Saltmarsh - Eh, not so much

[OfElectricMen]

It looks great.

The quests are okay.

Do I like doing stuff in Saltmarsh?

Oh no, I do not.

Why?

The ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE activation mechanism of the mobs. The only reason you should have to activate the mobs like you do in the wilderness area is bad design, no ifs, ands, or buts.

[Simard]

It looks great.

The quests are okay.

Do I like doing stuff in Saltmarsh?

Oh no, I do not.

Why?

The ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE activation mechanism of the mobs. The only reason you should have to activate the mobs like you do in the wilderness area is bad design, no ifs, ands, or buts.

Disagree on it being bad design; my assumption is that it's intentional to allow you to run to the quests without triggering aggro on a large number of mobs. Given the line of sight due to flat terrain in many places, more typical AI behavior would pull a lot of wilderness mobs. It might be annoying if you're trying to do slayers on a caster or ranged build, but I enjoy not having to deal with a bunch of trash when I just want to get out to A Hole In The Ground or whatever far away quest while burning an XP pot.

[mbartol]

The problem is the devs responded to the complaints regarding the abundance of active Feywild wilderness mobs by swinging the pendulum way over to the opposite side.

A much better solution would be to add a teleporter NPC to all wilderness zones, as was suggested many times, and keep the longer range for activating mobs. This would allow for both slayers and quick quest access, depending on your goal when entering the wilderness zone.

Unfortunately, the likelihood of changes being made is very low.

[Wahnsinnig]

SSG devs did everything right in Ravenloft. Instant teleport close to quests, and an interesting explorea area if you wanted to do that.

I dont understand why they did not continue doing that in Sharn, Feywild and Saltmarsh.

[Wizard1406]

^ Indeed, and you could reddoor all quests in Ravenloft. Why did they remove that in Sharn and you have to do quests in order, every life ?

And teleporters are good for server health I think. Instances with many aggroed mobs probably cause extra lag, we don't want that.

[CSQ]

Teleporting to quest entrances should be mandatory for all major wilderness areas. Areas that don't have any should have them added, and ideally they would be free to go to the quest you'd like to run like the Ravenloft quest teleporters. Wilderness areas are great and I love them, but what I don't love is having to spend five minutes running to a quest, especially if I've already run it once that life and I'm going back for loot or, heaven forbid, wiping the quest. It's a really simple solution to a problem that shouldn't be a problem- because some areas (Ravenloft is an example of everything done perfectly) nail both the "You can skip the wilderness area" and "You actually want to do the wilderness area" criteria. Three Barrel Cove is another good example- although it's less generous than Ravenloft, it still isn't odious since you only need to run to the quest once, the area isn't bad to navigate to any particular location (on both heroic and epic, though a few of the epic quests might be a bit of a walk) and you have a decent number of reasonably spaced teleport destinations.

Even if not every quest entrance is available or the teleporters need to be unlocked by visiting them, it would still be better. I'm sure the servers don't love when players zerg train through the wilderness aggroing everything because they only want to get to the quest entrance. One of my wishlist things in DDO is keeping a lot of "utility" flagging through lives, and if we could keep wilderness teleporter status it would make things so much more convenient to run some wilderness areas/quests on subsequent lives and prevent a lot of running around that just isn't really playing the game.

[Wizard1406]

One of my wishlist things in DDO is keeping a lot of "utility" flagging through lives, and if we could keep wilderness teleporter status it would make things so much more convenient to run some wilderness areas/quests on subsequent lives and prevent a lot of running around that just isn't really playing the game.

Yes keeping quest and raid flagging and teleport unlocks through TR would be really good QoL! And making it easier to group up. Maybe make it an option, as I heard players saying they enjoy starting completely new on a TR. Others prefer the QoL of having everything unlocked.

[Bjond]

to allow you to run to the quests without triggering aggro on a large number
That's a failure then. People doing Saltmarsh pull huge trains. Every Salt group has red-alarmed during travel. It's much worse than Fey, particularly because it takes things 2-3s to "wake up" and start chasing. The chased probably doesn't even realize the enormity of what's about to descend on them.

IMHO, it's because inactive mobs can't be seen. There's no overhead label. They blend in to the environment and people ride right over them activating the entire zone during travel. I far prefer born active to triggered in all cases. It really breaks immersion to have to run up and slap stuff to wake it up. The mobs in GH wilds are closer to how hostile critters should behave. You should be spotted, threatened, and attacked.

OTH, animals should not be born hostile. They should mostly avoid humans unless they're protecting young or a fresh kill. And, nothing should fight to the death. Even non-sentient animals are more than smart enough to realize when they're outclassed and flee. 'Course, that would be a back-handed nerf to melee and not much fun to everyone as entire dungeons run screaming from a single player, but it would be more realistic given how powerful player characters are in game.

BTW, I agree with others in this thread on Ravenloft. That expansion pack just nailed it. Travel, wilds, story, items, everything.

[Wizard1406]

OTH, animals should not be born hostile. They should mostly avoid humans unless they're protecting young or a fresh kill. And, nothing should fight to the death. Even non-sentient animals are more than smart enough to realize when they're outclassed and flee. 'Course, that would be a back-handed nerf to melee and not much fun to everyone as entire dungeons run screaming from a single player, but it would be more realistic given how powerful player characters are in game.

BTW, I agree with others in this thread on Ravenloft. That expansion pack just nailed it. Travel, wilds, story, items, everything.

Yep, and mabye mobs in wildernesses shouldn't aggro and attack players way over their level. Would cut down on aggro scripts activating when epic players run through the heroic wilderness to the epic quests.

[Aaabbbcccddd]

Disagree on it being bad design; my assumption is that it's intentional to allow you to run to the quests without triggering aggro on a large number of mobs. Given the line of sight due to flat terrain in many places, more typical AI behavior would pull a lot of wilderness mobs. It might be annoying if you're trying to do slayers on a caster or ranged build, but I enjoy not having to deal with a bunch of trash when I just want to get out to A Hole In The Ground or whatever far away quest while burning an XP pot.

I always thought they did it to minimize lag because the server has to calculate way less monster AI stuff until they get triggered.

[Dendrix]

The ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE activation mechanism of the mobs. The only reason you should have to activate the mobs like you do in the wilderness area is bad design, no ifs, ands, or buts.

Do none of you people have invis clickies/scrolls/spells/potions?
Every single one of my characters carry an invis method.

Click invis, get on horse, ride to quest, avoid obvious large groups of monsters, 60 seconds to arrive at most entrances. It's pretty easy.

[Artos_Fabril]

Disagree on it being bad design; my assumption is that it's intentional to allow you to run to the quests without triggering aggro on a large number of mobs. Given the line of sight due to flat terrain in many places, more typical AI behavior would pull a lot of wilderness mobs. It might be annoying if you're trying to do slayers on a caster or ranged build, but I enjoy not having to deal with a bunch of trash when I just want to get out to A Hole In The Ground or whatever far away quest while burning an XP pot.
If that was the problem they were looking to solve, they already had better versions in RL and Sharn (not Cogs): TP to the quest or put them all at one entrance you don't have to fight to get to.