICS is a lot of fun... like a Big boy version of Carnifex... So I wont lose sleep over not even having a SINGLE ingredient... not even the base sword.

Now granted there are those who just love to do the same thing over and over, sometimes they love that, sometimes they love the "refinement" of a time-attack playstyle, sometimes they just like to check out, forget everything and click away. Nothing wrong with any of those... Unless those stop being fun... at which point there's something wrong with those. If you "enjoy farming for gear" and collecting items, or grinding content over and over... great... if you enjoy it you aren't here complaining about having to do it right? If you ARE complaining about having to do it, you're not having fun Simple as that.

So stop doing that; or chose to do it in such a way that the un-fun is mitigated and interrupted by longer bouts of fun. If there's literally nothing in the game that compels you to play besides an item that isn't any fun to try and get, then stop playing that game, at least take a break.

As the Joke goes "Doctor it hurts when I do this. Then stop doing that"

TLDR: S'K Bro, just chillax and have fun.

EDIT: YEA! I didn't have to relog in to post this or edit it. HURRY FOR BASIC FUNCTIONALITY getting fixed a mere days later.

[Lifespawn]

What went wrong for me was them saying an enhancment pass was coming with MOTU then saying they had to push it back and back and back so they could do it "right".

And then they release a very "rough" outline of what they have spent more than a year on and it's broken and mostly garbage and doesn't take into account the things players asked for in the lets talk threads.

BOUND TO CHARACTER crafting ingredients challenge xp worthless after one run and they turn the blind eye and ignore the dozens of posts for more than a year.

Still not 3 pre's for every class

No plan on fixing amarath rings

Stupid gating wasting points in things you have zero need for to get to anythng useful

And the skill system revamp tying things to heal and repair instead of concentration total disconnect with how players and devs see the game we wanted them to be useful like say 5 spell power per 10 points or something not mandatory.

Then they migrate the forums and it's an utter mess can't log in wrong char name have to log in to post while logged in.

I've never taken more than a week or so break since alpha but i seriously have no desire to log in anymore going to take my first official break and check back in to see if it has spiraled into more of a cash grab than it already is.

[arcmed]

Lets see if this sum ups an otherwise long winded whine.

"The game took and shrunk my epeen and I am not liking the fact that some newb can come in and acquire gear in a little over a few months that puts them on par with myself and friends. Now it is harder for me to look down on the unwashed masses and proclaim my uberness!"

A game cannot survive catering to 2% of the gaming population. Making it easier for those new to the game to bridge the gap is a good thing for someone looking to make profit. And that is the whole reason for a company to be in business is PROFIT!

It is still difficult for that 98% to complete content easily at elite. I see it everyday that I pug with groups having trouble with content that myself and guildies can crush. Want to know what is fun? Taking a fresh character and joining a static group of strangers that games once or twice a week and does not twink out their characters save what is found during questing. It has been quite a bit of fun to do that the last few months and helps with the burnout I was feeling towards the game.

[~TuskCouncil]

What went wrong for me was them saying an enhancment pass was coming with MOTU then saying they had to push it back and back and back so they could do it "right".

And then they release a very "rough" outline of what they have spent more than a year on and it's broken and mostly garbage and doesn't take into account the things players asked for in the lets talk threads.

BOUND TO CHARACTER crafting ingredients challenge xp worthless after one run and they turn the blind eye and ignore the dozens of posts for more than a year.

Still not 3 pre's for every class

No plan on fixing amarath rings

Stupid gating wasting points in things you have zero need for to get to anythng useful

And the skill system revamp tying things to heal and repair instead of concentration total disconnect with how players and devs see the game we wanted them to be useful like say 5 spell power per 10 points or something not mandatory.

Then they migrate the forums and it's an utter mess can't log in wrong char name have to log in to post while logged in.

I've never taken more than a week or so break since alpha but i seriously have no desire to log in anymore going to take my first official break and check back in to see if it has spiraled into more of a cash grab than it already is.

QFT

The forum migration is the most bizarre thing to me of all. Half of us can't use our old names anymore, and what happened to all the content that's 404ed?

I mean, seriously, all that DDO information flushed down the toilet? Tragic.

[Postumus]

TLDR:



The last time I played more than 20 minutes of DDO was probably 3 months ago.
I do miss the old DDO, but its current incarnation leaves me flat, not caring to login. I peruse the forums occasionally to see what's new, or what people are happy/unhappy with.

OK.


Devs / Turbine, I hope you've considered what I had to say. Thanks for the years of fun, but something soured in DDO over the past 6 months. Let me know if you fix it, since I'd love to come back someday.



Should they send you a golden ticket in the mail or would a simple pm through the forum do? Seriously?

[Postumus]

What went wrong for me was them saying an enhancment pass was coming with MOTU then saying they had to push it back and back and back so they could do it "right".

And then they release a very "rough" outline of what they have spent more than a year on and it's broken and mostly garbage and doesn't take into account the things players asked for in the lets talk threads.



Actually some of the enhancement changes are what players requested in the 'lets talk' threads (from what I can recollect), but people tend to focus on what they don't like rather than what they do like.

Also, what most posters forget and ignore are that the forums aren't the sole source of player feedback to Turbine. We just don't have access to things like exit surveys and polls, conversations with devs, feedback at trade shows, or actual data about how many players run which quests, etc.

Finally, not everyone will be happy with any change. For every person who says DDO is too easy, there is easily one person who says it is too hard.

I don't envy any game designer chasing the Goldilock's zone for MMO players.

[fixmbr1]

Well I'm new to DDO - I played WoW for over 5 years, almost full time. After that I took a good long break from MMORPGs, and I'm glad I did.

You see, if you go to the WoW forums everyone complains about the same stuff as on these forums. In fact I'm willing to bet that if you go to ANY game community forum you see the exact same posts as this.

And do you know what it means? It means go and do something else! Yes, thats right - something else!

Go outside, visit friends and family, play console games - I don't know, whatever. When you find you're only logging in to check your AH mail, stand in SR and look at other people, spend hours min/maxing your toons stats (as I did at the end of my WoW days) - anything but actually playing the game as you used to - it's time to move on. It's not the games fault - its just that you've explored all the things you wanted to in the first place!

[forummuleonly]

<snip> its just that you've explored all the things you wanted to in the first place!


I want to explore tripping 50 mobs in a row without having to chase at least one of them.


I also kinda want to explore crafting to level 200(cannith). I wish to have done a year and a half ago when it was announced though.

I would also like to explore Sands and/or Necropolis without dc'ing 1+ times when trying to enter the slayer area.

If I take a break, I might miss it.

[Asirin]

I've played a long time and honestly I think DDO is still one of the best games out there.

I never get bored of playing.

I am always looking for the next good pick-up-group.

I accept most of the changes that are made as with everything,change is both good and bad.

Most of my charachters are not even in thier 4th life,however you wouldnt know if you've played with me

I power game but I mainly play pure class charachters simply because I believe the weakness in each pure class can be made up by other players in the group.

I don't need to have a mutt build and be completely self-healing and hitting for 4k damage with the Epic Club of the Silver Flame (why cant it be epic???) with every charachter,simply because thats not how the game is intended to be played.

So yeah I've seen waves of people leave this game over the years when each major change is made,and thats fine.

It'll be here when you get back,and you will be back hehe.

[~Bagtit_Ni_Sarlona]

snip

How many people can honestly say they only ran a quest one time...

snip



ME !!! Playing close to 2 years, several quests I have never done....I own MOTU and never ran a single quest in the xpac yet. DId my first TR a few weeks ago, only now on my second life have I had the need to run quests more than once, I do Hard first (for my streak) then elit for the favour....there simply is too much XP in the game for a first lifer, so you end up skipping most of the quests.

I play a few hours a week, there is still so much more content in the game for me to play that I have stuff to do for years.

The only thing I ever had to grind was my Heart of Wood doing challenges. and that only took a few hours.

I solo everything exclusively save VoD, the only raid I ever did...once, I am in a Large guild on Sarlona that is solo'er friendly (they never force me to do anything, they ask if I want to participate, but don't get offended if I don't). I only ever did 1 raid with my guild, and I was basically a spectator because I was clueless, it was more of a learning run for me and to take screen caps.

Like everything in life you should do things in moderation, too much of a good thing...is... well...isn't good !! You exhausted the content by speeding through it or grinding the Cr*p out of it...and you wonder why you're burnt out?

[HotMaarl]

Eat apples for 6 years then you will be posting about "What went wrong with apples?"

Another emo doom thread. Try something else. See you in a few months.

[sebastianosmith]

"What went wrong with DDO?"

Nothing, really. DDO, much like life, is what you make of it. You may either focus on the tiny minority that bugs the jebus out of you or learn to enjoy the overwhelming majority that does not. It's all in how you approach it. Many lives, many quests, many paths to choose; all in somebody else's playground. I found my enjoyment of the game growing once I absolved myself of the notion of control and simply played the game. Turbine may do as they wish, for as long as the servers remain up I can find a way to enjoy it. Having fun with their toys is my responsibility.

[Hathorian]

This game is awesome. Nothing else out there even comes close. Skyrim??? That is laughable. It is basically a FPS...no character customization or thought required.

I think an area that could be (needs to be, top priority) improved, however, is grouping and guilds. This is a MMO. I enjoy the game immensely when in a good group but it is so hard to find a good group as the game caters to soloers far too much. There is little incentive or reason to group for many. We need a fresh look and full review of dynamics (xp formula - scaling, death penalty, penalty for levels), grouping mechanism/boards/matchmaking and quests IMO to encourage people to, you know, play together. Why should a quest/challenge be dramatically easier on Elite for a group of 1? [Well..looks like only one hero this time fellow baddies lets reduce our CR to accomodate him!] There should be no scaling on elite IMO.

[Hathorian]

Lets see if this sum ups an otherwise long winded whine.

"The game took and shrunk my epeen and I am not liking the fact that some newb can come in and acquire gear in a little over a few months that puts them on par with myself and friends. Now it is harder for me to look down on the unwashed masses and proclaim my uberness!"

A game cannot survive catering to 2% of the gaming population. Making it easier for those new to the game to bridge the gap is a good thing for someone looking to make profit. And that is the whole reason for a company to be in business is PROFIT!

It is still difficult for that 98% to complete content easily at elite. I see it everyday that I pug with groups having trouble with content that myself and guildies can crush. Want to know what is fun? Taking a fresh character and joining a static group of strangers that games once or twice a week and does not twink out their characters save what is found during questing. It has been quite a bit of fun to do that the last few months and helps with the burnout I was feeling towards the game.

Awesome post!

[Candela90]

At the moment what annoys me most is that players outside USA or Canada are apparently unwanted and unwelcome to this game.

The proof is obvious: When registering you can only list your country of origin as USA or Canada.

Maybe registering from another country and having no choice but choose the "wrong" country will even mean a violation of forum rules and result in account termination, so it may be used as an excuse to ban any non US and Canadian players from the game?

I'd like an official statement about this.


This.
I feel really bad being outside of USA/Canada.
1) Registration - USA/Canada only
2) Competitions - I never get to participate in any... So no free stuff for creativity and helping in game development.
3) Prices :
Average American earns around 2000$. Average person in my country earns around 2000 of our valute.
Now 1$ = 3 our valute.
So we pay 3x more for everything in game.
The same with euro. Even more, cause 4 times more...


The other thing that keeps ME out of play sometimes is bugs followed with my bad luck to class choice:
1) I roll a monk - crafted wraps bug and then they add ppr and make ac irrelevant.
So ok... I TR
2) I roll wizzard - puff... Wail no working, insane dc increase in ee gh.
So I TR.
3) I roll damage/critic fvs built - and then 1 week after my TR critics on spells stop working, multiplayers also broken, also to add holy aura and heroic feats do almost nothing - even tho theyre supposed to prevent from being CCed by enchantements and poison.
So I TRed and currently rogue... Knowing my luck when Im lvl10 assassinate will be bugged and sneak will stop working. Or something like that.

I love the game but if u spend 2 months getting gear needed to your next life and thedn when u TR most important things in your class is getting broken - 3 times in a row - its not fun.
Also being outside USA clearly right now means - u have right to nothing :(.


I love the game, combat, graphic, community. I really do.
But feeling worse due to where you live is so not cool :/.

[Ellihor]

I pretty much agree with OP, id love a version of DDO that runs like u13 point. For me u12-13 was the peak of the game, and from u14 to here thing keep getting bad.

[Gempoult]

QFT

The forum migration is the most bizarre thing to me of all. Half of us can't use our old names anymore, and what happened to all the content that's 404ed?

I mean, seriously, all that DDO information flushed down the toilet? Tragic.

It is still there. Just change the /en/ in the address line to /forums/ ;)

[Luxgolg]

IMO

Total disconnect from the playerbase
Too many big changes too quickly


...was actually going to write a detailed post, but considering I haven't played in weeks, it does not deserve the effort.

Who wants my stuff? Oh wait...that was all changed to BTA and BTC...sorry

[Chai]

The time between significant content releases has stayed the same, but the time it takes players to achieve what they want out of each significant content release has dropped dramatically in the past year. So many people go on hiatus playing another game or doing stuff in RL until the next content release. They return, farm out all the stuff they want, then leave again. Rinse > repeat. With this new expansion not even having a raid, it will probably be even less time for players to get what they want out of the newest content.

[darksol23]

Incompetent Management - Ironically, I thank <insert your diety of choice> everyday Turbine's management team has they jobs they do... Can you just imagine if these people were in charge of teams developing software for something important like a nuclear reactor? All the features that will come "soon"... :shudder:

Zynga Store - It may have saved the game from closing, but in my opinion it killed it's will to live. The focus moved from developing quality game content to retain subscribers to developing things to sell in the store with just enough content to keep people coming back to the store. Obviously the former model wasn't profitable enough, and the world is going to have to move on...

Sadly, all MMO's are Zynga style now, I've tried most of the recent ones. GW2... Neverwinter... The business side has spoken, you don't need expensive re-playable quality game content to make a profit, all you need is to keep releasing new fuzzy bunny slippers and different hairdos in your store. Once again I find myself back here in DDO, having jumped the fence and found there is just as much dog poo on the other side.

[Ironclans_evil_twin]

What went wrong with DDO? Simple:

* They stretched out the level cap by 5 levels thining the player base (making the game feel less full)

* They added a bonus system that makes LFM level ranges default to a 3 level range (making the LFM panel have less highlighted groups for any specific character compared to the days when 4 level range was standard)

* They ruined the most content rich most replayable part of the game "old endgame" with a combination of changes and obsolescence (BtCoE, 21 level loot better than raid loot (Lolth Trinket) sellable 21 level loot that's better than raid loot) and failure to revamp old raid loot loot.

* They obsoleted most old Epic items with sellable loot and other changes (see above) making people wonder why they bothered, and why they should bother in the future...

* They replaced 12 or 13 regularly run "end game" raids and popular epics with 2 raids and a handful of flagging quests that are used for farming ED's

* They gave us nothing to do with the super powerful ED's except run the same 2 raids and farm other ED's farm twink gear from old quests or TR.

* They previewed a terrible looking enhancement pass that is full of changes no one wanted that is getting bad word of mouth in the game.
. 30+ Nerfs
. Somehow not fulfilling the expectations that they set up of having 3 completed PrE's for each class
. They turned 2/3rds finished tier II PrE's into tier 5's without finishing those
. They added 7 new ways to restrict choices, to the live enhancement systems 3 ways.
. They added a couple super overpowered combo's that will be nerfed soon, and while they're distracting some players with "oohh shiny broken OP" they are just more things that make the pass look bad to a discerning player, the nerf adverse player, or someone who doesn't measure his characters in 3 month "flavor of the month" life spans.
. They failed to deliver a lot of the "ooh that sounds awesome" that they were talking about making it kind of obvious that they were just white boarding. You know Under promise, over deliver guys?

* They announced a terrible epic TR mechanic that scared droves of players away

* They published a eGH full of sellable loot and raid loot that is in many cases less desirable and more niche than the flagging quest loot, so there's little need or desire to run FoT.

They announced an expansion with $39, $49 or $79 dollars of buy in that will stretch the level cap to 28 prematurely thinning the player base out EVEN MORE, with no raids, and at first no epics (scaring more away). so end game is going to be a handfull of quests. Hope they are balls out amazing quests because 9 quests with nothing else to do between level 25 and 28 is going to suck, in fact I predict many people actually withdraw and don't bother capping to 28... there's nothing there... it's like going down a dead end in a maze.

* They did all these things at the same time that they grunted out these terrible new forums and yet somehow STILL TERRIBLE AFTER MONTHS; leading even "apologists" to slam Turbine.

* They did this while at least 1 major and one indy MMO with buzz became playable (NWO and Path of Exile) the major one is far far more new player friendly (read easy and simple) so it is sucking up all the new players that might be trying DDO.

* They have left a criminally restrictive LFM system in place that is so inefficient and new player hostile that once the player base drops below "crititcal mass" the LFM window looks and feels empty and abandoned (12-13 total LFM's last night on Thelanis, for all level ranges over the course of the night) leading players to leave the game because it feels empty and abandoned.

* Related to the above last two: the regular players or new players who like DDO enough to stay who are still around are finding an increasingly empty LFM panel. Meaning if you're not in a big guild the game feels dead, so even Vets are leaving or contemplating other games even ones (such as myself) who are really enjoying DDO (when I'm not stuck solo'ing "IP" with an unfilled group, or waiting to see something pop up on the LFM panel, or waiting in someone elses LFM for at least a basic group of 3 or 4...)

So that about sum it up? :(

[sk3l3t0r]

What went wrong with DDO? Simple:

/snip

So that about sum it up? :(

Yes it does. I would say you captured a big part of what most people that have been with DDO a few years feel went wrong in the game.

However what I find is happening with the game is that like all things that are niche products are becoming mainstream and as such must comply with the mainstream demands. Most players joining nowadays would seem to want "easy buttons", most new players are more casual than the veterans, most newer players would seem to want to group less and solo content more (questing, not raiding)...

These are all specualtions of course, because the game design seems to be catering to players who are apparently demanding these things because that is the direction TUrbine has gone. or is percevied to have gone as a game producer.

If I may attempt to make a comparisson, let's say you are one of those hard core metal heads, and once upon a time Metalica was your fav band, they were underground and cool because nobody knew about them and nobody liked their music...then you wake up one day and hear a metalica song on the radio and you begin to hate the band and despise them because they deviated from being underground and you perceive them to have sold out and become bubble gum pop rock...and now the content they produce no longer appeals to you, you move on and you find the next cool band that nobody knows about and is still iunderground and nobody listens to, until it either dies a miserable death because the niche product could not support the client base, or it becomes mainstream and manages to push you away again, rinse and repeat.

What I find has happened here is not much different, DDO is feeling more like other MMOs with their cosmetic fluff and easy buttons and as such have become mainstream in design and content, people are finding that the uniqueness of the game is no longer there and that the new generation of players coming in do not share the same interests. The new players coming in are wanting and asking for the things being produced becuase they have become the majority.

Just a guess, but maybe has some merit?

[ZeebaNeighba]

First, that enhancement pass is not going how I like. Basically, devs pushed it back for over a year to work on it, and then they revealed their year of work in the alpha, and it looked pretty bad. Way too restrictive, a lot less new enhancements compared to what I expected (classes with 2 trees, no new racial trees). But not the end of the world, I thought, as they seemed to be perfectly willing to push it back more until they got it right, and they said they were purposely starting too restrictive so they could let back on the restrictions.

And so far, they have let back in just 4 ways. Allowing top row enhancements to be purchased with 30 points instead of 40 for class trees, 15 instead of 20 for race trees, removing points in tree restrictions for core abilities in race trees (please do this with class trees too- a lot of the old prestige abilities we might have to otherwise give up on due to these new restrictions are in the cor abilities we could get them much more easily this way, and it's so easy to give up on pure class if the capstone requires 40 points to get) and allowing 6 class trees instead of 3.

Which still is not enough for me. It's not enough for any build that was a different flavor from their prestige enhancement, for example, arcane archer <insert anything not ranger>, melee spellsingers, and if you're a caster relying on another class or race tree, you won't get much spell power since it's now almost exclusively in the form of "X spell power of Y type per point spent in caster tree". Your mileage may vary with jack-of-all-trades builds. On one hand, you can take several different PrE abilities, but on the other hand, you were already taking a variety of general (not pre related) enhancements that are now spread out into different trees, and now you need to reach high tiers in several trees to get them all back, which may not be possible due to points spent in tree restrictions.

Oh and epic levels are so pointless. You only need to be level 20 to unlock destinies and run epic content. So all you get are a pair (trio, in a short time) of feats, some HP, BAB and saves, and bonuses to various abilities that happen to work of character levels rather than class, like toughness. Other than that, it just adds xp penalties and spreads out the game, which imo outweighs the benefits of giving everyone commoner levels. It also doesn't really add to DDO's niche of complex character customization, as three of the epic levels are the exact same for everyone, and the other two vary by only a feat.

[bloodnose13]

i blame greensteel, it was one of those bigger things that made ddo into what it is now, greensteel was too powerfull, made game too easy, so game was made harder, and since then ddo just spiraled out of controll, every next update and quest packs add harder content, harder by raising hp and saves, and not by challenge, each new content adds new items that are more named overpowered items that make old items obsolete. and again due to those items game diffioulty is raised, there always will be more powerfull items to replace the ones we farmed our sanity to get, i expect that the new expansion will do the same thing with gianthold items, they will again become obsolete as there will be way better and easier to get items in it, same thing was with first expansion, it destroyed everyones will to get old items, when was the last time you seen anyone trying hard to get some item epiced from sands pack or other, at best its rare for anyone wanting anything from those old packs. since existance of named items is the main reason to run certain quests or packs, then when gianthold items will become weaker than the new ones, gianthold will again become empty. same as every area before it.

another thing that is destroying this game from lvl 1 up is breavery bonus, its literaly DESTROYING the game from inside, instead of playing game and enjoying quests, quest for most groups have only one value, its EXP per minute. nothing more, its rare to see anyone interested in NOT zerging the quest and for a change do optionals..... very rare, part of the problem is the TR and its increased exp needed to cap, tr became something that is required to keep afloat in the high level content in ddo.

there are also named items, i wish turbine just deleted all named items from game, upgraded crafting to the point where it would be usefull at all levels and made us use random items. becouse current state is that we have dragontouched armor problem all over again, just on much wider scale. at high levels its mostly named item hunt, dragon scale armors, demon web weapons.

[Charononus]

another thing that is destroying this game from lvl 1 up is breavery bonus, its literaly DESTROYING the game from inside, instead of playing game and enjoying quests, quest for most groups have only one value, its EXP per minute. nothing more, its rare to see anyone interested in NOT zerging the quest and for a change do optionals..... very rare, part of the problem is the TR and its increased exp needed to cap, tr became something that is required to keep afloat in the high level content in ddo.



People zerged and were doing xp/min runs far before bb. I stopped hitting optionals a few months into the game because of the poor xp/min on most makes them not worth doing.

[bloodnose13]

People zerged and were doing xp/min runs far before bb. I stopped hitting optionals a few months into the game because of the poor xp/min on most makes them not worth doing.

ofc they did, but it was not THAT common, literaly you have 99% of lfms in game state, zerg, byoh and all that nonsense, so what does that say about game? and i agree about the optionals that they are not worth to do but its not a general quest fault, the problem is in HOW the exp is calculated and the fact that groups want to FARM quests and not do them.

i seriously think it would be better if turbine made something diffrent with how exp is calculated, but if they did there would be great uproar, that its a nerf hitting all trs etc.

to make optionals worthwhile it would be a simple thing to turning around the way it is now

currently its like this quest gives 10k exp 5% extra exp for each optional, as example, and yes thats not worth the trouble, but if it was 5k exp, with +50% base exp on quest completion for each optional, same as with conquest, ransack and all other bonuses???? final quest exp would be actualy an effect of what players do in quest instead of just a reason of/for zerg farm.


oh and in previous post i forgot about the new addition to the game, destinies which by design turbine thought to force everyone to tr repeatedly but instead gave everyone reasons and means to mindlessl farming of exp to cap all of them to have enough fate points....................

[Charononus]

ofc they did, but it was not THAT common, literaly you have 99% of lfms in game state, zerg, byoh and all that nonsense, so what does that say about game? and i agree about the optionals that they are not worth to do but its not a general quest fault, the problem is in HOW the exp is calculated and the fact that groups want to FARM quests and not do them.



Yes they say byoh zerg ip now. Previously they said Know it, no -10% ip. Not seeing the big difference.

[Chai]

Yes they say byoh zerg ip now. Previously they said Know it, no -10% ip. Not seeing the big difference.

The difference is that instead of playing normal or hard, they come to the forums asking for elite to be made easier due to feeling entitled to earn elite BB but not feeling obligated to ramp up their quality of play enough to earn it.

[350zguy]

I'm not in either camp.

You do need to have some progression that takes time to acquire, however at the same time, if it's too easy to get, you've got it all, and you're done.

I think the old system was too much. I had 1 or 2 epic items from the yearly events, but nothing, not one other epic item. I was playing a pure mage, or a pure monk. Never a class that min-maxed UMD, and went for a flavor of the month build. ("The Juggernaught, The Clunk, I soloed X on my FVS with my Torc and Con-op!")

Basically, the game if you didn't min-max, and use the flavor builds ended at 20. Sure you could run the 2 or 3 epics that people were bypassing all the content to get the end chest. Sure you could grind your 242nd shroud raid to get the GS items that were more powerful than almost anything else in the game, and you could equip them at 12th.

I was bored. I wasn't going to complete 20 shrouds to get something. I wasn't going to complete 20 MORE ADQ on another character for the torc. It just wasn't worth it. I wasn't going to spend my 2 or 3 million plat to buy a scroll for an item I'd never see the shard for.

The cost to enter that part of the game was too high. I wasn't going to play it, or pay it.

U14, and now I can get some epics. Good gear, without possibly hundreds of completions. (However I've ransacked at least 2 chests twice.)

The game is disjointed... I think that is one of the main issues. The gear progression ramps up like 3rd life XP. You can get buy, not only get by, but do 100% fine with random drops all the way to 25. There is no reason to park at 20, and grind any of that gear. Just like their isn't any reason to run shroud, or ANY low level raid anymore.

Seems if they moved some XP to the lower end, you would be level 12 for a day longer, and that 1 extra day may encourage you to run that raid. Maybe that isn't the solution at all.

Maybe the solution is to scale up all the raids they have already built to level 28.

I've played 2 raids in this game... 2.

I beat both of them with 3 people. Unless they have gear, and relevance at level cap, they won't get played. People will go by them, or play them at level cap, just out of curiosity.

We're at a strange place with DDO. 3 "old" loot systems already in the past. Drop, then farm many parts, then farm only 3 parts, now farm nothing, but complete on a set difficulty.

It seems every level cap raise, and every new patch adds another varied system to acquire loot.

If all the loot was relevant at cap, and all of it could be acquired with the 5 ways loot is handed out. That would be very interesting indeed.

But, as you progress thru the levels, the method of gaining loot also progresses.

[barecm]

I think what went wrong with DDO was the original launch. It was rushed to market, was tiny in terms of quests and the size of the world and they lost a TON of players and interest. They have been playing catch up ever since. It is the reason why so many gamers don't know how awesomethe combat system is (as well as other aspects of the game). I have always suspected that DDO at launch had all the content through Mod 4 in the can (with the exceptions of enhancement and combat tweaks) and that was supposed to be the full launch. Oh well, we probably will never know the truth, but the original launch of this game was almost what killed it. Free to play obviously saved it, but now the greed factor has replaced the fun factor when it comes to what is being developed. If Turbine can't see a way to bang you a few more bucks, it doesn't make the release.

[erethizon]

While I tend to agree with the original post that getting gear was a waste of time because it was overshadowed by new epic gear, I tend to feel that this is always the case in all games and it is why it is almost never worth grinding for an item.

That is what DDO did right. It is so rare to find a game where you can spend a huge amount of time upgrading your actual character. Not his gear. The character himself. When you strip a character naked and destroy all his stuff, what is left is how you measure the true power of a character. TRing (and soon the new ED TRing) is all about improving your actual character in a permanent way. Is there room to complain about TRing? Sure. It may be too grindy. It may not give a big enough improvement per life (like the original poster was talking about). If those are problems then by all means fix them. But lets not worry about gear.

Gear is always a waste of time to grind because it will always be replaced. I refer to gear as temporary buffs. The buffs last until you find a new piece of better gear and throw out the old one. As soon as you do that all the time and effort you spent getting that old gear is officially wasted (unless you did something with the gear before replacing it that made the effort worthwhile). The more time put into helping us get more permanent character improvements (skill tomes, stat tomes, and TRing) the more long-term playability this game will have and the more DDO will be doing right.

[stratagem]

I understand exactly.

I'm a casual player. Been playing about 2yrs. and I do go on binges. Was a commited solo player for a year, then joined a guild and had a lot of fun in groups. That guild imploded as well. The grind for gear is mind numbing, not to mention repeating every quest a bizzillion times to a point you can do them with your eyes closed. Now with item augments and new gear, those grind times have become somewhat wasted. Sure there is new high level content, but when you cant find gruops, the grind for gear to make soloing digestable is absurd. All of that takes the fun out of DDO to a degree.

Eveningstar is a relatively large area. No doubt the Devs could provide an even larger area with instances similar to instance 1-2-3 in the marketplace. Why not create a large wilderness area based on "The Savage Frontier" or something WITH instaces, walk up quests and wandering enemies of various level,(eg. depending on a specific location within this wilderness area). This "Savage Frontier" would be a free for all, with NO "HEADS UP"/NO "ACCEPT DUAL" PVP, the exception being you can only attack those within 2 levels of yourself.(eg. 10th level toon could freely attack a toon between 8-12 level) and the only "bad thing" that would happen if you die is you release and have to repair your gear...big deal. I guess anything outside of money NOT locked down in your inventory could fall and be looted by the victor...be very carefull with your inventory.

This could be expanded to incorporate "guild wars".(guild kills provide trophies...guildpoints...a level 20 one hit kills a level 2 no trophy...a level 18 snuffs an 19th level guild enemy may get an impressive trophy) Guild "X'" chooses Guild "Y" as a guild enemy where ANY member of waring guilds could freely attack the members of the enemy guild regardles of level. You got a beef with some guy in another guild here's your chance to harass him/her :-),but it may backfire. Groupings/party's consisting of diferent members of guilds would essentially become mercenary companies, with the mean/average level of the party becoming "the group level" when determining what other groups/party's you can freely attack.(mean level 10 party may attack any other party in the 8-12 level range) Trophys could be awarded in a lot of cases.

The possibilities are endless.

Of couse shrine guarding would be inevitable, but it wouldn't really matter considering you can just recall anyways. How about "The Battle for the Miribar Shrine"?

[waryJerry]

What went wrong with DDO? Reading these forums you get the idea that the player base is filled up with resentful people who have a long list of grievances with Turbine but are unwilling to move on with their lives and find new games to gripe about. Jaysus and they complain the devs are unwilling to speak with them frankly. Now I'm realistic enough to think that these people aren't entirely representative and perfectly willing to admit many if not all of the complaints I read about here have a legitimate basis, but still... Maybe my sainted grandmother was right when she said you get the massively multiplayer role playing game you deserve.

[ForwardWu]

I am a casual player played since Beta, and usually takes me 3 to 6 months to finish each tr. I found the the problem of this game is it changed too fast in character system (feats, PrE, enhancement, etc) but it also changed too slow in the game content (new items, new quests).

As a casual player the recent change in epic items grinding speed is beneficial to me.

When every time there is a re-balance in character strength (e.g. from Caster dominated end game content to muscle dominated epic), the only quick and free way to rebuild your toon is to go through a TR, which usually takes 3-6 months of my play time. When I have my build in mind and level towards it, usually I can only enjoy the toon for 3 months before another revamp in character system. I really hate that Turbine keep on changing the character system instead making more valuable content for update. As a casual MMO player I will be happy to stick at a character concept or build which can persist for at least 2 years.

Right now I am again waiting for the new enhancement pass and taking a leave in DDO.....

And I think it will be good for each major character revamp there is some free way to rebuild a toon.

[Uidolon]

I think what went wrong with DDO was the original launch. It was rushed to market, was tiny in terms of quests and the size of the world and they lost a TON of players and interest. They have been playing catch up ever since. It is the reason why so many gamers don't know how awesomethe combat system is (as well as other aspects of the game). I have always suspected that DDO at launch had all the content through Mod 4 in the can (with the exceptions of enhancement and combat tweaks) and that was supposed to be the full launch. Oh well, we probably will never know the truth, but the original launch of this game was almost what killed it. Free to play obviously saved it, but now the greed factor has replaced the fun factor when it comes to what is being developed. If Turbine can't see a way to bang you a few more bucks, it doesn't make the release.

im with barecem, GUETs original post is well put but cant help feeling like its a point i hit several times looking back the years. the F2P model saved the game but its like a lich form its untasteful by its very nature even if its very effective.

lvl20; no epic gear; no ED; first life; new player?
-you cant grind ED becuse you just ruin the good exp quests
-grinding epic gear before you have a ED is painful (and many are stuck with a bad ED)
-getting too 25 is painful either you get people to carry you or you struggle with other badly equiped new players without ED.
see many people saying how much work are invalidated but those people had enough equip and game knowledge and friends not to get stuck at lvl20 which i feel are the weakest point of the ED design.
i mean they may not even be able to take a ED that are useful for lvl20 to 22-23 since its locked thats just evil (or greedy as im not counting the P2W unlocking)

[UniqueToo]

You know what grinds my gears?

1. Lack of any viable caster multicasting. Theres plenty of rulesets/feats/etc in the books, pick one ffs.
2. Creating another "expansion pack" when underdark, the previous "expansion pack" still feels unfinished.
3. Lack of any viable caster multicasting. (oh did I already say that?)
4. Ladder bug. (really???)
5. Lack of any viable caster multicasting. (deserves to be said at least 3 times as it's 1/3 of the classes in the game)
6. Lack of any viable caster multicasting. (last time I promise! - get the point yet?)

... and that is what grinds my gears.

Over to you Tom.

[Charononus]

You know what grinds my gears?

1. Lack of any viable caster multicasting. Theres plenty of rulesets/feats/etc in the books, pick one ffs.
2. Creating another "expansion pack" when underdark, the previous "expansion pack" still feels unfinished.
3. Lack of any viable caster multicasting. (oh did I already say that?)
4. Ladder bug. (really???)
5. Lack of any viable caster multicasting. (deserves to be said at least 3 times as it's 1/3 of the classes in the game)
6. Lack of any viable caster multicasting. (last time I promise! - get the point yet?)

... and that is what grinds my gears.

Over to you Tom.

Have you played the game long? I see plenty of 18/2 casters out there, in fact I see probably just as many of them as of pure casters.

[UniqueToo]

Have you played the game long? I see plenty of 18/2 casters out there, in fact I see probably just as many of them as of pure casters.

splashing is not multiclassing. its lame, offers little to no variation, and has been done to death as you pointed out.

[Charononus]

splashing is not multiclassing. its lame, offers little to no variation, and has been done to death as you pointed out.

Right.... ok then 18/2 are pure and not multiclassed. DDO is a case of max is needed and with how level 4 spells do less damage than level 8 or 9 you will never get the same dps from level 4 even if you bump the caster level up to 20. Get over it.

[FranOhmsford]

Right.... ok then 18/2 are pure and not multiclassed. DDO is a case of max is needed and with how level 4 spells do less damage than level 8 or 9 you will never get the same dps from level 4 even if you bump the caster level up to 20. Get over it.

13 Cleric / 7 Wizard could be pretty handy though:

DP
Blade Barrier
Heal
Raise Dead
Firewall/Acid Rain or Ice Storm

+ A Shed Load of Buffs!

[Charononus]

13 Cleric / 7 Wizard could be pretty handy though:

DP
Blade Barrier
Heal
Raise Dead
Firewall/Acid Rain or Ice Storm

+ A Shed Load of Buffs!

minus blade barrier that's pretty much where pure druid casters are, and their dps potential is very very low compared to a pure sorc/wiz/cleric/fvs. Low level aoe's like fw/ice storm just don't make up for it.

edit*

It works with pnp it doesn't work with the hp and save bloat that ddo has compared to pnp. It can't work in ddo without rewriting the entire game.

[FranOhmsford]

minus blade barrier that's pretty much where pure druid casters are, and their dps potential is very very low compared to a pure sorc/wiz/cleric/fvs. Low level aoe's like fw/ice storm just don't make up for it.

edit*

It works with pnp it doesn't work with the hp and save bloat that ddo has compared to pnp. It can't work in ddo without rewriting the entire game.

But wouldn't it be nice if the option was there to play said Build WITHOUT being completely gimped?

A Lvl 7 Wizard casting Firewall at Lvl 20 Mobs is laughable in DDO as things stand.
A Lvl 7 Wizard with Lvl 20 Caster Level however....Maybe a Pure Wizard would still be stronger - I'm not going to dispute that BUT.
Would the boost be enough to make that level split viable?

Would it indeed put a 13 Cleric / 7 Wizard on par with a 20 Druid? {Not as a Raid Healer obviously but as a Viable character in it's own right!}.

Because I for one would MUCH prefer to play the 13 Cleric/7 Wiz over said 20 Druid {Loathe Animal Forms in DDO}.



Hey - You're strongly on the side of Clerics NOT being pigeonholed as Healers - Well no-one's going to be expecting healing from a 13 Cleric / 7 Wizard right? {not saying he/she wouldn't be ABLE to Heal a Party in High Lvl Content - I managed well enough on a Gimped 16 Soul / 4 Fighter - Just saying expectations would be different!}.


How about 12 FavSoul / 8 Sorc?
12 Sorc / 8 Soul?
14/6 Sorc/Soul or Soul/Sorc?
12 Paladin {HotD} / 7 Radiant Cleric / 1 Ftr or Monk?
14 Radiant Cleric / 6 HotD Pally?

The Possibilities are endless!

[Charononus]

But wouldn't it be nice if the option was there to play said Build WITHOUT being completely gimped?

A Lvl 7 Wizard casting Firewall at Lvl 20 Mobs is laughable in DDO as things stand.
A Lvl 7 Wizard with Lvl 20 Caster Level however....Maybe a Pure Wizard would still be stronger - I'm not going to dispute that BUT.
Would the boost be enough to make that level split viable?

Would it indeed put a 13 Cleric / 7 Wizard on par with a 20 Druid? {Not as a Raid Healer obviously but as a Viable character in it's own right!}.

Because I for one would MUCH prefer to play the 13 Cleric/7 Wiz over said 20 Druid {Loathe Animal Forms in DDO}.


Well the form choice for a caster druid is ele form not animal but moving on

It wouldn't be as viable as a pure druid caster at that point still because most your spells would require dc's. You see you'd have to split you're stat points to cover dc's in two stats int and wis. Or use no save spells only in one of the spell books locking out most the spells from the other class. Yeah you could just spam shiradi magic missile/chain missiles but something tells me that's not what you are wanting. The base damage from druid spells is low just like what you'd be able to do with such a split if it was caster level 20 on the split but the druid can pump wisdom and make the dc's where you wouldn't be able to. So such a split would be at half damage or evade for damage on these spells. Like I said it's pnp material but not ddo material because it would require a rewrite of the entire game for it to be come viable not just pumping up caster levels.

[Charononus]

You know, I was just thinking about it a little bit and I remember a few lives ago I ran into someone doing a wiz cleric split while farming trial by fire. (This might have actually been before egh I'm a little fuzzy on how long ago it was but within the past year)

It went fine, he kept himself alive and provided some help with the quest with webs etc. His dps contribution was very low though even at that level on a hard farm. If you were to fast forward this to epic levels even with your wanted increase in caster levels I don't see it being much better especially if you put it to ee.

The problem of course is that in ddo dps is king, or more accurately dps is God.

[Chai]

You know what grinds my gears?

1. Lack of any viable caster multicasting. Theres plenty of rulesets/feats/etc in the books, pick one ffs.
2. Creating another "expansion pack" when underdark, the previous "expansion pack" still feels unfinished.
3. Lack of any viable caster multicasting. (oh did I already say that?)
4. Ladder bug. (really???)
5. Lack of any viable caster multicasting. (deserves to be said at least 3 times as it's 1/3 of the classes in the game)
6. Lack of any viable caster multicasting. (last time I promise! - get the point yet?)

... and that is what grinds my gears.

Over to you Tom.

Lack of viable caster deep multiclassing has in great part to do with the level of Monte Haul DDO is. Since all buffs can be had from consumibles, or gear, this encourages players to make more specialized casters.

Lets say DDO had no consumibles other than what you loot (so no limitless vendor supplies). You may loot heal/raise/GH etc scrolls here and there, but not enough where you can be wearing the buffs all the time. Melee/wizard hybrids become alot more popular, because when the only reliable way to get a buff is to cast it yourself or have someone else in the party cast it, hybrid characters become more prevalent.

I used to run a server in NWN where there were no limitless buyable consumables. One of the most popular builds was a spellsword build, because it could fight well, as well as buff itself up with things that people take for granted in an environment that has limitless buffs on vendors.

In a monte haul setting, "viable caster multiclasses" make less and less sense the more monte haul the setting is, because all of the advantage of buffing can be had off purchasable (and cheap) consumibles/clickies.

[Potatofasf]

Hello buddy,

I think like you! I'm way from game about six month, that because the game turn itself in a boring thing. First I moved from Argonnessen to Sarlona, played a four month spam... till the game getting boring again! I tested multiclassing, grind in areas that I played few time, helped another players... but the only escape was stop playing for some time, play another MMOs and judge them.

Now I'm thinking in a comeback...but, apparently, things aren't changed anyway... sad

Usbing (Druid/Monk 16/2 - 4TR's), Valenttina (Monk 20 - 3 TR's), Adnanref (Wiz/Rog 14/2 - 2TR's) former member of Old School DnD and Pacto da Caneca Furada (Argonnessen) now defending A Irmandade (Sarlona)

[Hathorian]

I understand exactly.

I'm a casual player. Been playing about 2yrs. and I do go on binges. Was a commited solo player for a year, then joined a guild and had a lot of fun in groups. That guild imploded as well. The grind for gear is mind numbing, not to mention repeating every quest a bizzillion times to a point you can do them with your eyes closed. Now with item augments and new gear, those grind times have become somewhat wasted. Sure there is new high level content, but when you cant find gruops, the grind for gear to make soloing digestable is absurd. All of that takes the fun out of DDO to a degree.

Eveningstar is a relatively large area. No doubt the Devs could provide an even larger area with instances similar to instance 1-2-3 in the marketplace. Why not create a large wilderness area based on "The Savage Frontier" or something WITH instaces, walk up quests and wandering enemies of various level,(eg. depending on a specific location within this wilderness area). This "Savage Frontier" would be a free for all, with NO "HEADS UP"/NO "ACCEPT DUAL" PVP, the exception being you can only attack those within 2 levels of yourself.(eg. 10th level toon could freely attack a toon between 8-12 level) and the only "bad thing" that would happen if you die is you release and have to repair your gear...big deal. I guess anything outside of money NOT locked down in your inventory could fall and be looted by the victor...be very carefull with your inventory.

This could be expanded to incorporate "guild wars".(guild kills provide trophies...guildpoints...a level 20 one hit kills a level 2 no trophy...a level 18 snuffs an 19th level guild enemy may get an impressive trophy) Guild "X'" chooses Guild "Y" as a guild enemy where ANY member of waring guilds could freely attack the members of the enemy guild regardles of level. You got a beef with some guy in another guild here's your chance to harass him/her :-),but it may backfire. Groupings/party's consisting of diferent members of guilds would essentially become mercenary companies, with the mean/average level of the party becoming "the group level" when determining what other groups/party's you can freely attack.(mean level 10 party may attack any other party in the 8-12 level range) Trophys could be awarded in a lot of cases.

The possibilities are endless.

Of couse shrine guarding would be inevitable, but it wouldn't really matter considering you can just recall anyways. How about "The Battle for the Miribar Shrine"?

I never pvp but i think it would pretty awesome to have a pvp wilderness area and allow guild wars. I also think regular pvp tournaments would be fun. The key would rewarding guilds and champions of the tourneys. I think status rewards (titles, etc) woukd be a big part of it, but you'd have to throw something else in as well.

[Timap]

I have played DDO nearly from its beginning. I used to regard it as one of the best-designed and most engrossing MMO. I remember the large variety of content, and the fact that each new update actually enriched the game without taking away from old content. I spent many hours farming up a Torc and the Firestorm greaves in the lvl 12 Demon Sands pack. When the higher level Ruins of Gianthold came out, it did not invalidate the previous content. Sure, there are now better loot (the Head of Good Fortune made me salivate with its Good Luck +2), but the previous loot was still useful. Each new update brought new exciting gear. I remember farming the Trace of Madness items in the lvl 15 Harbringer of Madness for the Will/Reflex save +10 even when the lvl 20 Devils of Shavarath was out. In fact, even in a world with lvl 20 loot, the lvl 4 Tangleroot Gorge pack was still highly desirable for the unique Deathward clickie visor.

Also, there was an appropriate task to fill any amount of spare time I have. If I had just 10 minutes free, I can make a quick run to see if I can snag that Ring of Spell Storing from the wilderness area in Demon Sands. With more time, I can try and farm up a Twisted Talisman from a quest in the Red Fens. Or if I had a couple of hours to kill, I can run a full raid for goodies, or do good old Shroud for Greensteel crafting. I felt that my toon was always getting better, always progressing.

And the quests were all interesting and challenging without being too difficult. Even though there is typically no new loot to be gained at Elite at that time, I frequently found myself tempted to try old quests at Elite, because the content felt actually fresh. Monster behavior actually changed at higher difficulties. Kobold Shamans stopped using Scorching rays and started throwing lightning bolts. Melee mobs started to trip you. There were more mobs. Traps became far deadlier. It was actually necessary to remember the location of traps and sidestep them. Rogues suddenly became essential. Clerics too. Elite content sometimes demanded good team play, with a variety of classes.

And then MoTU happened, and overnight, everything changed.

Loot was the most obvious change. The properties that random loot can possess was vastly expanded. Suddenly, random loot can now contain Good luck +2 (rendering Head of Good Fortune pointless), and Resistance +7 (rendering Trace of Madness save items pointless), and energy absorption 20% (rendering Firestorm Greaves nearly pointless). Now, all adventure packs, from a loot perspective, are completely redundant, except for MoTU packs. In fact, outside of the loot from the end-game raids CitW and FoT, all other desirable end-game items are now obtainable by trade Being a VIP to gain access to all adventure packs now seems rather pointless. In fact, it is possible now to equip your toon to the highest level simply by purchasing MoTU, and a boatload of Astral Shards, and just purchase everything you want from the Astral exchange. There is really no need to purchase any of the other adventure packs at all.

And MoTU broke the promise that all content will be always available to VIPs who pay a monthly subscription. Suddenly, even VIPs needed to pay for MoTU. This makes staying a VIP even less compelling.

And with the Epic Destinies of MoTU, loot itself seems nearly besides the point. EDs are now so overpowering that gaining a new ED or Twist of Fate slot will be far more beneficial to my toon than gaining any loot item. Even the Completionist feat, previously regarded as the pinnacle of achievement in DDO, seems lackluster compared to ED abilities. TRing now feels much less compelling. Why bother staying VIP for the extra 10% bonus to XP and access to all adventure packs if you're not going to TR anyway? And without TRing, why bother to do Cannith crafting?

With the overpowering EDs, end-game content, of course, must be similarly ramped up. Does the new Epic Elite content feature new monster behavior, and require careful coordination with a diversity of classes to complete? No. EE content requires 2 things, survivability (high saves and high HP), and DPS, largely achieved by the correct choice of EDs, with perhaps a smattering of items, mainly Ghostly or Dodge items to avoid damage. In EE, monsters are made more difficult not by giving them new abilities, but by vastly increasing their DCs and damage output. Keyboard skills are now extremely important, because when every mob does 100-300 dmg per swing, it is vital to avoid their blows. Several common builds are now completely non-viable in EE. The DC-based non-shiradi CC wizard is now a lost cause, and having a rogue or a cleric in your EE party is likely to result in quest failure. The elite players, of course, know this. They know what is the "correct" ED your class should have to stand a chance at EE. They know that if even one out of six of their party is slightly gimped, they will likely fail. Elitist LFMs (BYOH, >600 HP)are now common for EE groups. If you display poor keyboard skills, you are likely tagged as a poor player, and will be avoided like the plaque by elite guilds/players.

Of course, the bright side is, there is no reason to run EEs at all, since I can buy all EE loot anyway. So why put up with elitist group leaders and snobby, albeit justified, behavior? Even when I am the leader of an EE PUG, I often find members strenuously arguing with me on the correct way to lead an EE party. So I no longer run EE content, because it is so overwhelmingly difficult, and even when I do succeed in soloing EE content, I don't have that sense of satisfaction I get from figuring out the quest like I used to with the old Heroic Elite content. I feel like an idiot who has overcome an artificial one-dimensional challenge set up by other idiots. If EE is too difficult and one-dimensional, why not try EN/EH? Good idea, except that after the first 2 times, they become crushingly boring, since the new EDs simply blow the monsters out of the water.

So really, I find myself with nothing to do in DDO. Crafting is now passe. Use ED to provide DPS, and a few Ghostly/Dodge/Displacement items for survivability, and you can complete nearly all quests below EE. EE is unpalatable for me. I feel like a hamster on a wheel when I do EE. I no longer get the sense of progressing my character that I used to. Sure, I can ignore MoTU completely, and play DDO like I used to before. I can still enjoy the old content the old way. But somehow, the smaller number of players at lvls 1-20 (because LFMs are now spread over a large lvl range and players are no longer TRing) and the knowledge that my toon is completely outclassed by other people, have made that much less fun for me. So I find myself taking longer and longer breaks from the game.

I am aware that in order to survive, Turbine has to make money, and that comes from making the game accessible to a larger range of players, even to casual players. I don't mind making loot and +4 tomes available to players willing to pay. But I wish Turbine could have done this while maintaining the diversity that used to characterize DDO. Perhaps with a bit more time and planning, Turbine could have come up with end-game content that actually uses all classes and playstyles, and Epic difficulties that scale more linearly, and loot that is compatible with and does not invalidate all previous loot that came before. You have managed to do the above for so many updates before MoTU. I hold out hope that one day, the damage that has been done can be undone.

[NaturalHazard]

Well the form choice for a caster druid is ele form not animal but moving on

It wouldn't be as viable as a pure druid caster at that point still because most your spells would require dc's. You see you'd have to split you're stat points to cover dc's in two stats int and wis. Or use no save spells only in one of the spell books locking out most the spells from the other class. Yeah you could just spam shiradi magic missile/chain missiles but something tells me that's not what you are wanting.

Will a caster type bard ever be viable? :D.

[Charononus]

Will a caster type bard ever be viable? :D.

http://manticult.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/holy-order-outlook-not-good.jpg

[UniqueToo]

You would think, with extra variation in builds there would be a lot of extra profit in keeping older players by giving them a bunch of new things to try.

[Maelodic]

I was going to come back for the enhancement pass on the 19th because from what I've read, the Henshin Mystic would be my ideal character. I was checking the forums to ask if the ki stuff this PrE casts is metamagic'able, but then I stumbled here.

I see threads like this all the time, or at least I used to.

You know, I think the real problem is that Turbine is really, really understaffed, so they keep releasing things that are saying "We're still here, here's an update to keep you busy while it takes us such a long time to fix or release anything"
Every other game is constantly updating and releasing new things, and they're puffing along trying to just release ANYTHING, because they don't have the staff to regularly pump out updates.
I remember when the servers were down for days. It's not the first time it's happened. Servers don't go down for that long unless something happened to the data center itself, or they don't have the man-power to get it done, and with management screaming down their throats as well it makes it really difficult.

While I don't think they're making the best decisions, I also believe that their higher ups really don't care about this little niche project in the slightest, so they're kind of just stumbling around in the dark trying new things and using us as the focus group.

On that related note:
Is it worth it to come back? I still have ~3k TP and I miss the gameplay.