Innovation

[Kages]

I think the biggest problem in trying to spur on more "innovation" is that we all already have ideas about what "can't be done." And I don't mean things that are technically impossible, like making a bard pally (although I've oddly enough encountered a monk barbarian....) but from my own experiences builds like cleric-rogues and wizard-fighters were said to be impossible. Blah and blah quest can only be completed if we have a rogue/tank/healer etc. When I started playing I just did what everyone told me to - I figured they were right and knew the game better. Even now sometimes I look at a person's build and think to myself "what were they thinking?!"

However then I realize I contradict myself since my current favorite character happens to be a cleric/monk/rogue which I've used to solo Proof is in the Poison on normal and hard at lv5 without using a hireling. With that same character I joined a pug with a "real" rogue and a "real" cleric both of which ended up in my pocket for a ride after the first fight. The "real" dps could barely stay alive chugging tons of pots between fights. A lot of my success comes with knowing the quest but at the same time I wouldn't have been able to do everything necessary to get by being a "real" anything. This build can't heal as much as a full cleric or do traps as well as a full rogue or dps as well as a full monk - there are definitely limitations.

With innovation we realize there are limits, but these same limits are what keeps us from being innovative to begin with. Sometimes you try something and it doesn't work for you, then you tell everyone it can't be done so no one does it. Sometimes you do something amazing and tell everyone... and no one believes you because it can't be done.

Interested to see this monk/barb because monks are required to be Lawful, and barbs are required to be Chaotic. Details on how this is done.

[mws2970]

Interested to see this monk/barb because monks are required to be Lawful, and barbs are required to be Chaotic. Details on how this is done.

SS or it didn't happen.

[Dracey]

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Forgive the lengthiness of this convo, got in a bit late and didn't want to make 10 posts to catch up.

Nah, it's cool. I prefer multiple responses in a single post like yours. But yeah, I'm going to just press the invisible agree button to all of what you had to say, despite how much I want to see disagreements. xD

In my case, I just figured that since I'm responding to so many posts that my responses should be in individual posts so that the people I'm responding to might catch it easier (considering how long my responses sometimes are)... and to up my noobish forum post count wuhahaha (jk)

[Kages]

Nah, it's cool. I prefer multiple responses in a single post like yours. But yeah, I'm going to just press the invisible agree button to all of what you had to say, despite how much I want to see disagreements. xD

In my case, I just figured that since I'm responding to so many posts that my responses should be in individual posts so that the people I'm responding to might catch it easier (considering how long my responses sometimes are)... and to up my noobish forum post count wuhahaha (jk)

Yeah, people keep telling me I need to stop and get up my post count, but sadly that means about as much to me as a frog in a blender. Anyways, I have several disagreements, but being at work I have to do short posts or do like I did above and take my time coming back to re-read and complete a single post. As for the convo I'm highly interested and trying to keep track in between paperwork.

[toshiyanemura]

SS or it didn't happen.

Don't want anyone to get in trouble + wasn't originally my screenshot.

[kitselli]

I was in a Reaver's Fate run...
Everyone was asked to roll d100.
I got high roll...
Lucky me - I got to be the Stormreaver tank! Forgot to add I am 18/2 Rog/F finesse assassin

Now, while I did do OK just with the aura going; I did need a couple heals to supplement my health.

It was different and FUN!
Kit

[Kages]

Don't want anyone to get in trouble + wasn't originally my screenshot.

Hehe, must download and check for photoshop tag. Even without too much has been edited out to assume its real. Look at the name area, black rectangle.

[moops]

there is a noticeable differentiation in 'rules' between general PUGing and running with guildies or generally competent groups. while it may not be *essential* to have a WF tank for VoD, it is more or less a notch or two below essential when it comes to PUGing. if the fleshy tank didnt have a decent amount of healing amp or enough AC to be meaningful, id be quite tempted to drop group and run something else because 80% of the time, its just going to be a giant waste of time.

the only times ive PUGed VoD and seen the healers left with more than slivers of SP at the end of the raid is when ive run with guildies or gotten into a guild run that PUGed out a few spots. all the general PUGs ive ran, there has always been one or more issues that are a SP drain for the healers. be it ranger that decides hes gonna help out tanking (and not one that is built/geared for tanking anyways), casters with 250 SP, melees without 100% fort, people never drinking any heal pots in between fights, someone not having curse pots, people not focusing on one orthon and instead all fighting their own, etc.

in short, while PUGing VoD a WF tank is pretty essential because a large majority of the time, the group itself needs all the healer's SP. i realize im nit-picking a small segment of the thread topic, but my point is that these 'rules' are usually the result of crappy PUGs. they are there to make running these quests more smoothly when dealing with the lowest common denominator.

obviously there are other ways to get these quests and raids done, but when its not uncommon for PUGs to have a hard time getting the 'easy-mode' methods to go right, innovation becomes a handicap of sorts fairly quickly.

i do agree with alot of what you are saying, i just dont think its fair to blame all the 'rules' on people being sticks in the mud either.

Last pug VOD I did on my caster, I used 3 or 4 pots and 150 scrolls healing the tank, why is it acceptable for the Arcane to use pots and scrolls, and not the healers? Both healers did not carry scrolls. Oh and we failed. I never join these type LFMS that say Need WF tank, because I know the leader cant lead if something goes wrong, I made the exception this one run and all I kept think was that I wished I was on a Divine healing a flesh tank that was this squishy, it wouldve been easier.

[Alektronic]

Hehe, must download and check for photoshop tag. Even without too much has been edited out to assume its real. Look at the name area, black rectangle.

The rectangle over name/guild is required to follow forum guidelines... I kinda recall that SS from a post a while back though. Do you have the link? Iirc it was posted as a joke wasn't it? Can't remember, haha.

As a side note, if it really was done, is that through the new alignment change purchase from the ddo store? ZOMG! I call DDddDDoooOOOoooMmmmmmm!!!oneeleven!1111!!!

[Kages]

The rectangle over name/guild is required to follow forum guidelines... I kinda recall that SS from a post a while back though. Do you have the link? Iirc it was posted as a joke wasn't it? Can't remember, haha.

As a side note, if it really was done, is that through the new alignment change purchase from the ddo store? ZOMG! I call DDddDDoooOOOoooMmmmmmm!!!oneeleven!1111!!!

No clue. They all look fishy to me either way. Would be nice, but it isn't posible. All the screenies are either fake or test server images. By all means though please, someone prove me wrong, would looooovvvveeeee a 12monk/6barb/2fighter.

[Quikster]

No clue. They all look fishy to me either way. Would be nice, but it isn't posible. All the screenies are either fake or test server images. By all means though please, someone prove me wrong, would looooovvvveeeee a 12monk/6barb/2fighter.

It was possible for a short while before they fixed the alignment change to no longer work on the reincarnation boat.

[Fourfingers]

I would love it if the devs magically changed all the laws of DDO as we know them

Looking forward to the next update?

[vyvy3369]

It was possible for a short while before they fixed the alignment change to no longer work on the reincarnation boat.

Very early on, a lot of people experienced random alignment changes, usually from anything else to Lawful Good. So...a very, very old Barb that was affected by that could potentially have switched to Monk several years later, after Monks came out. But yeah, if anything, probably some shenanigans with alignment changes.

Edit: in fact, I think Henry's original life started off as something else, and ended up getting switched to LG...wow, that was a long time ago though.

[Quikster]

Very early on, a lot of people experienced random alignment changes, usually from anything else to Lawful Good. So...a very, very old Barb that was affected by that could potentially have switched to Monk several years later, after Monks came out. But yeah, if anything, probably some shenanigans with alignment changes.

Edit: in fact, I think Henry's original life started off as something else, and ended up getting switched to LG...wow, that was a long time ago though.

It was something along the line of start one alignment take classes, use alignment change from ddo store, and take other classes.

[Yehediah]

Good thread. I generally agree that it is annoying to see so many convinced you have to do things X way - when you often don't. Misconception is a big problem and often laughable.

But, there are things that, while they don't have to be done X way, they are really, really difficult at base XP (no penalty) on Elite without a pretty small set of possibilities. Some of this is slowly getting better. But, it still often means a lot of deaths and a pretty high risk of failure.

What comes to mind as example is the difficulty of elite traps on many quests - not only does there have to be a "trap-springer" (1-2 levels of rogue), but they have to have nearly maxed skills with nearly maxed item, etc.). Now, I've seen some leeway here more recently - but, I've also seen a good number of even straight rogues not be able to do an elite trap at their level - and I'm wondering why. Once upon a time, there were significant numbers of traps you couldn't get past with the "right" energy resistance and/or protection and the a good number of rogues for whatever reason couldn't disable the trap. I remember failing a few essential traps when I was nearly, but not-quiet maxed (might be 1-2 off due to not having the item for this level, but rather last level) and thinking wow - that's pretty difficult. In more recent times, I've seen resists and protections work on traps that I don't think you could do that on earlier.

But, another example is how many quests with mid-to-high level undead is very, very difficult without death ward (which no healing types seem to carry any more for some reason) or with command (which also is somehow never carried by more recent clerics/favored souls). And, then you go to the ones with mummies and what a pain those are without disease immunity items (and the unbelievable number of players who never carry disease immunity items).

Or the difficulty in not dying on high level quests/raids as a drow wizard with an "average" Con to max Int (as in, 10 base, +2 tome, +6 item) - had to waste a feat on toughness because too many things forced you to take pretty high frequent damage no matter how good you were at avoiding aggro.

Yes, I've found ways to do all the above - and I know it "can" be done - I'm just saying some things are way too difficult and require a pretty few narrow options to be consistently done without grinding things down to a snail's pace...

[Jevern]

*likes*

Having a set way to do everything sometimes gets boring. I won't want to do certain things like zerging through all the mines on elite Made To Order, because that's just dumb, but there are plenty of other things that can be done. I had a rather interesting experience in epic partycrashers earlier when someone decided to kill the last red tiefling that guards the loo first. And then when we went into the corridor after that, we were greeted by about fifteen angry tieflings. Some deaths, but we got through all right. No one yelled, no one pointed fingers. Was a new experience, heh.

What tends to annoy me more than people insisting that you do things X way, though, is people that insist you have to be X build or you're crappy. My fighter has been grilled several times because she's an elf, and my mechanic has been grilled countless times because she has no assassinate. I've seen battleclerics get yelled at for meleeing Harry, seen people yell at a rogue for pulling aggro when they had plenty of AC and were doing jsut fine, and many other things of the like. I find it really sad, heh. I do try to stick up for them when I can, but so many people have such fixed perceptions that it's kind of difficult to change their minds at all.

[wax_on_wax_off]

In my experience of late night pugging on Sarlona (I'm from Australia) I wish more people knew the boring old defacto way of doing things.

Sure, it's a nice flavour, but I won't take the 5 ~250 HP, 0% fort AA rangers who hit my Shroud LFM along, I'm sure we could get a completion this way but it just wouldn't be fun (or considerate to the healers who would have to use resources).

I have more examples ... but I'm about to go to sleep and they are further back in my memory, I've more or less given up on late night grouping (except occasionally with the groups that don't speak my language, some of them can be really solid).

As far as different goes and the gist of this thread, I've had a great time showing people that I can tank Sully in VoD or ToD with my WF FvS. The 15 DR, massive hate generation and decent HP really help there.

[Lleren]

I think Gevlon says it fairly well here even though speaking about another game entirely. http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/2011/05/choice.html

The choice




There are a lot of words about optimization in MMOs. Tobold, Spinks, Rohan (and many-many others) all spoke their pieces. However they consider this question philosophical, while it's completely practical. To see it, you must answer the following question: which of the optimization steps brings you the biggest effect on your raiding success:
•Replacing the last talent point that was different from EJ's "spec of the month".

•Farming Zul Aman HC to replace your 346 bracer to a 353 one
•Replacing the +15 all stats chest enchant to +20
•Replacing skinning to jewelcrafting
•Maxing out Therazane rep to replace honored enchant to exalted
•Reforging haste to crit (or vica versa) if EJ says so
•Replacing your CPU and video card to increase framerate
•Replacing your ISP to decrease lag
•Watching every possible video on the encounter

You have your answer? Well it's wrong. Not just a bit sub-optimal, it's terribly wrong. No matter which one you picked, its effect on success chance is just 0.1-0.2% compared to the real answer. This choice alone decides if you down the boss or not. Even if you gemmed, enchanted, talented, reforged wrong, have beginner gear, slack on consumables, play on an old computer with 128kbit internet, but made the big choice right, your chance to win is much higher than doing everything else perfectly but messing up the choice.

The choice is "who do you play with"? If I could go to a Paragon raid, I could go AFK and still clear 13/13 HC. If a Paragon member, with all the gear and skill he has, would go to Argoloth with 9 members of xXxDarkGnomKillazxXx, he would look forward a wipefest (actually just one wipe, because after that half the raid would "g2g sry").

If you want to down the boss, you must choose good players and you must make them choose you. The lower level raiders choose by ilvl+achievment. The higher level ones choose after optimization. To get to higher level raiding everything must serve the purpose of being chosen. Every little "mistake" (even if objectively just 0.01% power decrease) is a signal of being bad. There are many-many bad players out there, so they easily put the M&S stamp on your head. People are extremely cautious. So if you choose to play with people who optimize, you have to optimize too. It's just as obvious as "if you choose to get item X, you have to grind item X"


The above things give the one meaningful, open-ended choice in WoW (and any MMO). Who to play with?
1.Want to go with high-level raiders? EJ- optimizing and accepting fixed attendance is the way to be accepted.
2.Want to go with low-level raiders? Farm gear, install underachiever addon.
3.Prefer to disobey everyone? Don't raid then, be a fan/clown.
4.Want to play in a friendly atmosphere? Bring your RL friends in the game, teach them how to play!
5.Or find some unique way no one ever thought of!

I choose this unique way when I started my guild. I've chosen people based on their behavior (no social chit-chat, gz, smilies, lolspeak, demanding boost). Most people believed I'm "doing it wrong". Nefarian disagrees. This was a meaningful, unique choice that no EJ article suggested. Here you don't have to optimize. As long as you can do your job I don't care if you are gemmed for haste while EJ says mastery. The same is true for example the xXxDarkGnomKillazxXx, they don't expect you to have the optimal gem either. Actually they don't expect you to know what gem is.

If you are looking to make a meaningful choice in the game, stop looking at the talent page or thinking about rotations. The EJ guys will do better than you. Figure out your own way of inviting people! One that suits you better than either ilvl+achievement or blind obedience to EJ. Maybe "write a 2000 words essay on the ethical treatment of warlock pets" is the ultimate way to find the best players. Who knows? Obviously if someone figured out that method, join his guild!

This is what I suggest to upset bloggers who have the audience to start a guild. I'm sure if Tobold would start one by any rules, 100+ players would join him on the first week, because they like his blog and agree with him. Of course formulating your random ramblings into guild rules, and then put them to the test is hard. You can fail spectacularly front of thousands of readers. I did with the ganking project, and the undergeared results were inconclusive. I tried again. Refined the ideas and finally it works. Not complete yet, but works.

Of course whining and moaning about the "bad community" is easier than building a better one. Whining about lack of choices is easier than making a choice and betting your gold, time and blogging reputation on your choice.

Note: While I don't play WoW, this is one of the blogs on gaming that I regularly read. It is interesting how much can apply to the other games I play.

[Cyprine]

Something about MMOs in general is its dual nature: imagination & repetition.
On one hand, the curious, childish, experimenting part of us; on the other the pavlovian button pushing.

The amount of *new* builds (or felt new by those who post them) acknowledge the ever experimenting, innovating side of the player base. It may fail, have already been done, what ever, the spark is there.
Stragegy wise, effort to play quests other wise is undocumented and may very well be the consequence of the structure of a quest: when there is two path & a river you can choose either path, or jump/swim across and... that all. While a PnP group might devise unique solutions, the computerized format doesnt allow for imagination to go so wild.

And there is the *feeling safe* factor. We know it works this way, why do it otherwise ?
And by *feeling safe*, i do not only mean *survival of the group* but also the feeling *safe* within the common thought. Have new ideas is being different, open to criticism and failure: not a safe spot to be... Look at the real world - history and science have plenty of exemple, if its not your school, collegue or neighbourg.

Bottom line ?
Test new ideas, dont be afraid to fail or be mocked - every new build or tactic (or idea) was put to the test at some point.
And remember Samuel Beckett: *Fail, fail again, Fail better.*

[Kalari]

I prefer the "Lost Legion Method" (patent pending)

You manage to convince 6+ other drunks to run down to the subterranean. You bet on who will ding first to the living spells, who will forget feather fall and drink.

You take a drink for each person who falls down all the way to the bottom while trying to get all the lights lit. And you all decide to help the stealthy person go up to the switches (isnt that an explorer point up there? who cares if ya capped...)

You some how manage to make it to the entrance to VOD and drink for every person who forgets to pick up the quest and needs a share.

You stumble in and hopefully have some form of game plan right? Pfft whoever can get the most aggro and live is king/queen drink is required for those brave enough to heal (trust me on this one).

You use Cable's ac tank at all times even if he doesnt sound into it, a few "come on's" and maybe some secret favors in tells will eventually get him to say yes.

A lot of firewalls thrown just to keep the place warm and to make the casters feel like they are doing stuff (though changed since savants now its room full of spells)

Random chaos which will ensure deaths and drinks till you somehow pull out the win and get a chest full of junk loot and maybe the Elightened vestments (**** this was on elite to )

And that is the way ya do it Lost Legions style fun, drunken totally innovative for those of us who like to walk on the wild side ^_^