VIP Feedback: The Mindsunder

[Tolero]

Tell us about your experiences in the new quest: The Mindsunder!

[samho]

Some sopiler contains:







[READ/HIGHLIGHT IT AT YOUR OWN RISK]

The end fight take forever if you are solo it due to keep respawning from the mindsunder. Is it possible to adjust the respawn rate to make it a bit slower ?

Also, since I didn't get all the 4 crystal before done this myself, and fear to lost it by insert any single crystal I have. I would assume those crystal was one time usage -- could anyone confirm?




However, I found this quest was less impressive than most previous quests, would be nice to see some more interesting event add to it if the dev got some time.


I also notice something unusual while progress to 1/3 of this quest. Few npcs stay on inactive status and never turn into active mode to attack me when I run pass them. (Neither I could kill them).

[Dark-Star]

Ran this normal hard elite.

Sometimes the mobs behind the first secret door bug out, the whole room of them, sometimes not.

All of the quests seem a bit on the easy side tbh. I Dream of Jeets on elite is probably the hardest of the set.

Like Samho, soloed them all on a battle cleric on normal.

[kudesnik]

Beat in on normal with 2 hirelings , cleric level 17 and barb level 17 - got him just for the last part of breaking crystal. Nice quest, however I'd like to have more surprises

[Angelus_dead]

Serious problems with the Mindsunderer quest (and some of the series leading up to it)

1. Inventory consumption to accumulate rewards. There is only one chest with good items in this whole chain. If my character is in the process of looting it, that means my inventory slots are loaded with up to 4 different disks AND 4 different shards. Look, this is simple: If it's a collectible or an ingredient then it should go in a collectible or ingredient bag. The items in question fit into crafting devices, so they certainly are ingredients. Note that this flaw is also prominent in Reaver's Refuge, but it crops up in Subterane and Restless Isles too.

2. The level 18 Dar Quat quests are easier than the level 17 Reaver's Refuge quests, and harder than some of the level 19 Shavarath quests. (Note that I am just pointing out an undesirable relationship, not saying which among those three areas should have the difficulty moved up or down)

3. The devs may want to look at the tactical benefits to players pulling some of the boss mobs out of the final room of Mindsunderer. Not all of them can leave, and separating them like that makes certain combat goals much easier. (I'd suggest that the named Inspired teleport back into the room if he ever leaves)

4. Unmarked antihealing curses. A curse of healing immunity was first seen as an occasional special attack from Clay Golems, and later it had a key role in the Vision of Destruction raid. In those cases it featured an obvious curse marker floating over the character's head, serving to reveal that condition not just to the player, but also to anyone who might try to heal him. Just because it expires in 20 seconds doesn't remove the need for an indicator. (And no, reading one line of text on an inspection window is not adequate)

5. Unannounced disc consumption in Mindsunderer. If they haven't been reading spoilers, then players on their first run through the chain will likely click on some of the slots in Mindsunderer's final treasure room. If they have more than zero discs but less than four, then their discs are being destroyed for no benefit. Each disc represents the loot potential of 3 runs of a level 18 quest, so losing them isn't pleasant.

Lesser concern
6. I haven't analyzed it fully, but flagging for the Mindsunderer chest is weird, and has some negative implications. Unlike other DDO places where players collect flagging items for a chance at loot, the consumption of those items isn't equally taken from everyone who joins. Suppose one guy brings the majority of the discs; is he entitled to loot that dropped in someone else's name? It was his effort, after all... I expect that these problems won't be very important, as farming these discs is pretty easy.

Minor concerns
7. According to the Eberron setting, Monk characters are an important part of the Dreaming Dark's covert strike teams. But they don't appear to have brought any into this infiltration project, even though they are toting a supply of monk-themed named loot.

7b. The are Drow Monks in the quest series, but they're unaffiliated with the Riedrans. And they're wielding daggers, which would uncenter a monk. (Hopefully there is a named Ki Dagger findable in that quest, which would explain what they're doing)

8. It's a bit odd that the Dar Quat Assassin is the highest AC standard enemy from this series. Yeah, he's CR 20 and tougher than most of them... it's just unusual for someone with a rogue-like name to be an AC tank. (Is he secretly a monk?)

9. 50% of the DDO character races are immune to sleep. But they go into the Inspiration Center...

[Angelus_dead]

Here's another important problem with the series as a whole:
They are level 18 quests, meaning they're slightly below the level 19 quests in the prior adventure pack, Shavarath. That means they contribute substantially less to gameplay.

As level 18 quests, they serve the following functions:
1. Tourism
2. XP to advance to 20th.
3. Obtain named items.

But if they were level 19, they would still fufill all those functions, and also another:
4. Something for capped characters to do when they don't have time for a raid or epic dungeon.

These missions had the potential to give variety to the capped-character experience, by broadening the number of quests they have available for top-level random loot from 6 to 11. But sadly, they give -1 loot level below existing easy quests, meaning they're out of contention for that use. I can imagine the thought process used by the devs: "Our only two level 18 quests are both raids, so we need more level 18 quests". But that's simply fallacious.

[Angelus_dead]

6. I haven't analyzed it fully, but flagging for the Mindsunderer chest is weird, and has some negative implications. Unlike other DDO places where players collect flagging items for a chance at loot, the consumption of those items isn't equally taken from everyone

So I suppose you could say that this chest "double dips" on the bias towards looting in groups.

Suppose that due to a streak of luck, it takes 3 runs of a quest to get one disc. A if a solo player wants to loot the chest, he's got to run the prequests 3 times each, 12 total, and then do Mindsunderer once. 13 quests for 1 chance at loot, or 7% of a loot-chance per quest.

But if you do it with a group of 6, then each run of a prequest produces 2 discs, so you can actually do Mindsunderer twice. 4+2 = 6 runs for 6*2 = 12 chances at loot. Even dividing by 6 to share it between the players (when realistically not everyone wants these items), that's still 16% of a loot-chance per quest.

[ArkoHighStar]

Here's another important problem with the series as a whole:
They are level 18 quests, meaning they're slightly below the level 19 quests in the prior adventure pack, Shavarath. That means they contribute substantially less to gameplay.

As level 18 quests, they serve the following functions:
1. Tourism
2. XP to advance to 20th.
3. Obtain named items.

But if they were level 19, they would still fufill all those functions, and also another:
4. Something for capped characters to do when they don't have time for a raid or epic dungeon.

These missions had the potential to give variety to the capped-character experience, by broadening the number of quests they have available for top-level random loot from 6 to 11. But sadly, they give -1 loot level below existing easy quests, meaning they're out of contention for that use. I can imagine the thought process used by the devs: "Our only two level 18 quests are both raids, so we need more level 18 quests". But that's simply fallacious.

I agree but something tells me there are more quests to come as we have weapons with a surpressed slot and no quori mindforge to put them in. My hopes are that we sould not have to wait until update 2 to see it. About the potential to waste dics, I did that very thing on my first solo run through the quest losing 2 discs. Perhaps a pedestal with a book that requires you to read it before opening the gate , and have the text explain the mechansim.

[Angelus_dead]

About the potential to waste dics, I did that very thing on my first solo run through the quest losing 2 discs. Perhaps a pedestal with a book that requires you to read it before opening the gate , and have the text explain the mechansim.

Or allow the player who placed the disc to click again and get it back.

[Angelus_dead]

Some little observations:

1. The evangelism micro quest outside is a nice touch. It could safely have the XP raised from 100 to 500, since 500 is typical for an in-dungeon optional objective, and those can even be repeated.

2. The Mindsundered building would be more convincing as a building and more repeatable for gameplay if the quest was less linear. The natural expectation is for a building to have multiple paths through it, leading to different rooms. See Cursed Crypt or Wizard King for examples of how that can be done. The key is that a "real" feeling building will mostly fill its structural volume with rooms (even if the players can only enter a minority of those rooms)

3. I'm a little concerned about having a chest that extremely close to the entrance. Remember what happened in Cavern of Korrowmar: the chest located near the start eventually had to be locked with a key hidden deeper in the quest. Probably not a big problem compared to a level 19 explorer zone chest, but something to think about.

4. Dream Stealers have Idyllic Touch, which visually looks the same as paralysis. It would be more fun if it had a different emote attached. (Like simply /sleep)

4. For anti-Quori quests in general, it could be nice if the Dreamspitter named weapon was given a specific ability to penetrate their DR, even if it doesn't otherwise defeat DR/Good.

[Angelus_dead]

I can imagine the thought process used by the devs: "Our only two level 18 quests are both raids, so we need more level 18 quests". But that's simply fallacious.

To expand on this a bit: It is normally a good idea to have a wide selection of quests at every level, and a level with few quests is a hole that needs filling.

But that doesn't apply within the "shadow of the level cap". There are a few reasons for that, such as the much higher quantity of actively-played characters at level 20 than at any of 19, 18, or 17. Characters who are in easy reach of the level cap (which in DDO means "can group with 20s without a powerlevel penalty") will have a high preference for the quests used at level cap, instead of whatever their own listed level is.

Think of what happened when the Menechetarun or Gianthold zones were introduced: both those zones had "prime quests" at equal to the current level cap, and lesser quests -1 or -2 below the cap. The prime quests were popular because capped (and near cap) characters played them repeatedly, while the lesser quests were mostly "once for favor". That started to change as the level cap moved on, and once the lesser quests were no longer within reach of the cap, they became viable choices for characters working their way up the advancement.

You could think of the level cap as being magnetic, and characters who approach there get clamped upwards.

[Angelus_dead]

I just noticed a blatant mistake in Mindsunderer:
It is a level 18 quest which drops named loot with a minimum level 18.

That is not how it's done in DDO: the loot from a quest should be usable by characters a few levels below the quest, to allow for characters who push themselves forward. For example, Tower of Despair is level 20 and allows a level 18 character to wear the rings.

Furthermore, it is easy for level 16 characters to loot Mindsunderer without help from someone higher; it's not as if they're not "earning" them as much as anyone. And also, many of the items are fairly low power, but if they were usable earlier there would be more of a window for them to be a viable choice.