Making Epic Dungeons

[phorking]

instead of making epic quests way more difficult, why not try leaving it at elite difficulty and turning off character safety protocols for player to player damage during quests.

I have ran epic and noticed that good old firewall and running in circles is the best way to go. Seems kind of cheap for that to work. But if that same firewall was damaging other players that would lead to a whole new level of play. Don't you think?

[Jiipster]

I just don't see a jaberwocky being very afraid of a 4E vorpal blade

Clearly, you've never seen one in the hands of an Astral Weapon/Demigod... (infinite damage loops are FUN!)

[sirgog]

instead of making epic quests way more difficult, why not try leaving it at elite difficulty and turning off character safety protocols for player to player damage during quests.

I have ran epic and noticed that good old firewall and running in circles is the best way to go. Seems kind of cheap for that to work. But if that same firewall was damaging other players that would lead to a whole new level of play. Don't you think?

I find Firewall kiting a weak strategy in Epics. Far better is to have the melees engage a pack of foes, build some threat, and *then* you drop the Firewall.

There's not enough shrines to rely solely on Firewall for damage, particularly when several foes are immune, and many have resistances that trivialise a non-crit Firewall.

If you did this, no group would even *consider* taking an arcane caster on epics (whereas now they are a reasonable use of a party slot).

[Angelus_dead]

The problem I am seeing so far with the epic quests is that it seems no-one really runs chains of flame on epic, simply because there aren't really any decent shards in there to strive for and the quest is somewhat longer and more difficult than the other 2 flagging quests and the raid.

If Epic quests had a good level of difficulty (for example, meaning that the trash mobs were no stronger than those in Tower elite), then the Shards wouldn't matter for getting people to run Chains of Flame: they'd do it just for Epic tokens.

[sephiroth1084]

Clearly, you've never seen one in the hands of an Astral Weapon/Demigod... (infinite damage loops are FUN!)

Cheese has little to do with the weapon itself. And it still wouldn't go "snickerty-snack."

instead of making epic quests way more difficult, why not try leaving it at elite difficulty and turning off character safety protocols for player to player damage during quests.

I have ran epic and noticed that good old firewall and running in circles is the best way to go. Seems kind of cheap for that to work. But if that same firewall was damaging other players that would lead to a whole new level of play. Don't you think?

So...you want to give casters an even harder time? I've seen this proposal from time to time in regards to different topics, and it hasn't ever seemed a reasonable idea--friendly fire just will not work with the game in its current state. Silly FW tactics may fly in the face of immersion and sense, but this is no way to go about rectifying that.

[Chaosprism]

Taking the old map and changing the creatures, making a trap work differently etc, all that's great.

The old troglodytes get and old grey garl is an example of a reused map storyline wise.



As for friendly fire, you'd also have swinging axes into friends.. but then for balance you'd have to make enemies also suffer the same, and i'm sure the AI will have a real fun time

[Rekker]

Basically we had gotten a lot of requests to change the Vault of Night dragon raid so that you didn't have to reflag for it every single time. It was a real undertaking. But since Torc and Purplefooz had to crack those quests open to start fiddling with Epic versions anyway, they took the liberty of setting it up so that you only need to flag for it once on any difficulty, not just epic.

As I understand it, they've informed me that you will also be able to do the quests out of order, rather than HAVING to do von 1 then 2 then 3 then 4 in that exact order.

I don't know why this quest was never converted to work the same way as DQ works ???

Merek asks you for 4 items, you turn them in, when he gets all 4 he says you can head to Von 5 just how Zwabi keeps track of what 3 items you turned in.

Von1 - return the Axe. Upon completion everyone would receive a token that looked like the axe.
Von2 - return the silver mirror.
Von3 - return the Maruts head or some other item.
Von4 - return the Lightning rod same token idea as for Von1.

[moorewr]

I don't know why this quest was never converted to work the same way as DQ works ???

Merek asks you for 4 items, you turn them in, when he gets all 4 he says you can head to Von 5 just how Zwabi keeps track of what 3 items you turned in.

Von1 - return the Axe. Upon completion everyone would receive a token that looked like the axe.
Von2 - return the silver mirror.
Von3 - return the Maruts head or some other item.
Von4 - return the Lightning rod same token idea as for Von1.

You do realize you are responding to a post where she says it is being converted to work like DQ?

[Junts]

I find Firewall kiting a weak strategy in Epics. Far better is to have the melees engage a pack of foes, build some threat, and *then* you drop the Firewall.

There's not enough shrines to rely solely on Firewall for damage, particularly when several foes are immune, and many have resistances that trivialise a non-crit Firewall.

If you did this, no group would even *consider* taking an arcane caster on epics (whereas now they are a reasonable use of a party slot).

Which epics exactly are you talking about? Crit firewalls are the fastest way to reduce dungeon alert in OOB (cast from a variety of safe locations that cause the mobs to stand dead still for melee poundage once the caster does get aggro) and by far the best way to kill everything in Raiyum thats not Raiyum .. if your melees are slowing down to kill anything in Raiyum, you're running the quest wrong

I'll give you FW is less effective in chains and dq1, but yet .. oddly those quests are run 5 times less often for some reason!

There's a reason 2 man groups of casters are doing wizking in an hour and most groups of 6 can't do it that fast. Everyone else is irrelevant until you get to Raiyum.

[sephiroth1084]

Which epics exactly are you talking about? Crit firewalls are the fastest way to reduce dungeon alert in OOB (cast from a variety of safe locations that cause the mobs to stand dead still for melee poundage once the caster does get aggro) and by far the best way to kill everything in Raiyum thats not Raiyum .. if your melees are slowing down to kill anything in Raiyum, you're running the quest wrong

I'll give you FW is less effective in chains and dq1, but yet .. oddly those quests are run 5 times less often for some reason!

There's a reason 2 man groups of casters are doing wizking in an hour and most groups of 6 can't do it that fast. Everyone else is irrelevant until you get to Raiyum.

How are casters taking Raiyum, himself, down?

[Junts]

How are casters taking Raiyum, himself, down?

Usually one pulls Raiyum down and starts the 25 minute acid fog party while the other does the remaining tower(s) before helping finish off whatever remains.

Especially since they changed the sarcophagi, pulling Raiyum down the tower's by far the best way to fight him with anything short of a great dps group.

[maddmatt70]

Basically we had gotten a lot of requests to change the Vault of Night dragon raid so that you didn't have to reflag for it every single time. It was a real undertaking. But since Torc and Purplefooz had to crack those quests open to start fiddling with Epic versions anyway, they took the liberty of setting it up so that you only need to flag for it once on any difficulty, not just epic.

As I understand it, they've informed me that you will also be able to do the quests out of order, rather than HAVING to do von 1 then 2 then 3 then 4 in that exact order.

Are Torc and Purplefooz new staff? If so that is exiting to see Turbine staffing up the DDO staff or perhaps allocating resources from LOTRO to DDO.

[Borror0]

Are Torc and Purplefooz new staff?

Torc has been around since November 2006. PurpleFooz has been around since October 2008.

With that said, I know Turbine has hired a new system designer for DDO in October, is currently hiring QA staff for DDO and is currently looking for a large number of programmers for DDO. Though, the last one is probably looking for replacements for the more experienced staff moved to work on an unannounced project.

[Jefro]

I am wondering how they going to change the entrance of von 5 to not be reentered I would love epic tempest spine but then again if they put a barrier up it be bad if blown off

[Turial]

I am wondering how they going to change the entrance of von 5 to not be reentered I would love epic tempest spine but then again if they put a barrier up it be bad if blown off

Put a bubble around the elevator shaft I would guess.

[sirgog]

I am wondering how they going to change the entrance of von 5 to not be reentered I would love epic tempest spine but then again if they put a barrier up it be bad if blown off

Probably they'll do what was done to Stealer of Souls - add an entire extra entry room.

The other option - and it would be an interesting one - would be to assume that we have access to full mana for every single fight, and design the fights with that in mind (sorta like the end fight of Running with the Devils assumes you have full mana when you attempt it, as there is a shrine right near it; think that but Epic difficulty rather than a reasonably easy quest)

[maddmatt70]

Which epics exactly are you talking about? Crit firewalls are the fastest way to reduce dungeon alert in OOB (cast from a variety of safe locations that cause the mobs to stand dead still for melee poundage once the caster does get aggro) and by far the best way to kill everything in Raiyum thats not Raiyum .. if your melees are slowing down to kill anything in Raiyum, you're running the quest wrong

I'll give you FW is less effective in chains and dq1, but yet .. oddly those quests are run 5 times less often for some reason!

There's a reason 2 man groups of casters are doing wizking in an hour and most groups of 6 can't do it that fast. Everyone else is irrelevant until you get to Raiyum.

I agree with you about casters doing the work in Raiyum and the firewall OOb strategy is one way to do it although my preference is more of a melee focused one because its slightly faster that way. Dq1 is my preference for the non raid quests though unless I am trying to accumalate tokens (then OOB) because of where the seal, shards, scrolls drop. Dq1 can be completed faster then Raiyum though it requires a heavy dps group 2 high dps melee, 1 caster, 1 cleric, 1 bard, and 1 more high dps melee or 1 more caster.

[Blazer]

...in OOB (cast from a variety of safe locations that cause the mobs to stand dead still for melee poundage once the caster does get aggro)...

Perhaps I'm being a bit hypersensitive to these sorts of things, but doesn't this seem very cheesy and/or could be construed as an exploit?

[Angelus_dead]

Perhaps I'm being a bit hypersensitive to these sorts of things, but doesn't this seem very cheesy and/or could be construed as an exploit?

It certainly could be viewed that way... and even if you aren't getting into whether the players should be doing things like this, it is clearly a mistake by the developers to have produced content where playing it in that style is so superior to the alternatives. It's not supposed to be a game about perching.

Although it will be difficult for them to change it and we can sympathize with the problems they have making game mechanics work, this kind of thing isn't something they can act proud of.

[maddmatt70]

It certainly could be viewed that way... and even if you aren't getting into whether the players should be doing things like this, it is clearly a mistake by the developers to have produced content where playing it in that style is so superior to the alternatives. It's not supposed to be a game about perching.

Although it will be difficult for them to change it and we can sympathize with the problems they have making game mechanics work, this kind of thing isn't something they can act proud of.

Not superior because it takes longer to get your loot, but I agree perch points are something devs should fix.