Why the hate for mindless lot runs?

[MysticTheurge]

...they are just taking pleasure making the quest harder just for the fun of it.

I can agree with pretty much everything except this.

Contrary to popular belief, I don't think the devs are "out to get us." Or that they enjoy seeing us suffer. Or anything like that.

I think they have some serious concerns about the ease with which you can complete certain high level quests.

I mean what would you do? Someone walks into your office and goes "We were dumb. We didn't realize they could use <insert incredibly effective tactic> to essentially walk through the quest with little-to-no-risk. What are we going to do?"

Any major change and you've got to spend some time QAing it (and suffer the wrath of the "OMG Why'd you spend time redoing a quest when you could be making new stuff" people). In the mean time people are shoveling loot into their backpacks.

So I guess, to me, it seems perfectly understandable to make a quick change that cuts off a particular tactic. Everything else that anyone's suggested doesn't seem to a) work or b) be any better. Doors? What exactly would that do? You'd open a door, drag things back, and run on to the next door. Leashes? Then you could just run past the shadows in the first place. Resistance? People would just use the same tactic, max/empower their Walls and it would just take twice as long (which would inevitably lead to people complaining about that).

I don't think what they came up with is the most elegant solution. But I do think it's the solution that probably works the best that involved the least amount of Dev time.

I hope they can watch what happens in Vol, just like they're watching the Abbot raid, and make some adjustments in the future. But honestly, I can't even think what they should do differently. (Aside from maybe naming them something different and/or giving a reason for them to be immune to fire.)

[Borror0]

I don't think they are out to get us, but sometimes, I don't see the necessity of the fix.

Vol was easy? So what.

I liked Vol for a 15-20 mins run when I don't have much to do.
They could have removed a chest I couldn't care less. But I liked Vol.

IMO, there should always be one really easy quest per module and one really really hard one.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

But just because Wall of Fire deals double damage to undead doesn't mean there should never be undead immune to fire.

I mean heck, there's one in the SRD:

Sorry but that's because in life it was a red dragon. That immunity makes sense.

[MysticTheurge]

Sorry but that's because in life it was a red dragon. That immunity makes sense.

And there are plenty of other ways that it would make sense for a shadow to be immune to fire.

[Borror0]

And there are plenty of other ways that it would make sense for a shadow to be immune to fire.

...but they aren't any in DToV...

[MysticTheurge]

...but they aren't any in DToV...

...that we know of.

[Memnir]

Yes we do.
The Devs were tired of that tactic being used and put the kibosh on it - end of story.

If they added something story wise to make it fit, I'd be fine with it. They did not, nor will they ever I wager. Why - because it would take time for them to do it, and I don't think they care that much.

The Shadows are now immune to fire 'cause the DM got mad.

[MysticTheurge]

If they added something story wise to make it fit, I'd be fine with it. They did not, nor will they ever I wager. Why - because it would take time for them to do it, and I don't think they care that much.

The Shadows are now immune to fire 'cause the DM got mad.

Yeah, but adding something to the story would just be a justification. The shadows would still be immune to fire for the same reason they are right now (you say "the DM got mad," I say "players were breaking the quest" let's call the whole thing off).

I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd love to have a story reason added, or a name change (I like cindershades), but it's not really going to change anything about the reasoning, so why would it matter?

[Vorn]

And there are plenty of other ways that it would make sense for a shadow to be immune to fire.

Special environmental effects, special nature of the beastie due to the place it's in, all sorts of lovely DM tricks are possible. I would ask only for DM-text/vocal clues as to the nature of the tricks....a wee bit of narrative makes the encounter that much richer...it doesn't take a Kalashtar....

[Memnir]

so why would it matter?

To me - it would make all the differance in the world. We can come up with all the justifications we want for why the Shadows are immune, but that's just us BSing about it. If the Devs took the time to put it in the game - it would then be a matter of it being a story-driven reason they are immune. It's the differnances between the DM saying "Cause I said so!" and "Here is why it is so,". One is the DM just being ****ed off and being a bully - the other is the DM being creative and finding a way to adjust to player tactics.

I've been a DM for most of the time I've played D&D - which is roughtly 3/4ths of my life by now. Personally, I have not used the bully methood since I was 12 because I found out how much it angered the people playing the game I was running. But, if I put in a crafted reason for something happening - even if it goes against stadard lore - then the players were a lot more accepting of it, even if they were not exactly happy with it.

I'd still not be happy with the change - but I'd accept it because the NPC gave me a reason to. As it is, this is just the DM shoving a rule change down my neck mid-game w/o any in-game reasoning behind it. For me, one is being a good DM and the other is an example of a bad DM. Right now, Turbine is being a rather lousy DM.

[MysticTheurge]

Well I certainly hope they add in some reasoning behind the Shadows immunities. It would be nicer. But again, I'm not sure how "They're immune to fire because I say so" is bullying while "They're immune to fire because the were created from people who'd died to arson (but secretly just because I say so)" is not.

To me, they just don't seem different enough to warrant Righteous Indignation. In both cases, they're immune to fire because "I say so" one just has a bit of flavor text justification.

I'd love to see that justification added, but I don't feel like without it I'm being bullied and only adding it would solve all the problems.

[Bogenbroom]

Back to the Op. The reason their is an anti-loot-run bent to the game is that the game isn't supposed to be about loot runs. You may ask what harm do they cause, and I'd answer by pointing to you LFM panel.

Every quest in the game should have a roughly equivalent RoI. "I" being time and risk. Risk in the game is negligible, so mostly time.

The return does not *HAVE* to be loot, it could be XP or or flagging, or something else. But the end idea is to have all of the quests be of value. That way they variety on the LFM is improved.

As is now we have 4 types of LFMs

1) Lowbie XP quests
2) High level loot runs
3) Raids
4) Favor runs.

And try, oh try, to get anything else going if you are not a cleric.

The deal was that the return on Vol was WAAAAAAAY out of whack with the investment. We all knew it was out of whack... and yeah the method of redress was maybe inappropriate. But that is the way these things go. It needed to be tweaked, they tweaked it and likely will again based off of the new experience.

On the upside it brought up a VERY valuable discussion on phasing. (thanks MT.) I mean, really, if they had made the bats immune to fire, who would have blinked?

[Big_Russ]

Back to the Op. The reason their is an anti-loot-run bent to the game is that the game isn't supposed to be about loot runs. You may ask what harm do they cause, and I'd answer by pointing to you LFM panel.

Every quest in the game should have a roughly equivalent RoI. "I" being time and risk. Risk in the game is negligible, so mostly time.

The return does not *HAVE* to be loot, it could be XP or or flagging, or something else. But the end idea is to have all of the quests be of value. That way they variety on the LFM is improved.

As is now we have 4 types of LFMs

1) Lowbie XP quests
2) High level loot runs
3) Raids
4) Favor runs.

And try, oh try, to get anything else going if you are not a cleric.

The deal was that the return on Vol was WAAAAAAAY out of whack with the investment. We all knew it was out of whack... and yeah the method of redress was maybe inappropriate. But that is the way these things go. It needed to be tweaked, they tweaked it and likely will again based off of the new experience.

On the upside it brought up a VERY valuable discussion on phasing. (thanks MT.) I mean, really, if they had made the bats immune to fire, who would have blinked?

So, basically the devs should shut down any percieved fun being had by players in favor of making them "earn" their loot.

How does this effect anybody but me? What does it matter to anybody if I have a stash of 27 vorpals, 10 disruptors, enough paralyzers to equip an army, and a hen that lays golden eggs? Does that effect YOUR gameplay and fun?

If it doesn't effect your gameplay and fun, why should Turbine spend dev hours on it instead of dev hours on new content?

[Gorstag]

This is why in truth all these changes are really upsetting me. Mod five was on risia for several months and was postponed what....two months!!! There is noway that this module should have went live without it being set as they desired. Honestly now, mod five is undoubtably the worst mod turbine has done to date.

[Borror0]

...that we know of.

If they didn't bother comming up with one.. it's the same to me.

[Shaunassey]

Turbine is a mean little kid with a piece of cheese on a string leading us through a rat maze, if we take a wrong turn and not follow the cheese we don't get rewards!

What I'm say is that Turbine Devs get really mad if you don't do what they have scripted you to do in their quests. If your smart enough to out smart them they seem to take it personally, and manipulate the quest until you do it the way they intended it to be done. Now I don't know about you but most DM's I played with never change the adventure because you got through it differently then they had foreseen, they just made a better mouse trap on their next one. Not the case with Turbine.

This change was not really a game breaker, but it should have been better scrutinized by the devs and the Phasing on the shadows is entirely too frequent. If they needed to due this, that also should have been changed tic for tac so to speak. Besides the loot in that quest was not all that good, and you pull lvl 7-9 items in a level 15 quest on Elite, wow we were really getting over weren't we...lol

I believe this change could've been held off until Mod 7 was released due to the fact that Sunburst is getting added to the Arcane spell list and it will be devastating against creatures of Shadow, unless they some how find a way to make them Immune to that as well, geez I hope not =/

[moorewr]

Turbine is a mean little kid with a piece of zombie meat on a string leading us through an undead rat maze, if we take a wrong turn and not follow the zombie meat we get cut to shreds by blade traps!

Fixed it for you.

[Big_Russ]

Turbine is a mean little kid with a piece of cheese on a string leading us through a rat maze, if we take a wrong turn and not follow the cheese we don't get rewards!

What I'm say is that Turbine Devs get really mad if you don't do what they have scripted you to do in their quests. If your smart enough to out smart them they seem to take it personally, and manipulate the quest until you do it the way they intended it to be done.

This is my biggest disappointment. When this game was first marketed and released, one big draw was that it was UP TO THE PARTY how they wanted to do the quest. It was advertised as having this really diverse system that would give the players flexibility. In the last six months especially, it has done a 180 on this. Now you do it the prescribed way or get slapped down for it.

Poor, poor design for a D&D MMO.

[Kaish]

Respawning is always the worst thing in DDO. Many quest (in Necropolis, for example) are awful to start with, and the respawning make it even worst. There is NOTHING worst then that. Plus making undead invulnerable to fire is ridiculous.

The thing is, undead are not fun to fight.. and those disappearing monsters are the worst. They take way to long to kill and you have to wait there for then to reappear.. and stuff.. That is awful.

Plus, so what if we use firewalls to kill them? If we can drag them all in a single room, its because the dungeon was badly done in the first place.

Please, stop nerfing casters and do a better dungeon or mob IA. Nerfing is nothing but a cheap way for 'fixing' something badly done. And the result in simply making players angry. And everybody knows that angry customers are bad for business...

[Kaish]

This is my biggest disappointment. When this game was first marketed and released, one big draw was that it was UP TO THE PARTY how they wanted to do the quest. It was advertised as having this really diverse system that would give the players flexibility. In the last six months especially, it has done a 180 on this. Now you do it the prescribed way or get slapped down for it.

Poor, poor design for a D&D MMO.

The thing about nerfing Firewalls is that casters need to use other spells now. But direct attack spells are often ineffective (exemple : Fireball are dodged by almost every monsters, and many monsters have improve evasion, so even lightning bolts, that use to do great damage, now does.. 0.. yeah.. none cause of the save). So caster need to use finger of death, pk or other powerful spells, but monsters have saves so high now, that you need 32 int or charisma to have a chance to use them. Sio where is the freedom in the character creation when you have to put all your points in 1 stat? All casters are pretty much the same. If you dont, well, you just aint that effective.

making monsters invulnerable to this or that, making monsters with 50 ac or more, forcing you to have 50 ac yourself, is very bad. There is no more freedom in the way our characters are made. We have to follow the nerfs rules or be gimped.

So, DDO is on a bad track atm. I hope that will change soon, so our not so perfect character, can have fun again and not be a burden for the group.