Let's Talk: Game Difficulty

[Tid12]

I think the overall difficulty is fine.

What i dont like is the end reward compared to the quest difficulty. Epic quests shouldnt have lv2 trash loot in the end reward and, like someone else said, Elite/Epic quest should have at least 1 more chest added at the end with high level trash on it.

[Calebro]

What i dont like is the end reward compared to the quest difficulty. Epic quests shouldnt have lv2 trash loot in the end reward and, like someone else said, Elite/Epic quest should have at least 1 more chest added at the end with high level trash on it.

There is nothing to be done about the rewards from Epic quests under the current design. The quest giver doesn't know that you just ran the quest on Epic. All he knows is that you're coming to collect a reward from the level 5 (or 7, or 9) quest that he offers.

[sirgog]

On Shroud, as it is the poster child of the 'this change made XXX unPUGgable' commenters, I wanted a little more evidence.

So I just ran two back-to-back Hard Shrouds on Khyber, PUGging them and accepting the first 11 to hit the LFM. 0 then 6 deaths, 1 major mana potion used total (and that was by a caster trying to do an extra 5000-odd damage to avoid a third round in part 4, they weren't able to). Neither run stacked any specific class (run 1 was 3 divines, 2 arcanes, 7 melees, run 2 was 4 divines, 1 melee warchanter bard, 3 arcanes, 4 traditional melees)

New widely-known tactics have let groups adjust to the raid changes, and Normal is now completed by every group that isn't on total autopilot, Hard is easily beaten by groups that use coordinated tactics, and Elite - well Elite still requires your A-game.

[Rizzia]

While I wouldnt say Im a veteran at DDO I'd like to say Im experienced, I have been solo leveling an under-geared first lifer and going for a hard BB, its fun for the most part (I enjoy pushing myself) and most nights grinding my first legend with a group of friends.

Standouts for me are traps, for classes without disarm skills, and/or evasion some quests are impossible. I certainly wouldnt mind if its an optional guarded by a super nasty trap, but not when its the only route to the finish. I like the way "cabal for one" deals with this, "no trapper thats ok..but if you do, you get more xp (tho I would personally award the extra chest to those who do the traps themselves not the way it currently is)"

Im not 100% sure but I think I remember reading old posts about getting more xp for doing quests that were of a higher lvl, surely this would be the best way to let those that want to challenge themselves do it, (for a considerable bonus I would say) while leaving the balance for new/casual players intact. Im sure my TR group would gladly do some quests underpowered if it meant an xp boost (and needless grinding).

For me the biggest challenge is loot...and the obtaning of it^^ I can learn and build better characters, learn the ins and outs of quests, but that that doesnt help me obtain the items that are required in some cases to procced.

Ive started to slowly loose interest in epics as the items are just too far out of reach, I have never even layed eyes on an SoS shard (thats in around 60 completions) even so, be it shards/seals or even the scrolls the epic ingredents droprate is just too low. The 3-1 scroll trade for sands is a good start but what about the seals/shards? and the other packs? Heck i had my 20th epvon6 the other day, would have been nice to have a choice of shards in that list .

[TheMarek]

I read this thread and decided to make my first forum reply. Piking at work and cannot really force myself to work before the start of my charismas vacation :-)
I think that game difficulty is fine until you are close to level 20. Some quests are easier and some harder, not a real problem, even good thing because you can chose. What I hate are rewards. It is game killing to finish ADQ on elite on level to get nothing and see that all get nothing in fact. It is nice that now in Shroud you can get at least something useful as a quest reward. Consider something like a guaranteed/chance to get raid loot (also Epic shards, seals and scrolls) as a regular (not only 20) quest reward. Then difficulty does not matter then because it comes with satisfaction from the reward.

The main difficulty problem I think are quests from level 16 above, especially raids. These quests are run on daily basis by EPIC geared characters along with fresh players. From my experience there is significant gap between such characters. Guild runs are maybe less affected but PUG parties suffer greatly and a lot of drama comes from this. I believe content difficulty CANNOT be balanced for such players. There always will be fresh players running elite Shroud, even when they cannot contribute much and probably die in part 4, because of better loot and EPIC geared players running normal Shroud complaining about the difficulty (to easy), HP and DPS of other players.

I think possible solution is to change epic items (and maybe count TOD rings as epic items as well) so that they can be used exclusively on epic difficulty. Then it will be easier to balance difficulty in the high level content.

Also there are minor things affecting balance. For example guild 30 resists from level 1. They broke the game and make low level content to easy. Please make them the same as the spell. Resist 10, 20, 30 based on character level of the user.

And if you want to balance quest difficulty, then don’t change HP and fortification only. I like changes like eVON6 where on epic elemental spawns. Consider similar changes for other quests/raids (for example Harry healers spawning in Shroud part 4 on elite the whole time, Shrine and possibility to return to fight in The Reavers Fate on normal…) .

[Monkey_Archer]

Maybe they should add a couple of extra chests that drop ingredients or something. Maybe one chest on Normal, two chests on Hard, and three on Elite. Or something like that.

I was thinking more along the line of: remove all the blades and cut harry's hp in half, but remove a chest as well. Make elite even harder by buffing the lieutenants to each be a raid boss in their own right, but adding 3 more chests

[Dallanin]

Hi everyone!
I don’t really know how to change things but I wanted but I wanted to share my story as a new player who really enjoys challenge. I recently completed almost all f2p content at level +1 with my brother playing as duo with hirelings. Only one that is still left is ‘In the Demon’s Den’ hard and elite. We took many bad sorcerer spells on the road, didn’t realize that hirelings can do wonders before level 4, had no adventure pack gear, ship buffs or any other easy buttons whatsoever. In addition, I’m definitely not an uber-skilled player, I normally play only turn based games. My brother is somewhat better.

Overall game was fun and made us buy more content. I hadn’t played much MMOs before that and I was really skeptical at start. I thought that ‘MMOs, they are all just games where you grind uber-easy content to get exp and gear to be able to grind another similar content. Maybe in high levels there is something else but I’m not going to play hours and hours to have fun some day in the future’.

My first impression with DDO was really bad. I found myself playing Korthos island quests on normal and I was instantly bored. I kept thinking ‘you just can’t die in these quests. Why I must play normal first and get bored in order to try real difficulties…’ I understand now that elite unlock is an important selling point for VIP but it really didn’t help with my first impression back then.

What would have helped:
-Clearer classification which quests are easy and which are hard. Fortunately there exists both quests in this game but it would really have helped to know that at the beginning. It is easier not to get frustrated with too easy/too hard quest if you know beforehand what it is meant to be and you can be mentally prepared for that. Also it makes easier to find things you like from the game when you know better what to try out. Even an unofficial one like a thread in forums or page in ddowiki would help.

I played Korthos island quests, many harbor quests and I was at level 4 when I quit playing. Mostly because playing normals frustrated me (VIP would have fixed this one) and I felt that difficulty in the early levels wasn’t challenging in an interesting way. Adding randomness would be one way to make things more interesting. Right now there isn’t that many things that I can do differently at low levels and then it just comes to that whether you have good character/gear or not. Fortunately that changes at higher levels. However, I really liked kobold shamans how they can hold or lightning bolt you and you really need to beware them. In addition they are shooters so many times I can figure out a working plan how to kill them efficiently.

Many many months later I restarted with my brother. We both made sorcerers and began playing. We had some fun at early game, enough to keep us waiting and hoping that the game will get better at higher levels with more options what to do.

It did. I want to share some highlights from the road. I really hope that these interestingly difficult quests won’t get nerfed. I would be better just to warn that ‘this quest is more challenging’ and let them exist for ‘No challenge, no fun’ players. I understand talks about raid difficulty but single difficult guests don’t do as much harm for people who don’t want them.

For me the moment when this game I got me hooked was level 6 and some kind of concerned citizen on the street, something about Proof is in the Poison. We had tried that one at earlier levels really unprepared and died instantly. But this time we knew that hirelings exist, had Resist Energy and SLAs from savants to kill stuff with 0-12 spell points. At least for sorcerers level 6 is when game changes a *lot*.
What I really liked in that quest:
- I still remember how nervous I was when you had to jump with acid pool down waiting to kill you.
-Quest was long and kept you constantly alert and had boss fight in the end. I just wish that DDO quests had better consolation prizes in long quests. It feels nice to get at least something for making it to almost end but still to be left yearning for more. That chest you got from optional boss earlier doesn’t feel like a reward at the moment you lose. It just feels completely different to get something after you lose. In addition, if you would really get more/better rewards at higher difficulty levels it would motivate you to keep trying something that isn’t so easy. Right now reward improvements feel too marginal.

But overall I began to enjoy DDO more and more at level 6. At that moment DDO began to feel hard in a way that you could have done something differently to win. After Proof is in the Poison I would have bought all pay to play content that resemble that quest if I had knew which one they are. Other highlights from early levels were kobold shamans and Freshen the Air and The Swiped Signet. Taming the Flames felt really rewarding to play. One of us was even fire savant at that one but we managed to figure out a strategy how to defeat it. The Pit was absolutely awesome. Strangely both Taming the Flames and The Pit were really difficult at hard but easy at elite. We already knew what to do and therefore increased difficulty didn’t do much. They still were fun to play at elite but I was surprised how easy they were.

The next time when game really changed a lot was when cleric hirelings got raise dead spell. I think that one was the most significant changing point for us in an entire game. That changed entirely what difficult quest meant. Overall, game got really easy (and somewhat boring) for a moment but fortunately it changed again when we got more levels.

We also had a mixed feeling about traps elite. We understood that they must do a lot to make rogue skills useful but as a duo without those skills they ruined some quests. I’m still hoping that there were be some other way to design meaningful traps other than putting almost instant killing force traps in quests. But sometimes jumping over them was fun. The Xorian Cipher was one of my favorites. I think that we died almost 20 times to those elite traps before figuring out how to get past them and it was also fun before and after traps so dying didn’t feel frustrating. I loved Invaders! and I think that beholder is my favorite high level enemy. They feel always dangerous. Delirium was funniest f2p DDO quest ever and beholders made it challenging enough to make it to my favorite ones. In the Demon's Den was promising at normal and I’m hoping that it will get better at higher difficulty levels. Best dungeon design for me so far has been Rainbow in the Dark. It’s interesting, has a lot of variety, has an optional boss and some jumping over the spike pit that I have been missing ever since I got feather fall. I really like the idea of dangerous optionals and I’m looking forward to see more of them.

Okay, that is the story. I have tried early game again with new characters and with more platinum and better gear. It is easy to say that I wouldn’t be writing this one if the game had been as easy as it is with platinum to spend for better AH gear and decent consumables. Even Proof is in the Poison was a cakewalk with resist acid potions and better gear. I refuse to imagine what early game playing is with airship buffs. Not something that I would enjoy playing. I can’t say anything about raids and other real endgame but for me existing easy buttons would have ruined the entire early game if I had had access for them.

So overall, I know that I’m not target audience for normal quests but I hope that game gets balanced in a way that difficult content is allowed to exist. I don’t feel that making all content easier (by making characters more powerful for example) is a right way to make normal easier.

[BuuWantCone]

Bah! First post and managed to put it in the wrong thread, I'll try again....

Making my first post after lurking for a good while, but this is a major issue to me.

I currently play in a small group consisting of me, my wife and my father in law.

We live in the UK while my father in law still lives in the states. He isn't a great player by any definition of the word but he loves spending time with us in this way. We've managed to scrape our way through most of the quests in the game and had a great time, but with the way things currently are most raids are just not playable for us. We don't really want to group as we like playing as a family, and frankly too many people out there are just not pleasant when people make mistakes during quests/raids. So far the only raids he has managed to experience are reavers and dq, because we could just about manage those with the three of us.

I see no reason why raids(on normal at least) could not scale and allow hirelings. I mean I know hirelings ai leaves a lot to be desired buts its still handy to be able to drag a healbot along. For the people that want a challenge there are other difficulty levels. People talk about easy buttons, but hey, I pay for this game - maybe I want an easy button. It's not like this is a competitive game, if I get some raid loot it's not like it comes out of your pocket.

We'd just like to be able to experience all of the game, which currently we can't.

[zwiebelring]

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty of DDO? Sure, we offer difficulty choices, but do you find yourself in a postion where even Normal difficulty feels too much like hard?

If so, do you associate this with a given level in the game (e.g. 10+) or do you think there is just too much inconsistency throughout?

Ascension Chamber and Shroud.

I really do not want to have a challenge when I run Shroud normal with a toon on 3 lvl.s above quest. The Abbott... I am sure I never will run this raid ever again. Ran it twice in 2007 and had big problems as a newbie and still the community didn't change about the attitude towards newer players.
All indications for a way too high difficulty setting not mentioning the bugs (where some might be fixed, dunno for sure) and yet you bumped him up... no fun for me and well, you killed the whole Abbott pugs on Orien.

What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

The right balance for me is Lordsmarch Chain 1 & 2, Harbinger of Madness and Reign of Madness chain as well as Master Artificer pack, Amrath and Inspired Quarters. You give progress by reward, explorers and questing. I want to have a challenge once I play the quest for the first 3-4 times maybe but if there is a grind for special items attached I do not like it for more than 10 times. Exceptions are made if the the quests atmosphere is awesome. For example you did everything right with Crystal Cove.

Therefor, overhaul older packs like Sands, Giant Hold and especially Necro4 and Shroud normal. DDO wants to put people into longterm grinding as I see it, I do not know why, many people I know think this is a whole duress and nuissance. Think about it, that is why people are tempted by exploits. And still you keep up enforcing higher challenge for that grind...

Personally I want to say I have seen everything in DDO at least once. But with changes like recently you exclude people since there is a difference between how people should behave and how they actually do. I am sure it is not your responsibility to give education but keep that in mind as socializing is what people do in this game right? So while being an option it should be enforced in a positive way. And that is another important point for me playing this game. Meeting other people to have fun with.

The overall difficulty is fine, maybe old endgame content like Gianthold, Sands (Lailath is too difficult), Necropolis might need a finetuning again. As the rest of endgame content I think it is okay, I have the choice to work for it or leave it. But it is endgame, so it should be a challenge. And while we are at that, what about introducing totally new monsters for higher difficulties other than normal? Actually I am bored by just upgraded Cows, Kobolds and Troglodytes on epic. Where are the real epic monsters? Where is the epic action? The most enjoyable fight I had was Dreaming Dark endboss as an example for what I mean with action.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

Yes, absolutely. The changes on hit points, fortification and general mob immunities are totally reflecting this argument. Self found gear is not half of worth the money you can sell it. Random loot sucks. Really it does. I do not want the 100000....s Tendon Slice 4% weapon with ****** pre- and suffixes combined. Even if I start from 0 I find one weapon maybe within the first 4 levels I can use and then I have to stick with it for the next 4 lvl.s Not competitive on lvl. 8 as melee means dead and frustration.

Epic loot and raidloot should be an exceptional option but still an option, right now, its mandatory (by hardcore gamers) to own eSoS, epic claw set etc. just to run epic Chronoscope... it is clearly made for uber player since the first goal is surviving in this content, secondary is collecting epic ingredients but why not give them as a reward option in total?

Some day, the hardcore player might have to confess he has seen everything in this game and has to move on. I have a lot to discover as a less dedicated player and I was happy with the former difficulty since it gave me the option to participate as a pugger and learn everything. Not any more. I really hate saying this because you have so much love for detail in some packs, especially Kobolds and their voice overs. Love it! but then, you act like the worst railroading DM in pnp and restrict people in options by handing out not anyway plausible immunities to mobs and bosses just to have balance on a party or a class. As it is important for you what we as people see as challenge vs. reward I like to know what do you think about the quests and how people should beat them?

[wax_on_wax_off]

I think the difficulty is fine.

I think most of the complaints that I've seen so far are for specific quests - abbot, titan etc. These being difficult is totally fine as it is totally acceptable for players to avoid those specific quests when the rest of the game falls into much more manageable realms.

Only casual should fall into the never fail category. Normal is fine to fail in as it is usually possible to simply reenter the quest if you value completion/progression more than a persistent run.

Hard and elite are fun and entertaining and I'd be very upset if they were made easier in any way (if anything in some ways they should be scaled up to be comparable to trap damage as discussed in another thread).

Epic is great how it is. There are easy epics and there are hard epics. I don't mind the suggestion elsewhere to add normal/hard/elite versions of epics but I think that it's fine as it is. Any new players who adequately educates themselves (about character builds and other things) and makes a reasonable effort to gear their character (100% fort, +6 con item, GFL for instance) and is interested in playing their character well can participate in most epics.

If changes need to be made then I think it should be aimed at lowering the barriers that prevent a new player from becoming an experienced player. Remove scaling on elite so streaking vets are more likely to allow newbs along rather than just soloing, help new players get better builds by fixing up paths (refer to Tihocan's thread for ideas), encourage them to visit the forums before creating characters, provide tooltips with accurate information, provide messages on specific level ups as to what items would be appropriate to look for (like nightforge gorget when you level to 9 and what quest it comes from, minos legens at 11 and what pack it comes from - good avertisement here, greater false life at 11 too which is accessible from the AH or elsewhere).

The issue isn't with the difficulty of the game but with the lines of communication that helps a new player become a good player (making the game easier will just exacerbate the issue).

[aerendhil]

Difficulty is fine.

The ONE thing I hate is Abbot raid : 12 players are punished if 1 makes a single mistake. Punishment should scale with difficulty but there, it feels like the DM says : "a piano just fell from the sky and hit you on the head, no need to roll a save"

[.Revenga.]

Overall i think difficulty is fine. Good variation, ability and necessity to gear up towards harder quests at end game so the game doesnt stop at lvl 20.

Difference between hard - elite can be very big in some quests, while normal - hard doenst make much of a difference.

Regular epic quests are too easy imo. Even without a few casters that wail their way through in a few minutes. Only sands epic quests pose some kind of challenge.

Making quests harder by improving AI would be awesome.

[Tid12]

There is nothing to be done about the rewards from Epic quests under the current design. The quest giver doesn't know that you just ran the quest on Epic. All he knows is that you're coming to collect a reward from the level 5 (or 7, or 9) quest that he offers.

Thats what im saying, they should know IMHO.

They could add the extra chests in the dungeon and this. I wouldnt mind a choice of Impressive trophy or Legendary victory dropped more frequently in the end reward based on the difficulty of the quest or just a high level junk for crafting.

[MRMechMan]

I like how it really pays to do things on harder difficulties now...elite runs the first time with bravery bonus have to potential to alliviate the grind a bit, and add challange. The +40% for hard and +80% for elite is a nice change too.

Shroud normal SHOULD be near-auto complete with a decent 20th level party...the uberest of the uber have hard and elite, don't punish the newly capped chars that DON'T have greensteel/epic items. It's still a level 17 quest on normal.

Dungeon scaling could do with a bit of a work around...a geared/TRed/experienced caster has 3 reasons to ever party with anyone:

1. Quest mechanics need more than 1 person/trapper for xp/melees on breakables
2. Feeling generous
3. The other player is the same as them-geared/TRed/selfhealing

90% of quests are easier solo, even on elite...consider removing scaling from elite quests at a minimum. Sins of attrition and such with a party is WAY harder than solo...to the point where it easier just to do the quest and then put up and lfm at the end...I don't see why that should be how the game is played.

Also consider making the 10% XP penalty for deaths apply half to full party (5%) and only the full 10% to the person that died...there is very little incentive when farming to take anyone that you don't know when leveling a TR. Making that persons actions effect your bottom line LESS might be a good thing. Of course, divines have less reason to keep them alive, so it's a double edged sword I suppose.

Elite traps are generally fine...beefy characters will get 75-90% of their HP taken away, and squishies will be 1 shotted...elite is not for the faint of heart and most traps are avoidable through skill and knowledge...on elite if you don't have that skill/knowledge, getting 1 shotted is realistic and OK. Only place I might tune them down is elite monstary.

Hard difficulty in general feels the same as normal. Elite is often quite a big step up. IE, boost hard difficulty.

House P epics need to be made harder...snitch is an absolutute snoozefest.

Anyway good luck sir...making everyone happy at the same time is not an easy thing to do.

[Flavilandile]

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

Definitely...

Shade Changes and Bravery Streak killed PUGs.

While Bravery Streak might have been nice ( I'll come back to that below ), Shade Changes were not wanted by the vast majority of the players.

Raids that were done by LVL 14-16 parties years ago, are now LVL 20 ( with gear ) only and still have ridiculous success rates if pugged. ( they are not end game content and should be a walk in the park for a LVL 20 party )

On the other end, a lot of Epic quests, since the Shade Changes are way easier to run than these not end game raids.

Bravery Streak is the second part of the PUG death problem. In all fairness, the chagne is nice, especially for those that want to go completionist... but why did you have to put that mechanism in, when the original XP system took that into account. ( you could have up to 50% bonus or more [ not sure ] for doing quests that were way above your party level... Doing VON3 normal with a LVL 5-6 party was something in the 40KXP range... That would have satisfied all the TR maniacs, while not hurting pugs more )

[Ungood]

People talk about easy buttons, but hey, I pay for this game - maybe I want an easy button. It's not like this is a competitive game, if I get some raid loot it's not like it comes out of your pocket.

We'd just like to be able to experience all of the game, which currently we can't.

This is a very good point. Making the game more appealing to the masses, does not hurt the top players. Sure, they might cry easy button, but, maybe, some people want a fun relaxing game to play, get some shiny loot and feel like they are, playing a game.

[twiliteslayer02]

Disclaimer: I didn't read the other posts to gather a sentiment, so kI mau repeat or inflame those who posted before, none of which is intended.

Game balance overall isnt broken, but it has a few places where it is simply ridiculously too difficult for the level and or rewards it offers.

For instance, one thats simply too much a pain in the backside to bother with is that keep the elfie mummies alive one, keepers sancuary?? what were you guys thinking?????

Most of the vet players wont bat an eye at proof in the poison at level, but any newer or inexperienced player encountering it will be frustrated beyond belief, and this is just one of the quests it seems is simply OP for the level its set to,and the end rewards for itare more of an insult.

I do, and always have thought the level 10 and up stuff is fairly difficult, with appropriiate balance other than that some, or rather most have lame lame loot tables.

some of the raids are too easy, others are just right , but I absolutely hate the loot mechanic for raids on every level
not sure if you want specifics, but will expand later if you do.

I do think overall that its a learning curve, and atm it feels balanced twoards the grinders/uberplayers. thats not what d&d is or ever was about and its a far cry from what you began as. It needs a bit less grind to be able to get good to decent gear, and alot less dependance on the AH to acquire said gear.

[Mrmorphling]

Overall difficulty seems fine to me; we have many options and lots of different contents to choose from.

I really liked the raids changes as it was a step in the right direction as i still think that at level normal raid should require efforts, collaboration and good leadership/tactics: you cannot expect to grab the first 11 lvl 14 and be sure to do complete a reaver; you are still quite sure while overlevelled as nearly any decent caster can either kite stormrevaer (lvl <20) or just tank it (lvl 20) at any difficulty.

Shroud now rewards hard/elite and, infact, you see some hard PUGs (which where non existent before changes) and, on Thelanis, i don't recall normal wipes past the first week of adjustment (which just meant pretty please don't afk+autoattack) or barring weird server side spikes of seconds at the wrong moment; hard is still entirely puggable with some cohordination (i've seen multiple runs with half the party under 400hp succeed) while elite is harsh to pug as it's less lenient on mistakes and you need some kind of gear to not be a burden.

Abbot has never been my favourite raid as if you are not assigned to tiles it's usually an afk fest while 2/3 ppl do the puzzle so i won't comment as i just did like thrice after the latest changes and always in 'controlled environments'.

Titan suffers the same problem, long boring, lagging and 3/4 ppls do the raid while rest is piking: uhm not my definition of well thought and balanced raid

New raids are perfect as normal means a pug with a leader will usually succeed (perhaps expending resources), hard is still puggable but you need some control over the appliants, elite is challenging for good groups and epic is a real test of skills of teamwork (and even more while minimizing resources and time spent). We could use some more incentives to run MA pretty please as after doing it 5 times at normal you either hunt for favor or stop doing it :/

Epics as a whole are ok as you have a wide variety of difficulties: from The snitch (hardly harder than many elite quests from lvl 14+) to Chains of flame (a real test to resource conservation) to VoN3 (with its many nasty surprises) to LoB (probably the most challenging content out now and not just for being a bag of HP).

[MRMechMan]

Bravery Streak is the second part of the PUG death problem. In all fairness, the chagne is nice, especially for those that want to go completionist... but why did you have to put that mechanism in, when the original XP system took that into account. ( you could have up to 50% bonus or more [ not sure ] for doing quests that were way above your party level... Doing VON3 normal with a LVL 5-6 party was something in the 40KXP range... That would have satisfied all the TR maniacs, while not hurting pugs more )

I can see the lfms now..."normal enter the kobold, max level 13" "normal shadow crypt, only level 7 and under!"

Bravery is fine. I see more lfms for elite quests than ever before. Chains that had poor xp are often worth runnin elite 1x for bravery. It makes 1 and done more viable.

Having to do quests SUPER under level would not satisfy TRs...have you even TRed? Touching von3 at level 6 is a huge no-no. That's absolutely a "do at 11 and then farm on hard" type quest". Shadow crypt is even more extreme-best to do 1x on elite at level 11 then 10x elite at level 13. Bank xp for as long and as much as you can and do quests at level as LATE as you can is the easiest way to do it.

Particularly if you are missing a major xp pack (I myself am missing necro4 still, sadness ), doing the big xp quests too early=thousands of slayers for you, enjoy.


Which brings me to another point I suppose...for TRs the xp needed is INCREDIBLY backloaded...about 2.4 million to get from levels 1 to 16, then another 2 million to get those last 4 levels....


and yet, astonishingly, the XP/minute goes down, WAY DOWN, from level 10 onwards. Von3/shadow crypt xp is huge, sands is great, GH ok, vale ok but poor in places, reavers great, IQ1/2 good, shavarath mediocre, cannith BEYOND abysmal into the realm of laughable...I see no reason to have the places where TRs need by FAR the most xp to give the SLOWEST xp.

At least bump the new cannith XP...the three quests have base XP on normal of 3,500/4500/4100...comparable to quests that are snoozefests and quick...such as gywlans stand (10min quest), deleras part4 (3min quest), fathom the depths (2min quest), OoB (6min quest), maraud the mines (1 min quest), relic of a sov past (6min quest), trial by fire (3min quest)... etc etc ...at least make them viable...

They aren't even options for TRs who often REALLY need xp at that level. It's no wonder most TRs need to bank XP for so long, the XP NEEDED is all at later levels, but the best place to GET it is way earlier...

[CanuckWisdom]

Shroud: The blades do too much damage, this needs a nerf in all settings. I cannot believe your intention is for Elite Shroud to be harder than Elite ToD.

Yes. I think its a bad idea to have amped up the difficulty of this quest by increasing the damage output of something you have zero chance or disabling/killing.

Ive got 3 characters right now that Im trying to equip with green steel items, more leveling their way towards it. Its gonna take me a very long grind to get all the larges I want and now there are more shroud failures and less LFMs.

I thought my virtuoso was useless in part 4 before, but now...