Update 21 - Third Look

[KookieKobold]

We've just updated and opened Lamannia up for the third round of the cycle!

In this update, we'll have the Haunted Halls open as well as the two new raids!


In addition to this, we'll be having a handful of Dev events at the following days and times:

Friday, Feb 7th from 7pm to 8pm
Friday, Feb 7th from 10pm to 11pm
Saturday, Feb 8th from 10am to 11am
Saturday, Feb 8th from 1pm to 2pm


Release notes and surveys will be posted shortly by Squeak.

Also, we're having a contest this weekend for Lamannia! Check out the following thread for information:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/435914-Lamannia-Giveaway-this-weekend!

[irnimnode]

getting an internal error cant get it to launch

[whereispowderedsilve]

We've just updated and opened Lamannia up for the third round of the cycle!

In this update, we'll have the Haunted Halls open as well as the two new raids!


In addition to this, we'll be having a handful of Dev events at the following days and times:

Friday, Feb 7th from 7pm to 8pm
Friday, Feb 7th from 10pm to 11pm
Saturday, Feb 8th from 10am to 11am
Saturday, Feb 8th from 1pm to 2pm


Release notes and surveys will be posted shortly by Squeak.

Kookie is the new content still only open to VIPs? What about Premiums?

Keep up the great work! Cheers! :P! :)! :D!

[DemonStorm333]

getting an internal error cant get it to launch

same thing happening to me

[KookieKobold]

Checking into the error! I'll update when we figure it out.


Also there will be guest passes available from the DDO store on Lamannia.

[DemonStorm333]

says internal error. please contact customer support

[Vanhooger]

what about charachter copy?

[Teh_Troll]

Can somebody go solo these on a Monkcher and let us know what we're in for?

[DemonStorm333]

what about charachter copy?

I too wish to know about this

[SqueakofDoom]

Release Notes ('https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/376774-Lamannia-Release-Notes-%28Last-Updated-2-7-2014%29?p=4503430#post4503430') and Known Issues ('https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/376772-Lamannia-Known-Issues-%28Last-Updated-2-7-2014%29?p=4503425#post4503425') have been updated.

We would also appreciate it if you would take a moment to fill out some Surveys ('https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/414630-Surveys!') after checking out Lamannia.

[KookieKobold]

*nukes instructional post* Boom!

We have figured out the problem and are working towards a solution.

We're bringing Lamannia back down while we get it fixed up!


I'll post again when we are ready to bring it back online.

[SirValentine]

In addition to this, we'll be having a handful of Dev events at the following days and times:

Friday, Feb 7th from 7pm to 8pm
Friday, Feb 7th from 10pm to 11pm
Saturday, Feb 8th from 10am to 11am
Saturday, Feb 8th from 1pm to 2pm


May I ask what's the intent for these dev events? Is there any specific activity or discussion planned?

I arrived late to one of the ones last week, and I couldn't tell that there was anything going on other than people begging for loot handouts.

[Cleanincubus]

May I ask what's the intent for these dev events? Is there any specific activity or discussion planned?

I arrived late to one of the ones last week, and I couldn't tell that there was anything going on other than people begging for loot handouts.

There's usually a discussion with the Devs on one of the chat channels. It's been so long since I participated when the Devs were there, that I can't recall the exact channel off the top of my head. If someone doesn't post it here, try asking in the game when the Devs are around.

[KookieKobold]

The basic plan for these events would be to gather groups of folks and get us into the raids! Steelstar, Squeak, and myself will be online and joining (or creating) parties.

[whereispowderedsilve]

May I ask what's the intent for these dev events? Is there any specific activity or discussion planned?

I arrived late to one of the ones last week, and I couldn't tell that there was anything going on other than people begging for loot handouts.

Ya primarily loot hand outs. Shrugs. Some open transparent back & forth communication would be lovely eh? I can still dream right?

[DemonStorm333]

There's usually a discussion with the Devs on one of the chat channels. It's been so long since I participated when the Devs were there, that I can't recall the exact channel off the top of my head. If someone doesn't post it here, try asking in the game when the Devs are around.

/joinchannel devchat

[Teh_Troll]

The basic plan for these events would be to gather groups of folks and get us into the raids! Steelstar, Squeak, and myself will be online and joining (or creating) parties.

Will you hjeal meh?

[xTethx]

Can somebody go solo these on a Monkcher and let us know what we're in for?

How about a caster? j/k

[nolifer1]

what about charachter copy?

I too wish to know about this
+1

[BOgre]

1. Character Copy - Fix it
2. Calendar - Use it

[KookieKobold]

Hey folks!

We've put a fix in place and have re-opened Lamannia!

Feel free to update and log in now.


As for the character copy, it's still not working and will continue to be that way for the foreseeable future. If this changes, i'll be certain to update the thread for character copies.

[nolifer1]

now getting different error " could not patch fail "turbine launcher.exe error 32 the process cannot access the fail it is being used by another process"

[Vordax]

Hey folks!
As for the character copy, it's still not working and will continue to be that way for the foreseeable future. If this changes, i'll be certain to update the thread for character copies.

I guess count me out for the foreseeable future for testing then.

[stoopid_cowboy]

1. Character Copy - Fix it


This! ^^

I cannot understand why Character Copy is not on the top of the priority list!!!
After all, how do you expect the new content to be tested without viable characters???

Or, does Turbine want the content run with less than optimal characters?

[xTethx]

Initial impression on twin dragons raid: holy **** ee is gonna be rough

[Shorlong]

Initial impression on twin dragons raid: holy **** ee is gonna be rough

I am happy to hear this XD

[Shorlong]

This! ^^

I cannot understand why Character Copy is not on the top of the priority list!!!
After all, how do you expect the new content to be tested without viable characters???

Or, does Turbine want the content run with less than optimal characters?

I still don't understand this mindset. I am assuming you feel that anything below a multi-past life toon with all the uberest of uber gear is the only thing viable? Because I made several viable toons over the past few weeks on Lam and have no issues in any of the quests.

[Oxarhamar]

I still don't understand this mindset. I am assuming you feel that anything below a multi-past life toon with all the uberest of uber gear is the only thing viable? Because I made several viable toons over the past few weeks on Lam and have no issues in any of the quests.

I don't understand how you don't understand

Players want to test the new content with their existing Charicters from live to see how it feels to play on a Charicter they likely play every day. Not some roll up in the Dojo toon.

[Vordax]

I still don't understand this mindset. I am assuming you feel that anything below a multi-past life toon with all the uberest of uber gear is the only thing viable? Because I made several viable toons over the past few weeks on Lam and have no issues in any of the quests.

I don't understand how you don't understand also.

I like running a PM. An effective PM requires decent gear and past lives. Plus I have zero desire to spend a couple hours gearing/leveling up a PM on lama to have it wiped for the next update.

[Shorlong]

I don't understand how you don't understand also.

I like running a PM. An effective PM requires decent gear and past lives. Plus I have zero desire to spend a couple hours gearing/leveling up a PM on lama to have it wiped for the next update.

I also love PM. I made a PM on Lam. Took a little longer than the druid I made. I got on when there were devs online, got some items they dropped. I bought the rest out of the AH and only picked up a couple items from the dojo. I was able to FoD and Wail the non-skellie bad guys in Thunderholme with ease, as well as the mobs in Haunted Halls. Took me about an hour, give or take a few minutes. He was perfectly viable.

[Krelar]

I also love PM. I made a PM on Lam. Took a little longer than the druid I made. I got on when there were devs online, got some items they dropped. I bought the rest out of the AH and only picked up a couple items from the dojo. I was able to FoD and Wail the non-skellie bad guys in Thunderholme with ease, as well as the mobs in Haunted Halls. Took me about an hour, give or take a few minutes. He was perfectly viable.

And does this mean the new content is too easy, too hard, or just right? Without using a character you are familiar with it can be very difficult to accurately judge if the difficulty is where it should be. Some builds are also much more dependent on gear than others, the AH and dojo may not cut it for recreating those.

[Teh_Troll]

It's not worth my time to recreate characters. If you want us to test stuff make it as painless as possible.

[whereispowderedsilve]

It's not worth my time to recreate characters. If you want us to test stuff make it as painless as possible.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/435914-Lamannia-Giveaway-this-weekend!

O_O! You already have +5 tomes for ALL of your mains & alts though right? :P! :D! :)! Lolz!

[Teh_Troll]

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/435914-Lamannia-Giveaway-this-weekend!

O_O! You already have +5 tomes for ALL of your mains & alts though right? :P! :D! :)! Lolz!

On that stats that matter, yes.

[Gratch]

I don't understand how you don't understand

Players want to test the new content with their existing Charicters from live to see how it feels to play on a Charicter they likely play every day. Not some roll up in the Dojo toon.

I'd guess character copy comes under some non-game specific Turbine tools group and said group is grinding on getting the Infinite Crisis tools suites working. New game wins all the resources.

[Oxarhamar]

And does this mean the new content is too easy, too hard, or just right? Without using a character you are familiar with it can be very difficult to accurately judge if the difficulty is where it should be. Some builds are also much more dependent on gear than others, the AH and dojo may not cut it for recreating those.

yeah not sure how to measure this since the player so adamantly advocates for those players who never TR in other threads.

A test dojo toon built in one hour is likely equal or better than whatever they have on live.

[Seikojin]

Now that you guys are offline, how do we gain access to the new content and raids?

[Vordax]

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/435914-Lamannia-Giveaway-this-weekend!

O_O! You already have +5 tomes for ALL of your mains & alts though right? :P! :D! :)! Lolz!

Yes I do, my main is a PM has +5 tome in str/con/int/cha. +4 in the others (which don't matter anyways).

I do not play anything but my main anymore due to changes in the game that discourage playing additional characters.

[whereispowderedsilve]

Yes I do, my main is a PM has +5 tome in str/con/int/cha. +4 in the others (which don't matter anyways).

I do not play anything but my main anymore due to changes in the game that discourage playing additional characters.

I was just poking fun. Different strokes for different folks. I'm NOT defending Turbine. Cheers! :P! :)! :D!

[Munkenmo]

Hey folks!

As for the character copy, it's still not working and will continue to be that way for the foreseeable future. If this changes, i'll be certain to update the thread for character copies.

My willingness to test content is not working, and will continue to be this way for the foreseeable future. If this changes, I'm certain you'll know when and why.

[Kers]

The chest for this guy spawns in the air.

http://i61.tinypic.com/10o0eft.jpg

[Shorlong]

yeah not sure how to measure this since the player so adamantly advocates for those players who never TR in other threads.

A test dojo toon built in one hour is likely equal or better than whatever they have on live.

Actually, no. Since I became disabled, I have had a LOT more time to spend in the game, and have TR'ed a few characters a few times. The toon I created in an hour isn't quite up to where my toons on live are, however, that did not stop me from playing and having fun, nor did it affect what I feel about the content. I haven't played the Haunted Halls since the initial weekend, but I will say that with a first life PM with decent but not top-tier gear did fine. Some areas seemed to be balanced just right on all three difficulties in consideration of the character I was playing. Some areas were EXTREMELY difficult, which was either attributed to the fact that they had not finished the balancing of mobs, OR it was indicative of the fact that a first lifer with halfway decent gear is going to have a tough time.

I can play through the content and make the observation that the content is either balanced or difficult and remember that I am playing on a toon that isn't quite like the one I have.

And yes, I do advocate for players who never TR. I have a reason for that. I see threads and posts where people talk about TR'ing as if it's something every single person does all the time, when it isn't. It's just one of many playstyles. However, there are many times, in game and on the forums, where people are bullied and made fun of because they don't TR. And when you see the attitudes presented here, how only toons with multiple past lives are considered viable, well, that kinda speaks volumes in and of itself.

[Oxarhamar]

Actually, no. Since I became disabled, I have had a LOT more time to spend in the game, and have TR'ed a few characters a few times. The toon I created in an hour isn't quite up to where my toons on live are, however, that did not stop me from playing and having fun, nor did it affect what I feel about the content. I haven't played the Haunted Halls since the initial weekend, but I will say that with a first life PM with decent but not top-tier gear did fine. Some areas seemed to be balanced just right on all three difficulties in consideration of the character I was playing. Some areas were EXTREMELY difficult, which was either attributed to the fact that they had not finished the balancing of mobs, OR it was indicative of the fact that a first lifer with halfway decent gear is going to have a tough time.

I can play through the content and make the observation that the content is either balanced or difficult and remember that I am playing on a toon that isn't quite like the one I have.

And yes, I do advocate for players who never TR. I have a reason for that. I see threads and posts where people talk about TR'ing as if it's something every single person does all the time, when it isn't. It's just one of many playstyles. However, there are many times, in game and on the forums, where people are bullied and made fun of because they don't TR. And when you see the attitudes presented here, how only toons with multiple past lives are considered viable, well, that kinda speaks volumes in and of itself.

Do what you want play however you like! if your satisfied your DOJO bunny is a suitable test toon then god job.

The rest of the player base want to actually test the new content with characters from the live server with the character copy tool as we should be able to do on Lamania.

I wouldn't consider a first life toon a viable option for me EVER again but, I don't have any of those or want any and that is for ME!

I never said first life toons could not be a viable option for some players as you suggest but, playing on one on Lamania is not a litmus test for those of us who don't play them on live.

[Flavilandile]

As for the character copy, it's still not working and will continue to be that way for the foreseeable future. If this changes, i'll be certain to update the thread for character copies.

Then sadly, there is no point for updating Lammania Client and spending time there.

Playing a character straight from the Dojo is not the same thing as playing a character that you have leveled the long way and equipped with items selected carefully.
That's especially true when the things to test are quests and raids.

[Blackheartox]

Pls fix character copy, and tnx

[jakeelala]

Then sadly, there is no point for updating Lammania Client and spending time there.

Playing a character straight from the Dojo is not the same thing as playing a character that you have leveled the long way and equipped with items selected carefully.
That's especially true when the things to test are quests and raids.
Give me a break.

Roll up a BF shiradi 16wiz/2fvs/pally and use free Xperia for whatever destinies you need.

You do not need your completionist +5 tome eating character to test a dumb EH or EN raid just to see what's broken. Everyone making a big deal about this is being patently ridiculous. If you spent half the time rolling a dojo toon that you all do posting about character copy you'd all have toons to test with.

[Munkenmo]

Give me a break.

Roll up a BF shiradi 16wiz/2fvs/pally and use free Xperia for whatever destinies you need.

You do not need your completionist +5 tome eating character to test a dumb EH or EN raid just to see what's broken. Everyone making a big deal about this is being patently ridiculous. If you spent half the time rolling a dojo toon that you all do posting about character copy you'd all have toons to test with.

I totally agree with you on EN / EH

The devs aren't done with stat allocations yet though. I do need my completionist with +5 tomes to give proper feedback for EE. I also don't really want to roll up a shiradi, I primarily play melee's and provide far better feedback from a melee perspective.

[Flavilandile]

You do not need your completionist +5 tome eating character to test a dumb EH or EN raid just to see what's broken.

Too bad MyDDO is dead, that would have been fun to show how wrong the statement is.

I have 1 ( one ) single TR ( TRed from Cleric to Druid when Druid came out ). All the rest are First Life Characters.

Point of the matter : I can't recreate my live clerics since the system force me to chose deity stuff as Class Feats, when I could select things like Empower Heal, Extend, Quicken.

Another point of the matter : any character I recreate won't have the items I have on live since some of them have been replaced by 'upgraded' versions through the Augment Pass, some of them are
crafted from Greensteel ( where do I get the shards ? ), some are Alchemical ( where do I get it ? ), and some of them is just plain random lootgen that is better than any recent named items.

We are asked to give feedback, and specifically we are asked how difficult we find the raids. To give a valuable feedback on that we need to have a scale, and that scale is how our live character works.
If we can't use our live characters the result will be biased, since it will not be based on a value we know, but based on a value that is at best a guesstimate at worst a WAG on how the newly Dojoed Toon should work.
( and I'm not talking of the time wasted creating and outfitting Dojoed Toons. I have better things to do than waste my two hours play time for the day doing that )

[Matuse]

NEW: Purple Dragon Knights, both male and female, are no longer secretly petite and shouldn't fall through holes in the world that other races don't.

Has Turbine given any thought to letting us use actual human models for PDKs instead of steroid-induced half-orc wannabes?

[BDog77]

Awesome that we fixed the Paladin healing amp from Vigor Of Life (would quit working after dying). Now, is there any way we can fix the Paladin KOTC Capstone Champion of Good (does not add the attribute Good to equipped weapons)?

[BOgre]

Give me a break.

Roll up a BF shiradi 16wiz/2fvs/pally and use free Xperia for whatever destinies you need.

You do not need your completionist +5 tome eating character to test a dumb EH or EN raid just to see what's broken. Everyone making a big deal about this is being patently ridiculous. If you spent half the time rolling a dojo toon that you all do posting about character copy you'd all have toons to test with.

Incorrect. There are a volume of bugs that made it to live because they simply weren't seen by some builds, encountered by some gear, pitted against some enhancement. If, for example, the new Puppeteer breaks my Cove ellie summon, Turbine will never know because ellie gems aren't on the dojo floor. If ANY new mechanic, effect, weapon, mob, etc. have ANY strange interactions with ANY of my existing characters' setups, Turbine will never know (until those bugs go live), because my exitsting characters will never get the chance to test it out.

Testing new content using existing characters is superior in every way to testing with lamm-gen characters.

So.... give ME a break and stop defending Turbine's poor decision. Whatever Suit decided that the character copy fix was not a priority is WRONG and should reverse his decision, and assign a dev to make this happen. I'd bet there's at least ONE dev that agrees with this and would happily take on the assignment.

[dejafu]

Has Turbine given any thought to letting us use actual human models for PDKs instead of steroid-induced half-orc wannabes?

Oh god yes please.

I know that putting time into new graphics coding for existing races probably isn't going to happen, but this can be solved in a very easy fashion: Include a "body" option in the appearance part of character creation. "1" will set it to the current PDK set of options, "2" will set it to normal humans instead.

Do the same thing with half-elf faces (just slap some curved ears on human faces for "2" and call it good) and I will name my first born in that dev's honor.

Seriously - I refuse to play PDKs because their appearance downright disturbs me to look at. Even though they're superior to normal humans in terms of game mechanics, I will always pick normal human over PDK until something is done about the appearance.

[LrdSlvrhnd]

Give me a break.

Roll up a BF shiradi 16wiz/2fvs/pally and use free Xperia for whatever destinies you need.

You do not need your completionist +5 tome eating character to test a dumb EH or EN raid just to see what's broken. Everyone making a big deal about this is being patently ridiculous. If you spent half the time rolling a dojo toon that you all do posting about character copy you'd all have toons to test with.

Except, I don't have a BF Shiradi 16 Wiz/2FvS/Pally on live. Or anything even remotely close. Why the frack would I want to test content on one?

I would like to test content on the characters I currently have and play. I don't want to spend hours trying to recreate said characters, only to not be able to because certain gear isn't available. I don't want to spend hours trying to recreate said characters even if I'm able to because all gear is available.

I have *no interenst* in testing content on characters I don't play. I have *no interest* in trying to recreate the characters I do play. When I get on DDO, I want to play. Not recreate characters.

When Character Copy is working again? Then I'll be interested.

[afroblue]

I expected some changes about intolerant blows. As it is in update 21, it will be completaly useless, no tank will be able to retain aggro with juat 200% threat generation, since every archer or caster will do enough damage to steal aggro.

This change is not at all an improvement, it makes intolerant blows too weak to be useful, and that risks to make tanks less effective, and in the end useless.

Every tank I talked with agreed on this, but there are already so few of them, since the demi-god classes (archers and shiradi casters) already made tanking almost useless. Please leave intolerant blows as it is now, don't destroy the tank role.

[Flavilandile]

Whatever Suit decided that the character copy fix was not a priority is WRONG and should reverse his decision, and assign a dev to make this happen. I'd bet there's at least ONE dev that agrees with this and would happily take on the assignment.

I've started to suspect that the Lammania Character Copy Scripts were tightly tied to the API server that crashed during the power outage and is not going to be recovered in the foreseeable future.

Now if we raise enough ruckus ( and I suspect from the +5 Tome offer that it is the case, they are trying to attract more people there since the usual suspects don't want to go there because of the character copy being broken ) they might start doing something about it.

It's not as if replicating data from one database to another ( or in the same database but with different pointers ) was something hard for a DBA.
Especially if you don't do any consistency check.

[BOgre]

I've started to suspect that the Lammania Character Copy Scripts were tightly tied to the API server that crashed during the power outage and is not going to be recovered in the foreseeable future.

Now if we raise enough ruckus ( and I suspect from the +5 Tome offer that it is the case, they are trying to attract more people there since the usual suspects don't want to go there because of the character copy being broken ) they might start doing something about it.

It's not as if replicating data from one database to another ( or in the same database but with different pointers ) was something hard for a DBA.
Especially if you don't do any consistency check.

While this may be exactly right, Character Transfers do still work, despite the API server being down. So duplicating the Lamma copy tool should be possible despite the API server's current status. Backshelving issues has never been a good idea and has led to the intimidatingly long list of bugs and known issues we have now. Better to deal with these issues as they arise to keep ahead of the curve, no?

[Lencrennis]

Quote Originally Posted by devilmouse View Post
You should be able to get a peek at it when Risia patches this week.

Considering that 90% of DDO players have had their Risia accounts wiped clean so they'd be starting fresh from untwinked level 1s, I think it is spectacularly unlikely anyone will get into the module 5 raid this week.

Maybe after the server merges are over other characters will be copied onto Risia. But until that happens, there'll be no real previewing of module 5 beyond maybe talking to the questgivers and then getting spanked by the first 2 mobs inside the door.

This quoted from a thread in 2007. Risia is the old Llamaland. Seven years of character copy troubles. Don't hold your breath and use that dojo. :)

[Flavilandile]

While this may be exactly right, Character Transfers do still work, despite the API server being down. So duplicating the Lamma copy tool should be possible despite the API server's current status. Backshelving issues has never been a good idea and has led to the intimidatingly long list of bugs and known issues we have now. Better to deal with these issues as they arise to keep ahead of the curve, no?

From what I've gathered the Character Transfer Service is something entirely different and is done by hand. Instead of an automatic script that copies the stuff, there's a human being typing in queries to get result printouts that are then reinjected on the the other server.

Now I agree, this problem is critical and it should be at the top of the Need to be fixed yesterday list.

[Shorlong]

I have *no interenst* in testing content on characters I don't play. I have *no interest* in trying to recreate the characters I do play. When I get on DDO, I want to play. Not recreate characters.

When Character Copy is working again? Then I'll be interested.

I'm thinking you like playing, and not testing. Maybe TESTING isn't for you, as TESTING isn't about playing with your character, TESTING is about the quests and the environment. It sounds like the people complaining are not interested in testing, they just want to see the new content and are only comfortable in their little bubble of toons.

[TromboneFireTurtle]

I'm thinking you like playing, and not testing. Maybe TESTING isn't for you, as TESTING isn't about playing with your character, TESTING is about the quests and the environment. It sounds like the people complaining are not interested in testing, they just want to see the new content and are only comfortable in their little bubble of toons.

Couldn't have said it better myself. The tools do not the artist make, and y'all are sounding like needy toddlers.

[Krelar]

I'm thinking you like playing, and not testing. Maybe TESTING isn't for you, as TESTING isn't about playing with your character, TESTING is about the quests and the environment. It sounds like the people complaining are not interested in testing, they just want to see the new content and are only comfortable in their little bubble of toons.

I'm not sure what's so hard to understand.

Maybe we need a car analogy?

It's like building a new race car track and inviting all the top NASCAR drivers to come give there feedback. Then when they get there you make them drive the track in their street cars instead of the race cars they usually use. Sure you'll get some feedback but it's going to be sorely lacking, especially in respect to the high end.

These raids are supposed to be our end game for the foreseeable future. It would be nice to know that they are properly balance for it.

[ishr]

please change the QP nerf to be 1/2 sunder DC. This makes it so that QP is still somewhat relevant but not always lethal, and that only players who invest heavily in it can land it reliably. Giving this +4 to QP DC on miss, while good on paper, is going to end up being a ki sink because it effectively roughly triples the ki cost per QP proc. If your goal is to sent QP back to the oblivion of irrelevancy from which it came, so be it, but if you want it to stick around for the occasional use then do to it what you did to EIN, make it land not-as-often but still reliably so for people who invest and specialize heavily for it.

[macadope]

please change the QP nerf to be 1/2 sunder DC. This makes it so that QP is still somewhat relevant but not always lethal, and that only players who invest heavily in it can land it reliably. Giving this +4 to QP DC on miss, while good on paper, is going to end up being a ki sink because it effectively roughly triples the ki cost per QP proc. If your goal is to sent QP back to the oblivion of irrelevancy from which it came, so be it, but if you want it to stick around for the occasional use then do to it what you did to EIN, make it land not-as-often but still reliably so for people who invest and specialize heavily for it.


/signed

[Shorlong]

I'm not sure what's so hard to understand.

Maybe we need a car analogy?

It's like building a new race car track and inviting all the top NASCAR drivers to come give there feedback. Then when they get there you make them drive the track in their street cars instead of the race cars they usually use. Sure you'll get some feedback but it's going to be sorely lacking, especially in respect to the high end.

These raids are supposed to be our end game for the foreseeable future. It would be nice to know that they are properly balance for it.

You know what I hate about car analogies? They are never EVER right. That's what you see, you see the power difference between a toon that you have on live and the toon you could make on Lam the same as a difference between a street legal stock Impala and a NASCAR sanctioned one. First, let me put that analogy right. If we were to use your analogy, the correct way to put it wouldn't be their own stock street cars instead of the race cars. In reality, it's like this. They have this nice new track, and they want ALL (not just the top) NASCAR drivers to come test it and give feedback. When the drivers get there, they have to drive NASCAR specced race cars, just not the ones they are used to. These cars are not the same as the ones they drive normally on the track, Chevy drivers are now in Fords and vice versa, however, each and every one of these cars is a capable machine that could be entered in the race and win.

The difference here, is that the drivers wouldn't bellyache about it. They would realize that it doesn't matter what type of car they have, as long as it goes fast, they are confident enough that they can give that track it's all and really push themselves to the limits. Sure, the steering wheel feels different, the seats are different, the view over the hood is different, but that doesn't matter: they are professionals who are THE BEST at what they do and they will be able to provide feedback in any car you put them out there in.

Now, moving on from really terrible car analogies, but, as we are on opposing views, I also don't see what's so hard for you to understand. If you are a player who knows the game, it shouldn't MATTER what type of character you go in on. The gear is there, the xp is there, you can max out all your EDs in less than two minutes (lag notwithstanding). If you were truly interested in JUST TESTING it out, you should have no problems rolling up a toon and testing, even on the most difficult levels. For those who say they have limited game time and don't want to spend it making a toon, then maybe TESTING isn't right for you. Testing can take time, problems can occur. For those who say they play to have fun and playing a character that they made in the dojo isn't fun, then again, maybe TESTING isn't right for you. Can testing be fun? Yes. But that isn't the purpose of it. The purpose is for finding bugs and helping balance issues. If you cannot devote your time to helping that cause, then TESTING isn't right for you.

Remember, Lamannia is no longer a PREVIEW server, it is now the TEST server. We are now using this server as a means to TEST content and features, not just see the new stuff before it's available. If all you want to do is see the new stuff, then again, maybe TESTING isn't right for you.

As someone else said, tools do not make the artist. If you are a good player, you should be able to give feedback on the hardest of content with the most basic of characters. You should know the power difference between what you have on live and what you are playing here. You should be able to say "Well, on a first lifer, it was completely impossible. With my triple completionist with the best gear, it should provide a challenge."

It's obvious you guys either a) don't want to actually test, you just want to see the new pretties before others, b) aren't confident enough in your abilities to play anything that isn't, in your opinion, powerful (I doubt this is it, as I am sure you are all competent players), c) afraid to step out of a little safety net you have in your own toons, or d) afraid to try something you aren't used to. Either way, you don't care about actually testing it, because as I said, any player worth their merit will be able to test and provide honest feedback at all difficulties no matter the character they are on.

P.S. This does not apply to Teh_Troll. As I understand it, he just wants to copy his toon over just to have more people to Hjeal him, and that is perfectly reasonable.

[BOgre]

You seem to be fixated on one narrow point: that you can test the content with any lamm-gen toon. If the issue was simply and only the content itself, as it exists in a pure vacuum, you'd be right. But as many of us have tried to explain, the content does not exist in a vacuum. It exists in concert with the Live-gen toons that have evolved over time. It is not only the content itself we are testing, but how OUR REAL LIVE BUILDS will interact with that content. A Lamm-gen toon may be able to find a broken secret door or an unresponsive NPC, but only a LIVE-GEN toon will be able to report bugs that occur as a result of the interaction between the new content and that toon's SPECIFIC setup which will include everything from random-gen gear to Past Life feats to EDs to Gender to Event-crafted stuff to ... EVERYTHING.

We're not whining about it. We have a valid point. Your trying to marginalize our issue is doing nothing but getting us peeved at you. I don't believe Turb needs you to lawyer for them. Let them answer, or not, and let our attendance, or non, be our rebuttal.

Thanks.

[G_Lich]

To get back on track with our first look - This is recorded on my twitch channel http://www.twitch.tv/g_lich/b/501782271 - Start at 40:00 and please forgive my allergy nose and bad jokes. - Hit follow while your there and it would be cool.

[Texlaw1992]

... as far as I can tell, there's no way for non-VIP to enter Haunted Halls or the wilderness area.

Every time I click, it says I need to buy from the DDO Store.

Of course, it's not in the DDO Store (when the Lam DDO Store is working).

How about a Lam DDO Store package for each Squeak.

Edit: I couldn't find a guest pass for those areas in the DDO Store.

[Shorlong]

... as far as I can tell, there's no way for non-VIP to enter Haunted Halls or the wilderness area.

Every time I click, it says I need to buy from the DDO Store.

Of course, it's not in the DDO Store (when the Lam DDO Store is working).

How about a Lam DDO Store package for each Squeak.

Ask someone to buy a guest pass for you, then apply it to you.

[LrdSlvrhnd]

I'm thinking you like playing, and not testing. Maybe TESTING isn't for you, as TESTING isn't about playing with your character, TESTING is about the quests and the environment. It sounds like the people complaining are not interested in testing, they just want to see the new content and are only comfortable in their little bubble of toons.

Well, how about this, then:

I DON'T WANT TO SPEND MY TIME CREATING A NEW FLIPPING CHARACTER. Not when I have several I already love playing.

Period.

That's it.

That's all that's needed.

I DON'T WANT TO SPEND THE TIME.

You want to? Hey, great. Nobody's stopping you.

I don't tell you how to play. DON'T TELL ME HOW TO PLAY.

How I want to play? Involves character copy.

Character copy being broken? Means I have no interest.

End of discussion.

If I just wanted to see the new content? I'd go see it on a new character. I'd take the time, because it wouldn't take that much time to roll something up following some kind of exploiter/monkcher/flavor-of-the-week build on the forums.

But y'know what? I honestly don't care about the new content itself; I still haven't run half the quests from either of the last two updates.

But I'd like to *test* the content USING A BUILD I ALREADY KNOW AND AM USED TO. And I don't want to take the time to try to recreate them. I'd much rather spend my game-playing time, y'know, PLAYING THE GAME.

Not everyone is as uber as you are. Get over yourself and stop disparaging those of us who want Character Copy to, y'know, WORK LIKE IT'S SUPPOSED TO so we can play AS WE WANT TO.

I don't want to play the content on some random character whose abilities I don't really know. I want to TEST the content on a character *I already know*. I want to test the CONTENT, I don't want to test new abilities.

[Flavilandile]

You know what I hate about car analogies? They are never EVER right. .

Since you hate Car analogies... here is another one :

It's like we were asked to come testing the new Terabyte router with PCs connected through 56K modems as traffic generators.

Oh and we have to install the PCs, Install the Software to generate traffic and lay the phone lines ( rebuild and equip the characters ) since we can't copy them.

[LrdSlvrhnd]

I was too sleepy last night to give this post the consideration it was due, so here goes...


You know what I hate about car analogies? They are never EVER right. That's what you see, you see the power difference between a toon that you have on live and the toon you could make on Lam the same as a difference between a street legal stock Impala and a NASCAR sanctioned one. First, let me put that analogy right. If we were to use your analogy, the correct way to put it wouldn't be their own stock street cars instead of the race cars. In reality, it's like this. They have this nice new track, and they want ALL (not just the top) NASCAR drivers to come test it and give feedback. When the drivers get there, they have to drive NASCAR specced race cars, just not the ones they are used to. These cars are not the same as the ones they drive normally on the track, Chevy drivers are now in Fords and vice versa, however, each and every one of these cars is a capable machine that could be entered in the race and win.



No, it's more like they showed up and were told that they had to help put together a NASCAR-sanctioned car. They had to choose the body. They had to choose the engine. They had to choose the seat. They had to choose the dashboard display. They had to choose the paint. They had to choose the spoiler. They had to choose the grill. They had to choose the engine mods. They had to choose the tires. They had to choose the paint. They had to choose the exhaust system. They had to choose the steering wheel. They had to choose the shifter. They had to choose the pedals. Etc., etc., etc.

Then they had to help put it all together.




It's obvious you guys either a) don't want to actually test, you just want to see the new pretties before others, b) aren't confident enough in your abilities to play anything that isn't, in your opinion, powerful (I doubt this is it, as I am sure you are all competent players), c) afraid to step out of a little safety net you have in your own toons, or d) afraid to try something you aren't used to. Either way, you don't care about actually testing it, because as I said, any player worth their merit will be able to test and provide honest feedback at all difficulties no matter the character they are on.

Honestly? I could probably very easily make characters vastly more powerful than what I have on live. My characters are kinda gimp. They're almost all first-lifers. None of them have taken advantage of various free Hearts to improve themselves. That's not the point. The point is, they're MY characters, they're who I already know. They're equipped how I like them, their enhancements are how I like them, their feats are how I like them, their skills are how I like them, their hotbars are how I like them.

I, quite purely and simply, don't want to take time to roll up new characters when I have perfectly good characters I enjoy playing already. My arti-rogue plays differently from my ranger-rogue plays differently from my bard plays differently from my monk-turned-barb (the only TR I currently have) plays differently from my FvS plays differently from my druid.

I have NO INTEREST in trying to recreate all these. Zero. Zilch. None. Nada. I have NO INTEREST in trying to roll up an uber-powerful character to go blasting through stuff, because that's not my playstyle. If I just wanted to see the new pretties? I'd go ahead and roll up an uber-powerful flavor-of-the-week forum-build character to go blasting through stuff and see the new pretties. But that's not how I play, and so that's not how I want to test the new content.

I want to test the new content using the characters I ALREADY HAVE SET UP HOW I LIKE THEM. Which means, since Character Copy is nonfunctional, I'll simply wait until this new content is live.

Yeah, that really screams "I just want to see the new pretties". Yup.

[LavidDynch]

please change the QP nerf to be 1/2 sunder DC. This makes it so that QP is still somewhat relevant but not always lethal, and that only players who invest heavily in it can land it reliably. Giving this +4 to QP DC on miss, while good on paper, is going to end up being a ki sink because it effectively roughly triples the ki cost per QP proc. If your goal is to sent QP back to the oblivion of irrelevancy from which it came, so be it, but if you want it to stick around for the occasional use then do to it what you did to EIN, make it land not-as-often but still reliably so for people who invest and specialize heavily for it.

Don´t hold your breath and just re-roll, like a good boy.

[Shorlong]

Honestly? I could probably very easily make characters vastly more powerful than what I have on live. My characters are kinda gimp. They're almost all first-lifers. None of them have taken advantage of various free Hearts to improve themselves. That's not the point. The point is, they're MY characters, they're who I already know. They're equipped how I like them, their enhancements are how I like them, their feats are how I like them, their skills are how I like them, their hotbars are how I like them.

I, quite purely and simply, don't want to take time to roll up new characters when I have perfectly good characters I enjoy playing already. My arti-rogue plays differently from my ranger-rogue plays differently from my bard plays differently from my monk-turned-barb (the only TR I currently have) plays differently from my FvS plays differently from my druid.

I have NO INTEREST in trying to recreate all these. Zero. Zilch. None. Nada. I have NO INTEREST in trying to roll up an uber-powerful character to go blasting through stuff, because that's not my playstyle. If I just wanted to see the new pretties? I'd go ahead and roll up an uber-powerful flavor-of-the-week forum-build character to go blasting through stuff and see the new pretties. But that's not how I play, and so that's not how I want to test the new content.

I want to test the new content using the characters I ALREADY HAVE SET UP HOW I LIKE THEM. Which means, since Character Copy is nonfunctional, I'll simply wait until this new content is live.

Yeah, that really screams "I just want to see the new pretties". Yup.

Again, you are not wanting to create a new toon because you like your other ones. You can make a similar one that one be a perfect match and you should be fine. I myself have made 6 characters but only really played three of them. One is a perfect match for my druid on Live. Another is a much more powerful version of my PM, with all destinies and +5 tomes and better gear than I could ever dream of having. I also spent about 45 minutes this morning (I woke up early) getting several heroic, iconic and epic past lives. I then made another toon, first life, using gear only from the dojo, no tomes at all, only one destiny. It's a fighter/rogue wearing heavy armor (no evasion) and no self heals. I built it the way your average new player would. All three play differently, all three are viable. All three are able to traverse through Thunderholme, at differing speeds and different difficulties encountered. I have provided feedback based on all three toons for the wilderness area, only two have been in raids (haven't taken my PM through the raids yet). Out of the three I have played, only one has a playstyle I am 100% used to, as it is an exact copy. My PM plays familiar to me, but there is an obvious power difference and I am not in the destiny I usually am, also doing melee instead of straight casting. I understand the limitations of each toon, but I also understand each toons strengths, and my feedback is based off of the experience of each toon and each situation.

If you REALLY wanted to just TEST, you wouldn't be complaining and you would roll up a new toon. Based on what you just said, however, it DOES in fact sound like you want to just see the new content, only you want to see it with a toon you are used to.

Fun story...

I have mentioned before on my old forum account (the one my game account is tied to, before the forum snafu forced me to get a new one) that I used to work for a game company, specifically, one that catered to the MMO market. I have a background in programming, but while I didn't know what caused it at the time, my disability caused me to not be able to have a job like that. However, I was able to find work, with my education, in QA work. I worked for several small companies (Raven Software, few others not worth mentioning as most of them went bankrupt) and one big one (Cryptic). I tested mostly FPS style games, but once I was with Cryptic, I was testing new MMO content. Everything from early alpha builds (most terrain wasn't even completed yet) all the way to almost finished products. In the FPS games, you think I got to play through the game and learn the mechanics of each and every little thing in order to provide feedback? Not at first, sometimes you are given a build of a late level that is insanely difficult with weapons you may or may not be familiar with, given basic instructions and told to find what's wrong. Same thing with the MMO world. I was given a character that had, in the devs eyes, a well rounded approach and something your average player would be using. I didn't have time to level up this character (there were other members of QA who tested various aspects of character design. I was almost strictly level design QA), nor get familiar with how it works on every little thing. However, I was able to do my job effectively enough.

We also had things like variables we couldn't account for. Variables are almost infinite, especially in an MMO setting. For example, if player a had a specific loadout of abilities, and had a certain item equipped, it may cause an issue with a needed quest item going into your inventory. We knew we couldn't account for most variables because of time and manpower spent to do so. This is why bugs, in all game types, creep into game settings. It's hard to test for the one person still using a level 5 item at level 53, let alone testing to make sure that item will share inventory space nicely with another variable. Someone mentioned the air elemental gem (can't remember if was this thread or another), and how without testing it, you don't know if it could break the quest. This is a variable. Most dev teams (not sure how this one or it's QA operate, as most are different) will look at groups of variables. If the game is live, they will data mine and see how many players are using what skills, classes, races, items, etc, at what levels. If less than 1% of the population is using an air elemental gem past level 20, it isn't worth the time or money to play test it, not when there are a thousand variables that 75% of the population uses, and thousands more that fall into that <1% category.

Is it an ingrained mindset that I have now? Maybe. Possibly. Probably. But that doesn't matter. This is now the test server. When it was still just the preview server, I would make a case for character transfer, hell, I would have been there with you. But as we are now testing the new content and providing feedback, that character copy just isn't as important as getting in there with any build, preferably multiple builds, and testing systems.

[Oxarhamar]

wall of text

You build an exact copy of your druid on live in the DOJO you might want to consider working harder on your Charicters on live.

[Shorlong]

You build an exact copy of your druid on live in the DOJO you might want to consider working harder on your Charicters on live.

Thanks for the insult, but I am happy with my toon on live. He run's EE's often and is very survivable. I also bought gear for him from the AH, same gear I have on live, and a raider's box that was gotten when Squeak and Kookie were giving out items. The majority of his gear is EE GH and Shadowfell gear, aside from two items that are EH. On Lam, they are all EE, so I guess it isn't an EXACT copy, but close enough that it doesn't change the feel of him, he just has a few more spell points and his frostbite blade has slightly more damage.

Also, a wall of text generally isn't sectioned off into paragraphs, nor does it usually involve proper grammar. This is more like segments of text, not a full wall. :)

[Oxarhamar]

Thanks for the insult, but I am happy with my toon on live. He run's EE's often and is very survivable. I also bought gear for him from the AH, same gear I have on live, and a raider's box that was gotten when Squeak and Kookie were giving out items. The majority of his gear is EE GH and Shadowfell gear, aside from two items that are EH. On Lam, they are all EE, so I guess it isn't an EXACT copy, but close enough that it doesn't change the feel of him, he just has a few more spell points and his frostbite blade has slightly more damage.

Also, a wall of text generally isn't sectioned off into paragraphs, nor does it usually involve proper grammar. This is more like segments of text, not a full wall. :)

Wall of text can have all the paragraphs and grammar you want it will still be a Wall of Text. KISS

You don't care for car analogies and no one likes for your life story injected into every post its irrelevant every time but, somehow you feel its necessary.


I'll try to make it simple enough for you to understand.

Test with DOJO bunny ~ Test with Charicter Copy. NOT THE SAME!

There have been plenty of valid points as to why Players want Charicter Copy but, you dismiss them because, your opinion is superior obviously.

The fact remains that Charicter copy is a feature of the Lammania servers that is not working and we want it working. NUFF SAID

[sudzz]

Too bad MyDDO is dead, that would have been fun to show how wrong the statement is.

I have 1 ( one ) single TR ( TRed from Cleric to Druid when Druid came out ). All the rest are First Life Characters.

Point of the matter : I can't recreate my live clerics since the system force me to chose deity stuff as Class Feats, when I could select things like Empower Heal, Extend, Quicken.

Another point of the matter : any character I recreate won't have the items I have on live since some of them have been replaced by 'upgraded' versions through the Augment Pass, some of them are
crafted from Greensteel ( where do I get the shards ? ), some are Alchemical ( where do I get it ? ), and some of them is just plain random lootgen that is better than any recent named items.

We are asked to give feedback, and specifically we are asked how difficult we find the raids. To give a valuable feedback on that we need to have a scale, and that scale is how our live character works.
If we can't use our live characters the result will be biased, since it will not be based on a value we know, but based on a value that is at best a guesstimate at worst a WAG on how the newly Dojoed Toon should work.
( and I'm not talking of the time wasted creating and outfitting Dojoed Toons. I have better things to do than waste my two hours play time for the day doing that )

Anything and everything green steel related is laying on the dojo floor including cleansers and shards, alchemicals are rarer to get but some devs will drop the mats and everything to make tier 3 alchemicals so a little patience is needed is all of that, random lootgen is filled in the ah almost every day and sometimes more often than daily topped up, as for leveling toons it can take time but only if you cherry pick every single thing as you level only yo tr again, personally i built a triple completionist over the sapce of approx 5 hours game time and triple epic's the same toon in about 3 hours game time, yes it took time but now i can run anything including solo en chrono and typically without downing mana pots on my pure arty, my advice would be to build a toon shortly after a wipe and it will last for at least a few weeks and anything up to a year, you will have access on dev events to raid gear that would typically take months of grind just to see someone else get it in a chest "for their next life" and all the mats to top tier them also.

[Qhualor]

Is it an ingrained mindset that I have now? Maybe. Possibly. Probably. But that doesn't matter. This is now the test server. When it was still just the preview server, I would make a case for character transfer, hell, I would have been there with you. But as we are now testing the new content and providing feedback, that character copy just isn't as important as getting in there with any build, preferably multiple builds, and testing systems.

you would make the case for character copy when Lamma was a preview server but not when its a test server? a little backwards don't you think? when it comes to testing, I prefer to be as 100% accurate as possible, not close enough or good enough. when it comes to Lamma and character copy not working for me, im not going to spend the time creating a mirror image of my Live characters that can take hours. I do enough grinding, farming, buying, leveling on Live. doing it on Lamma so I can eventually do more accurate testing isn't how I want to spend my time. im glad you have the extra time to do all that and think your testing is good enough, but lets leave the proper testing to the ones who want to do it the right way and have more weight in their opinions.

[Shorlong]

you would make the case for character copy when Lamma was a preview server but not when its a test server? a little backwards don't you think? when it comes to testing, I prefer to be as 100% accurate as possible, not close enough or good enough. when it comes to Lamma and character copy not working for me, im not going to spend the time creating a mirror image of my Live characters that can take hours. I do enough grinding, farming, buying, leveling on Live. doing it on Lamma so I can eventually do more accurate testing isn't how I want to spend my time. im glad you have the extra time to do all that and think your testing is good enough, but lets leave the proper testing to the ones who want to do it the right way and have more weight in their opinions.

So, my way of testing is the wrong way, even though it's pretty much the way most large companies do their testing and QA? Also, glad to know that you feel that someone with a different playstyle than yours, their opinion shouldn't have as much weight....

And, just because I don't think anyone sees this (and my fault for not mentioning it before) I am not against character copy. By all means, if it's there, awesome, less time building, more time testing. However, I am merely stating that if you are not going to test because it isn't there, then testing isn't what you were wanting to do in the first place.

[Matuse]

So, my way of testing is the wrong way, even though it's pretty much the way most large companies do their testing and QA?

Having worked in Q&A, I'm 100% positive that this is not "pretty much" how it gets done. Besides which, this isn't internal testing, with access to developer tools.

[Flavilandile]

Anything and everything green steel related is laying on the dojo floor including cleansers and shards, alchemicals are rarer to get but some devs will drop the mats and everything to make tier 3 alchemicals so a little patience is needed is all of that.

Ah, then I must have missed the shards ( I saw the rest for GS), and I'm in Europe, it's not easy to get there while the Devs are dropping things.

It still doesn't solve the other points like the fact that an old character cannot be recreated due to change in the character creation.

Typically a cleric without a given faith.
A character like that might break a quest or a raid because a specific faith is required for a cleric for said cleric to activate something to progress.
If we can't copy such a cleric from Live and use it to test, it won't appears till it hits live.... And then all hell is going to break loose, because there's still many clerics that don't have a faith.
( and trust me I've been there node that and spent a night of emergency data extraction while a colleague did some happy coding to coax the data I've extracted into another system... Because even with two level of test systems you can miss a set of data during a migration... luckily for us it was caught before it was too late ( re-opening traffic on the live system ) and dealt with ).

There's probably more than clerics that have Fun and Chaotic Things hidden in their past, but it's the one I have in mind.

[morqual]

I expected some changes about intolerant blows. As it is in update 21, it will be completaly useless, no tank will be able to retain aggro with juat 200% threat generation, since every archer or caster will do enough damage to steal aggro.

This change is not at all an improvement, it makes intolerant blows too weak to be useful, and that risks to make tanks less effective, and in the end useless.

Every tank I talked with agreed on this, but there are already so few of them, since the demi-god classes (archers and shiradi casters) already made tanking almost useless. Please leave intolerant blows as it is now, don't destroy the tank role.

I really hope the devs rethink this one. I play one of only a handful of tanks remaining on cannith. I can hold aggro most of the time but I get the feeling it is only just. It would be impossible to increase my DPS significantly enough to compensate for this loss of threat generation and still retain my defensive and intimidation capabilities.

Another thread did some math on this change - the devs need to really consider this.

I love the challenge of keeping aggro and staying alive. I do not want to run around being a big DPS toon. I want to continue to be that gnawing thorn in the side of bosses.

Maybe changes could be made to intimidate to compensate - I would not object.

Here's hoping.

[Qhualor]

So, my way of testing is the wrong way, even though it's pretty much the way most large companies do their testing and QA? Also, glad to know that you feel that someone with a different playstyle than yours, their opinion shouldn't have as much weight....

And, just because I don't think anyone sees this (and my fault for not mentioning it before) I am not against character copy. By all means, if it's there, awesome, less time building, more time testing. However, I am merely stating that if you are not going to test because it isn't there, then testing isn't what you were wanting to do in the first place.

its not wrong, its just incomplete.

[redspecter23]

I have this to say about character copy. With it being unavailable, you have hundreds of players spending hundreds of man hours customizing their characters before they even get to test the new content. If the intention is to get players testing the character building process, well done. If the intention is to get players testing the new content, then that's hundreds of player hours wasted which could have been spent testing the actual content for bugs and balance.

Like others, I have no interest in building a brand new character from scratch before I test the content. I'm not upset about it so hopefully it doesn't come across as whiny. I'm just choosing to skip testing because I have no desire to build a character which could, in theory, just be copied over if the tools were working. It's a waste of my time and that of many other players.

[Oxarhamar]

So, my way of testing is the wrong way, even though it's pretty much the way most large companies do their testing and QA? Also, glad to know that you feel that someone with a different playstyle than yours, their opinion shouldn't have as much weight....

And, just because I don't think anyone sees this (and my fault for not mentioning it before) I am not against character copy. By all means, if it's there, awesome, less time building, more time testing. However, I am merely stating that if you are not going to test because it isn't there, then testing isn't what you were wanting to do in the first place.

Your opinions are skewed.

You have accepted that the Character Copy tool not working is fine and dandy. What other broken features will your testing declare as working good enough.?


They are many who could be testing but, won't because, they don't have time for building.

Maybe you haven't experienced Character Copy when it was working where you log on and there is your copied character from live ready to go. No wasted time just testing.



Those who have time to build new Toons, TR them over and over, Max out the Destinies, Gear them up. Great good for them.

Not recognizing that character copy is killing the amount of testers that U21 would see with it working is an erroneous viewpoint.

[Shorlong]

Your opinions are skewed.

You have accepted that the Character Copy tool not working is fine and dandy. What other broken features will your testing declare as working good enough.?


They are many who could be testing but, won't because, they don't have time for building.

Maybe you haven't experienced Character Copy when it was working where you log on and there is your copied character from live ready to go. No wasted time just testing.



Those who have time to build new Toons, TR them over and over, Max out the Destinies, Gear them up. Great good for them.

Not recognizing that character copy is killing the amount of testers that U21 would see with it working is an erroneous viewpoint.

No, I've tested plenty of times with character copy working, and I've copied over many toons in the past. And thanks for assuming that my feedback is going to be skewed. I don't overlook bugs. If there is a bug, I report it. As I said, would it be better if character copy worked? Absolutely. Is it needed? Not at all.

[BOgre]

Is it needed? Not at all.

Is it needed for higher participation? Obviously.

[Oxarhamar]

No, I've tested plenty of times with character copy working, and I've copied over many toons in the past. And thanks for assuming that my feedback is going to be skewed. I don't overlook bugs. If there is a bug, I report it. As I said, would it be better if character copy worked? Absolutely. Is it needed? Not at all.

Thanks for your feedback.

I especially like where you attack those who want Charicter copy working then whine that they think your feedback is not equal while in other threads here you adamantly attack everyone who has feedback that is different than your own view.

[Shorlong]

Thanks for your feedback.

I especially like where you attack those who want Charicter copy working then whine that they think your feedback is not equal while in other threads here you adamantly attack everyone who has feedback that is different than your own view.

Concerning other threads: Those aren't attacks. Those are getting fed up with being told that people who play like I do aren't viable or that we don't play right. Same as here, i get told I need to "work on my live characters" because I can recreate one easily in the dojo. I'm sorry that I am tired of elitist jerks.

And I am sick and tired of being told that I cannot test properly because I don't have a copy of my live toon. I apologize that I am a competent enough player to understand how a build I am playing is different from the one I have on live. The ONLY argument that I have seen that is even close to being understandable is the person talking about variables, things like the cleric deities not functioning with new content. Again, it still won't hurt to roll a new character and test at least to the best of your abilities instead of protesting it on principle. It will be fixed, just not right now, so quit crying over it and either test or don't.

[Oxarhamar]

Concerning other threads: Those aren't attacks. Those are getting fed up with being told that people who play like I do aren't viable or that we don't play right. Same as here, i get told I need to "work on my live characters" because I can recreate one easily in the dojo. I'm sorry that I am tired of elitist jerks.

And I am sick and tired of being told that I cannot test properly because I don't have a copy of my live toon. I apologize that I am a competent enough player to understand how a build I am playing is different from the one I have on live. The ONLY argument that I have seen that is even close to being understandable is the person talking about variables, things like the cleric deities not functioning with new content. Again, it still won't hurt to roll a new character and test at least to the best of your abilities instead of protesting it on principle. It will be fixed, just not right now, so quit crying over it and either test or don't.

I have seen your other comments in this thread and others here. Any feedback that differs from your opinion has been attacked.

Be sick and tired all you like it does not change the fact that you have attacked different opinions than your own. in this thread and others here on Lamania.


Play however you like but, in the same token here you are telling everyone else who does not want to play or test in this case in a manner that should be functioning to test your way.

BTW there are more valid reasons beyond the variables which have been expressed but, since you cannot understand opinions other than your own I won't bother bringing them back up so you can just dismiss them.

Your quite hypocritical in one hand you say your sick of elitist jerks then in the other you are a complete jerk to anyone who's opinion differs from your.


Your opinion is no more valuable than anyone else.

Yet here you are someone posts about Charicter copy and your first in line to jump on bashing them.

Same goes for the Raid and Loot threads. Someone has an issue with anything and your first to start to attempt to tear down their opinion.


You might want to check yourself.

[LrdSlvrhnd]

Concerning other threads: Those aren't attacks. Those are getting fed up with being told that people who play like I do aren't viable or that we don't play right. Same as here, i get told I need to "work on my live characters" because I can recreate one easily in the dojo. I'm sorry that I am tired of elitist jerks.

And I am sick and tired of being told that I cannot test properly because I don't have a copy of my live toon. I apologize that I am a competent enough player to understand how a build I am playing is different from the one I have on live. The ONLY argument that I have seen that is even close to being understandable is the person talking about variables, things like the cleric deities not functioning with new content. Again, it still won't hurt to roll a new character and test at least to the best of your abilities instead of protesting it on principle. It will be fixed, just not right now, so quit crying over it and either test or don't.

I don't think I've seen anyone say YOU can't test properly without a copy of a live character. I know *I* haven't. I've said *I* can't test properly. I've also said that *I* have no interest in wasting my valuable gaming time rolling up a character. Not when I already have several I like.

So, I'm not gonna bother testing the new content. I'll see it when I see it. Maybe in a couple of months when it hits live; maybe in a year and a half. I'm in no rush to see the new content. There's still plenty of new content on live that I haven't experienced.

YOU, however, are saying that I obviously can't test because I'm refusing to waste MY time making a new character. Here's the thing: My time is valuable. Not to you, not to anyone else, but it is to me. Well, and maybe my cats. I choose to spend my time... NOT creating a character. Ergo, I choose to spend my time NOT testing out the new content. I also choose not to spend my time rehashing this ad nauseum.

I have NO INTEREST in character creation. None. I don't peruse builds, I don't plan builds, I don't want to spend my time building builds. I have a hard enough time rolling up a new Vet II character because 7 levels of having to figure stuff out NOW? Ugh. I don't even want to think about 28 levels. THIS IS NOT FUN TIME FOR ME. Ergo, I choose to spend my time NOT doing something that's not fun. Ergo, I choose to spend my time NOT testing out the new content.

I'm not crying over it. You say "test or don't"? I'm saying "I won't." And explaining why.

I *want* to test the new content. I really do. And not just to see it. Because I would like to have a chance of trying to make DDO a better game.

But I refuse to create a new character for that reason. Simple as that. Not when they had a mechanic in place until recently that THEY are choosing not to fix.

It's really just that simple.

You say it won't hurt to roll up a new character? I say it will. I say it will kill my motivation to do anything by the time I get up to L14. I say by the time I'm capped, I won't want to figure out the hotbars. I say by the time I'm willing to do that... Lamma will be down and characters will be wiped.

Let me put this another way: If I just wanted to see the new content? I'd check the forums. I'd find the latest uber-flavor-build-of-the-month. I'd spend 10 minutes rolling up a character following that plan. I'd spend 10 minutes in the AH buying all the shinies. I'd spend 30 seconds on hotbars. ANd then I'd go blast through the new content. But I don't want to do that. I want to TEST the content, using gear, abilities, and hotbars I already have, know, and understand. Because that's how *I* test.

[Icywave]

I have this to say about character copy. With it being unavailable, you have hundreds of players spending hundreds of man hours customizing their characters before they even get to test the new content. If the intention is to get players testing the character building process, well done. If the intention is to get players testing the new content, then that's hundreds of player hours wasted which could have been spent testing the actual content for bugs and balance.

Like others, I have no interest in building a brand new character from scratch before I test the content. I'm not upset about it so hopefully it doesn't come across as whiny. I'm just choosing to skip testing because I have no desire to build a character which could, in theory, just be copied over if the tools were working. It's a waste of my time and that of many other players.

Character Copy not working is exactly why I didn't step foot on Lamannia.

You are correct, this is a lot of man hours put in the " wrong place " in my opinion as well.

[BOgre]

A bit more perspective on Character Copy, rolling a Lama-gen toon, the value of our play/test time, and my results as of 5 minutes ago:

I decided to bite the bullet and roll up a character on Lamannia to test Haunted Halls. The +5 Supreme Tome lotto was just too tempting (as it was meant to be - see: Lama attendance down due to no ChrCopy!!).

45 min for Creating and Heroic Levelling.
15 min for Enhancements
10 min pause while I filled out a bug report for Kensai Haste and Tempest Haste not being anti-requisites - they now share the same AP pool so they MUST be made anti-requisites.
40 min shared between trotting back and forth between the Epic Trainer and the XP granting dude to complete Epic Levelling, and spending AP in destinies (including Twists).
10 min wandering around the Loot Room looking for ANYthing resembling my live toon's gearout (unsuccessful).
10 min scouring the AH (limited success).
5 min racing around the Houses for things I ultimately couldn't get because of not having the Favor.
10 min asking for (and never getting) a Haunted Halls guest pass tossed on me.
______________
2hr 25min total

Result:
- No MotU or CitW loot, which I like and am used to using. No eGH loot.
- No Favor unlockable treats like SF/Yugo pots, Deneith Quiver, Sturdy arrows, Metal(s) arrows, etc.
- No golf bag of my go-to knives and bows. A couple decent rand-gen AH replacements, not great.
- No guest pass, No quest run, No new content tested.
- One bug reported, character gen related.
_______________

No fun had, no real testing done.

So will I be heading back there any time soon? I can't see it happening.

p.s. I'm NOT claiming that my times are going to be 'average'. I went through things like levelling and enhancements quite slowly, as I'm not very fast at it to begin with, and I wanted to make sure I was building the toon to be similar (if not exactly like) my live toon. By the time that was all done I sped up some because I was running out of motivation and just wanted to get DONE. So, your times may vary greatly in comparison to mine, as may your final results. This is MY EXPERIENCE ONLY.

[lyrecono]

wow, heavy loaded topic. I post my experiences here because the questionaire bugs out on my work pc.

during the test fase i used 3 builds in all the new content:
A bladeforged cetus build fighter/monk/paladin in LD
A Horc barb 20 fb in ld--> tr-ed into a dwarven barb 20 ocult slayer
A dwarven fighter 14/pal4/rog 2 in unyielding sentinel, axe and board 2,3k hp saves in the low 70's, tank build
All of them were geared prety well due to dev's, all had +5 tomes etc

The dragon raid: (3Xen)
how are we supposed to draw agro with their shields on if even the dwarven tank can't intimidate them?
Only monks in earth stance were able to generate agro.
Spawns generated huge amounts of lag.
Something hit us for 1500 damage (after resists), bit too much for EN if you ask me, there were no warning signs i could see, noboddy was in the dragon tatoo on the floor, nobody had a debuf. This happened in all 3 attempts.
No named loot, pathetic exp

The shadow dragon raid: (3XEN)
Long run to get flagged...
Too many lightbeam/mirror puzzles, please tone those down
area looks extremely drab, empty&ugly, like grey genaric paste, please dress up the place a bit, drapes, chandeliers etc, esp in the gravity room, i would like to know where i was going.
More purple haze parts :(
Huge amount of lag spikes and a 15 min lag spike in the gravity room.
The window of oppertunity to pull the levers on the end fight was small considering everybody froze for 30 sec when the gm text and mob spawns occured.

The looks:
The wilderness area looks amazing, who ever designed this needs a pat on the back asap, it realy looked like a ruined dwarven fortress.
The shadow dragon needs a lot more dressing, it is far too empty. the background could use some work too (the"sky")
The 2 dragon raids is basicly 1 flat map on a mountain top, nice but nothing good or bad was noticed

Sound:
Was mostly turned of to hear the raid party, when soloing i was missing some spoken texts

Getting there:
Spending hours building 3 character was not something i consider fun.
Waiting on gear hand outs from dev's.... seriously, stock your AH with end game gear...
Waiting hours for someone to pass me a guest pass (bunch of scrooges), next time, put the pack in the ddo shop...

performance:
The cetus build ranked nr 1 overall, self healing is key here, the raid makes you split op or too spread out for healers to get you. the dps didn't hurt either.
The barb was garbidge, no self heal and the crit mod means jack (censored) to all the undead in there. A con of 68 to SR is aperently meaningless there.
The dwarven tank did rather well, no dps but great for surviving and scroll healing/rezzing. i couldn't get my int up high enough for the dragons to work. this toon was ok for holding down battle ragers (untill shiradi/monckers step up)

Overal verdict:
Pro:
Good looking wilderness area, nice (for the first few runs)puzzles

Cons:
this pack need a lot more work, from balancing isues, window dressing the shadow raid, lag isuess etc.
If i'm to believe the other tread on the loot(e.g. crit modifiers&too high min level) this pack is not worth the effort for the 3 toons i used.

This gets a stamp of avoid in it's current form.
With the loot being sub par and being obsolete by the time sentient weapons come in to play.

Edit:

Dear dev's,

With the death of the shadow dragon does this mean it's the death of shadow fell?
it's been leading up from high road-->shadowfell-->stormhorns-->new pack
i'm sick and tired of the purple haze.
could you dev's please take it into another direction?
More Eberron or heaven forbids, non shadowfell forgotten realms?

[Vanhooger]

Copy tool not fixed yet, and they're asking us to test the new content.

Now, I think they don't want too many people test that content (even if I couldn't understand this) more people means more feedback and better quality of content, when it goes live.

Those called "community specialist" or something like that, they never spent 2 second explaining why they can't fix the copy thing, so people stop asking about that, and get raged.

Testing this content is like driving a car without wheels.

Very disappointing.

[Eth]

I can somewhat live with the character copy not working, but if you want this to be a longer term state then PLEASE ADD RELEVANT LOOT to the dojo:
- raiders boxes
- EE gianthold stuff
- EE highroad stuff
- add all eveningstar commendations to the giver of shinies
- premade ready to use GS displacement clickies (I'm not kidding)

The character I just built is using nothing but the lvl 28 stuff from the AH. Works kind of OK but the lack of special things (improved deception, sneak attack, ghostly) is really annoying. I also couldn't find any decent weapons.

[Nascoe]

You seem to be fixated on one narrow point: that you can test the content with any lamm-gen toon. If the issue was simply and only the content itself, as it exists in a pure vacuum, you'd be right. But as many of us have tried to explain, the content does not exist in a vacuum. It exists in concert with the Live-gen toons that have evolved over time. It is not only the content itself we are testing, but how OUR REAL LIVE BUILDS will interact with that content. A Lamm-gen toon may be able to find a broken secret door or an unresponsive NPC, but only a LIVE-GEN toon will be able to report bugs that occur as a result of the interaction between the new content and that toon's SPECIFIC setup which will include everything from random-gen gear to Past Life feats to EDs to Gender to Event-crafted stuff to ... EVERYTHING.

We're not whining about it. We have a valid point. Your trying to marginalize our issue is doing nothing but getting us peeved at you. I don't believe Turb needs you to lawyer for them. Let them answer, or not, and let our attendance, or non, be our rebuttal.

Thanks.

You have a very valid point here BOgre, and it should be highlighted time and again, that if things need testing, the only way to find as many bugs as there are in the game, is by doing it with characters that have all sorts of uncommon gear, cosmetics, pets, crafted items, obscure and long replaced named items and have been redone umpteen times.

What annoys me though, is when people start complaining about some suit who decided not to work on the character copy or about Turbine not understanding why people push for it to be repaired. Because I do not for a second believe that the developers, QA team or even Rowan or Glin do not know this.

So either it is such a big problem (and given that it has caused problems working more or less after every update, that would seem a good estimate), that they just are not able to commit such a big effort into making it work, or maybe they are even afraid of the Character copy tool causing problems itself. Another option is, that they want to focus on making things work with current, clean builds, but if that was the case, I would hope we would get told (with the improved communication lately, surely they would?).

Really, there is no need to tell people they are somehow no good testers if they push for real characters (the CC-tool), on the other hand there is also no need for the "unless CC-tool is back I will boycott the test server" posts.

[TromboneFireTurtle]

You have a very valid point here BOgre, and it should be highlighted time and again, that if things need testing, the only way to find as many bugs as there are in the game, is by doing it with characters that have all sorts of uncommon gear, cosmetics, pets, crafted items, obscure and long replaced named items and have been redone umpteen times.

What annoys me though, is when people start complaining about some suit who decided not to work on the character copy or about Turbine not understanding why people push for it to be repaired. Because I do not for a second believe that the developers, QA team or even Rowan or Glin do not know this.

So either it is such a big problem (and given that it has caused problems working more or less after every update, that would seem a good estimate), that they just are not able to commit such a big effort into making it work, or maybe they are even afraid of the Character copy tool causing problems itself. Another option is, that they want to focus on making things work with current, clean builds, but if that was the case, I would hope we would get told (with the improved communication lately, surely they would?).

Really, there is no need to tell people they are somehow no good testers if they push for real characters (the CC-tool), on the other hand there is also no need for the "unless CC-tool is back I will boycott the test server" posts.
Exactly, that kind of thinking helps no one. We need to just take a minute and breathe. For one, it's just a game, and for another, try to put yourself in the Devs' shoes. Hundreds of angry, ignorant, and selfish people whining and complaining. Testing is for the betterment of the game and the DDO community as a whole. We should focus on the task at hand, rather than arguing over arbitrary testing philosophies. Both groups are correct, but that doesn't make one group better than another. Can we please stop this pointless debate and get on with our lives, whether or not you're going to test?

[lyrecono]

summing up here:
* fix the character copy tool, you're wasting our testing time
*fill the AH with named loot ranging from U14 to current update(21), make it a standard tool, you're wasting time doing hand outs.
*put the new packs on sale in the in game ddo store directly instead of having 2 weeks for vips, i understand the reluctance, somewhat, bu there are premium players out there who spend more cash then standard sub people and are just as dedicated to make this game better.

Also, listen to the advice and fix the new content

[LrdSlvrhnd]

on the other hand there is also no need for the "unless CC-tool is back I will boycott the test server" posts.

Yes, there is. I'm not boycotting the test server, I'm deciding that my gaming time is better spent actually playing than spending a few hours rolling up and equipping a character (I suspect unless I went full-on forum build, I'd easily spend as much time or more as BOgre). And as long as people (NOTE: Not specifically including you) keep saying "man up and do it" I'll keep pointing it out.

(And for the record: My forum-posting time is generally VERY distinct from my playing time. I rarely get on the forums when I'm able to get in the game. So I can spend all the time I want complaining about the lack of character creation without being a hypocrite about not taking the time to create a character *g* )

[Shorlong]

*put the new packs on sale in the in game ddo store directly instead of having 2 weeks for vips, i understand the reluctance, somewhat, bu there are premium players out there who spend more cash then standard sub people and are just as dedicated to make this game better.

There was an answer to this from Squeak during one of the raid runs with her. She said that the team that programs the packs for purchase hasn't finished yet, so they weren't in the store yet. But, they should be in the next preview.

[Valthanas]

I really hope the devs rethink this one. I play one of only a handful of tanks remaining on cannith. I can hold aggro most of the time but I get the feeling it is only just. It would be impossible to increase my DPS significantly enough to compensate for this loss of threat generation and still retain my defensive and intimidation capabilities.

Another thread did some math on this change - the devs need to really consider this.

I love the challenge of keeping aggro and staying alive. I do not want to run around being a big DPS toon. I want to continue to be that gnawing thorn in the side of bosses.

Maybe changes could be made to intimidate to compensate - I would not object.

Here's hoping.

I just don't understand this change. With the amount of DPS being pumped out by fury shot and shiradi builds, does it make sense to handicap tanks even further? Being a tank is tough enough now (I know...I know tanks are not currently needed...blah blah blah, but I play the builds I like so I really don't care what those elitists have to say on the matter) so I'm still trying to figure out why Turbine wants to make this change. Was Intolerant Blows somehow deemed OP and I missed it?

I can't help but wonder if there is a raid in the future (near?) that requires a tank and nerfing Intolerant Blows will somehow increase the challenge.

[lyrecono]

There was an answer to this from Squeak during one of the raid runs with her. She said that the team that programs the packs for purchase hasn't finished yet, so they weren't in the store yet. But, they should be in the next preview.

in other words, the "product" gets shifted to test fase whille being half done?
nice pr work!

[Oxarhamar]

in other words, the "product" gets shifted to test fase whille being half done?
nice pr work!

that is what killing Mournlands and changing Lamannia from preview to test server was all about.


still should have been able to get access to the content just by logging on

[lyrecono]

still should have been able to get access to the content just by logging on

this...