Ravenloft Expansion Preview #2 Content Feedback

[Cocomajobo]

First, please refer back to the main preview thread (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/491550-Ravenloft-Expansion-Preview-2-Friday-Monday).

You can now enter Ravenloft from either House Jorasco or Eveningstar! Please post all content feedback for landscape, quests, and public areas in this thread.

The Land of Barovia Wildreness area is fully accessible! (Please note: If you are experiencing performance issues on the landscape we would love it if you tried using the new option in the "Advance Graphics" section of the options menu which allow you to adjust both Frill Density and Frill Distance) This includes a vast explorer area with random encounters, journal entries, and rares along with three small public area's accessible from within the Wilderness Area. The arc questgiver's for each part of Ravenloft are contained within these public areas and there are "Guides" outside each public area capable of teleporting you to the quests in their surrounding area. If you ever can't find a specific quest simply check with the guides just outside the other public areas.

The following quests are available for preview in varying states of polish:

Into The Mists (Intro dungeon required to enter the landscape for the first time)
Death House
Fresh-baked Dreams
An Invitation to Dinner
Oath of Vengeance
A Raven at the Door
Mad Tea Party
Sealed In Amber
The Final Vintage
Raven's Bane
Sunrise


It is worth noting that the Arc Questgivers are set up, however, because most of the quests in part 2 are locked for this preview you will not be able to continue along the quest arc after completing "Raven's Bane". You should still be able to access and play the final quest in the arc "Sunrise" simply by finding their questgiver and entering the dungeon normally.

In addition, you can access the Raid "The Curse of Strahd" by speaking to "Rudolph Van Richten" in the Blood on the Vine Tavern in the first town in the Land of Barovia Landscape.

[GeoffWatson]

Will there be Heroic variants of the Raids?

[Wanatuc]

Just was on for a short time tonight to try a build (Need to change totally).
But went in Sealed in amber noticed that a Mountain Folk hunter was headless right at beginning. Went to south western door werewolf and Mt. folk attack the one Hunter was headless. Sorry did not get to far into quest before I got killed Like I said very bad build recalled out.

[gwonbush]

Tried running the raid solo just to test it out. The Grip of Strahd mechanic makes that not work so well, but the first time I got hit by it I was right next to the shrine after beating the first boss. The real snag was not having a FoM item on me for some dumb reason and having the 2nd trap box on the way to the heart of the castle spawn inside a pile of rubble.

[The_Human_Cypher]

Will there be Heroic variants of the Raids?

No, as mentioned elsewhere by Coco.

[PsychoBlonde]

I like the music (I just started into the mists) but I'm disappointed that the DM voiceover doesn't have a Russian accent. That would have been cool.

Vasily in Into the Mists walks WAY too dang slow.

WHY are scarecrows HEALED by ELECTRICAL DAMAGE zomg.

Strahd Zombies (Death House basement) did not affect the Monster Manual.

The statues at the Amber Temple are facing the wrong way, so you see their backs as you go into the temple.

When I exited the Amber Temple I had a bug where the wilderness area didn't work right--I didn't get the Quest Objectives window so I can't recall.

[ssternlight]

I only saw the one bug on the Kasimir Velekov Heroic Hard reward dialog and the one on the Winery Quest initial dialog given by AdrianMartikov. The reward dialogue needs to be inserted -- current is "end quest 2 pc." T

More general feedback:
1. The pack is well done artistically -- quite enjoyable visually and musically.
2. However, I really don't care for the reprising of certain music snippets or monsters from other packs as I already have associations with those -- and some of them like the devils of Shavarath monsters just seem inappropriate for a "gothic" theme. I think the blue skulls in Sealed in Amber show the team can be creative in creating new/funny monsters and I think the gypsy themed music is quite nice. You're simply not giving yourselves enough credit for your creativity (or ran out of time/funding.) By contrast, I didn't really mind the dungeon reuse -- seemed appropriate in this setting.
3. The wilderness in terms of slayer interactions does get a bit boring rather quickly. I thought the Kings Forest was actually rather well done with it's min-challenges in that regard and could serve as a nice model here as well -- probably not possible given the release schedule but something for other packs in the future perhaps.
4. Having the guides to teleport around is essential. I actually wouldn't play the pack much if I had to trek around all the time -- in fact I think you could have a guide available near each quest (mist is as good as because you can get to a guide fairly quickly from there if you get lucky on where transported.)

Overall, I found it quite enjoyable, well worth the base price for the pack (especially with the sentient weapons thrown in), and think it a wonderful addition to DDO. That's without having played the raids either.

[Wizza]

Will write it somewhere else

[Nonesuch2008]

We are liking this so far, the atmosphere is excellent as are many of the visuals.


Vasily in Into the Mists walks WAY too dang slow.

I had the same thought, then it dawned on me...he's wearing a corpse, so it must be the rigor mortis slowing him down so much. Either that, or he is Cyan's long dead relative.

I caught the "Stahd" in the text below, but that's not nearly as mysterious as the choice below it:

https://i.imgur.com/XSaARL8.png

[boborocks]

When I finished Sealed in Amber and finished out of the quest, it didn't clear and return me to the Land of Barovia. I wonder if this is a side effect of not having the Part 2 unlocked. It left me stuck in a weird in between state where I could collect the quest reward from the giver, but it didn't return me to the wilderness area in a way that slayers counted. When I opened the xp summary, it still showed the xp summary of the completed quest although I had exited and returned to the wilderness area.

Other than that, I have completed Mad Tea Party, Fresh Baked Dreams, Sealed in Amber, and Death House and didn't run across any other issues that I noticed. Enjoyed the quests, btw.

Thanks.

[Wanatuc]

Overall good quest. The main problem I found was that once u left floor and went to next floor and back the map was blank (it got the fog of war)

[Paladin_of_Power]

Will there be Heroic variants of the Raids?

That is honestly what I was expecting too. Since the quests are Level 10 and there will be a 'create a level 10 character' VIP option so you can jump in and do Ravenloft. I'm a bit disappointed there isn't a Heroic Raid.

[Jappy]

When my party andd I recalled out we were sent back to our respawn locations, Is this a bug or intentional?

[SisAmethyst]

I really like the wilderness area ... it is huge but it feels a bit empty at times. However more irritating is the fact that the town feels so empty...

Found one issue thou, after shrining in the wilderness area I was not able to change my spells, I will try to see to add a bug report for this...

[Ladislaio]

Reposting here because the thread asks for all feedback to be in the thread...

Completed the Strahd raid. Was fun, but it needs quite a bit of polish.

Short summery of the raid from memory (please excuse the lack of good names).
Part 1:
Prep; Learn order of cards; Get stun breaker trinkets and Sun Sword;
Part 2:
Enter crypt; Kill butler person guy; Say hi to Strahd; Return to prep area;
Part 3:
Ascend the endless trapped stairs, with too many trap boxes (many of which are bugged)
Part 4:
Try to survive Strahd's mist explosion area (seems timed?)
Part 5:
Return to Crypt; Find cards and light torches in order (shown in part 1? seems to be 5 card/torch combos)
Part 6:
Kill Strahd
This is done by prepping Strahd, prepping brides, killing strahd, killing brides, person with sunsword puts it in strahd. Brides (there were 3) self rez after a (very) short period of time, and if any bride is alive Strahd's coffin is protected by a barrier. Honestly a neat fight. Glad that it is not also full of respawning trashy trash.
Part 7:
loot (one chest on EN)

Things liked:
Tankable Boss.
Interesting mechanic with the sun sword and the hold breaking trinkets.
Looks nice.
There are traps that hurt.
Boss fight has mechanics to work around.

Things not liked:
That Horrible Loud Sound that kept people from hearing voice chat. Or anything. But that loud sound. Which was horrible. Also loud.
Too many traps to disable - Make fewer boxes keyed to several traps. You either can disable traps with your party or not, making people wait for trappers just makes the raid more tedious.
The mist instakill has very very short warning and no apparent save or (known) counter play other than moving very quickly. Tiny bits of lag(common in this game) make that undoable. A slightly longer delay between the waring circle and the needing to move out would be nice.
The time before a bride raises herself felt quite short (did epic normal).
The hold breaking item goes on your trinket slot, with will break set bonuses and sometimes remove important stat items now. Make it like a jibbers or a cake, or perhaps a weapon with the clicky?
The hold breaking items only have one charge each, meaning that you can only use it twice, AND there is only one shrine. This is not a short enough raid for that to be enough uses for it to be a fun mechanic.

Bugs Noticed:
Trap boxes were not always in accessible areas after you searched them out.
Recalling out of the raid caused you to return to korthos, the bridge between worlds, or the hall of heroes.
You cannot get to the raid entrance as a raid group - You have to travel to the inn then join the raid group. This makes it difficult to pug (like classic shroud / ToD / Titan I guess?)

[Rylex_Night-Shield]

I've run this quest solo three times now. Once on Heroic Hard and twice on Legendary Normal. All 3 times I believe I have encountered the same "bug".

I make my way up to the 4th floor (Spires of Ravenloft) where Escher is at. I talk to him and ask about the top of the South Tower and that I'm looking for a friend. He tells me to go back through the door and into the portrait room, open the door across the way, go up a flight of stairs, and there's the door I want.

I make my way across the red carpets, open the door, and fight a mob of wraiths and specters. I run up the stairs to the door labeled "door", get a DM text of, "As the door opens, many sets of green eyes shine out at you from the darkness. There is a telltale hiss and a flash of black fur. The room is full of cats". Then another text of, "The kitchen is rank with the smell of decaying corpses. The cook for the macabre affair is nowhere to be seen". However, the door remains closed and clicking on the door comes back with an error message of "The Door is blocked by the Door". I've tried a bell of opening, going down the stairs and coming back up to the door, and even trying to smash it down. Nothing works to open it. The top of the stairs has a red force field and a door/exit sign on it but nothing seems to work there. I am 99% positive it's the door I need to take but after 3 separate tries, I can't get the door to open for myself.

I asked other players on the test realm if the quest is completable and several have answered "yes" and they completed it earlier. I find it bizarre that it refuses to open up for me even after several runs. Is there anyone else also encountering this same problem? After 3 tries now, I'm done trying to complete the quest this open Lamannia server time. Hopefully, I'll have better luck next time. *shrug*

[TitusOvid]

I ran mostly the wilderness. It get's boring pretty quick, sadly. I ran alone, maybe it is nicer to run it with more peeps.
Only problem I encountered was getting booted once or twice when I entred the mist on different locations. But that could be an error on my side.
I would recomment a longer testing period. I just had some hours today and it is a pretty big wilderness and a good number of quests.

[JOTMON]

Barovia either the inn or something close by should be setup with traders and restocking supplies.. banks etc...
a Portable Hole + bankers and such...

Currently we have to port back to Eberron to restock any supplies.

[JOTMON]

Raid party forming is a PITA.
Should be able to join the raid from wherever and port to the gathering place to enter the raid without having to drop and rejoin..

There is no direct port to the bar area and the explorer does not support raid grouping..
so party has to break raid, or not join raid until at the bar in Barovia.

~Recommend changing the port destination after completing the introduction zone to port directly to the bar instead of the edge of town/explorer zone.~


or...
probably a long shot request.. would be nice if the explorer zone was raid friendly.

[DANTEIL]

I took a level 25 character in to the Epic wilderness for a bit, wandered around until I found the first tavern, then used the guide there to teleport me to the second tavern (thanks for the auto-grant of the teleports. This wilderness area is HUGE!), and then picked one of the quests there at random to run. So, I ended up in the Mad Tea Party.

Some thoughts about the quest:

I liked this quest -- the combination of the manor houses connected with the underground passage was neat. The houses themselves, especially when first going through them, seemed tremendously huge and empty, although I understood by the end of the quest that the enemies generally only triggered when making my way back to the start. The underground parts were mostly bland (except I did like the summoning lair/library; I didn't mind the light puzzles on the way there but I groaned when I realized I had to do them on the way back too. If I had DDoor I would have tried that) but the art on the houses themselves was quite nice, even if those many many empty rooms felt somewhat repetitive except for the few 'special' rooms that contained NPCs etc. I did the Heroic version of the quest just to explore, so I cannot say anything about the overall difficulty, but at least it seemed that there wasn't generally the massive mobs of enemies at various chokepoints like we've seen in other recent quests.

The most interesting part, of course, are the various story options between the Lady and the Baron (no spoilers). Since this was my first run-through, I mostly navigated these options blindly so I'm not sure how things would have been different if I had chosen something else. I always like quests when if feels like I am being given some options about how to handle the quest, even if that is just an illusion. The storyline here was well-handled.

A few final points:

Going in, this was described as a 'tea party'. Did I miss the signs of a tea party?

I was thorough but somehow missed the final piece of incriminating evidence for Lady Wachter.

I was on a rogue/artificer, so I was mostly able to unlock doors. That being said, by the end of the quest I had accumulated 1 Jeweled Key, 2 Blue Keys, 1 Iron Key, 1 Red Key, 1 Silver Key, and 1 Green Key -- but only the Jeweled Key and the Green Key seemed absolutely necessary. The number of keys floating around felt excessive.

Those two sons reminded me of the Trump sons, yes? They're probably from the module, but still... I like that they show up in the Inn later.

[Nonesuch2008]

We had trouble picking up Strahd's fifth journal. It was placed on top of an anvil near the edge of the village, but we got the 'blocked' message no matter what angle we tried. Standing on the anvil and using Q+E also failed. Here are the coordinates:

(Standard): You are at: r2 lx604 ly885 i9 ox88.21 oy118.27 oz99.89 h189.8
(Standard): Q:0x7002E82B

[Rogann]

Ran the raid a few times on LN. Was only able to complete it once since I was shortmanning.

Decent raid albeit somewhat short. The longest part was the Torch puzzle mostly due to coordination issues. The blue circle death cloud things seem to give you enough time to escape. May be a big issue when game lags. Had no real issues with the red mist either. Ticks for about 150-200 pretty quick on LN. Maybe lower the time between damage ticks a bit?

Bugs/Dislikes:
Cannot join the raid until people are in the Inn. Very annoying when trying to get people in the group.
Recalling put people in Korthos and Hall of Heroes.
Let the Trinkets have 5 charges. Not 1. (Also the timer should be a bit longer before they die. Maybe like 5 more seconds)
The first part seems a bit bland. Just searching four corners to kill a mob.
There's a pack of shadow mobs at the very top of the stairway you need to kill to lower the red barrier to the Heart. One mob seems to be bugged. Cant attack it. Was forced to use Ruin/Greater Ruin on it.
The noise that warns you the mist is coming in the torch puzzle is TOO LOUD.
The Maidens at the end fight should have a little more HP. At least on normal. They drop incredibly quick compared to Strahd. I understand that's to lessen the possible failure of the 'kill together' mechanic but still seems a little low.

Oh! and bonus bug: 'Void, the Endless Cold' Raid Bow clicky: 'Conjure Ice arrow'. When equipping the conjured 'Forzen Terror' returning arrows. The 'Freezing Gale' effect works with Melee. If this is intended then every melee in the game will be looting the bow.

[Silverleafeon]

Raid party forming is a PITA.
Should be able to join the raid from wherever and port to the gathering place to enter the raid without having to drop and rejoin..

There is no direct port to the bar area and the explorer does not support raid grouping..
so party has to break raid, or not join raid until at the bar in Barovia.

~Recommend changing the port destination after completing the introduction zone to port directly to the bar instead of the edge of town/explorer zone.~


or...
probably a long shot request.. would be nice if the explorer zone was raid friendly.

Predicting if there is a bind point that people will bind near the raid entrances?

Also what about using Rings of Friendship EI pulling players into the ToD raids style?

[JOTMON]

Predicting if there is a bind point that people will bind near the raid entrances?

Also what about using Rings of Friendship EI pulling players into the ToD raids style?

Bind point doesnt help much.. kind of silly to buff up then /death to get to the grouping point after joining the raid LFM..

Ring of friends is a money option, sure.. but are players willing to spend to pursue this option.

We dont even have a Greater Teleport option destination like the old long dead Titan raid.

TOD at least had a port option once the explore point was found.


That was what I was asking for, that the port point be moved into the bar instead of the edge of the of town that is not raid group friendly.
Then once the initial find Barovia quest is completed Players can join LFM's, port directly into the Bar and deploy from there.

[Silverleafeon]

Bind point doesnt help much.. kind of silly to buff up then /death to get to the grouping point after joining the raid LFM..

Better than running thru wilderness, and if one can access a bar nearby before entering raid, it might be ok.



Ring of friends is a money option, sure.. but are players willing to spend to pursue this option.

Unlikely to happen more than once per life.

Perhaps the Teleporting bottle will solve this issue for some players?



We dont even have a Greater Teleport option destination like the old long dead Titan raid.

TOD at least had a port option once the explore point was found.


Aye


That was what I was asking for, that the port point be moved into the bar instead of the edge of the of town that is not raid group friendly.
Then once the initial find Barovia quest is completed Players can join LFM's, port directly into the Bar and deploy from there.

ok

[Nonesuch2008]

It was nice to find a banker out at van Richten's tower, but are there plans to have some hireling vendors there (or anywhere else) as well?

[DYWYPI]

Worryingly 'The Land of Barovia' wilderness is still repeatedly crashing the DDO Client... It happens every single time I enter that "Wilderness" even if I finish a quest in there or leave the Barovia Tavern area(s), etc.

However, this Preview instead of on average; taking me over five attempts at restarting the DDO Client and logging back into Lammania, before "Land of Barovia Wilderness" stops crashing. It seemed to be closer to crashing the DDO client; twice each and every time the wilderness area tries to initially load.

This Ravenloft preview, I entered via Eveningstar to see if it made any difference to the client crashes. I only managed to get enough spare time to complete a couple of the quests and traverse some of the Wilderness.


https://i.imgur.com/nytLUsO.jpg
Everything in life is unusual until you get accustomed to it.

Wilderness: unfortunately (re)entering the wilderness repeatedly crashes the DDO Client for me - a major downside and inconvenience. :-/

The Wilderness map itself is expansive, now that it's had some more polish regarding the music and the journal narration, it improves the immersion sevenfold. There are some really good panoramic views in places and nice artwork.

The Rare Encounters seemed fairly common when I entered; managed to get "5 Rare Encounters" within around 30-mins. I came across quite a lot of wildlife some hostile and some not so much, it did seem fairly random.

There seems to be rather a lot of scarecrows roaming around compared to humans, which is rather odd... The Carrion Crows or perhaps Ravens, don't seem to be scared away (by the scarecrows) from pecking around. So that appears to be semi-illogical.

I did really like that there were some 'Bear Traps' in the Wilderness but the placement of them didn't seem to be associated with any specific feature? A minefield of Bear traps might have made sense in an area where there were more bears or a camp or settlement. The inclusion was great but the placement could have been perhaps better thought out. The teleporting mists were also a nice feature.

Overall the wilderness has promise, and it would have been nice if there was an also an alternative, e.g. dusk version.

Into The Mists: it seemed a fairly short quest and I believe your actions determine the outcome of the story a little. The preview before I think the mist behaved differently overall its fine as a short Intro mini-quest.

Death House: it did feel as if you were wandering around in one of those houses depicted by the wilderness area. Obviously it felt like homage to a horror film and the music was relevant. Perhaps if you'd have had more time, you could have focused and expanded more upon the "Doll House" features, i.e. actually using more it as an alternative reality.

Fresh-baked Dreams: featuring a windmill, and the plot reminded me of Brothers Grimm, which was rather cool but the quest itself was lacking somehow. You could find the "remains" perhaps within two minutes easily... However, the mechanic for "Valentina" appearing seemed time based (or respawn kill based) and not related to exploration which ruined the quest somewhat.

Mad Tea Party: I didn't get time to run through the entire quest but it had some nice features. The NPC text was rather verbose, so you'd have to read umpteen dialogues to both understand and appreciate the quest to the fullest.

Oath of Vengeance: again it did feel like you were wandering around one of the buildings within Ravenloft. I'm not a great fan of quests with complex layouts due to my faulty short-term memory but overall I didn't get too lost... The levers however took a bit to figure out or find. Also I didn't actually realise I had already picked up a quest object, i.e. the Key I believe. So was wandering around confused for a while. Perhaps there was a bug in the dialogue or something about receiving the said quest item. The Puzzle was nice and simple.


Alas I'd like another Preview because overall it's looking promising; I didn't really have the spare time and chance to explore most of the Ravenloft content (Wilderness crashing on 'Loading...' was a major deterrent). :-)

[Danuru]

The gothic horror feeling wasn't subject of this preview? Bummer, I'm thrilled to see what they are coming up with.

Why need folks always teleports to everthing? Enjoy the landscape, it looks awesome. It's not like you need a day to get to the quests, or the raid.

[Cordovan]

We wanted to let people know that the second raid in the Mists of Ravenloft will not be releasing at the same time as the rest of the expansion, but will instead be released a short time later. We want to do a bit more polish on the second raid, but didn't want to hold up the rest of the expansion to get it done. Thanks! We expect the second raid to be available within a few weeks, but will have more specific information when it is available.

[Craigrx1]

Why need folks always teleports to everthing? Enjoy the landscape, it looks awesome. It's not like you need a day to get to the quests, or the raid.

Its not that we don't enjoy the landscape but if you run thru the landscape enough it just becomes background and becomes routine. Where as the running to and fro from the quest become exceedingly tedious.

[Niminae]

We wanted to let people know that the second raid in the Mists of Ravenloft will not be releasing at the same time as the rest of the expansion, but will instead be released a short time later. We want to do a bit more polish on the second raid, but didn't want to hold up the rest of the expansion to get it done. Thanks! We expect the second raid to be available within a few weeks, but will have more specific information when it is available.

Will the second raid, which was promised for the Ravenloft release but then retracted (and I am only citing the SSG promotional material which was changed in mid-stream from promising two raids to one) be free-to-play content, or will it require the purchase of some Ravenloft content in order to access it?