Black Abbot Anniversary

[Angelus_dead]

Congratulations Turbine. It's a major milestone- the one year anniversary of the unplayable Black Abbot raid. That has to be some kind of global record. Some games have harder sections or stupider sections, of course, but those are either not places meant to be playable, not games that are actively updated, or not targetted at a semi-casual mass audience. Naturally there is some room to quibble on what it means to be "unplayable" and how that differs from "unbeatable" (because it's certainly beatable, as literally dozens of victories have shown). But in the overall analysis, attempting to beat the Accursed Ascension raid is so far from any kind of "playing" as to easily cinch a title.

Following is collected history on this special achievement. (Some dates are inexact)

Prelude
07-06-06 Titan raid released.
08-16-06 Litany of the Dead 1 released. Widely disliked due to flaws that are serious, but not inherent or pervasive.
10-23-06 Titan raid beaten.
This sets a record for the longest time any of Turbine's quests has gone un-beaten, which took a stupifying effort by the group and a lot of guesswork and luck.
10-25-06 Titan raid fixed to be reasonably beatable (laser can now strike his body, etc)
10-25-06 Laliat raid released.
10-30-06 Laliat raid beaten
12-10-06 Laliat raid soloed (first by a ranger). This remains uncommon, especially for non-rangers, but mostly due to the lengthy re-flagging quests.
01-23-07 Litany2 released, to more dislike than the first part.
04-12-07 Reaver raid is released (Litany3).
04-15-07 Reaver raid is beaten. Possibly devs had wanted it to take longer.
05-05-07 Reaver raid is soloed (first by a wizard). A gradually accelerating trend develops for many players to do this, due to the free spellpoints and lack of any reflagging.
07-31-07 Responding to complaints that some raids are beatable solo or in small groups, a developer fatefully promises that the Abbot raid will be impossible without at least 6 players, and not because of scripted requirements, but because the fight is simply hard.

Abbot
09-27-07 Black Abbot raid released.

10-01-07 Black Abbot raid is defeated for the first time.
The key technique is to not attempt any of the three challenges, and for the players sent to them to immediately die and rejoin the main group. Then the Abbot's special attacks can be either ignored (Phase Wraiths), jumped out of (Encase), or mass-healed through (Inferno). Aside from discovering not to waste time on the challenges, recruiting clerics able to heal through Inferno is the greatest challenge (it requires Quicken at minimum), although there are other serious threats.

10-06-07 Mini-patch to add the usual raid lockout timer to the Abbot raid, so it cannot be ransacked in a day.

10-04-07 Exploit is discovered to (slowly) beat the Abbot with no risk or challenge.

10-18-07 Abbot elite is beaten.

10-19-07 Abbot raid patched to be nearly unbeatable. Blatant exploit removed.
The challenges which originally had been a distraction are now obligatory (although players are not told this). The Abbot's special attacks become more dangerous: Encase is inescapable death, while Inferno and Phase Wraiths have doubled damage and deplete spellpoints. The first death penalty is added to DDO, imposing a non-expiring -10 penalty on all ability scores, in this raid only. The Black Abbot's personal combat stats improve (+8 AC, for example).

12-01-07 Players on Japanese server beat the Abbot raid. Date is approximate because reliance on exploits discouraged honest communication.

12-11-07 Parts of the Abbot raid are patched to be more managable. The ice puzzle becomes reasonably beatable, but the other challenges do not.
The mummies and death penalty are mostly removed (replaced with a new game-wide death penalty). A margin of error is added to the Ice Wands so that it no longer requires an internet miracle. The Phase Tiles are given a longer lifespan (10 sec), and a graphical warning before they fade. A long delay is added before the approach of Asteroids (which provides no help towards defeating it correctly, but does give more time to cast an assortment of exploitive spells). The Black Abbot becomes non-immortal once all three challenges are beaten, instead of only when all three are beaten at once (this doesn't matter, because whenever someones beats them it is in the same pass)

01-30-08 Shroud raid released. The questgiver dialog assumes that all characters flagging for the Shroud have already defeated the Black Abbot.
02-10-08 Abbot is beaten on USA servers for the first time since 'nearly unbeatable'.
04-23-08 An exploit which grants a minor chance to survive Asteroids is indirectly nerfed.
06-03-08 VOD and Hound raids are released, which require items from previous raids to unlock. The Abbot raid is notably not included.

06-03-08 The Phase Tiles are nerfed to be walkable nearly all of the time, granting a moderate chance to pass them by luck, although communication from the guide remains barely effective. (A completely brainless straight run has over 5% success rate, and even minor hints increase that)

10-22-08 Today, the one-year anniversary of the broken Abbot raid.

[DaveyCrockett]

Forgot one, 10-19-2008 Oddlived completes his 20th Abbot.

For historical accuracy

[esoitl]

Forgot one, 10-19-2008 Oddlived completes his 20th Abbot.

For historical accuracy

Indeed, and if that is the same thread that I read someone else posted about their 20th completion. I assume this wasn't just a 20th SS delayed and posted now so someone out there is beating it presently so I would hardly call it unplayable or unbeatable at the moment.....

Maybe someone will share their secrets as to what they are doing to get completions, I'd be interested as I would love to tackle it even in it's current state and not afraid to give it the old Governemnt try.

[KatanAztar]

Forgot one, 10-19-2008 Oddlived completes his 20th Abbot.

For historical accuracy

he wasnt the first to get to 20 though...

[Thriand]

he wasnt the first to get to 20 though...

There is at least 4 people on Ghallanda that I know of with 20+ completions and many more getting close

[KatanAztar]

On topic though, here's the things they need fixed

Remove the mana drain from the inferno
Make astroids slower
Make ice wands, astroids, and goggles not be destroed upon death.
Add some time between the inferno dissapearing and his encasement attack

[Thriand]

On topic though, here's the things they need fixed

Remove the mana drain from the inferno
Make astroids slower
Make ice wands, astroids, and goggles not be destroed upon death.
Add some time between the inferno dissapearing and his encasement attack

I agree with Aztar completely, I don't want the raid made out to be another
Reaver or anything but with these minor tweaks the raid would be much much easier.

[stockwizard5]

Thanks AD ...

1. Beat Down ...
2. Everyone goes to six (or less) instances of puzzle A ...
3. Beat Down ...
4. Puzzle B ...
5. Beat Down ...
6. Puzzle C ...
7. Beat Down ...
8. Victory!

Fail any beatdown - lose the quest ...

Everyone gets to do all the puzzles. No puzzles solved - grab your uberness and pots. 18 for 18 its a cake walk. Problem solved - fun raid again.

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

On topic though, here's the things they need fixed

Remove the mana drain from the inferno
Make astroids slower
Make ice wands, astroids, and goggles not be destroed upon death.
Add some time between the inferno dissapearing and his encasement attack

QFT.

With minor tweaks this raid could be really fun. Reduce the number/speed of the asteriods, change so the items are drop on death rather than destroy, and fix the timing on the Abbot's special attacks so you have time to react properly as a group to them.

Ice wands and phase tile are both doable, it's Asteroids that causes problems, if that were fixed I would run this raid (assuming I could find 11 other people to)

Garth

[Angelus_dead]

Here is an amusing video of how the original version of the Abbot raid was beaten.

Points of note:

• That Abbot had Flesh to Stone (although I can't notice it being used)
• They make frequent and almost casual use of Raise Dead, which in current DDO would impose crippling death penalties, even outside of raids with increased Dolruhh effects.
• They use Command Undead and Flesh to Stone to maintain long-term CC on the summoned undead. The current Abbot raid deletes and respawns summoned monsters every 30 seconds, making them immune to such tactics.
• The longest parts of the raid are the two teleport passes, when they must wait 5 minutes for the Abbot to return to fighting them. The devs had intended most of that time to be spent waiting for people to solve challenges (particular phase tiles, which might involve a lot of study). Instead, they die and return immediately.
• The clerics are holding Atonement, which grants immunity to Quell, a 60-second suppression of divine spellcasting (holding a two-handed weapon means they can't use scrolls, among other penalties)
• Twice when the Abbot casts Inferno they gather together at the edge to mass-heal through it. Many characters cast Fire Shield during that, and presumably others use Firestorm Greaves.
• When the Abbot casts Encase, it has no top, allowing players to jump right out. (Rarely he could Encase someone who was already airborne, making the box too high to jump over).
  
  Most importantly
• Everyone appears to be having fun.

[Bubbahotepp]

Hey man! At least the preraid is kinda fun.

Seeing the history in black and white makes me sad.

Good post btw.

[Wizzly_Bear]

Here's to still hoping they fix it someday.

[Gol]

what is 10-22 the anniversary of? Your timeline has nothing on 10-22-07.

[Angelus_dead]

what is 10-22 the anniversary of? Your timeline has nothing on 10-22-07.

Yeah, events like a patch sometimes took more than one day, because they'd bring it down, post the notes, bring it up, break the server after 30 minutes, bring it down again, stay up all night trying to fix it... and the date planned for the patch might not even have been when they actually updated in the first place.

The relevant event was listed as 10-19, although that's easily 72 hours off in one direction or the other.

[Vorn]

Maybe this was posted last month and is just showing up now due to lag?


Seriously, I've often wondered if this was what the Dev's, particularly Devilmouse, who seemed to be the main guy for the quest, intended. Maybe they really wanted something beyond the reach of most of the population that emphasized having a tight-knit group of commited players who had the time and resources to accomplish the quest?

I've had to try it in pugs and 0/47 without really getting even close (and some folks are in the hundreds I hear) means it's beyond me, both hardware/connection-wise, tactics-wise, and twitch-wise. Which is a pity actually--minority voice--I really enjoyed the whole Necropolis series (except the rat maze one) and the four part LotD pre-raid (except the silly force trap thingy, though it did create some nice tension when it first came out).

I never did understand how the puzzle rooms connected to the plot however. They seemed too contrived from a story perspective.

Just my 2cp.

Happy Anniversary Black Abbot!!

[sirgog]

Here's to still hoping they fix it someday.

/signed.

Watching the Youtube video of the elite abbot run reminded me of how cool that raid was before it was nerfed into suckiness.

[Pyromaniac]

Everyone appears to be having fun.

Quick we can't be having that! Let's change it so nobody beats the abbott without using exploits! Though if you happen to have no lag, it may be beatable without them.

Err....oh yeah that happened. Happy 1st anniversary to the raid that never was and never will be a useable DDO raid.

[Mithran]

If you were really committed though, you'd give us daily updates.

[Staffman]

Living Vicariously through.....a game?

Come on...some of you folks need to get out more.

[Angelus_dead]

Come on...some of you folks need to get out more.

Sure, but if the devs want to earn money, they'd try to supply reasons to not get out. That's their job.