New changes as of Update 3 good bad and the ugly

[Drfirewater79]

Alot is being done in update 3

not all of it makes any sense and some of it is down right stupid ... but alot of good too

I think prolly more good then bad really but a few things i think should be changed back before update 3 goes live.


1) with all the "OTHER" reincarnations comming out still neither of them allows you to change your alignment ... *** ... why wouldnt greater reincarnation allow you to respec your alignment? .... Tolero (let me say right now she can do no wrong in my book) said you guys would be throwing in a way to respec without TR'ing but neither of the new reincarnations allows the most important respec option .. alignment.

personally i think its stupid that alignment changes arent available without reincarnation in Pen and Paper its easy to change your alignment and sometimes its done for you by the DM .... why is it impossible in DDO?

2) Among all the hireling changes that are up there i see nothing that will make a cleric hierling actually heal people when you ask them too same goes for sorc/wiz heirlings .... on my warforged barb i have to run away from him and then move close just to get him to heal me cause while it says he has reconstruct he doesnt actually have it on his bar. Clerics too i am glad they wont be getting into fights when you tell them to protect the target (like in sharn quests) but often you tell them to heal someone and it takes them 10 mins to realize they need to do it NOW!! it would be nice if the control panel for hierlings matched that of the players control pannel so that if the person is in range THEY ACTUALLY DO THE COMMAND IN REAL TIME.

3) This one isnt really a rant but a bit of confusion Monks now recieve there first tier of elemental stances for free ... that means that regardless of str dex wis or con you will have option for the first tier of all the elements? this is interesting .... but where my confusious sets in is are the finishing moves still able to work with tier one effects so a character with no str can still use the burning hands special attack from tier one fire stance? and will the first tier of special attacks (storm strike I and so on) be available to all monks regardless of what stance they are actually standing in? if so this opens up much more to monks and that is great but if not .... it would be nice to know.

4) Dragon mark of passage now takes you to meridia ... great ... no really its nice ... but why the hell cant we teleport to amarath or reavers refuge ... i mean its not even a greater tp option ... you cant even GT to marketplace .... of all the things to fix ... a dragon mark over the real spell issues is kinda silly ... but i am happy for all you people who feel that the difficulty of the game allows you to waste three feats so you can get to meridia easier.

5) I am confused again with a monk issue ... path of inevitable dominion gets 5 new attacks but path of light still has only one? while i like the idea of more damage per hit when its used especially since monks are generally useless cept for spot heals from time to time cause no one seems to want to take more then one on raids as is cause the dps is far too low currently ... but why are you totally ignoring the light path?

perhaps because when you launch the PRE's (of which monk is by far the most in need of yet seems to constatly be pushed back so that other classes which already are powerfull get more power) you plan to launch a full monk pack with new attacks and what not ... I hope this is the case cause i am sick of the hate really. Yesterday had to practically beg to get a monk in on TOD.

6) TOD changes ..... you guys at turbine dont like people doing the missions do you?
You take the area where the missions are stupid hard on normal for the average player (yes average players wipe on sins on normal and bastion of power all the time ... pretty much every pug i have been in in the last two months has wiped and lost people ON FREAKING NORMAL) its near impossible to get the items required to make the boots cause they drop so rarely and often people dont know how to get the special chests that they drop in ... and now you want to make it so that the few people who couldnt get in on the battle and had to be pushed back to orthon duty get screwed out of the end chest now too.

Honestly $^#* you .... do you have any clue how hard it is to get characters preped for quests that people hate? especially as a monk ...you know the class that needs the rings more then any other class .. yeah ... now your gonna make us have to run them more then once to get through the raid ? sorry i guess its my fault for not using the exploit to get 11 pairs of the stupid boots before you guys fixed your programing next time i will learn my lesson and just ransak all exploits before you guys have the chance to screw me out of what ever fun i might have with the loot i get from it.

perma ban me and you'd be doing me a favor cause my stress level with a game that is suppost to be where i go to relieve my stress will be gone.

I think you should turn back the clock and remove the need for the boots all together if you ask me .. but banishing people who arent even on the threat meter is a new level of stupid unless you plan to make the boots easier to farm like perhaps make all the ingredients drop in all the chests rather then just special end chests and increase there drop rate.

Why is it that you guys go out of your way to make people not want to raid?

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I just pray that one day you will listen to people who are not hardcore elitest BS forum posters and actually see what people think about the game on the gamefloor itself cause you guys make me sick on the best of days .. .and if there was another real time action MMORPG on the market its very possible i wouldn't play this at all.

cant blame atari for everything.

[Visty]

5) I am confused again with a monk issue ... path of inevitable dominion gets 5 new attacks but path of light still has only one? while i like the idea of more damage per hit when its used especially since monks are generally useless cept for spot heals from time to time cause no one seems to want to take more then one on raids as is cause the dps is far too low currently ... but why are you totally ignoring the light path?

dark has 5 attacks, light has 1 attack and 4 buffs

is balanced

dark<>light
debuffing<>buffing

you know

[7-day_Trial_Monkey]

6) TOD changes ..... you guys at turbine dont like people doing the missions do you?
You take the area where the missions are stupid hard on normal for the average player (yes average players wipe on sins on normal and bastion of power all the time ... pretty much every pug i have been in in the last two months has wiped and lost people ON FREAKING NORMAL) its near impossible to get the items required to make the boots cause they drop so rarely and often people dont know how to get the special chests that they drop in ... and now you want to make it so that the few people who couldnt get in on the battle and had to be pushed back to orthon duty get screwed out of the end chest now too.

Then run those quests on casual instead of normal to farm for ingredients.

[Drfirewater79]

Then run those quests on casual instead of normal to farm for ingredients.

that reply makes no sence they said lower chests which mean lower drop rates which means the already hard to grind out ingredients become stupid hard to grind out .... unless the missions are soloable by a non healing low dps character monks are still gonna be screwed the hardest by this change.

and ransak means that it could take months before any of my characters can get the boots especially since the areas been out for months and i still dont have even one pair of boots on 6 lvl 17+ characters 3 of which are lvl 20's

[Kawiki]

I have a lot of comments about the release notes but for now I'll control myself to just commenting on ToD.

The change is completely and utterly moronic.

Why would any cleric or FvS even bother with the raid? They either have no PREs or there are not even rings for them. NOW they have to actually get boots?!!??!

Seriously?

The entire Raid and sets need a complete overhaul.

COME ON TURBINE GET A F'ING CLUE.

P.S. I don't even have a Cleric or a FvS.

[Horrorscope]

2) Among all the hireling changes that are up there i see nothing that will make a cleric hierling actually heal people when you ask them too same goes for sorc/wiz heirlings .... on my warforged barb i have to run away from him and then move close just to get him to heal me cause while it says he has reconstruct he doesnt actually have it on his bar. Clerics too i am glad they wont be getting into fights when you tell them to protect the target (like in sharn quests) but often you tell them to heal someone and it takes them 10 mins to realize they need to do it NOW!! it would be nice if the control panel for hierlings matched that of the players control pannel so that if the person is in range THEY ACTUALLY DO THE COMMAND IN REAL TIME.

I've put in a bug report around this. They react much better when you put them in passive mode, but that is not easy to do in the heat of battle. It's Passive - Spell - Defend. On top of that another bug was report and that is (does this happen on your end?) the hotkeys for Passive and Interact do not work. So I have to take my eye off the screen to do Passive - Spell - Defend with mouse clicks instead. However there are a handful of things for hirelings in this patch and perhaps they are being addressed since there are many hireling changes.

[Drfirewater79]

I've put in a bug report around this. They react much better when you put them in passive mode, but that is not easy to do in the heat of battle. It's Passive - Spell - Defend. On top of that another bug was report and that is (does this happen on your end?) the hotkeys for Passive and Interact do not work. So I have to take my eye off the screen to do Passive - Spell - Defend with mouse clicks instead. However there are a handful of things for hirelings in this patch and perhaps they are being addressed since there are many hireling changes.

yeah i find passive puts them in a state where they dont do anything not heal or attack which is just as pointless as the agressive ... an agressive healer heals more agressivly an agressive caster uses his spells on a more frequent basis

this is my problem is that DDO isnt so cut and dry .... heirlings are not able to fullfil there role with the current set up at all ..... instead of passive agressive they should have heal focus and crowd control focus and attack focus

this way you can set a cleric to be heal focused and he will do nothing but heal
you can set a caster to be heal focused and he will actually heal the warforged

or set them to be crowd control and watch the cleric use sound burst and command more often ... or the caster use web and electric loop or hold person

but more then anything they should have spell lists that we can edit and multiple hot bars they have the clickie to go to next hot bar but it doesnt go up

so that is untapped potential ... if they made hierlings real time and used the hotbar scroller for more spell options then they might actually be more usefull then a 100 healing pots.

[Bradik_Losdar]

4) Dragon mark of passage now takes you to meridia ... great ... no really its nice ... but why the hell cant we teleport to amarath or reavers refuge ... i mean its not even a greater tp option ... you cant even GT to marketplace .... of all the things to fix ... a dragon mark over the real spell issues is kinda silly ... but i am happy for all you people who feel that the difficulty of the game allows you to waste three feats so you can get to meridia easier.

This is what they need to do to really address an ongoing, and with new content being added, ever growing problem: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...light=teleport

[Drfirewater79]

This is what they need to do to really address an ongoing, and with new content being added, ever growing problem: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...light=teleport

yeah i know no matter how much we ask they just screw something else up and ignore the problems that already exist.

[Inkblack]

The drop rate on the boot ingredients better increase significantly. I still think it would be great if some of the <choose your noun> that make these changes would actually play the game, and see how freaking ridiculous it can be to get a pair of boots. I've never even seen the blood in a chest, much less with my name on it. When you can just load the ingredients, it makes it a lot easier though, right devs?

[Trilby]

The ToD change is beyond frustrating. I don't want to farm ingredients for 8 more toons. I don't want to go into a raid where more than half the people in it won't have them. It's sometimes difficult to put a group together with enough tanks with boots as it is.

Guess I won't be running ToD anymore when the update goes live.

[muffinlad]

First- There does seem to be some good stuff here. It looks like hirlings are getting some love, which they needed, and so are summoned creatures, which they needed too.

Casual Play- I look at this as a bonus. We have a huge group of new players that have been hitting level 16+ I continue to see flair ups and break downs in some raids as often times these players are so "new" they really don't understand the same level of general strategy that more experienced others do (and....sometimes they do just fine.) While Casual Play won't change raids, it will let you help the newer player learn how the quest works with less stress, and hopefully more fun.

Changes to TOD. - I have never been a fan of the raid, and will normally only do it, or the flagging quests with people who I know, or guildies. To this end, ever ingreedent I have pulled, 9 in total of various different types, have been given away to Tanks. I don't selll them, I make sure people who need them get them.

Now, I have been lucky to have done the quests so infrequently, and yet pull that many. I have been on runs with people who have done 2x as many as I, and pulled only one or two. With this kind of requirement, you are going to impact the playing decisions on MANY of your players who have been enjoying the additional difficulty that TOD presents, with a chance of reward at the end nearly equal to the effort (higher in some sets, less in others).

To toss in an "Opera" ability, where our giant fat-lady sings a lulaby of "exit, stage left" to everyone in the quest seems like someone looked at the stats for the groups forming to do the flagging quest and found that the Amarath Content has been rather ignored by most folks post VOD flag. Naturally, you can toss in a general "unfairness" opus regarding the fact that only Tanks need to get the boots as well.

However, requiring most people to now run the flagging quests again is not going to do more than show a temporary upswing in usage, and it is going to be small at that, as many folks will either "chance it", or ignore VOD entirely.

What you have done, in a less direct way, is implement the same mechanic that was used for the Abbot, except we don't have a seperate carrying case for the boots, and rather than letting us IN the quest, it lets us stay there for the end reward.

You need to remedy this not with a casual setting ,but a higher drop rate for ingrediants. Make it so that with some, MODEST, effort, anyone who wants to get the boots can get them.

Look forward to more updates, and thank you for all the work you do.

muffinplayer

[Nott]

<choose your noun>

Is it ok if my chosen noun is also a verb, adverb, and adjective depending on context?

[Horrorscope]

yeah i find passive puts them in a state where they dont do anything not heal or attack which is just as pointless as the agressive ... an agressive healer heals more agressivly an agressive caster uses his spells on a more frequent basis

this is my problem is that DDO isnt so cut and dry .... heirlings are not able to fullfil there role with the current set up at all ..... instead of passive agressive they should have heal focus and crowd control focus and attack focus

this way you can set a cleric to be heal focused and he will do nothing but heal
you can set a caster to be heal focused and he will actually heal the warforged

or set them to be crowd control and watch the cleric use sound burst and command more often ... or the caster use web and electric loop or hold person

but more then anything they should have spell lists that we can edit and multiple hot bars they have the clickie to go to next hot bar but it doesnt go up

so that is untapped potential ... if they made hierlings real time and used the hotbar scroller for more spell options then they might actually be more usefull then a 100 healing pots.

Yes, I'm still excited that they are working on improving them. I play the game a few different ways, and in one particular way Hirelings play a large role. There is definite room for improvement and they know it. The good thing is, even with their flaws they aren't totally useless.

[dasein18]

OP on your point about ToD & Amarath.. the sad truth is my cleric & FvS can solo Sins and New Invasion. I am working on learning to solo Bastion.. it so much easier to solo those quests then to run with most groups.. that I stopped doing them in groups with my healer types.

The truth.. and this makes sense in a game that is supposed to be designed for group play how? Riddle me that one Turbine. Yes.. other posters that will go below me... I understand the why of the game mechanics.. but from an overall game philosphy it is a failure of the nature of a multiplayer game.

[Kalari]

OP I dont know if you put me in that elitist vet nonsense but I do agree with your posts. I am especially worried about TOD, wont lie its not really my favorite raid I can think of only one character I really care to get anything out of there for (my ranger) and she currently does not have boots made yet since even though I run Amrath plenty I just havent been lucky. I may buy her the ingredients i may not even bother. I tend to play more supportive types in there anyway ones who normally do not need boots, now I'll have to consider getting them for my healers bards and casters its just making this raid more and more unappealing to me.

And I get what your saying about monks my guild sees their benefit especially in TOD their mountain stance and buff helps with Horoths stun we normally have our monks hit the tanks on Horoth with that grasp of the earth dragon and it rocks. But many dont understand what monks can bring and without them giving the class more incentive they will continued to be the victims of bias and its not right.

I said my piece on casual I know how I feel wont change but I also know that keeping all the players happy makes money so not going to rant on it no more just know that many people will be drawing more lines and keeping to those they know can handle things. I dont like the new path this game is taking with that, we already have the haves/have nots, casual/powergammer now it will be "casual (easy)" types vs everyone else. I just wonder sometimes the thought process behind much of this.

[Kalari]

OP on your point about ToD & Amarath.. the sad truth is my cleric & FvS can solo Sins and New Invasion. I am working on learning to solo Bastion.. it so much easier to solo those quests then to run with most groups.. that I stopped doing them in groups with my healer types.

The truth.. and this makes sense in a game that is supposed to be designed for group play how? Riddle me that one Turbine. Yes.. other posters that will go below me... I understand the why of the game mechanics.. but from an overall game philosphy it is a failure of the nature of a multiplayer game.

Because they wanted the game to stand out as Dungeons and Dragons normally does. sure you could solo in a pen and paper game but where the heck is the fun in that? The spirit of DnD has been you go in with your group, you have your healer, your fighter, your caster, your rogue and maybe another type and the comraderie from that. Thats what I immediately jumped on when I saw this game for sale I had to move away from my old home where I had routine weekend dnd sessions with real people enjoying quests together. So when I saw an mmo that encouraged this even being shy and leery of meeting new players I jumped at it and did not regret it. Meeting new people was a boon ive made many friends because of it and enjoy questing with them. I think it was a stroke of genius to make a social game where you got better rewards from actually being social and grouping then being on your own.

But now because of complaints and many ruder players coming in due to it being free the social aspect does seem to be faulty. I guess thats why they are turning things around to make it more solable but man is this game losing the values it used to have (my opinion of course) its now becoming more about separation and soloing then grouping and comrade and thats sad.

[spifflove]

Honestly $^#* you ....

perma ban me and you'd be doing me a favor cause my stress level with a game that is suppost to be where i go to relieve my stress will be gone.

dude this is a game. Its not real life. Maybe you should take a step back.

[Dark_Helmet]

Casual Play- I look at this as a bonus. We have a huge group of new players that have been hitting level 16+ I continue to see flair ups and break downs in some raids as often times these players are so "new" they really don't understand the same level of general strategy that more experienced others do (and....sometimes they do just fine.) While Casual Play won't change raids, it will let you help the newer player learn how the quest works with less stress, and hopefully more fun.

Changes to TOD. - I have never been a fan of the raid, and will normally only do it, or the flagging quests with people who I know, or guildies. To this end, ever ingreedent I have pulled, 9 in total of various different types, have been given away to Tanks.

What you have done, in a less direct way, is implement the same mechanic that was used for the Abbot, except we don't have a seperate carrying case for the boots, and rather than letting us IN the quest, it lets us stay there for the end reward.

Isn't freakin' Dungeon scaling already Casual Play? I can solo Whisperdoom on a level 10 pure fighter and I am lousy as a soloist (I don't do perfect, twinked builds)! Someone complained about it, so I did with only Tourney armor, the Cape/Trinket, house P buffs, cure/neutr poison/acid res pots, and 2 +3 Kophesh of pure good. Now, you get these people who have run in smaller groups into groups/raids and they die like crazy since they never ran against the real monsters/traps. They want to make it easier? Wow....

I already don't run ToD due to some of the Prima Donna groups, but now I know I won't be running it. I ran the quests on 10 guys and never got enough to make one set of boots.

[Slorgs]

You need to remedy this not with a casual setting ,but a higher drop rate for ingrediants. Make it so that with some, MODEST, effort, anyone who wants to get the boots can get them.

SOme of us have ruin these quests 50 times and only seen 1 boot ingredient, evern if they increease the drop rate, I don't want to run them 50 more times or more per toon for the loot. The rings aren't even that great in most cases.