Best of DDO in 2021

[Marshal_Lannes]

2021 was an amazing year for DDO with several significant improvements to the game. Here's a look back at the ten best moments from the year.

1. U51 - A New Destiny. With that name, we should almost have a scrolling screen although that's probably trademarked. U51, likely one of the three best updates in the history of DDO, has completely changed the gameplay in epics by smoothing the transition between heroic and epic questing, getting rid of the onerous karma system, democratizing mid-reaper, making combat more fluid and dynamic, opening up a staggering array of build possibilities, and introducing an open-ended series of end game trees. Oh, and they made all epic destinies free. Hard to imagine a better box of free content for the player base.

2. S/S/S dies and the Demon Queen rises. After so many long years the dreaded shard/seal/scroll system was replaced by a modern crafting method that allowed players to discover a whole dragon's hoard full of new epic items. In the process, this brought back Zwabi's Revenge as a raid within the rotation that everyone wants to do. The Dev team went above and beyond here redoing the epic items and giving them set bonuses equivalent to or better than Borderlands gear. Players are even doing Sands rares again searching for various trinkets.

3. Across the board Stat reduction. At last the item stat arms race ended! We were no longer burdened by each Legendary pack making the items from the previous obsolete as stats went up to 25 then 27 then 30. Gasp. Instead, DDO had the courage to roll back player power knowing they would face a backlash. However, once everyone realized that mobs also had their stats reduced and combat was no longer sluggish, blocky, and slow along with epic items from the previous packs once again becoming relevant opening up further build opportunities this decision was extremely popular.

4. 15th Anniversary event and gift. Full of meta-commentary on the game, devs, and quests the anniversary event is always a highlight. Every account also received a ticket allowing them to pick a raid item. This allows those who don't raid to pick up an item they would have never had access to or helps those who were searching for a rare item to pull it here. In conjunction with the changes to SSS suddenly the eSoS showed up in a lot of inventories and for many, that was the best gift they could have received in 2021.

5. Saltmarsh expansion. The main (mini)expansion of 2021, Saltmarsh confirmed that DDO has become experts at constructing an overall unifying sensory feel in their expansions. With Saltmarsh you could feel the dampness in the marsh, you could smell the salt in the air, and all the quests felt organically connected within a living breathing part of the world. Many quests had a complexity not seen in a while providing hours of entertainment for the curious.

6. Horizon Walker. Unleashed as part of a revamp to ranged combat, Horizon Walker was a new universal tree that introduced the concept of target marking that, along with an expansion on the favored enemy concept, brought in a whole new style of gameplay. HW continues the trend in DDO of allowing increased flexibility in design choices bringing powerful ranged combat to a host of classes and racial combinations.

7. Hardcore Season 5. The most sought-after cosmetic in the game, bloody footprints, was brought back for Hardcore Season 5 making it arguably the most popular hardcore season yet. A big thanks to DDO for giving the whole community a chance to try for this magnificent prize!

8. Bone Devil Armored Nightmare Mount. The coolest thing to arrive in the DDO store since...since...well this might be the coolest thing ever to hit the store. With a blazing mane and tail every character along with a Night Revels cosmetic or two, can turn into the Ghost Rider of Eberron. Probably should make these bound to account though not per server

9. Indiana Jones and the Peril of the Planar Eyes. A quest pack you could imagine Dr. Jones stumbling his way through, not only were the quests inventive they also brought highly sought-after caster sticks for loot. The chain culminates in the fantastic Beautiful Nightmares that ask characters to choose wisely for as the true path leads to everlasting life, the false path leads to, well if not death then some Blair Witch lost moments.

10. DDOQUESTS2021 Free DDO! The code was given out before which is why it doesn't rank higher but for those who didn't have a chance to use it then or for new players discovering the game for the first time this code, along with deeply discounted expansion packs allows anyone to virtually the entire gameplay content in DDO for under $20. You also have 7 more days to use it so act now if you haven't.

Honorable Mention Froggo the hireling, who came with enhanced editions of Saltmarsh can be an invaluable resource for solo players or parties without trappers for low-level questing where traps can be especially dangerous on higher difficulty levels.

All in all a spectacular year for DDO.

[Oxarhamar]

2021 was an amazing year for DDO with several significant improvements to the game. Here's a look back at the ten best moments from the year.

1. U51 - A New Destiny. With that name, we should almost have a scrolling screen although that's probably trademarked. U51, likely one of the three best updates in the history of DDO, has completely changed the gameplay in epics by smoothing the transition between heroic and epic questing, getting rid of the onerous karma system, democratizing mid-reaper, making combat more fluid and dynamic, opening up a staggering array of build possibilities, and introducing an open-ended series of end game trees. Oh, and they made all epic destinies free. Hard to imagine a better box of free content for the player base.

2. S/S/S dies and the Demon Queen rises. After so many long years the dreaded shard/seal/scroll system was replaced by a modern crafting method that allowed players to discover a whole dragon's hoard full of new epic items. In the process, this brought back Zwabi's Revenge as a raid within the rotation that everyone wants to do. The Dev team went above and beyond here redoing the epic items and giving them set bonuses equivalent to or better than Borderlands gear. Players are even doing Sands rares again searching for various trinkets.

3. Across the board Stat reduction. At last the item stat arms race ended! We were no longer burdened by each Legendary pack making the items from the previous obsolete as stats went up to 25 then 27 then 30. Gasp. Instead, DDO had the courage to roll back player power knowing they would face a backlash. However, once everyone realized that mobs also had their stats reduced and combat was no longer sluggish, blocky, and slow along with epic items from the previous packs once again becoming relevant opening up further build opportunities this decision was extremely popular.

4. 15th Anniversary event and gift. Full of meta-commentary on the game, devs, and quests the anniversary event is always a highlight. Every account also received a ticket allowing them to pick a raid item. This allows those who don't raid to pick up an item they would have never had access to or helps those who were searching for a rare item to pull it here. In conjunction with the changes to SSS suddenly the eSoS showed up in a lot of inventories and for many, that was the best gift they could have received in 2021.

5. Saltmarsh expansion. The main (mini)expansion of 2021, Saltmarsh confirmed that DDO has become experts at constructing an overall unifying sensory feel in their expansions. With Saltmarsh you could feel the dampness in the marsh, you could smell the salt in the air, and all the quests felt organically connected within a living breathing part of the world. Many quests had a complexity not seen in a while providing hours of entertainment for the curious.

6. Horizon Walker. Unleashed as part of a revamp to ranged combat, Horizon Walker was a new universal tree that introduced the concept of target marking that, along with an expansion on the favored enemy concept, brought in a whole new style of gameplay. HW continues the trend in DDO of allowing increased flexibility in design choices bringing powerful ranged combat to a host of classes and racial combinations.

7. Hardcore Season 5. The most sought-after cosmetic in the game, bloody footprints, was brought back for Hardcore Season 5 making it arguably the most popular hardcore season yet. A big thanks to DDO for giving the whole community a chance to try for this magnificent prize!

8. Bone Devil Armored Nightmare Mount. The coolest thing to arrive in the DDO store since...since...well this might be the coolest thing ever to hit the store. With a blazing mane and tail every character along with a Night Revels cosmetic or two, can turn into the Ghost Rider of Eberron. Probably should make these bound to account though not per server

9. Indiana Jones and the Peril of the Planar Eyes. A quest pack you could imagine Dr. Jones stumbling his way through, not only were the quests inventive they also brought highly sought-after caster sticks for loot. The chain culminates in the fantastic Beautiful Nightmares that ask characters to choose wisely for as the true path leads to everlasting life, the false path leads to, well if not death then some Blair Witch lost moments.

10. DDOQUESTS2021 Free DDO! The code was given out before which is why it doesn't rank higher but for those who didn't have a chance to use it then or for new players discovering the game for the first time this code, along with deeply discounted expansion packs allows anyone to virtually the entire gameplay content in DDO for under $20. You also have 7 more days to use it so act now if you haven't.

Honorable Mention Froggo the hireling, who came with enhanced editions of Saltmarsh can be an invaluable resource for solo players or parties without trappers for low-level questing where traps can be especially dangerous on higher difficulty levels.

All in all a spectacular year for DDO.

Sadly no some of that worse features of 2021 made this bias list

[Hawkwier]

Heartily disagree with much of that. But wish, and all on the forum you a very Happy Christmas in any event!

[Steeme]

Incoming! 8 pages of bickering to ensue...

Pro tip: Too soon

[SiliconScout]

Sadly no some of that worse features of 2021 made this bias list

Agreed.

Number 5 alone has cost them many subs and those are the just the ones I know I am sure it cost them an actual significant %. In my case nobody I know that dropped sub picked up salt marsh, myself included.

Honestly, for me, numbers 2, 3 and 10 would be the only things I see as a net positive for the game and the community.

Heck I had re-subbed after years on premium (shifted to premium as soon as it came out) because HC1 was amazing and some of the other direction they were taking were good and I wanted to support them. This literally only gave me a marginal, almost unnoticed, XP bonus yet I subbed up and stayed subbed for 2 years. For me the mini-expansion BS was enough to turn off the taps, it was my final straw. For others that final straw was the great equipment nerf before the overall nerf which hit it again (Ravenloft belts) which came before or your number 7 where they saw a prestige cosmetic earned in a Hardcore season that frankly was a lot harder to pull off being handed out like candy in this season. Also it's "yet another hardcore" season, at this point they are starting to get boring.

Though I am sure the bean counters will show that the money raised in people who kept subs + paid for the ridiculous mini-expansion is greater than the players and subs lost. They will probably also have some spreadsheet somewhere showing how spending on a HC server is higher than the regular ones, though I bet that number drops with each HC. And so they will deem it all a great success and pat each other on the back as the community shrinks ever smaller, faster than it needs to.

Sadly what they don't realise is that players ARE content in an MMO and every lost player especially vets who have been around since beta and launch, is a huge loss to the community. Even my wife who has subbed for well over a decade and served on the very first Players Council barely logs on anymore. She and her friends have been playing Balders Gate 3 and Dark Alliance instead. Even the group I most often played with has moved and we are far more likely to play a game of Neverwinter Nights (Enhanced Edition) or just about anything else these days. I can't remember the last time the crew was together playing DDO. Probably HC season 3.

[Logicman69]

2021 was an amazing year for DDO with several significant improvements to the game. Here's a look back at the ten best moments from the year.

1. U51 - A New Destiny. With that name, we should almost have a scrolling screen although that's probably trademarked. U51, likely one of the three best updates in the history of DDO, has completely changed the gameplay in epics by smoothing the transition between heroic and epic questing, getting rid of the onerous karma system, democratizing mid-reaper, making combat more fluid and dynamic, opening up a staggering array of build possibilities, and introducing an open-ended series of end game trees. Oh, and they made all epic destinies free. Hard to imagine a better box of free content for the player base.

2. S/S/S dies and the Demon Queen rises. After so many long years the dreaded shard/seal/scroll system was replaced by a modern crafting method that allowed players to discover a whole dragon's hoard full of new epic items. In the process, this brought back Zwabi's Revenge as a raid within the rotation that everyone wants to do. The Dev team went above and beyond here redoing the epic items and giving them set bonuses equivalent to or better than Borderlands gear. Players are even doing Sands rares again searching for various trinkets.

3. Across the board Stat reduction. At last the item stat arms race ended! We were no longer burdened by each Legendary pack making the items from the previous obsolete as stats went up to 25 then 27 then 30. Gasp. Instead, DDO had the courage to roll back player power knowing they would face a backlash. However, once everyone realized that mobs also had their stats reduced and combat was no longer sluggish, blocky, and slow along with epic items from the previous packs once again becoming relevant opening up further build opportunities this decision was extremely popular.

4. 15th Anniversary event and gift. Full of meta-commentary on the game, devs, and quests the anniversary event is always a highlight. Every account also received a ticket allowing them to pick a raid item. This allows those who don't raid to pick up an item they would have never had access to or helps those who were searching for a rare item to pull it here. In conjunction with the changes to SSS suddenly the eSoS showed up in a lot of inventories and for many, that was the best gift they could have received in 2021.

5. Saltmarsh expansion. The main (mini)expansion of 2021, Saltmarsh confirmed that DDO has become experts at constructing an overall unifying sensory feel in their expansions. With Saltmarsh you could feel the dampness in the marsh, you could smell the salt in the air, and all the quests felt organically connected within a living breathing part of the world. Many quests had a complexity not seen in a while providing hours of entertainment for the curious.

6. Horizon Walker. Unleashed as part of a revamp to ranged combat, Horizon Walker was a new universal tree that introduced the concept of target marking that, along with an expansion on the favored enemy concept, brought in a whole new style of gameplay. HW continues the trend in DDO of allowing increased flexibility in design choices bringing powerful ranged combat to a host of classes and racial combinations.

7. Hardcore Season 5. The most sought-after cosmetic in the game, bloody footprints, was brought back for Hardcore Season 5 making it arguably the most popular hardcore season yet. A big thanks to DDO for giving the whole community a chance to try for this magnificent prize!

8. Bone Devil Armored Nightmare Mount. The coolest thing to arrive in the DDO store since...since...well this might be the coolest thing ever to hit the store. With a blazing mane and tail every character along with a Night Revels cosmetic or two, can turn into the Ghost Rider of Eberron. Probably should make these bound to account though not per server

9. Indiana Jones and the Peril of the Planar Eyes. A quest pack you could imagine Dr. Jones stumbling his way through, not only were the quests inventive they also brought highly sought-after caster sticks for loot. The chain culminates in the fantastic Beautiful Nightmares that ask characters to choose wisely for as the true path leads to everlasting life, the false path leads to, well if not death then some Blair Witch lost moments.

10. DDOQUESTS2021 Free DDO! The code was given out before which is why it doesn't rank higher but for those who didn't have a chance to use it then or for new players discovering the game for the first time this code, along with deeply discounted expansion packs allows anyone to virtually the entire gameplay content in DDO for under $20. You also have 7 more days to use it so act now if you haven't.

Honorable Mention Froggo the hireling, who came with enhanced editions of Saltmarsh can be an invaluable resource for solo players or parties without trappers for low-level questing where traps can be especially dangerous on higher difficulty levels.

All in all a spectacular year for DDO.

I agree with most this list, but not the order. I think #2 should be #1 (probably one of the most requested features in a long time was finally implemented, with a good buff to the older items to make them relevant again). and #10 should be #2 (would be #1 but since it was given before, lost some points). I also think #9 should be an honorable mention, while Frogo deserves to be on the main list (probably the single BEST hireling in the game, period. No other level 3 hireling is as useful for as many levels in the game as he is). I think he deserves the #3 spot instead of "stat reduction".

The rest, I agree with. U51 may be controversial, but I think it is the best for the game moving forward. It gives the designers room to grow as they think about expanding the level cap. Along with that change, U51 implemented the change in Epic leveling, making the difficulty on par (for the most part) with Heroic leveling.

[Oxarhamar]

Agreed.

Number 5 alone has cost them many subs and those are the just the ones I know I am sure it cost them an actual significant %. In my case nobody I know that dropped sub picked up salt marsh, myself included.

Honestly, for me, numbers 2, 3 and 10 would be the only things I see as a net positive for the game and the community.

Heck I had re-subbed after years on premium (shifted to premium as soon as it came out) because HC1 was amazing and some of the other direction they were taking were good and I wanted to support them. This literally only gave me a marginal, almost unnoticed, XP bonus yet I subbed up and stayed subbed for 2 years. For me the mini-expansion BS was enough to turn off the taps, it was my final straw. For others that final straw was the great equipment nerf before the overall nerf which hit it again (Ravenloft belts) which came before or your number 7 where they saw a prestige cosmetic earned in a Hardcore season that frankly was a lot harder to pull off being handed out like candy in this season. Also it's "yet another hardcore" season, at this point they are starting to get boring.

Though I am sure the bean counters will show that the money raised in people who kept subs + paid for the ridiculous mini-expansion is greater than the players and subs lost. They will probably also have some spreadsheet somewhere showing how spending on a HC server is higher than the regular ones, though I bet that number drops with each HC. And so they will deem it all a great success and pat each other on the back as the community shrinks ever smaller, faster than it needs to.

Sadly what they don't realise is that players ARE content in an MMO and every lost player especially vets who have been around since beta and launch, is a huge loss to the community. Even my wife who has subbed for well over a decade and served on the very first Players Council barely logs on anymore. She and her friends have been playing Balders Gate 3 and Dark Alliance instead. Even the group I most often played with has moved and we are far more likely to play a game of Neverwinter Nights (Enhanced Edition) or just about anything else these days. I can't remember the last time the crew was together playing DDO. Probably HC season 3.

Rather disappointing considering that Saltmarsh promised value for VIPs

[Brandwynn]

It was a good year.. Looking forward to next year.

[Memnir]

Whereas I respect your opinions and wont try to sway them, my own opinions on that list are very different.
Happy holidays!

Incoming! 8 pages of bickering to ensue...

Only eight? With a holiday weekend looming?

[SiliconScout]

Rather disappointing considering that Saltmarsh promised value for VIPs

Yeah ... it was a giant FU pay for virtually all the content just like everyone else move. If it wasn't for the free quest coupons / basically already owning everything already I wouldn't even bother to log on as little as I do now.

For most of my friends who played this game they don't bother at all anymore. We still play 5-6 hours a week, we just don't put DDO on the list of games we would play even though we all have it.

[Hawkwier]

Heartily disagree with much of that. But wish you, and all on the forum a very Happy Christmas in any event!

[Oliphant]

My bottom line:

Overall great job but compared to just post-Feywild the endgame is not as healthy. Post Feywild was a great time for endgame raiding. So many people happily playing DnD, VoD, LoB, MA, KT, Shroud, PN, THTH. Seems like people are burning out. Nothing new and fun to do at endgame lately (SM endgame is mainly a do chores type of thing). Lots of change and headaches this year.

My 2022 fix rx: More endgame content, especially raids, stat.

1. U51 - A New Destiny.

Not sure what U51 accomplished. I liked the diplo move of hiding the details of monster squish during lamm so they could indirectly take feedback with monster nerf compensation while saving face and not having to publicly appear to have been wrong by actually fixing their destinies. Was really worried they had a dev or two with some real power that had drank of the anti-power creep kool-aid but they did good and squished the monsters so it was not the disaster as it appeared on lamm.

Current issues:

a. Melee dps/light tank role seems more unfun and more lame at endgame as everyone else being more powerful means people pushing raid skulls so they don't get bored and quit. So now only tanks can really survive push raids when it gets tough. Too much DPS at range in parties overall now.

b. Pushing people into dps and out of DC casting happens to be the thing that would and has made me consider taking a break. Extreme dps should be quite hard to build or it cheeses the whole game. Reliable DCs should be hard to build but achievable. We now have easy DPS and nigh impossible DCs/SR in some situations.

2. S/S/S dies and the Demon Queen rises.
3. Across the board Stat reduction.

Squishing stats so smoother at leveling was cool, especially since it makes the +12 stat augments relevant. Updating the S/S/S stuff was super cool. All the new filigrees, perfected stuff super cool. YET, they seemed to have gone out of their way to make it so the new possible combos from all of this rarely amount to anything better. It's been surprisingly unproductive trying to come up with much with the new gear that would help me in current ranged dps mode, basically just the Red Dragon Armor change has yielded anything new for me. I've seen some new DPS sorc gear setups that looked sweet though. There are probably some builds benefiting from all these new possibilities but they are surprisingly thin for ranged dps.

4. 15th Anniversary event and gift.

Sure fine. I'd rather they figure out why no one will run MoD and RTSO and fix it rather than just giving it all away but fine.

5. Saltmarsh expansion.

Was good I guess. Nice explorer area. Nice down to earth classic DnD starter vibes. Kind of an action packed play style with lots of opts with goodie chests that aren't off the beaten paths.

Between pay walling the glorified pack and the weird U50 anti-power creep mood, they managed to optimize the saltmarsh sets so you ALMOST never use them, and they managed to nearly kill the endgame on my server for month or so. In theory the gear is really cool, even has cool red icon outlining that makes you go ooh.

p.s. I would recommend SM to folks that don't have it - it's good.

6. Horizon Walker.

I like it. Overall, they made bows more fun this year. Love how many shot works now compared to old playstyle, much more fun.

7. Hardcore Season 5.

Glad they let people that were blocked from season 1 attempt to get the footprints. Some people feel like it should be kept a special season 1 thing but for me I saw an asterisk on old footprints which says "these footprints don't mean much to me until everyone has access".

8. Bone Devil Armored Nightmare Mount.

Fine.

9. Indiana Jones and the Peril of the Planar Eyes.

Well, if you want the hat too, see Promise of Fire.

10. DDOQUESTS2021 Free DDO!

Hurray!

[dredre9987]

My bottom line:

Overall great job but compared to just post-Feywild the endgame is not as healthy. Post Feywild was a great time for endgame raiding. So many people happily playing DnD, VoD, LoB, MA, KT, Shroud, PN, THTH. Seems like people are burning out.

Absolutely nothing new there. People get what they want and stop raiding. That has been going on for every raid ever introduced. The key is to just lead your own groups and set them up before hand. I mean who runs heroic shroud anymore? I solo it now as it's easier than finding a group. Since DDO moved to not worth running alts many people don't. Not saying every case is like this but it is there.

[Jaxtan]

The best of 2021 is when they finally made casting top overpowered with almost unlimited spell points in epics. Makes it a walk in the park just nuking and one-shot stuff left and right. There's really no sense in playing anything else when leveling. Don't complain about what you don't like with the new epic destinies or stat nerfs, just be a nuker and speed through life leveling in a few hours versus days and show the world how awesome you are. Since I switched to being a nuker my life has improved 150%. I am leveling at twice the speed, I got a raise, and I lost 10 pounds. It's great!

[Baahb3]

Whereas I respect your opinions and wont try to sway them, my own opinions on that list are very different.
Happy holidays!

Have to agree with Memnir here. #2 and #10 are the only highlights in my book but I will not begrudge others their opinions.

Happy Holidays everyone.

[Blerk]

The OP's post is a horrifying, one-sided piece of propaganda that nearly made me barf up my Christmas pudding when I read it. SSG, please just give him the job or whatever other form of approval he so desperately craves so this disgusting public exhibition of ass-kissing can finally come to an end. Those easily upset by criticism of SSG should probably stop reading here.

1. EDs - loss of flexibility, more damage to the stealth playstyle, uneven nerfs and buffs to dps casting, DC casting and melee, all in all another big step towards turning DDO into Gauntlet. Plat respec cost clearly implemented only for the sake of having an AS cost alternative for grubbing shards from time-poor but cashed-up players.

2. S/S/S changes - a good idea harmed by the paywalling of the upgrade system behind the purchase of Saltmarsh. Typical corrupt-a-wish nonsense from a company that is apparently bent on eroding the value of the VIP sub every year and becoming increasingly reliant on hostage and inconvenience based methods of raising revenue rather than just making a good product that people actually want to buy. And Borderlands gear set bonuses? Further testament to the OP's extremely limited game knowledge like his famously laughable insistence that gear can provide a profane bonus to spell penetration.

3. Stat squish - in theory levelling endgame gear values makes loot from older content more relevant, so some value there. But stat inflation will be back with a vengeance as the level cap goes up and will no doubt be put behind a paywall of expansion and mini expansion content. Taking power away from players and then selling it back to them later belongs at the top of the sleazy ways to make money list and I really hope this does not become a habit.

4. Anniversary event - Not a fan of giving away loot that can be obtained by learning and running content. How about providing more incentives for people to run that old content instead? Stick to cosmetics and store stuff for anniversary gifts please.

5. Saltmarsh expansion - SSG testing the water for further devaluation of the VIP subscription with paid mini expansions, a move very poorly received by the community when tried in LOTRO and again here. Hopefully sales numbers will not reward this greedy attempt to monetise content further, otherwise the recent period of extremely poor value for VIP subscribers will become the norm. Content itself not bad, xp not great, unimpressive loot design once again covered up by set bonuses.

6. Horizon Walker - nice finally to see some improvements to archery and a dex stat trance, but if history is any guide significant nerfs are on the way. By now everyone should be aware of this pattern where what was fine on sale day slowly transitions to overperforming and requiring nerfs. Caveat Emptor as usual.

7. Hardcore - an interesting premise once again plagued by poor implementation. Regardless of whether a promise to keep cosmetics exclusive or not was actually made, it seems very cheap to recycle them particularly under different rules conditions. If SSG could make significant progress towards reducing the bugginess and lag this would undoubtedly be more popular.

8. Nightmare mount - seems expensive for what it is, but for those who like this stuff and are happy to pay, have at it. Let's just hope we don't go down NWO's path with mounts where in an effort to boost sales they gained abilities that increased character power too.

9. Planar Eyes chain - have nothing against the hat, didn't particularly enjoy the quests after the first one. One and done per life if that.

10. Free quests code - a good idea, but also problematic for VIP subscribers. The game badly needs a review of the value of the VIP sub and to address the high initial cost of coming the game if you want access to all content. Offering this code for two or three months every year does not solve this problem, especially since increasingly large swathes of content are not covered by the VIP sub for those who want to try the game.

[Weemadarthur]

2021 was an amazing year for DDO with several significant improvements to the game. Here's a look back at the ten best moments from the year.

1. U51 - A New Destiny. With that name, we should almost have a scrolling screen although that's probably trademarked. U51, likely one of the three best updates in the history of DDO, has completely changed the gameplay in epics by smoothing the transition between heroic and epic questing, getting rid of the onerous karma system, democratizing mid-reaper, making combat more fluid and dynamic, opening up a staggering array of build possibilities, and introducing an open-ended series of end game trees. Oh, and they made all epic destinies free. Hard to imagine a better box of free content for the player base.

2. S/S/S dies and the Demon Queen rises. After so many long years the dreaded shard/seal/scroll system was replaced by a modern crafting method that allowed players to discover a whole dragon's hoard full of new epic items. In the process, this brought back Zwabi's Revenge as a raid within the rotation that everyone wants to do. The Dev team went above and beyond here redoing the epic items and giving them set bonuses equivalent to or better than Borderlands gear. Players are even doing Sands rares again searching for various trinkets.

3. Across the board Stat reduction. At last the item stat arms race ended! We were no longer burdened by each Legendary pack making the items from the previous obsolete as stats went up to 25 then 27 then 30. Gasp. Instead, DDO had the courage to roll back player power knowing they would face a backlash. However, once everyone realized that mobs also had their stats reduced and combat was no longer sluggish, blocky, and slow along with epic items from the previous packs once again becoming relevant opening up further build opportunities this decision was extremely popular.

4. 15th Anniversary event and gift. Full of meta-commentary on the game, devs, and quests the anniversary event is always a highlight. Every account also received a ticket allowing them to pick a raid item. This allows those who don't raid to pick up an item they would have never had access to or helps those who were searching for a rare item to pull it here. In conjunction with the changes to SSS suddenly the eSoS showed up in a lot of inventories and for many, that was the best gift they could have received in 2021.

5. Saltmarsh expansion. The main (mini)expansion of 2021, Saltmarsh confirmed that DDO has become experts at constructing an overall unifying sensory feel in their expansions. With Saltmarsh you could feel the dampness in the marsh, you could smell the salt in the air, and all the quests felt organically connected within a living breathing part of the world. Many quests had a complexity not seen in a while providing hours of entertainment for the curious.

6. Horizon Walker. Unleashed as part of a revamp to ranged combat, Horizon Walker was a new universal tree that introduced the concept of target marking that, along with an expansion on the favored enemy concept, brought in a whole new style of gameplay. HW continues the trend in DDO of allowing increased flexibility in design choices bringing powerful ranged combat to a host of classes and racial combinations.

7. Hardcore Season 5. The most sought-after cosmetic in the game, bloody footprints, was brought back for Hardcore Season 5 making it arguably the most popular hardcore season yet. A big thanks to DDO for giving the whole community a chance to try for this magnificent prize!

8. Bone Devil Armored Nightmare Mount. The coolest thing to arrive in the DDO store since...since...well this might be the coolest thing ever to hit the store. With a blazing mane and tail every character along with a Night Revels cosmetic or two, can turn into the Ghost Rider of Eberron. Probably should make these bound to account though not per server

9. Indiana Jones and the Peril of the Planar Eyes. A quest pack you could imagine Dr. Jones stumbling his way through, not only were the quests inventive they also brought highly sought-after caster sticks for loot. The chain culminates in the fantastic Beautiful Nightmares that ask characters to choose wisely for as the true path leads to everlasting life, the false path leads to, well if not death then some Blair Witch lost moments.

10. DDOQUESTS2021 Free DDO! The code was given out before which is why it doesn't rank higher but for those who didn't have a chance to use it then or for new players discovering the game for the first time this code, along with deeply discounted expansion packs allows anyone to virtually the entire gameplay content in DDO for under $20. You also have 7 more days to use it so act now if you haven't.

Honorable Mention Froggo the hireling, who came with enhanced editions of Saltmarsh can be an invaluable resource for solo players or parties without trappers for low-level questing where traps can be especially dangerous on higher difficulty levels.

All in all a spectacular year for DDO.

No 1 highlight of the year:- reading a post where the OP was so desperate to try and find 10 good things about DDO this year he was forced to include the free quest code he was actively lobbying against lol.

[Oliphant]

Absolutely nothing new there. People get what they want and stop raiding. That has been going on for every raid ever introduced. The key is to just lead your own groups and set them up before hand. I mean who runs heroic shroud anymore? I solo it now as it's easier than finding a group. Since DDO moved to not worth running alts many people don't. Not saying every case is like this but it is there.

Maybe its an old cycle but DDO endgame raid scene was maybe best ever in first half of 2021 and now it's a little meh lately, YMMV.

[Marshal_Lannes]

Heartily disagree with much of that. But wish you, and all on the forum a very Happy Christmas in any event!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and everyone else who sent out greetings publically or privately as well.

[grudgebear]

1. For me the best thing was item stat squish, set adjustment. Now I use Fam set with Mists set, there just more variety for it.

2. Another one is new reaper stats for items and very steep reaper item upgrade. I'm glad I can try to advance my gear without participating in raids.

3. New epic destinies. While some of them where a miss I'm glad I don't have to worry about karma nor leveling them, no to mention ED becoming available for anyone. New ones are on the horizon as well.

4. Legendary upgrades. Not being able to add mythic bonus is still a miss for me, but glad there is more gear at cap to choose from.

5. Adventure pack was nice. Getting glimpses of other planes was a fun touch to them.

Agree this was a good year for DDO.

I cannot say that I was happy for Saltmarsh, initially I was very surprised by overall atmosphere, but playing further my excitement was killed with annoying bugs. Most of the recent content is put behind expansions. I don't like that.

Doing bow rework without addressing ranged combat targeting issues felt really awkward.