New changes as of Update 3 good bad and the ugly

[smatt]

Don't you though?

The things I neg rep more than anything else are:

-Easy button responses
-This change makes it more like WoW
-Anything with the words crying and whining

It pretty much seems inevitable that all 3 phrases will be uttered as the number of pages in a thread approaches infinity, and who really gets tired of reading the same old moronic responses?

Wait, so you muct Neg rep yourself A LOT! I kid I kid....

[Uska]

I'm with you. Update 3 is largely positive. Though I'm not thrilled with how epics are done in general, I'm glad VoN is getting some treatment. New quests are great, and especially in the level 15 range where we only had one single quest before is very nice.

Arcane archer actually seems pretty decent, and even though Pale Master doesn't seem great in its current incarnation, it definitely gets cool points. Even if the implementation leaves a little.

The only thing I really don't like is tinkering with ToD, when ToD was the least popular raid since Abbot.

Pretty much agree with all of this.

[Drfirewater79]

Not even a metagame way really. Imagine being Horoth.. I smack this guy in front of me his intestines are leaking out all over the place, blood is everywhere, etc. and then BAM! he is no longer wounded.. The typical pit fiend has a 26 intelligence, a boss pit fiend has quite a bit more than that I would assume. I think he is more than smart enough to figure out that someone is healing this guy smacking on him..

Now this guy that is beating on me is doing around 1% of my health per round, so he is not a huge threat compared to guy keeping him alive.

Vordax

how about the guy who is not beating on horath or buffing the guy beating on horath or healing the guy beating on horath?

I have 6 TOD ready characters and none have boots .... i always get stuck doing trash mob clean up ... Why am i a threat to Horath?

and besides the clerics and casters are the reason horath calls the orthons ... his intelligence says while i take care of this Jimbronie attacking me I am gonna send my minions to kill off his protectors.

your argument makes sense if there was no orthons and no sully but with sully and orthons it makes no sense what so ever to mass banish.

Im loving how the original argument gets lost in people yelling "you guys just want an easy button.." Excuse me for feeling sorry for them.

+1 rep

Well im on the library comp atm, (no internet for now). I just found out about update 3 and im pretty happy overall with what they have done. Some is good some is bad, but overall we got some new PRE's, some new quests, and epic VON, those 3 things alone make update 3 a win in my eyes.

there is only 1 pre comming out so "PRE's" is false ... the one PrE that is coming out is basically useless cept for the summoning properties and lich/wrath body cause there are alomst no negitive energy spells in the game so the boost could be 1000000% and you still would see no benifit.

epic von sounds nice but really there is a very small % of players doing epics there is no pugging epic and even fully decked out uber geared multi shroud weapon and item characters are getting powned in epic quests .... dont get me wrong even i want to try them out ... but i prolly wont do any of them more then once for the favor unless i find 5 other people who are gonna be static and beat them for tokens.

best thing about the whole update is new missions and dark monk changes.

which while not bad ... its not enough good to make up for the bad. and timing of wizard pre is bad not enough spells that work with it and lots of others that are in NEED or some help and pre's could be used to balance them rather then give a useless pre to a class that generally does pretty good on there own as it is at this time.

[Vordax]

how about the guy who is not beating on horath or buffing the guy beating on horath or healing the guy beating on horath?

I have 6 TOD ready characters and none have boots .... i always get stuck doing trash mob clean up ... Why am i a threat to Horath?

and besides the clerics and casters are the reason horath calls the orthons ... his intelligence says while i take care of this Jimbronie attacking me I am gonna send my minions to kill off his protectors.

your argument makes sense if there was no orthons and no sully but with sully and orthons it makes no sense what so ever to mass banish.

Ok, how about this: Pretend that Turbine implements a feature that allows a player to assume control of Horoth, and that this player is rewarded if he defeats the PC's, what would you do if you were in control of Horoth?

Note also that Horoth's IQ (assuming an int of about 30) is higher than 99.99999999% of DDO's player base.

Vordax

[smatt]

Ok, how about this: Pretend that Turbine implements a feature that allows a player to assume control of Horoth, and that this player is rewarded if he defeats the PC's, what would you do if you were in control of Horoth?

Note also that Horoth's IQ (assuming an int of about 30) is higher than 99.99999999% of DDO's player base.

Vordax

I'd say just with this minor AI change that his IQ is already much higher than most of the DDO population

[Drfirewater79]

Ok, how about this: Pretend that Turbine implements a feature that allows a player to assume control of Horoth, and that this player is rewarded if he defeats the PC's, what would you do if you were in control of Horoth?

Note also that Horoth's IQ (assuming an int of about 30) is higher than 99.99999999% of DDO's player base.

Vordax

Not sure if you have ever played DnD pnp or not but generally the idea is that one mind (the DM) takes on many minds ( players usually 4 or more)

the idea is that more heads are better then one ... this is why in most cases DM's raise the difficulty setting higher then the DMG suggests and still get beat by players.

horoth is one monster if it was just him vs us (reaver like) his intellegence wouldnt be a factor cause many heads are intended to be brighter then the one ....

this is why reavers raid is so easy cause its one vs 12

in horoths situation he is 1 + up to 6 vs 12 ... if you had control of horoth and the orthons vs 12 others i agree you would want to take out the clerics and casters first cause they are the weakest ... but they are the weakest HP wise so casting a spell at them makes no sense for an intelligent attack strat ... you would go hit them twice they would be dead and you could now turn to focus on fighters .... sending your weaker forces (the orthons) to dispactch or at least take focus off of the battle you are having with the squads mightest of warriors.

in the case of Horoth not being controled by a direct intelligent being (as its controlled by the computer) it makes sense that they would up his AI ... that means it makes sense for him to agro on casters and healers and attempt to kill them ... one at a time like we do ... sure .... it makes sense that he would use a banisher (weapon requiring a melee hit from melee range) and attempt to either kill with dps or banish with weapon ...

Under that same premise DnD has rules for engagement for mobs.... intimidate is used to focus agro to one target as does hate (which is in DnD PnP as well its when the kobolts all attack the same barbarian cause he killed 10 of them and stop focusing on the ranger who has been picking them off from the tree)

in DDO hate is generated in many ways ... if the healer does more heals then the barbarian does damage then yes by DDO rules of engagement Horoth should turn to attack the cleric ... definatly that would be an AI change.

Making it so horoth kills people without provocation completly not clerics cause they are healing or casters for healing for that matter or DPS for hitting him ... no this also kills the guy who is standing on the other side of the room kiting sully around in a circle you know the guy ****ing himself and that is no threat to horoth at all ... or the guy who is fighting the orthons and not even looking in the same direction as horoth ... i would think the direct damage and the persons healing him make more sense for him to attack then people who are not engaged in battle with him at all ....

no matter what he shouldnt have the ability to banish people who he has no threat from.

giving him a power that banishes everyone regardless of there distance from him regardless of there threat generated and regardless of if he is intimidated (prolly only possible on normal anyway) is straight out cheating .... if a DM i played PnP with created some sort of stupid power to wipe the party every time they got into the same room as the bad guy and said death ward doesnt work .... well i wouldnt play with that DM anymore ...

its one thing to make something challenging (I like a challenge) but its stupid to make stuff up just to wipe a party cause they can beat the mob other wise.

again i wouldnt care about this change if it was made for hard and elite ... but leave normal alone ...

[Nonan]

How about a different solution...

Once you do the 4 pre reqs, you can do TOD like we normally do right now. But make an ingrediant drop (like is done for DQ raids or SOS) that would allow a player to craft a set of boots once, that would disapper or be consumed when you complete a ToD. Ingredients collected would be bound to account.

You would be able to get a permanent boot ingredient from a chest(chance) but also be guarenteed to get a temporary one when you defeat each pre quest.

Now, you wouldnt need boots to start a ToD, there would be chance of being banished but you could do the raid with out them.
Possibly make the temp boost purchasable via Turbine points but not make them crazy, just a very convenient item you could get. Something along the lines of 25 TP's per pair. That way someone who has a few characters could buy enough for 2 toons to raid ToD with their ViP points each month.

This way, farming boot ingredients has some benefit, if you dont have the permanent ingredients you have several options to get the temporary boots and players can go on and continue to do the raid.

I suggest TP's because most higher level peeps are ViP and they get TP's each month. The temporary boot idea would allow p2P players to either earn favor to participate, buy TP's from the DDO store or farm ingredients like the rest of us. This gives added benefit to your monthly subscribers, which being one would make me happy, and also creates an environment that rewards the grind but also can be have a solution for teh more casual player.

[Maegin]

It just makes the raid that much harder, and if you want something, you must work hard for it.

Farm the boots. It's hard work, but its nessicary.

If you want something that good, then you must work that much more harder for it.

This change is taking us back to the old hardcore days, where every quest didnt hold your hand, like it does now.

Find the ingredients, work hard. Its the hardest raid, so act like it. No easy button needed here.

[Kalari]

It just makes the raid that much harder, and if you want something, you must work hard for it.

Farm the boots. It's hard work, but its nessicary.

If you want something that good, then you must work that much more harder for it.

This change is taking us back to the old hardcore days, where every quest didnt hold your hand, like it does now.

Find the ingredients, work hard. Its the hardest raid, so act like it. No easy button needed here.

Only for some if your in a hardcore or large guild that regularly runs this or has the man power resources to farm ingredients this will not be an issue.

But for those who dont have that option who will have to grind for the pieces or plunk down tons of plat its going to be a choice of sure lets do this, lets try to be hardcore and risk being banished and losing out on the end chests which is many peoples reason to run this raid (if they want their sets completed). Or face the chance of not getting in this raid period.

Not everyone has raiding guilds many maybe mostly run static with family and friends or in guilds that are not really end gamed geared but like to raid and can normally get into a normal tod via pugs. They have a place in the raid outside beating on Horoth either beating on Sully or getting trash. Now they will have to hope they are lucky enough to get boots or risk not being able to run this raid for a long time till they do. I can see that as a big discouragement to many new players who are aiming at end game but are not in guilds geared for this and more casual types who can only play so much but do like to get into the occasional raid.

[smatt]

Making it so horoth kills people without provocation completly not clerics cause they are healing or casters for healing for that matter or DPS for hitting him ... no this also kills the guy who is standing on the other side of the room kiting sully around in a circle you know the guy ****ing himself and that is no threat to horoth at all ... or the guy who is fighting the orthons and not even looking in the same direction as horoth ... i would think the direct damage and the persons healing him make more sense for him to attack then people who are not engaged in battle with him at all ....

no matter what he shouldnt have the ability to banish people who he has no threat from.

giving him a power that banishes everyone regardless of there distance from him regardless of there threat generated and regardless of if he is intimidated (prolly only possible on normal anyway) is straight out cheating .... if a DM i played PnP with created some sort of stupid power to wipe the party every time they got into the same room as the bad guy and said death ward doesnt work .... well i wouldnt play with that DM anymore ...

Major snippage to quoted post....


OK, so short of creating the AI for Horoth to tell the likes of Suulo to leave that one guy over there alone that you can't seem to catch, and come over here kill these guys beating on me... Which would be a whole heck of a lot of coding.... I would think that Horoth, being the really smart guy he is would try to kill that guy over there keeping his uber powerful buddy busy........ I still haven't seen one well thought out reason for this change not to make sense from a tactical point of view. If you really want to get into plausible actions by a Monster of Horth's stature in DnD.... This is well wtihin the realms of an action he might perform.....

If I was playing a PnP game and the DM was as closed minded and singular as this game plays.... I wouldn't be playing in that group for long.... This is a video game with vast limitations... It's NOT PnP.....

[Drfirewater79]

How about a different solution...
.

If you havent noticed that type (early DQ) is what caused people not to run them ...

I am not saying it would be better if you didnt have to work for the boots at all ... but i am willing to bet boot ingredients make there way to DDO store within the first 6 months of this change when they realize no one is running aramath or TOD anymore.

I think rather then take public interest in the raid away by making boots manditory to complete the quest .. how about use the system we already have in effect ... how about you total up all the favor you can get from the area all the missions and side missions and make that the way to get boots rather then spend a year trying to craft the boots so that one of your characters can do raid.

rather then have them disappear every go which would be just as annoying and if you noticed SOS only has to be done once now because this was unpopular and made sos the least ran mission in DDO history at level.

If you had to do everything on elite OR get the ingredients this allows for more people to enjoy getting the boots ... people who want the challenge can favor grind them ... those who are ill equipt or dont want to spend the resources for elite runs can grind out ingredients on normal.

this makes casual and power gamers happy rather then eliminate the want for mediocre rings with **** craftable options (monks not included) you make it a challenge by forcing people to do missions that are hard enough on normal and complete on elite ... or force people to grind them out like you would relics in Gianthold

the ingredients shouldnt be bound to character or account so they could be sold on AH and they should definatly sell the ingredients on the DDO store maybe even sell boots and make them really expensive .. people who want them that bad will pay as long as the price of the boots is less then purchasing every ingredient.

[Drfirewater79]

It just makes the raid that much harder, and if you want something, you must work hard for it.

Farm the boots. It's hard work, but its nessicary.

If you want something that good, then you must work that much more harder for it.

This change is taking us back to the old hardcore days, where every quest didnt hold your hand, like it does now.

Find the ingredients, work hard. Its the hardest raid, so act like it. No easy button needed here.

Hard work is fine if the reward is as good as the work required to get it

If I told you hey i got a job for you to do its hard work will take you months to complete but i can only afford to give you 100$ for all the work .... would you do it?

the rings add +1 exceptional stat and craftable junk unless your a monk ... the set peices is only reason i would run it on anything but a monk and even then i would much rather have the +4 tome then the kensai ring even on my fighter.

the boots arent bound to account and the ingredients drop rate is less then devil scales and ring of storing combined.

its not about hard work its about impossible odds ...

I have been grinding those missions forever (took three weeks of grind to work on getting my reincarnate back to 17 since they came out) I still dont have a pair of boots and that is with a ton of lvl 17-20 characters. The first month that area came out i sacked every character i had weekly trying to make the boots ... when everyone else was "Oh why not just cheat it and give boots to all yoru characters" I said no i like the misssions i will just grind them out ...

No one said **** about easy button and i am really sick of that term its what people say when they cannot intelligently debate a subject they turn to ... "Oh you want an easy button" grow up people really.

no one wants it not to be challenging but there was never a time in DDO when it was littterally impossible to get flagged for raid.

and TOD will be that raid if it doesnt get addressed before launch.

[Drfirewater79]

retyped below

[Drfirewater79]

Major snippage to quoted post....


OK, so short of creating the AI for Horoth to tell the likes of Suulo to leave that one guy over there alone that you can't seem to catch, and come over here kill these guys beating on me... Which would be a whole heck of a lot of coding.... I would think that Horoth, being the really smart guy he is would try to kill that guy over there keeping his uber powerful buddy busy........ I still haven't seen one well thought out reason for this change not to make sense from a tactical point of view. If you really want to get into plausible actions by a Monster of Horth's stature in DnD.... This is well wtihin the realms of an action he might perform.....

If I was playing a PnP game and the DM was as closed minded and singular as this game plays.... I wouldn't be playing in that group for long.... This is a video game with vast limitations... It's NOT PnP.....

Your right i am not debating mob tactics but I am debating the pointlessness of the ranged banish everyone ability

we dont have a limitless mass banishment ? spells in DnD has ranges.... bosses dont get special privilage to go outside the range of spells just cause.

IF what you guys who are debating AI are saying is that he should try to banish the clerics ... your absolutely right ... they pose a threat to him by being alive and using the tanks as weapons to weild there destruction. That makes total sense

a monster using abilities that super seeds all boundries of the game because people can actually beat it on normal is stupid and gamebreaking (from the monsters side ... everyone is so quick to call out game breaking player side but then everyone defends game breaking Dev side).

if horath wants to banish me ... fine come over and get me ... he wants to banish the cleric fine ... go over and get them but a roar that effects everyone regardless of range and regardless of targeting and regardless of agro management ... that is BS anyway you look at it.

again you are all not taking into mind Agro management

INTIMIDATE

THREAT GENERATION

HATE GENERATION

these are everyday things in every quest in DDO why should TOD be any different?

I agree its silly for him to stand there wailing on the fighters while clerics are staying in a safe distance ... so fix his AI to agro on clerics when what ever critirea is met ... dont give him powers that don't exist even in a fantasy world just to screw over players ... that is just lazy programing.

[GreenGurgler]

sounds like a bunch of momma's boys that have had everything handed to them all their life wnat stuff handed to them again to me. get over it if u need easier quests run them but for some players we like a challenge. build a toon with a will save my main tank has no boots if i get banished i guess i would have to run again oh well. next thing u will want is the i cant fail a quest button. quit your crying but i guess they listen to you because nothing is difficult in this game anymore, The only time raids fail anymore is when someone doesnt listen or play their role. IMHO there should be quests out that you can fail even when you do everything right, its not like you cant run it over and over and over again till you do win, If everything is made to easy people will quit playing because there is no challenge.

BEHOLD! For your viewing pleasure, a real live TROLL!!

See him deftly manipulate the thread to fit his rant!

Hear him spew negative attacks and generalizations that were never actually made!!

Feel the power and might in his awesome sentence structure, punctuation and grammar!!!

BEHOLD THE TROLL!

<do not feed the Trolls>

[Drfirewater79]

BEHOLD! For your viewing pleasure, a real live TROLL!!

See him deftly manipulate the thread to fit his rant!

Hear him spew negative attacks and generalizations that were never actually made!!

Feel the power and might in his awesome sentence structure, punctuation and grammar!!!

BEHOLD THE TROLL!

<do not feed the Trolls>

sad thing is you dont get demerit for starting the fight but i got two for replying ... i should know better but at the same time i see a flaw in the system.

[Elrok]

I can kind of understand the requirement of boots for the whole party, after reading OP post. They make a good point that it is like a requirement to get into the Abbot. Unlike ToD, to get in the Abbot you would probably have to run the prereqs several times each to get the full Sigil. So maybe Turbine is thinking along the same lines.. running the ToD prereqs multiple times (just like Abbot prereqs) is now required.

Im OK with that, if....if the drop rate of the ingredients for the boots is increased. Running each ToD prereq 3-4 times should allow the average player to make the boots... in my opinion.

In comparison:

Demon Queen: run each prereq once to be flagged
Shroud: run each prereq once (I think), but in reality will run prereqs multiple times before you can craft first greensteel item
Dragon: run each quest once, *per raid run* (I know this is going to change, but for now)
Abbot: run each prereq multiple times to get enough sigil pieces (3-4 times each?)
VoD & Hound: no prereq (except char. level)
ToD: run each prereq many many times to get boots

Did I miss anything?

[Drfirewater79]

I can kind of understand the requirement of boots for the whole party, after reading OP post. They make a good point that it is like a requirement to get into the Abbot. Unlike ToD, to get in the Abbot you would probably have to run the prereqs several times each to get the full Sigil. So maybe Turbine is thinking along the same lines.. running the ToD prereqs multiple times (just like Abbot prereqs) is now required.

Im OK with that, if....if the drop rate of the ingredients for the boots is increased. Running each ToD prereq 3-4 times should allow the average player to make the boots... in my opinion.

In comparison:

Demon Queen: run each prereq once to be flagged
Shroud: run each prereq once (I think), but in reality will run prereqs multiple times before you can craft first greensteel item
Dragon: run each quest once, *per raid run* (I know this is going to change, but for now)
Abbot: run each prereq multiple times to get enough sigil pieces (3-4 times each?)
VoD & Hound: no prereq (except char. level)
ToD: run each prereq many many times to get boots

Did I miss anything?

Yeah Abbot was really popular with that mechanic i am sure they are hoping TOD has the same success ... .... ... yeah i was being sarcastic

you forgot reavers raid which you need to collect 20 of each type of relic but at least you got multiple per run and in outside chests.

I have 3 characters abbot ready and wont go in that raid unless someone begs me and pays me a fortune and allows me to pike and allows me to go to there house and kick them in the nuts several times and sleep with there wife.

even then i prolly wouldnt do it ....

much like TOD the items are nice but none are MUST HAVE like shroud and that is why shroud gets people running it daily in pugs and hundereds of runs a week by pretty much every guild on every server.

DQ proved successful once they dropped the stupid re-run mechanic ... so popular that they changed VOns to fit that type as well now.

Why go from something that works back to something that doesnt?

at least with the abbot everyone gets at least one ingredient every run .. and specific ones drop in different missions but boot ingredients are not like that ... there are few ingredients and they never drop i have done just last week 10 runs of gen point and helped others get flagged by doing two full runs of all the missions and out of all of that only saw one blood and no other ingredients.

if they increased the drop rate would that help?

prolly not cause they arent gonna make it so that at least two people get ingredients every run ... even if it was one ingredient per run its not enough cause people dont want to pug pre reqs in aramath. While i might have a guild that would run these missions 5 or 6 times a month for the sake of getting at least 12 people ready with boots I am betting many people require pugs for preping cause there guilds would rather grind out IQ cause its less stressfull or grind out shroud and shroud pre-reqs cause the items are more powerfull.

The raid was fine the way it was ... if they want to make hard and elite more difficult that makes sense you shouldnt beable to do elite as easily as normal and right now its pretty much the same deal give or take a couple clerics and casters and the need for heavier DPS. As much as it would mean i would never get to do hard or elite i would be totally fine if the changes where made to hard and elite and they left normal as is.

you shouldnt beable to avoid the banishment on elite without boots it makes sense ... but on normal ... all that does is make the mission harder to find groups for and makes the items not worth the grind.

[Kalari]

To add to what Drfirewater said if they had started TOD out like that this wouldnt be an issue. People would have known "hey we all need to have boots, dont worry about tactics or strategies for those who do not have any, no separating Sully or dealing with the Orthons we could have just had a massive beat down strategy from the get go.

But to change the game this late in when people have developed ways to take the raid on with booted and non booted people seems foolish. And hopefully they do have something to help towards the bad rate for boot piece drops because if they dont then this raid is going to become less popular. If there are mavericks who want to chance it without boots so be it its their cross to bare if they do this and want to risk the end chest rewards. But many who are only going into tod for the shot at the rings wont be taking such risks.

Im all for a challenge but it should have came when the raid was released or at worst put at a higher setting like hard or elite.

[Drfirewater79]

If there are mavericks who want to chance it without boots so be it its their cross to bare if they do this and want to risk the end chest rewards. But many who are only going into tod for the shot at the rings wont be taking such risks.

Im all for a challenge but it should have came when the raid was released or at worst put at a higher setting like hard or elite.

I love kalari i really do .. hope one day we get the chance to see each other in game ...

the problem with the mavericks will be the people who chance it without boots dont just risk there shot at the ring ... they risk everyones shot at the ring cause when stuff goes bad and 5 of 12 people get banished then what?

what happens then? 5 people thought awe my 30+ will save will be worth trying it on normal ... and get banished first shot ...

now 7 people have to take on the raid alone no way to get there friend back to help them with trash mobs.

My biggest problem with the change is the difficulty of getting boots is far worse then any other raid prep to date ... it doesnt take more then two three runs of each mission to get abbot ready and no one does them ... armath takes hundreds of runs and you might still not ever get a set ...

that is why i think the favor solution works at least then not everyone will be good enough to beat all the missions on elite ... but if they manage to do that then boots is a good reward for it.