Feedback - Operation: Blockade Buster

[Thoon]

Is that Droaam navy ships out over the horizon of Stormreach Harbor?

Find Graden Wylkes inside the Lordsmarch Palace, then run the quest 'Operation: Blockade Buster' and let us know what you think of it.

After running the quest for a bit, take some time to give us feedback by copying and pasting the following questions and posting your responses after each.

• How long did it take you to complete this quest?
• Do you have a clear understanding of the quest story, and was it interesting?
• Were the visuals and environment in this quest appropriate to the theme?
• Are you likely to run this quest more than once on Live?
• What do you think of the XP and loot rewards given the difficulty of the quest?
• Please make additional comments here:

[Althotas]

Again I enjoyed this quest once I figured out what was needed. found 4 chests with fair loot for the level. A GFL ring is not bad at all. One thing, I received a few tells asking where the quest was. May need to do something to make it clearer that it is in the harbor and the wee lass on the raft is who ya need to see to get out to them thar boats. Loved the baby shrines too.


BTW guys, I am trying not to give away anything so that people can really have fun finding out some of the secrets to these quests

[butlerfamilywa]

Completion time 25 Mins, non-stealth

I love the view of the city at night, Beautifully done.
Well placed Fungus on the ships...

Didn't notice any Captain Loot chests for slaughtering them.. when I killed them in their rooms. So only good for exp. I did get a chest for Bash on the Carnage, when I killed him outside at the wheel. I didn't check to see if chests were at the wheel's on the other 2 boats after killing the captains.

4 chests in the quest... loot run for the level?

Stealthy players dream.

Wasn't able to unlock with a **, but ** worked, so the Intel modifier I believe is set about right.

Nice to see if you die, you get ported to the shrines on the raft. *Easy Button*

I noticed different spawn points for the crest's to open the hatches... nice touch, makes us actually work for it.


I hope that doesn't give away too much of it for you.

[Dark-Star]

Another unique quest, creative.

Red alert + fighting in a small enclosed area = trouble.

Don't have a 15th level character, but like the others, I imagine this will be very tough at level on elite.

Found named loot.

[Adoraro]

How long did it take you to complete this quest?
20 minutes

Do you have a clear understanding of the quest story, and was it interesting?
Yes x2
We were clearing the harbor of mine laying ships.

Were the visuals and environment in this quest appropriate to the theme?
Yes

Are you likely to run this quest more than once on Live?
Yes

What do you think of the XP and loot rewards given the difficulty of the quest?
Ok, didn't see the XP for the optionals so no comment.
I received no loot worth mentioning

Please make additional comments here:
Same 'skip ahead' problem with this quest as I posted in the Summerfield feedback thread ( http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...7&postcount=17 )

Stealthing it might be hard if I want to do the optionals of killing the captain. The crew seemed to notice me when I come out of the cabin.

[MrCow]

* How long did it take you to complete this quest?
The first time when I was exploring the quest, about 20 minutes.
The following times after the first, about 5 minutes.

* Do you have a clear understanding of the quest story, and was it interesting?
Make ships go boom!

* Were the visuals and environment in this quest appropriate to the theme?
Yes.

* Are you likely to run this quest more than once on Live?
Yes.

* What do you think of the XP and loot rewards given the difficulty of the quest?
The EXP is fine as is for dashing through. If the complications with doing it stealth-like are resolved it may be ok EXP-wise for that route as well.

The quest could probably do with removing one or two of the kobold engineer chests. I've yet to sink the Droaam fleet without raising an alarm, so I don't know if that bestows extra chests on completion.

* Please make additional comments here:
Currently this quest is a mixed bag in terms of stealth. The Carnage is easy to pull off as the kobold engineers don't know how to ring the alarm bell. The Vengeance is a massive pain because unlike the other two boats when you exit to the outside of the ship or enter the kobold engineer area you are stripped of invisibility and are taken out of sneak mode, but it is doable with luck. The Bloodlust is a complete disaster to try and do stealth-like as the moment you touch the control panel the head engineer automatically heads to ring the alarm bell, regardless of if he saw you or not.

[Claver]

In some ways, this was like a pnp quest – a fixed obstacle that would react based on your choices. More opponents would put on deck if an alarm was sounded or ship sunk. This provides more flexibility and open ended tactics than most quests. In principle, this is a good idea.

In execution, there are not enough incentives to support varied play style. I was excited by the prospect of a stealth quest but on a 6/6 paladin/ranger I couldn’t pull it off solo on casual. My big criticism is that its an all or nothing quest reward for sinking ALL the ships without being discovered. Sink 2 ships but blow the alarm on the last ship and not only do I miss the optional end reward, I’ve probably missed out on the optional xp of the named captains and engineers in the 2 ships I sunk along with the chests in their ships. That’s not fun, that’s a disincentive for me to at least try to be sneaky. It’s far more efficacious for me to zerg slaughter and loot one ship, set another to blow, and then pick the crew off the 3rd ship with bows when they empty the bowls to investigate the explosion.

The way to correct the problem is award optional xp (777xp) and a chest at the end for setting the bombs on one ship without being noticed, award optional xp (999 xp) and a second chest for setting the bombs on a second ship and finally award 1750 xp and two more chest (4 chests total) if all ships were sunk with no alarm. This way, players can get something for at least sneaking as far as the first control panel. More people might try other tactics too (charm, fascinate) if there is an incremental reward.

I found there was little penalty to alerting the entire ship to my presence. Even if all the monsters were on the deck, I could go inside the captains quarters, heal up, step outside and fight one or two more monsters and then go back inside and wash, rinse and repeat. I was safe because the monsters couldn’t enter doors. It would have been a very different adventure and a stronger incentive for stealth if the monsters could open doors. Hirelings can follow us through doors – will monsters ever be able to do so?

There doesn’t seem to be a reason to go into the galleys of the ship; the rooms where the flies hover over the beds. Unless the crest spawn in random locations I would never return to these rooms. Perhaps a named with a chest should be put in one of the galleys.

Where are the chests in the Captain’s quarters. Sure, there are two named optionals but this is where I would expect loot, not in the hull where you have to go anyway to set the bombs. Give me more of a reason to detour from the bomb control panel and risk setting the alarm; move most, if not all of the chests from the bombbay hull into the captains quarters.

Can the bomb hatches to be picked from outside the ship? I know that they can be opened at the control panel but at least one ship should have a door that can be opened under water by someone of sufficient skill.

It’s great that intelligence is used to open the bomb doors and trap making feat can be used to set bombs off remotely. More of these please. Turbine should put a far greater emphasis into incorporating feats and skills into quests. There are stat based rune locks. Why not add skill based rune locks like an elevator that won’t operate without a minimum repair score. Perhaps storm reach defenders can only be revived to fight against the devil assault (and I mean actually be present to fight) by someone with a minimum heal skill, etc.

There is little to differentiate the game play between the first ship and the last. The similarity of the environment greatly detracted from the quest and will make it less likely for me to want to repeat this quest as much as some of the others. Next time, give each ship a little twist in game play. For example, have a stock of rum behind bars that can be unlocked (or blown up). If the crew notices the Captain left the rum unguarded, they will drink themselves into slumber making it easier to stealthily access the bomb hull.

[*]How long did it take you to complete this quest? 20 minutes while stealthing, once the gig was up, probably another 10 minutes to quickly kill everyone else.

[*]Do you have a clear understanding of the quest story, and was it interesting? The concept was clear, it should have been a much more entertaining quest. Lots of promise, 3 identical ships sunk the experience

[*]Were the visuals and environment in this quest appropriate to the theme? The harbor at night was breathtaking - fantastic work. The ships looked like ships but I really needed more variety in such a tight space.

[*]Are you likely to run this quest more than once on Live? Not very often. As much as I enjoy sneaking, apparently I like to sneak through more varied landscape over a larger area.

[*]What do you think of the XP and loot rewards given the difficulty of the quest? The optional xp for sinking all ships as an all or nothing reward doesn't cut it, nor does the loss of chests and named boss xp that may entail. Go with an incremental reward like I proposed.

[MrCow]

The way to correct the problem is award optional xp (777xp) and a chest at the end for setting the bombs on one ship without being noticed, award optional xp (999 xp) and a second chest for setting the bombs on a second ship and finally award 1750 xp and two more chest (4 chests total) if all ships were sunk with no alarm. This way, players can get something for at least sneaking as far as the first control panel. More people might try other tactics too (charm, fascinate) if there is an incremental reward.

Just to clarify the optionals for no alarm, you do get EXP for partial non-detection. The optionals in the quest are:

20% - Destroy the Carnage without alerting its crew
20% - Destroy the Vengeance without alerting its crew
20% - Destroy the Bloodlust without alerting its crew
40% - Sink the Droaam fleet without raising an alarm
20% - Assassinate the captain of the Vengeance
20% - Assassinate the captain of the Bloodlust
20% - Assassinate the captain of the Carnage

That is 20% per ship destroyed with no alarm and 40% extra if you snag all 3 ships with no alarm (total of 100% quest base EXP).

[Claver]

Just to clarify the optionals for no alarm, you do get EXP for partial non-detection..

Thanks, that wasn't clear to me during the quest. Once I was detected, I thought I had been screwed out of everything so punted on the subtle approach and went Rambo.

[Claver]

20% - Destroy the Carnage without alerting its crew
20% - Destroy the Vengeance without alerting its crew
20% - Destroy the Bloodlust without alerting its crew.

As I recall, the individual optional for destroying a ship by stealth was not shown until the ship was approached. It would have cleared up some of my confusion if all 3 of those optionals were listed at the start of the quest so that I knew that it wasn't an all or nothing stealth objective.

Turbine, this might be something to consider. If it was unclear to me it may be confusing for a small segment of other players as well.