Have I become more dumb ? Or are the anniversary bosses harder now ?

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

Hello,

I remember going through the Anniversary Party last year. With some characters, it was harder, with others, it was easier.
So I concentrated on going throgh that quest with certain characters.

Some of them were only seldom played by me (I'm an altoholic), and some more.

Now I returned into the Anniversary Party quest with them. Those which I remember to be reliably good in this quest.

But no matter how much I try, I get several deaths now in the quest. That hasn't happened before to me to that extend.
I mean, no matter which class / character I try - and I try to keep them updated as good as I can - I get several deaths.
Even with characters I know that they have been particularly good in the past.

The only logical results I can draw from this are :

- I have become more dumb
- the bosses have become harder
- is this the result of nerfing ?
- I didn't have any proper training with these classes anymore, I should have warmed up with them before.

All of my characters are first-lifers with no boni except guild buffs ( I also tried it without guild buffs ).
And, of course, I always play the quest one level above the character's level. Usually with a healer Hireling.

Which means that ... if the bosses indeed might have become harder (which i don't think, personally), this wouldn't be noticed by multiple-lifers because of their past life feats.
Multilifers are just stronger.

All in all I'm just iritated about the many deaths my characters get through. Even thoise I remembered as being reliably good.

Besides, I have found a bug : In one case, a gargoyle went to 0 health points, but was still "alive", and thus couldn't be brought into this "hibernation state" in which the Fiddle would be able to destroy him (or her).

Plus, I had several times the problem of a) not knowing from which spot/place in the room to type the password and b) the password-protected cannon not responding to me typing the password ( with a proper /say , of course !). No matter where I stood, even very close to the cannon, it did't respond to me, and instead kept on firing on my character(s).

And, besides, the illusion of a swimming Kobold is now situated a little bit too deeply.
What also irritated me was that most "farming points" have been eradicated : I used to gather as many Lily Petals as I could while doing that quest ;9 ("Guilty !"), but some of them are missing now. I fear that overall, players had been farming too much ! :rolleyes:

Alrik

[erethizon]

There are certain levels that are dramatically harder than others. For example, running the instance on CR 30 will result in bosses having about twice the health (and hitting far harder) than running the instance at CR 29. For this reason there are key levels where it is wisest to run the instance. After ETRing, farm the instance when you are level 24, so you can run CR 29 for max reward, while encountering much easier opponents. Likewise, while I have not tested it this year, my guess is farming at level 14, when you can run CR 19, is far wiser than running at level 15, when you need to run CR 20. Granted, depending on how they programmed it, it is possible that CR 20 is still heroic and it doesn't get harder until CR 21. Either way, it is best to plan strategically.

[Dragavon]

There are several posts about this since the event started, so you are probably not dumb :p

[Annex]

I wondered the same thing after running the Anniversary Party about 7 times on the first day. The Devs were hitting much harder than when last I played the event in 2018 (or maybe 2019). My dedicated event running Character remains unchanged from two years ago. Steelstar and Darth Severlin are now very dangerous for her. Cordovan hits much harder when he lands a spell. Spell Absorption still shuts down Lichabel and the Bad Thoughts but Steelstar can drain a Jeweled Cloak with 25 charges in about 10 seconds. The kobold gauntlet and the halfling I want to murder seem about the same.

I wrote it off as needing the bonuses from the Reaper Cores, which I have yet to acquire, and more damage output, which will require changing into one of the currently favored Classes. Fixing Characters in DDO takes a long time so I will try again next year. It's not a big deal to me.

[kanordog]

- the bosses have become harder
- is this the result of nerfing ?

Besides, I have found a bug : In one case, a gargoyle went to 0 health points, but was still "alive", and thus couldn't be brought into this "hibernation state" in which the Fiddle would be able to destroy him (or her).

Plus, I had several times the problem of a) not knowing from which spot/place in the room to type the password and b) the password-protected cannon not responding to me typing the password ( with a proper /say , of course !). No matter where I stood, even very close to the cannon, it did't respond to me, and instead kept on firing on my character(s).

And, besides, the illusion of a swimming Kobold is now situated a little bit too deeply.
What also irritated me was that most "farming points" have been eradicated : I used to gather as many Lily Petals as I could while doing that quest ;9 ("Guilty !"), but some of them are missing now. I fear that overall, players had been farming too much ! :rolleyes:

Alrik

Bosses might be a bit harder. Might be the boost to spells give them higher damage.
Possibly the nerfs also helped them, but you did support nerfs, so...

I didn't even know that fiddle&password were a thing. I just beat the bosses as quick as I can. The main trick in DDO is DPS and survivability, nothing else really matters. It is not an mmorpg but a hack'n'slash e-sport.

Nerfing collectables are just stingy, not surprised.


Maybe You can try a paladin (while they are not nerfed) for soloing. Heroics are much easier than epics.
OR
Try to find a group, if you have alts You can join to groups at different level I guess. Much quicker to farm the anniversary.

[Dragavon]

I wrote it off as needing the bonuses from the Reaper Cores, which I have yet to acquire, and more damage output, which will require changing into one of the currently favored Classes. Fixing Characters in DDO takes a long time so I will try again next year. It's not a big deal to me.

I am obviously just guessing, but in Ravenloft and then Sharn we got some insane power creep. Then they adjusted the values on crafted gear to match that. So we have much better gear available now than we had before Ravenloft. I guess they adjusted the difficulty of the anniversary event to match the new power level.

[Annex]

I am obviously just guessing, but in Ravenloft and then Sharn we got some insane power creep. Then they adjusted the values on crafted gear to match that. So we have much better gear available now than we had before Ravenloft. I guess they adjusted the difficulty of the anniversary event to match the new power level.

That seems reasonable. I bought enough DDO Points to get the three latest Expansions on my main Accounts but am currently waiting for a sale. I really look forward to acquiring all that new stuff. :) For now I am building Heroic Slave Lords sets, chasing Artifacts and Filigrees, and just having fun. My Cleric and Paladin are both 3.5 million Karma away from reconfiguration to become powerful. Heady stuff, that.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

There are certain levels that are dramatically harder than others. For example, running the instance on CR 30 will result in bosses having about twice the health (and hitting far harder) than running the instance at CR 29. For this reason there are key levels where it is wisest to run the instance. After ETRing, farm the instance when you are level 24, so you can run CR 29 for max reward, while encountering much easier opponents. Likewise, while I have not tested it this year, my guess is farming at level 14, when you can run CR 19, is far wiser than running at level 15, when you need to run CR 20. Granted, depending on how they programmed it, it is possible that CR 20 is still heroic and it doesn't get harder until CR 21. Either way, it is best to plan strategically.

I was used to have a much easier time at the levels below 10. Now, even at these levels I got several deaths !

When I tried to beat "dev" Severlin with my level ... I think it was 15 ... character, I took a look at the "dev" and found : CR20 !
Uh, I thought. No wonder that I failed so miserably !

[TekkenDevil]

As full Ranger maxed Shiradi Champion, I find the quest pretty easy, but with the caveat that once in a while one of the devs (with the gargoyles) or Kobold Shamans one shot kill me.
I'm too lazy to figure out what rolls I'm failing to cause the crits so I just suck those up and reset.

Most surprising to me is that one shot with Multi-Shot + Hunt's End typically kills Jeets in one click, so he's weaker than the devs.

This is level 24 though.

[Aelonwy]

Its definitely tougher this year. My guess is on the spell damage.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

+Severlin doesn't have spells, as far as I know, but he hits like a truck !

[SpartanKiller13]

When I tried to beat "dev" Severlin with my level ... I think it was 15 ... character, I took a look at the "dev" and found : CR20 !
Uh, I thought. No wonder that I failed so miserably !

Look around in more quests, your enemies are usually higher CR than you are lol. In epics you often fight CR60+ stuff and it's fine.

CR is an approximation, it's not PnP where that's a recommendation for what party level range you should be in relative to the challenge etc.

[Talam]

Your INT hasn't decreased, they are a lot more difficult this year. I posted on this early and asked if they would reconsider, no response. My main triple everything has no real problems, but I have been playing with some new players who were level 6 (first life) doing it at level 9 and they died a lot. Things like this that shouldn't be a difficult challenge they seem to be making hard, thus making it hard for new players to catch up to the old. I just don't understand the thinking. Reaper, especially high level reaper, should be very difficult. Leave R1 and below alone so that new players have a chance to catch up and enjoy the game. My comments seem to just fall on deaf ears though. In addition, yes, they made the collectables only spawn about half the time. Hurts people like me who soloed it so they could get all the collectables. Players who just split up and zerged it don't care. I guess the thing to learn from all this is zerg everything, don't enjoy anything. Whatever. I still love the game and until they do something too bad I'll hang around. Don't think my two friends are going to stick it out though, although I'm trying.

[gravisrs]

Apparently this event is not newbie-friendly anymore. Sorry :)

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

Hm strange : I'm currently doing the quest with a level 5 character at the difficulty of level 4 ... and now it's easy !

[kanordog]

Hm strange : I'm currently doing the quest with a level 5 character at the difficulty of level 4 ... and now it's easy !

Try at level 7, it won't be much harder and you get more tokens.