Take D&DO to the next level

[djaxon]

Greetings, first let me say that I am not by any means the best player out there. In fact, the highest level character I have is a 9th lvl Ranger. However, I started playing D&D when the entire set of rule "books" could best be described as brochures about 30 pages in length. (Anyone remember those manuals? They later were put into a boxed set that came with dice.) My group of friends and I ran literally hundreds of adventures, each of us designing his own world, incorporating our favorite fantasy book stories or creating completely new adventures entirely from scratch. Along the way we came to realize that there was a type of dungeon we had grown out of, despised actually, and it was called the "Monty Hall". The only focus of a "Monty Hall" dungeon was exorbitant XP rewards and ridiculous treasure hauls with impossible magic items. (+10 Vorpal in the goblin chief's chest etc..) Boring for anyone over the age of 13 because it was just simple hack and slash.

Unfortunately, that is often how I feel lately playing D&DO. It seems that the general mood amongst players is "get loot and brandish better weapons than the other guy".

One reason this is so is that most of the quests seem to be fairly one dimensional. Now, it is true that there is a strategy to each quest and that if you don't hide behind a shield wall in the corner to fight the fire giant or take out the elementals, archers, first etc.. then your chances of success are minimal. All well and good but once you know what to do, and if at least 60% of the members in your party are average players, it is a cake walk. Boring. What is missing in my opinion is 1.) random encounters: Where are they?!? What happened to the unexpected or the danger of just getting to the temple ruins/giants' cave etc.. In every quest everyone except total noobs knows exactly what they will find around the corner or in the cave. Without random encounters the quests are just routine. Also, if all the members of a party have done the quest more than once then wouldn't it be interesting if the traps were all in different locations? 2.) a twist to each quest that means making mistakes increases the difficulty. Just one example of what is too simplistic: in several quests you have to solve a puzzle, for example, turn 4 different coloured dials to light up four corresponding lights to open a door. Nice, but the solution is under each light next to the door so all that is needed is the same level of cooperation found in most chimpanzee communities. "4 people go to different dials and I will describe the symbol to you". Whoopee. Let me make a suggestion for one particular low level quest, Clear the Air. In Clear the Air your have an interesting element of "gang rush/ambush" situations on varied terrain with lots of "kill zones" and a time limit in which to complete the quest. Okay so far. However, it is with the time limit that it all goes wrong. When time runs out, you have to start the quest all over. That is it. Put in another quarter, take your xp hit, and try again, chump. What a fantastic quest it would be if when time ran out the entire quest jacked up 2 levels. For example, at that point in the quest, the entire sewer floods with water (no underwater action clickies? tough luck!)and the existing population of trogs doubles. And of course the trogs fight better underwater than the characters but the spellcasters can't cast so it evens out (unless your a squishy caster).

I would be interested to hear other peoples comments because I am getting a bit bored already with what is otherwise an excellent game.

[rikori2]

It seems that the general mood amongst players is "get loot and brandish better weapons than the other guy".

You're describing avatarism. (the forge if you've heard of it.) Essentially it's mindless dungeon crawls for the sake of being more powerful for the next section (which is harder.) Kind of a treadmill that most MMOs since Ultima Online have built themselves upon.

These games can't really mimic good RPing, so don't expect it of them. However, this game could really use some better npc interaction/skill rolls. (go into the sewer, and if somebody "tricks" the gang members into thinking you're one of them, you can get them to take you behind their fortifications and attack them easier. for example.)

1.) random encounters:

For a game that's based around doing the same quest 3 times per character, I don't know why they didn't randomize everything. Why not make it so that the rooms connect randomly? The traps are random? The encounters are random? With a good system, you can still have quests that make sense and retain key parts, with having them be unique each time you run them...

[Sumac]

Two of my favorite high level quests are Invaders! and Prison of the Planes for the reason that there is randomness to the chest locations and you fight different types of monsters. These quests would be even better if the monsters you fought were as random as the chests.

One of the giant caves (the one nearest to the tent) is either hill or fire giants and that makes it more fun because it is slightly different each time you run it.

The desert is more random now and that has made it in my opinion the funnest of the outdoor adventure areas. I look at the random encounters and named bosses in the desert as an added bonus in between quests. Once in the quests you know exactly what to expect where outside you just don't know where the monsters will be.

I believe that Hiding in Plain Sight has random trap locations, but can not remember exactly. If someone can think of another quest with random trap locations please post.

Random monsters, traps, and chests would make this game even more fun. In the current static quests you just have to learn the trick to each dungeon and then it is easy to complete from then on with no surprises.

I think that the randomness that is currently in the game really adds to the fun and more would improve the overall game experience.