Let's talk about the update 11 raid

[grodon9999]

Then we should add the spell Dimension Anchor!

That has to be something "un-written" in the quest that maybe the Yugoloth setup some wards to Horoth couldn't Teleport away. Yet then how would that Explain SUlu leaving if you don't kill him or the other Devil Princes leaving before the fight starts. So many plot holes . . . so little time

[Yaga_Nub]

Methinks you've never played a rogue...

100% fort on a boss is a bad idea...

Nope I have a 20th level rogue. I know full well what I was saying and what the consequences would be. But the rogue wouldn't need to be doing huge SA numbers if the boss' HP were greatly reduced and there are other things that rogues can do besides SA.

[Thrudh]

Nope I have a 20th level rogue. I know full well what I was saying and what the consequences would be. But the rogue wouldn't need to be doing huge SA numbers if the boss' HP were greatly reduced and there are other things that rogues can do besides SA.

I think we should put in a spell that keeps barbarians from raging or using frenzy when fighting the main boss...

But at some other point of the quest, we can put in a high number strength lever, so the barbarians have something else to do.

I'm sure that would go over well.

[Yaga_Nub]

I think we should put in a spell that keeps barbarians from raging or using frenzy when fighting the main boss...

But at some other point of the quest, we can put in a high number strength lever, so the barbarians have something else to do.

I'm sure that would go over well.

You really have no imagination or creativity do you?

Why keep things the same just because that's how it's always been. THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX.

Tactics will always be devised for whatever they through at us. But obviously it takes some imagination and skill.

I really can't stand whiners that see a suggestion of a change, that they perceive as a take away, and immediately it's "that's not fair," "that's not possible," "that's going to hurt class x or class y," etc., etc.

This is why we can't have nice things in DDO, too many narrow minded people.

EDIT: Oh wait, we can't have nice things because of the exploiters.

[Chai]

Please, for the love of the game itself, make a raid that is NOT fighting more big devils. I feel the game already hinges too much on building toons to kill evil outsiders. We need more building options, and part of having those options is giving players a reason to build to be stronger doing something else other than breaking evil outsider DR and damaging evil outsiders.

To highlight this, the minute the crafting system went in there were numerous threads about: ZOMG +4 Holy Silver Evil Outsider Bane!!!1!!1!!eleven!!

It seems like we are inclined to this because the end game people farm alot is 3 big devils, 2 slightly smaller devils, a combined abashai, and a red dragon.

We need something different.

Another dragon or a dracolich would be cool. A huge ancient elemental would be awesome.

[Cyr]

To further the conversation about ways to make interesting boss encounters here are some thoughts.

• Stacking fort debuffs versus single targets. Imagine how much more interesting ToD part 3 would be if Horoth would use a sunder style attack that added a 10% stacking fort debuff (stack timer of 30 seconds new application restores stack).
• Ability damage is a very easy way to make fights more interesting in boss fights.
• Disjunction is another potent and fun effect for boss mobs to throw.
• If mobs are being tanked and spanked and have wings let them fly. Really this has been a noticably missing from DDO. Remember enemy mobs often will not have as good of options to harm us from a distance either, so they could make straffing runs and such. Dragons, beholders, and winged devils really should be doing this sort of thing as a standard part of their coding.
• Healers and mages in less accessible positions. Some boss encounters should feature multiple levels overlooking a central room. This would allow the placement and spawning of divines/arcanes on the higher floors to support the main boss on the main floor. Stairs and ladders to these balconies/floors could be situated to make meleeing these mobs kind of a pain. Of course these mobs would have to be coded to have enlarge if needed so they could attack/heal those on the main floor.
• More planar effects! In top level content most of the action should be taking place on other planes of existence and with those other planes come their own planar rules. PoP was great for this and remains a hallmark of interesting design. Imagine an entire undead raid on the plane of death...infact the abbot seems pretty dumb not to make his base there... Some areas of planes could have stronger planar effects also (or even just from time to time)...such as for a raid that took place on Risia and under the stronger planar effects cold effects did 25% more damage...

[SableShadow]

But the rogue wouldn't need to be doing huge SA numbers if the boss' HP were greatly reduced and there are other things that rogues can do besides SA.

You don't bring a gimp class to a raid if you feel there's a possibility of failure, and if you're designing a raid, the end fight is the climax...the hardest part. If you "need" some of their skills before then, you find other ways to get them. It has always been this way.

I really can't stand whiners that see a suggestion of a change, that they perceive as a take away, and immediately it's "that's not fair," "that's not possible," "that's going to hurt class x or class y," etc., etc.

Dude, if that's really, really what you think I'm doing here, feel free to add me to "the list", because I just don't feel like trying to summarize half a decade's worth of posts on the subject.

Everything else you're suggesting would be extremely cool, if we could get it ... the 100% fort thing? Not so much.

/shrug

[Ardalis]

I suggest Misery's peak raid but with a difference, instead when you enter you have to go make your way to the dragon and kite her to her lair passing loads of nasty mobs and traps while buying time for jeets and his friends to shatter the crystal, could make a epic version that allows korthos sets to be upgraded to epic.

Tbh while some might think it sounds naff, I think it would be really cool.

[Melt-emi]

Even tho the idea of a new, more difficult raid looks really tasty to me, i was negatively shocked by what Shade posted in the OP. DDO itself shouldn't encourage discrimination or classify players by different classes (A uber super veteran, B veteran, C a bit less veteran, ..., Z newb). Let the players classify other players (unfair and often dictated by ignorance, but still it happens), not the game.

DR100/Epic sounds ********, i couldn't describe it better. And i'm not worried for me, i can beat that DR. I'm worried about the deep injustice within that kind of discriminator. If you want to make the epic version of the raid not accessible to all players just create 3 flagging items and make them dropping one per each difficulty (normal/hard/elite, 3 items in total). Once you have 3 items (it means you completed said raid AT LEAST 3 times, AT LEAST one time on each difficulty), you are flagged for the epic raid.

I want things that fly and that can't be boxed in. And that move.... A LOT.

If they did all those things, you wouldn't need to have a boss with a bajillion HP because we would have a much harder time laying the smack down to it. The only reason they need a bajillion HP right now is the very fact that we can box them in.

Giants should just be able to step over us, dragons and beholders should just be able to fly over us, and a true Pit Fiend should be able to do both.

And bosses should have guards that come to his/her defense. And all bosses should have healing types that heal it. They should have 100% fort, even on normal, at the same level that heavy fort is available to PCs. I really hate these INT 2 villians that we keep getting as BOSSES.

+1

[Yaga_Nub]

Dude, if that's really, really what you think I'm doing here, feel free to add me to "the list", because I just don't feel like trying to summarize half a decade's worth of posts on the subject.

/shrug

Dude chill. I'll make it up to you behind Tempest Spine later.

Besides you weren't the one that made the comment that I must not have a rogue which implied that I didn't know how suggesting 100% fort would affect the amount of damage a rogue could/would do.

Some suggestions aren't popular but if changing the damage dynamics of one class would enhance the fun/playability of a quest or even the whole game then it needs to be done. Needs of the many outweighing the needs of the one and all that. But I would and did also suggest ways to totally compensate for that change. Also let's be honest, not everyone has to be beating on the boss. For instance, in ToD part 3, there's always trash that needs to be taken care of. I'd say remove the death ward from that trash and let assassin's be able to assassinate them. That's also part of what I've been talking about as well, make it so that not everyone needs to be boxing in the boss to kill him. Give everyone something to do besides clicking on auto-attack or watching blue bars.

[Chai]

To further the conversation about ways to make interesting boss encounters here are some thoughts.

• If mobs are being tanked and spanked and have wings let them fly. Really this has been a noticably missing from DDO. Remember enemy mobs often will not have as good of options to harm us from a distance either, so they could make straffing runs and such. Dragons, beholders, and winged devils really should be doing this sort of thing as a standard part of their coding.

I have always wondered about this...

It would give ranged damage more legitimacy even in the fairly gimped mode it is in currently. If Suulomades had an entire stage or two where he flys around casting spells at people, even people who arent focused on ranged damage would want to invest in a ranged weapon and doing damage with that weapon to contribute more.

People who limit the number of casters to raids would be losing DPS by doing so. Leaders would be encouraged and inclined to not ignore caster requests to join the LFM.

[maddmatt70]

My request would be more ambition than just an update 11 raid, but how about a raid in update 13 and update 15 as well i.e. a raid every other mod. Lets start churning out the raids like in the old days of DDO.

[grodon9999]

Please, for the love of the game itself, make a raid that is NOT fighting more big devils. I feel the game already hinges too much on building toons to kill evil outsiders. We need more building options, and part of having those options is giving players a reason to build to be stronger doing something else other than breaking evil outsider DR and damaging evil outsiders.

To highlight this, the minute the crafting system went in there were numerous threads about: ZOMG +4 Holy Silver Evil Outsider Bane!!!1!!1!!eleven!!

It seems like we are inclined to this because the end game people farm alot is 3 big devils, 2 slightly smaller devils, a combined abashai, and a red dragon.

We need something different.

Another dragon or a dracolich would be cool. A huge ancient elemental would be awesome.

We3 do need 1 more devil-raid, harry has to die for real but yeah some variety would be nice.

[Qezuzu]

Some suggestions aren't popular but if changing the damage dynamics of one class would enhance the fun/playability of a quest or even the whole game then it needs to be done. Needs of the many outweighing the needs of the one and all that. But I would and did also suggest ways to totally compensate for that change. Also let's be honest, not everyone has to be beating on the boss. For instance, in ToD part 3, there's always trash that needs to be taken care of. I'd say remove the death ward from that trash and let assassin's be able to assassinate them. That's also part of what I've been talking about as well, make it so that not everyone needs to be boxing in the boss to kill him. Give everyone something to do besides clicking on auto-attack or watching blue bars.

They already lost their deathblock, and 99% of the time an arcane just plays around with them until Horoth dies. Rogues don't bother assassinating them because doing massive damage to Horoth is more important, and because there's no need to assassinate them.

50% fort bosses lower the DPS of rogues, but they can still do a lot of damage to them. Rogues can get into Shroud/VoD/ToD with ease. If a raid is introduced with a meaty, 100% fort boss that requires stellar DPS, that pretty much prevents rogues from getting into that raid.

Killer traps around the raid? 18wiz/2rog can do them better, and still contribute to the raid with CC, buffs, and DPS.
Super high DC locks that can't be knocked? Bells of opening.

Rogues are a DPS class first. Introduing a challenging, 100% boss would affect almost no class but rogues (everyone's DPS goes down with fort, but rogues lose a major chunk of their damage).

[SableShadow]

Dude chill. I'll make it up to you behind Tempest Spine later.

It's a hot topic for me. After years of arguing the same topics, and debating the same points over and over (and over and over and over) again, you occasionally just want to reach through the monitor and throttle the less-than-informed.

Play through that long enough and perhaps be so calm you will not.

Besides you weren't the one that made the comment that I must not have a rogue which implied that I didn't know how suggesting 100% fort would affect the amount of damage a rogue could/would do.

Not at all; read it again. Nothing about damage in there.

They were implying you didn't understand the effect the change would have on the class vs the quest. And they were right.

Some suggestions aren't popular but if changing the damage dynamics of one class would enhance the fun/playability of a quest or even the whole game then it needs to be done.

Got it, rogue's need a nerf, and it's for the greater good ... I see you've been taking notes from the OP.

He and I debated epic traps back in the day; I never thought a dev would take the ideas seriously, so I didn't spend a whole lot of effort arguing the points. They, however, did take him seriously, and implemented, so ... I don't pull punches on this topic any more.

I can follow your frustration with the current trend of "dump everything except str + con on a rogue"; I empathize.

But traps are not the way to fix this ... it's been tried before, several times in fact, and all you end up doing is increasing the polarization on the issue.

But I would and did also suggest ways to totally compensate for that change.

Rolling back to Mod Null isn't novel or innovative. Neither is making Mechanic the only spec for end game content.

In current content, Assassin is best spec ... but I *can* play an Acrobat or a Mechanic. I won't lead the kill count, but I'll kill stuff.

On the other hand, if you make rogues about traps for end game, and make the DCs high enough to make them relevant, then I *have* to go Mechanic.

It parallels the problems with AC builds: get plenty or don't even bother spec'ing for it.

Now, if they changed the basic trap mechanics so they weren't all about DCs, then sure ... a lot more options open.

That's also part of what I've been talking about as well, make it so that not everyone needs to be boxing in the boss to kill him. Give everyone something to do besides clicking on auto-attack or watching blue bars.

The reason we "can't have nice things", as FF put it so succinctly back when they rolled out DA, is that players are adept at bringing sledge hammers where the devs thought players would select a tweaker.

The only constants I can think of in raids are:

1) There will be a boss
2) We will have to kill him

Anticipating anything else will be run by players "as intended" is vaporware.

By all means, make suggestions; I'd like something better than tank n' spank or box n' spank ... but 100% fort is not a good idea.

[sirgog]

Like lots of these. Comments in yellow.

To further the conversation about ways to make interesting boss encounters here are some thoughts.

• Stacking fort debuffs versus single targets. Imagine how much more interesting ToD part 3 would be if Horoth would use a sunder style attack that added a 10% stacking fort debuff (stack timer of 30 seconds new application restores stack).
  
  That wouldn't make any difference - Horoth's critical hits aren't deadly enough for fort debuffs to show through. On all difficulties, rolling a 1 on a DBF save is more damage than copping a melee crit, except maybe for his bite on Elite (the bite does 16d10+27 damage, 19-20/x2, on a good roll that can top the average DBF of 250).
  The Epic Into the Deep Hezrou, on the other hand, can crit for 400+.
  
  Want something nastier than Fort debuffs? Try incoming healing debuffs that aren't absolute (like Suulo's curse), but can't just be decursed with a potion or wand charge. A stacking -30% healing amp debuff on Vorpal strikes is mean, especially if it stacks additively (so 70% healing with one stack, 40% with two, and 10% with three)
  
• Ability damage is a very easy way to make fights more interesting in boss fights.
  
  Small amounts are healed for free by (Mass) Heal, large amounts are IMO just frustrating (run elite VON2 at level and try to melee the Quori Spiders to see this in action.
  Ability debuffs that Heal doesn't prevent, OTOH, are nasty. They are also somewhat 'breaking the rules'.
  
  
• Disjunction is another potent and fun effect for boss mobs to throw.
  
  Agreed. Lailat in epic DQ1 is a good example.
  
  
• If mobs are being tanked and spanked and have wings let them fly. Really this has been a noticably missing from DDO. Remember enemy mobs often will not have as good of options to harm us from a distance either, so they could make straffing runs and such. Dragons, beholders, and winged devils really should be doing this sort of thing as a standard part of their coding.
  
  I think most of the combat engine is basically 2D.
  
  
• Healers and mages in less accessible positions. Some boss encounters should feature multiple levels overlooking a central room. This would allow the placement and spawning of divines/arcanes on the higher floors to support the main boss on the main floor. Stairs and ladders to these balconies/floors could be situated to make meleeing these mobs kind of a pain. Of course these mobs would have to be coded to have enlarge if needed so they could attack/heal those on the main floor.
• More planar effects! In top level content most of the action should be taking place on other planes of existence and with those other planes come their own planar rules. PoP was great for this and remains a hallmark of interesting design. Imagine an entire undead raid on the plane of death...infact the abbot seems pretty dumb not to make his base there... Some areas of planes could have stronger planar effects also (or even just from time to time)...such as for a raid that took place on Risia and under the stronger planar effects cold effects did 25% more damage...

[Backley]

I think most of the combat engine is basically 2D.

They did add the flying Abishai trash in Chronoscope, so it can work at least somewhat already.

[SableShadow]

Disjunction is another potent and fun effect for boss mobs to throw.

Fix it, though, so I don't have to relog to get half my gear back.

[Cyr]

Like lots of these. Comments in yellow.

Fair enough on the ToD mechanic. I've never bothered taking off fort to decide how bad of an idea it would be in there. I always figured his bite would be alot higher multiplier then a lousy *2. The healing debuff would accomplish the same goals and I very much like that idea also.

Ability damage is indeed unthreatening when heal can eliminate it 100%. I would suggest something like a stacking debuff that yes would break the rules and not have heal able to heal it entirely (maybe remove one stack of it)...

Not a clue on the combat engine. All I know is that combat can and does occur in 3 dimensions to a certain degree. We can jump after all and fall. Ranged attacks clearly work in three dimensions.

[Cyr]

Fix it, though, so I don't have to relog to get half my gear back.

lol, yeah disjunction has lots of bugs involving it.