Let's Talk: Game Difficulty

[schelsullivan]

Most of the EE is just perfect for my solo play style. I play a stealthy ranger and I like for it to be hard enough that I have to plan each encounter carefully. When anything goes run I usually have to run like heck! This "dungeon crawl" pace I enjoy a lot.

When im in a pug with experienced EE players, it usually becomes too quick and easy. Groups like this can cut right through most EE stuff. I guess its nice sometimes when you need to grind out something, but I miss that crawl pace. The most fun ive had in EE pugs is when its a bit underpowered, and we have to slow down and start using actual tactics and strategies. Even when we fail its more fun for me at that pace.

[Wongar]

One thing I would like to see is the ability to select the group scaling option (harder only). A simple selection that allows the quest to be scaled for a larger group than you have. For example, you could solo a quest but select it to be scaled like you had a 2 person, 3 person or full group.

Something like this could help bridge the gap between EH and EE.

[Gljosh]

Currently, I find EN to be great easy solo material, no hires. EH is a pretty solid PUG quest. EE is just wickedly tough, if not properly geared and with a good team. I have been in 3 EE quests, Feast and Famine, Bargain of Blood, and Caught in the Web both as pugs. CitW we wiped early. F and F we made it but it took forever (mostly melees) just hacking at orcs for about 30 seconds to 1 minute a piece. It was just trip or stun and run through Melee Special Attacks and normal attacks on cool down. B and B we ran to the end and fought the boss killing the least amount possible. I also have been in PUGs that have almost wiped on EN, Von 3 seems to give some people problems. So the player base is pretty well mixed, the Uber tend to stay Uber, the strong tend to stay strong, and the gimp tend to stay gimp.

[PsychoBlonde]

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!'

I don't think the game is balanced for the "uber-player". I think the super-high-level stuff is increasingly balanced to *waste people's time*. I mean, seriously, do we REALLY need so many monster spawns in the Wheloon explore area that it takes 20 minutes to run to a quest and 3 people lag out, die, and have to restart their machines? If QUANTITY of spawns is causing framerates to drop into the SINGLE DIGITS on HIGH END GAMING MACHINES, there is a PROBLEM. Storm horns is kinda cool except for What Goes Up, which is a giant barrel of Annoying and often bugs out, requiring people to summon a GM just so they can finish the dang thing. (I have run the quest FOUR TIMES and it has bugged out and become unfinishable TWICE.)

Quit dropping 50 mobs on us. All this does is encourage people to solo because it's actually EASIER than dealing with the excessive numbers of extra spawns.

If you guys really want to challenge people, eliminate "safe spots" and make us actually go toe-to-toe with the boss. (And, conversely, don't create bosses that can one-shot people with 900+ hp and crit people with 200%+ fortification.) Don't promote a playstyle that consists of finding a place where you can't be hit, turning on auto-attack, and going to watch a movie while your character plinks the boss down with a throwing weapon.

What happened to having bosses like Velah and the Lord of Blades where they have a couple of nasty attacks that can really mess people up, but those attacks are telegraphed properly? It's a challenge to pay attention to when the fire breath is coming with everything else that's going on. It feels like an accomplishment the first time you build a character who can stay in and eat the breath on epic Elite. Or who can tank the shadows in ToD. Or who can tank the Stormreaver in Fall of Truth without getting boomed to death. Instead we get a boss in What Goes Up who takes FOR EFFING EVER to kill simply because he teleports the second you get to him, over and over and over. That's not an exercise in paying attention and building your character and being prepared, that's sheer pointless frustration for no good reason.

It's amazing to me that people think they're an "uber" player and the game is "too easy", because if you watch how they play, they never actually go up against anything. They kite. Everything. Or run past it invisible. Or sit in the safe spot. Real "uber" players don't kite. Any idiot can kite in this game, it is an effortless strategy and requires no investment other than the willingness to read a book while auto-attacking or chaining your SLA's over and over and over and over and over and over until finally everything is dead and you can progress. Of course these people feel that the game has become too easy--their lazy strategy is the only useful one left for the really high-end stuff. Melee doesn't feel useless because wizards just one shot-everything with finger of death. They feel useless because if they TRY to go toe-to-toe with Karleth, they die INSTANTLY and it's up to the wizard and the guy with the bow to plink him to death.

You know what would have been a GOOD way to design that fight? If Karleth can hit the levers in the room from anywhere with his chain, he ought to be able to hit any location in the room with the chain. You should have made it so that the chain-swinging is TELEGRAPHED (it isn't, in fact, I usually take the damage BEFORE HE VISIBLY SWINGS THE CHAIN--I'm lucky if I get to HEAR the sound before the effect fires) and that bluff/intim/diplomacy KICKS HIM OUT OF IT. Then make it so that if there's nobody in melee with him, he starts randomly hitting ranged people for big damage. Now you have an INTERESTING fight, where the ranged people can only be effective if there's someone up there in melee and the melee person needs to be watching for that chain telegraph and hitting the intim or running away (and then back in) in time. You can't solo THAT fight on Epic Elite by hopping around throwing a shuriken for half an hour or by sitting in the rafters spamming magic missile. You CAN solo it on Epic Normal, though, as long as your character is reasonably well built so that they can survive standing in melee with Karleth or survive his ranged damage.

Bring back stuff like choke points and control. Quit making everything new a 50-mob kitefest. Let people zerg if they think they can handle it instead of locking them in a room with slowly-spawning mobs: part of the fun of building a truly awesome character is that you can handle it when there's a ton of aggro that you go get BY CHOICE, you don't have to pull one mob at a time. That doesn't mean "ton of aggro" should be the DEFAULT.

The best quests in the game are ones where if you know what you're doing you CAN steamroll through it, but also contain some killer bosses/situations/traps that can nuke even experienced groups into next week if you stop paying attention or have some bad luck or over-estimate your abilities. Lets have more of that and less slog.

To be fair, the slog isn't a completely new phenomenon and much of the newer content is actually pretty darn fun and clever. I think part of the problem is that the new Epic system has severely limited the AMOUNT of content you play for "endgame" stuff. Before the MoTU changeover every bit of content from level 14+ was worth running for relevant endgame gear, and the level 10 and 12 raids were still run! FOR ENDGAME GEAR!! You might not even care about making it epic!

This problem is going to persist as long as you guys keep raising the level cap and making whatever new content you put out the ONLY quests appropriate to that level. There desperately needs to be a *numbers freeze*. Older epics need something along the lines of the Monument of the Stormreaver so you can (if you like) kick the gear up a few levels and keep it relevant. Anything to broaden the AMOUNT of content that's worth running for gear as well as XP. When people can freely avoid the quests they don't care to run (or put it off because they're busy pursuing something else), I think a lot of the complaining will fade.

[barecm]

I don't think the game is balanced for the "uber-player". I think the super-high-level stuff is increasingly balanced to *waste people's time*. I mean, seriously, do we REALLY need so many monster spawns in the Wheloon explore area that it takes 20 minutes to run to a quest and 3 people lag out, die, and have to restart their machines? If QUANTITY of spawns is causing framerates to drop into the SINGLE DIGITS on HIGH END GAMING MACHINES, there is a PROBLEM. Storm horns is kinda cool except for What Goes Up, which is a giant barrel of Annoying and often bugs out, requiring people to summon a GM just so they can finish the dang thing. (I have run the quest FOUR TIMES and it has bugged out and become unfinishable TWICE.)Quit dropping 50 mobs on us. All this does is encourage people to solo because it's actually EASIER than dealing with the excessive numbers of extra spawns.If you guys really want to challenge people, eliminate "safe spots" and make us actually go toe-to-toe with the boss. (And, conversely, don't create bosses that can one-shot people with 900+ hp and crit people with 200%+ fortification.) Don't promote a playstyle that consists of finding a place where you can't be hit, turning on auto-attack, and going to watch a movie while your character plinks the boss down with a throwing weapon.What happened to having bosses like Velah and the Lord of Blades where they have a couple of nasty attacks that can really mess people up, but those attacks are telegraphed properly? It's a challenge to pay attention to when the fire breath is coming with everything else that's going on. It feels like an accomplishment the first time you build a character who can stay in and eat the breath on epic Elite. Or who can tank the shadows in ToD. Or who can tank the Stormreaver in Fall of Truth without getting boomed to death. Instead we get a boss in What Goes Up who takes FOR EFFING EVER to kill simply because he teleports the second you get to him, over and over and over. That's not an exercise in paying attention and building your character and being prepared, that's sheer pointless frustration for no good reason. It's amazing to me that people think they're an "uber" player and the game is "too easy", because if you watch how they play, they never actually go up against anything. They kite. Everything. Or run past it invisible. Or sit in the safe spot. Real "uber" players don't kite. Any idiot can kite in this game, it is an effortless strategy and requires no investment other than the willingness to read a book while auto-attacking or chaining your SLA's over and over and over and over and over and over until finally everything is dead and you can progress. Of course these people feel that the game has become too easy--their lazy strategy is the only useful one left for the really high-end stuff. Melee doesn't feel useless because wizards just one shot-everything with finger of death. They feel useless because if they TRY to go toe-to-toe with Karleth, they die INSTANTLY and it's up to the wizard and the guy with the bow to plink him to death.You know what would have been a GOOD way to design that fight? If Karleth can hit the levers in the room from anywhere with his chain, he ought to be able to hit any location in the room with the chain. You should have made it so that the chain-swinging is TELEGRAPHED (it isn't, in fact, I usually take the damage BEFORE HE VISIBLY SWINGS THE CHAIN--I'm lucky if I get to HEAR the sound before the effect fires) and that bluff/intim/diplomacy KICKS HIM OUT OF IT. Then make it so that if there's nobody in melee with him, he starts randomly hitting ranged people for big damage. Now you have an INTERESTING fight, where the ranged people can only be effective if there's someone up there in melee and the melee person needs to be watching for that chain telegraph and hitting the intim or running away (and then back in) in time. You can't solo THAT fight on Epic Elite by hopping around throwing a shuriken for half an hour or by sitting in the rafters spamming magic missile. You CAN solo it on Epic Normal, though, as long as your character is reasonably well built so that they can survive standing in melee with Karleth or survive his ranged damage.Bring back stuff like choke points and control. Quit making everything new a 50-mob kitefest. Let people zerg if they think they can handle it instead of locking them in a room with slowly-spawning mobs: part of the fun of building a truly awesome character is that you can handle it when there's a ton of aggro that you go get BY CHOICE, you don't have to pull one mob at a time. That doesn't mean "ton of aggro" should be the DEFAULT.The best quests in the game are ones where if you know what you're doing you CAN steamroll through it, but also contain some killer bosses/situations/traps that can nuke even experienced groups into next week if you stop paying attention or have some bad luck or over-estimate your abilities. Lets have more of that and less slog.To be fair, the slog isn't a completely new phenomenon and much of the newer content is actually pretty darn fun and clever. I think part of the problem is that the new Epic system has severely limited the AMOUNT of content you play for "endgame" stuff. Before the MoTU changeover every bit of content from level 14+ was worth running for relevant endgame gear, and the level 10 and 12 raids were still run! FOR ENDGAME GEAR!! You might not even care about making it epic!This problem is going to persist as long as you guys keep raising the level cap and making whatever new content you put out the ONLY quests appropriate to that level. There desperately needs to be a *numbers freeze*. Older epics need something along the lines of the Monument of the Stormreaver so you can (if you like) kick the gear up a few levels and keep it relevant. Anything to broaden the AMOUNT of content that's worth running for gear as well as XP. When people can freely avoid the quests they don't care to run (or put it off because they're busy pursuing something else), I think a lot of the complaining will fade.

While I agree with a lot of what you are saying, you kind of lost me with your definition of Uber players. I think Uber players are those who are the first to figure out a strategy, not copying what others already have done; but that is MY personal opinion of what Uber is. If you only conisder one play style, going toe to toe with a boss, you will have a very narrow range of viable builds to play that one particular way. Everyone has their own opinion of Uber.... Uber gear, Uber build (they probably did not invent) or being able to run EE solo... whatever. That being said, there is no real definition of the term. From what I have seen, when you start thinking you are Uber, you probably are not.

[Icywave]

Personally I am fine with actual difficulty levels in the game....

However, I think that considering the amount of people who now have many many many past lives, hence most likely the " perfect " gear, and a bunch of passive bonuses, there could an other difficulty level added at Heroic Levels. Otherwise Heroic Elites feel more like a grind than a challenge.

Heroic " Impossible " or whatever you wanna call it.

Heroic/Epic Normal and Hard are good for the casual players, or first lifers without gear and I definitely wouldn't change them.

As to Epic Elites, I like them. They can't be randomly PUG'ed in most cases.

[Teh_Troll]

Melee doesn't feel useless because wizards just one shot-everything with finger of death. They feel useless because if they TRY to go toe-to-toe with Karleth, they die INSTANTLY and it's up to the wizard and the guy with the bow to plink him to death.

This quote is brilliant and explains a lot about what's wrong with DDO end-game.

There's too much "ZOMG! You're dead!" stupidity. It's all easily meta-gamed around if you have no problem with running around like an idiot and having some ranged DPS.

The Karleth encounter is the best example of what's wrong . . . very easy to handle perching with ranged and all bu impossible to melee.

[Thrudh]

Most of the EE is just perfect for my solo play style. I play a stealthy ranger and I like for it to be hard enough that I have to plan each encounter carefully. When anything goes run I usually have to run like heck! This "dungeon crawl" pace I enjoy a lot.

When im in a pug with experienced EE players, it usually becomes too quick and easy. Groups like this can cut right through most EE stuff. I guess its nice sometimes when you need to grind out something, but I miss that crawl pace. The most fun ive had in EE pugs is when its a bit underpowered, and we have to slow down and start using actual tactics and strategies. Even when we fail its more fun for me at that pace.

I agree... I did the Harpers' chain a few days ago, and we did most of it on EH, zerging at full speed... High Road we did on EE, and it was a very nice change, where we moved much slower, being careful. Felt like the good old days...

[mkmcgw17]

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?

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?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

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.

I feel the general difficulty of most quests seems about right. A few of them could use a slight tweak. I think the game overall has gone too far towards the dreaded Monty Hall campaign and it wouldn't bother me at all if all the drop rates of items were reduced. if you give all the complainers and nay sayers everything they ask for the game is going to become unplayable. Certain of the classes have become overpowered with the new enhancement system and those could use reduction. Ranger and as always Monk are too powerful relative to the other classes which throws off the difficulty level. Overall Id say your pretty close to where the general game difficulty should be. Thanks for asking.

[Waaye]

[...]I don't think a good DM would ever do that to players (unless they really ticked him off).[...]

Before resurrection was possible in D&D it did happen on very rare occasions. Instances that resulted in physical violence made it into the news and some people wanted to ban the game. The rules were soon altered to allow characters to be brought back to life.

[the1bigun]

Almost everyone believes they are entitled to a completion of every quest they run. This is WRONG! Failing sometimes is required for people to learn to get better. While I Agree Sometimes some stuff is stupid and some stuff is overpowered/underpowered, I believe that sometimes people have to suck it up and realise that wipes happen. The only consistent I've seen in all these pages are that everyone is OWED a completion. DDO owes you nothing. Wipe and learn from it. Don't get sooky and whinge about it.
To the people that EE is too easy; teach the pugs how easy it is.
To the people who believe it’s all overpowered, join some of these pugs run by others that believe EE is too easy.

Good luck all and happy questing!!!

[bennyson]

What I dislike about the current challenge that DDO provides is that every single quest always has the same number and type of mobs, sometimes when I go down in the Butcher's Path, I was expecting to FINALLY face EPIC KOBOLDS with a CR of 100 or something, wielding an axe or something but no, its always the same. Always the same BORING CR 0.25 enemies, which takes one strike to kill...

Also, how about nerfing them Monks and giving Pallies some love when you fix the Bards, also, PLEASE do something about FOTW. (Seriously you guys, Adrenaline Overload + Arrow of Slaying with a Pinon/ranged speced character with some monk levels is OP - OVERPOWERED. This is like killing the challenges right there.)

Another thing, how about increasing the PRR provided by Medium and Heavy Armor? Because a Monk splash's Dodge is far more superior, rending these other armors almost useless.

[IronClan]

Very simple casual is pointless, call it story mode like someone else said.

EN nobody bothers with

EH is too easy for most vet players or guild groups by a lot, and even in a radnom PUG party with an insta killing arcane is a laugher EVERY TIME, you can literally run through an entire quest and not bother swinging because the insta kills take everything out long before a melee gets even 3 swings in.

EE is too much of a slog, too many hitpoints, and can be boring, but it is a challenge at least. and mobs hit hard.

Solutions:
EN keep it, it's a walk through for less experienced players
EH, raise mob DC's and give some mobs random perks like ED twists and feats like slippery mind etc. (this all goes to meta gaming like everything does give mobs som randomness and the meta gaming and boredom are mitigated)
EE, Lower mobs fortitude saves by -2 across the board, take away evasion from them at random, half their hitpoints but give them all increased ranged damage and +10d20 (10-200) spell power, give ranged mobs a 20% chance to have Manyshot/10k stars and give them 3d4 random feats/buffs/immunities including max/empower spell, evasion, etc give all mobs a 30% chance to have deathward item on. But also 1d4 random VULNERABILITIES take away "Epic ward"completely. While at it to compensate for the lower hit points allow EE mobs to bypass 1d4 player resistences, including possibility of players deathward and fortification, or elemental resists. or spell absorption. Again the main problem is meta gaming it leads to boredom... Mobs that are unpredictable and have weak spots or strengths you don't always know are far more interesting.

Better mob design would go a long way to spicing up EE, and would allow you to half the hitpoints so they aren't such a slog to beat down. If need be up their damage a titch more.

[Robbenklopper]

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?

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?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

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.

So if we´re talking about difficulty, everyone has an own vision of it.

Heroics.

I remember when I was new to ddo and on my first life like a virgin, my friends and me knew less and "normal" WAS a
challenge. I was a "normal" player, noname geared for a long time. I could complete the most quests with only a hire, and when i teamed up with friends, we spend a token to do
"hard" and failed on "elite". With advanced playerexperience, "know you character", better gear and "levelmindmapping", "normal" got too easy, on 2nd and especially on
3rd life, when we was able to complete everything from beginning on "Elite". It was fun to feel strong and competent.
The engine in calculating damage and effects, AC and all the stuff needs to count the same for the AI like for the players. To what point the enemys are equipped, trained/specialized and leveled up with their feats and stats would give ddo a new way of average difficulty. Harry on normal should be what he is, with all his calculated powers and feats written in the players handbook. Let him deal his damage he can like it´s calculated for us players. To top that on hard, he´d have more friends of his kind brought to the party and beeing of higher LVL for sure. On elite, half of the nine hells should be there to party with harry agains the players. NOT one Harry with CR50 or whatever. Beating on him like an old tiger tied to the tree can only result in a success.

Let´s say you wanna define "Normal" difficuly, what can you expect? First you shall have in mind, for how many players this quest is created for and by what classes
it can be solved. IT´s not senseful, that any class can solve any quest from the point of a Multiplayergame and cooperation. To solo a raid is amazing, but we should calm down such godlike-feelings and you devs really really really need to fix such a twaddle.
Now consider to what point the player has advanced and how every player is geared when starting this quest. Now that DDO CAN build up your gear quest by quest if you do chains/arcs and we do have the AH, calculate the difficulty with that. Then you devs next consider yourself on the STORY you wanna tell and what YOU expect it to be: shall the quest be a "beat the local villain party" or a "extinguish the mighty arcvile and witch-queen from the fortress" with exceptional enemys and masses of foes to beat who are better trained and geared?
How strong (and tactical intelligent!) are the Orange and rednamed, how is it secured and what else can happen. Now calculate the Players power against all that and not the level-to-be to be successful. And voila, all this should be the "normal" difficulty! "Normal" shall not be a walk at the beach,
"Normal" could be very thrilling and give you a feeling of "hard/elite". Open every quest to every PC-level. A Lvl1 party would die in a "Normal" Lordsmarch-Plaza, while a lvl12 party could do it fairly easy.
The average citizen for LVL1 is "9" on all attibutes. Being an average local guard means beeing LVL3, having the main attributes 12+ and beeing specialized/focused with his weapon.

Ok, if this is normal, what is "hard". I´d say better geared common enemys, they shall be better trained with higher stats, commanders have magical weapons etc.
(a few more HP and a higher tactical AI in fighting and strategy overall). Average enemys are specialized and using their feats.
If you may have a lazy weak hillbilly town-sentinel on "normal", we have a trained townguard veteran on "hard"
The average citizen for LVL1 is still "9" on all attibutes. Being an veteran local guard means being LVL5, having the main attributes 15+ and beeing specialized and focused.

Next thought is, what´s about "elite". Yes, higher stats, better gear for the enemys, but never higher CR than the module is designed. But with enemys tougher and exploiting their powers to maximum. The average citizen for LVL1 is still "9" on all attibutes. Being an elitist local guard means being LVL7, having the main attributes 17+ and spezialized and focused and whatever possible to that level. Those elitists are more like an elite-force. And an elite squad won´t be recruited out of LVL1."Elite" would stongly depend on the highest AI (if this is possible at all), not only physics versus us players, even brain against us. A planning AI like in Ghost Recon or some shooters, they can do!

Epics.

Epic Normal Quest is like a normal quest. A quest you devs have created you mean a so-far-leveled-and-equipped player can solve it. The general AI is on Max at the point of epic quest. It´s EPIC! How can it get harder? Consider the monsters Elitists, other they wouldnt have made it so far. Kick senseless stuff like epic rats, it´s really lowminded in my eyes, RATS don´t get epic. For epic quest take epic monsters. A level suiting monster and pump it up! It´s okay to bring them in hordes or masses, they wouldn´t come alone against a Party of whirling axes and firing icecones. EPic monsters are epic geared, other they wouldnt made it that far to be called epic, but not every enemy is an epical one. The average citizen is still Lvl1 and not CR30. Enemy stats are epical like players. They do wear deadly rings, have perma boosts, go on rage, momentumswing, using epic feats and destinies, all this should be open to the AI too. There was democracy in feats in PnP for the enemys, so shall it be in Onlinegaming.

These are just my own thoughts about creating difficulty and how it could suit, bringing some experience from a life of a DM. It´s discussable and not omniscient. Can´t say how it´s possible to reflect in an AI and to what point it wouldnt be too deadly.

[dydzio0614]

In my opinion EE is not rewarding enough in this game, in many quests there is no reason to increase dificulty. New players do not care about "epic elite" items because they find "epic hard" version good enough, and while they are not good enough to run EE's they also can lack motivation to improve because what is the point of being able to run EE when they dont care about having top gear etc? And existing EE quests are just too easy for veteran players, gather few random good players and you can run everything on EE where is the challenge? EE raids have still nice difficulty but I did them already, including deathwyrm/fot/citw and reward for doing them isnt anything special, so what else to do in this game? Other games deal with this problem by having PvP system when there is nothing to do, but if DDO is going to be still quest based then there should be some challenge, something that veteran players will have problem with on EN difficulty. Before Menace of teh Underdark the Lord of Blades raid was really challenging.

[capsela]

Thanks for asking. I've been playing for about a year, off and on, and I only have been able to get to level 11. I have started a number of other characters to "test them out" paladins, artificers, clerics, etc. most are dead now. I still have my Exploiter Tempest Ranger at lvl 11 and a level 7 (started there with the experience boost) artificer. I really like those two as I love the rogue/spell casting/kill them before they see you ranged attacks.

That said, I would first agree with the statement that you are balancing the game for the uber-player. I read a couple of pages of replies and I have no clue what they are talking about as I haven't even seen many of those quests. Uber-players. Not convinced? Look at the content you've been adding, what levels are they targeting? Done much adding of lower level quests? I have no doubt that you are not targeting new, or obviously clueless players such as myself.

On the difficulty, I play solo. I have played with one or two other players from time to time... some bad, some extremely good. By good I mean that they were so much better that I cannot for the life of me figure out how they got their character to do the stuff I saw them do! I try to play every quest in an area on normal the first time. Often, I get killed right near the end. If it happens enough I normally just abandon the quest and never try it again. (Wish I could remember the name of that last one I dumped in Kundarak.) I have found that quests got substantially harder at level 9 on normal, so much so that I won't even try many of them anymore. I find that lvl 7 to 9 quests severely challenge my lvl 11 Ranger on normal to complete. I must play Lvl 8 to 10 quests VERY slowly so as to not attract more than a couple of monsters at a time and invariably I end up encountering two+ red boss characters together somewhere and I'm toast. I have, to date, not been able to complete a level 10 quest. Playing the various festivals clearly demonstrates that my character does not have remotely enough killing power to collect squat valuable... so festivals are no fun and since the 'loot' is bound to Char they are mostly useless as well. Collectors have undergone a huge change and collecting as a result is now pretty much a pointless waste of inventory space (collectors now require a TON of junk in return for squat). Delrina has been modified so that a hireling can't get you to completion of the second 5th level quest. Sure I could team up, but I have a busy life and I can only play as time permits. Its less complicated to play solo for me. So is the game too hard, in some ways... absolutely, in others... nope. There should be a risk of death/restart while playing. However, there should be room for learning. If you change tactics and do things right/better the next time you should survive... but if it really doesn't matter how well you try to play it or you MUST be part of a party to win then that sucks.

Also, the game is way out of balance in several ways... for example dexterity: it makes you quick. So please explain why my extremely high dex ranger consistently moves slower than a low dex character with boots of 15% speed? Why is a quest played by a single character nearly impossible but a snap if there are two or three? Quests have several levels of difficulty but from my experience the only things that seem to change is the type of spells the clerics/sorcerers throw and the hit points of the individual mob members. Why doesn't the size/strength of the mobs increase with the number of players entering (mob number = Std mob + (Std Mob x (number of players - 1)) OR mob strength/lvl = std mob + ((avg player HP/avg player level) x avg player class modifier(class mod per lvl x num lvls in class)) or some such mathematical gobbledygook? Then XP for completion = quest XP x difficulty modifier x Mob strength change(played strength/std strength). Play in a group, the quest is harder more XP given, choose a different difficulty more XP given. Note I added a class modifier since I have noticed that class impacts play-ability. Mid-level (level 7 for me) Rangers/rogues/paladins seem to fair much worse than full blown spell casters. Artificers seem to hold up better than those other three, but they are also pretty weak. Straight fighters and spell casters seem to do a LOT of damage by comparison. Oh, the poisoner quest in Marketplace (just past the guard with the demon invasion) is SERIOUSLY harder than similar quests at the same level... AND ITS LONG! In summary, you should have a chance to fail at any level, especially the first time through, and with any number of players and the game should modify itself to ensure that that level of risk adjusts to the number of players playing a quest, their character level, their class mix, and the level of their gear. The chance should be the same for a solo player like me and for a well heeled reincarnated twice group of six players at the same level of challenge i.e. Hero: C, N, H, E, or Epic: C, N, H, E.

As for game play... You SERIOUSLY need to allow for some sort of mid-quest save/restart. Some quests take FOREVER to finish like the Shanticor? quest and others which have three quests all linked together in a chain that you have to walk through each and every time... Yeesh! Sometimes I have to stop playing mid-quest because I've run out of time!

I play for fun. Puzzles should NOT be a Mensa IQ test, they should be solvable, and they should NEVER place a player into a situation where the only escape is recall. Your idiot hireling should be able to get you free to try, try again. There's one with Minotaurs in Gianthold that just traps you tight (the area with multiple levers after the swim).

On things not much fun: guard the idiot quests where the idiot tries to get themselves killed (and even when they don't) and ones where you have to stop the monsters from bugging me but they don't provide a progress monitor to tell you how close that loser is getting to finishing their job before they fall down and tell you they have to start over. Man! I've grown to hate those with a passion!

To be honest I'd rather play 0-8 than 9+ level quests. I'm finding levelling extremely tedious, probably because I'm doing something wrong and advanced game play is simply not fun for me (neither have I liked the recent 'additions'... astral shards and their push, the collector change with its pushing the shards as well, and the ridiculously stupid daily rolls.). While I like the challenge offered by each new quest I encounter in DDO, the game is simply becoming tedious... you detect a hidden passage, but damned if you can find it. Maybe if I got closer, oh! sorry you just got snagged by a leg-hold trap that you also didn't detect when you searched for stuff AND you just lost a bunch of hit points, but you get free, and look there's another one that you also didn't detect and now some ranger/spell caster has found you.... I'm currently a VIP, but to be honest I'm thinking of dropping VIP and perhaps quitting DDO completely.

So I think you can fairly easily fix the "Enough with the easy button" uber-players request and address the "I just want to have fun, play my character's role, be challenged a bit, be surprised a bit and leave." players such a myself. It's all in whether or not you want to spend the money rewriting a huge chunk of code or just keep doing what you're doing? Certainly adding some more lower level areas... perhaps areas targeting a particular class to train us newbies to be better might help, but it won't solve the underlying issues. However, those newbies might have more fun playing, because the alternative is that casual paying players such as myself will pack it in, and move on. To which I think I can hear "and good riddance!", but really is that how you build and grow a sustained community?

Sorry about the length of this, but I needed to vent.

First off I read the whole thing, secondly I salute your patience you have a long fun journey ahead of you if you stick with it. Thirdly, the quests are designed for groups so if you solo, it's understandable you are gonna have a hard time. I'm not sure why you refuse to group but I understand its difficult to be in a party where someone makes you feel inferior. If you can logically understand that you can be as good as them if you put in the time and effort it makes it easier to stomach your emotional response. It's much harder starting from scratch in an older mmo like this one with so many vets, but the vets were all noobs at some time too and felt like schmucks too.

I soloed the necro quest you complain about, because I read the wiki and it said you can kill a mob on the sensor and it stays activated for about 10 seconds or so just about enough time to open the doors if you are quick.

Back to the subject, heroic difficulty is fine. I don't think there should be scaling as it leads to soloing which I don't think is healthy for the game.

Regarding Epic levels, EC should be dropped, no one uses that level. I think EN should become EC. EH should become EN. The new EH should be easier than EE. And EE mobs should have there HP doubled, but have their damage and saves decreased. That would still make it a challenge but, it would make non optimal builds feel useful as well. The mobs would be annoying but because of the reduced saving and damage they could be dealt with using strategy instead of exploits.

[Thayion516]

Regarding Epic levels, EC should be dropped, no one uses that level. I think EN should become EC. EH should become EN. The new EH should be easier than EE. And EE mobs should have there HP doubled, but have their damage and saves decreased. That would still make it a challenge but, it would make non optimal builds feel useful as well. The mobs would be annoying but because of the reduced saving and damage they could be dealt with using strategy instead of exploits.

What?? I know ALOT of people who use EC for farming Sagas and chains for Comms. Example is the Druids Chian reward with chioce of 3 of each Comm. I solo it on EC at least 1 time a week.

Also, I have some very casual friends that are terrible players (lol, I know..) and they Duo/Trio EC upper level stuff.

[Thayion516]

I have seen several people say that Character Balance is not the only thing out of whack, and I agree. Environment Balance is also off. Some things can be done to the Enviroment/Mobs that will increase balance.

1. Bring Back Epic Death Ward. Not on all mobs tho. This will prevent the InstaKilling of everything in sight, which happens to a great degree now.
2. Make the DCs/Resists on Mobs better. Like a ogre Fighter should have a load of Fort/Balance. But weak to Will. Stuff like that. A Firegiant should be immune to Fire. A 75 Stunning Fist DC on a mage mob?? 80 to Trip a Orc? really? Those need to come back down to earth.
3. Make Traps KILL. Honestly a EH Trap should do 700 damage... not 300.. a EE trap should be 1500. Want to stop some kiting? Put some Pit Traps in the Floors. Sure u can Kite, but it would make it harder.
4. EE Mobs hitting a toon for 400-600 damage in 1 hit, that always hits BTW regardless of AC..

But on the flip side of that.. there ARE some things on the character side that needs work.
1. Adrenaline+manyshot+10kStar needs to be looked at.
2. Shardari procing on every MM is kinda over the top.
3. Melee are forced to fight the mobs by default and they get demolished. Why is Melee so bad? Thats like turning off 50% of your character designs.

But honestly SMALL changes can easily adjust all these.

PLEASE fully test any changes and make small targeted moves. And give honest feedback on direction of changes and what you feel are inadequacies.

[The_Human_Cypher]

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?

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?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

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.

Someone recently pointed out in these forums that the Elite is now the default difficulty in DDO. I have been playing for over 4 years and I do nearly everything on Elite, except for Epic content. Even Epic Elite is not terribly hard with a full party of seasoned players.

Making the game too easy will drive potential long term players away from the game. For example, Neverwinter Online is so easy even as a beginning player that many people lose interest in it and move onto other games - there's no real challenge. DDO has older players that are willing to invest the time to become good at a game that is involved and feel rewarded for doing so.

[Ivan_Milic]

4. EE Mobs hitting a toon for 400-600 damage in 1 hit, that always hits BTW regardless of AC..

I dont think we are playing the same game, or your ac is 50 and you want it to work on ee.