To Hot To Handle Difficulty

[Torc]

So … that raid… Too Hot to Handle.... kinda living up to its name.

After watching you fight the good fight for a couple of weeks, and going over the data, we’ve concluded that the raid is over-performing modestly for our goals.

As a result we are currently a testing a few changes that will affect all difficulty levels, although the adjustment to Elite will be much smaller. None of these changes affect core mechanics of the raid, and instead will target pacing. The fixes should be live within a few weeks, but we’ll have an exact date soon.

A few notes:

This is one of the most difficult raids we’ve seen in while. There have been no Elite completions, and very few Hard completions, across all servers. A fair number of Normal. The guides we see posted have become more accurate (yet not perfect), indicating knowledge of the raid mechanics is mostly out there. There are a few wrinkles though that if you guys don’t understand yet, it will cost you. Giving no spoilers though.

This raid was designed to push our raiding community harder, and to shake up things. To see what life would be like if Elite first completion was something that might not happen day one of release. We’ve actually gotten a lot of positive feedback on this count. Even if the raid seems crazy, there is always the question for some, can you find a way?

We opted for putting the gauntlet in Elite rather than Reaper because the Reaper tree power doesn’t match up well with the first skull, and skull ten is just….bonkers.

Our minor nerf to Elite was after some consideration of not touching it at all, but the thinking is since it hasn’t been beaten yet moving the goal post slightly closer will just mean more people will be in the race.


-T

P.S. - So we almost called this raid “Go die in a fire”, but we thought that might have been to on the nose… :o

[Yamani]

P.S. - So we almost called this raid “Go die in a fire”, but we thought that might have been to on the nose… :o

But with Too hot to handle you can play the song with it!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPuznSe7bmw

[Teeaaa]

P.S. - So we almost called this raid “Go die in a fire”, but we thought that might have been to on the nose… :o

My party will never see this coming.
*evil maniac laughter*

Otherwise, yea. Raid is awesome and hard (in the way that I'd only want it harder). Now that I know that there's some things that we haven't gotten yet, I'll be looking through all the details!

[Eldried]

Being in a Endgame Raiding guild, I like the new difficulty on Elite/reaper. I never liked a raid being beaten on Elite a couple hours into release.

I think Normal is a difficulty that can be beaten by pugs, people just need to learn the raid and maybe bring a balanced party.


I would like Elite/reaper to stay as it is.

[Unsinful]

Having wasted wayyyyyyyy too many hours of my life testing and running this raid on normal adnausium and completing hard a few times, and smashing our faces into elite over and over again to no success i fail to see how there is still an undiscovered mechanic here.

I would love to personally break down everything we have found torc and see if we know something y’all maybe didnt know that we knew about. This “mechanic” is driving me crazy and its probably the answer for how we can complete this raid on elite. If we are truly missing something still we will keep looking but I’m finding it harder and harder to believe every day of testing that goes by.

I’m fine with elite being only slightly modified and reaper not being touched because reaper difficulty is for those of us who want the challenge. I Think the raid is vastly overbalanced on normal and even on hard.

My problems with the raid on hard and higher are the amount of mobs (namely red names) that spawn out of nowhere. The DPS check is so high I wonder if its even possible to ever complete this above a skull or 2. R1 seems like the way to win because reaper points=win when comparing elite and R1.

[ChadB123]

I really like this raid. The challenge was a breath of fresh air! Keep the mechanics coming, we enjoy the push.

[SerPounce]

In theory I like the idea of raiding content that isn't beaten overnight, but as a player who's not in an "elite raiding guild" I would like to some day get to complete this raid like I have all the others in the game. Since at this point not even the people I know in raiding guilds are consistently completing it that was feeling pretty far out. I've given up on ever actually getting any loot from this raid, but I'm still hoping I get to play it at some point. Hopefully this change will make that a more realistic possiblity.

[Vorachtin]

So … that raid… Too Hot to Handle.... kinda living up to its name.

After watching you fight the good fight for a couple of weeks, and going over the data, we’ve concluded that the raid is over-performing modestly for our goals.

As a result we are currently a testing a few changes that will affect all difficulty levels, although the adjustment to Elite will be much smaller. None of these changes affect core mechanics of the raid, and instead will target pacing. The fixes should be live within a few weeks, but we’ll have an exact date soon.

A few notes:

This is one of the most difficult raids we’ve seen in while. There have been no Elite completions, and very few Hard completions, across all servers. A fair number of Normal. The guides we see posted have become more accurate (yet not perfect), indicating knowledge of the raid mechanics is mostly out there. There are a few wrinkles though that if you guys don’t understand yet, it will cost you. Giving no spoilers though.

This raid was designed to push our raiding community harder, and to shake up things. To see what life would be like if Elite first completion was something that might not happen day one of release. We’ve actually gotten a lot of positive feedback on this count. Even if the raid seems crazy, there is always the question for some, can you find a way?

We opted for putting the gauntlet in Elite rather than Reaper because the Reaper tree power doesn’t match up well with the first skull, and skull ten is just….bonkers.

Our minor nerf to Elite was after some consideration of not touching it at all, but the thinking is since it hasn’t been beaten yet moving the goal post slightly closer will just mean more people will be in the race.


-T

P.S. - So we almost called this raid “Go die in a fire”, but we thought that might have been to on the nose… :o

I mean, I'm happy your not nerfing it into the ground. I have loved the challenge of this raid for sure, keep em coming.

[Odysseus2011]

Being in a Endgame Raiding guild, I like the new difficulty on Elite/reaper. I never liked a raid being beaten on Elite a couple hours into release.

I think Normal is a difficulty that can be beaten by pugs, people just need to learn the raid and maybe bring a balanced party.


I would like Elite/reaper to stay as it is.

I absolutely agree; I would love to see changes to this raid being made on Normal/Hard for puggers that are struggling for completions but would prefer that higher difficulties be unchanged.

From personal experience there are 2 main abilities which make this raid hard for the average group and those are the forgewraith's Deathward and nearby Heal on Death features. Currently the Deathward does not apply to Orange named mobs in normal but the heal effect does while both apply on hard. I would suggest removing the heal feature for normal as well, and then remove either the DW/Heal for hard but not both; while leaving Elite as is. Imo this would help out pugs tremendously.

[Arkat]

P.S. - So we almost called this raid “Go die in a fire”, but we thought that might have been to on the nose… :o

OMG, that would have been GREAT!!! :eek::eek::eek:

[FlavoredSoul]

I hope you keep these nerfs very mild on normal/hard, and preferably made no changes on elite.

Personally I think World/server first raid completions for elite should be a massive achievement months in the making.

It's hard to give more feedback without knowing more details about what the changes are, but I very much hope that it's limited in scope to maybe slightly less mobs.

The smaller the changes the better.


Also I hope you take into account the planned to Epic destiny's and additional epic pastlives bringing more power into the hands of the top 1% raiders, which will make Elite slightly easier even without changes.

Every much hoping that the first challenging raid in a while isn't overly nerfed.

[Feal]

which mechanic are we missing? maybe related to the walk on air while dead?^^

I enjoy the raid, very nice, agree on making normal and hard easier, and adjust elite a bit

[redoubt]

We opted for putting the gauntlet in Elite rather than Reaper because the Reaper tree power doesn’t match up well with the first skull, and skull ten is just….bonkers.



Could you expand on this statement please? Its sounds like you made elite harder because of the reaper trees.

[psykopeta]

sorry, coming from someone who hasn't run the raid (nor previous raids on higher diffs lol, maybe i won't run the raid in... months? XD)

but being an expert from the golden wow era:

don't touch it, pugs will keep running it (and every) raid on norm due to effort/payout

leave elite for elite players, leave reaper for reaper players

"OH BUT I DIDN'T BEAT THE RAID ON ELITE SMASHING THE KEYBOARD BUT I HAS LOTS OF HP AND PRR AND SUCH"

no, just no, we needed almost 3 months to beat c'thun, your boss died much faster, just don't do it, let hardcore players play hardcore, let norm players play norm and if they aren't worthy... well, they can get gear and knowledge from plenty places and your release is too young to be nerfed

[Cantor]

sorry, coming from someone who hasn't run the raid (nor previous raids on higher diffs lol, maybe i won't run the raid in... months? XD)

but being an expert from the golden wow era:

don't touch it, pugs will keep running it (and every) raid on norm due to effort/payout

leave elite for elite players, leave reaper for reaper players

"OH BUT I DIDN'T BEAT THE RAID ON ELITE SMASHING THE KEYBOARD BUT I HAS LOTS OF HP AND PRR AND SUCH"

no, just no, we needed almost 3 months to beat c'thun, your boss died much faster, just don't do it, let hardcore players play hardcore, let norm players play norm and if they aren't worthy... well, they can get gear and knowledge from plenty places and your release is too young to be nerfed

That's fine for elite. Ddo/dnd is about the story for a lot of people other games do graphics better etc... there is no reason to deny people normal, 12 random people should be able to normal if they are halfway playing. I hope normal gets a good adjustment, maybe just balance hard to control gap between difficulties and make elite as hard as you want.

[HungarianRhapsody]

Fixing some.of.the bugs in the raid would go a long way toward making the raid more manageable

[Arkat]

Fixing some.of.the bugs in the raid would go a long way toward making the raid more manageable

Such as?

[Torc]

Could you expand on this statement please? Its sounds like you made elite harder because of the reaper trees.

Just doing what we usually do.

Over the history of game we've periodically put in an extra curve ball on elite in raids or capstone content, or sometimes in epic as supposed to heroic. Many of these curves can be pretty subtle like an existing ability is much more powerful. Sometimes there is something brand new in the space. When reaper came in we didn't really feel the need to change and move curves up to reaper, because reaper is a much more procedural system, especially in raids where no champs or reapers spawn.

-T

P.S. Killing Time got an minor exception to champs/reapers in raids there under the premise you were falling in time into a dungeon experiences, so reapers and champs were present in those sections. Those sections also typically had monsters stated like a dungeon experience rather than a raid to match that premise.

[Thar]

I wonder if the missing mechanic is related to the cooling tanks. We've completed it with completing the cooling tank puzzles in part 3 and with not completing the puzzles.

what bugs i've seen... lag... and trash pops continually and boom done.

i've completed multiple times on normal.

Hard is a bit crazy without the instakills/turning of orange names.

otherwise it is too much for the normal pug. a select defined roles are needed that you can't trust pugs to fill. and a normal pug should have at least a 50/50 shot at completing. ie they paid for the content too.

[apep1412]

Just doing what we usually do.

Over the history of game we've periodically put in an extra curve ball on elite in raids or capstone content, or sometimes in epic as supposed to heroic. Many of these curves can be pretty subtle like an existing ability is much more powerful. Sometimes there is something brand new in the space. When reaper came in we didn't really feel the need to change and move curves up to reaper, because reaper is a much more procedural system, especially in raids where no champs or reapers spawn.

-T

P.S. Killing Time got an minor exception to champs/reapers in raids there under the premise you were falling in time into a dungeon experiences, so reapers and champs were present in those sections. Those sections also typically had monsters stated like a dungeon experience rather than a raid to match that premise.

Minor corrections: Reapers spawn in all reaper raids, not just Killing Time. All non-boss, non-raid-boss mobs in Killing Time can be champions; it's not limited to any particular sections of the raid. Unless there's been a change to those two that hasn't been announced yet. Should I be submitting bug reports with screenshots for these if they aren't WAI?

[Odysseus2011]

I wonder if the missing mechanic is related to the cooling tanks. We've completed it with completing the cooling tank puzzles in part 3 and with not completing the puzzles.

what bugs i've seen... lag... and trash pops continually and boom done.

My understanding of that is that to get the boss back in phase 3-1 you only need to solve the coolent tanks, not solving the furnaces will result in the DoT still affecting the group. We've had this happen a few times where we solve the coolent tanks before the furnaces; however we then finished the furnaces before beating the boss down. I'm curious though if you kill the boss before solving the furnaces what happens? Do you still need to do the furnaces after or is it over at that point?

[Torc]

Minor corrections: Reapers spawn in all reaper raids, not just Killing Time. All non-boss, non-raid-boss mobs in Killing Time can be champions; it's not limited to any particular sections of the raid. Unless there's been a change to those two that hasn't been announced yet. Should I be submitting bug reports with screenshots for these if they aren't WAI?

Nope! My head has been in the oven to long. You are correct. Reapers spawn in most raids.

-T

[Sebastrd]

So … that raid… Too Hot to Handle.... kinda living up to its name.

After watching you fight the good fight for a couple of weeks, and going over the data, we’ve concluded that the raid is over-performing modestly for our goals.

As a result we are currently a testing a few changes that will affect all difficulty levels, although the adjustment to Elite will be much smaller. None of these changes affect core mechanics of the raid, and instead will target pacing. The fixes should be live within a few weeks, but we’ll have an exact date soon.

A few notes:

This is one of the most difficult raids we’ve seen in while. There have been no Elite completions, and very few Hard completions, across all servers. A fair number of Normal. The guides we see posted have become more accurate (yet not perfect), indicating knowledge of the raid mechanics is mostly out there. There are a few wrinkles though that if you guys don’t understand yet, it will cost you. Giving no spoilers though.

This raid was designed to push our raiding community harder, and to shake up things. To see what life would be like if Elite first completion was something that might not happen day one of release. We’ve actually gotten a lot of positive feedback on this count. Even if the raid seems crazy, there is always the question for some, can you find a way?

We opted for putting the gauntlet in Elite rather than Reaper because the Reaper tree power doesn’t match up well with the first skull, and skull ten is just….bonkers.

Our minor nerf to Elite was after some consideration of not touching it at all, but the thinking is since it hasn’t been beaten yet moving the goal post slightly closer will just mean more people will be in the race.


-T

P.S. - So we almost called this raid “Go die in a fire”, but we thought that might have been to on the nose… :o

I'm really disappointed about this. After all of the complaining that the game isn't hard enough - especially for endgame elite raiders - you finally gave us a challenge. Now the complaints are that it's too hard? Stick to your guns. It's okay for endgame raids to be unbeatable until we figure out all of the mechanics. If normal difficulty is PUG-able, that's good enough.

[Domince]

Will we maybe get a reduction of evil damage? Since it is unavoidable currently to my knowledge. Also, Will you guys be reducing spawns or increasing the amount of time it takes for wraiths to upgrade?

[Ladywolf]

Is the lag in the raid being examined? We’ve had runs where we’ve lagged out even before the shrine. It gets frustrating when the lag happens run after run after run where you can’t move for a long while

[Noircere]

Will we maybe get a reduction of evil damage? Since it is unavoidable currently to my knowledge.

Per my understanding, all of the evil damage is subject to either PRR or MRR [edit note: this is not expressing uncertainty about which one matters for evil damage. Rather, different attacks use PRR or MRR depending on which attack it is.]. I think the Evil Absorption tower shield might apply to all of it, or perhaps only the magical portion. Most of the magical evil damage offers a will save for half damage. Most of the physical evil damage is stopped by concealment, dodge, and/or deflect arrows.

[Webfoot337]

In the 25 or so completions we have finished on Normal, 90% were completed with massive lag spikes at the end. In numerous cases we reset the raid on the first fights because it is unplayable. We have now lost interest in pursuing it on harder difficulties because of the constant lag wipes. When you fix that we will be back.

[-D_Rock-]

So … that raid… Too Hot to Handle.... kinda living up to its name.

After watching you fight the good fight for a couple of weeks, and going over the data, we’ve concluded that the raid is over-performing modestly for our goals.

As a result we are currently a testing a few changes that will affect all difficulty levels, although the adjustment to Elite will be much smaller. None of these changes affect core mechanics of the raid, and instead will target pacing. The fixes should be live within a few weeks, but we’ll have an exact date soon.

A few notes:

This is one of the most difficult raids we’ve seen in while. There have been no Elite completions, and very few Hard completions, across all servers. A fair number of Normal. The guides we see posted have become more accurate (yet not perfect), indicating knowledge of the raid mechanics is mostly out there. There are a few wrinkles though that if you guys don’t understand yet, it will cost you. Giving no spoilers though.

This raid was designed to push our raiding community harder, and to shake up things. To see what life would be like if Elite first completion was something that might not happen day one of release. We’ve actually gotten a lot of positive feedback on this count. Even if the raid seems crazy, there is always the question for some, can you find a way?

We opted for putting the gauntlet in Elite rather than Reaper because the Reaper tree power doesn’t match up well with the first skull, and skull ten is just….bonkers.

Our minor nerf to Elite was after some consideration of not touching it at all, but the thinking is since it hasn’t been beaten yet moving the goal post slightly closer will just mean more people will be in the race.


-T

P.S. - So we almost called this raid “Go die in a fire”, but we thought that might have been to on the nose… :o

for a 'Normal' this raid is a bit ridiculous to say the least. it felt like an r4 quest at minimum and I do r10's daily. For a normal raid this is not acceptable to anyone for a NORMAL difficulty. I can totally understand hard and elite and reaper as well but NORMAL, just no.

You almost called it "Go die in a fire". more like you almost called it "DDO dies in a Fire". Not the best way to get your players to play your poor humor Raid content on normal. Do you even play test your own content? I almost forgot, we ARE your playtesters as you barely play your own game obviously. At least you woke up to feedback. Going in some sort of direction here I guess perhaps.

[HungarianRhapsody]

for a 'Normal' this raid is a bit ridiculous to say the least. it felt like an r4 quest at minimum and I do r10's daily. For a normal raid this is not acceptable to anyone for a NORMAL difficulty. I can totally understand hard and elite and reaper as well but NORMAL, just no.

You almost called it "Go die in a fire". more like you almost called it "DDO dies in a Fire". Not the best way to get your players to play your poor humor Raid content on normal. Do you even play test your own content? I almost forgot, we ARE your playtesters as you barely play your own game obviously. At least you woke up to feedback. Going in some sort of direction here I guess perhaps.

DDO is not going to die because of one bad Reed. We already have a dozen reads that we don't run. One more raid that we don't run is not going to make a difference.

[Grace_ana]

I'm really disappointed about this. After all of the complaining that the game isn't hard enough - especially for endgame elite raiders - you finally gave us a challenge. Now the complaints are that it's too hard? Stick to your guns. It's okay for endgame raids to be unbeatable until we figure out all of the mechanics. If normal difficulty is PUG-able, that's good enough.

Bearing in mind that I have not yet run this raid...

My understanding was that people were asking for normal to be toned down, so as to be accessible even for people that might not have access to raid guilds and need to do pug raids. If that is indeed the case, then it would make sense to tone down normal, either adjust or leave hard the way it is, and leave elite alone.

But again, I haven't had time to devote to running it and figuring it out lately, so take that with a grain of salt.

[Shadow_Jumper]

Bearing in mind that I have not yet run this raid...

My understanding was that people were asking for normal to be toned down, so as to be accessible even for people that might not have access to raid guilds and need to do pug raids. If that is indeed the case, then it would make sense to tone down normal, either adjust or leave hard the way it is, and leave elite alone.

But again, I haven't had time to devote to running it and figuring it out lately, so take that with a grain of salt.

The big issue is that if you don't DPS the boss and trash fast enough, you get swamped by trash mobs. If you don't solve the puzzles fast enough, you can't advance the raid all the while spawning more mobs. And if you don't bring the proper Absorb, things hurt.

Basically; its challenging because it requires you to deal with trash quickly, solve puzzles, and have semi-decent dps. Which is the bane of pug groups.

[janave]

The typical RAID PUG:

- most players dont know what to do
- some players dont/cant follow basic directions, like A pls heal B..
- most players are under geared
- most players have just finished a TR quicky suboptimal PL build
- most players are not going to do extra preparation (maxing absorption, mrr, hamp)
- most players simply arent going to try a 2nd time after a wipe
- they are not going to discuss deep strategy, bad exp per minute yo!
...
and more


and yet these peeps still paid the same money for content, unless there ever going to be a casual mode to raids where you can pick random 11 and get thru it, content needs to be adjusted for the realistic assumptions about the PUG, sure sure occasionally you get those 3-4 vets in a group that carries the other 8, i was for a long time one of those 3-4 players, but this time i will pass. In fact if this goes to be a trend, I just pass on DDO, raids are important content for me, this is just silly, like stand behind the archers in MoD silly just worse.

[TitusOvid]

Mechanics are fine. Just tone down normal so that a wider player population has a chance to complete the raid.
Thank you.

[Mindos]

Nope! My head has been in the oven to long. You are correct. Reapers spawn in most raids.

-T

Is the special attack fire vomit death breath evadable? I heard it had dragon buffet attached to it mistakenly, when that is fixed will the raid be easier already?

[S3R3N1T7]

I share the fact that it's a good mechanic and a funny ride.
Unfortunately there is a problem with part 3 even if it is a t4 if we have the Runner in lfm (normal with average player (not completions etc)) I find it really bad I can understand hard or Elite but normal it's a bit limited (that's my point of view).

[Loromir]

I'm really disappointed about this. After all of the complaining that the game isn't hard enough - especially for endgame elite raiders - you finally gave us a challenge. Now the complaints are that it's too hard? Stick to your guns. It's okay for endgame raids to be unbeatable until we figure out all of the mechanics. If normal difficulty is PUG-able, that's good enough.

I agree with this statement. Absolutely tone down norm to give all us casuals a fighting chance to complete it...but keep hard and elite right where they are. The first group to complete Elite...then reaper can actually puff up their chests at a worthy accomplishment.

[Cordovan]

Yes, the intention with these changes is to open the raid to more people on Normal, and probably also open up higher difficulties to a still challenging but doable state. That DDO's raiding community still hasn't completed the raid on Elite says something, after all. :)

[Shadow_Jumper]

Yes, the intention with these changes is to open the raid to more people on Normal, and probably also open up higher difficulties to a still challenging but doable state. That DDO's raiding community still hasn't completed the raid on Elite says something, after all. :)

I wouldn't worry too much. Let powercreep take its path.

[Shadow_Jumper]

and yet these peeps still paid the same money for content, unless there ever going to be a casual mode to raids where you can pick random 11 and get thru it, content needs to be adjusted for the realistic assumptions about the PUG, sure sure occasionally you get those 3-4 vets in a group that carries the other 8, i was for a long time one of those 3-4 players, but this time i will pass. In fact if this goes to be a trend, I just pass on DDO, raids are important content for me, this is just silly, like stand behind the archers in MoD silly just worse.

Honestly, a casual mode isn't a terrible idea.

Give raids a LC difficulty, where the players have 100% immunity to all damage and cannot die. Downside is they earn something like 10 runes per completion however.

[janave]

Kinda ironic that We almost always die to the evil portion of the damage (low MRR cap) while the raids' theme is being on fire. :)

300 fire dmg vs 600-700 evil hmmz, If I was building around this raid (I wont), the fire portion would be the easiest part to manage.


Honestly, a casual mode isn't a terrible idea.

Give raids a LC difficulty, where the players have 100% immunity to all damage and cannot die. Downside is they earn something like 10 runes per completion however.

That would be more like a story tour. I would never suggest full immunity or god mode. The reward could be completely eliminated to be honest, this would serve the purpose to experience the content, rather than getting loot or adrenalin surge.

[Shadow_Jumper]

300 fire dmg vs 600-700 evil hmmz, If I was building around this raid (I wont), the fire portion would be the easiest part to manage.

I honestly have no reason to doubt that fire makes up most of the damage. I presume Torc meant overall base damage when he was describing the amounts. There are a LOT more ways to reduce fire damage than there are evil damage.

going by the 80% and 20%, and using the damage numbers you gave; Lets assume base Fire damage is 4800, and base evil damage is 1200.

Only MRR affects Evil right now (unless you have the raid shield), IDK what your MRR is, but mine is 100, so that would be .5, making that 1200 = 600

Now the fire damage.

53% Artifact Absorb
50% Sheathe
50% MRR
9% from Arcane PLs

gets down to 578.

I also have a HGS item i use sometimes, that gets it down to 354

[MeliCat]

Yes, the intention with these changes is to open the raid to more people on Normal, and probably also open up higher difficulties to a still challenging but doable state. That DDO's raiding community still hasn't completed the raid on Elite says something, after all. :)

Oh good. I do like how raiding can be inclusive and you get to meet all sorts of people in DDO and give everyone a chance to be in on it. This raid though is not really puggable even on normal right now though. So this change is welcome. Do hope you keep the higher difficulties - and maybe add an incentive like a unique item (same as say the cube pet for FOT/CITW) - to push those that need that extra smackdown to keep them on their toes :D

[Epitome]

...

...

9% from Arcane PLs

....



With another 3% possible in the future.

[AmrothTheGrey]

As a long time VIP player, I do not believe that the few who want this 'challenge' represent the larger community. Without changes to lower the standard difficulties, this raid will be inaccessible to everyone that I play with regularly. Since we have a small guild, all of our raids must be done with PUGs. For those who feel they need a challenge, that is what high reaper is for. The rest of us want to have fun and don't need to have our egos stroked.

Please just lower the difficulty so we can have fun playing this raid.

[Shadow_Jumper]

With another 3% possible in the future.

Yea. And keep in mind, this was just reductions that a non-tank may have. An actual tank is looking at additional effects such as:

Divine EPL: 30%
US Stance: 30%
MirrorPlate: 15%
Energy Absorb T4 Shiradi: 15%
Filigree Setup: 5/5/5%
300+ MRR: 75%

Those benefits would reduce the evil damage to 300, and the fire damage to something like 80.

[kain741]

In the 25 or so completions we have finished on Normal, 90% were completed with massive lag spikes at the end. In numerous cases we reset the raid on the first fights because it is unplayable. We have now lost interest in pursuing it on harder difficulties because of the constant lag wipes. When you fix that we will be back.

I have mentioned this before in other threads and is ignored. Having multiple reds on the board which is all but necessary to keep dps on boss in phase three means there is substantial lag. This performance issue needs to be addressed to give parties time and opportunity to explore and try different strategies.

[kain741]

As a long time VIP player, I do not believe that the few who want this 'challenge' represent the larger community. Without changes to lower the standard difficulties, this raid will be inaccessible to everyone that I play with regularly. Since we have a small guild, all of our raids must be done with PUGs. For those who feel they need a challenge, that is what high reaper is for. The rest of us want to have fun and don't need to have our egos stroked.

Please just lower the difficulty so we can have fun playing this raid.

There is not anything difficult about EN. There are lots of videos out there that will show you exactly how to do it. These are generally done in 10-15 mins often with no one dying (if you pug you may have a few). Just follow the mechanics of the raid...the damage is not high in EN if you just do the raid as intended.
All the challenge is in LH+ due to constraints that aren't in LN...I do repeat though, there is nothing that keeps a pug from doing the raid on LN if you communicate and each person does their job.

[Anuulified]

What if during the raid when you get the message about being called into the lava or whatever, you are supposed to jump in to stop wraith spawns?

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

This raid was designed to push our raiding community harder, and to shake up things. To see what life would be like if Elite first completion was something that might not happen day one of release.

I have seen that elsewhere, too.
Long ago, in SWTOR, the vocal minority of raiders, who had been filling the forums months with talk about "there is no challenge anymore" "we need a new raid !" "we want a challenge !" "we want some HARD content !" got what they wanted.
What happened ? Only a very few clearings at all, none in the highest difficulty mode, a few voices saying "this is too hard for the mass of raiders (and especially for PUGs"), and these 2 raids getting a nerf, finally. That vocal minority became silent, or boasted with having been "world firsts". Some of them even disbanded/dissolved after the nerf.

I don't recall having read even one apologising for nudging the devs into a raid that was not good for the overall community, and good only for a select few raiders.

[Arkat]

I have seen that elsewhere, too.
Long ago, in SWTOR, the vocal minority of raiders, who had been filling the forums months with talk about "there is no challenge anymore" "we need a new raid !" "we want a challenge !" "we want some HARD content !" got what they wanted.
What happened ? Only a very few clearings at all, none in the highest difficulty mode, a few voices saying "this is too hard for the mass of raiders (and especially for PUGs"), and these 2 raids getting a nerf, finally. That vocal minority became silent, or boasted with having been "world firsts". Some of them even disbanded/dissolved after the nerf.

I don't recall having read even one apologising for nudging the devs into a raid that was not good for the overall community, and good only for a select few raiders.

I'm not familiar with SWTOR. Did their raids have various difficulty settings like DDO raids and dungeons do?

I would think that would be an important consideration if you compare the two situations (DDO vs SWTOR).

[entropyspinner]

I for one am glad with what is going on with the raid with it being too challenging for the majority of the players, without having them step up their game. I never felt that a player of six months should be entitled to all the most powerful items, perks and experiences of those that have been playing for ten or even five years, or even two years. I feel that player still having access and a practically guaranteed chance of completion to the over 99% of the rest of the DDO content is more than generous.

This is an MMO. If you want to get something accomplished, work with your server community. I never felt that twelve self-avowed soloists should be able to complete a raid, though it's not far from the truth for many of the other raids. I'm not buying the too small of a guild or not enough LFMs arguments. Looking purely at mechanics to get something done is just not enough. Find more depth in your solutions and with the people you choose. Do not be afraid to communicate. This will help you grow. This raid is completely puggable. I have helped PUGs even to completion.

Aside from that, do the time. Get some past lives. There is a reason why past lives are available. Or stay at end-game for a while if all you ever do is TR. End-game has different thought processes than your repetitive xp grinds.

Why is it others can complete on normal, even with a PUG, and you can't? The raid is not the problem, it's likely you being the problem. Evolve, change, adapt, and prepare. I find Inquisitive an exceedingly useful and powerful complement to this raid, yet I have incredible difficulty finding any outside my guild when I post a PUG. This is also the D&D way. In tabletop play you have to think through your next moves otherwise you may be rerolling new characters. This raid edges closer to that way of thinking, in this case failing to complete.

I will be disappointed if the developers give in and nerf it six months from now.

Thank you.

[Michaelaz2]

Such as?

Such as in 1st part not spawning a wraith behind the walls and making the portal unable to open

Sorry but but IMHO with poor loot tables theres ZERO reason to run this raid. Perhaps if the risk reward was there but at this time its simply a waste of time for no loot on normal

[Dark_Helmet]

Yes, the intention with these changes is to open the raid to more people on Normal, and probably also open up higher difficulties to a still challenging but doable state. That DDO's raiding community still hasn't completed the raid on Elite says something, after all. :)

Honestly, guildies just complain about the lag spikes. Lag which also impacts people in other quests, on the ship or other non combat zones for seconds to minutes (client times out).

I can't wait to hear how it is with EiN nerf (since that is the most powerful ability that also causes lag ;) ).

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I do not consider myself a casual player.
However, I will never be at the top tear of power level in this game.

Various reasons...

Also, I do not have a like-minded guild that will ever tackle any difficult raid. (or difficult difficulty, etc.)

Only raids I have found that I can do with friends are those we are either so far above level it is meaningless (and therefore my friends don't want to do them.) or the easiest of the easy. (like Legendary Tempest Spine)…

My only hope is to find the rare PUG.
Which doesn't really exist for most raids... especially anything difficult.... or long.


I would love a casual raid setting. That would allow me and others to actually complete some of these raids.
Preferably with some chance to eventually get some raid loot. (after all, gotta do the raids to get the loot to be able to do the raids…)
But right now, I'd settle for just being able to do them without a chance f raid loot/runes etc. Cause right now it is content I just have no hope of ever completing.

Sad.... :(

[darkmoon_cn]

we doing 2 times LH THTH,tonight
https://vi0.6rooms.com/live/2019/06/09/00/1002v1560010309434133532_b.jpg
https://vi3.6rooms.com/live/2019/06/09/00/1002v1560010310264511947_b.jpg
https://vi3.6rooms.com/live/2019/06/09/00/1002v1560010310733490935_b.jpg
https://vi3.6rooms.com/live/2019/06/09/00/1002v1560010309829797191_b.jpg

[Epicstorms]

Agreed with rebalancing the raid so that also the weaker players can have fun.

Those people that are unhappy with "nerfs" can just increase the difficulty. You're not affected.

[janave]

After some more tries, certainly workable with the right party, but it requires massive investment if not playing one of the supported classes, re-gearing/re-speccing a character specifically for this single raid is not really worth it.

I could cripple my main to do significantly better at the raid then drop from quest r5-6 runs to r1... due to the loss of efficiency.

One of the biggest advantages in this raid is motor reflex, which you cant develop until you fail a bunch of times. As every second is really meaningful. Not to mention DPS checks are kinda off for the average pugger.

[Alled78]

Iwas able to reach my first ln completion yesterday after 10 11 wipes.
Me and my group loved the challenge of this raid

As for normal pls dont nerf the mechanics
All you shoul correct is the damage.


Havent played hard yet

[MaeveTuohy]

Just had my first run of the raid.

We had a strong team of experienced pug raiders. The team leader had run it a few times before, including prior to the update.

It was fun, and a decent length for what it was.

We completed without a death.

It was a good training level of difficulty in my opinion. I think the devs nailed it with their re-scale.

Looking forward to trying it on hard.

[Clemeit]

We completed without a death.

For the "hardest" raid in the game that's a serious issue.


It was a good training level of difficulty in my opinion.

Except it's not. Named loot still drops. We got 3 named items drop in a normal run the other day. For absolutely no work.

Excuse me. For 9 minutes of "work" I mean.

[Clemeit]

Agreed with rebalancing the raid so that also the weaker players can have fun.

There's nothing wrong with allowing players to have fun. There is something seriously wrong with giving players who have absolutely no interest in challenging raiding environments access to the best gear in the game.

Normal should drop absolutely no loot. If you want that, you can work for it.

[Sinetic]

Just had my first run of the raid.

We had a strong team of experienced pug raiders. The team leader had run it a few times before, including prior to the update.

It was fun, and a decent length for what it was.

We completed without a death.

It was a good training level of difficulty in my opinion. I think the devs nailed it with their re-scale.

Looking forward to trying it on hard.

Really happy everyone can now just walk into LN, do a couple of puzzles, and beat down a raid boss that literally doesn't do anything and then get all the best named loot in the game. Such fun! Much challenge!

[Bluebird6757]

Some of our guild ran a THTH a couple times last night, both on Normal. I'll talk about the 2nd run since it was more puggy. Our guild is pretty familiar with the raid - we had completed hard before the patch. The party was 5-6 guild (one of which had never done the raid), 3-4 friends of guild, and 3 absolute pugs, from putting up a public LFM and taking the first 3 to apply. We noticed the decrease in difficulty, but it will still be a good challenge I think. In fact we didn't complete the first try (our communication still needs a little work and we were trying a strategy that didn't pan out) but did on the second. It's possible for a pug (and I don't consider a group of endgame raiders getting together a pug) to complete now, but maybe not on the first try unless they have a great leader who's familiar with the raid. It won't be a cakewalk for them. I think the difficulty now is suitable for a Tier 4 raid and it's more fun for everyone. Groups with unoptimized toons unfamiliar with the raid should be able to get far enough into the raid to get to know the mechanics now. I wish the raid had been released like this. My guild is looking forward to attempting the raid on R1 this weekend and probably failing miserably!

[MaeveTuohy]

Really happy everyone can now just walk into LN, do a couple of puzzles, and beat down a raid boss that literally doesn't do anything and then get all the best named loot in the game. Such fun! Much challenge!

What best named loot? Nothing dropped for any of us. And it isn't the best IMO.

As for fun, that's not for you to determine for me or anyone else.

As for challenge, there are twelve other difficulty levels. Let us all know when you have soloed R10 and are out of challenges on this raid. And lots and lots of people are not here for a challenge. DDO is light entertainment for me. If I am looking for a challenge I will climb more peaks (literal, not figurative), learn another language (my fourth), design another board game, or change to a fourth career. Or something else. Many paying customers here don't turn to computer games solely or specifically for "challenge."

[Clemeit]

I think the difficulty now is suitable for a Tier 4 raid

I think you're very wrong.

[Sinetic]

I think you're very wrong.

I think you are very right.

[Clemeit]

What best named loot? Nothing dropped for any of us.

With a sample size of... 1?

[Sinetic]

What best named loot? Nothing dropped for any of us. And it isn't the best IMO.

As for fun, that's not for you to determine for me or anyone else.

As for challenge, there are twelve other difficulty levels. Let us all know when you have soloed R10 and are out of challenges on this raid. And lots and lots of people are not here for a challenge. DDO is light entertainment for me. If I am looking for a challenge I will climb more peaks (literal, not figurative), learn another language (my fourth), design another board game, or change to a fourth career. Or something else. Many paying customers here don't turn to computer games solely or specifically for "challenge."

Your attempts to"flex" on me to prove a point are laughable. None of your personal achievements have anything to do with this game. This raid turned into another Mark of Death as I was worried that it was. People will farm it out on LN and get everything and then never run it again. Strahd and Baba (Both tier 3 raids) are harder than this raid. People have just become so accustomed to being spoon fed easy content that when they actual have to work and figure stuff out they panic and complain it is too hard. I am fine with the difficulty being reduced so the less intense population can complete to experience the story. Fine by me. Just don't give them any loot for minimal effort.

[MaeveTuohy]

With a sample size of... 1?

12, the raid party was full. I did not indicate that I soloed it. (Duh)

[MaeveTuohy]

Your attempts to"flex" on me to prove a point are laughable. None of your personal achievements have anything to do with this game.

Maybe the challenge is putting up with nonsense like this.

[Bluebird6757]

For the "hardest" raid in the game that's a serious issue.

Disagree strongly with you on this - the poster stated the group was composed of strong endgame raiders. They should be able to get through Normal without problems. It would be a problem if the group was composed of unoptimized non-raiders who don't play much or at all together. You and others keep missing the point that THERE ARE 12 LEVELS OF DIFFICULTY ABOVE NORMAL. 12. Plenty of room for challenge. If that doesn't matter why do we have 10 levels of Reaper??? Maybe we should have just had 1 level of Reaper.

Except it's not. Named loot still drops. We got 3 named items drop in a normal run the other day. For absolutely no work.

Excuse me. For 9 minutes of "work" I mean.
Good for you. My guild has had at least 5 runs in the past few days where we got skunked. Normal has a low drop rate - most of our other runs had 1 named item drop. You got very lucky in your run. You make it sound like a group of 12 filthy casuals can waltz into the quest, pop open a chest, and get everything they want. That's not even remotely the case, even now. In my opinion, the more people that play and learn the raid the better.

[Bluebird6757]

Ugh - typing too fast, should be working. The second paragraph in the quote above is mine

[Sinetic]

Good for you. My guild has had at least 5 runs in the past few days where we got skunked. Normal has a low drop rate - most of our other runs had 1 named item drop. You got very lucky in your run. You make it sound like a group of 12 filthy casuals can waltz into the quest, pop open a chest, and get everything they want. That's not even remotely the case, even now. In my opinion, the more people that play and learn the raid the better.

Well we just had a group of 9 filthy casuals + 2 good peeps run it in 9 minutes and got 2 named items so...