Feedback - Challenge - Dr. Rushmore's Mansion: Picture Portals EPIC

[FlimsyFirewood]

I assure you, there is more than one way to kill the bosses of the mansion.

I fail to see a difference between tricks and phases by your definition. You end up trying things until you find something that works for you, or you read about what other people did and then you learn how to do it. Ultimately, someone in the party/raid says 'this is the way we do this' and you either comply or have another pug experience.

[Bladedge]

I assure you, there is more than one way to kill the bosses of the mansion.

Don't this usually ends with the devs returning back to quest, "fixing" (or at times breaking) the encounter cause the players thought outside of the box.

[Munkenmo]

trick - abishai - elemental damage to supress regen.

phase - tbh i don't think we have any, imo a phase is where a boss would realise his current strategy isn't working, then maybe give himself a new buff, or put on a fort item, cast a new spell etc.

cheese - inability to bypass only mechanic by thinking outside box
ie. - no summons can hurt zz, only charmed dogs
- impossible to hurt / trip titan without using pillars / laser
- invisible walls / piercing dr to prevent rangers prepping von pillars.

what in your mind seems to constitute avoiding a mindless beatdown to some of us means a slow boring one strategy raid. Titan and hox being the worst of these imo.

ps.

lame
- being telekinesed over the edge in EDQ

penalty boxes are fine, but not if the penalty is for just being plain damned unlucky.

[Elixxer]

And by creative/inventive you mean: let's bum rush the boss, chug potions and brute force through whatever defenses he has.

This, right here, is the apogee of creativity.

Player #1: Oh what does this one do? I dunno, let's bum rush him.
Player #2: But wait, there are strat...
Player #1:No, let's bum rush him, xp per minute man, what's the hold up, let's go. Chug, chug, chug!
Player #2: It's not working! The regen is too strong!
Player #1: Nuke harder!!!11one!

Turbine Dev #1: ... I dunno, I guess we'll sell more potions or something ...
Turbine Dev #2: Just let it go, man. Let it go.

This cracked me up! I never heard of Bum rushing though. It sounds... Dirty.

[Havok.cry]

trick - abishai - elemental damage to supress regen.

phase - tbh i don't think we have any, imo a phase is where a boss would realise his current strategy isn't working, then maybe give himself a new buff, or put on a fort item, cast a new spell etc.

cheese - inability to bypass only mechanic by thinking outside box
ie. - no summons can hurt zz, only charmed dogs
- impossible to hurt / trip titan without using pillars / laser
- invisible walls / piercing dr to prevent rangers prepping von pillars.

what in your mind seems to constitute avoiding a mindless beatdown to some of us means a slow boring one strategy raid. Titan and hox being the worst of these imo.

ps.

lame
- being telekinesed over the edge in EDQ

penalty boxes are fine, but not if the penalty is for just being plain damned unlucky.

Maybe the bloodplate fight in chrono could be described as having phases

[Munkenmo]

Maybe the bloodplate fight in chrono could be described as having phases

i guess, but imo it's rather similar to sully porting out in vod. The armorers regenning his hp could be somewhat of a phase style tactic, but atm it's not random, they spawn every wave.

maybe as a phase encounter there would be 1 spawn second port, 2 spawn third, then with a random chance of another one spawning. perhaps the third wave 1 armorer would regen him and the other would give the bloodplate some sort of fort buff, dr buff or elemental buff.

I hope I'm being clear.

[Cyr]

I fail to see a difference between tricks and phases by your definition.

A trick is when you have to do an abbot puzzle or else the abbot can not be killed. That is a trick.

A phase is when the DQ goes into berserker crazy mode or when her efreet spawn.

The difference is pretty apparent to me. One requires that you do something goofy and special to beat the encounter. The other makes the fight more varied and interesting by merely changing things up.

[BruceTheHoon]

Yeah, adding a 'trick' to beating a boss does nothing more then relagate character stats to secondary considerations.

Abbot did this. Titan did this. How popular were these quests? Oh yeah they were two of the worst recieved quests in the history of the game which is really something considering the incredible demand there was for raids when those were released.

It really does not make fights more interesting when there are 'tricks'. What makes them more interesting is when there are phases. Tricks is just another way of saying we are going to make something up that you pretty much have to do one or if you are lucky two ways to succeed with any degree of regularity and that basically breaks any D&D emerision the game might still possess.

Look at titan...Oh it's an invinsible guy unless you knock him on his back like a turtle and then shoot him in the belly with a laser. Yeah that screams D&D to me. Then you make it worse by making him immune to all effects that would normally knock down a monster except the pillars. I'm sorry, but not even the insane batman villians would put their invinsible except for one little thing monster in a room with all those little things that you need to kill them.

I don't see it nearly as black and white as you do. Not every trick is bad. In example: Shroud - you have to split the leuenants before killing them. Partycrashers - full of them.
As I se it, it all depends on the trick:
- If it's hard and unforgiving like in Abbot, it's not going to be received nicely by the majority. It just puts too much stress on an individual to be enjoyable, making it an acquired taste at most.
- If a failure can be recovered without much frustration like in shroud, I don't believe people would really mind. Even with repetition, it does bring uniqueness to the quest.

I can only speak for myself and people that I regularly play with, but I love to use my wits and not just my dexterity when playing the game. I also believe, that this is very much in the spirit of D&D.

[waterboytkd]

A trick is when you have to do an abbot puzzle or else the abbot can not be killed. That is a trick.

A phase is when the DQ goes into berserker crazy mode or when her efreet spawn.

The difference is pretty apparent to me. One requires that you do something goofy and special to beat the encounter. The other makes the fight more varied and interesting by merely changing things up.

See, this is pretty important. I think back to all my tabletop days, and every single fight eventually boiled down to making an attack and damage roll. The best fights often involved us doing interesting things or suffering horribly for it (eg you're fighting a dragon in the open; he doesn't land, instead hitting you with breaths from the sky; pc's need to do something to encourage the dragon to land so they can beat on him OR they get themselves up to the dragon; my favorite was one character harpooned the dragon and climbed up the rope onto its back to hack at it with his sword--I didn't stay up long, but it was worth it).

But, Titan is the worst: it doesn't involve actually playing the game, just doing a mini-puzzle thing to win. Titan would have been a much better raid if, after knocking a pillar on the titan, we could gang up on him and do damage with our weapons, maybe making the laser an optional method that would deal massive damage.

Abbot is a close second, with forcing the group to do puzzles that don't really seem connected in order to fight the abbot. Oh sure, there's a story connection between the sarcophagi and the lich, but the puzzles? Why would the abbot ever make those solvable? I mean, why are there puzzles there? Personally, I think the abbot would be more fun if, instead of puzzles, he had more special attacks that would force the PCs to respond in ways other than "keep beating and heal through it!" Inferno works toward this. More stuff like that, though not necessarily as party-wipe oriented.

This is why I like Lord of Blades. He has phases. After every hp benchmark, the fight changes in some manner (the dogs start puking/start puking more often, LoB picks up new attacks, even new trash spawns to deal with). And the pillars? I mean, we have to kill the LoB not by attacking him, but the pillars. BUT, it still uses mechanics that we build our toons for: attack and damage. In fact, the whole raid makes us use our mechanics, tanking, CC, dps, and healing. All while encouraging us to do something other than surround and beat/tank and spank for minutes on end.

I think that's the difference between trick and phase. Phase means the fight is changing and dynamic, but it's still us fighting. Trick means we don't actually do what we build our toons for (fighting), and instead are forced to play some kind of mini-game, often a puzzle game, instead. Granted, puzzles have a history in D&D, but combat has always been the center-point of the game, even above role-playing. I've never done an adventure against a final boss in PnP in which we never had to swing our weapons at him once.

[waterboytkd]

I don't see it nearly as black and white as you do. Not every trick is bad. In example: Shroud - you have to split the leuenants before killing them. Partycrashers - full of them.
As I se it, it all depends on the trick:
- If it's hard and unforgiving like in Abbot, it's not going to be received nicely by the majority. It just puts too much stress on an individual to be enjoyable, making it an acquired taste at most.
- If a failure can be recovered without much frustration like in shroud, I don't believe people would really mind. Even with repetition, it does bring uniqueness to the quest.

I can only speak for myself and people that I regularly play with, but I love to use my wits and not just my dexterity when playing the game. I also believe, that this is very much in the spirit of D&D.

The thing is: both shroud and partycrashers have a "trick" that revolves around combat. The "trick" in abbot and titan do not. And I believe that's why they are less-well received. Special things you have to do in combat aren't so bad, as long as combat is still involved. Special things you are forced to do in lieu of combat are what ruin a raid/quest, at least for me. Special thins that are optional that you can do in lieu of combat at least gives choices, allowing players to play the game that they most enjoy.

[TheDearLeader]

FlimsyFirewood ain't so Flimsy - check.

(Tell me all the tricks to these challenge quests, and I'll stop Assassinating Festivult Wolves.)

[RandomKeypress]

Don't know if this counts as a trick or not, but you can obviously persuade Sam to join you in killing Ugg. Talk to Sam, go to Ugg, Sam appears and tries to help. Sort of.

If you go to the healer, Sam stops being friendly and goes hostile so that you can kill him.

Sam doesn't seem to want to help with any of the other named though - he just doesn't turn up.

Maybe the crystal kobold trick is something to do with the torches, but taking the torches away does nothing, and you can't drop them while stealthed.

No idea what the special tricks are for Dr. Will Ewe Rushmore (sigh) or Sam or the healer.

[FlimsyFirewood]

From this perspective, Crystal and Rushmore are 'phased' fights.

Everyone breathe.

Sam not helping with Crystal and Rushmore is a known bug, I believe it should have been already fixed (if not, wait for patch). Sam's cooperation is not required, however, to beat those bosses.

[sirgog]

The thing is: both shroud and partycrashers have a "trick" that revolves around combat. The "trick" in abbot and titan do not. And I believe that's why they are less-well received. Special things you have to do in combat aren't so bad, as long as combat is still involved. Special things you are forced to do in lieu of combat are what ruin a raid/quest, at least for me. Special thins that are optional that you can do in lieu of combat at least gives choices, allowing players to play the game that they most enjoy.

This.

Encounter design in DDO has come a long way over the last two years or so.

Compare the excruciatingly dull Aussiroth/Aussircaex optional fight in Prey on the Hunter (surround, pound through two >100k HP bosses, run back each time they wing buffet you, repeat) to the mayhem of the Lord of Blades fight.

If even a minority of 6-player quest bosses get the treatment that raid bosses have been lately, the game will continue to improve.

[Sarisa]

If even a minority of 6-player quest bosses get the treatment that raid bosses have been lately, the game will continue to improve.

Yalthoon was a great end fight. Lots to do, and like said earlier, it was all combat oriented. The Healing pods keep it fun.

[Havok.cry]

If anyone is making a list another phase type fight would be the dreaming dark boss.

[Chimeran]

This is a very depressing comment from Turbine.

It indicates lack of forethought, and reinforces the community impression that you want us to run quests "your way" or "just one way", and not be creative/inventive in any way when playing the game. If you buff the elementals to further reinforce "your way", or "the way", to beat the quest, that is even more depressing.

/agree

That comment made me rush and pre order a new game right then and there.

[dunklezhan]

And by creative/inventive you mean: let's bum rush the boss, chug potions and brute force through whatever defenses he has.

This, right here, is the apogee of creativity.

Player #1: Oh what does this one do? I dunno, let's bum rush him.
Player #2: But wait, there are strat...
Player #1:No, let's bum rush him, xp per minute man, what's the hold up, let's go. Chug, chug, chug!
Player #2: It's not working! The regen is too strong!
Player #1: Nuke harder!!!11one!

Turbine Dev #1: ... I dunno, I guess we'll sell more potions or something ...
Turbine Dev #2: Just let it go, man. Let it go.

I came out of rep retirement to +1 this. Excellent response. While I'm out of retirement I'm going to go +1 the 'our way or no way is bad design' post from Zaodan too though because it's absolutely a fair point.

I think the poster who suggested charming the elementals might be onto something there - as its epic presumably the DCs are through the roof, and that's good.

If it works, that's not a 'trick' that's a 'tactic'.

I'm sure, with enough DPS, you can bum rush this like folk tend to do for every encounter, which makes the 'charm the eles tactic' entirely reasonable as an approach, especially if its an 'optimal' approach precisely because it's a tactic available to certain classes more than others who often don't get a look in with those abilities because the DPS monster players (whether casters or melee) always get there first.

But this is a 'tactic', not a trick, in a similar way to Shroud pt2 - you can just hunt the monsters one by one, or you can just pull them to south central and beat them down. Or you can pull them to south central, mass hold, web and disco ball, and have a much easier and faster time of it. Then you deal with the gimmick of seperating the red names or they can't be killed, and killing them simultaneously enough that they can't respawn before the crystal goes down.


Titan on the other hand is bad, because players don't have the option of alternative tactics. Dropping ice and fire within seconds of each other in Tempest Spine is not Bad, because although the outcome must be 'within x seconds of each other', how you actually acheive that is entirely up to you. As long as its possible, no matter how difficult, to approach the encounter in a few different ways, then that's cool.

Basically, if the methods and tools are at the player's disposal naturally (rather than as something only given to them in the instance) then they have acheived victory themselves because of a combination of build, gear choices and skill, and that's good. But if success is down to flicking some switch that 'wins' the fight, and without doing that the encounter is impossible... then that's a 'trick' and it's Bad.

M'kay?

[Cyr]

Rest of comment ignored. Reason: you haven't played any challenges.

Forums just ate my long reply to this so forget it.

I just do not care enough at the moment to give you the full feedback of why your response is short sighted.

Short feedback is...

I don't agree with the poster you quoted on many things. Their feedback may not be valuable in evaluating the particular challenge that challenges pose. They are however speaking on a wider subject and represent a part of the player base which keeps on hitting the walls where difficulty jumps just too much for content of the same level. They get discouraged and might not even try content that they hear is really hard. The game is smaller for them then. That is a bad result and one that could be avoided by not trying to cater to everyone and instead trying to be consistent with difficulty for a particular quest level and difficulty setting.

Instead you have the missing elite compared to into the flesh elite or solo IQ normal versus grouped amarath normal. The drastic jumps in difficulty kill players enjoyment more then the difficulty itself.

[Tolero]

Please be sure to keep general commentary about challenges in their own threads. This Lamannia thread was for specific feedback about playing this particular Challenge.

However, seeing as how the update is live be sure to post general or specific feedback in the quests & adventures forum.