Tubine Marketing: Let the players play Gianthold Tor Epic

[sirgog]

Not really, some of us don't put up with shoddy game mechanics delivered in a not fun box, wrapped with a grindy bow.

-I'm not a fan of 1 spell being the make/break for an entire subset of content. (Mass Hold)
-I'm not a fan of mobs having virtual or implicit blanket immunities to two subsets of a spell casters arsenal. (any spell that does damage or insta kills)
-I'm not a fan of having to repeat quests dozens of time and see no progress towards a goal. (Self explanatory)

Certainly a fight/encounter having a schtick that requires hold specifically would be acceptable. While other forms of CC might work, they are so far below par of hold in epics due to the hit points of the mobs that it is virtually a requirement. With a scant few exceptions. This is bad implementation of mechanics.

Mobs are virtually immune to spell caster damage output due to the qty of HP. I've heard dozens of casters lament this fact. When every mob has that many HP, the spell point recovery and rest mechanic of DDO just doesn't cut it. And they are flat immune to insta-death spells aside from TTS removing at least 8 other spells from the equation. This is bad mechanic design.

Even in raids that often yield 0 loot to anyone on elite (Piker's Fate for example), you still make a step towards your 20th and a small nugget of pixelated goodness. Not so much in epic. No loot? In 20 runs? Run it 20 more times, see if you get lucky! And we mean lottery ticket level of lucky. This is bad reward design.

All in all, while the brass rings are dope, the 2 mile wide lake of rubbing alcohol filled with razor wire and salt that I have to swim through to get that ring isn't worth it. I "play" to have "fun". And all of the above sounds like a bad job & frustration.

Anyone that thinks Mass Hold is the only viable tactic in Epics is just dead wrong.

It's the fastest way to kill things, yes. But Mass Suggestion/Symbol: Persuasion and ignoring both the charmed mobs and everything they are fighting works just as well. 3SP Resistable Dance neutralises any epic mob long enough to kill it at leisure, and Irresistable Dance can do the same. Even Hypnotism works (Hypno a mob, zerg past it), or Fascinate.

You can tell a mediocre caster by the fact that they flat-out refuse to run VON4 epic because their holds don't work there, or if they run it they pike. Decent casters are a powerhouse in that quest.

Noone really made any heavy use of Mass Hold in epics until the VON series was epic-ified. Hell, I led the server-first epic Devil Assault on Khyber and we did not use Mass Hold much at all (that was to conserve SP, now we do use Mass Hold more as casters are usually willing to drink a couple of mana pots to shave 10 minutes off the completion time).


I play to have fun too, which is why I run a LOT more Epics than I do Shrouds or TRs. Levelling a 36 point build really feels like a repetitive job. Running epics (other than the easiest ones) is different each time. Epics could be improved, but they are a hell of a lot more fun than beating down 15 12000hp portals that don't fight back, then surrounding a Pit Fiend, autoattacking and casting Mass Heals on cooldown, then getting a large bone for the trouble. (Part 2 can be entertaining at level)

[k1ngp1n]

Anyone that thinks Mass Hold is the only viable tactic in Epics is just dead wrong.

It's the fastest way to kill things, yes. But Mass Suggestion/Symbol: Persuasion and ignoring both the charmed mobs and everything they are fighting works just as well. 3SP Resistable Dance neutralises any epic mob long enough to kill it at leisure, and Irresistable Dance can do the same. Even Hypnotism works (Hypno a mob, zerg past it), or Fascinate.

You can tell a mediocre caster by the fact that they flat-out refuse to run VON4 epic because their holds don't work there, or if they run it they pike. Decent casters are a powerhouse in that quest.

Noone really made any heavy use of Mass Hold in epics until the VON series was epic-ified. Hell, I led the server-first epic Devil Assault on Khyber and we did not use Mass Hold much at all (that was to conserve SP, now we do use Mass Hold more as casters are usually willing to drink a couple of mana pots to shave 10 minutes off the completion time).

Though, to also be fair, early on Stunning worked a lot differently and was a better option to achieve the same goal of auto-crit.

[sirgog]

Though, to also be fair, early on Stunning worked a lot differently and was a better option to achieve the same goal of auto-crit.

It took players a while to realise the power of the old Weighted 5% weapons in epics, it was at least 3-4 weeks until the standard practice was to make heavy use of stunning and/or earthgrab effects. Prior to that groups would straight-up beatdown mobs and Irresistable Dance the more dangerous ones.

I miss those days, when mobs in epics really fought back.

[Shade]

I miss those days, when mobs in epics really fought back.

me too.

Give us tor. Don't cut it's hp in half.

Give us original tor. Give us 10k hp tor.
We insane grizzled veterans deserve a bone. Toss us one.

The new players are getting there new "MORE EASY" more casaul epics..

Tor for us.

Please.

[Purgatory]

Epic GH would be nice it keep me entertained for awhile instead of trying to collect one million desert tokens because im bored lol

[Shade]

This topic seems relevant again, since Fernando said something

planning substantial changes and some nice surprises for when this is finally available to players

Maybe in another year from now I can say thanks for finally enabling it.

I mean, its only been 2 years, 7 months and 3 weeks since I beat tor epic. Must be getting close amiright?

[Dexol]

This topic seems relevant again, since Fernando said something


Maybe in another year from now I can say thanks for finally enabling it.

I mean, its only been 2 years, 7 months and 3 weeks since I beat tor epic. Must be getting close amiright?

But the Timer on epic tor is 3 years, of course you could always pay to bypass.......

[silinteresting]

signed, signed and signed again. epic tor wow my mouth is watering at that prospect. op im jelous as hell youve run this. my only question would be how do they release it and make money(always the bottom line).

[janave]

me too.

Give us tor. Don't cut it's hp in half.

Give us original tor. Give us 10k hp tor.
We insane grizzled veterans deserve a bone. Toss us one.

The new players are getting there new "MORE EASY" more casaul epics..

Tor for us.

Please.

Hmm, this is cool until our Wizards reach the *new* mark in Necro DCs. See, im running around with deathblock gear from lvl6-9 (depends), so dont even try to call a monster epic with 40CR and no Deathblock.

Interestingly enough most of the players crying for lack of challenge also play the most twinked out minmaxd DC casters with cheesy area of effect instantkills. Getting the highest tiers of powercreep and choosing the most powerful toons by class, will eliminate a big part of the challenge. In this case dungeon knowledge will help you too, so that should be accounted adjusting up the challenge.

We could have nice stuff if people would stop crying after their instantkills in epics, and maybe learn to play their class, other than using the single most cheesefest PRE in the game.

Im all for it btw. Bring it, up the monster encounter tho, redesign dungeon alert so we can fight hordes of really tough monsters that use tactics, formations, covers, buff and heal each other etc.

If they do it well enough 450-550TPs is all good for the upgrade.

[janave]

Heres an idea how to make money from it .

Put in a secret room, keyed access only. Key is a rare drop. 3-5% in the end chest. Also available in the store for 100-150pts.

Secret room is an Extreme Epic Challenge. You get the warning message, and an ominous song in the background.

The room contains a huge pile of treasure hoard with a dragon sleeping on it.

The dragon is the highest CR(50+) purple named enemy in the entire game. He summons undead armored skeleton hordes in waves to spread the love . He also dominates yuanti archers with heavy acid dot arrows on ceirtain hard to reach high spots.

The fight:

I. Someone needs to walk up to the dragon and initiate a dialog. This one is better be beefy or just a party martir as out of 6 talk options 5 will trigger an auto aggro and a special breath attack for unsane(1,5k+) random elemental damage.
II. The dragon moves, and attacks freely, no cheesy stuck spot like in the Well quest.
III. The dragon has stacking rage ability, this allows him to get stronger the more damage he takes per second.
IV. He gets all the cruel stomping, and tail whipping abilities we seen so far, except they hit harder.
V. If a caster stacks dots on him the next huge cone aoe breath is centered on said caster.

Upon defeating the dragon you get 50%, yes 50% chance at a dragonscale. This dragonscale is vastly valuable and the best armor evar comes from it.