Traps doing redonkulous damage on elite.

[Isolani]

Based on what? Your own thought on VIP-ness? You're a subscriber which Turbine gave the name VIP to. YOu get loads of free character slots, you get to open elite on every first character, you get 500 TP every month, you get every new release 3 days early and home deliverd.

Opening Elite is still a perk. A premium TR getting Hard unlocked (or elite on 3rd life??) is still way behind an unlock on very first life on all dif.settings.

All opinions aside: VIP's where VIP's before the Elite unlock thing was introduced. They will remain VIP after Premiums (may) get TR unlock. Simpley because when they stop being VIP, they realize how many perks they've got. They have to buy all packs and player slots.

(long story short: it's like with houses, VIP's rent content, Premiums buy. Realy, VIP's are poor mans Premiums :P ) ***

*** the :P should make clear it is a joke and not flame intended

The loads of free character slots isn't really a perk. I'm an idiot, I have 20 character slots, not realizing that TRing a few characters was going to consume most of my time someday...now I have like 16 character slots that are completely pointless aside from storing loot.

[Calebro]

We have three payment options (account types). F2P, Premium, VIP.
We have three quest difficulties. Normal, Hard, Elite.
Why do we have only two opening options of Normal and Elite?

F2P should be able to open Normal.
Premium should be able to open Hard.
VIP should be able to open Elite.

This solves the problem of Premiums being locked out of the Bravery mechanic, while still keeping the really sweet goodies for the VIPs.

[Nospheratus]

Let's keep the attitude in check when talking to one of the good GMs that talk to us on these boards... Even if he's wrong, there's no reason to "put him in his place". He'll just stop coming here...

Agreed!

first of all, you do not know me or what i paid into this game. secondly, i own all the packs, shared bank slots and some races and classes. on top of that i have purchased xp pots and other store items. all in all i have spent well over $200 to own this game. i think that deserves a few perks in itself but premium dont get any. i am fine with that. but to tell me i cant get an extra xp bonus cause i dont pay $10 a month on top of all the money i spent to own the game. rather people like you who rent the game for $10 a month deserve something more. that is so idiotic that i do not even have words for it. but like a wise man once told me, "you can't argue with fools!" good day.

Without wanting to make the money each spends on the game an issue!! Since that's each person's decision...
$200? That's what? not even 2 years of VIP. I'll speak for myself and say that I payed more than twice of that BEFORE the game went F2P.
I could buy the "whole game" if I wanted, but i prefer to be VIP and never have to worry if I can enter quest A or B (personal preference), this really is not the issue at hand though!!

Turbine will decide what they consider fair to both sides. It is their business.
People arguing who is "entitled" to what will lead nowhere. And this VIP vs Premium thing? Really people?! "You" (not directed to anyone in particular) people really need to have something to "fight" against each other, don't you?

Right, now back to the second topic of this thread (because this thread started as a discussion about traps, you know!? ).

The fact that only VIPs can open elite (as it is now) will not make it that much harder for Premium/F2P players to get the bravery bonus (note: it is a bonus, you aren't simply entitled to it...). In fact, in some quests trying to get this bravery bonus just takes longer, and is worse in xps/min, than just running Nx10.

IMO Turbine will probably provide a way to unlock this "perk". If they do though, I believe a lot of people will stop being VIP. Whatever they decide, it will be in their interests.

[Hephaistor]

So I've been doing a lot of Soloing lately. Got my FvS up to level 12 and am still going strong. But I noticed when I went back to fill out some of my favor on elite runs of low level quest(level 5/6) I ran into an issue where I was actually getting killed for the first time since the Red-named Beholder in "The Jungle of Khyber"(and he only got me twice before I took him down).

Traps on elite difficulty just seem massively over-tuned. My FvS fully buffed has a base of 198 HP at lvl 12, with an additional +21 from Aid, and 5/adam DR. Physical traps often one-shot me if I happen to fail a single save, with traps often hitting 3-5 times. Elemental based traps also do horrendous damage, even through res30 and 120 points of protection. I've been dropped to less than 20 HP by some elemental traps even through all that.

To me this seems a little ridiculous. Even though the quest is on elite difficulty, it doesn't seem quite right for traps to be able to take down a player 5 levels above the quest with that many HP and resistances. What it seems like to me is a gimmick to force players to either take evasion, or more likely, to bring a trapmonkey along for the ride.

Now, I'm sure there will be people who throw up the argument "DDO is a team game!", which I have no problem with. But sometimes teams don't include rogues, and contriving a reason to take them just doesn't seem like good game design.

One of the greatest parts of DDO, from what I've seen, is the ability to take nearly any combination of classes and builds into a run and come out victorious. And the only exception I've seen to this so far are the traps on elite, which force you to take a rogue or wipe, since there is no other option to bypass them other than disarm.

Now, granted these situations are few and far between, and really only amount to an annoyance in the long run since doing every single quest on elite isn't a mandatory part of the game. Its just something that I noticed that really bothered me, since in almost every other situation I was able to figure out a way to work around an obstacle.

NOTE: I understand that there were rogue hirelings available at one point, but they were disabled due problems with them or something? Any word on when they're returning? Also, I guess you can buy a rogue hireling for TP, but that seems like a terrible terrible waste of hard-earned TP for only a few runs. Are there any other options available for overcoming these redonkulous traps on elite runs?

So that spiked trap your toon felt into in an elite dungeon was deadly. Cry me a river. If you could disable even elite traps with your face without dieing what are chars with trap skills for then? I am fine with people playing solo, but please dont exspect you can solo everything. Freinds don't let freinds solo. I loved the slogan.

[Isolani]

So that spiked trap your toon felt into in an elite dungeon was deadly. Cry me a river. If you could disable even elite traps with your face without dieing what are chars with trap skills for then? I am fine with people playing solo, but please dont exspect you can solo everything. Freinds don't let freinds solo. I loved the slogan.

This is on topic and has no place in this thead! Please pay attention.

[Samadhi]

I guess this all depends on your perspective, but don't VIPs already get 20% more XP than non-VIPs (if you consider the fact that they get enough store points to keep themselves loaded up on XP potions)?

That is an absurd point of view. The cost of XP potions relative to the amount of free TP means that, even if I spent every TP I ever got on XP potions, I still would not have enough XP pots to cover all my leveling. And I level very little these days.

[Hephaistor]

This is on topic and has no place in this thead! Please pay attention.

You don't exspect me to read through 20 pages of posts, do you? Everybody only reads the first and last one.. if at all.

[RTN]

Did I mention I get free points? :-) Didn't even consider multiple characters. My bad.

Not to mention that if you want to TR, that's multiple months worth of "free" points (that I'm buying with my subscription). There went my XP pots just when I want them most. Oh yeah, plus I needed to change a couple feats on my wizard since CC got nerfed. There went a month of points since grinding out siberys dragonshards can take half a lifetime. In other words, the 500 pts/month that developers seem to think are a very nice perk are frequently seen by players as less significant. Some I don't think most VIP care about that much, like having content 2 or 3 days early. Only the true powergamer who wants to beat content first cares that much about a couple days difference. If it was a week, then maybe more would care. It's in total that the small perks are somewhat nice.

Don't get me wrong, I like the bonus points we get, but they don't go very far. The more you give the small VIP perks to others, like you're discussing here for elite opening, the faster you'll lose subscribers and our reliable income.

[Sarisa]

Some I don't think most VIP care about that much, like having content 2 or 3 days early. Only the true powergamer who wants to beat content first cares that much about a couple days difference. If it was a week, then maybe more would care. It's in total that the small perks are somewhat nice.

Most of the VIP's I know consider that a drawback, and not a perk. For the two days (u10 had four days) that VIP's get exclusive access, it excludes people that they would want to party with. None of them aside from one even stepped foot into the u10 quests until Premium players were able to buy it, and they could play with their guildmates and friends.

[RTN]

Most of the VIP's I know consider that a drawback, and not a perk. For the two days (u10 had four days) that VIP's get exclusive access, it excludes people that they would want to party with. None of them aside from one even stepped foot into the u10 quests until Premium players were able to buy it, and they could play with their guildmates and friends.

I can see that. Almost all the people I play with, including the vast majority of my guild, are VIP. I do consider this a perk, but not one I care much about since at a couple days, I can easily wait. A full week starts to make this meaningful, IMO.

However, I'd rather see them offer it up at the start for premium players, but at 50% higher cost. Then a week later, open it up for everyone else at the normal price. That way those that really want it can get it right away, the VIP perk is nicer, and Turbine makes more money. OK, now the hate can flow.

[RTN]

We have three payment options (account types). F2P, Premium, VIP.
We have three quest difficulties. Normal, Hard, Elite.
Why do we have only two opening options of Normal and Elite?

F2P should be able to open Normal.
Premium should be able to open Hard.
VIP should be able to open Elite.

This solves the problem of Premiums being locked out of the Bravery mechanic, while still keeping the really sweet goodies for the VIPs.

+1 for an interesting solution (yes, I know you have rep display disabled), even though I don't completely agree with it.

I think a better solution is to offer up a premium option to BUY a Hard unlock. Like the VIP perk, it would be account wide and a one time only purchase. I think that fits better with the Premium model. What do you think?

[Zenako]

Most of the VIP's I know consider that a drawback, and not a perk. For the two days (u10 had four days) that VIP's get exclusive access, it excludes people that they would want to party with. None of them aside from one even stepped foot into the u10 quests until Premium players were able to buy it, and they could play with their guildmates and friends.

Not so much a drawback but a limitation. Yes it does interfere with normal play group mixes until everyone in the group has access. (Even within a single household. I have family members on all sorts of plans, 1 VIP (me), 3 Prem and 2 Free).

However it is one of the "perks" such as it is. However with much greater/easier access to stuff ahead of time on Lammania (vs the old creaky Risia preview server) getting a head start on figuring out the new stuff for "bragging rights" is no longer much of a bonus. I have to assume that part of the thinking for the preview head start was based on the old paradigm of giving the subscription accounts a head start on running the quests and getting to be the first ones with the binkys. Since many of them take lots of tries to get the good binkies, that head start does not matter as much these days.

Whatever... Elite Traps should do Elite damage. Are there certain traps that are out of kilter and overcompensating, yah. When you encounter them, report them. Most have been fixed by now I am sure, but dealing with traps by simply having more HP than they do damage should NOT be the preferred way to accomplish getting past them.

[TheHolyDarkness]

All I know is that TRing remains boring. Too boring for me to buy TR Tokens and +2 Supreme Tomes.

I was momentarily tricked into thinking I'd TR rather than form alts. Eh. Nevermind.

PUG dynamics have taken a shot s'all I know. Just look at the flames going around.
~TheHolyDarkness Out~

[joneb1999]

the facts are simple and no hard data is needed as a a p2p game using the vip method the game was circling the drain and its US PREMIUM players that got it on its feet again ( ofc vip helped too but u see my point).

WRONG. WRONG. WRONG Both VIP and Premium benefit from FREE TP from in-game favor which Premium CAN PUT TOWARDS buying content. I know at least one player who farmed most of his TP to buy his content so they contributed much less than VIPS which you never even considered.

F2P drags people in, VIP still allows for a constant stream of revenue, the DDO store brings in revenue from f2p and VIP who buy from it. Whether content, consumables or cosmetics it all brings money in if TP is bought.

So to conclude its the WHOLE business model that saved DDO!!

[Calebro]

So to conclude its the WHOLE business model that saved DDO!!

Yes.
So why can't the whole customer base access the Bravery Bonus?

[joneb1999]

Yes.
So why can't the whole customer base access the Bravery Bonus?

Don't ask me lol. Not my idea. Maybe its because VIP still feel they need a decent perk to stay VIP and this is why it was implemented.

[bobbryan2]

Don't ask me lol. Not my idea. Maybe its because VIP still feel they need a decent perk to stay VIP and this is why it was implemented.

As already stated by the devs... it never even crossed their minds that this was a VIP only perk.

[joneb1999]

As already stated by the devs... it never even crossed their minds that this was a VIP only perk.

Well there ya go Im wrong again

[grodon9999]

As a VIP, I have absolutely no issue with this perk being available for all.

[Mercules]

We have three payment options (account types). F2P, Premium, VIP.
We have three quest difficulties. Normal, Hard, Elite.
Why do we have only two opening options of Normal and Elite?

F2P should be able to open Normal.
Premium should be able to open Hard.
VIP should be able to open Elite.

This solves the problem of Premiums being locked out of the Bravery mechanic, while still keeping the really sweet goodies for the VIPs.

This I can agree with. Premium gets some access, but the best access is still saved for the VIP.

I've heard over and over again in countless threads that Premium players pay more than VIP. There is no evidence to back this up. Premium buy character slots... I have bought 11 character slots. Premium buy Shared Bank account, I buy extra slots for the Shared bank and on each character. Premium buy content, I pay for it monthly. Premium buy classes, I bought Favored Soul when it came out having just re-rolled my highest favor character. Premium buy... I buy and then I also pay $9.99 a month to be able to open quests on Elite.

Instead of my subscription I could have bought more character slots, shared bank, and everything all the other Premium's did. Turbine probably would have gotten less money from me as I might not have bought appearance items as frequently or Bunny Hats...

Leave me some reason for paying the VIP subscription fee as I could buy everything else as a Premium that I "get" as a subscriber. Saving up the monthly fee and buying TP when on sale would be more TP than the 500 I get a month. This is very much one of the few perks we have. Elite opening and early access to content are it people. So as unfair it seems that Premium can't open things on Elite, it's equally unfair to VIP to grant premium the same access cheaply.