Reaver's fate

[Crusad]

Almost no one was running it before because of lame rewards, but was easy to pike so small chance to get a +3 tome. If he will be so much stronger, i doubt we will see lfm for it again. Another Titan?

[Sarisa]

Simply raising HP by factors over 100% and adding an essentially 1-shot kill to the average non-Barbarian in a level 16 quest is not increased difficult, it's just increased frustration.

This raid on elite should be balanced according to what the AVERAGE level 16 or 17 with solid gear. Not a fully geared epic grade character, not a new player without CON items and fortification. Normal should be appropriate for new level 14-15's. Hard should be for those with a bit more experience and equipment, 15-16.

If these changes were done across the board, on all difficulties, it's not a promising sign for the game. One of the best aspects of DDO is that with a bit of solid gameplay, basic gear, and experience, you CAN do everything, even on a new player as long as you're willing to learn and listen. This type of change alienates players, and makes the gap between the tweaked "haves" and new "have nots" that much worse.

[BGrifter]

Awesome, now I can just ignore Reavers entirely. The only reason casters had to do it before was it being an afk snoozefest, without a massive loot table overhaul I can't imagine non-melees bothering.

[Grosbeak07]

Almost no one was running it before because of lame rewards, but was easy to pike so small chance to get a +3 tome. If he will be so much stronger, i doubt we will see lfm for it again. Another Titan?

I doubt it.

The turn-off to Titan is the pre-raid. Right now I know a lot of people who run the Reaver, but they are most guild groups of 4-6 people, absolutely no need to pug and if things go bad for some reason, you can just hop right back in (unlike Titan).

Remember when they buffed up the saves of the Air Ellies in there so they couldn't be FoD all the time? I forsee this being similar, where it will take people a run or two to adjust.

[Shade]

Wow..

People honestly think reavers ever going to be anything other then a 15min joke of a raid, even on elite?

It's not gona happen guys, your really over reacting.

A bit more damage and hp might make it harder to solo, but its not gona give any full high lvl (well not even high lvl, 14-16 should be plenty) groups a problem, still gona be a joke.

So jump on lam and run it in a group instead of complaining about changes you have no idea about. Then tell us how easy it still is.

[somenewnoob]

So with the added difficulty I can't wait to see the improved loot from the harder raids..........wait......what's that you say..........oh.


Can we please get a overhaul of the raid loot tables? Please? So much junk clutters it now, how about with the difficulty overhaul we get some better stuff?

[Grosbeak07]

Awesome, now I can just ignore Reavers entirely. The only reason casters had to do it before was it being an afk snoozefest, without a massive loot table overhaul I can't imagine non-melees bothering.

Nearly all the raids in this game are snoozers as they are almost all "circle the boss and kill" while everyone stands still, puts on auto-attack and goes afk.

[Havok.cry]

YEAH! hard and elite might just possibly mean something now. If you cant handle harder difficulty then run it on easier difficulty. Also if people stopped whining that casters were op they might stop adding in things that can 1 hit casters... although I think an elite raid is a fine place to find such things. Besides we are talking about a guy who can take down warforged titans in melee, without laser cannons... warforged titans that effortlessly kill pit fiends... he should be a badass.

[ainmosni]

YEAH! hard and elite might just possibly mean something now. If you cant handle harder difficulty then run it on easier difficulty. Also if people stopped whining that casters were op they might stop adding in things that can 1 hit casters... although I think an elite raid is a fine place to find such things. Besides we are talking about a guy who can take down warforged titans in melee, without laser cannons... warforged titans that effortlessly kill pit fiends... he should be a badass.

ok here's the issue.

the overwhealming debate is "this raid is too easy, and boring." vs "new players aare going to get their asses kicked by this raid."

IMO, they need to keep the raids AS IS on all difficulties, since they're scaled appropriately for what a first life 28 point new-to-the-hoard player can accomplish at-level;

if people want a challenge, heres a couple thoughts:

1. a new difficulty ("legendary?"), different from epic, scaled for people AT LEVEL for the raid who want a challenge with all their twink gear and past lives and experience. it'd be quite easy to do, just keep current difficulties intact and make the 'new' elite difficulties the fourth option. hell, make them harder. Reward? increased drop rates and xp upon completion (for all the tr's running at-level).


2. new low-level to mid-level content (OK, hear me out!) designed SPECIFICALLY to challenge uber players at-level. raids, whatever.

im leaning more towards option 1 since 'new' low-mid level content generally has very little replay value, unless they add MORE twink gear.... and honestly.. what's next? ML9 +7 stat items....?


for the record, i am firmly opposed to scaling low-level raids for capped toons with good gear. shroud, titan,reaver raid, whatever... if you're going to increase the scaling for level 20's, increase the ML of the raid to 20.

and go ahead and buff epic bosses. whatever. epic is a joke anyway. metagamers gonna metagame. i dont think there's anything the devs could throw at us at this point that will provide much of a challenge for long.

[dingal]

Excellent! The role of tanking the reaver is now not something I roll a d12 for to assign to a random party member.

He got maximize, empower, and disintegrate on elite? Love it.

Heh glad I'm not the only one.

I haven't even run Reaver in months due to the bore.

[Angelus_dead]

Reaver's Problem is not and has never been the numbers, it's the disastrous design of the encounter/dungeon.

Yeah, the Reaver's Fate encounter just isn't designed to occupy 12 people. The simplest step to improve that raid would be to lower the allowed players from 12 to 6. There just aren't tasks in there for 12 people to do. Most of it is a three-person job of tank + healer + killer.

To really make it worthy of being a 12-man instance would require quite a bit of work, and it's not really worth it to majorly change something that old.

[dingal]

ok here's the issue.

the overwhealming debate is "this raid is too easy, and boring." vs "new players aare going to get their asses kicked by this raid."

IMO, they need to keep the raids AS IS on all difficulties, since they're scaled appropriately for what a first life 28 point new-to-the-hoard player can accomplish at-level;

if people want a challenge, heres a couple thoughts:

1. a new difficulty ("legendary?"), different from epic, scaled for people AT LEVEL for the raid who want a challenge with all their twink gear and past lives and experience. it'd be quite easy to do, just keep current difficulties intact and make the 'new' elite difficulties the fourth option. hell, make them harder. Reward? increased drop rates and xp upon completion (for all the tr's running at-level).


2. new low-level to mid-level content (OK, hear me out!) designed SPECIFICALLY to challenge uber players at-level. raids, whatever.

im leaning more towards option 1 since 'new' low-mid level content generally has very little replay value, unless they add MORE twink gear.... and honestly.. what's next? ML9 +7 stat items....?


for the record, i am firmly opposed to scaling low-level raids for capped toons with good gear. shroud, titan,reaver raid, whatever... if you're going to increase the scaling for level 20's, increase the ML of the raid to 20.

and go ahead and buff epic bosses. whatever. epic is a joke anyway. metagamers gonna metagame. i dont think there's anything the devs could throw at us at this point that will provide much of a challenge for long.

Absolutely 100million% agree.

Scaling level 14-17 raids to make them difficult for a group of geared level 20's does not a friendly experience make for newer players.

I'm totally fine with it being scaled on Elite because the very word carries a certain connotation but norm and even hard should be doable by a group of first time first lifers with the expected gear of that level.

I do however think that a level 14 raid should be a breeze for geared level 20's regardless of difficulty. A level 14 raid on elite is still only level 16 content which by definition should be easier than Amrath.

[Ryiah]

I think Turbine needs to stop with the half-measures and just re-tool the levels for all the raids into a progression similar to Devil Assault with epic-like tech for the loot in order to make them all relevant near and at endgame.

Agreed. I like how they wasted time re-tooling a level 1 quest that is only really worth running once on each difficulty, but fail to re-tool the quests and raids that could really use it and get run on a regular basis.

Almost no one was running it before because of lame rewards, but was easy to pike so small chance to get a +3 tome. If he will be so much stronger, i doubt we will see lfm for it again. Another Titan?

I'm going to assume you're kidding. There's no way I would consider the Dreamspitter, Madstone Boots, or Stormreaver's Napkin to be lame. Not only are they not lame, but they actually have decent drop rates compared to most other popular items in other raids.

[Eladiun]

1. a new difficulty ("legendary?"), different from epic, scaled for people AT LEVEL for the raid who want a challenge with all their twink gear and past lives and experience. it'd be quite easy to do, just keep current difficulties intact and make the 'new' elite difficulties the fourth option. hell, make them harder. Reward? increased drop rates and xp upon completion (for all the tr's running at-level)..

We have this already. It's called Elite. We don't need a new difficult. Rescaling the difficulty to match the power creep (and it's not just Epic or End Game items the last few quest chains have has some silly powerful items compared to quests from a few years ago) Just because pre-patch you could run Elite and post patch you aren't good enough isn't an us problem it's a you problem.

Elite is supposed to be a challenge.

If you can't hack it try hard.

Why do people expect things handed to them on a silver platter?

[grodon9999]

We have this already. It's called Elite. We don't need a new difficult. Rescaling the difficulty to match the power creep (and it's not just Epic or End Game items the last few quest chains have has some silly powerful items compared to quests from a few years ago) Just because pre-patch you could run Elite and post patch you aren't good enough isn't an us problem it's a you problem.

Elite is supposed to be a challenge.

If you can't hack it try hard.

Why do people expect things handed to them on a silver platter?

We don't, but we also don't think a boss should be throwing a Hortoh-level disintegrate in a level 16 raid.

[dingal]

We have this already. It's called Elite. We don't need a new difficult. Rescaling the difficulty to match the power creep (and it's not just Epic or End Game items the last few quest chains have has some silly powerful items compared to quests from a few years ago) Just because pre-patch you could run Elite and post patch you aren't good enough isn't an us problem it's a you problem.

Elite is supposed to be a challenge.

If you can't hack it try hard.

Why do people expect things handed to them on a silver platter?

He has some of the most well geared toons of anyone I know and it a fantastic player (Albiet one iwth a tendency to fall from great heights).

He's not saying he can't hack it. He is however able to look through the lens of a newer player and remember what it was like.

My paladin for instance, let's take a look at my awesome build back when I was a new player, level 14ish. I'm trying to recall this from memory and I've done a lot over the past year to try to forget it so bear with me.

Feat Selection:
Improved Turning (YES!)

Gear:
3 Strength items cause that's a ton of strength
Full Plate of the Defender blech
Heavy Steel Shield
+5 Icy Burst Longsword of Maiming (Notice the absence of DR breaking)
Spectral Gloves (YES IM SO EPIC)

Enhancements:
Hunter of the Dead II
Do the rest really matter?

Now take that toon and throw it in the new and improved reavers with 3 120hp rogues, a sorc/wiz splash and a "battle cleric" and fill the rest with whatever other newer players hit the LFM and you've got a recipe for "not ever going to complete".

the above scenario is not uncommon and you see it here on the forums every day with newer players who finally reach out to the community to ask for build advice etc

Many newer players come to this game having the expectation that it will bear some resemblance to pen and paper and build their characters accordingly only to find out they can't accomplish a thing. The game doesn't need to brutalize them on normal.

I am fine however with having those lower difficulty settings offer a decreased loot drop rate and XP reward.

I am also fine with Elite being raised to really push players within that given level range but a level 14 raid should not challenge geared 20's on elite. Sorry but it simply shouldn't. That is what epic difficulty and end game is all about.

[Jahmin]

it's a level 14 raid, this is ********.

QFT

Why must we continually waste development time on this ****? Stop fixing stuff that is not broken

'End game' raid without end game gear? That is a FAILURE

[dingal]

it's a level 14 raid, this is ********.

Ahhh, junk. You managed to condense into 8 words what I tried to say in 500.

Next time I'm going right to the mental disability metaphor and saving myself some typing.

[ainmosni]

We have this already. It's called Elite.

Elite is supposed to be a challenge.

elite should be difficult but not **** near impossible for a 28 point build, first life character new to the game to complete at-level.

a 500 point disintegrate with a DC that a first life barbarian would fail on a 10 in a raid with a penalty box is absurd.

Just because pre-patch you could run Elite and post patch you aren't good enough isn't an us problem it's a you problem.

i can assure you, i do just fine

BUT we were all new once. if i entered an elite reaver raid at level and got hit for more than double my hitpoints on a roll of a 19, it wouldnt motivate me to become better, or try again. it'd tell me that this raid is not meant to be run by me.

whatever argument you can give to suggest otherwise supports the idea that a level 16 raid should provide challenge to a bunch of capped and geared toons.

so sure, i 100% agree with you. IF they increase the ML of all the raids in the game to 20 on elite.

[Havok.cry]

If newbies are trying a raid for the, first time, on elite, they deserve the painful death they will most-likely get. Especially If they are all newbies and took no "more experienced friend" along to guide them.

Normal should be fairly simple for a new player party... even short manned.
Hard should be a fairly simple for an at-level balanced party.
Elite should be difficult all the time for everyone.
Epic should be OMG what just happened to us all the time for everyone.

My argument is that when I was new I thought water works and butchers path were very difficult quests, and nigh impossible on elite. Now I wake up at the end of them on a new toon i've rolled and hit x and see that I killed everything and run to the end while asleep. Raids should not be easy enough on elite for a group of new players to complete... they SHOULD be trying it on an easier difficulty till they know what they are doing.

That being said has anyone checked normal/hard to see if he's throwing ridiculous numbers there?