Could the DDO devs do this?

[Loromir]

I want to preface this that I am not a WOW player. Never have been and never will be.

I have been reading this https://eightyearsinazeroth.blogspot.com blog. Mainly because hearing about the guild politics is interesting.

The writer talks about their raiding. The amount of time they spend preparing. The team coordination involved to be successful. Honestly...a lot of things that have been absent from DDO for many years now. The closest thing that DDO has had to what the writer talks of was at lvl Heroic Elite Shroud before MOTU. And that was still not on par with those big WOW raids.

In WOW...when a new raid is introduced it sometimes takes weeks for even the best raiding guild conquer that raid...Forget casual raiders....they may never conquer the toughest content.

We all know DDO is a far superior game to WOW. So why can't (or won't) the devs do this. We don't need 40 man or 25 man raids like WOW...our 12 man versions are just fine. The WOW raids require multiple tanks. They would fail without them. They require dedicated healers...again...failure without them. As well as the various DPS and crowd control roles. Each Raid group in WOW is carefully planned out.

I challenge the DEVs to come up with a raid...that only the best of the best in DDO would attempt on Legendary Elite. And then...it would challenge them. This should not be a raid that can be conquered on day one. Nay Nay...it needs to take a well put together team to work through MANY sessions to finally crack it. It needs to be a raid that players would not even think of attempting with anything less than the absolute best in slot gear. It needs to be a raid that cannot be just brute forced through...it should take planning and tactics.


Don't be afraid to make it TOO hard (On Legendary Elite). Bosses should punish groups who come in un-prepared or make mistakes. And they should challenge groups who even do thing just right. We have some great players in DDO...and I doubt you could make a raid TOO hard for the best of the best in DDO. Even if it takes awhile to figure out...the DDO elite will beat any raid thrown at them.

Of course there needs to be some incentive to completing this.

There is no rule that says everyone should be able to succeed at all content.

[legendkilleroll]

Would be nice to see new content not finished on the first day for once

At the moments that's what we get and the rest of the 1st week is spent farming it, even solo on the LE, where people just bring their multiboxes in to get everything they want

Love to see the whole first week without a completion where its fail after fail, learning what's going on but just don't think it will happen, seems to be going the route of everything has to be soloable and available to all, that's why even casual or less gear/skill players run the top difficulty and the lifespan of new content is short.

[Gremmlynn]

Unlikely, at least without getting really cheesy.

The thing is DDO isn't WoW with it's developer designed builds with limited play options.

[morkahn82]

We all know DDO is a far superior game to WOW. So why can't (or won't) the devs do this. We don't need 40 man or 25 man raids like WOW...our 12 man versions are just fine. The WOW raids require multiple tanks. They would fail without them. They require dedicated healers...again...failure without them. As well as the various DPS and crowd control roles. Each Raid group in WOW is carefully planned out.


DDO was like this few years ago. And even still is (to a lower extend), I guess the incentive to run the endgame raids on higher difficulties is too less, so people stick to LN, LH where it suffices to be tank, healer, dps and cc in one person.

[mikarddo]

Back in 2000 in EverQuest1 in the Velious expansion it took 8 months before the Avatar of War was killed (by charming giants) and as far as I know only 2 servers managed to kill him before the next expansion without charmed giants.

I doubt we will see anything like that in DDO nor do I think it would be good for the game - but I would like to champion making every single new Legendary quest and raid really hard on Elite.

Making new quests easy (Good Intensions for example) on LE is simply silly as that leaves nothing for the top builds at max level to run for a challenge, and nothing for people to strife for.

I know I would love _not_ being able to just run new quests on LE even with my best build right away as that meant I had more reason to actually play the game.

[legendkilleroll]

Making new quests easy (Good Intensions for example) on LE is simply silly as that leaves nothing for the top builds at max level to run for a challenge, and nothing for people to strife for.

I know I would love _not_ being able to just run new quests on LE even with my best build right away as that meant I had more reason to actually play the game.

Agreed

Plus as these are quests that people do at cap and they are not part of sagas, cant use that as an excuse for why elite has to be so easily beat

If someone wants the favor then its available to get from heroic

Last update was 3 quests, a group could easily get thru them on LE in an hour, this shouldnt be happening.

[salmag]

Would be nice to see new content not finished on the first day for once

At the moments that's what we get and the rest of the 1st week is spent farming it, even solo on the LE, where people just bring their multiboxes in to get everything they want

Love to see the whole first week without a completion where its fail after fail, learning what's going on but just don't think it will happen, seems to be going the route of everything has to be soloable and available to all, that's why even casual or less gear/skill players run the top difficulty and the lifespan of new content is short.

Keep in mind that a major problem with DDO is Lamannia. Instead of testing for bugs, looking for problems, etc., people treat it as another player server, and conquer the new update before it gets released.

If you want what the OP professes to want, then the devs should never open Lamannia, Turbine should hire dedicated employees to test (look for bugs, etc.) the new content before it is released, then surprise the player base with new and refreshing content that noone has seen.

Maybe then you will get the whole "this game is new and exciting vibe" that I experienced (maybe, you did too) back in 2006.

For this reason alone, I don't go into Lamannia.

[UurlockYgmeov]

but first they (Turbine Dev Team) needs to address the sad and basically non-existing / broken guild management system.


Guild Management System (GMS) (https://goo.gl/QJlIIT) - it is something that will greatly enhance the QoL of all players, and help draw and retain more players to our beloved game.

[HAL]

In WOW...when a new raid is introduced it sometimes takes weeks for even the best raiding guild conquer that raid...Forget casual raiders....they may never conquer the toughest content.

We all know DDO is a far superior game to WOW. So why can't (or won't) the devs do this. We don't need 40 man or 25 man raids like WOW

One of the things that caused WoW raids to be so difficult is that they REQUIRED so many people. Coordinating 40 players is like herding cats. That is at least half the challenge right there. So saying that DDO should be able to have the same kind of impossible raids without requiring that many players is almost asking the impossible. One way that DDO could make content that difficult is to require an exact mix of abilities / resources and people who can do a "dance" of being in exactly the right place at the right time. Eventually certain play groups / guilds will be able to beat that content and will declare it too easy. Sound familiar?

Also, the problem with creating content for only a select portion of the population is that the remainder of the population will feel excluded every time developer resources are spent on that type of content. Better for the developers to spend time creating things that everyone can enjoy when the population is small.

[LightBear]

Asking for a wow clone just makes me sad.

And the OP must have missed all those threads about "this and that instakills me, that's not a challange!" or the numerous rants about being kicked out of a group because "you did not have x item" or "was not of that class".
Yeah, let's bring back those days, deprived servers are waiting for you there.

[Loromir]

DDO was like this few years ago. And even still is (to a lower extend), I guess the incentive to run the endgame raids on higher difficulties is too less, so people stick to LN, LH where it suffices to be tank, healer, dps and cc in one person.

Not really...people are still completing Legendary Elite Shroud in 30 +/- minutes. Not a whole lot of coordinated teamwork is required for any of our raids these days.

[Loromir]

Also, the problem with creating content for only a select portion of the population is that the remainder of the population will feel excluded every time developer resources are spent on that type of content. Better for the developers to spend time creating things that everyone can enjoy when the population is small.

This is what Hard and Normal difficulties are for.

[Loromir]

Asking for a wow clone just makes me sad.

And the OP must have missed all those threads about "this and that instakills me, that's not a challange!" or the numerous rants about being kicked out of a group because "you did not have x item" or "was not of that class".
Yeah, let's bring back those days, deprived servers are waiting for you there.



Not asking for a WOW clone....asking for the difficulty to be ramped up. Making something difficult does not make it a WOW clone. I referenced WOW to show that the masses will still play difficult content. WOW still has the biggest player population among MMO's...by a long shot.

[legendkilleroll]

Also, the problem with creating content for only a select portion of the population is that the remainder of the population will feel excluded every time developer resources are spent on that type of content. Better for the developers to spend time creating things that everyone can enjoy when the population is small.

Everyone isnt enjoying it tho, how can an update with 3 quests, 2 of them so short, ive done them 10-15mins on LE by myself so i bet others can even do it under 10

If players want to experience the content they have other difficulties, really dont see a reason why LE cant be really tough

[Taimasan]

Yea I remember playing WoW after taking weeks to be the 2nd on the server to down a boss. It is not easy with the coordination it takes. But the camaraderie, the communication the friendship is what made it fun. I could care less what it is as long as it is fun and I am doing it with friends. Unfortunately DDO seems to been killing off group play for some time now. And that is unfortunate because I used to log on every day and spend a lot of $.

[Heynone]

I remember Fall of Truth was considered unbeatable on EE for the first few days at least. I remember seeing countless posts asking for the devs to nerf nearly everything in that raid. Also, although I wasn't around for it, I have heard from people that say when the Titan raid was introduced no one could complete it for a large amount of time.

The issue is the difficulty needs to be something that is both fair and punishing, a hard line to walk.

[Axeyu]

Raids in DDO will never take months before the first completion. They can just be powered through with SP pots.

[Enoach]

Every Raid since that time has pretty much been beat faster.

Now Master Artificer and Lord of Blades almost gave us this, but players used an abundant amount of resources groups banded together to beat the content. If we didn't have the amount of resources I believe it would have taken longer.


The trick is to create a raid that balances out DPS and Team mechanics.

What has plagued our newer quests such as the Double Dragon at Thunderholm and the Shadow Dragon Raid on Thunderholm is the Lag.

I'm all for Raids having mechanics that require coordinated effort and a wide variety of skills available to different classes.

[Amundir]

Title should really be "Would the DDO devs ever be 'allowed/want to' to do this?"
Gotta cater to those that pay the billz. Or get it past management that it will be more profitable to shift gears. Used to be group based, now we're solo based, now we wanna go group based again?

Idc, but pick a speed and drive.

Btw,

We all know DDO is a far superior game to WOW.

Lol, Idc about WOW, never played, but it always cracks me up to see positive trolling.

[Gremmlynn]

This is what Hard and Normal difficulties are for.But it's basically the same content. So it's limited to a large extent by hard and normal's play-ability.

[Gratch]

The original Titan raid took months before it was solved even on normal. It was only beaten by one guild (Bones Combat Brigade) before the devs increased the pillar's knockdown AoE (it used to require the pillar's center to directly hit the Titan's head and because the pillars only fell in certain degree arcs you had to specifically place the Titan in one of the arcs even with a good aimer (using a single handed weapon on the pillar)). After the pillar nerf a number of guilds won though it was still very challenging. There were also quite a few bugs in the first months that made it mostly uncomplete-able. They also nerfed the Titan's damage a number of times as people complained. (The force gun and the multi-damage spinning blade arm attack) - required tank (and we didn't have all that many HP back then) and healer to hit him mid spinning attack to prevent a one-shot in most cases. Also the Titan aggro which is really weird now, was even worse back then.

The Tower of Despair (Elite) took a little while for guilds to beat.

The Lord of Blades (Elite) took a few weeks (maybe just one) before it was beat. Lots of learning his special attacks, having multiple tanks for when he clobbered your main tank down and the quest was a real challenge (and added the 3-min no-rez timer on death). I think our guild entered around 10 times on elite before we got it (not including a bunch of hard training runs). Was fun though also very "we need this kind of tank, at least two healers, a dog kiter, etc".

I think LoB reminds me most of WoW type raids. Giant boss with a multitude of special attacks that you have to learn and he adds new ones each round. Obviously these days with added levels and epic power, people can basically solo it.

Not sure if they can really do a guild/player testing type of raid that isn't beaten on day one unless they tell the players up front that they're going to nerf it after the first month so people of all abilities/characters can run it. There's just too much disparity right now between fully-tweaked top DPS FoM and anyone not on that curve to make a cross-player-balanced raid at L30.

Another thing that other MMO's do that DDO hasn't done to preserve playability is add in a Big Boss or Environment NewTypeDamage/Stun etc that cannot be blocked/mitigated until you craft something that comes out of the raid. This moreso forces players to run at norm/hard to craft said items before taking on elite. Though often this gets seen as dev-cheatings and also leads to players "without said item" discrimination.

[lugoman]

Why should Turbine use it's limited resources to make content that only 20% of the population could/would play?

[scipiojedi]

Why should Turbine use it's limited resources to make content that only 20% of the population could/would play?

If that 20% comprises 50% of it's profit then it might. I'm not saying it is or isn't. Maybe that 20% is only 5% of it's profit. Maybe it's 75%. But just because it is 20% of users doesn't mean it isn't a significant portion of the playerbase. Also making content for 20% may cause that 20% to bring their friends so over time it would be content for 40% of the playerbase, but right now that 20% and their friends aren't playing because the game is too easy for them.

[HAL]

Everyone isnt enjoying it tho, how can an update with 3 quests, 2 of them so short, ive done them 10-15mins on LE by myself so i bet others can even do it under 10

If players want to experience the content they have other difficulties, really dont see a reason why LE cant be really tough

I think one answer is that "really tough" is subjective. The developers have to choose how tough is "really tough". Do we make it tough for Completionists? Triple Completionists? Heroic AND Epic Completionists? With raid gear? With +6 Tomes? Higher? Won't that still be too easy for those who have 100+ Past lives?

Some people say that if you can't complete the super-hard content there is Hard and Normal. What if a guild or group wants to play the content together? They'll play on Hard.

So what ends up happening is the developers creating content for only a very small percentage of the population. I'd be willing to bet there would be one group per server that played it regularly between needing at least one dedicated healer and a full group of uber characters, and division from people preferring to play lower difficulty with friends.

But there probably is a better answer for why they don't do this: lag. Think of the lag that current raids face. Now think of MUCH WORSE lag because a more difficult raid would be much more intense.

[Loromir]

Why should Turbine use it's limited resources to make content that only 20% of the population could/would play?


....Again...please don't miss the point that I'm talking about Legendary Elite. You still have Normal and hard that the Casuals can run.

[UurlockYgmeov]

....Again...please don't miss the point that I'm talking about Legendary Elite. You still have Normal and hard that the Casuals can run.

How about LE (or RE) slayer areas.... where everything is a double barrel champion! :)

[Wulverine]

Just make Reaper mode already.

Add an environmental effect (like the CitW raid) that reduces heals cast on yourself by 90%. Heals received from other players are unaffected. For starters.

You don't really need to build content specifically for the crowd that wants a challenge. Just add mutators like the above to a certain difficulty setting.

The benefit to the hardest versions of new content being too hard initially, is it stretches the longevity of that content. Eventually it will be beat. Characters get stronger + players get better -> content gets easier to eventually be beat even at the highest difficulty. Having that final moment, where a raid gets completed at the highest difficulty 2-3months after release is a great way bring back some lively competition between servers.

[mikarddo]

The benefit to the hardest versions of new content being to hard, is it stretches the longevity of that content. Eventually it will be beat. Characters get stronger + players get better -> content gets easier to eventually be beat even at the highest difficulty. Having that final moment, where a raid gets completed at the highest difficulty 2-3months after release is a great way bring back some lively competition between servers.

Exactly. If its easy from the outset it will never get hard. If its hard from the outset it will eventually get easy. Adding quests that are easy from the start is simply wasteful design.

[duntduntduuun]

I want to preface this that I am not a WOW player. Never have been and never will be.
The writer talks about their raiding. The amount of time they spend preparing. The team coordination involved to be successful. Honestly...a lot of things that have been absent from DDO for many years now.

does the writer mention this
http://massivelyop.com/2016/02/28/the-mop-up-top-raiding-guild-quits-world-of-warcraft-february-28-2016/

top raiding in wow has problems filling 20 man raids because it's a tiny percentage of the player base (which is also probably about 100 times larger than DDO's and their raids are all about pass/fail conditions as you point out, doing the slightest wrong thing and you may as well just leave and restart.

DDO doesn't have the same player base. in 7million you might find a few thousand "aspiring E-sports stars" who have all night 7 days a week to play games, DDO's player base is much older and much more employed most importantly though is it much smaller, if you get a few thousand hard core wow raiders from 7million you probably only get few dozen from whatever DDO has. we can't manage Coyle without *****ing so hard they retroactively nerf a 7 year old quest and that's a 15 minute quest. imagine a 3 hour raid where all 20 people have to manage their own coyle.

could they make more raids like Deathwyrm, Titan and Abbot 1.0? Sure, and that's what I'd like to see.