Why, for me, Epic difficulty isn't all that fun

[Borror0]

-Reduce epic monster attack bonuses so that AC becomes viable in epic quests, if even only as around 50% protection

removing grazing hits would need to be attached to this to really make ac work on epic imo,40 point grazes suck

If Epic monsters hit you 50% of the time, removing grazing hits would change much because they can graze you on a roll of 10 only (unless it changed but I wouldn't see why they'd do that).

Personally, what I would like to see changed with grazing hits is setting the damage at a fixed percentage (25% or 30% post-Heroic Durability sounds about right) rather than being based off the weapon's base damage. It'd make the character's avoidance much easier to calculate because the percentage is a known value, unlike the monster's base damage. It'd also prevent excessive grazes.

[sephiroth1084]

my comments in red. sorry for the amount of typos as well. typing fast and its late

Way to make it almost impossible to respond to your comments, spyder.
Originally Posted by sephiroth1084
I like Epic Wiz King, except the Raiyum fight--he has too many hit points and is too hard to damage on the wholeuse any blunt weapon with any enchament,and you bypass his dr, Haven't run this on my melee more than once, but I've been with a few groups really struggling to damage Raiyum. Not sure what they were doing, but the fact that archery has no way of bypassing DR x/blunt or x/slashing is a real problem both here and elsewhere. which can make for an excessively long fight, and also is another example of an end fight that can invalidate a party that was able to overcome the rest of the dungeon with relative ease (see also: Enter the Kobold, The Dreaming Dark, and several others). Ultimately, I like the quest because it feels about as challenging at level 20 with uber characters as it did at level 12-14 on elite. That is to say, it's challenging without being stupidly so, even if it can be a little repetitive moving up all three towers.i totally agree that it feels abotu right challenge wise with what it was at level 12

I like Epic VoN 1 for basically the same reason I like Epic Wiz King: it feels (a bit more) challenging as it did running the quest around level 10 on elite. Some of it is a little easier, while some of it is a little harder, but it's interesting, and challenging enough that if you don't employ some sound tactics, you're probably in trouble, while still allowing for crowd control to play a big role. Specifically, the arena fight can get very hectic (in a fun way) with a variety of monsters posing a variety of threats, and that can be dealt with in several ways (some are immune to CC, some are resistant, and some are fairly easily dealt with), without being so challenging that only one or two strategies will ever work (see ToD 2 as an example of a narrowly designed encounter that most people dislike for that reason).again i agree with this

I kind of like Epic VoN 5, but feel like the Chain Lightning spamming for hundreds of points of damage needs to be toned down just a hair.i didnt really find the chain lightnign to be an issue, was hit for 70s on my sorcmost of time I don't recall how much I was getting hit for on my wizard the last time I ran this, but even at 70 a pop, 6 WF shooting chain lightnings off that hit everyone for around 70 damage each time chews through a group's HP very quickly.

I kind of liked Epic VoN 3, but have only run it a couple of times so I'm not as fresh on it,von 3 is fun with a bard , without one its long found Epic VoN 4 to have as much potential for frustration as the quest holds on-level (that is, someone who is having trouble jumping at the end, or who gets killed or slowed down can potentially miss getting into the final room, though this hasn't happened to me). i run von 4 everyday, i love itI was never a big fan of VoN 2 to begin with, and feel like the beholders became much too easy on Epic, while the fire giant and end fight became unnecessarily more difficult.beholders areslightly too easy,but the giant ive two manned on my fighter with another fighter,intiming him and beating o nthe back with other fighter I run the quest, but don't enjoy it much. I found the firewall damage to be excessive, as well as the number of firewalls he spams on occasion.

Epic Offering is too swingy for me to enjoy it very much--a good group with a sound strategy can suddenly be overwhelmed by pulling one too many monsters, or by being a hair too slow moving onto another room, and there just isn't a whole lot of maneuvering that can be done in most of the quest to work around this very well. Not a big fan, mostly because it represents a significant jump in comparative difficulty from what it was like running the quest around level 10 on elite.i completely disagree here, offering was always the toughest elite desert quest, if anything now its the easiest imo I don't recall finding Offering to be all that difficult on-level, but I also don't run the desert quests very often in that range--just too much other stuff to get to, although I've been looking to that for XP more recently. Still, it is considerably harder than Wiz King and DQ 1.

Epic DQ 1 needs a second shrine. agree, but ive done it with only 2 pots used by group so not a huge deal with a very good group On a caster or healer with most +SP gear it is manageable, but not for anyone else really. It strains anyone dependent upon clickies or with a smallish mana supply (paladins, barbarians, Kensais, bards...).

Epic DQ 2 is about as fun, or unfun, and challenging as DQ on elite for a lvl 14-16ish group, except that some strategies from the regular version or invalidated on epic (intimitanking the queen being onecompeltely false intiming her is a very effective way, you jsut need to have a good intim which any 32 point fighter can attain).not as fun as von 6 but its ok, not tood hard , not too easy It's viable for a fighter who has maxed intimidate, but not for anyone else; not for fighters who have some intimidate, not for paladins (even with max ranks in intim and a high Cha). In my opinion, if only an incredibly small subset of characters can perform a task, it isn't really a viable option on the whole.

Epic VoN 6 pretty much plays the same as the new VoN 6, except for the djinns, which neither add nor detract from the quest as a whole. The bases mechanic is slightly less cumbersome and dull than it had been, again i disagree , beofre 2-3 peopel did the abses whiel everyone else afk'd,now the whole grouped is involved It's gotten much better, yes, but the mechanic is still kind of boring.but not by much, and the fight against Velah is a little more interestingthis fighter alone makes this raid the best, since its not a auto attack and walk away fight anymore Again, I like the improvements, but there isn't all that much strategy involved in the fight itself other than running in and out for fire and trash--no aggro-holding, no intimidating, no moving around to avoid getting hit, etc..., since it makes sense to put everyone in on her and there are now other considerations to be had, but still isn't especially engaging (as contrasted with the dragons in The Tor and Prey)those dragon fights are boring, you can auto attack and win I disagree. The dragons move around a bit, some wing-buffet you across the room, freeze you in place, or knock you down, and they cast spells. Not huge leaps above Velah in terms of depth, but they can be intimidated, aggro-controlled, avoided, flanked, kited...the list goes on. Also, that the Claws of Velah are red named and have a boatload of HP just means that the casters who have next to nothing to do in the fight continue to have very little to do when dealing with the trash monsters.my caster gets red named agro until next inferno,spot heals,throws conceal bonus on dragon, and dps's the dragon with polar ray, plenty for a caster to do imo Throwing one or two debuffs doesn't count as involvement to me. Holding the red named aggro is okay, but they have so much HP that killing them yourself isn't really a viable option, especially if you were dancing stuff on the bases and buffing. Maybe it's different for a sorc than a wizard in this case, but 1,000 SP isn't really enough to deal with the claws that spawn over the course of the fight. And tossing Polar Ray at the dragon is kind of pointless. How much damage are you contributing? 30,000 out of her hundreds of thousands of HP? I chuck PR at her as well, but I do so more out of boredom than anything else. If the Claws were at least susceptible to some crowd control, then casters would really have something to do in there. As it stands, though, you backup heal, toss a CK and maybe a waves and become an aggro magnet on occasion.

I haven't run the new epics or Epic Chains (don't like Chains much normally, so have had no compulsion to run it on epic). i liked all the new epics except the spies in the house,but thats mainly casue i didnt like the water ellies personally. chains i find to be a nice change of pace i run 1 or 2 times a week it can be alor fun becuase it requries smarter use of mana and alittle more teamwork to ocmpelte withotu resources
I haven't avoided them, just been leveling my TR more than running my capped characters lately.
Things I'd really like to see changed:
-Reduce immunities (not too bad overall, but still too many in some places)i can agree
-Reduce the number of rednamed monsters a bit (ie Claws of Velah)insignifacnt to me personally
-Reduce epic monster attack bonuses so that AC becomes viable in epic quests, if even only as around 50% protectionremoving grazing hits would need to be attached to this to really make ac work on epic imo,40 point grazes suck Yeah.
-Increase trap DCs by 5-10 points so that they are roughly halfway between where they are now and where they were before they got nerfed, so that they pose some challenge/restriction, but not so much that only a very small fraction of rogues can hit themhonestly who bothers with the traps 99% of the time? Epic VoN 5 is doable now because we can get the traps, and they aren't immediately lethal for 99% of characters in the quest. The traps in the other epics are largely avoidable with skill, but it would still be nice if they were able to be dealt with without too much difficulty and yet not so easy as to be insignificant.
-Decrease spammy tactics (constant respawning, infinite chain lightning) by a little bit, ideally including more varied tactics insteadi would be behind a slight lowering of oob respawn rates, havent really seen an issue with the spells being cast unless someone has liek 250 hp and are very squishy Respawning scorpions in the broken-floor sections of Wiz King can be troublesome. And as mentioned above, it's the number of monsters casting chain lightning + the rate at which they do so + the damage they deal that is the problem. Grab one too many, or don't get CC down and stuck fast enough and you're screwed.

-Increase droprate on scrolls by about 5-20% (killing 100-200 monsters should not result in 0-2 scrolls dropping)and it wouldnt need to be epic wide , jsut the desert alone would benefit hugely from a scroll drop increase becuase of the huge pool of items compared to vons and sentinels Agree.
-Include some sort of text sent to the whole party indicating that a scroll has been picked up, what type and by whomi guess this is an issue i dont see come up, i run with guild and friends and we ALWAYS roll onscrolls It doesn't come up often, but it would avoid the potential for annoyance...as it is, I almost NEVER grab scrolls, and am entirely reliant upon the goodwill of others because I A) can't hear them drop with my sound effects volume turned off so I can hear people (AHEM!), and B) I use a gamepad and as such am much slower hitting Backspace + U. This sort of mechanic has a lot of potential for abuse. Also, if someone forgets to document which scroll they picked up, or simply forget that they picked up a scroll in a 2-hour quest, you've got a problem that can occur even among friends. Another option might be making the scrolls MUCH more visible when they drop, perhaps by adding the purple glow we get on the epic end chests.
-Increase droprate on shards and seals by about 5-10%again the desert is really the only area that needs it
-Decrease the number of epic dungeon and raid tokens required for the rituals by about 5-10 tokens (minimum 5)since my fighter has 7 epic items to slot and my pally has 4 , im def in favor of lower totals, but getting the tokens doesnt bother me so if they dont change it it wouldnt really affect my gameplay enjoymeny We don't need that kind of grind. We already need to run the quests to get scrolls, shards, seals and the base item; we don't ALSO need to have 25 completions, or 40, or 60, just to further improve the item.
-Add some additional effects to the slots (particularly yellow and red); perhaps including more of the effects that can be found on DT armor for example*could* be nice , BUT id be infavor or them changing the way dt worked so that you could turn in runes for a lsit like epics instead , so that dt was still a viable aternative AND it was alot easier to acutally get somethign useful I'd love if the DT rune mechanic got changed in any number of ways--even if we could just see what the effect on a rune is in the chest...even if we could just see what the effect of a rune we've used before is in the chest, but we've been asking for that for what? A year? And have had no indication that anything is going to be done about it.
-Improve effects to reflect that the items are ML 20 and require a lot of grinding both to acquire and upgrade (ie. Prot +4 has no business being on an epic item)completely agree

Answers in neon.

[spyderwolf]

Way to make it almost impossible to respond to your comments, spyder.
Originally Posted by sephiroth1084
I like Epic Wiz King, except the Raiyum fight--he has too many hit points and is too hard to damage on the wholeuse any blunt weapon with any enchament,and you bypass his dr, Haven't run this on my melee more than once, but I've been with a few groups really struggling to damage Raiyum. Not sure what they were doing, but the fact that archery has no way of bypassing DR x/blunt or x/slashing is a real problem both here and elsewhere.thats more of an ranged really needs attention issue than an actual epicwiz king issue imo which can make for an excessively long fight, and also is another example of an end fight that can invalidate a party that was able to overcome the rest of the dungeon with relative ease (see also: Enter the Kobold, The Dreaming Dark, and several others). Ultimately, I like the quest because it feels about as challenging at level 20 with uber characters as it did at level 12-14 on elite. That is to say, it's challenging without being stupidly so, even if it can be a little repetitive moving up all three towers.i totally agree that it feels abotu right challenge wise with what it was at level 12

I like Epic VoN 1 for basically the same reason I like Epic Wiz King: it feels (a bit more) challenging as it did running the quest around level 10 on elite. Some of it is a little easier, while some of it is a little harder, but it's interesting, and challenging enough that if you don't employ some sound tactics, you're probably in trouble, while still allowing for crowd control to play a big role. Specifically, the arena fight can get very hectic (in a fun way) with a variety of monsters posing a variety of threats, and that can be dealt with in several ways (some are immune to CC, some are resistant, and some are fairly easily dealt with), without being so challenging that only one or two strategies will ever work (see ToD 2 as an example of a narrowly designed encounter that most people dislike for that reason).again i agree with this

I kind of like Epic VoN 5, but feel like the Chain Lightning spamming for hundreds of points of damage needs to be toned down just a hair.i didnt really find the chain lightnign to be an issue, was hit for 70s on my sorcmost of time I don't recall how much I was getting hit for on my wizard the last time I ran this, but even at 70 a pop, 6 WF shooting chain lightnings off that hit everyone for around 70 damage each time chews through a group's HP very quickly.you dont get hit if you jump around and dont stand, i recently 5 manned von 5 on epic up until the end fight and used maybe 30 heal scrolls on my sorc becuase it was really early in the afternoon and we wanted a head start until more guild/firends logged on

I kind of liked Epic VoN 3, but have only run it a couple of times so I'm not as fresh on it,von 3 is fun with a bard , without one its long found Epic VoN 4 to have as much potential for frustration as the quest holds on-level (that is, someone who is having trouble jumping at the end, or who gets killed or slowed down can potentially miss getting into the final room, though this hasn't happened to me). i run von 4 everyday, i love itI was never a big fan of VoN 2 to begin with, and feel like the beholders became much too easy on Epic, while the fire giant and end fight became unnecessarily more difficult.beholders areslightly too easy,but the giant ive two manned on my fighter with another fighter,intiming him and beating o nthe back with other fighter I run the quest, but don't enjoy it much. I found the firewall damage to be excessive, as well as the number of firewalls he spams on occasion.
i usually run my fighter in von 2, he has greaves and red fullplate wit h40 resist on it, so the firewalls do very little damage , so i can see where if you dont have greaves or a 40 point resist item they could be slightly painful
Epic Offering is too swingy for me to enjoy it very much--a good group with a sound strategy can suddenly be overwhelmed by pulling one too many monsters, or by being a hair too slow moving onto another room, and there just isn't a whole lot of maneuvering that can be done in most of the quest to work around this very well. Not a big fan, mostly because it represents a significant jump in comparative difficulty from what it was like running the quest around level 10 on elite.i completely disagree here, offering was always the toughest elite desert quest, if anything now its the easiest imo I don't recall finding Offering to be all that difficult on-level, but I also don't run the desert quests very often in that range--just too much other stuff to get to, although I've been looking to that for XP more recently. Still, it is considerably harder than Wiz King and DQ 1.i was refering to oob whe nthe cap was 12 and they respawned muc hfaster than they do today, oob used to be a ngihtmare on elite in late 06/ early 07 to my recollection

Epic DQ 1 needs a second shrine. agree, but ive done it with only 2 pots used by group so not a huge deal with a very good group On a caster or healer with most +SP gear it is manageable, but not for anyone else really. It strains anyone dependent upon clickies or with a smallish mana supply (paladins, barbarians, Kensais, bards...).very true

Epic DQ 2 is about as fun, or unfun, and challenging as DQ on elite for a lvl 14-16ish group, except that some strategies from the regular version or invalidated on epic (intimitanking the queen being onecompeltely false intiming her is a very effective way, you jsut need to have a good intim which any 32 point fighter can attain).not as fun as von 6 but its ok, not tood hard , not too easy It's viable for a fighter who has maxed intimidate, but not for anyone else; not for fighters who have some intimidate, not for paladins (even with max ranks in intim and a high Cha). In my opinion, if only an incredibly small subset of characters can perform a task, it isn't really a viable option on the whole.i have a guildie with a bard thats splashed wit hfighter that can intim the queen on epic. and there is at least 1 other bard that ive run a couple radis with (think he is from one of the chinese guilds) that can also intim the queen),and i personally know a few pallies who can intim her as well, so if fighters,bards, AND pallies can get her on epic thats fairly viable imo

Epic VoN 6 pretty much plays the same as the new VoN 6, except for the djinns, which neither add nor detract from the quest as a whole. The bases mechanic is slightly less cumbersome and dull than it had been, again i disagree , beofre 2-3 peopel did the abses whiel everyone else afk'd,now the whole grouped is involved It's gotten much better, yes, but the mechanic is still kind of boring.that is more ofa personal pref then,liek my dislike of water ellies in one of the new quest how,so icant really comment much mroe about thatbut not by much, and the fight against Velah is a little more interestingthis fighter alone makes this raid the best, since its not a auto attack and walk away fight anymore Again, I like the improvements, but there isn't all that much strategy involved in the fight itself other than running in and out for fire and trash--no aggro-holding, no intimidating, no moving around to avoid getting hit, etc...again seems like a personal taste s o i wont coment , since it makes sense to put everyone in on her and there are now other considerations to be had, but still isn't especially engaging (as contrasted with the dragons in The Tor and Prey)those dragon fights are boring, you can auto attack and win I disagree. The dragons move around a bit, some wing-buffet you across the room, freeze you in place, or knock you down, and they cast spells. Not huge leaps above Velah in terms of depth, but they can be intimidated, aggro-controlled, avoided, flanked, kited...the list goes on. Also, that the Claws of Velah are red named and have a boatload of HP just means that the casters who have next to nothing to do in the fight continue to have very little to do when dealing with the trash monsters.my caster gets red named agro until next inferno,spot heals,throws conceal bonus on dragon, and dps's the dragon with polar ray, plenty for a caster to do imo Throwing one or two debuffs doesn't count as involvement to me. Holding the red named aggro is okay, but they have so much HP that killing them yourself isn't really a viable option, especially if you were dancing stuff on the bases and buffing. Maybe it's different for a sorc than a wizard in this case, but 1,000 SP isn't really enough to deal with the claws that spawn over the course of the fight. And tossing Polar Ray at the dragon is kind of pointless. How much damage are you contributing? 30,000 out of her hundreds of thousands of HP? I chuck PR at her as well, but I do so more out of boredom than anything else. If the Claws were at least susceptible to some crowd control, then casters would really have something to do in there. As it stands, though, you backup heal, toss a CK and maybe a waves and become an aggro magnet on occasion.with the neckless from abbot(removes the cost of maximze 5 times for 20s a pop) i can throw qutie a few polar rays with sup glac 8. if the bard does a good job on pillars i spend maybe 200 sp ,leaving about 300 sp left for the dragon. each polar ray is 500+ i usually have mana left when the dragon dies unless i throw in a ball lightning and cone of cold every now and then. i only kite the tras hred names until the infernos , when the melees beat them down before going back in. its not a snooze fest imo being a caster in von 6, nor is it boring, but again thats jsut my opinion so i can fully realize otehrs may not think that those contribution mean much

I haven't run the new epics or Epic Chains (don't like Chains much normally, so have had no compulsion to run it on epic). i liked all the new epics except the spies in the house,but thats mainly casue i didnt like the water ellies personally. chains i find to be a nice change of pace i run 1 or 2 times a week it can be alor fun becuase it requries smarter use of mana and alittle more teamwork to ocmpelte withotu resources
I haven't avoided them, just been leveling my TR more than running my capped characters lately.not sure if there is anyhting i could remotelysay relevant to this
Things I'd really like to see changed:
-Reduce immunities (not too bad overall, but still too many in some places)i can agree
-Reduce the number of rednamed monsters a bit (ie Claws of Velah)insignifacnt to me personally
-Reduce epic monster attack bonuses so that AC becomes viable in epic quests, if even only as around 50% protectionremoving grazing hits would need to be attached to this to really make ac work on epic imo,40 point grazes suck Yeah.
-Increase trap DCs by 5-10 points so that they are roughly halfway between where they are now and where they were before they got nerfed, so that they pose some challenge/restriction, but not so much that only a very small fraction of rogues can hit themhonestly who bothers with the traps 99% of the time? Epic VoN 5 is doable now because we can get the traps, and they aren't immediately lethal for 99% of characters in the quest. The traps in the other epics are largely avoidable with skill, but it would still be nice if they were able to be dealt with without too much difficulty and yet not so easy as to be insignificant.it was alwasy doable,and you still need a few items to hit a 52 search if you dont pump your int up some, my assassin needed to makea teir 2 shroud int item so i didnt have to change a few thigns that id rather not change on the build, so its nto as simple as have 1 rog level and max ranks in search and disable imo(altough being 5 dcs higher wouldnt mean much as you could still compensate with antoher item or 20 less hp on base stats
-Decrease spammy tactics (constant respawning, infinite chain lightning) by a little bit, ideally including more varied tactics insteadi would be behind a slight lowering of oob respawn rates, havent really seen an issue with the spells being cast unless someone has liek 250 hp and are very squishy Respawning scorpions in the broken-floor sections of Wiz King can be troublesome. And as mentioned above, it's the number of monsters casting chain lightning + the rate at which they do so + the damage they deal that is the problem. Grab one too many, or don't get CC down and stuck fast enough and you're screwed. run many many wiz kigns and never had an issue with scorps come up,the chain lightning ,as ive said on this very colofulpost elsewhere wasnt a big issue for me [/color]

-Increase droprate on scrolls by about 5-20% (killing 100-200 monsters should not result in 0-2 scrolls dropping)and it wouldnt need to be epic wide , jsut the desert alone would benefit hugely from a scroll drop increase becuase of the huge pool of items compared to vons and sentinels Agree.
-Include some sort of text sent to the whole party indicating that a scroll has been picked up, what type and by whomi guess this is an issue i dont see come up, i run with guild and friends and we ALWAYS roll onscrolls It doesn't come up often, but it would avoid the potential for annoyance...as it is, I almost NEVER grab scrolls, and am entirely reliant upon the goodwill of others because I A) can't hear them drop with my sound effects volume turned off so I can hear people (AHEM!), and B) I use a gamepad and as such am much slower hitting Backspace + U. This sort of mechanic has a lot of potential for abuse. Also, if someone forgets to document which scroll they picked up, or simply forget that they picked up a scroll in a 2-hour quest, you've got a problem that can occur even among friends. Another option might be making the scrolls MUCH more visible when they drop, perhaps by adding the purple glow we get on the epic end chests.all ican say here is dont run with somone yo ususpect of being less than fully honest
-Increase droprate on shards and seals by about 5-10%again the desert is really the only area that needs it
-Decrease the number of epic dungeon and raid tokens required for the rituals by about 5-10 tokens (minimum 5)since my fighter has 7 epic items to slot and my pally has 4 , im def in favor of lower totals, but getting the tokens doesnt bother me so if they dont change it it wouldnt really affect my gameplay enjoymeny We don't need that kind of grind. We already need to run the quests to get scrolls, shards, seals and the base item; we don't ALSO need to have 25 completions, or 40, or 60, just to further improve the item.if the improvement was monumental(and i dont think any augment slot is personally)then i would agree and would def agree that the toekn # should be lower, but imo the sltos let you fine tune your character more than they make or break your character, so if you dont feel like running 20-30 dugeons then you dont really lose much, if you feel upto the grind then you can fine tune and save a few aps here or a build point there
-Add some additional effects to the slots (particularly yellow and red); perhaps including more of the effects that can be found on DT armor for example*could* be nice , BUT id be infavor or them changing the way dt worked so that you could turn in runes for a lsit like epics instead , so that dt was still a viable aternative AND it was alot easier to acutally get somethign useful I'd love if the DT rune mechanic got changed in any number of ways--even if we could just see what the effect on a rune is in the chest...even if we could just see what the effect of a rune we've used before is in the chest, but we've been asking for that for what? A year? And have had no indication that anything is going to be done about it.wholeheartedly agree that somethign should be done to make the dt not be completely random and by and large a waste of time to try and get
-Improve effects to reflect that the items are ML 20 and require a lot of grinding both to acquire and upgrade (ie. Prot +4 has no business being on an epic item)completely agree

Answers in neon.

responses in yellow , getting fun ? kinda looks like a collage.

[Pyromaniac]

Epic Likes:
-You can't bring a poorly built toon and contribute much i.e. HP are needed, DPS is needed, To Hit matters. Epic doesn't equal a level 20 character with no gear. Don't change this.
-More than one caster can be useful (especially in VON). Nice change.
-Epic VON items are great, epic desert items need that logical fix now
-Variety of quests lengths means there's at least a few quicker epic runs
-Something to do at cap once we've run 1000+ shrouds and a gazillion TODs
-You can actually die in a quest on Epic
-Epic von quests were very well done

Epic Dislikes:
-Grinding too many epic dungeon tokens. Rather be raiding than 6 manning epic.
-Epic raid tokens are virtually useless for upgrading epic gear
-No 20th epic raid rewards (hint combine with epic raid tokens for choice of seals/shards/scrolls from entire list would be nice)
-AC is irrelevant and shouldn't be
-Epic Pirate quests are fake epic quests (no tokens). Not buying them due to that plus nobody wants that 'epic' pirate loot.
-Big miss on not having Epic Gianthold last mod
-Shorter than normal raid timer
-The part of the player base who gets upset because they aren't good enough players/builds to handle epic. Lots of nasty tells from 175 hp at cap melee characters who don't like that you won't take them in your epic group.
-Drop rates on von epic seals stinks, on desert scrolls drop rate is poor
-Epic seals should be like scrolls and not bind.
-All epic tokens should be bind to account
-Adding raid items to epic DQ2 was a good change, but that led to less epic shards which was bad.

[Samadhi]

Monster AI tends to be a limitation of the engine - smart AIs cause more server lag. Boy am I going to get quoted on that or what.

Yes you will get quoted a lot on that

What is personally so interesting on this, though, is that the places where I see the most lag - there is 0 instances of in depth AI (as can be seen from visual observation) and under 10 instances of piles of active mobs (the "excuse" for implementing dungeon alert). Those "under 10" instances of piles of active mobs typically involves teleporting devils - so maybe that does fit into the AI thing.

To the point, though, where I see lag the most is and has always been in high DPS raid groups. Our strategy now - is that we actually STOP ATTACKING for a full 30 seconds to a minute and let the client catch up to prevent lagging out so bad no one knows what is going on and we all wipe. Having to base our strategy around lag is LAME. Having the most challenging part of a dungeon being lag: LAME.

But ya, not trying to make you regret speaking or anything TBH the dev tracker is so filled with nonsense that most of the player base IMO doesn't give a flying **** about that I barely even check it anymore - so it is good to see some comments about something that many/most of us DO care about.

[Judo]

Aside from the drop rate, I love epic content. It has been a very long time since
there was content where the solo lover could actually farm, have fun, and get
rewarded for their efforts. Everything lately is bound to character/account, eliminating the ability to make cash, make trades, or basically have any form of
economy. So being able to farm for scrolls, at the very least, offers a chance to get ahead.
I definitely agree that seals should be tradeable. But I vehemently disagree with scaling epic dungeons based on party size, or any other factor that would reduce
the already deplorable drop rate of epic ingredients.
Aside from that, epic is fun, like Pyro said...you can actually die in epic content.

I actually have to pay attention instead of surfing the net or watching Hulu at the
same time.

[SquelchHU]

Epic Raid Tokens are kind of meh. Please, oh please, let us use them for other things as well. If they could count as dungeon tokens, we would be much happier. They are already limited in quantity by raid timers, so its not like we can farm them faster. There must be something that can be done with them.

I think that if they added some +2 exceptional stat recipes that would give a use for the raid tokens.

An interesting observation (that has been mentioned before):
You remember when Dreaming Dark came out and many people were complaining that even on Elite they blazed through the dungeons too quickly with hardly any reason to stop and think?

Well, that happened because they were in pretty powerful parties (which is what happens right when a new high-level place is released and all the powergamers race through it to see the end). But that's the kind of party you need to play epic mode in a reasonable way.

So the problem is kind of a split focus, or a lack of progression steps between those two levels of difficulty.

I don't quite agree with this. While it is true that groups of well equipped characters will just plow through the dreaming dark series, such is not necessary at all. When it first came out this was being blind PUGed quite easily on normal and hard (elite was kind of tough, but remember this is when it first came out and no one knew it). So even without uber gear and a team used to working with each other it's not hard. I've had a harder time on low level elites at level.

[TheSnowman]

I'd rather epic's stay in the game no matter their mechanical flaws.

K, thanks, bye.

[Monkey_Archer]

Let's face it, epic is all about exploiting the weak AI of the game and high hit point damage per second. Sure, there are some minute tactical choices that don't involve exploiting the AI, but they are more "choose this spell, let melees beat on things" than actual tactics.

I pretty much agree with most of the OP except the opening statement. Yes, there are many so called "tactics" which involve exploiting monster AI... but they are usually used by less experienced and/or pug groups.
Take von 1 for example, many groups ive seen use the mephit room ladder to avoid damage, taking advantage of bad AI, or use the "wall the door, caster grab agro" method to similar effect. But, with a good group I prefer to use neither. Simply using basic CC (firewall, fascinate, symbols, nuking, etc..) while melees focus on 1 thing at a time usually results in much faster/efficient runs, and involves no AI exploiting.

As for improving AI to reduce what you call "exploiting it", (without causing server lag ) I think the mechanism is already in place.
Ever notice how you can never exploit a devil's AI? Thats because they wont ever focus on 1 single target to the exclusion of all else around them (except intim). Now im not saying everything should be given random devil AI (that would be terrible) but instead of stopping to throw ranged weapons when a monster cannot reach the person its agroed on why not have it randomly pick a new target that it can reach?

[Monkey_Archer]

What would I like to see? Adjustments to enemy attack bonuses and attack rates (lower attack bonuses, increase attack rate) to make armor class worthwhile. Remove blanket immunities (with the sole exception to Vorpal, which should not be an ideal choice of weapon). Allow stat damage to be a good way to deal with the enemy (in PnP at this level you're a moron if you're trying to use hit point damage anyway, but I wouldn't go that far either). Really, the focus should be on making characters that aren't high DPS meatsacks more useful.

I agree that vorpals should never work in epic, but i think giving everything deathward is a bit too far... I mean, if a wizard wants to take pale master, go into lich form, then energy drain a mob just to finger it I say let him

Epic mobs should still be somewhat resistant to stat damage but less then they are currently. Possibly just a 50-75% chance to ignore stat damage would be appropriate instead of the stat DR / fast regen there is now.

As far as spell usage goes, we need more options. Force Cage, Imprisonment, Prismatic Sphere, Maze (heck, we already have the graphic from the banishment effect of prismatic spray/ray), etc. I will grant that some of these are similar to Otto's Irresistable Dance (but worse, in a way, since often the subject cannot be attacked), but at least some are of a different level. Imprisonment is the grand-daddy of Trap the Soul, but at least it is a touch spell. Making debuffing useful would also be nice.

Even better, just remove some of the blanket immunities so we can use the spells we already have. (Why are all epic mobs immune to mind fog )

[Aspenor]

First of all, I'd like to clarify that I don't think epic is difficult. I think epic is boring. There is a big difference.

As I said in my other post there are more options you just choose not to use them.

Okay, so you can burn, web, hold, charm, or debuff. However, certain techniques are vastly superior. Web is alright, but why would you web when you can Mass Hold instead? Charming works, but it also, as a side effect, either A.) increases encounter length because you must wait for charms to break if you want maximum chance at scrolls or B.) results in skipping monsters and, again, lowering your chance to obtain scrolls. In a way, it can be counterproductive.

Even so, your list is not enough options. Adding more useful spells (especially those that are of the no save, you're out of the fight for now variety) would make it more enjoyable.

I agree that vorpals should never work in epic, but i think giving everything deathward is a bit too far... I mean, if a wizard wants to take pale master, go into lich form, then energy drain a mob just to finger it I say let him

Epic mobs should still be somewhat resistant to stat damage but less then they are currently. Possibly just a 50-75% chance to ignore stat damage would be appropriate instead of the stat DR / fast regen there is now.


Even better, just remove some of the blanket immunities so we can use the spells we already have. (Why are all epic mobs immune to mind fog )

I concur completely, and thank you for the note that monsters are immune to mind fog. I had considered giving that one a shot, because I am tired of doing the same thing all the time. At least it would have given me another spell option (just too bad it doesn't work).

[Aspenor]

"exploiting it"

Oh and just a side comment about that, when I say "exploiting weak AI" I mean the literal definition of exploiting. I don't mean that it's an MMO "exploit."

[Aspenor]

I'd rather epic's stay in the game no matter their mechanical flaws.

K, thanks, bye.

Nobody is asking for them to be removed. What I ask for is reconsidering certain design mechanics, and changing them.

[grodon9999]

I agree with one of the other posters - that one of the main problems with Epics is that they pretty much require gear (Greensteel weapons and HP or SP items) that newer players cannot get until they've been level 20 for some time. My suggestion to the Devs (and I know this'll cop flak and neg rep ) would be to speed up the process of getting toons Shroud-geared, by upping the drop rate of large ingredients and all Power shards, so that making a double-shard weapon takes a (quite reasonable) 10.5 average runs (assuming 5 scales) rather than the present 21. Or, add another raid with similar loot to the Shroud that has similar minimum gear requirements to the Shroud.

/signed. I still won't run epic but this'll be greatly appreciated.

[MrWizard]

There actually is more than one way to do things.
How it seems to work in DDO and probably all MMO's is the elite groups get there first, figure out (much to their credit) how to beat something new, then everyone emulates that tactic.

However, over time that tactic gets old, geared towards the type of toons the elites were using, and disregards any other way of doing things. It is almost impossible to change those tactics as they become set.

This happens even later on, when the players become higher in level (in the case of older content) and far outclass the dungeon....they will still use the old tired tactics.

If you try to use other tactics you will end up freaking more than half the party out.

There are other ways to do the epics then the one or two ways presented. However, if you are in a group that has done it many times before you will have to do it 'that way' since 'there is no other way'.

<remembers tempest spine fire/ice, the 'door', the 'beholder room' and how hard it was to convince people a faster better way, even at higher levels>


Just go with the flow and do it the 'way' until you can find some people who are good enough to try something else.

[Angelus_dead]

If you try to use other tactics you will end up freaking more than half the party out.

That tendency is exacerbated in epic mode because of the re-entry prevention.

In a regular dungeon if you try something strange and it doesn't work, the worst case is one or a few players release to tavern and come back in to rez everyone. Obviously epic mode is more punishing to those who'd like to try different things.

(The 16 hour lockout also reduces variation, as one of the most likely times to try something differently is immediately after you just did it "normally")

[Vhlad]

Thank you for the feedback guys.

We, designers, try to make the encounters unique and interesting first, challenging second. Some things we have control over, some we don't, as to the inflated hitpoints, those come with the expectation of players' dps output. If you balance a dungeon for a six man group, the fights will feel 'slow' to a solo player, and vice versa, a dungeon balanced for solo play will cause a full group to enter a zerging trance as you try to get a hit in before the monster falls down dead.

Monster AI tends to be a limitation of the engine - smart AIs cause more server lag. Boy am I going to get quoted on that or what.

I might be rumbling after a long day and coming down with a cold, but I guess all I wanted to say here is that by all means post your feedback. At the end of the day it's all about you having fun in our game.

We want to hear when you do and we definitely want to hear when you don't. What worked and what didn't: it helps us make you a better game.

Thanks.

• Reaver refuge slot machine
• Epic scroll ninja looting/griefing

The community has consistently and universally begged for changes to the above two systems. If you truly want to make us a better game, please overhaul those systems.

It has been a very long time since there was content where the solo lover could actually farm, have fun, and get rewarded for their efforts.

There's a difference between being solo friendly, and being most optimal to run solo in every situation. The current epic scroll drop mechanic discourages grouping. It is 6x more efficient to enter a quest alone on your caster and farm. It shouldn't be so vastly superior to solo epic for scrolls. They should design a scroll distribution system where players don't have to fight against each other for drops, while preserving the current level of solo friendliness.

[Cyr]

Thank you for the feedback guys.

We, designers, try to make the encounters unique and interesting first, challenging second. Some things we have control over, some we don't, as to the inflated hitpoints, those come with the expectation of players' dps output. If you balance a dungeon for a six man group, the fights will feel 'slow' to a solo player, and vice versa, a dungeon balanced for solo play will cause a full group to enter a zerging trance as you try to get a hit in before the monster falls down dead.

Monster AI tends to be a limitation of the engine - smart AIs cause more server lag. Boy am I going to get quoted on that or what.

I might be rumbling after a long day and coming down with a cold, but I guess all I wanted to say here is that by all means post your feedback. At the end of the day it's all about you having fun in our game.

We want to hear when you do and we definitely want to hear when you don't. What worked and what didn't: it helps us make you a better game.

Thanks.

Since you are paying attention to this thread Flimsy here are my gripes about epic (and I enjoy them oeverall btw).

*Insta-death immunity for all trash mobs is a mistake. Be more selective about what mobs get this immunity, some with it some without in mixed encounters would do wonders. Even better, give it to no trash mobs and instead make it rather common for them to cast death ward even on non casters (we've got clickies so why don't they?).
*The ability damage psuedo immunity should go. Epic mobs have decently high ability scores (or they should). If people are hitting them hard with ability damage have them throw restores. Again more dynamics to combat and less obsoletion of player abilities (crippling strike in this case). That or just give them the same cap as boss mobs get in normal content, 10 ability damage per category...at least then they serve as a debuff.
*Epic Item Design. I have written fairly extensivly on this subject already. It should be easy to search my posts for these comments. It's all about every epic item having value, stop creating epic items which try to minorly benefit different classes (because no one wants them), that epic items should obselote old gear, that epic items in small loot tables need to be generally useful to a wide variety of toons and those more niche items can go in big tables, that more can and needs to be done with the augment slot idea, and that epic items should not have mediocre versions of powers (resistance +4, natural armor +4...).
*Mob to hits are way to high. AC in epic is way less useful then it should be based upon elite content of the same level. This essentially further breaks the AC system to a point where it only makes sense to go AC if you are hitting 85+ long term. That bar eliminates almost every build, but an almost 100% AC specced character with every piece of equipment in the game for AC. Even then they still are getting hit a good amount by trash mobs.
*The super fast charm shake off. Let casters have more fun then firewall and otto's. It's not going to break any content particularly with how much charm effects were nerfed in the past.

So in summary, to improve epic simply lower mob to hits in it across the board, get a new item dev and give the new guy some really good players as advicers (not ML people), and rework the blanket resistances towards an active mob buffage situation for increased variety of tactics.

Edit: And last thing you should do is add scaling to epic or design for those with no gear. It just will not work as a fun challenge if that is done. IQ proved this.

[Drfirewater79]

/signed

epic is the biggest mistake turbine ever made .... well second biggest first was not launching with druid ... that alone would have prolly saved the Free to play revolution from ever being needed in the first place.

[Thrudh]

[COLOR="Cyan"]Epic to me is a prime example of why I find the most fun in this game is simply leveling a character to 20 then starting over.

Up until Mod 6 the game was great, versatility was not shunned, u could make many different kinds of builds and be effective everywhere. There was not as much segregation. The game quite simply was fun because variety was ok.

All the sudden content was not coming out quick enough, the game was being revamped into a new model and things slowed down.

Now we have EU, where the main focus seems to be epic and Amarath for high end players, with of course Shroud raiding being a main staple.

While the Shroud is still great fun to play, I see many people in a rush to get through them now, back in the day you did not have every raid leader asking you to link your boss beaters. The Shroud is not a casual raid anymore, maybe it never was, but it seemed more relaxed before. It's more and more wanting to be run quickly so people have good gear for Amarath and Epic, a pre-req really.

And then of course there is Amarath/Epic content, where it almost seems as if there is a very small selection of spells to use anymore and builds that are looked at as useful. TR'ing seems like it is a big part to making a more desired build as well for these areas.

It seems like the game has become kind of limited as too what works in end game and a lot of what we acquire through leveling our character is just thrown to the side for the very few effective things that work.

I agree that intesting builds have been destroyed by recent DDO changes... Some of the PrEs are extremely powerful.

If you don't take a barbarian to 18, you're gimp... There is no place for 17/3 barbarian/x or other barbarian multi-classes... Other classes are similar... We still have interesting 15/3/2 bards/rogue/fighters only because there is no Tier III PrE for bards yet... I'm guessing those will all have to rerolled to 18/2 bard/fighters someday.

Melee/caster hybrids are pointless now... Almost all useful low-level caster spells can be replicated through items, and again, splashing more than 2 levels of anything is hard in this PrE world.

I wish the PrEs were more evenly built... Tempest is front-loaded, FB is back-loaded... They should figure out what a PrE should give at 18, and divide the powers by 3 and give them evenly at each Tier.

I tried grinding at 20... zero fun, plus those quests just are not PUGged very often... I have more fun releveling my TRs... but I plan to only TR once... Soon enough, I'll have a bunch of capped characters again, and it would be nice to have some fun there.