Feedback - Quest - Missing

[Shade]

Quest:
Atmosphere was ok.. Kinda creepy in some parts. Tho felt uneven as other players said in terms of encounters. Tho all encounters were far too easy to do on all difficulties. It's like you watered down the mobs severely and took away there standard abilities the same ones have in real quests.. I mean I didn't see the flesh renders cast inflict wounds even once, whats up with that?

I mean take a look at Threnal for example - exact same monsters.. a quest a good 5 levels lower, yet its a million times more difficult. Why?

The new monsters:
They get a pretty cool special: Sticky goo.. Yet they almost never use it, and when they do it, its duraiton so shrot I couldnt even read the description without screenshotting it and looking at it. Aside from that ability they never use, they are just very weak melee mobs otherwise, not very interesting. Really should massively up the duration, and make them use it more often... Just allow it to be removed with say a remove paralysy spell only.. you know, provide a real incentive to use non-standard spells and tactics.

Endboss:
A beholder without an anti magic aura. You'd think a rednamed endboss thats the focus of the entire quest would be MORE dangerous then your average beholder, yet hes far weaker..

Pathetic.

What has this game come to?

Next quest: Just have the beholder heal us, and kill himself..

Zero challenge end fight = zero fun.

I mean even his seposedly ultimately ability of psyonic dominate? .. it last like freakin 2-3 seconds and you can be immune to it with a prot evil (which he wont make any attempt at dispelling). Same goes for his dance and every other ability.. Such a horribly short duration makes the effects pointless.

Really turbine.. What were you thinking? It is sposed to be fun to just run up fully buffed and crush a weak beholder with no risk?

The new casual ddo.. Who wants a challenge? None present here, not even on elite. I could solo this on a lvl10 28-pnt build on elite.

[Qezuzu]

Same goes for his dance and every other ability.. Such a horribly short duration makes the effects pointless.

You sure it wasn't dungeon scaling?

[patang01]

I liked the quest. It's nice to have to move in several different planes from up, down, across and under water to get somewhere. I always love running on rooftops (Kudos to house of P quests such as the snitch) that gives you an idea of 'size' eventhough you're simply in a limited space that seems to be on a huge building.

I love the taken; a cool monster with a lot of sound to it. Moaning, groaning, insane screaming. And I like the fact that normal playes 'nice' and elite gets a serious HP boost and challenge, even for my level 20 guys (challenge in the sense that I can't just kill everything in 2 hits).

The end is kind of a hit and miss. The beholder doesn't really scare me. It's not as menacing as running through Subt where you know that someone is going to get seriously neg levels and this is going to be bad. Even the beholders in Rainbow, Hound and Invasion gives me more pause.

I'm not saying that it needs a incredible boost so it's beyond a level 15 beholder - but it needs to be menacing.

Great story - good sense of immersion and I like the length of it.

[Gleep_Wurp]

it was bad. very bad.

[altrocks]

Did this on casual with my recently LR'd level 20 human earth savant sorc. Went in with a 40-charge wand of cure serious and 10 cure serious pots. didn't even come close to using them all. Only time I had to use a non-SLA was for the tharak hounds (acid immunity, not good for earth savant), but then I just dropped an incendiary cloud and waited for them to die as they tried to PK me. I know it's not really quest-specific, but I have to say I was loving earth savant until I realized just how many mobs in the game are immune to acid or have high acid res. Not sure if any others changed, but I noticed the renders/reavers in there seemed to have none/very little. That was nice. One melf or a couple acid blasts for groups and they were all dead quickly. SLA's FTW. I expected the quest to be pretty easy because of the level difference, and it's about what I expected it to be. I can see it being challenging at-level for a lot of players, though the HP totals on the mobs seemed pretty low, even for casual. Most barely had a few hundred and the end boss died from a couple of cloud effects within a few seconds.

On the aesthetic side of things, I absolutely loved this quest. It almost had a Call of Cthulhu type feel to it. Investigating madness and disappearances, finding some ugly horror waiting inside a seemingly normal villain at the end who drives you insane. The sound effects, atmosphere and design all really worked well together. I'd love to see more stuff like this. This is what I imagined Necropolis would be like when I played it for the first time. I was a little disappointed there, but I am extremely pleased here. Good job!

[Alanim]

Quest:
Endboss:
A beholder without an anti magic aura. You'd think a rednamed endboss thats the focus of the entire quest would be MORE dangerous then your average beholder, yet hes far weaker..

Pathetic.

What has this game come to?

Next quest: Just have the beholder heal us, and kill himself..

Whilst I haven't run it due to the problem with cannith... He probably doesn't have his anti magic cone due to the fact that he is casting magical effects on you, which would get pretty much instantly dispelled making him EVEN MORE harmless.

Perhaps if they gave one of his eyes disjunction that could make him a bit harder?

[Ovrad]

The new casual ddo.. Who wants a challenge? None present here, not even on elite. I could solo this on a lvl10 28-pnt build on elite.

Let me guess, you tried this quest with your multi-TRed, epic geared, lv 20 barbarian and expected a challenge? Go ahead, try it on elite with a new lv 10 toon, I'm sure it'll be different. That beholder has an insta-kill attack that apparently bypasses deathblock (WAI?).

I do agree though that some effects, like sticky, should last longer. You simply shrug them off too fast, can't even read the description..

[Vengeance777]

I found several spots just exploring the map where you can fall off roofs into areas of the map where you will become stuck and unable to continue. Bug reported all of them.

[eterna1_drag0n]

Ran through normal solo with a 20 wizzy, which made it way too easy, but I think it was a little too easy, if you get me. End boss fight was great concept but way to much prep time before he actually turned to attack/combative. I had every AOE, (firewall, cloudkill, acid fog, incendiary cloud, death aura) cast before he even turned combative and he only lasted 2 second i think i managed to get a chain missile off before all the AOE's killed him. Also the lack of non-magic main eye makes it even easier, as i was fully buffed. I was expecting a fight harder then the Ghost of Perdition boss as it was 15th lvl not 14; what I got was the Invaders, lvl12, boss.
Great concepts and story line, loved the two guys turning on me after marking the maddened. On a side note the clues/evidence dialog does not stay on screen long enough to read nor does it show up in general chat nor DM narrative or quest narrative; So I could only read half of it before it disappeared,

[Claver]

EDIT: I grade this one a B-. The excellent sound and inclusion of a new monster type helps compensate for the terrible ending. I'm not sure how I will feel after the newness of the Taken has worn off. The bad ending will detract from replay value.

· CHALLENGE: I soloed on Normal with a level 18 Sorcerer Water/Cold Savant accompanied by a summoned Hezerou. I had just respec’d into the Water Savant and lacked the optimum spells/gear/button layout (plus I hadn’t played my Sorc in ages and was quite rusty) so my play experience may have been less overpowered than a typical level 18. The challenge level looked to be about right for a level 14/15 party with the exception of the end fight. There were times I had to retreat to lick my wounds and I needed to play smart with crowd control and choke points at times to avoid getting overtaken by the Taken.

· END BOSS: The beholder was a major disappointment. The fight couldn’t have lasted more than 3 seconds. I probably only took 50 points damage. There might have been some Taken; not sure, if there were, they died too quickly. I had thought perhaps the beholder had phased out at first because the fight ended so quickly. Compare this to the other boss fights such as the Cold Flame Hound and the Xoriat mage from the Twelve. These fights were far more interesting because I could see who I was fighting. They lived long enough to fight back, damage me and allow me to have fun trying to use a variety of spells and abilities to defeat them.

Encounters in DDO quests often disappoint when there is a scripted event that gives time to set up a host of spells. By the time the beholder had grown to full size the room was covered in acid fogs, dancing balls, fire walls and ice storms. This quest is like a movie with a bad ending. The weak end boss negatively colors the perception of the entire experience. Turbine, you really should adjust this aspect of the quest before it goes live.

Suggestion: Double the Hit Points of the Beholder so it can survive the initial onslaught of precast spells. Once the beholder reached 50% of its hit points, treat it as thought it were in a helpless (hold person) state for the purposes of having all subsequent damage dealt to the beholder increased by 50%. This would hopefully allow the beholder to live long enough to fire back a few shots at the beginning of the encounter without making it an insurmountable foe for parties lacking spell casting.

· CHEEZY TACTICS: The presence of water throughout the quest, particularly the wells, gave me a safe place to retreat where the monsters couldn’t reach while I drank cure pots. I would lure the monsters to the edge of the well, leave a persistent spell like acid fog and a summoned pet, and then dive below, wash rinse and repeat.

Turbine, did you intend this design to make the quest easier for solo play? If so, well done. There are certainly a lot of roof tops that support sniper game play as well as narrow hallway bottlenecks. If we were meant to take advantage of these terrain features then make the monster MORE CHALLENGING to promote/reward/encourage strategic play.

· SOUND: Excellent job! This greatly added to the atmosphere of the quest and made for an eerie experience. I normally keep the game music turned off; I won’t during this quest – except when I reach the end boss and hear the incongruent heavy metal. Love the creepy voice work when you find a clue when the world turns black and white ala Delirium. And whoever did the voices for the Taken needs a raise (and a cough drop) – “I am beautiful”. I felt like I was in the Pit of Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs.

· VISUAL: This was a surprisingly large dungeon that did very much feel like a city ward, much more so than the Sharn Syndicate. The rooftops, drying laundry and tenement housing go a long way towards helping Stormreach feel more like a real city. I love the inclusion of a playground and school – helps the creep out factor knowing that children are also being taken.

· LAYOUT: I like that you can go in two different directions at the start of the quest. That increases the replay value; having said that, I don’t think I will choose to replay this one as often as many of the Drooam series quests. I immediately dove into the water and went through the tunnels around the back side of the quest. Perhaps because I started the quest in reverse order I had a difficult time finding the last clue. I had to retrace my steps from the beginning going in the clockwise direction before the door to the armory opened.

· SWIFTFOOT HIDEOUT: The xp reward is something like 36 xp compared to 700 xp for marking 15 insane people. Granted, there is not much challenge visiting the swiftfoot hideout, especially if you don’t open the chest, but an xp reward so low is insulting. At least make it 136 points. As an aside, I like the CR 3 bats and rats. It’s much more realistic (and fun) to not have everything at exactly your character level. Now if Turbine would just give us some CR 90 Cthulu type monsters in the dark that we need to learn to avoid.

· INSANE/MARK OF XORIAT: Many of the people were well hidden. I like that there were more than 15 so that it wasn’t impossible to achieve the goal but hid and seek is fun too. Give us another optional to find ALL people for those who like taking the time to do these things. “ A Small Problem” had a nice set up with the Earth Elementals; It was easy to gather the minimum number of stones but it was many months before I found the last hidden Earth Elemental for the extra Xp reward. Its good quest design to still have things to find/enjoy and strive for after you have been in a quest several times. This can be done with the hunt for the insane as well.

· TREASURE REWARD: I’m finding festivault tokens in the chests. I assume these are a place holder. FYI.

[Shade]

Let me guess, you tried this quest with your multi-TRed, epic geared, lv 20 barbarian and expected a challenge? Go ahead, try it on elite with a new lv 10 toon, I'm sure it'll be different. That beholder has an insta-kill attack that apparently bypasses deathblock (WAI?).

I do agree though that some effects, like sticky, should last longer. You simply shrug them off too fast, can't even read the description..

Yea way to read.

I specificly said 28-point build.

I never bothered running my massively overpowered barb in this chain what so ever. I ran it on my gimpy wizard to play with the new (well updated) spells, and purposely used things i was not even spec'd for. He did not even have any enhancements trained as I was mainly just testing things. Even un-enhacned spells utterly crush everything here ultra fast.

And yea... Kinda hard (impossible) to have a 28pnt multi TR.

The beholder definetely has no insta kills on normal difficulties. I purposely spent 10 minutes killing respawns to check the xp bonuses on a 15 fort save wizard with no deathblock on.

I think he has FoD on elite, but it does not bypass deathblock at all.

I absolutely guarentee I could do it on a non-twinked in any way what so ever 28 point barb. without assistance. It's a joke compared to what we used to face in quests like ghost of perdition. There are majors flaws in the design of a boss that does nearly no dmg, and only has CC effects that last 3 seconds.

Give him an anti magic aura, increase his damage massively, give him the full range of normal beholder spells + his new ones, and increase the taken spawn rate, and hed be a reasonable at-lvl challenge. Tho still easier hen many others we face at this lvl like GoP.

[Alanim]

The beholder definetely has no insta kills on normal difficulties. I purposely spent 10 minutes killing respawns to check the xp bonuses on a 15 fort save wizard with no deathblock on.

I think he has FoD on elite, but it does not bypass deathblock at all.

He has prismatic spray, which has the will-save deathblock bypassing effect, as I recall.

I'm pretty sure that's what they mean.

[RandomKeypress]

The big problem I see with the optional boss is that you don't have to be in range of its attacks to hurt him. I second the suggestion of making it an arena battle, and I'd suggest making it impossible to use AoE DOTs on it. Maybe fill the area with statues that blow Gust of Wind or some such - slow the melees and get rid of clouds / firewalls - would make kiting harder too.
Silver Flame amulet definitely makes the job easier, but it only has 10 charges. The thing has enough hit points and each level drain seemed to hit for 2-8 levels each time. Doesn't take long for it to deplete. Now if it never pops its anti-magic ray then deathward will save the day, otherwise the level drain immune classes and WF are going have a big advantage.
Either way the fight is way too easy. Other optional extreme challenge bosses (that guy in Partycrashers, the demon in the bottom of the pit in the deep) are tough to solo. Soloing the demon in the deep on elite would be a real challenge for many lev 20s. This guy is in a much higher level quest than those other two, but is much easier to handle.

[GoldyGopher]

I ran the quest on Normal and Hard solo with a level 16 Hybrid, AC 50.

My Character actually died twice on Normal, of course She was "killed by something" according to the combat log, and that really annoys me, since I just died fighting the beholder.

The quest is listed as a long, however it should be a very long in comparison to other quests at different levels.

I liked the fog, however it didn't seem finished in some areas. There were a couple of spots in the quest the artwork was either slightly disjointed or maybe incomplete, especially in the corners of the canals.

The Quest was long (moving from spot to spot) and the information provided by the DM/text a couple of time left me wondering what I was supposed to be doing. For instance the first time you see the Warforged in the Bar behind the Bars, I didn't get close enough to him to make him active, so I kept running around looking for what I was supposed to be doing, even though the DM text popped for him.
The quest isn't so much about combat but about moving from one spot to the next.

I kept wondering if the madpeople were going to go away.

The fights again are way to easy, the scripting for the Hounds and the reavers makes me wonder why they are so cutdown in comparison to what they do in other quests. I faced only melee attacks from the reavers and they all seemed to miss while the hounds kept trying to cast PK without doing Melee.

I have already commented about the Taken.
Several of them spawned in walls on normal and I was unable to fight them, yet they could throw the green stuff at me (think it is supposed to be acid, but the Combat Log was not clear.

The Swiftfoot Encounter seemed pointless. I may have missed something in the dialog somewhere but I had no clue what they had to do with the whole quest (Yeah I know Posser's Theory, but it didn't fit with the other quests in the chain.)

I was unable to get any XP bonus for monster/traps/secret doors/breakables simply by following the quest layout. Since you make a realitive circle and probably need to double back.

I founf not one trap in the whole series, very disappointing.

Overall I found the XP to need some work, lower base XP and much higher XP rewards for the optionals. Speaking of optionals I hate required optionals, Pale Blue or what ever his name is needs to move off the beaten path or it needs to be a required.
I didn't complete one of the optionals (mark of madness) because I couldn't find the last mad person either time. Not that I spent a whole lot of time looking.

The quest overall was okay, but not something I am going to run often in it's current format. If the mobs were toughened up and the XP increased this could be a very popular quest to run. However I can go run POP in half the time and get more XP.

[I_Bob]

Level 18 cleric. Normal.

Loved the atmosphere - the feeling of foreboding, a couple of “gotcha’s”. School room and playground another good touch. Best music yet except for the end boss - didn’t match the style of the rest of the quest.

I liked the maddened - something different. I like that there were more than needed so that optional could be completed without totally diverting from the main quest.

Having “normal” rats and all in there was fun. Made it more “real”.

The Taken are a good idea, a bit underpowered singly, but a small challenge in groups.

The two mini-bosses at the end were better than the end boss by a bunch. Nice touch with them.

End boss nothing to write home about - dead in seconds. Missing some spells? Very disappointing.

Had several clipping issues - mobs getting stuck in walls, not being able to get around corners, etc.

Level layout was good - a couple of ways to get somewhere. Interesting sites, but I would have liked even more doors and halls/alleys to move around in there. Reminds me of some subdivisions - one way in, one way out. But even in those there are several different ways to get places within the subdivision.

Liked the chronicles - I like story...

End rewards - terrible - not worth even opening the chest except maybe for crafting items... A potion of water breathing? After a great quest, very disappointing. Festival coins?

Overall - over leveled - should be 3 or 4 levels lower. I hope this isn’t another “dumbing down” of DDO. If there’s no challenge, players will leave in droves....

[Alanim]

Proves that the beholder can instant kill through deathblock. Hit me with it within 3 seconds of activating .

Also, once I rez caked, the beholder had issues, or perhaps he always had issues firing his prismatic spray... the spawns also broke... His prismatic spray was being thrown into the wall and stuff... rest of the eye beams were fine.

[eterna1_drag0n]

Proves that the beholder can instant kill through deathblock. Hit me with it within 3 seconds of activating .

Also, once I rez caked, the beholder had issues, or perhaps he always had issues firing his prismatic spray... the spawns also broke... His prismatic spray was being thrown into the wall and stuff... rest of the eye beams were fine.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but this screen-shot doesn't show you having a deathblock item on, lol!

[Alanim]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but this screen-shot doesn't show you having a deathblock item on, lol!

Of course it doesn't... Because it doesn't say you have deathblock if it BYPASSES deathblock... I don't swap my robes out.

[Claver]

So far, the quests in this update have not struck me as on par as the quest in the last 5 updates (to be fair, I have not yet completed the chain).

I'm trying to figure out why I have this impression.

I love, love, love the eerie X-file Cthulu mystery idea of the series and yet the implementation of the individual quests seems less polished, less distinct from each other and perhaps less inspired in terms of creative gameplay when benchmarked versus Turbines recent outstanding work. It just feels a bit rushed to market.

This thinking led me to compare Assault on Summerfield to The Missing. They both are open city ward environment quests but the pacing feel is very different. Summerfield occurs in the day. It is a frenetic battle with enemies on every rooftop. My adrenaline was pumping as I rushed through the streets fighting in every alley.

The Missing has a different pace. It occurs at night. It is spooky. It urges caution in case something scary might awaken from the darkness.

I think the reason The Missing is so less effective is there is nothing scary to punctuate the tension. Either you can have a constant battle in Summerfield to sustain the excitement or you can have sporadic moments of shock but to do the latter you need to have STRONG DANGEROUS enemies. If the encounters are going to be spaced out - as they should be for a dangerous night time vibe - then each one should be intense and challenging to ramp up the sense of constant peril around every corner.

Yes, The Taken might run at you in groups but they also stand around the playground waiting to be picked off at a distance. Groups of Swiftfoot and Renders can also be killed/pulled from the safety of Rooftops.

I like that there are strategic opportunities to attack. Don't change this but do change the toughness of the individual enemies so we feel like we have to be careful sneaking through the night. Make it scary!!!!

[Coldin]

By far the best quest in this series. It has a very neat atmosphere, and gives the impression that this little corner of Stormreach might have been pretty nice if it wasn't for all the creepiness. I like running across all the crazy people and that insanity effect when finding evidence is really well done. I actually wish you would have used it a bit more throughout the series

I really like the quest, but I almost feel like some of the creepiness was a bit lost towards the end. All the flesh renders and tharaak hounds that appear after the school house pretty much point immiediately that all this is happening because of Xoriat. I think it would be a bit better if they were saved towards the final third of the quest. Prior to that it should be more about crazed animals and other things that have been drive insane.

I actually don't think we should even see a "Taken" until the very end of the quest. That would build up the whole "Where have all these people gone, and what are they doing with them." Then the beholder can do the big reveal.

Anyway, I do really like this quest. I wish all the quests of the Taken series could get that same feeling scariness and insanity.