I want to get a combined vote on which expansion pack people like, whether it is storyline, gameplay, or something else.
I am predicting that Ravenloft will win, but we will see.
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I want to get a combined vote on which expansion pack people like, whether it is storyline, gameplay, or something else.
I am predicting that Ravenloft will win, but we will see.
Not the saltmarsh expansion mind you, but the balance changes. Best update 9/10.
I loved Saltmarsh and the balance changes and new items that came with it myself, it's probably my number 3 expansion (behind ravenloft and, my favorite, the feywild).Quote:
Originally Posted by Szling
Feywild is my favorite, between the environment and quests, the loot, and the enhancement tree tied to it that I use on almost every build I play now.
Death house still haunts me. Ravenloft is not the best pack but it's definatelly the best expansion via a wide margin.
Shadowfail does too sometimes for all the wrong reasons. It's the worst expansion by far
I think Ravenloft is the best from a quality/design standpoint but on a personal level I enjoy MoTU the most. So I voted MoTU since the poll is asking for favorites.
Ravenloft is an absolute masterpiece.
Hard toss up for me.. I love Ravenloft, and I also love anything Forgotten Realms. So all of Evening Star I love also. I would love to see more Forgotten Realms expansions.
I voted Ravenloft, but I think all of them, including Saltmarsh are pretty good. Except for Shadowfell, there's some good xp quests in it, but nothing else about it really grabbed me.
No love for Sharn? You all wear the gear but won't rep the pack lol
It's got great gear...the quests are all great outside of Just Business and Same Old Song with the sound on....I love that it's got nice bite size quests as well as longer form ones...and a decent and well presented storyline to boot..and it gives Inqui, which is pretty much the ranged playstyle of record
One of the best elements in any quest is in Reach, one I'd like to see more often: you can choose between a trash-heavy path that favors aoe, or a boss-heavy path that favors single target burst. Well kinda, two target burst I guess..
Although I like Sharn I would say it relied way too much on the loot rather than the pack itself. If you remove the gear from the equation its a pretty average pack with very little to make it stand out. MOTU on the other hand is still run regularly to this day and is also the xpack that gave us ED's (which are mandatory for all epic content), Iconics and some actual epic content to run with our epic characters. Without the loot Ravenloft definately has the best story and atmosphere by a long shot with quite a few stand out quests and very few unliked ones (I'm looking at you Wachterhouse). So although Sharn is I would say a decent pack I would say that MOTU and Ravenloft were and are better (although I can't decide which is best so am abstaining from voting :P)Quote:
Originally Posted by droid327
On the flipside I suggest any future x-packs should be compared to Sharn 1st and foremost. It is imo exactly as good as an x-pack should be. I kind of look at it as the average that is both acceptable and enjoyable without being anything truly special.
im voting for MotU, because it felt the most like an actual expansion pack.
it introduced a new setting, a new hub, had a big chunk of content, a new class, another batch of challenges, and it brought us into epics with destinies.
there was even that introductionary questchain in the harbour to hype the expansion! it felt the most natural evolution of the game.
and honestly, theres just something about the later expansions that feels off to me. the quality is top notch, no questions asked (and im a person that does not care about the loot, i want an actual good experience (not exp!) with the quests and the adventure itself), but everything after motu felt more like just expanded adventure packs then an actual expansion of the game.
Best to worst:-
Ravenloft
Menance of the Underdark
Feywild
Sharn
Saltmarsh
Shadowfell Conspiracy
MotU was also the buggiest on launch. Some of that ED and druid stuff was broken for years and it introduced a ton of exploits that have haunted the game. The vision was huge, but the delivery left something to be desired.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dejvid
I definitely a agree that the buildup around MotU was the best. We had the intro quest line and trailer, and they even *gasp* advertised and it brought in a lot of people. It was a fun time to play, but I think all the SSG xpacks are better products (and I'm guessing were made on much smaller budgets).
Edit:
Ravenloft
Sharn/Feywild
Saltmarsh (I really do like it, but the scale is just much smaller)/MotU (Huge, but introduced a lot of problems)
Shadowfell (Something clearly when wrong with the development here; should have included thunderholme and full enhancement rework)
I agree with this except I would place Sharn over Feywild.Quote:
Originally Posted by HuneyMunster
RL- that was an experience first time through, the others still good but they were adventures
Ravenloft hands down. Don't even have to think about it. When a TRed character of mine is approaching the levels to run it my imagination begins to salivate.
Now if the question was second favorite or to rank them... well then dang it, that's going to take some critical thinking.
When I evaluate a set of adventures my criteria are Story & Characters, Setting & Atmosphere (Aesthetics), Gameplay & Enjoyment, Rewards.
- Story & Characters Was the story interesting? Was I concerned for and invested in the characters? Was the voice-work top-notch? To be fair the voice-work in DDO is almost always top-notch.
- Setting & Atmosphere (Aesthetics) Was the setting visually interesting? Were the interiors and exteriors of the quests immersing me in the story? Did the aesthetics make me feel a part of a grand adventure?
- Gameplay & Enjoyment Were the quests fun? Were there mechanics that made me look forward eagerly to the quests or dread some boring, compulsory portion that impeded progress without being necessary to the story? Were the villains/mobs/etc thoughtfully placed in the quest or were they clone-stamped down in little matching groups every x-meters just because? Were the puzzles/mini-games appropriate to the theme of the quest and storyline in which they've been placed?
- Rewards This doesn't mean what you think it means. I'm not talking XP or even named items, necessarily. More the mechanics of the rewards. Did this adventure pack/expansion have rewards that required massive grinding or could you get most of what you needed (for one character) in one or two play throughs? Was there excessive randomness to the rewards such as was in the old s/s/s mechanics, or did you have to do the highest difficulty to get the only desirable version of an item (old named items with difficulty versioning). You could grind ToEE for a year and still not have the particular weapon or armor you wanted drop. I still don't feel adequately rewarded for retrieving the Stormreach Beacon from Sharn because no one in Stormreach so much as thanked me.
So if I ranked the Expansions from best to worst based on my criteria it would be:
- Ravenloft
- Menace of the Underdark
- Sharn
- Feywild
- Saltmarsh
- Shadowfell
Although if I'm being honest with myself Feywild and Saltmarsh could be interchangeable on the list. I really love the aesthetics and atmosphere of Feywild and Feytwisted chests were just straight up genius but I will forever feel like Feywild was rushed and there just wasn't enough to it. It needed more quests, a larger wilderness zone, more optionals, some of the quests are too much repetition with nothing really of interest such as Combatting Corruption, others are overly convoluted without a logical progression of story as you explore such as A Frosty Reception, which I like by the way but I can hear my husband's teeth grind the moment we enter. Saltmarsh has a wonderful salty boondock atmosphere and most of the quests are a pleasure to run with more story and optionals if you want them.
Shadowfell is last, will always be last because of so many things... I hate fighting Shadarkai, I hate having to change my graphic settings for the purple glow of blinding, named items with random effects *smh, rolls eyes*, I only really enjoy Mirror and most the Stormhorn quests. The quest giver named items have almost always been lame. I usually like Urban wilderness zones, I love the Chronoscope raid for this reason but Wheloon *blech*. However the Stormhorns are gorgeous and I love them dearly. Oh and voice-work, the weaselly, venomous sounding Netherese... Idk, just too much of it maybe? They set my teeth on edge. I often turn off narration when running Wheloon so that's two things - Narration and Graphics that I change to run that content. Not a pleasure.
Nice post and I pretty much agree with all of it but the part I quoted I think is actually key to the difference between those packs that get known as great and those that are just good. Ravenloft dripped atmosphere from the moment you stepped in and the feel of the place made quests that could have been boring dungeon crawls into some of the most popular quests in the game. As an example Death house is a pretty run of the mill quest if you just look at the quest design and story board but everything in there from the look of the house to the simple yet incredibly effective sound makes it feel so much more. The same could be said for the Schynd quests in MOTU. They all have a great aesthetic and despite being quite small maps for the most part manage to give an impression of being a small part of a much larger whole.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aelonwy
I think this is a part of the problem with Sharn for me. For a place that's known for the verticality of its structure all the quests feel quite flat (I will make an exception for reach but tbh that's the only quest where I felt like I was in Sharn). I don't think it ever really got the feel of being a place where height was a major factor. A lot of the quests I thought were great (some comparable or better than RL) as far as mechanics and story went but the atmosphere just felt too closed in and horizontal.
Many of DDO expansions are outstanding material, but Menace of the Underdark takes the crown for so many reasons it would take several pages to explain. An extremely concise explanation:
As DDOWiki states, WB supported Turbine (later SSG, now daybreakgames?) with some million dollars, and IMHO Turbine put them to good use. Bear in mind Neverwinter MMO was not a thing in those days. Quality and quantity of storylines, assets, mechanics (not just player-wise, even DM-wise), maps (quality differs, but still): three player hubs -the rift, the cavern, eveningstar-, four wilderness zones (Underdark is still my favorite wilderness to this day, with some of the best random encounters too), the story arcs with a proper conclusion to each arc, all building towards a raid against one of DnD iconic gods while helping Elminster himself, etc.
Ravenloft, a masterpiece by itself, has to be a close second -amazing art and art direction, maps, mechanics, quests...- but still.
RL is hands (of the dawn healer) down the best by a (Barovian) country mile.
Sharn competes for the worst wilderness ever (doesn't win) and I love wilderness so no love for sharn, for sure.Quote:
Originally Posted by droid327
MoTU for me because it gives soo much and Eveningstar is such a nice place.
Ravenloft comes second.
Then shadowfell for the storm horns.
Notice that no one has voted for The Shadowfell Conspiracy, even after 41 votes.
Shadowfell isn't a bad expansion for content reasons - the quests and zone and ideas are all interesting and fun - the problem was the way it was implimented and marketed -
I've said this so many times its dumb now but red alerts should not flag in public slayer zones - it makes the shadowfell zones idiotic because you red alert no matter what you do -
Menace was the best in my opinion simply because it was a nod to the fanbase who loved the Drizz't books - they gave the fans what they wanted and they did it well.
Ravenloft was arguably the best of SSG's expansions - it was extremely well done - Death House is top 5 DDO quests of all time - Castle Ravenloft quest was so well done it was immaculate.
Sharn is the expac I see people run the most because the loot was the best - 3 piece great set bonuses. Sharn is a very good expansion and the Eberron specific content generally very good - it baffles me why Eberron is not more popular with players because it is an extremely rich setting - very very interesting - We have only seen 1% of Eberron in DDO - its an epic landscape. Would be fab if we could see the Mournlands or time travel to the Last War. We really need Kalashtar and Changelings and different warforged bodytypes
My order best to worst:
- Sharn (fun to play on day one, light setting)
- Ravenloft (elevated the game but a bit dreary, overly difficult for too many players, nasty/tricky required quests)
- Feywild (nice setting, cool gear, story seemed weak and incomplete - great raid)
- Saltmarsh (cool setting but chincey slayers and not enough eventfulness to justify being expansion)
- MotU (in hindsight this content and art was meh, another chincey offering, this time in terms of providing any real meat from Faerun)
- Shadowfell (not cool selling this as an expansion - game was also aesthetically broken during the purple era)
I re-ran the entire Feywild chain on a different character and my opinion of the expansion improved, but not greatly. The story makes much more sense the second time through but still falls flat. The Lord Arden/Hyrsam story arc just isn't that interesting, and the two parts of the expansion's story aren't closely woven together, making the ending anti-climatic to some extent.Quote:
Originally Posted by Oliphant
Hmmm interesting. I got a different impression from Sharn. House of Pain for instance took advantage of the verticality. You get glimpses and suggestions of it here and there such as Vaunt's escape in Sharn Welcome and our subsequent drop through the smoke stack? The window (very nice touch) in No Refunds. Just Business could have used more of it certainly, optionals accessible only by climbing below the cloud floor or climbing above the reach of the sky sleds would have worked. It was different but I think the tech for the sky sleds was too limiting for what they ultimately wanted.Quote:
Originally Posted by Weemadarthur
I think what Sharn really, really needed to feel solid was a portion of the "wilderness zone" to be the middle city with a few recognizable locations from the quests. For instance if the bar from House of Pain and its surroundings were part of an entry map that connected in some real physically-going-down way to the Cogs and was connected in some way to the map from Red Rain or even just a portion of it then you would get a feel for a "real" interconnected city. The issue with the sky-taxi just teleporting you inside all the quests is it feels disconnected and surreal and looses integrity.
To be fair, I purchased the following Sharn pack immediately on its release and I do feel it adds to the cityscape and imaginary conception of Sharn, but I realize its not part of the Sharn expansion.
Because they did not do that... they could sometime in the future make another Sharn pack with a Middle-city urban wilderness zone, and so long as they re-use some of the locations from the quests even if its just exteriors like the exterior of the bar in Same Old Song it will spark recognition and pleasure and give players a sense of where locations are in relation to each other... something sadly missing due to the over-use of the Skytaxi.
1. Ravenloft. Only negative thing is the boring and pointless wilderness. Recent gear balancing made this even better. Only one quest I don't like: Mad Tea Party.
2. Feywild. Can't think of anything negative right now but I still like Ravenloft more. There are a couple of quests I don't like.
3. Sharn. I don't like the quests or the setting but the loot is good. On the other hand gear balancing made this expansion less necessary.
4. Menace of the Underdark. I don't like Underdark but still this was pretty fun in 2012, a true expansion with lots of stuff. Basic gear for commendations is a great concept. Maybe this should come before Sharn.
5. Shadowfell. There's nothing I like here. I feel forced to run the quests for favor and saga, the wilderness is big but pointless, the loot is not DDO, it's more PnP. Good XP though in some quests. Edit: Actually there is one thing I like: basic gear as quest rewards. Useless now, but some items were good.
Saltmarsh not included.
Yeah. Did we ever even really wake up Arden? Feywild has the most quantum plot. Did anything happen and if it did, what was it?Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Human_Cypher
People make good points about the substantiveness of MotU, links to Forgotten Realms book content people like. Maybe I'm too hard on it. I can't get into any of that once I got into town and saw a bunch of cubes with yellow garbage pixel straw everywhere. Eveningstar is just a bunch of pixels and annoying psuedo Anglo accents to me. Whoever made the thatched roof pixels in Eveningstar completely lost me.
Not only did Ravenloft have the most rich and immersive environment, but they teleported you right to the quest so no walking through any stupid, confusing wilderness area when all you want to do is quest (I'm looking at you Cogs), and they gave you a heroic and epic weapon of your choice as soon as you started (we have enough gear we are required to farm for, sometimes it is nice to just be able to choose exactly what we are looking for right from the start). The free weapon system makes Ravenloft an excellent way for a new player to somewhat catch up in power immediately upon making a purchase.
Sharn is good gear for exactly 2 levels when it is replaced by Soul Splitter gear (which is a stand alone quest pack and not part of the Sharn Expansion even though people love to act like it is just because it is located in the Sharn city area). If I haven't bothered to write out exactly what pieces of gear to switch I often don't find myself level 15 and 16 long enough for the costume change. Ravenloft has a 5 piece set that can be used many more levels because it is so versatile in how you can choose which 5 slots to fill with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by droid327
The Sharn quests are okay, but they suffer from the same dislike I feel for the Reaver's chain. The quests were so bloody difficult when first released that they were more stressful than enjoyable. Since we already have plenty of heroic quests (including plenty of quests that are heroic only and can't be run for exp during epics) Sharn usually gets saved for epics and since they decided that good reaper experience should only be granted for legendary quests Sharn suffers from the stigma of being a chain that was programmed to be unreasonably difficult when run in epics (especially when raising the reaper level slightly so you can get some half-way decent reaper experience). I know they recently made it easier, which was badly needed, though I'm still not sure it was enough and still suffers from the memories of dread I feel for it from how hard it used to be (which is part of what I dislike about Reavers).
I am definitely not here to defend Shadowfell, but I am curious as to why it is so disliked? The only thing that comes to mind that makes me dislike it is that all the quests are located in confusing adventure area (you can't just run in a straight line or along a route that is obvious your first time) and they tried to charge astral shards to use the teleporters instead of making them available for free. Shadowfell badly needs Ravenloft-style teleporters that teleport each person directly to the quest. Shadowfell suffers from the Chains of Flame problem where, if the newly added group member doesn't already know how to get to the quest there is a good chance they will leave the group in frustration before they find it (especially for Mirror and the last 3 quests in Stormhorns).
I know this is an opinion-based thread, but I doubt most people swap out of Sharn gear to Soul Splitter gear at 17. Soul Splitter gear doesn't fit most builds that well. I don't see any melee giving up PotF for any set from there, and there's basically nothing my caster would like to equip from soul splitter gear. I do know if you're playing a pm, the grey leathers in particular are nice at 17 though.Quote:
Originally Posted by erethizon
Edit: I also find it interesting that Shadowfell is so disliked. I feel the same way, but I purposefully didn't by the expansion when it was new more because of the enhancement rework than because of the expansion. The expansion itself is nice, but really just two quest packs wearing an expansion trench coat imo.
Set bonus for Soul Splitter gives a bonus to crit chance (rather than only spell power, though it gives that too), making it the best gear I have found for a caster that simply wants to do more damage.Quote:
Originally Posted by WruntJunior
Yeah, but not to fire, cold, or lightning. It doesn't even fit in that great with a divine caster. Again, I agree dreadkeeper is potentially amazing for a PM (especially including the grey leathers with negative heal amp), but not for most casters compared to sharn sets.Quote:
Originally Posted by erethizon
Keep in mind Sharn has sets that give crit chance for spells as well, with hruit's, arcsteel, and flamecleansed.
Well I already wrote out most of why I dislike it personally. It has two of my least favorite mobs to fight, Shadarkai and Howlers. The purple glow of the Shadowfell forces me to change my graphic settings or be blinded. I don't like the Netherese voice acting, it grates on my nerves so I change my sound settings before doing Shadowfell quests too. I forgot about the cash-grabby astral shard teleporters maybe because I've never used them but yeah that's certainly not a highlight of that content.Quote:
Originally Posted by erethizon
I'm not sure, because I usually really like urban-style wilderness zones but maybe Wheloon is extra unpleasant to me because its so morbid and depressing and no matter what you do, even completing the quests for that zone isn't really helping any of those poor oppressed people, especially those incarcerated unfairly. It just doesn't feel heroic... any of it. Thinking about it is really disheartening. Oh and failing the DC to save someone and they start attacking you so you have to slay them? Really?! Oh that's not dispiriting at all. /s What about all the starving dogs in the zone that die by AoE or hireling or the cleric rare? Yeah that's so fun to watch repeatedly happen... for a sadist maybe. :(
The Stormhorns I enjoy, its bright, beautiful, a joy to run... mostly... still have to deal with those aggravating Shadarkai but still far better. In the Stormhorns you're clearly disrupting enemy supplies and troops and very obviously helping to prevent a war. Those quests culminate in WGU, one of the best quests in the game and you still have to deal with Shadarkai and the purple glow of doom but what a spectacular ending?! That moment when the glacier hits the mountain is momentous. It feels awesome. You feel awesome for having accomplished it. Nothing in Wheloon feels like that, not even Mirror.
Lord Arden did wake up at the end of Part I, but the entire story arc seems only incidentally related to what happens in Part II. Both Ravenloft and Sharn had stories which built to a climatic finish, where the Feywild story just seems to...end.Quote:
Originally Posted by Oliphant
The soul splitter gear are useful for a very limited number of builds compared to the sharn sets. Part of the Familiy is best in slot from level 15 to level 29 for more or less every melee build.Quote:
Originally Posted by erethizon
Heroic Sharn has very good exp. Not sure if you know this, but first time bonuses and bravery bonuses are seperate for heroic and epic so there is no reason to "save it for epics" if that's what you meant.
I run each quest exactly once per life so any given quest is either run at heroic level or epic level but not both. Running a legendary quest at heroic levels is terrible for RXP so I am inclined to save it for epics. I'd be much better off running Terminal Delirium as a heroic quest if I need more experience to get me to 20, though really, there are enough quests that are heroic only with no epic option that very few quests that have both options need to be run at heroic levels to get to 20.Quote:
Originally Posted by Axeyu
Running a legendary quest at heroic levels doesn't affect the rxp you get at legendary levels though. There's a reason people run sharn at 17 regardless of whether or not they intend to do r10s that life for first time completion.Quote:
Originally Posted by erethizon
I like ravenloft , the music is good IMO ty Ukenburger. i use it too set the mood in my curse of Strhad game . the maps are very close to the D&D book so i find that helpful .
If they ever expand on ravenloft please consider using some of the stuff from 2nd E ravenloft lore I am only discovering recently how deep 2nd edition ravenloft lore is . im not sure if that is possible or not for licensing reasons . there is alot of material there personally i want more ravenloft like expanding the realms of dread but only if it is done right! NOT the new ravenloft but the classic ravenloft .
for my second favorite i say sharn because it is a convenient way to get to lvl 20 smoothly
Correct, but you don't get favor for running it a second time and, like I said, I run each quest in the game exactly once per life. If it gets run at heroic I don't bother with it at epic. There are already way too many quests in the game for how much experience is needed so I don't bother repeating anything.Quote:
Originally Posted by WruntJunior
Somebody voted for Feywild lol
w-t-f is censored? You guys are way too sensitive