Looking for "honest" state of the game review - for players thinking of returning.

[Krinoshi2]

Long story short. I was playing back when the game first came out. I stuck around quite a long time and then got really bored of it after something like the 4th account wide full toon set TR.
(Yea that involved both tur*bine and W.B. plus another change. I don't think i touched this game since the last publisher took over willing to bet its the same folks though).

I'm looking for an honest player driven "what's changed" state of the union sort of thing.

Epic Destinies was a thing, and Sharn was just out when I quit - i think anyway.

There's got to be about 5 years or so of updates I missed out on, and the release notes page is dreadfully out of order so one can't really make heads or tails of it.

What's new now, and is there any value in returning to play with a legacy account that was once loaded with top tier equipment?

As a bonus...
Is there any point in coming back? Have they made any modifications so you can change the scale of the UI or is the game still completely unplayable by anyone on a 4k screen?
Is the UI still the same clickbar fest it's always been or have they modified any of it to improve quality of life?

If any SSG people happen to read this, you may consider updating what is now your game's UI a top priority if things haven't changed since launch. Shouldn't matter how complex it is to actually do it either - and I say this as a published game maker.

[Certon]

Long story short. I was playing back when the game first came out. I stuck around quite a long time and then got really bored of it after something like the 4th account wide full toon set TR.
(Yea that involved both tur*bine and W.B. plus another change. I don't think i touched this game since the last publisher took over willing to bet its the same folks though).

I'm looking for an honest player driven "what's changed" state of the union sort of thing.

Epic Destinies was a thing, and Sharn was just out when I quit - i think anyway.

There's got to be about 5 years or so of updates I missed out on, and the release notes page is dreadfully out of order so one can't really make heads or tails of it.

What's new now, and is there any value in returning to play with a legacy account that was once loaded with top tier equipment?

As a bonus...
Is there any point in coming back? Have they made any modifications so you can change the scale of the UI or is the game still completely unplayable by anyone on a 4k screen?
Is the UI still the same clickbar fest it's always been or have they modified any of it to improve quality of life?

If any SSG people happen to read this, you may consider updating what is now your game's UI a top priority if things haven't changed since launch. Shouldn't matter how complex it is to actually do it either - and I say this as a published game maker.

Overall, the game has become more forgiving of 'bad' builds. Elite quests aren't all that elite anymore, and with the introduction of Reaper Mode, they aren't run that much anymore anyway.

Epic Destinies have become much more exclusive. There are a lot of powers that can't be used in succession of one another because they share a cooldown.

Itemization has become more generic at or near cap. Many of the items available at the same level are almost identical, other than one tweaked stat or ability, and a different set bonus.

Playing at 4k *IS* possible, but you'll be playing pretty close to the screen, as no one in the staff seems to be able to code or create the art assets necessary for a scaling one. I mean they can't just upscale the icons they have currently? Sure it wouldn't look great, but it'd be SOMETHING.

Anyway, despite my complaints, the game is still SO FUN. Come back. Play!!!!!!!!!

[boredGamer]

Long story short. I was playing back when the game first came out. I stuck around quite a long time and then got really bored of it after something like the 4th account wide full toon set TR.
(Yea that involved both tur*bine and W.B. plus another change. I don't think i touched this game since the last publisher took over willing to bet its the same folks though).

I'm looking for an honest player driven "what's changed" state of the union sort of thing.

Epic Destinies was a thing, and Sharn was just out when I quit - i think anyway.

There's got to be about 5 years or so of updates I missed out on, and the release notes page is dreadfully out of order so one can't really make heads or tails of it.

What's new now, and is there any value in returning to play with a legacy account that was once loaded with top tier equipment?

As a bonus...
Is there any point in coming back? Have they made any modifications so you can change the scale of the UI or is the game still completely unplayable by anyone on a 4k screen?
Is the UI still the same clickbar fest it's always been or have they modified any of it to improve quality of life?

If any SSG people happen to read this, you may consider updating what is now your game's UI a top priority if things haven't changed since launch. Shouldn't matter how complex it is to actually do it either - and I say this as a published game maker.

Wow, first post I've seen that's threatening not returning if certain things aren't changed. Normally players threaten to quit over some inane nonsense.

Could things be better? Sure. Are the things you are talking about markedly better? No. Can you play on a 4k monitor? I do. Would it be better if it was 4k native? Of course.

Play if you enjoy the game or don't play if you don't. What do you really need to know? It's free to play, just try it out.

[AlcoArgo]

Be careful what you wish for...


What is an "honest" state of the game review? You are asking for a series of people whining about their particular pet peeve and why the game is irretrievably broken because their favorite OP build was nerfed.

You may even get one or two productive answers but that is about it. Play the game. If it is fun, continue. If it isn't, stop.

[captain1z]

Ive been playing since headstart.
This game has change drastically since Euphonias dungeon.
If you know what epic destinies are then you pretty much are still up to date.
The destinies may have been altered slightly but a few days will get you back in the saddle.

That said, its the same game since you left.
If you had a reason for leaving, its very likely still here.
I love playing this game, though I did take a 2 year break in the middle.

I love its core, changes aren't a big deal to me.

Being honesty, if you were bored when you left, you'll eventually get bored if you come back.

Just is what it is. The game isn't for everyone. Some of us will be here until they turn the lights off, some wont.

[Mindos]

https://i.imgur.com/xjDToXl.jpg

[Bjond]

Sharn was just out when I quit [..] still completely unplayable by anyone on a 4k screen
DANGER WILL ROBINSON, DANGER! Wall of text incoming! (lol, just got going on stuff and uh, it's long ... )

IMHO, once you've successfully left DDO, don't come back. It's easier to come back for the people than the game.

Lag is FAR worse now than it was back during Sharn. The Sharn update saw many more players in game than are playing now and players were generally excited about the new sharn update. There's been v.little to no excitement for subsequent changes.

Customer support has essentially been removed.

Bug rate is higher and they're left to fester. See the U51 bug list -- over 300 remain unfixed. The bigger the changes they make the more bugs they add and ignore. Even bigger changes are coming with their intention to raise the level cap. I expect thousands of bugs to be added and then left to rot. Every skill and piece of gear requires player testing.

UI issues are unchanged. Nothing scales. I'm running on UWHD using the largest possible font, which is barely tolerable, but still has a few items where the text requires a 'fiche-reader. 4K text size will be even smaller.

Player population is low, but workable IFF your builds can solo when there's no group. If your builds or personal taste make solo play intolerable, DDO is not for you.

Hard-core League population is very lively. There are enough people playing DDO for a fantastic healthy megaserver, but SSG is not interested in making one.

SSG failed to address any of these issues. The recent producer letter more or less promised "business as usual" without discussing these problems.

Now I'm going to flip things around and try to find reasons that might make returning appealing.

The game has changed. A huge part of DDO is the implicit "build challenge". Can you build a character that thrives? Do you like making chars bug-resistant or perhaps "insectivores" that feed on the issues? Do you like testing new abilities and sifting the gems from the horse-apples? If so, DDO has your ticket.

The people are the same. I left DDO for ESO. Got bored and came back -- mostly for the guild people, but Cannith in general is stocked with great people. The entire server is about the size of one or two big guilds on a real MMO. I like the small-town feel.

I am continually amazed that DDO has not died. Other MMOs with much higher populations pulled the plug. Why hasn't DDO? What keeps this thing alive? Will it die? Will it revive and grow? No clue, but the situation has mightily piqued my curiosity.

LOTS of new details: new class, new race, new EDs, new universal trees, new gear sets, augments & CC gear are viable, new raids (2H2H, MA, LOB, VOD, Dryad, Hunter). Epic entry cost eliminated (no karma grind).

Play style viability shift: 2H melee, Blasters, & Bows are more than viable. TWF confined to a few rarely played builds. DC instant casting hammered (but works still for v.heavy investment). If you badly wanted to play one of those styles, but got chased out by "too hard to make it work", well, they work now.

BTW, in general raids and new quests continue to add mechanics that have no effect on ranged or casters, but are difficult or annoying or deadly only to melee. The population has adapted to this. Melee are becoming rare, but if you like the challenge, melee can still thrive.

[Krinoshi2]

Thanks all for the replies.
Sad to see that the UI hasn't changed. The game was unplayable already when I quit.
There were lots of promises from the community dude Conrad? Cordovan? - Whatever his name was.
It's sad that in 5 or more years none of them have been fulfilled.

As far as being amazed the game hasn't died.. Ditto.
I was on Khyber before quitting. Wondering what happened there, but either way it likely wouldn't matter.
If they restore my account I'd have my guild ship with most of the amenities I need anyway.

Not too crazy about the community/was more of a solo player to the point I'd Doualbox melee and heals and manage new raids without issue.
Or solve goggles for everyone...
multitasking skills are definitely not what they used to be anymore either tbh. But if probably manage if the UI was legible...

@Bjond
If I wanted to test stuff I'd probably troll Lammania like everyone else rather than get stuck and unable to pull my own weight with test builds on live... just personal preference maybe, but since it should be something that's open to everyone (or was it everyone with VIP?) I really don't see why not Test or just play there only to test stuff...

@AlcoArgo
Who cares? Whiners whine. I and everyone with half a brain just skips their post...

@BoredGamer
Not really into going blind at an early age over not being able to tell what icon I have to click across 20 clickbars which I no longer remember the assigned slot of.
I was hoping for *some* legibility improvement. What do they do at SSG? Buy 1080p screens for the staff so that no one sees the UI at 4k? XD
And to answer your other question, I guess I get addicted to *hit games.

Based on what I'm reading so far, there's probably no reason to even download the game.

As far as why they are unable to change the UI, there's no real good reason.

They obviously do have the source or they wouldn't be able to change things like introducing the UI for the epic Destinies.
A single dedicated developer would probably need maybe 2 weeks to re-design it from scratch anyway, but what do I know? I only make videogame and software for a living...

[Mindos]

but what do I know? I only make videogame and software for a living...

lol, people have offered to do things for FREE for SSG. It's getting to the point we're gonna offer to PAY them. Oh wait, that's what customers do already. :p

[Marshal_Lannes]

DDO is better now than it has ever been. The game has never been more fluid - gone are the bloated sacks of monster HPs and there is no longer a system shock when going from heroic to epics. So many things have changed for the better it's impossible to list them (easy to Epic Sands items!). You should try the game and discover them for yourself. There is a rather robust raiding community and a thriving end game that supports it. The biggest negative is server population and as has been pointed out if you don't have a build that is reaper capable of soloing you might get stuck or find your progress slowed to a crawl at certain levels. However, when Hardcore rolls around and we have 4 instances of the Marketplace DDO gets a chance to show off what it could be.

[Memnir]

The game is fine.

[Dilbon]

Yep, gameplaywise the game is still great, but unfortunately technically things are quite bad and outdated.

[LightBear]

Sharn gear isn't outdated but all level 29+ gear got an update some time ago.
So gear wise you should be ok.
That said there are nice new gear options added to the game, which means more choices for niche builds.
Oh, and Sharn was released about 10 updates / released 3 years ago.
The level cap is still the same, so nothing to gain there.
We didn't get a whole lot of classes and or races, think alchemist and razorclaw is it.

[KoobTheProud]

It's the same game you left - just more so.

Anything that you liked back then is still around and anything you hated is also.

It's all about you.

That's the best advice I can give on a DDO return at this point.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

It really depends on what you are looking for.
What you want to play.

Story ? New looks ? XP ?

Define what you want, and then the answer will be much more specific.

[Syrrah]

Long story short.

Hi Kinoshi2

Short story long ...

I was in a very smilar boat as you. I left the game when TOEE hit, so a couple of months after you left I think. I got back last September.

- UI remained exactly the same. I'm not going to add anything about this.

- We got a ton of new quests and some of them are good! Really good even. Many of the quests and expansions of the past years blow Shadowfell completely out of the water.

- A lot of those quests involve codex pages.

- Oooh, and we now have Epic shroud. Nobody ever runs it, but it is there.

- The loot & equipment state is completely different to what it used to be and perhaps the biggest change. Everything that drops has a ton of stats and inflated stats on it. People actually make excel sheets now to gear them out! I'm not kidding: when someone first told me this I thought they were making fun of the ridiculous loot but it's true.

Yeah, I'm really hating the current state of equipment. DDO has become Borderlands in a fantasy setting.

- Almost all named loot has a chance to get random "mystical" or "reaper" buffs. Because MOAR = BETTER.

- Oh yeah, any loot that is not named at this point is basically ****. And all your old loot is also ****.

- And we have sentient weapons! Which is basically yet another levelling system. You plunk a special jewel in an epic weapon and then sacrifice other named loot to level it up, thenk plunk "filigrees" into the sentient weapon. And those "filigrees "can form sets to make you more powerfull. Because MOAR = BETTER, remember? Confused yet?

- The game itself did change dramatically. Reaper hit, it's basically the same as elite but with blanket buffs and debuffs to increase difficulty. And players can now earn reaper points to take away said difficulty.

It kinda split the playerbase (more on that below) in two: peeps who love reaper and those who hate it. The first groups assumes that everyone runs reaper and scoffs at those who don't. The latter either left the game or run elite but solo or with a closed party so as to avoid group one.

- The level cap is now 30 and that's called Legendary. It's exactly the same as Epic but for some reason is called something else. Soon the cap will allegedly be increased. Maybe they'll call it Ludicrous? I call the increase ludicrous just the same.

- The servers are pretty empty at this point. I'm also on Khyber and it's a wasteland. I'm used to there being zero LFMs up at some times of day - not zero LFMs up in my level range, but actually zero zilch nada none LFMs at all.

- The playerbase also has changed. All the a**holes I met years ago I used put on my friend list so I could avoid them. And all the nice people I then met I also put on my friend list but I made a note in a separate document about them as well. Nowadays, I still see those same a**holes log in and I get the impression that the nice folks all left. I'm going to be honest here: I'm an incredible a**hole as well. Why else would I be on this forum?

(Hey, that is acehole, not what you think it is you perv. We're all aces here! Don't ban me please Mr. Cordovan sir please thank you good night.)

- As you'd expect classes and skills have been revamped. What was cool years ago is now at the back, the underdogs or yore are now top of the class. Fire sorcs rule the game with two-handed barbarians, warlocks and guys & gals with non-repeating crossbows (calling themselves Inquisitors) in tow. We got alchemists too but nobody cares. Artificer, monk and two-handed fighting are the bad boys these days. Things are going to change, that's the nature of MMOs.

What else?

- Oh, weapon speeds got revisited. Better read up on the wiki. The "haste" spell has lost a lot of its value. Doublestrike and some other nonsense was completely reworked.

- You'll see several mentions of stat crunches or revisits or whatever. Don't bother about that, this is something the developers did about a year ago to correct an over the top stat-escalation that happened after we both left. Not having experienced that over-the-top system, you won't notice the difference.

- We got rid of the old epic crafting system. Say goodby to shards, scrolls etc. Everyone rejoyce.

- Of course a new crafting system was then needed, because the 6 billion crafting systems that were already in the game were not enough! Epic quests and raids that take place on Eberron now drop shard thingies.

- "Legendary" raids also drop shard thingies, that is yet another new crafting system. Now you can make "legendary" loot!!!!!

Should you come back? Meh ... Do it if you want to taste the new quests or relive the old quests. Don't bother if you care about an interesting loot system, balanced classes or meeting nice people. Your old builds will require some work but unless you're into two-handed fighting or using a shield should mostly still be OK. You'll still want to TR as soon as possible though.

And now back to making long stories short.

[krimsonrane]

DDO is still the best D&D MMO I've ever played. It's also the only D&D MMO I've ever played.

[MyStiK-GaMeR]

From Sharn release in May, 2019 to now the game has overall improved.

The U50 epic overhaul was a very good set of changes. The complexity and customization of characters was greatly increased which really played to DDO's greatest strength.

I just played the new "Hunt or Be Hunted" quests for the first time last night and "wow!". The graphics just blew me away in there. Bravo developers.

Unfortunately UI has not yet been scaled to 4k. I play on 4k monitor but with a resolution of 2.5k? I can't remember the exact resolution, but its quite good and the UI at that resolution isn't so small as to be unusable.

The gearing is complex and more challenging and customizable than ever with more set bonus options and augments nearly reaching the maximum stat boost that's achievable, more filagree set options etc. The Feywild gear offers tiered set bonuses like filagrees which is really interesting.

If you're a solo player small game population doesn't affect you much, though from 2019 its gone up on my server, still its not like it was 10+ years ago. For players who do run with others connecting and static grouping as much as possible is the way to go rather than random PUGs.

Quality of life changes continue to be made. Just recently a "delete all" button was finally added to the mail box! The Banking system has improved over the last few years (I can't recall if the main search/auto sort changes were made pre-sharn or after but that was amazing QoL), more recently the TR bank speed was greatly increased and is much less annoying now. We also know more inventory changes are coming in the future.

Perhaps the largest issue, which we have some -but not enough- info that its being resolved, is customer service. Something happened late last year that threw the customer service waaay off so tickets are just now being addressed from 3 months ago which is obviously ridiculously horrendous CS. I think the lack of response on the issue from SSG is a 'dont give it any air' tactic, but its just bad. Communication for the win.

If you solo and dual box you'll love the new auto-follow from ddo helper, its a wonderful thing.

[TFerguson]

The game is fine.

This. It's still fun and the leveling experience 20-30 is more fun than it's even been.

I just wish there were more people playing. It's fun when you have a group but there are some massive LFM "deserts"

[Deathwing_The_Dragon]

Long story short. I was playing back when the game first came out. I stuck around quite a long time and then got really bored of it after something like the 4th account wide full toon set TR.
(Yea that involved both tur*bine and W.B. plus another change. I don't think i touched this game since the last publisher took over willing to bet its the same folks though).

I'm looking for an honest player driven "what's changed" state of the union sort of thing.



No graphics update, no server merges, no cross-server LFMs, very low to zero population outside of US play times, no dedicated end game and no leadership.

More races TR grind, more TR grind, more level cap (XP) grind with upcoming Isle of dread expansion and loot grind.

Welcome back. I will see you when Isle of dread drops.

[Krinoshi2]

Thanks for the update(s).

Really doesn't seem to bode too well at all.
I wonder if SSg is interested in selling out again.
In previous times every time that they stopped providing support and making lifestyle improvements it was due to a pending sale or the idea of selling anyway. Particularly when the xsolla stuff came around and WB was involved.
Thing is, they apparently have an open position so go figure?

Either way, if I remember correctly I popped in when sharn dropped but it's been at least 5 years probably longer. So I appriciate learning that stuff has changed for the somewhat worse.
Are we still crafting essences or is that gone too?

I was in the middle of a TR run when I quit. I think I had just gotten into the low epics or similar.

For me anyway the loot has always been disappointing.
Too low of a chance on what you want when you have a 2% out of a chest to get the item you need. Be it a Pinion or whatever else that you center a build on.
The raid timers didn't help with it since it's already complicated enough to get a team together for one run back in a time when server population acrually existed. I can only imagine now.
The core probelm of loot in game is that it is tied to a level, and all we do is TR runs.
Having set equipment that just levels with you would ne a lot more interesting to me rather than causing game difficulty to fluctuate endlessly based on gear access...

The random loot was wierd and OP already when I left, with stuff like metallic handwrap drops that did 3x more than named loot. That's the power of RNG though. It can be unpredictable.

I doubt anyone plays D&D for either the story or the quests tbh. It was always just a min-max run through exercise more than a story that unfolds with some logical sense.
And anyone building a well round character would inevitably get stuck mid leveling over the inability to solo stuff...

I'd belive at this point, if I were to play again for a weekend or 2 it would be more about Nostalgia than anything else.
That and emptying out that TR cache so I can fill it right back up :)

Ps: has any loot disappeared or been retroactively changed so that I now have a Legacy version that blows and needs updating?

[boredGamer]

Thanks for the update(s).

Really doesn't seem to bode too well at all.
I wonder if SSg is interested in selling out again.
In previous times every time that they stopped providing support and making lifestyle improvements it was due to a pending sale or the idea of selling anyway. Particularly when the xsolla stuff came around and WB was involved.
Thing is, they apparently have an open position so go figure?

Either way, if I remember correctly I popped in when sharn dropped but it's been at least 5 years probably longer. So I appriciate learning that stuff has changed for the somewhat worse.
Are we still crafting essences or is that gone too?

I was in the middle of a TR run when I quit. I think I had just gotten into the low epics or similar.

For me anyway the loot has always been disappointing.
Too low of a chance on what you want when you have a 2% out of a chest to get the item you need. Be it a Pinion or whatever else that you center a build on.
The raid timers didn't help with it since it's already complicated enough to get a team together for one run back in a time when server population acrually existed. I can only imagine now.
The core probelm of loot in game is that it is tied to a level, and all we do is TR runs.
Having set equipment that just levels with you would ne a lot more interesting to me rather than causing game difficulty to fluctuate endlessly based on gear access...

The random loot was wierd and OP already when I left, with stuff like metallic handwrap drops that did 3x more than named loot. That's the power of RNG though. It can be unpredictable.

I doubt anyone plays D&D for either the story or the quests tbh. It was always just a min-max run through exercise more than a story that unfolds with some logical sense.
And anyone building a well round character would inevitably get stuck mid leveling over the inability to solo stuff...

I'd belive at this point, if I were to play again for a weekend or 2 it would be more about Nostalgia than anything else.
That and emptying out that TR cache so I can fill it right back up :)

Ps: has any loot disappeared or been retroactively changed so that I now have a Legacy version that blows and needs updating?

Sorry, why would you even play ? Or post ? Clearly you don’t really want to play this game. So don’t.

[Bjond]

I doubt anyone plays D&D for either the story or the quests
I think this is both correct and incorrect. The most fun combat system I ever played in an MMO was Terra. It was just amazingly visceral. The worst "story" in MMO also belongs to Terra or perhaps not. It was so haphazard and non-existent that there almost was no story at all, just some minor hand-waving to justify it all as the dreams of a mad god.

Lots of fun basically learning and mastering the play, but without any story at all, I got bored and left that MMO faster than any other MMO before or since. Second worse story belongs to ESO. Same thing there. Lots of fun for a short while then bored and done.

BTW, if you do want story, there are only 3x MMOs that are worth mentioning for story alone: SWL, SWTOR, & FFXIV. I left those for game feature frustrations instead of boredom. An MMO really does need to fire on all cylinders: story, game, group, guild, raid, art, and immersion.

What I love about DDO's "story" is the delivery via voice as a DM narrative. I can hit the game as fast or slow as I like and the story still comes in. And, the DM's sometimes get creative with voicing, which is fun to hear. I don't have to stop and watch 90m cutscenes (ffxiv .. truly 90m, not exaggerating) or do intensive google research as for SWL or stuck waiting for group to all make their story choices as for SWTOR. All of those had incredible detailed and amazing stories that blow DDO's stories away, but their delivery conflicted directly with game play.


Ps: has any loot disappeared or been retroactively changed so that I now have a Legacy version that blows and needs updating?
Yes. The raven-loft belts were all effectively removed from the game. They still exist, but their stats were changed to non-stacking, which makes them completely pointless. They never show up anymore in any caster gear-set even as potentials.

There were minor changes to other items that people got irked over, but they were all just power-tweaks for items that were (imho) obviously OP. Everything but the belts can all still be used in their original gear sets, though if you're using a RL 3pc set, you'll likely want to upgrade it -- Sharn's 3pc outclasses it.

[jfgddo]

It kinda split the playerbase (more on that below) in two: peeps who love reaper and those who hate it. The first groups assumes that everyone runs reaper and scoffs at those who don't. The latter either left the game or run elite but solo or with a closed party so as to avoid group one.

This is totally accurate!

[merridyan]

Lag is FAR worse now than it was back during Sharn. The Sharn update saw many more players in game than are playing now and players were generally excited about the new sharn update. There's been v.little to no excitement for subsequent changes.

Customer support has essentially been removed.


Lag is better than it has been for the last 3 years, maybe it was really good 4 years ago?

Customer support had people quit and they have hired people, but there is large backlog.



Bug rate is higher and they're left to fester. See the U51 bug list -- over 300 remain unfixed. The bigger the changes they make the more bugs they add and ignore. Even bigger changes are coming with their intention to raise the level cap. I expect thousands of bugs to be added and then left to rot. Every skill and piece of gear requires player testing.

U51 bug list is woefully out of date and most have been fixed (or WAI)

Honestly, getting an opinion from the forum is not a good idea because it is populated mostly by whiners and haters.

[Krinoshi2]

Honestly, getting an opinion from the forum is not a good idea because it is populated mostly by whiners and haters.

Or care bears apparently? Not that that's a bad thing necessarily.

I think the picture is rather clear.
It's the same game with an illegible UI and way too much stuff to click around.
It offers no /follow feature or anything at all to aid dual boxing, which is essentially *still* the only way to quest after 11plus years.
(Mostly because the quests are also the same for the vast majority).

Lag is subjective to the game world assuming they are still on different servers. So it probably shouldn't factor in on whether something is actually enjoyable or not unless the server you are on happens to lag out still.

I was really hoping 5 plus years would be enough to usher in at the very least a legible Ui
Guess I'll try 5 years from now if the game still exists...

[Aelonwy]

An MMO really does need to fire on all cylinders: story, game, group, guild, raid, art, and immersion.

What I love about DDO's "story" is the delivery via voice as a DM narrative.

So much this^!

[Weemadarthur]

I think the picture is rather clear.
It's the same game with an illegible UI and way too much stuff to click around.
It offers no /follow feature or anything at all to aid dual boxing, which is essentially *still* the only way to quest after 11plus years.
(Mostly because the quests are also the same for the vast majority).

Lag is subjective to the game world assuming they are still on different servers. So it probably shouldn't factor in on whether something is actually enjoyable or not unless the server you are on happens to lag out still.

I was really hoping 5 plus years would be enough to usher in at the very least a legible Ui
Guess I'll try 5 years from now if the game still exists...

I'm sorry but this is reading more like a 2nd account of someone trying to get a 4k UI than someone who was seriously looking to come back to the game.

UI is fine in 1080 resolution and unless using an absolutely huge screen barely looks any worse than the unsupported 4k resolution.

I have been playing on and off since the games launch and have never had any issues filling a group and have never once dual boxed. Yes population is low but not so low that you cannot ever find a group on most of the primary servers. Dual boxing is a choice for those that want to solo not the only option.

Lag is by far the biggest problem with the game and I would say the only valid reason that someone who thinks they may enjoy the game not to give it a try. If you enjoy smooth gameplay and get annoyed by skipping, freezing and rubberbanding this is most definitely not the game for you.

In short the game is still the same game you left with a few minor changes. In 5 or 10 years it will still be the same game with a few minor changes (providing it's still here ofc). If you get any enjoyment from the actual game it's still worth playing. If you don't enjoy the actual game then no amount of graphical tweaks will change that.

[DoctorOfLiterature]

I have been playing a year and a half and couldn't recommend DDO more highly. Here are some of things I like and some things that have been changed:
1. The new expansions are really good, with great art, stories, and loot.
2. Lots of content is now Free to Play; I am a VIP but if you can't afford a subscription there is a lot of great content anyway.
3. They updated Epic play with revamped Epic Destiny system and the result is that Epic leveling is smoother.
4. I really enjoy Hard Core League, which is an event where you can earn prizes by not dying and where death is permanent. It encourages more cooperative grouping and strategic play.
5. The sentient gem system is really cool.
6. Great community on Khyber where I play.
7. While lag remains an issue it has improved considerably.

[Raithe]

It's the same game with an illegible UI and way too much stuff to click around.


Illegible because you are playing on a 4K monitor? There are at least 6 things wrong with disliking DDO because of this:
1) DDO is hardly the only Windows or Linux software that has issues because it assumed a "normal" screen resolution.
2) A 4K monitor is basically equivalent to 4 HD monitors put together in a square. The legibility of 4 HD monitors doesn't change from 1 HD monitor of the same make/model. Perhaps your monitor is just too small?
3) The resolution of the screen has a pretty drastic impact on graphics performance - unless you are also rocking a pretty high quality graphics card, 4K graphics processing wouldn't be in your horoscope with the legacy game engine of DDO.
4) You can always use lower resolution modes on higher quality monitors
5) When I switched to a 4K screen and started dual boxing, I actually used a feature that split my 4K monitor into 2 monitors with 1920x2560 resolution so that my displays were side-by-side on the same screen. It worked fine.
6) All of this discussion is based on being able to see and use toolbar icons with the mouse - I don't play that way at all (I assign hotkeys and remember them), so it isn't a prerequisite of being able to play, and IMO is an inferior way to play.

That said, the game is in a sad state indeed. The total number of ASAH and AH pages are close to half the last time I checked, the PUG scene is largely oriented towards grinding Reaper content, and the developers seem to continue to cater to the crowd of grinders that have unwittingly led the charge of the downward spiral. I have been watching a Youtube series that is following through the entire game of Eldon Ring, which is very DDO-like but has 3 important improvements:
1) Nothing is about grind - you find the things you do because they were designed that way, and you never have to redo anything.
2) The stories were created by the author that inspired the Game of Thrones tv show, I believe, and the general atmosphere of the game is 5000% more appealing than the metagame of DDO.
3) Graphics and artwork is more modern, combat is more active and has more counters, while the game system is sufficiently complex.

Whether something is good or not is entirely about what else is available. Can DDO be used to play a decent game if nothing else is really on the table? Sure. Does it stack up to other current offerings? Definitely not.

[mr420247]

Alts are viable again with the new shiradi def ain't complaining bout that

[Marshal_Lannes]

Or care bears apparently? Not that that's a bad thing necessarily.

It's the same game with an illegible UI and way too much stuff to click around.
It offers no /follow feature or anything at all to aid dual boxing, which is essentially *still* the only way to quest after 11plus years.
(Mostly because the quests are also the same for the vast majority).
.

Nothing about these statements is true. And if that is what you took away from this thread then the game isn't for you.

[Bjond]

Lag is better than it has been for the last 3 years, maybe it was really good 4 years ago?

U51 bug list is woefully out of date and most have been fixed (or WAI)
My "lag test" for old DDO is "how often do all characters in the zone hang together in mid-air when jumping?" Back in Sharn era, that kind of lag was almost exclusively confined to the shadow area in the Baba Raid. It's everywhere now. Worse, there are now giant client-only hitching pauses for 10~20s. Those might be pure client or they could be the server spreading out the hang time. It's a new gross bug, though.

On the topic of better or worse, it doesn't matter if the bugs in the list are fixed now or not. At one time they were all bugs and my own feeling is that many are still bugs. Either way, we have a metric to estimate quality.

Multiply every text/game difference by the total players in game. That's a rough estimate for how much of our time they're wasting per bug. Got one bug in game like that and 20k total players? That's 20K hours wasted as each of us stumbles on it and deals with it. The numbers are soft. Maybe there are 50k total players or maybe just 10k. Perhaps the average time lost per bug is only 30m.

However, with over 300 bugs reported for U51, the scale of hours of customer time wasted is certainly in the millions. This is more than a little disrespectful. It's orders of magnitude greater than any previous release I've seen them do. And, it doesn't bode well for future releases.

[Krinoshi2]

Illegible because you are playing on a 4K monitor? There are at least 6 (BS Things i want to bring up because I don't know how stuff works)...
That said, (let me name the worse game with the worse writer published this year).

You are kinda hilarious Raithe, in a very sad way.
4k is a resolution. You can have different resolution at same monitor sizes. So it's literally nothing like taping 4 monitors next to each other. It can literally vary depending on Pixel Density. but what am I even bothering with? lol
PS: IF your PC can't handle a game from 2000 at 4k native, maybe invest in this magical thing called a graphics card - ok, maybe now is not the time given the shortage and all. But get yourself at least a 1060 ffs. I was running this game in 4k on 3 screens whenever I up and quit the graphical requirements are ANYTHING but demanding - and you don't have to understand rendering pipelines to be able to realize this... a refrigerator can probably run this game XD


Back in Sharn era, that kind of lag was almost exclusively confined to the shadow area in the Baba Raid.
Can we please stop thinking that LAG is exclusive to a specific 2 pixel area in a map?
It's about instances and people in the instance - as well as whatever the server does at the time.

IF an area of 2px is "sticking" for everyone, that isn't lag, it's something literally wrong in the map - ranging from loading in a bad asset to a memory leak. Without debugging symbols and code analysis you'd never know.

Back at the underdark release I think we spent 2 hours in the transition room between Harbor and the new world area.
Those events aren't "lag" as much as server problems.
Lag is the Latency between call and response across 2 things:
I send a message, that message takes X amount of time to return to me after reaching the server.
When that amount is X*3 because the server couldn't immediately process it, that's when you character "snags" (and it's lag).
It's a common issue with net code and replication. This game is OLD - there's many better techniques now. Adopting best practices would require re-writing the whole game. Doubt they'll ever do that since it's a major undertaking.



Everyone else mentioning the clickbars and "remembering" where stuff is to a returning player needs a 10m time out sitting a lone staring at a corner.
Anyone returning to the game after a significant amount of time doesn't remember much of anything, definitely NOT what the clickbar shortcuts used to be 5 years ago. Stop being ridiculous. You like the game - you think everyone should too - we get it / don't really care as your opinion is definitely anything but honest.

Anyway.
There's some stuff no one has really mentioned in enough detail to come to a decision without spending days trying to play:

What are the Epic Destiny Changes? Why does my character have no points to spend at level 25 and a cloak of destiny?
Also what's with the mounts?

[Dandonk]

What are the Epic Destiny Changes? Why does my character have no points to spend at level 25 and a cloak of destiny?
Also what's with the mounts?

Destinies need to be unlocked before you can spend points in them. This is done by talking to the Fatespinner (in the marketplace, for instance), and selecting "Send me to the Junction of Spheres (...)". Once there, there are four portals. Go through each of those four, talk to the NPCs inside, and that unlocks the destinies for use, as well as giving you points to spend on them.

The cloak is something you got for having maxed out all the destinies before this so-called update went live. Useless cosmectic "gift".

Mounts? Not sure what you mean, exactly, but they now go into a stable, much like the cosmetic pets. IIRC you doubleclick on the mounts to add them to your stable, and then you can use them on any of your characters on that server. Good thing, actually, means they don't take up inventory space anymore.
The mount stable is accessed through your inventory sheet, on the right side there's a horseshoe which takes you to the mount page. Drag a mount icon from there to your hotbar and you're good to go.

[Weemadarthur]

What are the Epic Destiny Changes? Why does my character have no points to spend at level 25 and a cloak of destiny?
Also what's with the mounts?

Well I deliberately avoided mentioning these as you wanted an honest response and the new ED pass is something that it will be impossible to give an honest answer to. If you ask Marshall for instance he will tell you the destiny update was the best thing ever and tbh for him it was. For me it was the worst update ever and tbh it was. The problem is that these changes were divisive to the extreme and no 2 people will give the same response as to whether they were better or worse for the game as a whole. What one person thinks is excellent another will think was awful. The only way to make an informed decision on whether you will like them is to try it yourself and make your own mind up.

Dan previously explained where to start with the new destinies and how to get your trees and points so start there and then use the following as a breakdown of the mechanics (I will do my best to keep my opinions out of this so you can decide for yourself if the changes are better or worse).

You can now use up to 3 separate trees from any of the spheres at once. If you want to use LD for melee, primal for healing and Draconic for caster dps you can. The only limitations are the amount of AP you have and the fact that higher tiers are now level gated.

Twists are now gone. The 3 tree system was designed to replace this system.

You will now spend Destiny points (equivalent to heroic AP) to advance your trees. These are acquired in several ways. I wont go into too much detail here in case I forget one (and thus derail the thread with peeps trying to correct me lol) but you will gain 4 as you progress through each level (like heroic AP) and you will gain one for each destiny you have activated (so be sure to speak to all the destiny keepers at the junction not just the ones you intend to use). For a more detailed overview take a look at the Wiki.

Almost half of each tree will be devoted to an epic strike and epic mantle. You can take more than 1 strike and mantle but you can only use 1 of each at any time. All strikes share a cooldown and activating 1 mantle will disable another. Each strike and mantle will have an upgrade path that will either make it more powerful or change the way it works (as an example dragon breath can be changed into a burst or aura).

Destinies are now level gated so you can only use the 1st 2 tiers at level 20. You gain access to tier 3 at level 23, tier 4 at 26 and tier 5 at 30. The core progression follows a similar path so core 1 at 20, 2 at 23 and 3 at 26.

There are a few other things I haven't mentioned but mainly due to my bias on the subject (I've done my best here to give the facts without any opinion). The above will be enough info to get you started and make your own decisions on whether these changes are better or worse.

[Juduss]

As a recently returned player who left when Ravenloft was still fairly new, here’s my take on things:

Nothing meaningful has changed.

Twf is less effective than it was while thf is more effective than it was. Reaper is just a way to make quests take longer and consume more resources than they used to… until you adapt tactics & earn enough reaper points to re-trivialize things. Game is still full of “undocumented features” aka exploitable bugs - folks are just a bit less brazen about it.

It was a reincarnation based grindfest before, and still is. They’ve added some new settings in which to do the grinding, and of course more crafting systems ‘cause we just don’t seem to have enough of those?

For me, it’s about using the race/class/enhancements/gear like legos: using essentially all the same building blocks to make new toys. When I run out of interesting combinations again, I’ll probably leave again.

Not sure what you previously enjoyed about the game op, but odds are unless it was a specific undocumented feature it’s still here. If there’s a particular reason you left, that’s probably still here too.

So what’s the honest state of the game? Not much different from how it was before, really.

[Dmitrythewizzy]

Since you played they added Feywild which has a ton of great dungeons and is a very different vibe from most of the game. The newest expansion (mini) is Saltmarsh and it's sort of piratical and well worth taking a spin through. If you enjoy the stories and dungeons then I think it's worth your time to come back just for the content.

The best dungeon they ever made is Haunted Halls and I think you missed that. Come do that at least a few times. It's amazing.

[Krinoshi2]

Thanks for the explainers.

Should I be concerned that I have no horse shoe in the inventory?
I'll have a look at the wiki, I'm sure it's something you either buy or gain access to that isn't unlocked.

Someone mentioned Haste was changed... How so?
I see my movement speed isn't changing with it. Really odd.

[Dandonk]

Should I be concerned that I have no horse shoe in the inventory?
I'll have a look at the wiki, I'm sure it's something you either buy or gain access to that isn't unlocked.

If you still have an old horse (as an inventory item) you'll need to doubleclick and add it to your stable first, IIRC. Then the horseshoe should appear. I hope.

[Saekee]

Quick note. The stat squish made gearing more enjoyable and flexible and helps
new players/new toons immensely. The change to epic destinies did this too.

The big division between players is this: reincarantion boosts in the low
levels show up strongly; reaper xp boosts in the higher levels show up strongly. The good news here for reaper pts anyway is that this is not hugely a problem if you are on the low end of the scale early in the game; it affects you later AND if you stay at cap you can get a fair amount of rxp quickly (join groups). This puts less pressure on doing tons of reincarnations to ‘catch up.’

The BIG continued problem of DDO are the obstacles to grouping (confusing and clumsy LFG) and the disincentives (scaling, gather mechanics) and lack of Incentives (from permanent buddy boosts, however small, and special loot boosts for party leaders for example).

[Deathwing_The_Dragon]

Thanks for the update(s).

Really doesn't seem to bode too well at all.
I wonder if SSg is interested in selling out again.
In previous times every time that they stopped providing support and making lifestyle improvements it was due to a pending sale or the idea of selling anyway. Particularly when the xsolla stuff came around and WB was involved.
Thing is, they apparently have an open position so go figure?

Either way, if I remember correctly I popped in when sharn dropped but it's been at least 5 years probably longer. So I appriciate learning that stuff has changed for the somewhat worse.
Are we still crafting essences or is that gone too?

I was in the middle of a TR run when I quit. I think I had just gotten into the low epics or similar.

For me anyway the loot has always been disappointing.
Too low of a chance on what you want when you have a 2% out of a chest to get the item you need. Be it a Pinion or whatever else that you center a build on.
The raid timers didn't help with it since it's already complicated enough to get a team together for one run back in a time when server population acrually existed. I can only imagine now.
The core probelm of loot in game is that it is tied to a level, and all we do is TR runs.
Having set equipment that just levels with you would ne a lot more interesting to me rather than causing game difficulty to fluctuate endlessly based on gear access...

The random loot was wierd and OP already when I left, with stuff like metallic handwrap drops that did 3x more than named loot. That's the power of RNG though. It can be unpredictable.

I doubt anyone plays D&D for either the story or the quests tbh. It was always just a min-max run through exercise more than a story that unfolds with some logical sense.
And anyone building a well round character would inevitably get stuck mid leveling over the inability to solo stuff...

I'd belive at this point, if I were to play again for a weekend or 2 it would be more about Nostalgia than anything else.
That and emptying out that TR cache so I can fill it right back up :)

Ps: has any loot disappeared or been retroactively changed so that I now have a Legacy version that blows and needs updating?

Look mate - From what I am reading you would be better off playing a new MMO like Lost Ark - 4k graphics, tons of players, end game with raids, loot level ups, free Alt-leveling etc. This game has the same issues since MoTU so you can hop in anytime and start playing without feeling like a noob. You dont even have to upgrade your potato PC to play ddo - so hop in or move on.

[superevbully]

Sorry, why would you even play ? Or post ? Clearly you don’t really want to play this game. So don’t.

Jeez ty couldnt agree moar play or dont .....

[Bjond]

IF an area of 2px is "sticking" for everyone, that isn't lag
Synchronicity in time is the sole purview of the server. The bug I mentioned was not each client tripping over the same buggy pixel and separately experiencing the same problem at different times. It was everyone in zone all hanging at the exact same time regardless of where they were. I pretty much only saw it inside the hut in the shadow area of Baba back then, but this was during guild raids. We were all in discord and chatting away. Everyone was experiencing the exact same issue at the same time. Not a network issue (discord still happy). Not a client issue when it's every client AT THE SAME TIME. Later on, that same kind of thing moved out into the rest of the the game.

The zone-hang issue in Baba could last minutes. I haven't seen one last more than about 10s recently and can't recall it happening in the hut recently, but there are now worse issues. Clients hang individually for 10~30s. Could be server doing a round-robin hold on one client at a time to spread out the behavior or it could be pure client. Happens everywhere. Zone seems immaterial.

Instead of saving up for one big zone-wide 3m hang, every fight seems to have issues. Mobs jink and port about a little bit, making them hard to hit -- looks like server-side dropping intervening movement updates to catch up.

Used to be able to reliably perform two-step interactions such as hunt's end + sniper shot. Now, the first step often goes unregistered. Hit step one, it greys out, hit step two, and .. oh, server didn't register step one -- it's not on CD anymore. The first few hits from ranged often do nothing at all. It can take several rounds before any hits are registered.

So, yeah, things have gotten MUCH worse for basic combat. They keep changing things and saying it's for the better, but the results have not been good. It looks like they're flailing about hacking things at random and hoping it will have a positive effect.


It's a common issue with net code and replication. This game is OLD - there's many better techniques now.
Actually, there's not. The good techniques you're talking about were also good and best practice 40 years ago (which incidentally covers the time when DDO was written).

Speculating on particulars doesn't have much point, but this much is true: there is no such thing as "the code got old". Code does not age. It is either bad or good, working or not. It's born that way and stays that way until changed.


What are the Epic Destiny Changes?
U51 Patch Notes are all we had to go on and they're still up. Wiki has been updated. There's no quick summary answer available for that question other than to point you at the original notes. Gross adaptation to the changes is pretty quick -- perhaps a few hours. Finding the exact ED setup that feels good and plays the way you like might take months.

Subjective commentary on the "state of EDs" is possible if that's what you're seeking. As with any forum post, my own opinion is of course the only one with any validity. :p

ED diversity in builds seems similar to pre-U51. Primary trees have settled, secondary & tertiary are as varied as the twists once were. Ranged has become Shiradi or bad. Melee has more wiggle, but it's mostly FOTW. Casters are all over. Peeps have tried to build away from Shiradi for ranged, but last one I recall was nerfed (to chase 'em back to Shiradi? dunno .. it wasn't much better and took a lot more work to build & play).

If you want more detail, post your build and desires/goals for that build and you can watch the fur fly as people defend their own personal tastes for what you should be choosing as your EDs.

[Krinoshi2]

Speculating on particulars doesn't have much point, but this much is true: there is no such thing as "the code got old". Code does not age. It is either bad or good, working or not. It's born that way and stays that way until changed.
Seems like you know next to nothing about anything and just wanna shoot the s*it.
Code ages - just like hardware and everything else.
Things that were a thing back in the day - say Dark Basic - aren't a thing anymore, for good reason most of the time.
The latest example I can think of is the adoption of .net CORE instead of .net Framework.
Likewise, and particularly with the Internet Speed angle, there's a ton of net code improvements, including but not limited to machine learning and prediction which make it possible to do "magical" stuff like ban everyone actually cheating from games.

I have no idea what the source for this game runs off of - but say it were a visual studio project, for sake of argument, you'd already have issues EVERY TIME you change compiler version from whatever it was back in the day to the 2015 through 2017 to 2019 and finally to the 2022 version(s). Most of those "upgrades" also result in different memory allocation, so many games that get an editor or compiler update will also result in known cheats breaking - which for MMOs would be great.


Re the rest.
I'm sure that at SSG, with the server right beside them, they never experience any issues.
IF that's true, then the problem is that they don't employ or require their employees to be active players - if they were stuff like the UI, or the server issues, would have been fixed a long time ago.

By now the problem is obviously part of the company culture.
Then again, they are dealing with a rather uneducated player base if you go off the s*it people complain of in the forums...

Off the top of my head things like "Pets add lag" are ridiculously funny.

What's not funny on the SSG side now,
is the fact that the existing AI system has a follow player option used by many NPC, but in all those years they have never realized that they could hook it up to a /follow command so people (and secondary accounts) can pike half the mission...

Either way I don't see much point in "educating the masses" - when it comes to the DDO player base I seriously doubt they give a **** anyway.


As far as opinions go - I think this topic highlighted all that was needed.
The game has been dead for a long time. A 2022 resurrection seems unlikely.

[Weemadarthur]

As far as opinions go - I think this topic highlighted all that was needed.
The game has been dead for a long time. A 2022 resurrection seems unlikely.

As one of the notably more negative posters on the forum (in recent months anyway) I disagree with your assessment here. Is this a small game with a small population? Yes undoubtedly. That small population though is devoted and spend a lot of money on the game. I don't think the game is going to die any time soon (although I will be the 1st to say if something doesn't change soon in the quality dept I may revise that opinion) but will likely tick along slowly losing players that don't get replaced for several years yet at least.

You seem very intent on only looking at the negatives from this thread and ignoring anything positive. Considering you specifically asked for an honest state of the game review I find it very strange that you yourself are the one that seems to be pushing that agenda. As I said previously if you liked the game before the chances are you still would. If you didn't enjoy the game then what was the purpose of your post? The game hasn't and more than likely won't change.

I will say again as I did in my initial post this seems a lot less like someone asking for feedback and rather an alt account trying to push the 4k agenda. As the game looks just as good (or bad depending on your viewpoint) in 1080 resolution this is really a non event. A 4k UI wouldn't really add anything to the game unless they were to do a complete overhaul of the graphics engine and add 4k textures and at that point it would probably be more cost effective to start again with DDO2 (which also won't happen).

In short the game may be very slowly dying but it's still doing a lot better than most other small MMO's out there (look at the likes of Vindictus and Rift). It may be losing players but it's losing them at a very slow rate. Most of the playerbase (even those like myself that complain here) still enjoy the game and will probably be around for a long time yet. Until something else is released with the complexity and customization options that DDO has I doubt very much if anyone needs to worry too much (Ashes of creation may shake things up when that comes out but it still seems like it's a year or 5 away yet).

If the game isn't to your tastes no problem there are a lot of prettier and shallower games out there. If you actually want a game with a bit more depth though at this point DDO is pretty much all there is.

[misterski]

Speculating on particulars doesn't have much point, but this much is true: there is no such thing as "the code got old". Code does not age. It is either bad or good, working or not. It's born that way and stays that way until changed.



I see you've never had to deal with legacy code, lol. Code does age, and it ages badly in most cases. You ever heard of the Y2k bug? COBOL? Seriously you have no idea what you're talking about here. And as mentioned by Krinoshi2, just changing to a newer compiler will introduce a ton of bugs, deprecated functions being the least of the problems.

Adding another example, migrating Python code from 2.x to 3.x, rofl. "Code doesn't age", ROFLMAO.

[Artos_Fabril]

I have no idea what the source for this game runs off of - but say it were a visual studio project, for sake of argument, you'd already have issues EVERY TIME you change compiler version from whatever it was back in the day to the 2015 through 2017 to 2019 and finally to the 2022 version(s). Most of those "upgrades" also result in different memory allocation, so many games that get an editor or compiler update will also result in known cheats breaking - which for MMOs would be great.
The engine is a cludge from the Asheron's Call 2 engine. I can't tell you what language it was programmed in, but since AC2 released in 2002 maybe you can figure it out from there. Based on things Lynnabel has said over the years, it sounds like Turbine made the game without making any real dev tools to maintain it, and just hacked stuff together until it did what they wanted, then failed to document it anywhere.

[Bjond]

I will say again as I did in my initial post this seems a lot less like someone asking for feedback and rather an alt account
Hmm. I hadn't paid much attention to the 'join' date, but if he was returning rather than alt'ing, he'd have his original ID and likely wouldn't be so emotional about responses.


4k UI wouldn't really add anything to the game unless they were to do a complete overhaul of the graphics engine and add 4k textures
Ah, this is where we disagree, though not on a full 4K engine looking nicer. The UI is not the engine, though. It's a separate piece stapled to the front of the graphics viewport. The point of a scalable UI is to help the game draw in new and retain old people, particularly whales, which are SSG's natural prey.

Whales don't have old HW. The first thing updated is the screen and graphics HW. So, even if you don't care about new whales, all the old ones are going to have problems sooner or later if not already.

The UI doesn't scale. It's unreadably tiny on higher resolutions, particularly 4K. And, it's a pain to make those work with the game. Whale attitude is "when I pay for something, it better work." So, take a bit of time, make the UI scale, save the whales.


game with a bit more depth though at this point DDO is pretty much all there is
I would say DDO has immense breadth, but little depth. Content list is so huge I think after years I've still not played it all, but the stories are pretty shallow. That's OK by me -- I love their DM voice-over delivery.

Build freedom is exceptional, but it's complexity isn't due to combinatorial elegance. It's the result of a morass of conflicting fine print exceptions. I've heard say DDO is for math nerds. I'd disagree. Math is clean. DDO is a swamp (really -- play saltmarsh and tell me I'm wrong :p).

[Marshal_Lannes]

The game has been dead for a long time. A 2022 resurrection seems unlikely.

That's what some said (and wished) a decade ago. And yet. Can't wait for dinosaurs and Isle of Dread in a few short months. En Avant!!

[Weemadarthur]

Ah, this is where we disagree, though not on a full 4K engine looking nicer. The UI is not the engine, though. It's a separate piece stapled to the front of the graphics viewport. The point of a scalable UI is to help the game draw in new and retain old people, particularly whales, which are SSG's natural prey.

Whales don't have old HW. The first thing updated is the screen and graphics HW. So, even if you don't care about new whales, all the old ones are going to have problems sooner or later if not already.

The UI doesn't scale. It's unreadably tiny on higher resolutions, particularly 4K. And, it's a pain to make those work with the game. Whale attitude is "when I pay for something, it better work." So, take a bit of time, make the UI scale, save the whales.


I would say DDO has immense breadth, but little depth. Content list is so huge I think after years I've still not played it all, but the stories are pretty shallow. That's OK by me -- I love their DM voice-over delivery.

Build freedom is exceptional, but it's complexity isn't due to combinatorial elegance. It's the result of a morass of conflicting fine print exceptions. I've heard say DDO is for math nerds. I'd disagree. Math is clean. DDO is a swamp (really -- play saltmarsh and tell me I'm wrong :p).

What I meant with the fact that there's no point scaling the UI uless you are also going to improve the game engine is that the game itself looks the same in 1080 as 4k for the most part. Scaling the UI has been stated by the devs as being a lot more difficult than would 1st appear so would require building a completely new UI from the ground up. That then becomes a lot of work that could potentially go very wrong (remember this is the same dev team that can't manage to correlate a simple description to it's correct effect) for an extremely small gain.

Those that are willing to stay here and play (and pay) I don't think are going to be that bothered about an upgrade that won't actually have any noticeable effect (meaning the game itself won't look noticeably any better). The game isn't aimed at the impressed by shinies demographic (for better or worse).

By depth I mean depth of gameplay rather than depth of story (I will say I disagree on lack of story a bit but will address this later). Although I agree with the fact that at this current point there is a morass of conflicting fine print exceptions (which I would say are also as badly explained as they are implemented) this was not always the case. What we have now is still based on a very good system that allowed for a huge amount of range in build customization, play styles and party synergies. Unfortunately SSG have gone down the road of making things more complicated in the mistaken belief that complexity is the same as depth (look at the Sharn crafting as a classic example of this). This has led on to an overly complicated and messy front end to what was in essence a very simple and elegant system. The original simple system is still there though and that is what gives the depth to character creation and diversity that this game is predominantly known for.

Then look at a few other aspects of the game that really don't get the credit they deserve.

1) This game is fully 3d. This is more popular in recent games but peeps tend to forget that when this game was released in 2006 MMO's tended to be very flat with combat only really taking place in 2 dimensions. The fact that in this game you can shoot down and snipe mobs below or be ambushed from above is something that is still very rarely seen even in modern games.

2) real time active combat. This may be taken for granted now but DDO was years ahead of the curve here.

3) Multiclassing. I know this tends to get lumped in with build complexity but it really does need to be judged on its own merits. The fact that your not restricted to a specific role by class choice is something that is very rarely seen even today.

4) Quest design. With all quests being instanced what we think of as a quest is very very different to most other MMO's. It would have been incredibly easy to go down the route of kill 10 wolves as a quest but instead we get an actual adventure with it's own story every single time. In your post you dismissed the games depth of story but I think you failed to take into account how much story there is in every single quest. There may be a loss of focus and coherence where an overarching narrative is concerned but the actual amount of story involved in quests as simple as Haverdasher which only has 2 rooms and a hallway is pretty amazing when you actually stop to appreciate it.

Now I know a lot of games now do at least one or 2 of the above aspects well (in some cases much better) with prettier graphics and smoother gameplay. Very few do all of them though and of the few I have played that do don't deliver the character customization that this game is built around.

[Artos_Fabril]

That's what some said (and wished) a decade ago. And yet. Can't wait for dinosaurs and Isle of Dread in a few short months. En Avant!!
And 10 years ago, there were more people playing with less lag. So if it's not dead, there clearly hasn't been a resurrection either.

[RAFAR]

4) Quest design. With all quests being instanced what we think of as a quest is very very different to most other MMO's. It would have been incredibly easy to go down the route of kill 10 wolves as a quest but instead we get an actual adventure with it's own story every single time. In your post you dismissed the games depth of story but I think you failed to take into account how much story there is in every single quest. There may be a loss of focus and coherence where an overarching narrative is concerned but the actual amount of story involved in quests as simple as Haverdasher which only has 2 rooms and a hallway is pretty amazing when you actually stop to appreciate it.


I'd like to add that there's one thing I really love in this game compared to other mmos I played: repeatability. There are many quests in other games that have cool stories, but they can only be played once (per character). Like the Rangers' Enedwaith/Dunland storyline in LOTRO or the Macrobinocular/Seeker droid chains in SWTOR... but to replay them just for the story, to do a missed optional or explore a side area or even just to look around, sniff flowers etc, I have to do a new character and level it up to be able to re-run them, again, only once.


DDO's quest content design and the infinite number of character build options are what make me return here time and again, despite the outdated graphics. It's like Chokito or a tripe stew... it may look unsavory, but the inner value is still present and worthy of consumption. Ymmw, ofc :)

[Marshal_Lannes]

And 10 years ago, there were more people playing with less lag. So if it's not dead, there clearly hasn't been a resurrection either.

There is no "if". The game is not dead. I'll direct you to the tagline of U51 - a new beginning. If that's not a resurrection, I don't know what is!

Was there a larger population 10 years ago? Sure. But one could argue we have a better (in terms of altruism and unity) population now. And we've seen with hardcore there are more than enough people to create a vibrant world if servers were merged.

[Oxarhamar]

There is no "if". The game is not dead. I'll direct you to the tagline of U51 - a new beginning. If that's not a resurrection, I don't know what is!

Was there a larger population 10 years ago? Sure. But one could argue we have a better (in terms of altruism and unity) population now. And we've seen with hardcore there are more than enough people to create a vibrant world if servers were merged.

If U51 was a resurrection than they need to run some adverts to bring in new players until then the game is more undead than anything else

[kmoustakas]

Long story short. I was playing back when the game first came out. I stuck around quite a long time and then got really bored of it after something like the 4th account wide full toon set TR.
(Yea that involved both tur*bine and W.B. plus another change. I don't think i touched this game since the last publisher took over willing to bet its the same folks though).

I'm looking for an honest player driven "what's changed" state of the union sort of thing.

Epic Destinies was a thing, and Sharn was just out when I quit - i think anyway.

There's got to be about 5 years or so of updates I missed out on, and the release notes page is dreadfully out of order so one can't really make heads or tails of it.

What's new now, and is there any value in returning to play with a legacy account that was once loaded with top tier equipment?

As a bonus...
Is there any point in coming back? Have they made any modifications so you can change the scale of the UI or is the game still completely unplayable by anyone on a 4k screen?
Is the UI still the same clickbar fest it's always been or have they modified any of it to improve quality of life?

If any SSG people happen to read this, you may consider updating what is now your game's UI a top priority if things haven't changed since launch. Shouldn't matter how complex it is to actually do it either - and I say this as a published game maker.

Still one of the most fun solo mmos out there. Storage is still the worst, alt-titis hurts and combined with storage makes it suck even more. There is an actual end game if you are a support build to assist all the 'flavor of the u' dpr builds which currently is shiradi nukers mostly - end game is of course level 30 quests dailies at r10. If you don't care about that and you just want to casually get heroic or epic past lives, it's a very good time now with the monster stat nerf making most parts of the heroic and epic experience while soloing very easy.

(I'm ignoring the part of the community that are really into the game and casually solo r10s or even r1 raids. Don't know the game that well myself)

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Been playing for sixteen years now and haven't stopped loving it yet.

Players **** me off sometimes, and I don't agree with every change that was made along the way; but like I said, I really enjoy this game, and hope it lasts until I die.

[Krinoshi2]

speculation list was here...

Look, the UI has **always** been dreadful.
You speculate they somehow don't have access to it. This couldn't be further from the truth
Simply introducing a scale percentage would solve most issue with Illegibiliry.
No one at SSG seems to have cared so far - if they want to keep getting paid they have to.
Not everyone runs the game on a potatoe and therefore has no earthly idea that the UI in 4k cannot be read or seen without touching your nose to the screen.

That said, re the other speculation. As I think I mentioned, because SSG has the account management completely foobar and unable to send emails to most email servers, yes this is an alt account, but not of someone that actually posts on here.
Truth is, I despise most people posting on here in principle (myself included obviously).

As far as the game, I have played a few hours.
It's the same trash it always was.
With the exception of maybe reaper mode, which adds a bit of difficulty.

There are some interesting new things, like sentient weapons, or getting your int up to 140 or so. But none of it is really that great.
The new adventures, idk. I'd have to play through them to know if they are worth anything.

Most people here seem to think they are - I'm not sure why really. Playing DDO for the adventures is like playing Table Top with yourself... but to each its own.

Random gear also seems better than most named items now for levels up to 25 or so. Meaning that you can probably feed all of it to a sentient weapon and live from life to life by just using what you find. Sure, if you plan it out named items may offer something better, but that would take more time than it takes to TR again, so not really sure there's much of a point unless you plan to stay at cap.

The AH on khyber is full of trash, same for shard exchange. So either people aren't playing or they just don't care about money anymore - which yea, after 15 years of playing and having all your toons with max Plat, makes sense too...

[Artos_Fabril]

There is no "if". The game is not dead. I'll direct you to the tagline of U51 - a new beginning. If that's not a resurrection, I don't know what is!
Death is also a new beginning. But this is merely an argument of lexicography. The population hasn't grown since U51, but hasn't fallen much either. It may be that SSG has already driven away everyone who is going to leave, but also isn't bringing anyone in. Or there might be a small but constant churn in addition to the veteran majority. But neither of those things can be called a resurrection by any rational definition.
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/464986814508433410/955588190549459084/unknown.png

[Raithe]

...therefore has no earthly idea that the UI in 4k cannot be read or seen without touching your nose to the screen.

Yet some people were clearly doing it (namely myself). I'm glad you realize that moving your face closer to the screen actually improves your ability to read it - I wasn't sure you understood much of the physics involved at all.

For your edification, they aren't going to introduce scaling to the icons because it wouldn't make them money in any way shape or form. It's a non-issue. They don't (or at least shouldn't) throw resources on non-issues.



I have no idea what the source for this game runs off of - but say it were a visual studio project, for sake of argument, you'd already have issues EVERY TIME you change compiler version from whatever it was back in the day to the 2015 through 2017 to 2019 and finally to the 2022 version(s). Most of those "upgrades" also result in different memory allocation, so many games that get an editor or compiler update will also result in known cheats breaking - which for MMOs would be great.


The fact you are required to install the Visual C++ 2010 runtime library as a part of the installation process should have given you a clue. They aren't upgrading their compiler versions, because that would require a non-insignificant amount of money for multiple developers producing a commercial product, not to mention the caveats to upgrading that even you acknowledged as a serious problem. Because they aren't upgrading their compiler version, they are (most likely) using legacy DirectX calls that may or may not support modes of data transport that modern versions of DirectX support. If all you are loading into the graphics card is a static scene, then yes the polygon counts of DDO 3D models would be easily handled by a refrigerator. That isn't the problem.

I can run several games just fine in 4K mode, DDO isn't one of them.


It may be that SSG has already driven away everyone who is going to leave...

As someone who has been studying online games for decades, I guarantee that they haven't achieved that yet. The fact that they aren't bringing in anyone new would be the reason they are in the shape they are in.

[Assassination]

..

[Krinoshi2]

As someone who has been studying online games for decades, I guarantee that they haven't achieved that yet. The fact that they aren't bringing in anyone new would be the reason they are in the shape they are in.


Depends, say I bought the IP with my studio, the first thing id do is upgrade the editor. Second I'd do is upgrade the UI, third, would be a general (yet minor) graphics update.
As a result, I'd probably triplicate the player base and recuperate the money I just spent for upgrading.

WB though so,
Obviously they wanted to compete with blizzard.
Then they couldn't find a single person capable of coding because Tur*ine forced retention of old people, I'm sure.
At that point they were like "f this s*it go burn in h*ll* and sold it again.

At this point the Patent is the only thing worth much of aything.. Well that and the DB of client data. It's got to be a massive set of data considering items, each item's stack or durability. Etc.

As far as the rest, the New artwork is pitiful.
The engine being forced to dx11 is rendering pitifully - or static light only.
Staff also has a a very limited tris count because it's legacy rendering.
The memory profile is probably shy for 3GB on the newer stuff too.
Consider that 6 to 8GB is fairly common. (Then again it's not like it would ever become anywhwre close to red dead redemption, the staff just doesn't seem that skilled to me based on final product. I COULD BE WRONG OFC, it's not like I know them personally).

There's maybe 30k tris on screen in Eveningstar stuff. Maybe. I doubt it's that much too acrually. Most of it is probably faked with a nice parallax rendering effect onto a 2d plane, because at the time it was just cheaper.

Again, in this game, the graphics - aside from the UI - don't matter all that much.
It will never actually be pleasing, given all the models would need at least a x3 poly increase to get anywhere...

Code wise, it's probably possible to just start from scratch.
The database is there. The data can be preserved. The amount of work is massive.
But you can also do something like a completely new game with an "old" import.
Take all that data over into a new client that handles completely re-vamed gameplay and leave the old one be.
Data is data, so as long as you don't make behaviour changes the rest is really just a "skin" for it.
It could even work out as something similar to what they did with Runescape without much of an issue... (nvm runescape looks bad, that's besides the point).

Stuff isn't set in stone - and a majore update of that kind would bring LOADS of new players, at least until you screw the over in some other way......

[slarden]

A friend asked me to comment on this as someone that left the game. Against my better judgment I'll share my thoughts.

If you like alts and miss the old DDO Guildwars II is a much better game for that.

If you hate grinds and game mechanics that force you to spend money to bypass intentional drudgery introduced by the devs, FFXIV proves you can build a game without resorting to such nonsense. A huge chunk of DDO players on Sarlona have reduced or stopped playing DDO and moved on to either FFXIV or New World. I know nothing about New World.

If you want something resembling an online tabletop D&D experience with your friends real D&D is available of course and there are many online tools to support it, but Gloomhaven is a non-MMO option for that and it's really good - it's not live action it's much more like a table top experience which might be hard for some. It's effectively a cooperative board game with scenarios.

I personally won't replace DDO with another MMO time sink. I am really liking Gloomhaven and suggest playing it with friends.

I think the only thing that keeps DDO going is the large time and money investment people made and don't want to lose. Don't let that sunk cost handcuff you from enjoying better options.

The most important thing is that you are having fun. If you are enjoying DDO I find that hard to understand - but by all means keep on playing. If you aren't enjoying DDO don't let your prior time and money sink handcuff you. There is a whole set of better options out there worth looking at.

[NemesisAlien]

The fact you are required to install the Visual C++ 2010 runtime library as a part of the installation process should have given you a clue. They aren't upgrading their compiler versions, because that would require a non-insignificant amount of money for multiple developers producing a commercial product, not to mention the caveats to upgrading that even you acknowledged as a serious problem. Because they aren't upgrading their compiler version, they are (most likely) using legacy DirectX calls that may or may not support modes of data transport that modern versions of DirectX support. If all you are loading into the graphics card is a static scene, then yes the polygon counts of DDO 3D models would be easily handled by a refrigerator. That isn't the problem.



Have you notice ddo is the only game if you keep an eye on the task manager, disc can go from 0% to 100% during loads. Especially when you logging in. Sometimes you need to log in twice. I dont know any other 2010 game that is such a resource hog.

[Akivasha]

So what's the answer guys?

Lot's of complaining in this thread but no-one seems to make any suggestions. And no, advertising a 16 year old game is just not going to happen. The only things that could bring back the population (which is the real problem; let's face it) are:

1.) More new player friendly. So much content is blocked at the very early stages of the game. Which means these new players are ultimately blocked from partying up with others.

2.) Make the game more group friendly? Give some incentive for vets to take on a newb? Probably easily exploitable but maybe there's a way?

3.) Capitalize on the upcoming D&D tv show/movie. Same plan as LOTRO and the Amazon LOTR tv show.

[Oxarhamar]

So what's the answer guys?

Lot's of complaining in this thread but no-one seems to make any suggestions. And no, advertising a 16 year old game is just not going to happen. The only things that could bring back the population (which is the real problem; let's face it) are:

1.) More new player friendly. So much content is blocked at the very early stages of the game. Which means these new players are ultimately blocked from partying up with others.

2.) Make the game more group friendly? Give some incentive for vets to take on a newb? Probably easily exploitable but maybe there's a way?

3.) Capitalize on the upcoming D&D tv show/movie. Same plan as LOTRO and the Amazon LOTR tv show.

Doesn't really matter what the do without adverts the population only going to continue to stagnant

Adverts for games older than 16yrs old hey I still get emails from games I've played in the past but not any from DDO

[Artos_Fabril]

3.) Capitalize on the upcoming D&D tv show/movie. Same plan as LOTRO and the Amazon LOTR tv show.
Doesn't really matter what the do without adverts the population only going to continue to stagnant

Adverts for games older than 16yrs old hey I still get emails from games I've played in the past but not any from DDOSeems to me there's some overlap here.

But it seems weird to focus on advertising to people if you don't also have a plan to present them with a product worth buying, and in that regard I feel like a remaster, if not a complete revamp, of the new player experience is even more important than advertising (but clearly they should be done hand-in-hand so that you bring in new people and them immediately present the best possible features of the game to them)

[Artos_Fabril]

Lot's of complaining in this thread but no-one seems to make any suggestions. And no, advertising a 16 year old game is just not going to happen.
I went and wrote a long reply to this, and only after posting realized that this is a complete nonsequitor and not germane to the topic of the thread.

[Oxarhamar]

Seems to me there's some overlap here.

But it seems weird to focus on advertising to people if you don't also have a plan to present them with a product worth buying, and in that regard I feel like a remaster, if not a complete revamp, of the new player experience is even more important than advertising (but clearly they should be done hand-in-hand so that you bring in new people and them immediately present the best possible features of the game to them)

Yeah they go hands in hand as you say & there needs to be a plan

U51 was touted as a help to new players and I have not seen any attempts to bring them in

All the changes and improvements while they are great they are more something that existing players would notice but some polish won’t hurt

[Krinoshi2]

I went and wrote a long reply to this, and only after posting realized that this is a complete nonsequitor and not germane to the topic of the thread.

IF you want, I can just change title to the thread and we can have a discussion about that.
SSG could literally spend the $2m to get a superbowl advert and make less than 1/4 back out of new players buying into it.

Regardless of all that speculation... unless DayBreak happens to hire someone like me:
An Old player that's got some proven chops in coding video-games, and an idea of what's wrong with the game, And the intention to write out something COMPLETELY NEW that just uses the same data/database, Nothing's going to improve.
And I'm not angling for a job; to be quite honest, even a guaranteed $150k a year wouldn't be enough to quit running my current company.
At this point, I'm actually using DDO as a "what to never do" list :P

[Syrrah]

OP is an old player. Creates new account on the forum. I'm thinking: would it be a sock account? Nah, let's give him the benefit of doubt.

OP asks for info, wonders if there's a point of returning. Doesn't have game installed even, asks if there a "reason to download" it again. Criticizes the game.

Tons of players reply.

OP then gives clear pointers he has re-installed the game and logged in, asking about very specific aspects in-game like destiny points, cloaks and mounts. More criticism.

Even more people respond.

OP declares the game dead. Throws up a ton of criticism about basically everything. [A very close impression of my last girlfriend by the way, or is it really you Sophie?]

More responses.

OP proceeds to keep replying to this same thread ELEVEN TIMES. ELEVEN TIMES! Vomitting criticism every chance he gets.

Like I wrote I was away for years as well. In all that time I had zero interest in coming back or posting here, or even opening the forum. Why would anyone not playing even care as much as to create 11 long posts on this forum complaining about everything that's wrong with this game and the kitchen sink? Someone who doesn't care, won't care.

Well played OP, you had us all.

[Erokir]

And how they do it with such fervor and implied objectivity, as though their issues are everyone's issues.

The UI? What's your complaint about the UI? How would you make it better? I've never even thought to complain about the UI, so I'm genuinely curious.

Relatively few major aspects of the game have changed since Sharn. The gear power creep has been successfully mitigated, and many gear sets that were obsolete a few years ago have been revived and/or improved.

I've seen some complaints about the Epic Destiny revamp, but I haven't had many problems with it.

I also never find myself short of people to play with in Argonessen. In fact, while starting up some alts, I was running more quests on elite and found myself running with many players new to the game, which is always fun. So many veteran players are impatient and grouchy, it's nice to play with newbies who aren't jaded and cynical, and most importantly, who realize that the purpose of the game is to HAVE FUN, and if you're not having fun, then you're doing something wrong. The promotions during the pandemic — making all of the quests and expansions free and then available for a low price in DDO points — appears to have attracted new players to the game. People complaining about low population tend to be on lower populated servers.

I recently had an issue that I contacted customer service for, and they took about three weeks to resolve my issue. They were very nice about it, did me a solid, and I have no complaints about the way I was treated. So, I don't know what the "customer service is non-existent" complaints are about, either.

The two issues I'd say are legitimate to complain about are: bugs and lag.

There are annoying bugs in the system, such as the mislabeled augments, that haven't been fixed in years. I don't know what that's about, as I'm not a computer programmer, but it seems weird. If I'm being charitable, then I assume that such things are more time-intensive and work-intensive to fix than they would appear to the layman.

The lag, though, is a real problem that hasn't really gotten better, despite alleged attempts to mitigate it. I say alleged, because I have seen no improvement, and it's hard to believe that the people who program the game don't understand why it lags and how to fix it. But, they say they're working on it. The lag is a real problem because it genuinely makes playing the game less fun, no fun, or downright impossible at times. The lag is always worse after an update or weekly restart, and again, with such consistency, it's hard for me to understand how the coders can't figure out how to fix it. But, I don't know anything about coding.

I've been playing this game consistently for about 7 years, and I still enjoy it. But, then, I find that I'm different than many players I encounter. My goal is always to maximize my enjoyment, so I don't grind the way many veteran players do. I'm not interested in competing with other players or trying to gain past lives as quickly as possible. I take my time and play in a way that's always fun. And if ever I find myself not having enough fun, I stop playing that way and return to a more fun way of playing. Even so, I find that my main toon is plenty able to hold his own when I run with players who have many more lives, even on high reaper.

If I were a DDO developer, I'd be thinking of ways to change the paradigm for new adventures and expansions. Players got excited about Ravenloft, which was generally well received. But, the subsequent expansions don't seem to have evoked as much enthusiasm. A fresh approach to quests and story arcs would seem to be called for. But, that's just my opinion.

Apart from that, it's mainly the lag that's the major, persistent problem with DDO.

So, should you return? I don't know, you seem pretty jaded. As another poster said, it'd be very easy for you to just log in and play a bit to find out if you enjoy it. In my opinion, the game has moderately improved since Sharn was released, apart from the lag, which is as bad as it ever was.

[Artos_Fabril]

And how they do it with such fervor and implied objectivity, as though their issues are everyone's issues.

The UI? What's your complaint about the UI? How would you make it better? I've never even thought to complain about the UI, so I'm genuinely curious.
The OP clearly states he would like it to be scalable for up to (at least) 4k monitors.

I, for one, would like an option to have UI elements to snap together at their edges, and for locked toolbars to lock in position on screen as well as locking the abilities in the bars (and an option to lock all UI elements in place) There are many things worse than having a hotbar shifted slightly under another so that it doesn't register the first click on an ability, but it is nonetheless a frustration, as is leaving gaps around hotbars to prevent that from happening. Most other issues I have with the UI regard the intentional obfuscation of information and inaccurate displays.


So many veteran players are impatient and grouchy, it's nice to play with newbies who aren't jaded and cynical, and most importantly, who realize that the purpose of the game is to HAVE FUN, and if you're not having fun, then you're doing something wrong.Here I tend to agree, but this is a problem of the design of the game. Most of it can be reasonably laid at the feet of Turbine, which introduced numerous intentional grinds to extend the perceived "lifetime" of a character to the point where playing more than one character per account is inimical to progression and effectively handicaps all characters on the account per additional character played.

The two issues I'd say are legitimate to complain about are: bugs and lag.
These are, indeed, the two most pervasive problems with the game, to the point that I don't feel any impulse to expand further here on the topic, and as you can see I often feel myself compelled to respond where my opinion in not necessary or desired.

[blarhblarhblarh]

I returned before the pandemic and DDO is better then ever. No grind for items but grind for past lifes. Good community and I fairly find people to play.

BUT...

Update 51 made past lifes more necessary than gear so this shifted the game a bit. And we are out of support for almost a year now with a lot of reincarnation bugs on this same update.

Can´t see things well on screen because of UI but even outside of USA I never have lag issues, at 41 and blind from one eye my sight get tired faster. Graphics are more than fine to me. Inventory space really needs some attention. Voodu Spice just made a video and there it takes 20 seconds to open TR cache.

I also have a hard time adapting to new gear and hate the gear tetris but well... there are tons of games inside DDO and I had to dislike a bit of it. Still love the gameplay, the community, the lore, the fact that it ´s D&D.

[Marshal_Lannes]

A friend asked me to comment on this as someone that left the game. Against my better judgment I'll share my thoughts.

If you like alts and miss the old DDO Guildwars II is a much better game for that.

If you hate grinds and game mechanics that force you to spend money to bypass intentional drudgery introduced by the devs, FFXIV proves you can build a game without resorting to such nonsense. A huge chunk of DDO players on Sarlona have reduced or stopped playing DDO and moved on to either FFXIV or New World. I know nothing about New World.

If you want something resembling an online tabletop D&D experience with your friends real D&D is available of course and there are many online tools to support it, but Gloomhaven is a non-MMO option for that and it's really good - it's not live action it's much more like a table top experience which might be hard for some. It's effectively a cooperative board game with scenarios.

I personally won't replace DDO with another MMO time sink. I am really liking Gloomhaven and suggest playing it with friends.

I think the only thing that keeps DDO going is the large time and money investment people made and don't want to lose. Don't let that sunk cost handcuff you from enjoying better options.

The most important thing is that you are having fun. If you are enjoying DDO I find that hard to understand - but by all means keep on playing. If you aren't enjoying DDO don't let your prior time and money sink handcuff you. There is a whole set of better options out there worth looking at.

"a friend"

Here is Slarden's post about ED this is from January


I am positive there is an issue, but I have no clue if the devs will investigate or dismiss it as player misunderstanding.

This person has 65 points: DeathTitan DC caster druid (ddo.com) (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/524630-DeathTitan-DC-caster-druid?p=6435460&viewfull=1#post6435460) including 25 permanent destiny points.

Based on this I completed the new 3 arcane epic past lifes for a total of 51 and still have 64 points and 24 permanent destiny points - unchanged after completing the 3 new epic past lifes. I have +3 tome of fate, tome of destiny, historic tome of destiny, all 51 epic past lifes and talked to all the npcs.

People with everything seem to vary from 63 to 65 total points. 65 points seems right if fate points are rounded up or down and 64 seems right if fates points are always rounded down.

So let me get this straight, you've unlocked (almost) every ED available but you don't play this game?

[Weemadarthur]

"a friend"

Here is Slarden's post about ED this is from January



So let me get this straight, you've unlocked (almost) every ED available but you don't play this game?

Not sure what you are trying to say here. Slarden had obviously completed every EPL back in January (or before) and has since then stopped playing. Why is that so hard to believe for you?

Since U51 rolled out a lot of players have left the game. In this respect Slarden isn't exactly unique. What is of note though is that Slarden has been a long term defender of the game and for most of his posting history has been a positive and more importantly balanced and reasonable poster on these boards. When players of his ilk leave that should highlight that all is not well and maybe, just maybe, there are issues that do need resolving. The game may not be the dumpster fire that the OP is trying to claim it is but that doesn't mean that there are not major issues (along with a slew of minor ones) that are driving players away.

[SheIsMiiiiiiinnnne]

DDO is better now than it has ever been. The game has never been more fluid - gone are the bloated sacks of monster HPs and there is no longer a system shock when going from heroic to epics. So many things have changed for the better it's impossible to list them (easy to Epic Sands items!). You should try the game and discover them for yourself. There is a rather robust raiding community and a thriving end game that supports it. The biggest negative is server population and as has been pointed out if you don't have a build that is reaper capable of soloing you might get stuck or find your progress slowed to a crawl at certain levels. However, when Hardcore rolls around and we have 4 instances of the Marketplace DDO gets a chance to show off what it could be.

Did you miss the request for an HONEST analysis?

[Weemadarthur]

Did you miss the request for an HONEST analysis?

But in his defense that is an honest opinion from Marshals perspective. As he genuinely believes that and due to that his response most definitely is honest. I may disagree with it, it may even be wrong on several levels but it is honest.

On the other hand we have the OP that was looking for an "honest" review but has consistently ignored anything that doesn't suit his agenda. He may be correct about some of the things he said but his questions and following responses are actually a lot more dishonest.

[TedSandyman]

Will it be worth returning depends on why you left.

If you quit because you were bored, there is plenty added to keep that from happening again for a while.

If you quit because you didn't like the way the game was headed and you were frustrated with the management, then you will find little has changed.

I personally like the game and find it fun. There is plenty to complain about for sure. But then again you can't make everyone happy.

The devs have done plenty to make me angry, but they have done much that I like.

If you love the game, it will be fun again. If you obsess over every change that you don't like, you will not have much fun and you will probably be quitting again shortly, because whatever class/style you play, it will eventually get nerfed.

[Artos_Fabril]

But in his defense that is an honest opinion from Marshals perspective. As he genuinely believes that and due to that his response most definitely is honest. I may disagree with it, it may even be wrong on several levels but it is honest.I would disagree. If you aren't honest with yourself, your argument can be inherently dishonest. What his arguments are is earnest. He is not making them ironically, and granting the benefit of the doubt, he is not making them for any ulterior motive, but by refusing to honestly acknowledge and address the flaws in the system, they cannot be an honest assessment.

It is useful to have the contrary opinion presented, and when it is so clearly presented though rose colored lenses, the reader can, let's say, "color correct" for themselves to reach a point of view somewhat closer to objective truth.

[Loriega]

There are your top issues of this game:
https://power-forums.com/c/ddo/p/14/issues-that-need-to-be-fixed-in-ddo

Just reading all the responses, the amount of tin-foil hat in this thread is ridiculous.

When you're new to this game everything is great but the 1st 2 things you notice are: no 4k UI and lag.
But you love it because it just feels right and everything is new.
You can earn coin by playing so the RMT isn't so bad, you'll get there eventually.

His perspective is that of someone who quit and has been racing from one trap MMO to the next.
DDO is the only game I know of where you don't *HAVE TO* spend a single cent, but you pay in a large amount of time invested.
It took me about 2 years to unlock every race and class, but I did spend 300€ on this game, which is a lot of money considering I'll hit my 2 year aniversary in 2 months. I did play this game a lot during the pandemic (which isn't over yet).
I now have 100 bank slots, no money bank slot, 750? crafting bank slots and 11 character slots.
If I would not have spent that much money, which also went into purchasing expansions for the alt account, so deduct ~90€ from those 300€ for the main account. That's 3x27€ 3 month subscriptions because of playing on hardcore servers, which I won't do again, subscribiing because of hc.
120€+ for feywild and 20€ for saltmarch.
I will not spend money on this game again until they get their **** together.
That means:
- responsive support that actually supports you and does the job and not 3 months later closes the ticket.
- mostly lag-free play
- fixing the "teleport failed" bug which is more of a infrastructure design bug than anything, how about incremental backoff/retry instead of panicking? They obviously have no one capable working at infra.
- scaling UI
- restore nerfed premium items to their former values. I'm talking about the merc resummon timers.
- adding an epic trainer in feywild
- skippable monologue in quests

[Eantarus]

Is there any point in coming back? Have they made any modifications so you can change the scale of the UI or is the game still completely unplayable by anyone on a 4k screen?

I have a 4K screen and I play just fine. In fact I only really got heavily into DDO after going to 4k. I also have pretty bad eyes. Are you maybe trying to play on a way too small 4k screen? (Like a 4k laptop, why do those even exist?). Also, have you tried simply setting the resolution to 2K if the UI bothers you that much?

[krynnotaur]

Is the UI still the same clickbar fest it's always been

You are looking for a different game, go find it. It will have at most 8 buttons you need to press. Try Neverwinter online. I *like* the hotbar customizations in this game, thanks.

[Oxarhamar]

I have a 4K screen and I play just fine. In fact I only really got heavily into DDO after going to 4k. I also have pretty bad eyes. Are you maybe trying to play on a way too small 4k screen? (Like a 4k laptop, why do those even exist?). Also, have you tried simply setting the resolution to 2K if the UI bothers you that much?

The UI gets really small on large screens it’s horrible trying to read chat on 42inch no matter what resolution it’s set on so I just play on my laptop instead

[Eantarus]

The UI gets really small on large screens it’s horrible trying to read chat on 42inch no matter what resolution it’s set on so I just play on my laptop instead

I play on a 43" screen. I group all my UI stuff(except the unmovable buffs bar) near the bottom middle. The chat box included. I have bad eyes and it can be a tad uncomfortable to keep up with the chat. I agree I'd rather the UI scale and the freaking buffs bar be movable, but the game runs just fine on 4k.

For me the biggest headache is DDO's inability to understand where the "center" of the screen is. For some reason it thinks the middle is in the upper left-hand quadrant, so that's where it opens most windows. They can be moved but its a running pain in the ass. Personally I'd prioritize fixing that over scaling the UI.

[Artos_Fabril]

For me the biggest headache is DDO's inability to understand where the "center" of the screen is. For some reason it thinks the middle is in the upper left-hand quadrant, so that's where it opens most windows. They can be moved but its a running pain in the ass. Personally I'd prioritize fixing that over scaling the UI.
You don't think that's the result of it picking the center of the first 1920x1080 section of the screen?

[Oxarhamar]

I play on a 43" screen. I group all my UI stuff(except the unmovable buffs bar) near the bottom middle. The chat box included. I have bad eyes and it can be a tad uncomfortable to keep up with the chat. I agree I'd rather the UI scale and the freaking buffs bar be movable, but the game runs just fine on 4k.

For me the biggest headache is DDO's inability to understand where the "center" of the screen is. For some reason it thinks the middle is in the upper left-hand quadrant, so that's where it opens most windows. They can be moved but its a running pain in the ass. Personally I'd prioritize fixing that over scaling the UI.

I like to sit back away from the screen a bit to play the chat terrible small item text even worse

I don't mind the bars so much as the non scaling text

I agree with that window thing being annoying also

I would just like to grab the chat window and change the text size same with items be able to zoom in or adjust in some way

[Eantarus]

You don't think that's the result of it picking the center of the first 1920x1080 section of the screen?

I am positive it is. But why would it do that? That's what I want know. You would think center calculation would be based on current resolution + maths. You'd also think if it was an absolute it'd be bottom left. Not much about DDO's UI makes any sense.

[Arctigis]

Quick note. The stat squish made gearing more enjoyable and flexible and helps
new players/new toons immensely. The change to epic destinies did this too.

The big division between players is this: reincarantion boosts in the low
levels show up strongly; reaper xp boosts in the higher levels show up strongly. The good news here for reaper pts anyway is that this is not hugely a problem if you are on the low end of the scale early in the game; it affects you later AND if you stay at cap you can get a fair amount of rxp quickly (join groups). This puts less pressure on doing tons of reincarnations to ‘catch up.’

The BIG continued problem of DDO are the obstacles to grouping (confusing and clumsy LFG) and the disincentives (scaling, gather mechanics) and lack of Incentives (from permanent buddy boosts, however small, and special loot boosts for party leaders for example).

First post in ages... and this is just my opinion.

I think this post is contradictory. You start out saying that it made gearing more
and enjoyable/flexible (I'd say boring and generic) but you then go on to explain
the problems it created - past lives and RP being a more significant part of the
whole. In actuality it made the gap between new players and veterans larger,
not smaller.

The stat squish irritated me beyond belief (yes, I did quit over it).
It was a massive bait and switch exercise and I found it truly offensive. I'm
playing a bit now but I won't be spending $$ like I used to (and I used to
spend a lot of $$).

[Artos_Fabril]

I think this post is contradictory. You start out saying that it made gearing more and enjoyable/flexible (I'd say boring and generic) but you then go on to explain the problems it created - past lives and RP being a more significant part of the whole. In actuality it made the gap between new players and veterans larger, not smaller.
Bit of both, really. It narrowed the gap between "first life just started collecting cap gear" and "finished gearing for cap" while widening the gap between first life and multi-TR.

SSG has lately done a lot of things that appear designed to make it easier for new players to catch up... for a version of the game in which TR doesn't exist. It's almost as if they took (the wrong) game design tips from a standard MMO playbook, and applied them to DDO without considering the very different dynamic that TR applies.

[Krinoshi2]

I played a bit
I find little of significance has changed.

The old gear that can now be replaced or epic'd is nice - hardly something that will keep me playing consistently.

Cannit crafting seems to say it grows with you? I haven't actually tried it. It takes time to. And I guess my maxed out crafter ain't maxed out no more.
Plus trading tons of old essences for new ones is hardly the kind of gameplay one wants to experience. Watching paint dry is literally more fun.

I'm fairly sure I had a racial completionist on the toon I pay the most. In fact, I had just done the iconic races to restore it before I left. I now have no racial past lives at all.
Doesn't mean much, as I have the other PL. But still, it does **** me off.

Got the fast horses. Took a whole 5 minutes (ok like 3 hours).

I can R1 stuff on my main solo without issue. Nukers still nuke. Albeit a lot less.
I have yet to see a single crit above 45k.

Everything that ****ed me off about the game back then still passes me off now. Including broken UIs that have literally never been fixed for grouping/lfg and the idiots that populate the server(s).
The grind for gear is just different, it isn't gone.
It's just not as critical - then again I have all the gear I probably want. Except that red dragon armor shard, **** VON.

I suppose it's easier to get now, as I can probably just solo the raid 4 or 5 times and get it out of the shard thing you double-click.

Not sure if that's a plus or a minus. Mostly, just another waste of time.

I guess if I do want to get back at it the main waste of time will be racial Tr.
Defaq do I know.
Even back then with underdark and the other stuff TR 0 to 20 took at most 4 days if you did it wrong. Not sure how I feel, but I'll probably go for at least one racial PL just to quell the Nostalgia effect...
And possibly to try the cannit stuff.


Replying to that one dude wondering why people complain about the UI.
Try any other game that wasn't made in 06.
And stop thinking that the UI is any nice.
It had nice features back then - like being able to customize the look of it too. Save it restore it. Etc.
Since 2020 there's absolutely nothing salvageable of it in any way shape or form.
It literally goes against any and all accessibility directives and best practices.
Sure. Those didn't exist at all when it was created.
That doesn't really mean that they don't have to be Upgraded and made better.

There's probably about a billion suggestions on different ways to fix it in the suggestions forum.
You could literally just turn the whole screen into clickable boxes of a player chosen size, allow them to populate with icons as you can now, and remove all the ones left empty from the screen.
As a bonus, you can make shortcut assignment based on a "click to asign" mode so that you aren't limited to the first 10 bars without scripting your own shortcuts in the ini files.

It literally doesn't take much. Putting cow dung on the screen would provide a better UI/UX experience.

The inventory itself is a legacy thing. Provided they scale that up to a custom defined value it would be OK - I mean, not really, it never was. But it goes more into the Nostalgia effect, so keeping it as it is is plausible even if it's horrible and they are basically
Going to have to add tabs to expand it futher.
They could just redesign all of that with tabs and radial menus too. And provide people the option to choose. It's just not nearly as critical as the fact the whole interface doesn't scale up to a legible format.

[SlowDM]

Play enjoy or go epeen