Upgrading the difficulty on the two raids.

[NoidRoid]

Having read the entire thread, it did in fact seem a bit hostile.. and not towards the devs for making an easy raid

I have a good relationship with norg/prophets and revs so that was a bit disappointing and uncalled for from where I sit. Revs is a guild based on achievements and there's nothing wrong with that imo, people don't transfer servers for semi-speed normal completions. Short manning a new raid with unlimited resources(sounds like well over 500 majors total lol) has no bearing on the actual difficulty, much like posting 8 minute von3 and 12 minute chains redskull runs don't make those easy quests.

Fortunately not everyone runs a FS with a gazillion TRs where hitting the major pot hotkey has become second nature for the sake of achievements. I don't think that raids should be scaled to such a small minority, especially when that minority is openly applauding the difficulty of said raid. What incentive is there to misreport the difficulty in that manner? For chest thumping purposes wouldn't it be more logical to declare it easy to shortman a new raid within hours of its' release?

[Hydro]

The Lord of Blades raid is not easy, it is filled with elements that most DDO players are not used to seeing (other MMO players maybe). The raid is fun challenging and unforgiving and the only thing that needs to be changed is not the difficulty its the fact that the boss can be kited.

If you remove the possibility of kiting element from the fight and force the target of his aggro to stand still it is an extremely brutal fight. I would really like to see a balanced party of melee, ranged, casters and healers try to do the fight without using an insane amount of mana pots or letting the FVS kite.

I spent 6+ hours in there yesterday and tried to do the raid with a somewhat balanced PUG and between the elements of tank swapping, debuff watching, not standing in stuff, multiple phases and a few other nasty suprises I know that the fight itself does not need to be made harder but the ability to kite the boss needs to be eliminated. Once you cant kite the boss it will be the hardest raid (not counting Master Artificer) ever created in DDO and will require a strong group to complete it.

Oh and I definitly agree mana pots and all potions in general need to be limited to 1 per attempt. Of course if they did nerf mana pots the raid would probably need some of the damage tuned down since it is pretty crazy at this point.

[Maugrim101]

The best players in the game beat it with a ton of deaths with a mana pot guzzle fest on a test server.

All other groups that have tried have failed so far (As far as I know), even with the same unlimted resources avaiable to them. With that in mind, I think it's a bit premature to be saying it's too easy.

[mournbladereigns]

lolol epeens and egos online.

[Lormyr]

Hitting for 600+ damage?

So - melee = Barb for good now I guess. Unless you take a ftr with like all 7 base feats as Toughness.

A Lord of Blades raid sounds like fun. More hp/power creep doesnt.

Last raid turned up the dial to over 500 hp or dont be a 'tank', now its going to be 700 hp? Somehow between level 20 last year and level 20 this year every melee is supposed to pick up 150 more hp out of the blue?

I won't comment on the new raids, as I haven't tried them yet. However the growing power creep and mechanical imbalances are obvious and a concern I share, Riggs.

I believe things should be challenging for all player's, but the quick and dirty solutions (AC changes/grazing hits, blanket immunities, the growing insanity of intimidate DCs, a number of the epic setting mechanics, ect.) to rebalancing the game have worked alright enough, but leave alot to be desired in my opinion. Casters pretty much hold the reigns of power across the board in general, and have for quite some time. It would be nice to see the gap between them bridged a bit, not widened.

I feel the spirit of DnD, in which variety exists to handle combat situations, dwindling from the game, which is sad for me. Many aspects of approaching challenges in the game are becoming unfortunately streamlined and uniform.

[Tinco]

I feel the spirit of DnD, in which variety exists to handle combat situations, dwindling from the game, which is sad for me. Many aspects of approaching challenges in the game are becoming unfortunately streamlined and uniform.

This problem arose with ToD and the epic raids imo. The problem I see the DDO faces is that while promoting uniformity and streamlined character building/playstyle with the way the mentioned and the upcoming raids are designed, they hesitate to follow the design basics that such content design warrants - more rigid balance and pre-defined options. The amount of viable choices narrows down and I can't sense a real plan to re-enable options via thoughtful changes to the game, for example the AC-issue, ranged combat, certain classes, etc.

There's either the more playful way of old-school DnD encounters like Titan and Abott (pre-change) or the more player-performance-oriented way that other MMOs went like ToD or EChrono. I'm not sure if they try to find a reasonable balance between the two,if they are are about to abandon one of the ways or if they are simply a bit lost in between.

Sad thing is that content is money and game mechanics are not and so I'm a bit afraid that we see a change in content without a proper adjustment of the game's foundation.

[stainer]

Yeah you just want it easy peasy whereas I want to get my butt kicked. Beating a raid on the first attempt or two is a letdown.

Try not using your gear, or maybe it might be time for a different game.

[voodoogroves]

Beaten so far by the only group to do things like 2-man VoN6 epic right? I know my limits as a player and if they say it's tough, I kinda believe them.

If it needs to be adjusted, let's see how it plays out on live. Similar to "balancing" crafting because a handful of players could hit the crafting cap pretty much immediately ... it needs to be tough, but it doesn't need to be completely un-achievable.

[Qezuzu]

Beaten so far by the only group to do things like 2-man VoN6 epic right? I know my limits as a player and if they say it's tough, I kinda believe them.

If it needs to be adjusted, let's see how it plays out on live. Similar to "balancing" crafting because a handful of players could hit the crafting cap pretty much immediately ... it needs to be tough, but it doesn't need to be completely un-achievable.

This.

Some players are simply so well geared, played, and built that if something weren't achievable by them so quickly with +30 deaths, ungodly amounts of SP pots and an hour of effort... well then it's simply too hard.

[arkonas]

you know some of those people that beat it on epic said it was hard but fun so why make it harder?

[gloopygloop]

Any chance you can upgrade the difficulty for the two raids or at least one of the raids on epic. The raids appear far too easy. Resources are easy to come by in game so if I have to use some resources shrug. I would love a real challenge. I actually want to fail at attempts in completing a raid for the first time for a few weeks that would be awesome. The old abbot and Titan were both great - give us one of those raids. The game is much too easy on epic.

Seeing this post from someone who hasn't even run the raid yet absolutely made my day. Thank you for the laugh. I've had a tough weekend and really needed that.

[grodon9999]

Oh and I definitly agree mana pots and all potions in general need to be limited to 1 per attempt. Of course if they did nerf mana pots the raid would probably need some of the damage tuned down since it is pretty crazy at this point.

NOTHING in this game should be balanced on what can be done if you chain-chung SP-pots. unlimited blue-bar is the single most broken aspect of this game.

If they want to actually test the difficulties of the raids Lamania should stop selling SP pots in the store.

These raids are probably a bear, lets see somebody beat them without pots before they are declared "too easy."

[gyerv59]

Oh and I definitly agree mana pots and all potions in general need to be limited to 1 per attempt. Of course if they did nerf mana pots the raid would probably need some of the damage tuned down since it is pretty crazy at this point.

What? I can only drink 1 remove urse pots per VoD? :P

[azrael4h]

I feel the spirit of DnD, in which variety exists to handle combat situations, dwindling from the game, which is sad for me. Many aspects of approaching challenges in the game are becoming unfortunately streamlined and uniform.

Yeah, DDO is more dps and insta-kill online vs Dungeons and Dragons Online. D&D3.5e is outstanding due to the fact that you can build practically any fantasy character concept. The archetypes are easily handled by the core, and more obscure or unique concepts can be built using various splats. Yeah it was never balanced against min-maxers; that was never the point.

The complete focus on pure, raw damage output and kill counts is a far cry from any Dungeons and Dragons I've played, pen and paper or even much of the computerized versions.

This of course means that ultimately, he who has the biggest numbers win. IMO kill the point-buy system and bring in rolling 3d6 for each stat. Then again, we'll have people spending hours rolling for that almost mythical 18/18/17/16/18/16 (which I did get, once, which almost gave me a heart attack). Balance content difficulty over that (like real D&D) and build content with means to complete other than "KILL THEM ALL AND MAKE SLAVES OF THEIR CHILDREN".

[Braegan]

It didnt take soo long to beat the titan raid because the mobs were so hard to kill. It was because the preraid and raid were big puzzles to be figured out. Any raid that is just fight a mob will be beaten in one day every time. If they want another raid that will take time to complete, it will have to involve extensive puzzles.

Hmmm. I remember trying to beat the Titan Awakes when it came out with perfect clarity. It was never the puzzles or the length of the pre-raid that stopped us, it was the raid that defeated us for months. The guild I was in at the time was tenacious over it and was the second on the Xoriat Server to beat the Titan.

It beat us because of the time and state of the game. The cap was level 10. An AC Build had maybe a 45 ac. Max HP was around 200 HP. Take that into Titan and it's a challenge. The pre-raid wasn't a challenge after the first couple of tries, after-all the puzzles don't change, once learned it's easy.

I guess my point being if you want to challenge players at this stage of the game, high hp uber damage dealing mobs won't do it (we will power thru it), puzzles are fun (but they are static and once learned are a done deal); you need more aspects like Evon6 Pillars. Teamwork, coordination, communication to ensure victory. To me that's about the biggest challenge left in game...evon6 and Abbot. Because they require teamplay and communication. No amount of brute force will beat goggles or break 3 pillars at the same time.

This post is made entirely on the postings of the raid, I have myself not been to Lamania to check it out as I wish to save it for live. I am sure the new raids will be fun for a bit and look forward to them.

[Xaxx]

So people beat the raid by using ungodly amounts of resouses and you want it made harder... I suppose when it goes to live that hard and the only way to complete it even after its been completly figured out is to pony up 10+ mana pots per normal run? and say 20+ on elite or epic.... are you gonna be the one ponnying up the pots... or are you just going to expect the casters to foot the bill for your raiding?????

I'm gonna guess the op will be one of the first people on the forums moaning about clerics not wanting to suck *a pot or two* to complete the raid. By pot or two i mean he'll expect them to take x10 of that and when they wont will get ****ed over it. If people were having trouble with it including the guy with one of the biggest epeens on the forums... i mean if someone who constantly moans about things being to easy for his barb who has 3 pages of purples and 2 pages of purples in storage is having a bit of trouble with it.... I dont mind tough raids..... but I decline having to have full epics and 1000 hp on every toon just to even sniff a raid completion.

[Riksha]

Was this trip really necessary.

Matt I think you have made yourself look bad. Those guys beat it under test circumstances im sure its not gonna go the same way live. and if the top 1 percentile beats it so what the rest of us would like to give it a shot without cater to the likes of super raiders. you would rather it be so hard that u cant drink 10000 pots and beat it. these are new times where we have ultra customized fvs and such with bad intentions and they all decided to get together so why wouldnt a group like that beat it first try and be a hard raid too.

[Riggs]

NOTHING in this game should be balanced on what can be done if you chain-chung SP-pots. unlimited blue-bar is the single most broken aspect of this game.

If they want to actually test the difficulties of the raids Lamania should stop selling SP pots in the store.

These raids are probably a bear, lets see somebody beat them without pots before they are declared "too easy."

Indeed.

Unlimited casting is just sheer stupidity.

Mana pots should not go above cure serious pots - 25 sp per chug. Enough to cast 1 more spell, and 25 per instead of 400 per would make them extremely limited usefulness in a raid.

[Scraap]

Hitting for 600+ damage?

So - melee = Barb for good now I guess. Unless you take a ftr with like all 7 base feats as Toughness.

A Lord of Blades raid sounds like fun. More hp/power creep doesnt.

Last raid turned up the dial to over 500 hp or dont be a 'tank', now its going to be 700 hp? Somehow between level 20 last year and level 20 this year every melee is supposed to pick up 150 more hp out of the blue?

Not the negger, nor do I see the point in negging that, but: 600*0.75 = 450 if ya take the two shield feats on a fighter and snag a tower shield... Question is, just how much nasty magic was flying around in there?

/graspingatstraws

[budalic]

Yeah, DDO is more dps and insta-kill online vs Dungeons and Dragons Online. D&D3.5e is outstanding due to the fact that you can build practically any fantasy character concept. The archetypes are easily handled by the core, and more obscure or unique concepts can be built using various splats. Yeah it was never balanced against min-maxers; that was never the point.

The complete focus on pure, raw damage output and kill counts is a far cry from any Dungeons and Dragons I've played, pen and paper or even much of the computerized versions.

This of course means that ultimately, he who has the biggest numbers win. IMO kill the point-buy system and bring in rolling 3d6 for each stat. Then again, we'll have people spending hours rolling for that almost mythical 18/18/17/16/18/16 (which I did get, once, which almost gave me a heart attack). Balance content difficulty over that (like real D&D) and build content with means to complete other than "KILL THEM ALL AND MAKE SLAVES OF THEIR CHILDREN".

Rolling for stats is rather dated concept... and rather silly (not to mention stupid). The premise of any Role-playing game should be in giving each player (of the same level, of course) chance to shine. Rolling... isn't good for that.

As for 3.5e being outstanding... it has been outstanding in amount of **** written. About 80% of options are traps, silly things or just plain broken. So, I could make Barbarian - class whose entire focus is melee combat and damage dealing - or I could make Cleric - who will do melee combat better than Barbarian, heal, and have silly powerful offensive spells like Holy Word or Gate. Out of combat, Barbarian has 2 skill points per level - and that's all, while Cleric has vast array of utility spells covering a lot of ground. No matter how optimised Barbarian is, or how unoptimised cleric is - even a monkey playing cleric will eventually stumble upon good options (cleric knows all spells on list, remember) and start using them constantly. 3.5e gets from superhero game on one end (Wizards, Clerics and ilk) too decidedly unheroic struggle on the other hand (Monk and Warlock being prime examples of this).

So, I doubt that you could make any character concept and have fun, unless 'being overshadowed' is fun to you. You can do that in DDO, too... Play Sorc 7/Wiz 6/FvS 7. Make drow, start with 6 Con. I'm sure you'll have a lot of fun. In the meanwhile, leave DDO alone. However borked inter-class balance is, a well played character will always have huge impact on party, be it a Ranger (class most ppl regard as worst currently) or FvS (aka. U9+ Top Dog). And, big suprise, in game focused on combat, damage numbers, HP and DCs will take prime seat. Duh.