LET'S TALK: Challenges

[MadFloyd]

This topic should prove interesting.

As you all know, U12 saw the release of a new type of content - Challenges.

I would like to get your thoughts on these - preferably in a constructive manner. I’m specifically interested in gameplay feedback.

For those who do not enjoy this type of gameplay, can you elaborate on why?

For those of you who do enjoy playing them, what aspects do you enjoy?

General feedback is encouraged, but again, please limit feedback to gameplay and respect other’s opinions. I expect this to be a very polarizing subject.

Thanks in advance.

[Ganolyn]

Oh boy, here comes thirty pages of complaining about Air Elementals!

[nibel]

At this moment, there is only one problem on challenges to me: After you craft what you want, there is no reason to keep farming ingredients. The golden stars challenge is nice too, but I doubt many people are going to keep trying improve their time after getting the 6-star rating once.

[whereispowderedsilve]

This topic should prove interesting.

As you all know, U12 saw the release of a new type of content - Challenges.

I would like to get your thoughts on these - preferably in a constructive manner. I’m specifically interested in gameplay feedback.

For those who do not enjoy this type of gameplay, can you elaborate on why?

For those of you who do enjoy playing them, what aspects do you enjoy?

General feedback is encouraged, but again, please limit feedback to gameplay and respect other’s opinions. I expect this to be a very polarizing subject.

Thanks in advance.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=357415

Mr. MadFloyd not my thread but check that out, especially what Kinerd has to say!

I have a group of peeps that run the challenges a lot 4 the cool stuffs & to crunch the epic mats into epic tokens.

I like it cos it's a change of pace from the normal. Some tweaking does need to be done though which Im sure other people will touch on forthcoming!

Keep up the great work!

/offtopic Can we plz get the shared bank window back to being resizable? That would be super awesome! :P! !

[Zess-wolf]

air elem...just kiddin, mainly i think there are 2 points i would like to comment on:

-Kobold island objectives(difficulty/DDO store only) ; Some of them are achieved by requisitions only, which i dropped just one in since challenges were released(and i play them quite often), also they are really hard, making more than 2 stars almost impossible.

-Pack price(related to first topic), ok they are really valued, but i think it was over valued, i did bought the pack, but on sale only, and i regret sometimes(some lapses...if you get what i mean)...


Besides that, nice quests for free time ;D keep up with this!

Just my toughts,

Zess

ps:The air eles too...

[Targonis]

If you look at them, the challenges are really three types of challenges on four maps. As a result, you will get a lot of feedback from people who don't care for one of these TYPES. In general, I like the challenges, though I HATE Kobold Island: The Disruptor.

One thing I would like to see would be to make the exchange be for a 2:1 of any one of a tier to any other of the same tier. Going on the same exact sequence from Rushmore's Mansion going from there means that if Rushmore's Mansion is your preferred challenge, you MUST then do 3 exchanges in some cases to get what you want, and that is NOT good(unless Rushmore's seems so much easier than other challenge types that it should be that way).

[Gimpinator]

Mr. Floyd, in my opinion, the challenges are a joke. You took an interesting and fun event (dungeon) that we see a few times a year, for a fixed amount of time, cloned it ten-fold, and then crammed it down our throats. I think we can all admit that Crystal Cove is probably the best dungeon in DDO, however, the short time window forced a lot of us to get down to business when the event came around. As a result, most of us are burnt out on crack cove.

The challenges have potential, however, your team need to be more creative and original if you're going to release content like that. I have a high tolerance for repetition, pain and blurred vision, but it only takes a few runs of these challenges to send me packing. If I could have it my way, they would be removed entirely. Sorry I cannot be more constructive; Thinking of challenges causes my blood pressure to raise to unhealthy levels.

[sirgog]

Edit: Rethought some of this. Post 246 has my feedback now. Leaving this regardless.



First thoughts: I didn't like them much at first.

With experience: These have really grown on me. So much fun to zerg, and they can be really tough (4-starring Lava Caves: Time Is Money solo on 25 was... intense, five of the most fun minutes I've ever had). And you have made some really, really impressive boss fights in them.

But:

- They are brutally punishing of toons that are not self sufficient. Many players build characters (stereotypical Barb without Silver Flame pots, etc) to do one thing and do it well. Challenges don't work well for those toons as so much of them is 'Hey Numot, you split off from the group and kill kobolds for parts' or 'Myrmidral, answer that "Incoming"' etc.
- The scaling encourages metagaming group size around prior knowledge of the challenge. Time is Money I always solo, duo or trio for this reason. Short Cuts I want a full group for.
- Mob HP is nonsensical on 24/25. A supergeared character (one 25 is designed for) might do 30% more DPS than a modestly geared 18-20 (what 21 is designed for). So mobs should have 30-40% more HP, not 100-300% more. I think the scaling of damage players suffer from 21 to 25 is perfect. As a rule of thumb: If players are kiting mobs rather than killing them, something is wrong. Likewise if the most effective thing a melee can do is UMD Enervation scrolls on mobs, again something is wrong.
- Mob HP also scales too much with party class makeup. The Cloud Giant in 20 Time is Money seems to have less HP when in a 3-player all melee group than when I've soloed it on a Wizard or Sorc.



One suggestion: Allow raid groups to attempt challenges (with further scaling). Then instead of sending off 1 character to deal with an 'Incoming' in a 4 player group, we could send two Barbarians AND a Bard or Cleric in an 11 or 12 player group. That lets the 'I do one thing and do it well' builds be useful in challenges. You have solo to raid scaling tech in the Cannith Manufactuary.

I'm not sure what your intention was re. underlevel (17-19th level) toons in 21-25 challenges. You gave the challenges XP and put a 'soft lockout' of 'you must have a 20 in your group to enter' rather than a raid-timer style 'hard lockout', indicating you want characters to be able to attempt 21-25 challenges pre-20, but getting in to them requires a 20 in group. Can I suggest changing this to a hard lockout of level 1-16 characters, and letting 17-20s in freely (possibly with a warning to 17s, 18s and 19s that 'this is an extreme challenge intended for level 20 characters, you can try it if you dare').


Another thought: Combat is DDO's strong point. The non-combat mechanics of Challenges effectively remove 1-2 players from combat throughout the challenge. IMO a future Challenge that is *pure combat* against bosses has real potential. For example, think of fighting a toned-down Harry and 3 of his Lieutenants at once - the Lieutenant auras buffing the pit fiend as well. Primary star for killing the Pit Fiend before time expires, and another for killing all three Lieutenants within 30 seconds of each other, then another for killing the Fiend first, then another star for no player deaths, and a final star for not using a rest shrine that is in the arena.

[CaptGrim]

I actually enjoy herding kobolds, its not too grindy.

I do not enjoy the extractors, it used to be fun albeit easy when you could invis the stones. Now it seems a must to have 3-4 players just to hit a decent payout.

I absolutely hate Dr. Rushmore, its not the quest, or the theme behind the whole thing. It is the simple fact it takes 30-45 minutes to do a full run and still end up with a few hundred goblets(or whatever).It has little re playability at least to me.

quests>challenges

Still I think it is cool to have something different every once and awhile. I'm not sure what percentage of dev time it takes to make a challenge compared to a quest but if it isn't twice as fast IMO i would not like to see anymore, or only for special events, cove, mabar, etc.

[Hoglum]

I heard there used to be a developer named SaneFloyd. Then his boss made him do the "Let's Talk" series.

[Combat_Wombat]

Challenges that are only 6 starable through the use of store purchases and/or stupidly rare requisitions are my major complaint.

Also the inability for non-casters to fully contribute if they need to be babysat aka no silver flame pots which really is allot to ask.

Edit: Also bringing back blanket death immunity for epic challenges was a stupid move especially with the HP so amazingly high on some things

[sirgog]

At this moment, there is only one problem on challenges to me: After you craft what you want, there is no reason to keep farming ingredients. The golden stars challenge is nice too, but I doubt many people are going to keep trying improve their time after getting the 6-star rating once.

There's plenty of reason to keep running some - flawlessly executed 8-minute runs of 21 Extraplanar Mining: Buying Time or five-minute 25 Lava Caves: Time is Money are the best Epic Dungeon Token per minute ratio in DDO, excluding stealthed epic Claw.

[Systern]

I've complained in the past about the structuring of the rewards and difficulty breakdown. That you need to be level 10 to make level 8 stuff, and level 14/15 to make tier 2 level 8 stuff.

I like the soloability of the mansion/island, but don't do the mining challenges. I don't know if this is because of burn out from CC or the perception from CC that you really need a group to complete them. Maybe a little from Column-A, a lil' from Column-B...

I like the near-pick-up-and-play of them... I tend to run with the same group of friends all the time, and it's nice when one of us needs to level/dump inventory, the other 2 can run a challenge and kill some time without just standing around...



I'm 1st life, new to DDO player, so I don't like the bias towards the veterans to farm and grind the mats for twink gear.
I dunno, maybe that's just the way the game plays out, and the design intent is to upgrade tier 1 eq as a 1st lifer, and then farm the mats for twink gear at L20 while you wait for raid timers to get 20 epic tokens for a TR heart...

[maddmatt70]

I can not really articulate why I have never gotten into the challenges, but I disliked the kobold torch ones so much and at the time you had to do them when they came out that it was a cost-benefit lose for me. DDO has a definite cost-benefit to the grind component as in a player is better off skipping a content area altogether and focusing on other content areas with the way the current content reward system works. Once I made the decision to skip the challenges for the first few months it became a why should I start into that grind when there are other grinds to do scenario. The loot is good but not a must have (the one possible exception is the chime for lord of blades, but you just need one in a raid party).

I liked the mansion challenge area personally. Really the challenges are not unlike regular quests just with an odd scoring/reward component, but it is about the grind and farm - there is something nice about just going into a quest and looting a chest and having a shot at something the first time instead of it being a grind times X which you have to do with the challenges. If the next challenges are enjoyable like the mansion area I will likely choose to do the grind.

[Chai]

Every single epic scorpion, rat, and lion has deathblock. Arbitrary immunity is arbitrary. I understand when drow witchdoctors cast deathward on themselves, but please remove the deathblock snuggies from the animal and vermin mobs that should not have this effect.

I like the challenges because it is a completely different concept than running quests or raids and adds another dynamic to the game that otherwise would not be there. It also provides a parallel way to farm for some decent items that does not have a timer or require a specific number of completions.

Oh, and one more thing...

[Psiandron]

First off, I love the cove. It's a fun break from questing and there's some great loot to be had. That said, it's not why I play the game. I like running the quests. That's why I'm here. I really don't mind that the challenges exist (excepting that I do find it a bit irritating that so much development time and resources were spent on them when there are longstanding bugs and issues with the core game). I also am not thrilled at the prospect of carrying around x amount more of twink items and the various and sundry ingredients needed to upgrade them.

I have run them a few times and I'm sure I'll run them on occassion again. Barring mindcontrol, I really can't see every spending the thinnest dime to have greater or any access to them.

Hey, you asked.

[NXPlasmid]

Mr. Floyd, in my opinion, the challenges are a joke. You took an interesting and fun event (dungeon) that we see a few times a year, for a fixed amount of time, cloned it ten-fold, and then crammed it down our throats. I think we can all admit that Crystal Cove is probably the best dungeon in DDO, however, the short time window forced a lot of us to get down to business when the event came around. As a result, most of us are burnt out on crack cove.

The challenges have potential, however, your team need to be more creative and original if you're going to release content like that. I have a high tolerance for repetition, pain and blurred vision, but it only takes a few runs of these challenges to send me packing. If I could have it my way, they would be removed entirely. Sorry I cannot be more constructive; Thinking of challenges causes my blood pressure to raise to unhealthy levels.

Crystal cove best dungeon in DDO? Really? Better than Gianthold, better than Amrath? Better than the Siegebreaker series? Are you on crack? Crystal cove, not unlike the challenges has some very excellent loot for a relatively small expenditure of time comparied to other named loot or epic loot. The first few days of CC was awesomely fun and hilarious with the kobald voices, super fun for the first few days... Very repetative after that.

The problem I see with the challenges is basic structure is the same for all of the challenges and it gets to be very repetative and boring quite quickly. To be honest, I can't imagine anyone being happy with more of them based on the mechanic currently employed, it's really been run into the ground, and by making artificer unlocking dependant of doing the challenges many many times, you should be prepared for a massive you know what storm if you try to release any others that aren't completely totally and fully different. This is because, for those people who really don't like them all that much, they will be resenting having to repeat them so many times to get that favor....

Personally, I am less against the challenges now than I was right when they came out, mainly because at that time I had just run the cove for 6 days straight and thought "yeah, never have to run that junk again"... well I found out that wasn't the case at all. The loot is quite nice, so I hold my nose and run them and I want to unlock Arti. T

My advise for future challenge releases.. only a couple per update.

[Kmnh]

Colossal crystals, Moving targets, Picture portals, The Disruptor and Short Cuts are a blast to play. I think if more people were trying to beat these on higher difficulties and get more stars/points, they would enjoy them too.


The collection chalenges, where you set the kobolds to get some crystals, kill some mobs, but never face any serious threat, bore me.

I played colossal crystal and the disruptor on Lammania during the event. They were my first contact with the challenges, and left a good impression. If had started out with, say, the dragon's hoard, I would dismiss the pack as a silly gimmick.

Can we please change the loot system for these? Forcing players to run "Labor Shortage" multiple times won't do any good for the pack's popularity.

[Riggs]

- They are brutally punishing of toons that are not self sufficient. Many players build characters (stereotypical Barb without Silver Flame pots, etc) to do one thing and do it well. Challenges don't work well for those toons as so much of them is 'Hey Numot, you split off from the group and kill kobolds for parts' or 'Myrmidral, answer that "Incoming"' etc.
- The scaling encourages metagaming group size around prior knowledge of the challenge. Time is Money I always solo, duo or trio for this reason. Short Cuts I want a full group for.
- Mob HP is nonsensical on 24/25. A supergeared character (one 25 is designed for) might do 30% more DPS than a modestly geared 18-20 (what 21 is designed for). So mobs should have 30-40% more HP, not 100-300% more. I think the scaling of damage players suffer from 21 to 25 is perfect. As a rule of thumb: If players are kiting mobs rather than killing them, something is wrong. Likewise if the most effective thing a melee can do is UMD Enervation scrolls on mobs, again something is wrong.
- Mob HP also scales too much with party class makeup. The Cloud Giant in 20 Time is Money seems to have less HP when in a 3-player all melee group than when I've soloed it on a Wizard or Sorc.



One suggestion: Allow raid groups to attempt challenges (with further scaling). Then instead of sending off 1 character to deal with an 'Incoming' in a 4 player group, we could send two Barbarians AND a Bard or Cleric in an 11 or 12 player group. That lets the 'I do one thing and do it well' builds be useful in challenges. You have solo to raid scaling tech in the Cannith Manufactuary.

I'm not sure what your intention was re. underlevel (17-19th level) toons in 21-25 challenges. You gave the challenges XP and put a 'soft lockout' of 'you must have a 20 in your group to enter' rather than a raid-timer style 'hard lockout', indicating you want characters to be able to attempt 21-25 challenges pre-20, but getting in to them requires a 20 in group. Can I suggest changing this to a hard lockout of level 1-16 characters, and letting 17-20s in freely (possibly with a warning to 17s, 18s and 19s that 'this is an extreme challenge intended for level 20 characters, you can try it if you dare').


Another thought: Combat is DDO's strong point. The non-combat mechanics of Challenges effectively remove 1-2 players from combat throughout the challenge. IMO a future Challenge that is *pure combat* against bosses has real potential.

yeah, scaling is really whack.

Each level up adds a lot more than one level of challange and hp and monster stats it seems.

And if you have to split up in a lot of them to handle kobolds on the line, getting crests, killing, defending etc - anyone not self sufficient becomes really limited in usefulness.

[NXPlasmid]

Another thought: Combat is DDO's strong point. The non-combat mechanics of Challenges effectively remove 1-2 players from combat throughout the challenge. IMO a future Challenge that is *pure combat* against bosses has real potential. For example, think of fighting a toned-down Harry and 3 of his Lieutenants at once - the Lieutenant auras buffing the pit fiend as well. Primary star for killing the Pit Fiend before time expires, and another for killing all three Lieutenants within 30 seconds of each other, then another for killing the Fiend first, then another star for no player deaths, and a final star for not using a rest shrine that is in the arena.

How different is that from any of the (fill in the blank) Assaults? except you get tokens along the way?