Abbot Wipes (rant)

[Xenostrata]

First off, I'd like to say that this is NOT directed at the other players, running with The One has been a lot of fun and they are all good at what they do.

No, this is directed at Turbine.

We ran Abbot 6 (6!) times over the past few days, the last one on hard in an attempt to get a completion. A couple can be chocked up to human error (missed gogs, first timers getting in the way) and are acceptable. However, I would like to thank turbine for the little bursts of server lag that caused the other 4 wipes.

1. Goggles, freezing people over dissappearing floors.
2. Inferno, mostly acceptable since a couple survived, but only to be hit by another inferno about 6 seconds afterwards (Bug: inferno curse lasting after remove curse has been cast).
3. Inferno, none survived.
4. And finally, inferno, in which the first lagspike hit and took out a bunch, but we managed to raise and recover. I died during this lag spike, despite wearing a PL ioun stone. Something about the lag rendered my stone useless (froze at 29 charges, amount I had right before the lag hit). We bounced back fairly well, when the second lag hit and a tight grouping meant most died due to chain lightning. I noticed afterwards, studying the combat log while dead, that my PL ioun stone had seized to function completely, both in and out of lag (It remained equipped, but was still stuck at 29). Luckily, our light monk had lagged out completely before he entered the room, and so reappeared and was able to enter and raise the healers. They raised everyone else, and we continued the beat down, only to be struck AGAIN by the lag just as inferno was called. As we all rubber-banded towards the water, the Cleric jumped in and promptly died (either she cast DI and failed for some reason, or cast DI and it didn't take effect), and the fighter managed to make it safely to the water.
BUT WAIT! It gets better!
Instead of jumping off and raising one of us, the fighter is instead hit with an Encasement while IN the water and while the inferno is still going. He is then crushed to death, a wipe is called, the towel is thrown in, and we call it quits at the 6th try.

I have yet to test to see if my ioun stone is permanently broken, but I don't know enough about the coding to know A) why/how it failed and B) how this will affect it long term. Hoping for the best, fearing for the worst, or so the cliche goes.

I'm not sure what wednesday's hotfix did (I'm hoping it fixed the monk exploit), but so far I have only seen the lag get worse since then. This needs to be fixed, asap.

But, oh well. I guess 7th time's the charm, right?

Short Version: More than any content/mechanic imbalances, lag is making DDO less fun, and I would be completely content with a single update devoted entirely to fixing lag and/or bugs. Lag induced bugs (remove curse pots removing the icon of the curse, but not the curse itself; breaking of PL ioun stone; allowing the abbot to cast encase while he is casting inferno, etc.) should be the focus of attention if lag cannot be fixed.

[/rant]

[Spontiff]

The Abbot casts disjunction nd steals greensteel, hes one nasty mofo.

Personally I wish they give people something to watch as they wait for people to finish tiles...

[Xenostrata]

The Abbot casts disjunction nd steals greensteel, hes one nasty mofo.

Personally I wish they give people something to watch as they wait for people to finish tiles...

Actually, I don't think he cast a single dysjunction (I know he didn't in the final run) and I'm not sure dysjunction would work on a PL ioun stone.

[~jradnut]

My personal solution is that I just dont do abbot. Never a fan of the necro series, I know, good xp, but I make it up elsewhere. And there really is nothing I want from there.

That being said, I know many people DO like the necro stuff and agree that lag should be a priority fix. I rarely suffer from it, even tho on a laptop, but when I do, it just plain blows....

[knightgf]

And this my friends, is why I do not like Necropolis IV one bit. My will to try Necro IV again has been put in a coffin and buried underneath a giant pile of undead doo-doo. Sadly, while I didn't survive to even get a glimpse at the raid yet, the stories about abbot stealing GS items, the many ways to not just make a mistake, but also wipe as well, as well as a few other things outweigh the stories about the 'fun' I hear as well as the loot. Granted, some of the loot in the raid is ok at best, but it doesn't make me feel like leaping great distances to try and get it. There are better places I'd prefer to go for some great loot, raid or quest wise, that doesn't require me to jump off a skyscraper and survive with no parachute like Necro IV does..

[Blank_Zero]

Abbot is hard. Arguably the hardest PuG raid in the game (up there with Elite ToD).

The loot is actually amazing, especially for casters (Petitioner, noxious embers) and fleshy melees (Litany being one of the best trinkets for toons in marichain.)

Lag is awful in there yes, but I've never seen it cause 6 wipes. Maybe 1-2... Usually it just ends up killing a few people, especially if you heal through inferno instead of doing islands.

[Nathlin]

I got another one for ya.

A few days ago, I did a run on my melee character. In round two, we managed to get the Abbot's hitpoints low quite fast, but still he decided to summon an Inferno the moment he was teleporting away due to low hitpoints. I went into roids, waiting on the rest of the team to finish that last one off, and then..*DING*. Inferno happened. Everyone but an divine caster who was fast enough to jump into ice died. D:

[Blank_Zero]

I got another one for ya.

A few days ago, I did a run on my melee character. In round two, we managed to get the Abbot's hitpoints low quite fast, but still he decided to summon an Inferno the moment he was teleporting away due to low hitpoints. I went into roids, waiting on the rest of the team to finish that last one off, and then..*DING*. Inferno happened. Everyone but an divine caster who was fast enough to jump into ice died. D:

There's more than 2 rounds in Abbot?

[Jiirix]

The Abbot casts disjunction nd steals greensteel, hes one nasty mofo.

Personally I wish they give people something to watch as they wait for people to finish tiles...

This topic was adressed some time ago. Junts gave the explanation:

Explaination of the weapon glitch:

Have you ever noticed how if you swap weapons right at the start of an animation, you can do an attack using an animation from the wrong weapon type? Throwers are particularly prone to this. Switch weapons right as you throw and you will often do an animation where you fling your normal melee weapon.

This isn't typically a problem becuase we use returners. However, it can be a problem when using stacks of finite objects, like the vials and boulders, because the number of your melee weapons in the stack is 1 - if this happens with those weapons, they're gone.

If people ever used those 20 stacks of +5 throwing x's, this would happen more often and anywhere. For safety in blighted and abbot, switch to a scroll stack or something before switching to a melee weapon when swapping quickly between the limited-item stacks and your melee weapon. If you are attacking rapidly with a boulder stack, you can fling away your main weapon permanently when you equip your real weapon again.

It's not a abott only thing, be careful whenever switching from a non returning throwing weapon to anything else, greensteels included.

[muffinlad]

I seriously hate Abbott, I have one character out of 30 that I ran though it, got the embers, and said so long. The Lag, mixed with the type of puzzles is not my thing.

That being said, I have friends that love the raid. For them, fixing the Lag is the difference between running that quest and just doing another Shroud.

Regs,

muffinpetitioner

[MasterOfWorlds]

I was in the last two or three of these... rough times. I seriously have never seen so many failed Abbots by good players.

[Xenostrata]

There's more than 2 rounds in Abbot?

Read this. It will help you.

[maddmatt70]

Yes, lets make the abbot and all raids more easy. The lag and bugs in general are really not that bad in the abbot and cause virtually 0 failures but really its player error that cause the failures. You of course convenietly forgot to mention that the ice puzzle is trivial now with the clerical capstone and the dark monk walk on water abilities. Those 'bugs' benefit players, but quite frankly should be removed from the ice puzzle. Your lag examples include things like the abbot casts inferno twice in a short time span which is great in my opinion. A little challenge is a good thing.

[Xenostrata]

Yes, lets make the abbot and all raids more easy. The lag and bugs in general are really not that bad in the abbot and cause virtually 0 failures but really its player error that cause the failures. You of course convenietly forgot to mention that the ice puzzle is trivial now with the clerical capstone and the dark monk walk on water abilities. Those 'bugs' benefit players, but quite frankly should be removed from the ice puzzle. Your lag examples include things like the abbot casts inferno twice in a short time span which is great in my opinion. A little challenge is a good thing.

How can you call "getting rid of lag and bugs" making it easier? While technically true, it is also made with the connotation that having lag and bugs is a good thing. Can you honestly think that lag and bugs are good/WAI?

Virtually 0 failures due to lag and bugs? The abbot is famous for its lag spikes, and I find it very hard to believe that only I and Blank_Zero have ever had lag be directly responsible for a party wipe, especially considering all the spots lag can easily cause a party wipe (inferno, any AoE spell the abbot throws, and all three puzzles except DI water). Even ignoring the bugs directly related to party wipes (broken ioun stone, unremovable curse, casting of encasement over water during an inferno, casting of inferno after the abbot has teleported away) there are a myriad of other bugs that are generally unpleasant (disappearing ingredients bags, anyone?) that I doubt even you would want to keep in for the purposes of avoiding "easy buttons."

Yes, ice has been trivialized. That doesn't justify making the rest of the quest both the most lagged and the easiest to fail due to lag in the game. Do you think that ingredients bags, greensteel, and other mysteriously lost gear is a good enough trade for an easy run through one of three puzzles?

I never claimed that 2 inferno's in a short time was not WAI. I did claim that an inferno that everyone is too laggy to escape from is generally bad, and that then following it with another inferno before the platform has even cleared is inherently unfair. I also claimed that casting encasement while inferno is still going is a bug and should be removed, since it not only makes surviving that inferno impossible but also defies the logic of the spell, when the rocks are said to leap up from the platform. He should not be able to reach people in the water

Yes, a little challenge is a good thing. No one is debating that when things are trivially easy, they get boring. But abbot is currently beyond "a little challenging." When a level 60+ guild run with the PUGged spots only going to people they recognize as good players (with only 2 exceptions, iirc) fails a non-epic, non-endgame quest 6 times in a row due mainly to forces beyond their control, then that is the time to consider that the quest might actually need some work done.

One final note: I have made no suggestions to nerf abbot, just to get rid of lags and bugs. The cries of the abundance of "Easy Buttons" has become tiring at best on the suggestions to actually change content material, please don't bring it into threads about lag and bugs unless you are willing to defend why you think that the lag and bugs in question are something the game truly needs. I look forward to your arguments for why people should freeze during crucial moments in battle and why losing items worth millions of plat is a good thing.

[Blank_Zero]

Read this. It will help you.

Meh. I knew this. I don't see a point to it though. Complicates the raid to the point where its easier to just recall and reform.

I know a pair who have duo'd the Abbott before, and they did it this way, but in a full group, its easier to just regroup and go again.

[EpiKagEMO]

Even though i dont have the pack, i wouldnt do quest that are hard to complete. Hurry and get your named and be on your way. dont do it for 20 completions.... thats just mad. Maybe work on some other toon or find some other item to scrub it off.

[bendover]

Even though i dont have the pack, i wouldnt do quest that are hard to complete. Hurry and get your named and be on your way. dont do it for 20 completions.... thats just mad. Maybe work on some other toon or find some other item to scrub it off.

The Abbot isn't really that hard and it's really fun. You'd probably understand that better if you actually knew the quest. The raid loot is worth doing 20 completions for on just about any toon.

[Blank_Zero]

The Abbot isn't really that hard and it's really fun. You'd probably understand that better if you actually knew the quest. The raid loot is worth doing 20 completions for on just about any toon.

^This.

Litany of the Dead is still about the best Trinket in the game for most Fleshy DPS.

[somerecluse]

not to mention it has the most used raid loot of any raid besides maybe ToD (dq?)

noxious embers
staff of petitioner
litany of the dead
vile blasphemy
shroud of the abbot

and some others less used but i still use situationally
wretched twilight
enduring conviction

NO other raid has that many individually used raid items. even if it is mostly caster gear...

[NaturalHazard]

I have the necro 4 pack, and I dont have a single charactor flagged for abbot, the main thing that has kept me away has been the dissapearing greensteel? I know if I lost greensteel to anybug it would have me hovering over the ragequit button.

but if I want to tr I guess I will be forced to do it for the xp. Oh and I rolled up a wizard so I guess im going to be doing it .

Question about the greensteel, the bit where you can lose greensteel, does it only take equiped items?