Quest Feedback: The Dreaming Dark

[Tolero]

Travel to the Plane of Nightmares, home of the Dreaming Dark, to prevent the invasion of Eberron! Let us know what you think of this new quest, available in the new adventure pack Dreaming Dark - an exclusive preview for VIPs only!

[Kambuk]

So when is this going on the server then?

Kambuk

[Tolero]

So when is this going on the server then?

Kambuk

On the live servers the quests will be available for free to VIPs on December 16th, and available in the Store to buy on December 18th.

[Sirea]

On the live servers the quests will be available for free to VIPs on December 16th, and available in the Store to buy on December 18th.

Wow, that soon?

So we get...a week and a half to test and bug report this stuff and hope that it's ready for the live servers by then?

I mean, it's great that we're getting regular content updates, but with all due respect, are you sure this is enough time to properly test/debug this stuff?

[Angelus_dead]

I mean, it's great that we're getting regular content updates, but with all due respect, are you sure this is enough time to properly test/debug this stuff?

No DDO update has ever been released to player testers early enough to make a substantial change. We only ever see things when they are virtually finalized.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

On the live servers the quests will be available for free to VIPs on December 16th, and available in the Store to buy on December 18th.

Less than 2 weeks to an already set release date? Ah... so no point in testing, its already set...

[Angelus_dead]

Less than 2 weeks to an already set release date? Ah... so no point in testing, its already set...

One could hope that feedback you provide today might make it into a patch a few weeks after the thing goes live.

Plus, you can achieve "Told You So" points.

[moorewr]

Plus, you can achieve "Told You So" points.

After all, that's what we're all really playing for, right?

[Gratch]

One could hope that feedback you provide today might make it into a patch a few weeks after the thing goes live.

Plus, you can achieve "Told You So" points.

Like the level 4 loot tables the L19 solo quest uses. Hopefully they can fix that... assuming it's a bug and not just being mean.

[Junts]

One could hope that feedback you provide today might make it into a patch a few weeks after the thing goes live.

Plus, you can achieve "Told You So" points.

We should get to redeem these 50:1 for turbine points!

[Xenus_Paradox]

We should get to redeem these 50:1 for turbine points!

So almost everyone who's been playing for more than a couple months could go F2P and still have all content?

Awesome.

[Zenako]

The final quest of the new set. The Jester Gets a Quest. The fights by and large are easier enough. Once you figure out the tinting scheme on the floating stones you can figure out the jump pattern. I found the 90 Points of damage from landing back on the start garden whenever you missed a jump a bit much for wearing feather fall however. You do plumment next to a shrine so even a fatal can self res there.

The Rooftop jumps across the cityscape wear ok, but there are some places that look to be solid that are not. Or places you would think you should be able to jump to that are off limits it appears and you just slide off into space and drop to the garden to start over.

The Livewood Arena fight was a bit unclear. I spent a lot of time trying to find the alter, but it turns out you have to kill everything first before the magical gateway appears to take you beyond. The Objective list is confusing since you have already killed the 25 dream spiders, (the only other objective at that time). Perhaps something along the lines of clear the theatre so you can progress in peace should be added.

The various fights along the way, got to be annoying. Since each time it would seem that you should be done and have the alter. You just got another gateway, shrine and another round of dream mobs to kill. At least one time too many. The Falling from gravity both ways was a bit much. Unlike the Reaver, feather fall appears to be irrelevant on the way down, so you get hammered for about 90 points on the way up and another 90 on the way down. It did not appear that there was any saving throw involved. Just take damage by fiat.

When you finally get to the final battle however, I have an issue.

I was able to fairly readily handle the various mobs along the way. I did polish off a couple of the remaining mana pots from this summer, but that was largely due to first time issues. (I was also only level 17 in a level 20 quest so I have almost 300 fewer SP than the character does on live now.)

The end boss is rather unfair given the rest of the encounters. I am not sure if anyone would be able to kill them, other than perhaps a cranked up Arcane, assuming they don;t get rendered helpless too quick from WIS loss. The Regen on this guy is sick. He was taking 200 point BB, and his health bar would tick down a few %, and then pop back to full almost before he would hit the other side of the BB. He has SR of at least 35 (I know 34 was failing in the combat log i checked). He as some pretty serious DR going. While his melee and spell damage was pretty anemic, it might not matter. He did take normal Fire damage, so perhaps a cranked to the max arcane might be able to kite it thru damage, but since his movement was sporadic, and he stopped to cast spell effects at you a lot, it was hard to even get him to pass thru things like BB more than a handful of times.

I would guess that a full party with the right tools can take him down, but the problem is that the other 4 quests, and everything in this quest up to the end boss was of one challenge, and this quy is over the top. Almost akin to the Church and the Cult difference between all the lowbie mobs and mephits and the Boss Vampire. If he did not have such uber REGEN rate, then many other methods might work, but since he is also red named, that removes a ton of ther magical spells and melee options from the table, outside of basically a pure DPS beat down. I tried almost every spell in the clerics book to see if he had any vulnerabilities. I did not see any.

My 20 cents worth.....

[Dark-Star]

Very nice looking quest. Upon entering I thought that House J and the Denev Brothers had a love child.

Jumps were very managable, even for a portly dwarf with absolutely no hops.

Again the trash was far too easy, at a minumum bump their saves some. Maybe I am used to epic content, but I was expecting harder fights from a level 20 quest. Even the council was a push over.

Then came the boss...

For the first 15 minutes it was a pure stalemate - he couldn't kill me and I couldn't kill him. It was obvious that standard battle cleric tactics were not going to give me the W.

So after some experimenting, and adjusting to his attacks and special abilities, I found a strategy that worked, 15 minutes later he went down.

For a group it probably won't be a big deal, but solo this fight was pure DDO joy. On elite you better grab a Snickers cause you aren't going anywhere for a while.

The only feedback is maybe to increase the number of adds he spawns. This boss is the template you should use in beefing up the rest of the new quests, he is what we expect a level 20 quest to be, the rest were rediculously easy.

By far my favorite of all the new quests, nicely done guys.

[Coldin]

Pretty fun and doable with good tactics on my monk. I like the heavy gravity and light gravity effects, and more jumping puzzles is always good things. Plus, going into the theatre and seeing the council cower in fear at my character was pretty funny.

Only two complaints. One fight puts the dark councilors about 5 feet in the air, and they teleport from place to place. Which would be ok IF it wasn't just me on a monk with no good ranged weapon to speak of. I'm sure any caster would not have an issue, but as a melee, I just had to jump up and down to attack them. Not wholely my idea of fun, especially since the light gravity is turned off there.

Second complaint is one I saw echoed by a few other players. The end guy is HARD, way harder than anything else I faced in the entire quest series. His regen is really high that if I stopped attacking for even 30 seconds, any work I had done would be gone. I noticed his regen goes away if you're in melee with him, and he become "Vulnerable" but there is no indication of what that really means. Plus, his HP was very high, that even beating on him for several minutes, I only got him down a sliver. The quest went from being slightly challenging to downright impossible.

[Auran82]

Finally got the last guy down on my 20 sorc after about 25 store mana pots, his mana regen is pretty crazy.

Made the crystal shard of dreams, but you need 6 of them apparently to make a disc (which I assume you combine with an item from mindsunder to upgrade)

This is something that is really over the whole series, but can we please PLEASE stop with the items which are obviously crafting ingredients (they go into something labelled on the map as a crafting device after all) which do not go into a crafting bag at all? It's getting really stupid now.

[Angelus_dead]

If he did not have such uber REGEN rate, then many other methods might work

Remember that regeneration is a known problem with Dungeon Scaling. Monsters with self-healing don't get weakened to the correct extent when you have a small party.

[hydra_ex]

Has anyone tested his DR type yet? I'd assume its crystal. Can anyone confirm?

[Zenako]

Has anyone tested his DR type yet? I'd assume its crystal. Can anyone confirm?

That would be the assumption, since there is text and dialog about glass weapons.

So perhaps muckbane for the win?

[Angelus_dead]

That would be the assumption, since there is text and dialog about glass weapons.

It was previously noticed that some of the monsters in Path of Inspiration have DR 10/Good or Crystal.

So perhaps muckbane for the win?

Ironically, I just auctioned my Muckbane yesterday and can't check. To test this, you'd just look at the item window and see if it has "Crystal" added to the damage type list. The Terror greatsword has this, but Muckbane didn't used to. It might have changed in the patch. EDIT: It did change, so Muckbane now has Crystal damage.

It seems likely that a monster with DR/Crystal will expose mistakes in the creation of older DDO items. All of the following weapons are made from either glass or crystal, but I suspect that most of them won't penetrate DR/Crystal. After the item name I'll list the quest it's from and then the hardness material type. If the item is confirmed to now do Crystal damage I'll add ***.

Terror - Mindsunder - Glass ***
Madstone Shield - Reaver - Gem ***
Muckbane - Durks - Glass ***
Muckdoom - Pit - Glass
Screaming Amethyst - Threnal - None
Obsidian Dagger - Deleras - Stone
Shrieking Star - Slavers - Glass
Snowstar - Sorrowdusk - Steel

I'll also point out that it seems unfair to have no finesse crystal weapon available yet; hopefully that is an illusion caused by an easily-available new item not being discovered yet.

[Karters]

as some other ppl have said, i liked the light and heavy gravity. i didnt like the 1 fight where the mobs were floating, for group it probably wont b a problem but not being able to melee them really sucks.

the end boss wasnt really that hard, def alot harder then the rest of the quests. but after bout 15 mins me (on my poorly equipped 17 healing clr) and a poorly equipped 19 pally were able to take him down. took bout 80 heal scrolls to do it. he does have a pattern to his attacks, i didnt notice it but the pally was able to tell when the boss was bout to do something.

1st time through for a group is going to b hard but the groups should b able to figure out a strategy that works well and take him down.