Devs- How tough are the new Quests supposed to be?

I did enjoy the series, and the new explorer area (even if it does seem a bit small) but was thinking about something a friend asked me earlier, if the new quests were the same difficulty as Amrath.
And really, the more I think about it, they're not even close.

The Explorer area is much easier than the Amrath stuff (not that Amrath is hard, but stuff seems to save alot more)
but the quests are of much lower difficulty than the Amrath ones.

Before we can give proper feedback, I'd like to know what difficulty you intended these quests to be, because if they are supposed to be harder than the Amrath stuff you're going to get different feedback than if they are supposed to be the same levle,or easier than the Amrath stuff.

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Originally Posted by Khurse

I did enjoy the series, and the new explorer area (even if it does seem a bit small) but was thinking about something a friend asked me earlier, if the new quests were the same difficulty as Amrath.
And really, the more I think about it, they're not even close.

The Explorer area is much easier than the Amrath stuff (not that Amrath is hard, but stuff seems to save alot more)
but the quests are of much lower difficulty than the Amrath ones.

Before we can give proper feedback, I'd like to know what difficulty you intended these quests to be, because if they are supposed to be harder than the Amrath stuff you're going to get different feedback than if they are supposed to be the same levle,or easier than the Amrath stuff.

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Shav also has GH on everything. So, duh on the saves.

I ran Power Play and Blown to Bits on elite in my FvS.
I soloed Power Play elite and it has been tough. My gear is clearly not up for it and had to drink many pots. But the fact they can't be neg leveled along with the fact that many mobs have evasion made it hard. I don't remember having such a bad time in the few Amrath elite I soloed.

I grouped for Blown to Bits elite and it has also been a difficult run. We've been glad to be able to complete it. And I'm not talking of the optional Iron Golem who destroyed us (the only thing that seemed to damage him was Blade Barrier ...). I never ran Amrath elite in a group so I cannot compare, but it has clearly been challenging.

I felt that the challenge on elite was exactly what it should be. Doable, but challenging for players that are not overgeared. A caster with a necro / enchantment DC around 40 may make those quests a breeze tho.

I didn't try Normal nor Hard yet. Gonna solo the last one on normal to see what it's like.

They should be as hard as we want them to be.

And on elite.. We want them to be MASSIVELY harder. They are a joke now. They shouldn't all get easily solo'd on day 1. (and yea they are all soloable on elite, by any class, several people have already done so today)

It tooks weeks/months for people to figure out how to solo the amrath stuff on NORMAL. and were knocking this all out on day 1 on elite..

It's far too easy.

The only tough part of the whole lot is the optional fight in Schemes of the Enemy Elite - which is very disporportionately hard due to the fact you have to face off versus 20-40 mobs at once which respawn at an incredible rate. That and its not really an optional, so much as an alternate route that no one will really use since it has no reward.

Really the main issue is saves.. They aren't balanced to challenge average geared players, let alone max ones. And the complete lack of deathblock (only saving grace there is some contructs are innately immune to death effects, tho the quests are primarily living-constructs, which are not)

Amrath has good saves, and infrequent spattering of deathblock laced around to prevent this.

I'll post some more detailed feedback on elite and whats needs buffing tomorow.

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Originally Posted by Shade

It tooks weeks/months for people to figure out how to solo the amrath stuff on NORMAL.

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Hello. Remove all your epic and ToD/amrath gear, ship buffs and yugo pots. Then try running the new quests again. You'll thank me later.

That quests dont need deathblock to be comparable to amrath . Amrath was always -> debuff them then go on FoD/WoB. And only cause the +4 heroism buff.

infrequent deathblock makes up for the infrequent no-linving contructs on the quest.

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Originally Posted by Shade

They should be as hard as we want them to be.

And on elite.. We want them to be MASSIVELY harder. They are a joke now. They shouldn't all get easily solo'd on day 1. (and yea they are all soloable on elite, by any class, several people have already done so today)

It tooks weeks/months for people to figure out how to solo the amrath stuff on NORMAL. and were knocking this all out on day 1 on elite..

It's far too easy.

The only tough part of the whole lot is the optional fight in Schemes of the Enemy Elite - which is very disporportionately hard due to the fact you have to face off versus 20-40 mobs at once which respawn at an incredible rate. That and its not really an optional, so much as an alternate route that no one will really use since it has no reward.

Really the main issue is saves.. They aren't balanced to challenge average geared players, let alone max ones. And the complete lack of deathblock (only saving grace there is some contructs are innately immune to death effects, tho the quests are primarily living-constructs, which are not)

Amrath has good saves, and infrequent spattering of deathblock laced around to prevent this.

I'll post some more detailed feedback on elite and whats needs buffing tomorow.

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im curious on what gear you have on when u say its far too easy?, also how many tr on the toon that ran it ?

also whats your definition of average geared players,well geared, max geared players note thats only 3 tiers of "geared" and what happens when this is epified if it isnt already when it comes out

The thing is. This is supposed to be End-Game. Not just High level.

It should be difficult. If you can solo it on Elite on your first try regardless how good your gear is,then it is difinatly not difficult.

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Originally Posted by Dunklerlindwurm

The thing is. This is supposed to be End-Game. Not just High level.

It should be difficult. If you can solo it on Elite on your first try regardless how good your gear is,then it is difinatly not difficult.

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This, nothing more to say really.

who said this is the final levels? i doubt it is. i think if turbine keeps to what they are saying they might release a few different packs for 19+. i ran the quests earlier today on normal and found it was quite exciting and sure caught us off guard a few times since it was new to us. But seriously random parties that might be undergeared or new might have a challenge if their not careful. Of course a toon that is geared to the max is going mop the floor with these quests. Also im sure there will be major experience factor behind that as well.

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Originally Posted by Truga

Hello. Remove all your epic and ToD/amrath gear, ship buffs and yugo pots. Then try running the new quests again. You'll thank me later.

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Lol, I don't see how that makes any difference; especially on a caster.

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Originally Posted by Forzah

Lol, I don't see how that makes any difference; especially on a caster.

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Look, I agree that quests should be hard. However, someone dismissing these quests as a breeze to run through solo on elite with a barbarian is obviously over-geared for them. The fact that there's no content for these over-geared characters is a different issue entirely.

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Originally Posted by Shade

They should be as hard as we want them to be.

And on elite.. We want them to be MASSIVELY harder. They are a joke now. They shouldn't all get easily solo'd on day 1. (and yea they are all soloable on elite, by any class, several people have already done so today)

It tooks weeks/months for people to figure out how to solo the amrath stuff on NORMAL. and were knocking this all out on day 1 on elite..

It's far too easy.

The only tough part of the whole lot is the optional fight in Schemes of the Enemy Elite - which is very disporportionately hard due to the fact you have to face off versus 20-40 mobs at once which respawn at an incredible rate. That and its not really an optional, so much as an alternate route that no one will really use since it has no reward.

Really the main issue is saves.. They aren't balanced to challenge average geared players, let alone max ones. And the complete lack of deathblock (only saving grace there is some contructs are innately immune to death effects, tho the quests are primarily living-constructs, which are not)

Amrath has good saves, and infrequent spattering of deathblock laced around to prevent this.

I'll post some more detailed feedback on elite and whats needs buffing tomorow.

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I don' t really agree with this. These are *not* epic. Elite should be easier than any epic (and it is currently, but mostly because there are very few caster mobs that use crowd control). Someone with no epic gear should be able to run those (maybe not to solo them). And based on what I have seen they will be a challenge to run in a group with no vets with uber epic gear.

Change your gear and run them again (put on some normal gear for a level 20 toon who has been running a few raids), you'll see they won't look that easy on elite : monsters have big HP pool (more than in the easy epics I think), pretty hard to bypass saves (I would say around 45-50 Fort, reflex depends a lot on the type of mob), a lot of them have evasion.
The main difference between this and epic is they don't deal as much damage and there is not as many stun/CC going on inside. But as it is, I think elite is a fair step to epic.

And remember these quests are not epic, elite doesn't offer any of the epic rewards (it only give some favor) so it shouldn't be as hard as epic.

Edit :
If the difficulty was to be increased on elite, these quests should give at least a few epic token fragments.
Also I didn't run these on normal or hard so I am only talking of elite.

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Originally Posted by Truga

Look, I The fact that there's no content for these over-geared characters is a different issue entirely.

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I think shade made a thread about this, I liked some of his ideas in them.

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Originally Posted by Dunklerlindwurm

The thing is. This is supposed to be End-Game. Not just High level.

It should be difficult. If you can solo it on Elite on your first try regardless how good your gear is,then it is difinatly not difficult.

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i disagree end game is EPIC difficulty this is elite difficulty, if he's running around on a multiple tr toon geared for epic quest well i imagine itll be not so difficult BUT that because his toon is overpowered and too over-geared for him to be able to give an unbiased assessment or accurate beta test

see what nivarch posted a 2 posts before me

the quests on normal are just fine for general populace. think its to easy? then pug it when it goes live and get back to me.

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Originally Posted by Shade

It tooks weeks/months for people to figure out how to solo the amrath stuff on NORMAL. and were knocking this all out on day 1 on elite..

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Let's not forget that when Amrath came out there was no epic gear or Cannith crafting in the game, and class enhancements weren't as refined as they are today. Of course new non-epic content is easy when you're running it with an eSoS, eMarilith Chain, 3pc Abisahi, eClaw set, etc (or the caster equivalent) decked out with epic augment slots.

The quests are pretty easy. They're more like IQ than Amrath.
They might be ok on normal, but on elite they're definitely way too easy.

If I run GH quests on elite at level 14 I can expect quite a few problems.

If I solo Vale quests on elite at level 16 I'll probably encounter some massive difficulties.

If I solo House C quests on elite with GS and torc I shouldn't be waltzing through them. I should at least have to be careful...

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Originally Posted by Carpone

Of course new non-epic content is easy when you're running it with an eSoS, eMarilith Chain, 3pc Abisahi, eClaw set, etc (or the caster equivalent) decked out with epic augment slots.

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The new stuff is also very easy if you run around with a +4 Greatsword of Pure Good.

Really, what it comes down to is this:
Among level 19 dungeons there are the Easy ones and Tough ones. The Tough ones are in Shavarath, and the Easy ones are in Inspiration Island and Cannith Factory (plus one in Shav).

The single biggest factor in if a level 19 dungeon is Easy or Tough is this: Does it contain groups of Barbazu? Honestly, the Barbazu monster is single-handedly what brings danger to these places, thanks to their combined teleport/deaggro action.

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Originally Posted by Forzah

Lol, I don't see how that makes any difference; especially on a caster.

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If you're comparing the difficulty of starting out in Shavarath to starting out here, using all the items and whatnot you got from and after Shavarath while doing so makes for an unequal comparison.

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Originally Posted by SilkofDrasnia

i disagree end game is EPIC difficulty this is elite difficulty, if he's running around on a multiple tr toon geared for epic quest well i imagine itll be not so difficult BUT that because his toon is overpowered and too over-geared for him to be able to give an unbiased assessment or accurate beta test

see what nivarch posted a 2 posts before me

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However, a normal Bastion of Power in a group of pugs is much harder than 99% of Epic content with pugs--on elite it's crazy hard with pugs, and sins elite can go this way as well if the party does not employ any strategy.

All the Amrath quests were pretty much solo'd at first using strategy more than gear. Did your group employ strategy? Or did you all just try to brute force your way thru? Was it a balanced party? I know when I've grouped on Lamania, the groups were not the best overall--for instance many were not self sufficient at all yet we had no healer or no cc in some.

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Originally Posted by Shade

It tooks weeks/months for people to figure out how to solo the amrath stuff on NORMAL. and were knocking this all out on day 1 on elite..

It's far too easy.

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Try running it with the level of gear of your average pug. A fair number of players I've run into lately in Vale and Reaver's Refuge have had low HP, low fort, or both. The worst example was a level 15 sorcerer with 130HP and no fortification.

I'm not saying you have to gimp yourself before running them. But as others have said, Amrath came before epic gear existed. Prestige lines like Archmage that made landing attacks or spells easier weren't implemented.

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Originally Posted by Ryiah

Try running it with the level of gear of your average pug. A fair number of players I've run into lately in Vale and Reaver's Refuge have had low HP, low fort, or both. The worst example was a level 15 sorcerer with 130HP and no fortification.

I'm not saying you have to gimp yourself before running them. But as others have said, Amrath came before epic gear existed. Prestige lines like Archmage that made landing attacks or spells easier weren't implemented.

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Yep, i think the difficulty of the quests is ok for normal geared characters.

Turbine should develop end-game content, where you need level 20 characters with very good gear. This content should reward the players not with better gear to play the same content easier. Instead it should be competive PvE with a ranking system for players and guilds.

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Originally Posted by Musouka

Shav also has GH on everything. So, duh on the saves.

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Uh yeah.
In these we can cast GH on ourselves,Mobs don't get to.
Which makes them easier.

Which was kinda my point.

The WF don't have very good saves, the Paladins don't seem to have any of a Paladins immunities or save bonuses, the Tempests don't have ranger spells cast (no freedom, no resists that I noticed) nobody bothers casting Dward, the little patrol things (can't remember the name) are vicious- but since they can't take any damage it's pretty easy to toss an AOE down and wipe large numbers of them out.

If the Paladins had Paladin like saves, did extra Evil damage, used smites(but evil smites), if some Mobs present cast Dward, if some had freedom, if those patrol drones were immune (or at least highly resistant)to elemental damage it would make things tougher.
It would be pretty cool (imo anyway) if the WF Paladins did some kind of massive "flesh smite" thing. Something that did large amounts of damage to non WF toons.

But as I said- it's not clear what the Devs are looking for. Is it supposed to be a harder series like Amrath or something easier.

without ToD gear, this is still leagues easier than amrath was. decently geared characters (no ToD stuff, minimal greensteel) will still be challenged a lot by what they face in amrath, decently geared characters are not challenged a lot in the new chain

im not sure if it was intentional though, maybe this is supposed to be the "easier endgame before amrath devils" or something....

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Originally Posted by Shade

And on elite.. We want them to be MASSIVELY harder.

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We do? Thanks for letting us know. You wouldn't happen to know what we want for supper, too? We need to stop at the grocery store on the way home.

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Originally Posted by Shade

They shouldn't all get easily solo'd on day 1. (and yea they are all soloable on elite, by any class, several people have already done so today)

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Soloed by who? An extremely well geared, multi-TR'ed, 5 year veteran or someone maybe plays a couple hours every night and hasn't farmed Shroud, Shavrath, and all the Epics to death?

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Originally Posted by Ryiah

Try running it with the level of gear of your average pug. A fair number of players I've run into lately in Vale and Reaver's Refuge have had low HP, low fort, or both. The worst example was a level 15 sorcerer with 130HP and no fortification.

I'm not saying you have to gimp yourself before running them. But as others have said, Amrath came before epic gear existed. Prestige lines like Archmage that made landing attacks or spells easier weren't implemented.

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Again that's the point.

New content should (in my opinion) reflect what gear is available when it's released. Releasing a level 19 quest chain these days and balancing it against people with zero endgame gear seems kinda odd to me.

But I'm not sure the Devs agree,which is why I asked.

If they wanted to create easy endgame content that new players with no gear should dominate relatively quickly and easily, they've done it, the quests have a few bugs,but the story and idea are entertaining enough.
If they want the quests to be something of a challenge to decently geared (not Shade level geared) players, they need work.

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Originally Posted by Shade

They should be as hard as we want them to be.

And on elite.. We want them to be MASSIVELY harder. They are a joke now. They shouldn't all get easily solo'd on day 1. (and yea they are all soloable on elite, by any class, several people have already done so today)

It tooks weeks/months for people to figure out how to solo the amrath stuff on NORMAL. and were knocking this all out on day 1 on elite..

It's far too easy.

The only tough part of the whole lot is the optional fight in Schemes of the Enemy Elite - which is very disporportionately hard due to the fact you have to face off versus 20-40 mobs at once which respawn at an incredible rate. That and its not really an optional, so much as an alternate route that no one will really use since it has no reward.

Really the main issue is saves.. They aren't balanced to challenge average geared players, let alone max ones. And the complete lack of deathblock (only saving grace there is some contructs are innately immune to death effects, tho the quests are primarily living-constructs, which are not)

Amrath has good saves, and infrequent spattering of deathblock laced around to prevent this.

I'll post some more detailed feedback on elite and whats needs buffing tomorow.

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We also didn't use the gear we have now. The first time I ran Amrath with my FvS it was a pain; now the same quests are not much challenge at all. By increasing difficulty to insane based on the gear and skills you have only makes it impossible for first timers to stand a chance - simply because well geared toons are hard to challenge.

I ran them on normal last night and they were very easy, like IQ easy. Maybe they scale up? i don't know.

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Originally Posted by patang01

We also didn't use the gear we have now. The first time I ran Amrath with my FvS it was a pain; now the same quests are not much challenge at all. By increasing difficulty to insane based on the gear and skills you have only makes it impossible for first timers to stand a chance - simply because well geared toons are hard to challenge.

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it's not the gear as much as the gear + metagaming. I solo'd sins at 16 on my last TR because I knew where everything would be and knew how to prepare for it.

These new ones . . . running in blind and half-cocked were still easier. At least on normal.

I solo'd them last night. I would say they are on pace with the Inspired Quarter regarding difficulty. I really enjoyed the quest line-great job Turbine! :)

What is this "End Game" and is it really "End Game"

Tempest Spine Was End Game.
Desert was End Game.
Gianthold was End Game.
Orchard was End Game (ok, maybe not. :D)
Vale was End Game
Sub T was End Game
Reavers Refuge was End Game

None of these are considered End Game now, but are still fun to play. Are these new quests fun to play? Does anything else really matter?

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Originally Posted by Truga

Hello. Remove all your epic and ToD/amrath gear, ship buffs and yugo pots. Then try running the new quests again. You'll thank me later.

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I would be a neat trick for him to have ship buffs on Lam already.

That being said I would like to see the difficulty bumped up a bit.

I can see both sides of the argument here. And, to an extent, everyone has valid points. I think epic gear is a HUGE factor here that can't be ignored. Keep in mind these are level 19 quests, which will probably be run by 17-20 folk, some of which are just getting their first greensteel weaponry, etc.

That said, some of the content is incredibly easy. Blown to bits, aside from that optional end fight, wasn't too hard at all. Power Play wasn't too bad either, although a bit tougher.

There were parts of Schemes, however, that could easily wipe a group (I'm looking at you, room with ever-spawning magefire cannons, drones, and dogs).


I think one's class is a big factor here as well. I'd much rather face Amrath on my Rogue than an army of constructs; however, my FvS just walked through these new quests giggling. His DR 10/silver negated any artificer or assassin x-bow damage, and his blade barriers made short work of nearly everything else. And with the plethora of shrines in most quests, it wasn't an issue to maximize most of my BBs either.

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Originally Posted by Ryiah

Try running it with the level of gear of your average pug. A fair number of players I've run into lately in Vale and Reaver's Refuge have had low HP, low fort, or both. The worst example was a level 15 sorcerer with 130HP and no fortification.

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um aside from myself I did just that.

I took along a wizard with 250 hp. I took a rogue who told me who couldnt disable traps (tole me he spent all his skill points in umd. He didnt carry gh scrolls or much to umd).... A sorcerer with an impressive 32 DC on most of his spells..

None of them had any major issues.

And elite is not meant to be easily beaten by "average pugs" anyways. Thats what normal and hard are for.

Fas the nonsense about only epic being endgame content, Thats incredibly illogical. THERE IS NO EPIC. This is all we get, this IS the endgame content, so it should appeal to endgame players.

Armrath elite is endgame content too, and its also lvl18 while this is lvl19, yet amrath is ton harder. Bottombline is elite needs some tweaking.

has anyone run this on Elite yet or are we all just talking about normal? if this scales up like how say the Lordsmarch stuff does then it might be fine.

I just found it odd that the recent releases have all been harder than older content in the same level range, yet these level 19s are significantly easier than the other level 19 quests.

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Originally Posted by Shade

Armrath elite is endgame content too, and its also lvl18 while this is lvl19, yet amrath is ton harder. Bottombline is elite needs some tweaking.

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So i take it the challenge doesn't scale up much on elite?

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Originally Posted by Aerendil

I think one's class is a big factor here as well. I'd much rather face Amrath on my Rogue than an army of constructs; however, my FvS just walked through these new quests giggling. His DR 10/silver negated any artificer or assassin x-bow damage, and his blade barriers made short work of nearly everything else. And with the plethora of shrines in most quests, it wasn't an issue to maximize most of my BBs either.

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Yes, if there is any suggestion on bumping up dmg. I would recommend that the x-bow combatants do more damage.

I went afk standing next to one of the assasins and came back 5 min. later w/o any damage-listening to the "tink, tink, tink...tink, tink, tink" (0, 0, 0...0, 0, 0) lol. :p

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Originally Posted by grodon9999

has anyone run this on Elite yet or are we all just talking about normal? if this scales up like how say the Lordsmarch stuff does then it might be fine.

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Ran them all on elite. A couple twice, last one being 2man with a friend (see achievements, which was actually easier the running it with 5 puggers partly due to scaling)

First time on elite too, so we had no idea what to expect.. Which adds a lot to difficulty.

Know at least 5 players thaht solo'd some of them on elite on their first run and havent bothered ot mentioned it as doing it doesnt even feel like any major achievement. And no they were not all max geared multi TRs. None TRs even. Even if they were tho, they should still pose a challenge.

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Originally Posted by Shade

Ran them all on elite. A couple twice, last one being 2man with a friend (see achievements, which was actually easier the running it with 5 puggers partly due to scaling)

First time on elite too, so we had no idea what to expect.. Which adds a lot to difficulty.

Know at least 5 players thaht solo'd some of them on elite on their first run and havent bothered ot mentioned it as doing it doesnt even feel like any major achievement. And no they were all max geared multi TRs. None TRs even. Even if they were tho, they should still pose a challenge.

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meh . . . . hopefully the raids won't suck.

Raid prediction: pre-raid with lots of trash and a few puzzles leading to the second raid in a big room with a bad guy you back into a corner while everyone else rams their weapons into his nether regions.

Hope I get proven wrong.

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Originally Posted by Shade

Armrath elite is endgame content too, and its also lvl18 while this is lvl19, yet amrath is ton harder. Bottombline is elite needs some tweaking.

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Actually, amrath is level 19 too. But that doesn't really matter much.

I agree that quests should be hard. However, how hard is hard enough? A new invasion, for example, is often pugged on casual. Just to get that flag up and move on. What makes it hard is the single shrine in what is a very long quest though, which just stretches your resources. Once you have it figured out, and have a competent group though, it's as easy as anything.

Then there's titan. The doors/bridges puzzle is insane for any first timer that wants to solve it. A group of first timers will take several tries to even figure out that they ought to drop pillars onto the titan and use the lazor to do any damage. But again, once you have it figured out, it's easily doable by 3 people.

I'm up for hard quests, but by now we know literally all the tricks turbine will throw at us. Due to this, I really don't think you'll see much "challenge" from a game, where you've mastered any and every mechanic possible.

I am not on lamania, and haven't run the quests. I can't comment directly on their difficulty, but I have a comment for the discussion.

Overgeared/undergeared is not the issue. I don't think ANY "overgeared" character, including shade, can walk into any of the shavarath quests on elite and call them easy. IIRC, shade posted his first solo Sins elite completion a few months back as an achievement. even if he would find it easier today due to better bear/ship buffs, I doubt he would consider it "easy", and that's the easiest of the 4 main quests out there. I personally consider the final fight in new invasion elite to be the single most difficult non-epic, non-raid fight in the game (in pug or otherwise), with part 3 elite ToD being the only reason to include raids in the qualifier.

So, take that toon, that maybe can solo elite shavrath in the hands of a player who has run those quests so much he knows every nook and cranny, but still wouldn't call it easy. If that same player and same toon can solo the new quests on elite and say they were easy. Then rather than shout that they are overgeared and pugs would have problems. Maybe. Just maybe. They have a point?

Maybe even those overgeared toons should find it difficult to solo an unfamiliar lvl 19 dungeon on elite?

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Originally Posted by Ashbinder

Raid prediction: pre-raid with lots of trash and a few puzzles leading to the second raid in a big room with a bad guy you back into a corner while everyone else rams their weapons into his nether regions.

Hope I get proven wrong.

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you mean like titan?
or maybe VoN?

oh, wait. neither satisfies your above prediction. Every raid in this game, including VoD, which comes closest to your description, requires SOME strategy. I have faith in Turbine, and hope that the two raids follow the titan/VoN model.

I can't believe I am saying this but to some extent I agree with Shade , elite on these quests should be hard and it should be balanced against well geared TR's. Turbine should make the assumption that only groups with at least decent gear setup would even attempt elite, and those who come in unprepared should be punished for being so foolish.

This is why they added casual, and why there are normal and hard difficulties. Elite should should scream I am difficult I dare you to beat me, and then send you whimpering away on your first few attempts.

I'm not saying this applies to all levels, but at least this close to end game it should.Elite should assume best gear available at the level you are playing plain and simple and devs should build a dungeon with that in mind

Consequently there should be a very nice boost to xp and loot attached to the effort.

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Originally Posted by Shade

They should be as hard as we want them to be.

And on elite.. We want them to be MASSIVELY harder. They are a joke now. They shouldn't all get easily solo'd on day 1. (and yea they are all soloable on elite, by any class, several people have already done so today)

It tooks weeks/months for people to figure out how to solo the amrath stuff on NORMAL. and were knocking this all out on day 1 on elite..

It's far too easy.

The only tough part of the whole lot is the optional fight in Schemes of the Enemy Elite - which is very disporportionately hard due to the fact you have to face off versus 20-40 mobs at once which respawn at an incredible rate. That and its not really an optional, so much as an alternate route that no one will really use since it has no reward.

Really the main issue is saves.. They aren't balanced to challenge average geared players, let alone max ones. And the complete lack of deathblock (only saving grace there is some contructs are innately immune to death effects, tho the quests are primarily living-constructs, which are not)

Amrath has good saves, and infrequent spattering of deathblock laced around to prevent this.

I'll post some more detailed feedback on elite and whats needs buffing tomorow.

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why the emphasis on combat??

i still don't know.

why do we even give a **** how hard it is to kill things? can't we have some quests that can be completed without just hacking and slashing our way through a tunnel???

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Originally Posted by ArkoHighStar

This is why they added casual, and why there are normal and hard difficulties. Elite should should scream I am difficult I dare you to beat me, and then send you whimpering away on your first few attempts.

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I would agree, the game should be accessible to the casual player on casual or normal so that, with scaling and hirelings it is possible to enjoy the content even on solo. But Elite is for Elite players; it is not for me. It should DEMAND a full party using careful strategy and even then, you may not prevail your first few times through.

I would go a step further and say raids should tilt in this direction. Normal raids should feel hard, hard raids should feel elite, elite raids should feel Epic and Epic raids should be reserved for the gods who walk among us.

Adventure area - for me it was very easy to solo. I ran it with my Ninjarcher with around 36-37 stunning DC i was easly stunning everything except constructs (DUH!) and WF Paladins. The most annoying enemies for me were Temprests as they dealt quite high dmg (40 + 20 for normal quests) but were easy stunable next were these small flying droids that i couldn't choose with tab (not that they had lot of hp).

done one quest - also wasnt too hard. With full party (no specialized healbot).
Content just don't trow at you dozens of enemies at once

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Originally Posted by xtchizobr

why the emphasis on combat??

i still don't know.

why do we even give a **** how hard it is to kill things? can't we have some quests that can be completed without just hacking and slashing our way through a tunnel???

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^This a thousand times over.

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Originally Posted by andbr22

Content just don't trow at you dozens of enemies at once

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And that's what makes Amrath "Amrath." A single devil Orthons even on elite isn't that dangerous. 10-20 at once on the other hand . . .

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Originally Posted by xtchizobr

why the emphasis on combat??

i still don't know.

why do we even give a **** how hard it is to kill things? can't we have some quests that can be completed without just hacking and slashing our way through a tunnel???

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It shouldn't have anything to do with combat. Some quests should be light on combat and provide other types of challenges like traps or stealth, or if you really design a quest well you should have the ability to run a quest either using finesse (ie bypassing mobs through sneaking taking alternate routes etc) or brute force(take on large difficult mob groups or boss mobs).

Again challenge is subjective, having a quest provide a variety of challenge types at the appropriate diffuclty.

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Originally Posted by ArkoHighStar

Turbine should make the assumption that only groups with at least decent gear setup would even attempt elite, and those who come in unprepared should be punished for being so foolish.

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I can't think of a successful game that punishes it's players. People play games to have fun and relax. If I wanted to get punished, I'd rob a bank.

I get what you're saying though. I just object to the use of the word "punish."

What lvl are these? (sounds like 19)

If 19 then it is understandable that they may not challenge TRed/Epic 20s.

But.... we have not had new high lvl content is forever! And we were promised that higher lvl dungeons on hard/elite were going to scale much more difficult then older ones would.

So yeah.... (even without playing them) I think some effort should be made to challenge geared lvl 20s on elite.

But it should be different than Amrath.

Amrath has outsiders...good saves in every category.
And GH for all.
Amrath saves should be higher IMO.

But go look at Running with the Devils as an example. They buff themselves with Deathward! Often. and Displacement too.

And they could always buff themselves with GH as well.

IMO, simply having monsters cast the same kinds of buffs we routinely use goes a long way to make things more challenging.

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Originally Posted by Truga

Hello. Remove all your epic and ToD/amrath gear, ship buffs and yugo pots. Then try running the new quests again. You'll thank me later.

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But then he can't complain that the missions are way too supernoncompetetiveeasy-peasy!

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Originally Posted by Shade

It tooks weeks/months for people to figure out how to solo the amrath stuff on NORMAL. and were knocking this all out on day 1 on elite..

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People didn't have epic gear (or even Amrath gear) when Amrath opened.

Face it, you've WON DDO... You've got all the epic gear... Nothing below epic can possibly be a challenge for you. Don't expect it to be.

If you're lucky maybe they'll release a epic raid someday that will give you a challenge.

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Originally Posted by Carpone

Let's not forget that when Amrath came out there was no epic gear or Cannith crafting in the game, and class enhancements weren't as refined as they are today. Of course new non-epic content is easy when you're running it with an eSoS, eMarilith Chain, 3pc Abisahi, eClaw set, etc (or the caster equivalent) decked out with epic augment slots.

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Exactly. I'm not sure how Shade can't figure this out for himself.

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Originally Posted by Clownpuncher

We do? Thanks for letting us know. You wouldn't happen to know what we want for supper, too? We need to stop at the grocery store on the way home.

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LOL

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Soloed by who? An extremely well geared, multi-TR'ed, 5 year veteran or someone maybe plays a couple hours every night and hasn't farmed Shroud, Shavrath, and all the Epics to death?

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Zing!

I've run all 3 of the new quests solo on Normal with my Air Savant and found them..enjoyable. 2 of them were actually challenging, but the Blown to Bits was just..well..meh. Tried them on my Monk and found them quite challenging, to the point that I actually died in each of them a number of times. Epic DR doesn't seem to work against the Assassin's crossbows, and they tear my Monk up fast, they also do a number on my Savant even with Stoneskin, but they are easy to kill with a Caster.

Ran Blown with a full party of Casters, my Air Savant, a Water Savant, and the rest were Divine/Melee mixes. It was fun, it was enjoyable, and there were a number of deaths..and that's BEFORE we popped the Golem :) Everyone but the 2 Savants were TRs, we were all capped, and GS and Epic gear was plentiful, so it seemed to be a decent challenge for the group. Having already solo'd it, I was aware of the Golem's tricks and it's weakness, so it was actually rather easy. The group then moved on the Schematics quest, and again, death happened, it was fun, it was enjoyable and the final fight drove the people who hadn't done it yet nuts, while myself and the other Sorc had some fun, what with knowning what to expect and how to deal with it.

This is all on Normal, both solo and in a full party, fun, enjoyable, and a challenge..except for Blown to Bits, which is pretty easy, outside of the Golem. Solo is obviously not the best way to judge the challenge factor, no matter the setting, because of scaling, so...

As for Shade doing them on Elite and finding them easy..check the Achievements thread, IS there anything Shade actually finds NOT easy?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shade

They should be as hard as we want them to be.

And on elite.. We want them to be MASSIVELY harder. They are a joke now. They shouldn't all get easily solo'd on day 1. (and yea they are all soloable on elite, by any class, several people have already done so today)

It tooks weeks/months for people to figure out how to solo the amrath stuff on NORMAL. and were knocking this all out on day 1 on elite..

It's far too easy.

The only tough part of the whole lot is the optional fight in Schemes of the Enemy Elite - which is very disporportionately hard due to the fact you have to face off versus 20-40 mobs at once which respawn at an incredible rate. That and its not really an optional, so much as an alternate route that no one will really use since it has no reward.

Really the main issue is saves.. They aren't balanced to challenge average geared players, let alone max ones. And the complete lack of deathblock (only saving grace there is some contructs are innately immune to death effects, tho the quests are primarily living-constructs, which are not)

Amrath has good saves, and infrequent spattering of deathblock laced around to prevent this.

I'll post some more detailed feedback on elite and whats needs buffing tomorow.

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Try running it without Yugo pots, or ship buffs. I found solo'ing Blown to Bits on Normal to be very difficult. He could barely hit the paladins without kensai str boost, and barbarian rage. Went from 70 heal scrolls to 31 by the time I finished. This was in spite of the fact that I had built my dps utility character to run epic quests.

Also, that fight with the optional fire boss is not so easily solo'd, as the drone is constantly dropping bombs, and unless you are keeping an eye out for, and moving as soon as text appears (the moment it appears or sooner), you will most likely die because the bombs detonate almost instantaneously for 1.7k damage (give or a take a few hundred).

These quests are still too easy compared to comparable level 19 stuff. It should be raised up a few notches.

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Originally Posted by Ashbinder

Raid prediction: pre-raid with lots of trash and a few puzzles leading to the second raid in a big room with a bad guy you back into a corner while everyone else rams their weapons into his nether regions.

Hope I get proven wrong.

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you are, actually.

Through my journey across the new "wilderness", my party and I found two different entry-points for quests that "weren't available", and believed them to be the new raids...

After getting flagged, it turned out we were right. The two raids can be queued up at the same time, take place in different areas of the Cannith Manufactory, with different bosses. The wilderness is also a raid instance, so if you summon a hireling, no one else in the party can enter the wilderness.

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Originally Posted by moops

However, a normal Bastion of Power in a group of pugs is much harder than 99% of Epic content with pugs--on elite it's crazy hard with pugs, and sins elite can go this way as well if the party does not employ any strategy.

All the Amrath quests were pretty much solo'd at first using strategy more than gear. Did your group employ strategy? Or did you all just try to brute force your way thru? Was it a balanced party? I know when I've grouped on Lamania, the groups were not the best overall--for instance many were not self sufficient at all yet we had no healer or no cc in some.

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This is true, I still solo amrath - even elite - on characters without epic gear on them... often I do so because it's easier than with a group of others who may mess it up on me by spawning more at a time than the party may deal with. The real difference here is knowledge of the quest and knowing the limits of your character. Sins and Bastion are my favorite two amrath quests.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Thrudh

People didn't have epic gear (or even Amrath gear) when Amrath opened.

Face it, you've WON DDO... You've got all the epic gear... Nothing below epic can possibly be a challenge for you. Don't expect it to be.

If you're lucky maybe they'll release a epic raid someday that will give you a challenge.

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So what you are saying is we should play a different game? There is no reason why the devs/turbine can not release some quests/raids that challenge level 20s, but yet they have chosen not to in the last year or so. No challenge = no fun.

I like the challenge in the wilderness area. It is small, I agree. But the wilderness may expand as you unlock quests and whatnot. I didn't get to find out.

The only beef I had with the quest two things. One was the respawn of cannons and trash, and the leashes in quest. Mobs shouldn't have leashes in quest.

Difficulty wise, I think things were fine. Top geared players will mop the floor, casters will dominate, and average players will cry as they wipe. Sounds about what it should be. LOL

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Clownpuncher

I can't think of a successful game that punishes it's players. People play games to have fun and relax. If I wanted to get punished, I'd rob a bank.

I get what you're saying though. I just object to the use of the word "punish."

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My point is new poorly geared players should expect to fail doing endgame content on elite. Your right punishment is the wrong word, Perhaps learning from experience would be better. I fail therefore I shoudl realize I need more experience and gear to be successful.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ArkoHighStar

My point is new poorly geared players should expect to fail doing endgame content on elite. Your right punishment is the wrong word, Perhaps learning from experience would be better. I fail therefore I shoudl realize I need more experience and gear to be successful.

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Exactly. If they won right way..
What would be the point in trying to get better gear and more experience?

Why strive for power, when theres no where to put it into play.

Even new players like a reason to better themselves in an rpg. If theres no reason, its not much fun.

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Originally Posted by Shade

Exactly. If they won right way..
What would be the point in trying to get better gear and more experience?

Why strive for power, when theres no where to put it into play.

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I think that is a general problem in DDO. Why does a character need better gear and more experience if he can already play all quests? To play the same quests faster? To play new end-game quests to get better gear and more experience?

In my opinion such characters have, as Thrudh wrote, completed DDO until Turbine releases competive PvE quests with leaderboards.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by maddmatt70

So what you are saying is we should play a different game? There is no reason why the devs/turbine can not release some quests/raids that challenge level 20s, but yet they have chosen not to in the last year or so. No challenge = no fun.

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The new Cannith set DOES challenge lvl 20s, but it may not challenge YOU and your lvl 20s, with multiple TRs, Epic Red Dragon armors and all the other Epic gear you've acquired, mainly due to the simple fact that your characters are pretty much incapable of being challenged by anything in DDO. Which I do believe was the point in you making them as powerful as they are, was it not?

The devs HAVE tried in the past to give us quests that required the best of the best to do them. Each and every single time they've done that, it's failed, these forums have borne witness to that more then a few times. They quite simply cannot cater to the top end players, it's a failure to even think of it, this is an MMO, not a FPS, they have to cater to the MASSES, not the few.

I watched capped multi-TRs loaded out with Epic gear and GS get wasted in the new stuff on Normal after doing the quests multiple times already, the quests ARE tough enough to challenge most of the playerbase. And that's the target the devs aim for, seems they hit the target just fine to me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KristovK

And that's the target the devs aim for, seems they hit the target just fine to me.

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Sounds like yet another greedy opinion of:

It's hard for me, so why should I care about you?

Because theres 4 difficulty settings, not every one of them needs to be for you. With 4 settings it can be challenging and fun for players of all levels. You can try and tell me your more important all day but I think some of the dev get that DDO still does have a lot of veteran players that still care about the game too.

And yea, there is tons of stuff still in the game that can challenge well geared multi tr players. Amrath elites remain quite challenging and in some ways harder then ever (Example: New Invasion boss fight was made even harder then original release, And ofcourse ToD/horoth has been buffed several times too). This stuff isn't yet but theres lots of time to tweak it to fix that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KristovK

The new Cannith set DOES challenge lvl 20s, but it may not challenge YOU and your lvl 20s, with multiple TRs, Epic Red Dragon armors and all the other Epic gear you've acquired, mainly due to the simple fact that your characters are pretty much incapable of being challenged by anything in DDO. Which I do believe was the point in you making them as powerful as they are, was it not?

The devs HAVE tried in the past to give us quests that required the best of the best to do them. Each and every single time they've done that, it's failed, these forums have borne witness to that more then a few times. They quite simply cannot cater to the top end players, it's a failure to even think of it, this is an MMO, not a FPS, they have to cater to the MASSES, not the few.

I watched capped multi-TRs loaded out with Epic gear and GS get wasted in the new stuff on Normal after doing the quests multiple times already, the quests ARE tough enough to challenge most of the playerbase. And that's the target the devs aim for, seems they hit the target just fine to me.

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Shade perhaps phrased this better, but the elite Tower Raid is no picnic even for the maxed geared/trrd/etc. people. Hard and specifically normal difficulties Tower Raid were designed for the more causal less geared players. What is wrong with that system? Why not have the same thing take place in the new area which is approximately the same dungeon level? I really do not understand your argument which I agree with Shade comes across as selfish.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by maddmatt70

Shade perhaps phrased this better, but the elite Tower Raid is no picnic even for the maxed geared/trrd/etc. people. Hard and specifically normal difficulties Tower Raid were designed for the more causal less geared players. What is wrong with that system? Why not have the same thing take place in the new area which is approximately the same dungeon level? I really do not understand your argument which I agree with Shade comes across as selfish.

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nothing, Tower is the best raid in the game because of that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shade

Sounds like yet another greedy opinion of:

It's hard for me, so why should I care about you?

Because theres 4 difficulty settings, not every one of them needs to be for you. With 4 settings it can be challenging and fun for players of all levels. You can try and tell me your more important all day but I think some of the dev get that DDO still does have a lot of veteran players that still care about the game too.

And yea, there is tons of stuff still in the game that can challenge well geared multi tr players. Amrath elites remain quite challenging and in some ways harder then ever (Example: New Invasion boss fight was made even harder then original release, And ofcourse ToD/horoth has been buffed several times too). This stuff isn't yet but theres lots of time to tweak it to fix that.

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Actually, I happen to personally agree that the quests SHOULD be much harder then they are, I pretty much facerolled them solo, same as I do other end game content, but then again, my toon is designed to do just that, with 5+ years of game experience behind the design and twitch skills honed in FPS games which I still play on my PC and on consoles. That said...

The devs don't aim their designs at the top end players, it's a great way to fail, they've seen that every single time they've tried it in the past. It's how the game STARTED out, remember? Hard as all hells, required that you have knowledge beforehand of how the game of Dungeons and Dragons works AND how the changes made for DDO work in order to get a character past the bloody Wavecrest Basement starter quest...remember? What, do you folks just totally forget exactly how the game was originally and how radically it changed in the first 6 months after it went Live? THAT was the game that sucked me in and I tried to get all my friends who I play PnP with to buy and join me in. They tried the 7 day free trial, they loved how it worked, it was hard, it was a total pain, and it was SO unfriendly to new players that not a single one of them bought the game 5 years ago..and they still won't play it even now that it's F2P, they got a very lasting impression from DDO back then, a very NEGATIVE one.

I hit Korthos with a new lvl 1 non-TR, non-twinked new toon and I watch and listen to all the whining and complaining about how hard this game is to new players while I'm walking through the newb quests on elite...what does that tell you? I know what it tells me and what it tells Turbine, the game is too much of a challenge for the general gaming public, therefore it won't be a commercial success until that challenge level is lowered. Outside of Epics, which are now **** near Easy Mode, there's not really going to be much to challenge the top end players, just like in every OTHER MMO out there, which is really sad. But that's how it works, if you want to make money and be a commercial success..which, for some totally off the wall and really odd reason, Turbine WANTS to do with DDO..go figure huh? Maybe it's the years of it not being that, of it being a niche game with bad reviews and a constantly vanishing playerbase...who knows...