(SIGH) Epic grind an epic waste of time

[Erekose]

EVon 1 nerfed,
EVon 2 nobody runs it,
EVon 3 (barely worth running)
EVon 4, nobody runs it,
EVon 5, nobody runs it
EVon 6, fantasic.

Eoob (nerfed)
EWK (on the way to becoming nerfed)
ECoF (not worth it)
Eadq1 (nobody runs it)
Eadq2 (fantastic if you have the right group.)

Well done on nerfing drop rates of seals in chests guys, especially Eoob and EVon 3.

In the next boardroom meeting with all the Execs scrutinizing the stats on quests run, you may be satisfied in knowing your contribution in making the almost possible, impossible actually worked.

Carrot + stick = FU

[oweieie]

You mean you don't appreciate the 1 scroll per run tops for 6 people for over 40 different desert items meaning you need to run the quest for a couple years in order to actually get the item you're after? OOB is such a fabulous quest you should LOOK FORWARD to wasting up to an hour of your life every day for a couple years in order to get your character slightly more powerful! Or go play a game thats actually fun.

[SINIBYTE]

In the next boardroom meeting with all the Execs scrutinizing the stats on quests run, you may be satisfied in knowing your contribution in making the almost possible, impossible actually worked.

Carrot + stick = FU

Yeh, you know, those 'Execs' really sit around discussing "quests".

[grodon9999]

What kills me is if you run Epics now you can never "finish" a character and move on to working the next one. They keep adding more grind without alleviating any of the existing grind (we still need GH relics for example) This holds up TRs in and the end will cost turbine money (not spent on TR hearts and 20% XP pots).

This shouldn't be an "easy" button, it's like three bears. Right now it's too grindy, we don't want it to become too easy, but what exactly is "just right?" I like the 20 runs for raids gives you a shot at getting what you need, I think a 20th completion of an epic-quest should give you your choice of seal or scrolls, the raid should give you a choice of shards. That's be 40 OoBs and 20 EDQs to get Epic Spectral gloves. You'd still have to work for it but it wouldn't be as absurd and random as it is now.

[TFPAQ]

What kills me is if you run Epics now you can never "finish" a character and move on to working the next one. They keep adding more grind without alleviating any of the existing grind (we still need GH relics for example) This holds up TRs in and the end will cost turbine money (not spent on TR hearts and 20% XP pots).

This shouldn't be an "easy" button, it's like three bears. Right now it's too grindy, we don't want it to become too easy, but what exactly is "just right?" I like the 20 runs for raids gives you a shot at getting what you need, I think a 20th completion of an epic-quest should give you your choice of seal or scrolls, the raid should give you a choice of shards. That's be 40 OoBs and 20 EDQs to get Epic Spectral gloves. You'd still have to work for it but it wouldn't be as absurd and random as it is now.

Depending on the quest, 20 completions for raids could translate into 10 to 20 hours of questing (just making some approximations), which doesn't take into account being on timer, so it takes substantially more tiime in RL.

If the goal (of Turbine) is to keep players (we hope), After 10-20 hours on those raids (and days upon days in RL working off of the timers), I don't see how it would be "overpowering" to give you, say, 1/2 of the end reward list? Heck, I'm ok with the complete list (keeping tomes random though).

To be honest with epic added in now, I'm okay with scrolls/shards, etc always being on the list after 20 runs.

[BruxaDo71]

You mean you don't appreciate the 1 scroll per run tops for 6 people for over 40 different desert items meaning you need to run the quest for a couple years in order to actually get the item you're after? OOB is such a fabulous quest you should LOOK FORWARD to wasting up to an hour of your life every day for a couple years in order to get your character slightly more powerful! Or go play a game thats actually fun.

Remember that your character (per se) will never be more powerful doing epic quests, only his equipament. You can do thousand of epic raids/quest and your character (when naked) will be always the same.
There is no epic in this game, only epic gear.

[Cyr]

What kills me is if you run Epics now you can never "finish" a character and move on to working the next one. They keep adding more grind without alleviating any of the existing grind (we still need GH relics for example) This holds up TRs in and the end will cost turbine money (not spent on TR hearts and 20% XP pots).

This shouldn't be an "easy" button, it's like three bears. Right now it's too grindy, we don't want it to become too easy, but what exactly is "just right?" I like the 20 runs for raids gives you a shot at getting what you need, I think a 20th completion of an epic-quest should give you your choice of seal or scrolls, the raid should give you a choice of shards. That's be 40 OoBs and 20 EDQs to get Epic Spectral gloves. You'd still have to work for it but it wouldn't be as absurd and random as it is now.

A thread of mine with particular suggestions in this manner got a Turbine response that they are looking at something of this sort. This was a few months ago.

[grodon9999]

Hmmm, I smell the pressence of the cube . ..

[EyeRekon]

EVon 1 nerfed,
EVon 2 nobody runs it,
EVon 3 (barely worth running)
EVon 4, nobody runs it,
EVon 5, nobody runs it
EVon 6, fantasic.

Eoob (nerfed)
EWK (on the way to becoming nerfed)
ECoF (not worth it)
Eadq1 (nobody runs it)
Eadq2 (fantastic if you have the right group.)

Well done on nerfing drop rates of seals in chests guys, especially Eoob and EVon 3.

re: EVON1+2
yes their popularity has plummeted since changing the full epic dungeon token to fragments.

re: EOOB
Not sure what you mean by nerfed here. I run this just about every day and get 1-4 scrolls per run, at lease one person gets a seal on most runs, I've seen a Seal of the Ring of Spell Storing, and 2 Shards of Spectral Gloves in the past month.

re: EWK
Why do you say that?

re: EADQ1
I'm working with a group to see how well this can be done in whole or in part to see how well it can be made to pay out.

re: EADQ2
There are 3 strategies that I know of that you can choose from depending on your group makeup where one strategy is kind of a default method that pretty much works with any group composition.

[MrWizard]

Well, like many things attempted by online game companies, that first installment is where they make mistakes and allow unintended 'cheats' or 'exploits'

only those ready to roll immediately benefit from them...after they get fixed it goes to working as intended.

I do not know where they are headed with epic. For me, it is just questing for someone who really has a lot of free time, is completely geared, and simply does not mind running 80 to 100+ epic quests to get an upgraded item.

If this is what the end game is going to be...I don't like it at all. However, all I see on my timers is quests being listed as epic that are not.

I really hope they have something else planned, or at least open it up to 12 players to add actual fun to it.

Right now you could not drag me kicking and screaming into epic. There is just no real reason to run it for me at all.


If this is where the game is headed for total endgame, then unless they open it all up to 12 man it will cater to the hardy few who like that type of stuff.

Too many an#l retentive people in those quests not having fun at all....so, no way jose.

[teh_meh]

Too many an#l retentive people in those quests not having fun at all....so, no way jose.

(lifts anal retentive hand) I am one of these people and, as such, I have to take steps to make sure I don't get a taste of this madness. So I shall simply avoid epic at all costs and wear a garlic necklace just to be safe. No more painful grinding for me.

[zorander6]

(lifts anal retentive hand) I am one of these people and, as such, I have to take steps to make sure I don't get a taste of this madness. So I shall simply avoid epic at all costs and wear a garlic necklace just to be safe. No more painful grinding for me.

Yes but if you want garlic in your soup.....

Oh wait....


Only level 13 on first char and honestly not looking forward to the grind. /me shrugs The boss wants to try epics when we reach level 20, I'm not so sold on it.

[Thorboar]

Yea...while back I ran in a epic VON 3 group. Although it was a lot fun (remind me back in the day, when we were all level 10) and challenging......not one seal or scroll dropped the entire time. You would think a few would drop with all the chests in that quest. So that was the last time running that one......

[ghettoGenius]

I hate to say it but I view epic in the same way as PvP. I avoid them both as they were clearly afterthoughts that cause more problems than they solve. Not to mention I get very little satisfaction from running them. As an achievement its pretty cool, sure you need a strong character, well geared and played, and sound tactics and patience is required, but aside from that I see the material gains (gear) having a minimal impact on enjoying the rest of the game.

To me it just seems unrealistic to expect much if anything out of your characters after you hit cap. Like life, most RPGs/MMOs are more about the journey rather than the destination. I know this is a hard concept for some people to come to terms with. I myself have always been more "destination" oriented. I thought it was pretty clear that the replayability DDO offers is through re-leveling (new classes/feats/races) rather than trying to add minuscule amounts of power to a toon that is already near godlike in its current environment.

[Fomori]

Like life, most RPGs/MMOs are more about the journey rather than the destination. I know this is a hard concept for some people to come to terms with.

Sadly in most other MMOs the game BEGINS at "end game". The journey to getting there is considered the grind. DDO is slowly getting that way. The TR vets are all about getting back to cap... the newer players are rushing content and skipping quests because 'its not worth the xp/min'.

[teh_meh]

Like life, most RPGs/MMOs are more about the journey rather than the destination. I know this is a hard concept for some people to come to terms with.

When you said this, Baldur's Gate 2 immediately came to mind. The terror of trying to handle the beholder lair in the Underdark at LVL 14 versus the yawn by comparison of slaughtering everything in Throne of Bhaal effortlessly with your LVL 42 wizard who can summon 18 planetars and spawn 6 simulacrums, each projecting images while mass spamming Wail of the Banshee and Horrid Wiltings.

[protokon]

EVon 1 nerfed,
EVon 2 nobody runs it,

due to the changes in these two, I rarely run it anymore (mostly because i already have all my seals I am after and I don't like getting partial tokens for the time wasted).

Eoob (nerfed)
EWK (on the way to becoming nerfed)

....huh?

ECoF (not worth it)
Eadq1 (nobody runs it)

my guild runs both of these 2-3 times a day, once in a static group and another set up with whoever is available at the time. proper group setup + knowing them makes them "easy" and completable in under an hour without intensive resources (0 pots).

Well done on nerfing drop rates of seals in chests guys, especially Eoob and EVon 3.

Other than the sentinels series, I haven't noticed a 'nerf' in the drop rates. Eoob seems to be dropping at the same rate it always has. perhaps bad luck?

..The hardest content in the game was not designed to be pugged out and completed easily. I am almost certain there are plenty of guilds who do these on a regular basis. I know of at least 4 guilds on my server (Thelanis) that do.

I do agree, however, that the rewards could be slightly better for the effort.

[grodon9999]

Sort of a necro but I gotta ask people: does anyone not think Epic quests are just plain stupid?

I LOVE the raids, EVoN6 and EDQ are two of my favorites. In these raids though you're pretty much just fighting a bad-assed dragon and a bad-assed Demon.

The quests on the other hand just got dumb with what we need to do. There's only so many times you can block a scorpion in a firewall while beating on him for 5 minutes before the inner-voice in your hard goes off and says "this is ********." I run epics, almost daily, but they're just dumb.

Does anyone disagree with me? Can anyone say with a straight-face that they think this is good game-design for the end-game of DDO?

[BangsLiekWhoa]

I did the grind for my 20 epic dungeon tokens so that I could TR without spending RL money. This was to change my 28pt WF wizard to a 34pt with some nice past life benefits. I did this is epic Von 1 and 2 before the tokens got turned to shards. To me it was worth it. Since then though... I have run a couple epic raids b/c other people I play with wanted to. That's it though. I do not run these for fun.

Yes, I can do them. But hey, other than bragging rights (not really) there is no real reason to do these except marginally better gear that you have to grind for. I would rather just play for fun than grind out boring stuff just so I can maybe get a piece of equipment that is just a little better than what I already have.

[Kalari]

The sad thing is Epic Chain of Flames is the only one of the desert epics that I really enjoyed for the challenges posed but after the fragment **** I cant talk anyone into running it no more. Epics to me are only done if someone really wants to get anything ive yet to see anything ive got to have out of there not worth the headaches since if I like something it will be nerfed.

So basically its giving me a light excuse to log in my 20's but other then that its a big ole meh.