Devs- How tough are the new Quests supposed to be?

[Ashbinder]

Raid prediction: pre-raid with lots of trash and a few puzzles leading to the second raid in a big room with a bad guy you back into a corner while everyone else rams their weapons into his nether regions.

Hope I get proven wrong.

[Truga]

Armrath elite is endgame content too, and its also lvl18 while this is lvl19, yet amrath is ton harder. Bottombline is elite needs some tweaking.

Actually, amrath is level 19 too. But that doesn't really matter much.

I agree that quests should be hard. However, how hard is hard enough? A new invasion, for example, is often pugged on casual. Just to get that flag up and move on. What makes it hard is the single shrine in what is a very long quest though, which just stretches your resources. Once you have it figured out, and have a competent group though, it's as easy as anything.

Then there's titan. The doors/bridges puzzle is insane for any first timer that wants to solve it. A group of first timers will take several tries to even figure out that they ought to drop pillars onto the titan and use the lazor to do any damage. But again, once you have it figured out, it's easily doable by 3 people.

I'm up for hard quests, but by now we know literally all the tricks turbine will throw at us. Due to this, I really don't think you'll see much "challenge" from a game, where you've mastered any and every mechanic possible.

[ulticleo]

I am not on lamania, and haven't run the quests. I can't comment directly on their difficulty, but I have a comment for the discussion.

Overgeared/undergeared is not the issue. I don't think ANY "overgeared" character, including shade, can walk into any of the shavarath quests on elite and call them easy. IIRC, shade posted his first solo Sins elite completion a few months back as an achievement. even if he would find it easier today due to better bear/ship buffs, I doubt he would consider it "easy", and that's the easiest of the 4 main quests out there. I personally consider the final fight in new invasion elite to be the single most difficult non-epic, non-raid fight in the game (in pug or otherwise), with part 3 elite ToD being the only reason to include raids in the qualifier.

So, take that toon, that maybe can solo elite shavrath in the hands of a player who has run those quests so much he knows every nook and cranny, but still wouldn't call it easy. If that same player and same toon can solo the new quests on elite and say they were easy. Then rather than shout that they are overgeared and pugs would have problems. Maybe. Just maybe. They have a point?

Maybe even those overgeared toons should find it difficult to solo an unfamiliar lvl 19 dungeon on elite?

[ulticleo]

Raid prediction: pre-raid with lots of trash and a few puzzles leading to the second raid in a big room with a bad guy you back into a corner while everyone else rams their weapons into his nether regions.

Hope I get proven wrong.

you mean like titan?
or maybe VoN?

oh, wait. neither satisfies your above prediction. Every raid in this game, including VoD, which comes closest to your description, requires SOME strategy. I have faith in Turbine, and hope that the two raids follow the titan/VoN model.

[ArkoHighStar]

I can't believe I am saying this but to some extent I agree with Shade , elite on these quests should be hard and it should be balanced against well geared TR's. Turbine should make the assumption that only groups with at least decent gear setup would even attempt elite, and those who come in unprepared should be punished for being so foolish.

This is why they added casual, and why there are normal and hard difficulties. Elite should should scream I am difficult I dare you to beat me, and then send you whimpering away on your first few attempts.

I'm not saying this applies to all levels, but at least this close to end game it should.Elite should assume best gear available at the level you are playing plain and simple and devs should build a dungeon with that in mind

Consequently there should be a very nice boost to xp and loot attached to the effort.

[xtchizobr]

They should be as hard as we want them to be.

And on elite.. We want them to be MASSIVELY harder. They are a joke now. They shouldn't all get easily solo'd on day 1. (and yea they are all soloable on elite, by any class, several people have already done so today)

It tooks weeks/months for people to figure out how to solo the amrath stuff on NORMAL. and were knocking this all out on day 1 on elite..

It's far too easy.

The only tough part of the whole lot is the optional fight in Schemes of the Enemy Elite - which is very disporportionately hard due to the fact you have to face off versus 20-40 mobs at once which respawn at an incredible rate. That and its not really an optional, so much as an alternate route that no one will really use since it has no reward.

Really the main issue is saves.. They aren't balanced to challenge average geared players, let alone max ones. And the complete lack of deathblock (only saving grace there is some contructs are innately immune to death effects, tho the quests are primarily living-constructs, which are not)

Amrath has good saves, and infrequent spattering of deathblock laced around to prevent this.

I'll post some more detailed feedback on elite and whats needs buffing tomorow.

why the emphasis on combat??

i still don't know.

why do we even give a **** how hard it is to kill things? can't we have some quests that can be completed without just hacking and slashing our way through a tunnel???

[Claver]

This is why they added casual, and why there are normal and hard difficulties. Elite should should scream I am difficult I dare you to beat me, and then send you whimpering away on your first few attempts.

I would agree, the game should be accessible to the casual player on casual or normal so that, with scaling and hirelings it is possible to enjoy the content even on solo. But Elite is for Elite players; it is not for me. It should DEMAND a full party using careful strategy and even then, you may not prevail your first few times through.

I would go a step further and say raids should tilt in this direction. Normal raids should feel hard, hard raids should feel elite, elite raids should feel Epic and Epic raids should be reserved for the gods who walk among us.

[andbr22]

Adventure area - for me it was very easy to solo. I ran it with my Ninjarcher with around 36-37 stunning DC i was easly stunning everything except constructs (DUH!) and WF Paladins. The most annoying enemies for me were Temprests as they dealt quite high dmg (40 + 20 for normal quests) but were easy stunable next were these small flying droids that i couldn't choose with tab (not that they had lot of hp).

done one quest - also wasnt too hard. With full party (no specialized healbot).
Content just don't trow at you dozens of enemies at once

[Iejierisk]

why the emphasis on combat??

i still don't know.

why do we even give a **** how hard it is to kill things? can't we have some quests that can be completed without just hacking and slashing our way through a tunnel???

^This a thousand times over.

[grodon9999]

Content just don't trow at you dozens of enemies at once

And that's what makes Amrath "Amrath." A single devil Orthons even on elite isn't that dangerous. 10-20 at once on the other hand . . .

[ArkoHighStar]

why the emphasis on combat??

i still don't know.

why do we even give a **** how hard it is to kill things? can't we have some quests that can be completed without just hacking and slashing our way through a tunnel???

It shouldn't have anything to do with combat. Some quests should be light on combat and provide other types of challenges like traps or stealth, or if you really design a quest well you should have the ability to run a quest either using finesse (ie bypassing mobs through sneaking taking alternate routes etc) or brute force(take on large difficult mob groups or boss mobs).

Again challenge is subjective, having a quest provide a variety of challenge types at the appropriate diffuclty.

[Clownpuncher]

Turbine should make the assumption that only groups with at least decent gear setup would even attempt elite, and those who come in unprepared should be punished for being so foolish.

I can't think of a successful game that punishes it's players. People play games to have fun and relax. If I wanted to get punished, I'd rob a bank.

I get what you're saying though. I just object to the use of the word "punish."

[Talon_Moonshadow]

What lvl are these? (sounds like 19)

If 19 then it is understandable that they may not challenge TRed/Epic 20s.

But.... we have not had new high lvl content is forever! And we were promised that higher lvl dungeons on hard/elite were going to scale much more difficult then older ones would.

So yeah.... (even without playing them) I think some effort should be made to challenge geared lvl 20s on elite.

But it should be different than Amrath.

Amrath has outsiders...good saves in every category.
And GH for all.
Amrath saves should be higher IMO.

But go look at Running with the Devils as an example. They buff themselves with Deathward! Often. and Displacement too.

And they could always buff themselves with GH as well.

IMO, simply having monsters cast the same kinds of buffs we routinely use goes a long way to make things more challenging.

[B0ltdrag0n]

Hello. Remove all your epic and ToD/amrath gear, ship buffs and yugo pots. Then try running the new quests again. You'll thank me later.

But then he can't complain that the missions are way too supernoncompetetiveeasy-peasy!

[Thrudh]

It tooks weeks/months for people to figure out how to solo the amrath stuff on NORMAL. and were knocking this all out on day 1 on elite..

People didn't have epic gear (or even Amrath gear) when Amrath opened.

Face it, you've WON DDO... You've got all the epic gear... Nothing below epic can possibly be a challenge for you. Don't expect it to be.

If you're lucky maybe they'll release a epic raid someday that will give you a challenge.

[Thrudh]

Let's not forget that when Amrath came out there was no epic gear or Cannith crafting in the game, and class enhancements weren't as refined as they are today. Of course new non-epic content is easy when you're running it with an eSoS, eMarilith Chain, 3pc Abisahi, eClaw set, etc (or the caster equivalent) decked out with epic augment slots.

Exactly. I'm not sure how Shade can't figure this out for himself.

[Thrudh]

We do? Thanks for letting us know. You wouldn't happen to know what we want for supper, too? We need to stop at the grocery store on the way home.

LOL

Soloed by who? An extremely well geared, multi-TR'ed, 5 year veteran or someone maybe plays a couple hours every night and hasn't farmed Shroud, Shavrath, and all the Epics to death?

Zing!

[KristovK]

I've run all 3 of the new quests solo on Normal with my Air Savant and found them..enjoyable. 2 of them were actually challenging, but the Blown to Bits was just..well..meh. Tried them on my Monk and found them quite challenging, to the point that I actually died in each of them a number of times. Epic DR doesn't seem to work against the Assassin's crossbows, and they tear my Monk up fast, they also do a number on my Savant even with Stoneskin, but they are easy to kill with a Caster.

Ran Blown with a full party of Casters, my Air Savant, a Water Savant, and the rest were Divine/Melee mixes. It was fun, it was enjoyable, and there were a number of deaths..and that's BEFORE we popped the Golem Everyone but the 2 Savants were TRs, we were all capped, and GS and Epic gear was plentiful, so it seemed to be a decent challenge for the group. Having already solo'd it, I was aware of the Golem's tricks and it's weakness, so it was actually rather easy. The group then moved on the Schematics quest, and again, death happened, it was fun, it was enjoyable and the final fight drove the people who hadn't done it yet nuts, while myself and the other Sorc had some fun, what with knowning what to expect and how to deal with it.

This is all on Normal, both solo and in a full party, fun, enjoyable, and a challenge..except for Blown to Bits, which is pretty easy, outside of the Golem. Solo is obviously not the best way to judge the challenge factor, no matter the setting, because of scaling, so...

As for Shade doing them on Elite and finding them easy..check the Achievements thread, IS there anything Shade actually finds NOT easy?

[Ziindarax]

They should be as hard as we want them to be.

And on elite.. We want them to be MASSIVELY harder. They are a joke now. They shouldn't all get easily solo'd on day 1. (and yea they are all soloable on elite, by any class, several people have already done so today)

It tooks weeks/months for people to figure out how to solo the amrath stuff on NORMAL. and were knocking this all out on day 1 on elite..

It's far too easy.

The only tough part of the whole lot is the optional fight in Schemes of the Enemy Elite - which is very disporportionately hard due to the fact you have to face off versus 20-40 mobs at once which respawn at an incredible rate. That and its not really an optional, so much as an alternate route that no one will really use since it has no reward.

Really the main issue is saves.. They aren't balanced to challenge average geared players, let alone max ones. And the complete lack of deathblock (only saving grace there is some contructs are innately immune to death effects, tho the quests are primarily living-constructs, which are not)

Amrath has good saves, and infrequent spattering of deathblock laced around to prevent this.

I'll post some more detailed feedback on elite and whats needs buffing tomorow.

Try running it without Yugo pots, or ship buffs. I found solo'ing Blown to Bits on Normal to be very difficult. He could barely hit the paladins without kensai str boost, and barbarian rage. Went from 70 heal scrolls to 31 by the time I finished. This was in spite of the fact that I had built my dps utility character to run epic quests.

Also, that fight with the optional fire boss is not so easily solo'd, as the drone is constantly dropping bombs, and unless you are keeping an eye out for, and moving as soon as text appears (the moment it appears or sooner), you will most likely die because the bombs detonate almost instantaneously for 1.7k damage (give or a take a few hundred).

[grodon9999]

These quests are still too easy compared to comparable level 19 stuff. It should be raised up a few notches.