Difficulty settings for F2P/Premium/VIP

[Corstaad]

This keeps popping up as a problem for just about every group I been in since I've started. Its a grind just to access elite settings for a full group. Guild groups start running smaller groups and pugs will zerg which is a problem in this game. Already its impossible to experience every quest without questing over quest level and this will get worse with every new Dungeon thats released. I know we just had hard level changed and everyone so far has loved it. The next step is across the board difficulty settings. Thanks and I'm looking forward to negative rep for once again asking for change.

[MrLarone]

i actually dislike that everyone feels the need to run everything on elite.

f2p:

usually it ends in he group wiping cos no one actually knows the quest and zerg's right on though.

which costs time and plat to repair. not to mention and resources such as pots and scrolls you may have used. maybe i'm stingy...

but i can't help but feel that had peeps gone though on lower norm and hard they'd be more prepared.

premium:

same as above but without the issue of playing quest above their lvl. you've probably bought a few packs anyway and planning to play the game with more then a few toons. enjoy that each journey to 20 will be slightly different.

vip:

i believe you guys already got automatic entry to hard so...

and at the end of the day XP is XP

[Halo_572]

The main reason I play solo is I got sick of people not wanting to do normal/hard in groups. They would come in when it was quite clearly posted as n/h and ask if it was elite. On one WW chain someone actually hijacked the hard run and started the next quest as elite. I just left. Why couldn't they create their own elite run?

MrLarone is totally right, most people don't know how to play elite and treat it just like an extenison of hard. Read this - http://my.ddo.com/halo_572/category/how-not-to-play/ - as it is the end of when I played in groups. Freshen the air is still only a marketplace quest irrespective of if it is on elite. After this I have mostly solo'd.

Try getting a party to do Kobold Assault on n/h and it is near impossible. Last time I tried 2 of us waited 20 minutes for no-one else to join. Kobold hard is and I have never even attempted elite yet.

If you want to access hard first then you get that as a VIP, if not then you will have to 'grind' to get to it, just as you have to 'grind' to get to 20th level. That or you sit back and stop rushing and enjoy the game for what it has to offer.

Alternatively just post a group find as 'not played this before, want elite opener' and enjoy dying.

[MrLarone]

though this is an issue i certainly wouldn't give up on pugging.

this will only happen 1 in 20 quest (i'm on cannith and GMT times) runs and more often than not if i actually vocalise that:

"hey guys, we only just formed this group and really not too sure of our capabilities yet, can we run hard at least"

or

"if you look at the quest it's a lvl 6 and we're 4,5,4,6,5,6 - doing elite is going to ramp it up to lvl8!"

someone else usually backs me up and the group sees sense. we go in get a taste of the quest and our group then either decide we can go elite or thank our stars and move on to another quest.

if you communicate with the group i find the group does better and actually runs more quests together before disbanding.

[Corstaad]

Thanks for the replies it just seems people are getting better at the lower level questsand its becoming a grind to get to elite. I pug late night when guild numbers are down on other servers and even the "nubbins" our grinding hard to get to elite. To be honest I dont know about the xp thing because you cant stay within level and do all the normal hard elite dungeons. Even if you your after xp there is nothing restricting you from running normal hard elite.

[Mylon]

For most low level quests, normal is a joke and hard is still not very difficult. Assuming openers were available, it would be easy to run all of the quests on elite up to about the level 6 quests and end up doing most of them over-level.

[warbreaker]

I agree with last poster, only 3 quests in the harbor that I can not solo on elite (with no hirelings) using lvl apropriate gear (ie, +2 +3 items for a lvl 4-5.. Kobold assault, that thingie with not killing kobold prohpets and protect the box quest, all others I can solo with a lvl 4-5 Paladin, 28 pt build, no uber items.. But when you get to the market, its a rude awakening indeed imho, wich is gooooood..


Wish tho that you could skip normal alltogeather, because frankly, its way to easy on the early lvls, and early lvl content there is ALOT of, and I do want to go throu it with the apropriate level, but its hard to do.

They should add an item that you can pay for with DDO store points, that gives you the option to skip playing on normal or hard, (silver and gold coin or somehting) with 2 tiers of it.

[ApesAmongUs]

i actually dislike that everyone feels the need to run everything on elite.

Get them to remove access to bank/inventory slots, collapsible portable holes, and dennith arrows from the favor mechanics and I would never touch elite again. I'd stop re-running 99% of quests immediately. People feel the need to run everything on elite, because elite increases favor rewards by 50-100% over hard and favor is valuable and the rewards come late in the characters life even if you do run everything on elite - without elite, most things would come so late as to be effectively useless - or at the very least come 10 levels of inventory management hell later than is pleasant.

Try getting a party to do Kobold Assault on n/h and it is near impossible. Last time I tried 2 of us waited 20 minutes for no-one else to join. Kobold hard is and I have never even attempted elite yet.

And Kobold assault is about as enjoyable as passing kidney stones, so I don't blame people for wanting to run it only once. I just ran it 3 times at level 17 because I needed the favor (and had avoided it at all costs earlier) and it was still complete ****. It's just a poorly designed quest, so people want to run it as little as possible.

[Hrodgrimr]

nvm

[Rineth]

Cor, there are two ways to address your complaint without a single change to the game. That is, the main complaint of the n/h/e grind. You also seem miffed by the way other people play, which is how it's always going to be in an MMO.

The first is to not worry so much about running everything on elite. Just because the option is there doesn't mean you have to take it. If you have a more casual play style then just focus on running quests and having fun, don't worry so much about that little 'elite' tag. Also, there are plenty of PUGs out there that will run quests on elite from the start. If you don't want to grind the difficulties try and pair up with players who can unlock elite on quests you haven't done yet.

If you're a perfectionist then the best thing you can do for max XP value and all those elites is to resist the temptation to level up as soon as you ding. You can run everything n/h/e at appropriate quest level, and then pop that level once you move to the next set of quests.

[Corstaad]

Honestly for the most part I dont run much in the way of PUGs only late night stuff. I'm mostly in guild groups with same level toons. We get to quests and have to run hard in order to get to elite which is the level we'd like to run them on. I dont care for grinding levels/favor at all. This is a simple issue of having to do a quest twice in order to get to acceptable level we'd like to run on. We of course work around this issue but a simple select elite at the beginning for ENJOYMENT would go a long way.