Adventure Packs

[Magil]

So, a friend of mine has joined ddo, and has brought some of her friends along for the ride.

I've also been on something of a break, and have just seen that there are new free to play quests. The majority of them will not / are unable to spend real money for the points. That said, what pack(s) should they focus on with solely the points from running free to play content?

Thanks in advance.

PS: Also, is it just me, or is the forum now in German?

[DefunctEquation]

If they want the most run/ most useful packs I'd say you can't go wrong with:

Low Level - The Seal of Shan-to-Kor (Good exp at level, and a no ML feather fall ring), Phiarlan Carnival (The items aren't bad at level, but the main reason is the epic versions are great), Delera's Tomb (Great exp at level, as well as several good items, including Carnifex and Voice of the Master), Chronoscope (Some of the best gear at level, and if you can get an at level group, exp is good. The items are also great when epic'd). Sentinels of Stormreach hit or miss, the exp is ok, but the items are fairly nice at level, but better at epic levels. Still, though, it's not a priority.

Mid Level - Necopolis Part 2 (Best exp at level bar none, also you can get some named Met. of PG handwraps if you're lucky), Vault of Night (Best exp right behind Necro 2, with the exception of VoN 5 which is actually better elite at level. Also, some decent items), Demon Sands (Good Exp, good items, even better epic'd), You also may want to consider Red Fens (Exp is ok, items are ok. But the items REALLY shine when epic'd) if you have leftover TP.

High Level - Vale of Twilight (Great Exp, lets you make Greensteel items, 3 raids. It's a must, no question), Path of Inspiration (Good exp at a point in the game where there isn't really any good exp spots. Items aren't too shabby either, like Lucid Dreams), Devils of Shavarath (Another must have here. Sweet quests that give fair exp, and some of the best endgame items out there that don't require crafting to make or epicing. Also, ToD rings rock). Reaver's Refuge is ok. I really don't care for it too much as I find the quests aannoying, but Dragon Touched armor is nice.

Of course, these are just suggestions, but most people will be running these quests throughout the game. Some packs really depend on the class. Like Attack on Stormreach, it's good for melees, but not so much for casters (fleshweaver excluded). Challenges can be good for farming epic tokens, or if you're good at them and have a group for it, they can be a source of nice items and good exp.

As for the German thing, look on the bottm of the screen, there should be a language selector, turn it to English :P.

[Sigava]

First of all, the biggest piece of advice I'd give to any new player planning to play on favor TP alone is as follows:

Never buy ANYTHING unless it's on sale. Ever. A little patience in the buying department translates to hundreds of hours worth of turbine points acquired from favor.

I would say that the single most important pack for a new player to get is the Vale of Twilight. The reasons for this are four fold:

1) The Vale of Twilight covers the level ranges in which experience is hardest to come by in free-to-play content in order to reach 20. If memory serves, the highest level F2P quests are level 16, and there are 3 of them, with not altogether spectacular XP per completion. While one COULD save those quests till as late as possible and then grind them out to get to 20, that is one HELL of a grind considering how much one would have to also grind Acid Wit, Mired in Kobolds, Delirium and the Droam F2P chain before even getting to the new Lords of Dust chain. The Vale provides some of the highest experience per completion as well as experience per minute quests of the upper levels, and also provides a slayer/rares/explorer area for easy experience when unable to find a group. A first life character can easily enter the vale at level 16 and walk out at level 20 a day or so later.

2) Groups are easy to come by. There's almost always groups available for some vale quest or another, and if there aren't, throwing up an LFM for Running with the Devils, Rainbow in the Dark or Coal chamber will usually get a fast fill. Most TR trains view the F2P quests in the 12-16 range as once-and-dones, they'll do them once on elite and never look back, Vale quests on the other hand are prime farming.

3) Raids, Raids, Raids. I say raids thrice because the Vale of Twilight adventure pack comes with 3 raids, the Shroud (or more specifically The Thirteenth Eclipse), HoX (or The Hound of Xoriat) and VoD (Visions of Destruction). These offer good opportunities to learn how high level raiding is usually done, as well as to get some mid-grade gear out of HoX and VoD. The Subterrane is another source of experience, not to mention planar shards offer new players a way to get the oh-so-desirable large collectables bags. If a player farmed out Vale quests a little too early (or did them in a funky order that screwed the XP), one can also fairly easily raid his or her way to 20 by staying on timer for Shroud/HoX/VoD while leveling an alt at other times.

4) Greensteel crafting/mats. Are greensteel weapons somewhat eclipsed by alchemical crafting? Meh, to a degree. They're still fantastic weapons for newer players without tons of epics (and believe me most new players are not getting a Tier 3 alchemical weapon crafted any time soon), and some of the craftable accessories remain must haves, such as Concordant Opposition Goggles (or whatever slot) for casters/healers, +6 Int skill items for rogue splashes, as well as possibly hit point or earth elemental/haste/raise dead clickies. Even if one doesn't have a use for Green Steel items, Large Stones, Large Devil Scales and to a lesser degree blank mats are still a decent value currency for trading on most servers.

[KongColeus]

As an F2P who has yet to buy anything with money Turbine Points are needed very much.

1. Only buy on sale. Right now, it seems Turbine is not offering 50% off anymore. But 20% still happens. If you had 1500 points, you could have done 30% last month.

2. NEVER buy anything BUT adventure packs. They have to have that mentality. Bank inventory is my second choice.

3. Roll up characters on every server and get to 100 favor ASAP. There are eight servers, so that is 1000 points. Since you are a group of friends that should be easy to do. They can master the low level quests and learn the game. They might just figure out which server they want to play on. Yes, it is boring but a lot can be gained. LAG is a factor of how many players there are on a server, WAYFINDER(the german server) has much less lag than all the other servers. Since I solo but once in awhile I need to group, Wayfinder is a pain to find a group. But since you are a group, you might find wayfinder good until the group breaks up then trying to find other players will be a pain.


I try to buy by what ad pack gives me the most favor for TP. A list that can be easily found is

Reaver's Reach - cost 350 - favor 96 - favor/TP = 0.274

catacombs - cost 250 - favor 66 - favor/TP = 0.264 low level, very bad loot, run it once, then never again, DONT BUY

Sorrowdusk - cost 450 - favor 117 - favor/TP = 0.260 low to mid level, slayer area, Best item is mummified bat from CO6. For levels 4-11 in the slayer area

Desert - cost 850 - favor 216 - favor/TP = 0.254 for levels 8-15 Good loot. One RAID that is EPIC

Shroud - cost 850 - favor 207 - favor/TP = 0.244 Most popular. Three raids. excellent loot.

Necropolis pack - cost 1495 - favor 351 - favor/TP 0.235 Great XP. The Orchard has great loot for getting plat.

Gianthold - cost 950 - favor 216 - favor/TP 0.227

Shavarath - cost 650 - favor 147 - favor/TP = 0.226


Based on the above, I would say Sorrowdusk because you get a slayer area and nine quests? An 11th level player can help out a 4th level player in the slayer area.


What ad packs do I play the most? Desert, Gianthold, Shroud, and Necropolis. I love Bloodstone, Ring of Spell Storing, Blue Dragon Scales, and Green Steel.


The worst ad packs for favor are

Sentinels - cost 450 - favor 66 - favor/TP 0.147 loot is so so. I have ran it more than once

Harbinger of Madness - cost 450 - favor 66 - favor/TP 0.147 Dont know anything about it

Sharn Syndicate - cost 350 - favor 48 - favor/TP 0.137 do it once, never again DONT BUY

Red Fens - cost 460 - favor 54 - favor/TP 0.117 running it now. Level 6-14 Interesting, not sure about the loot

Attack on Stormreach - cost 550 - favor 63 - favor/TP 0.115 Dont know anything about it

Carnival - cost 450 - favor 48 - favor/TP 0.107 basically ran it once and never again. Interesting story line. I bought this before I did my list of favor/TP.

Devil Assault - cost 350 - favor 30 - favor/TP = 0.086 Does have a RAID. But that favor to TP ratio is horrendous.



The packs I wont BUY are Catacombs, Sharn Syndicate, Three Barrel Cove, Shan to Kor and Devil Assault


FORUM IN GERMAN? THERE MIGHT BE SOMETHING IN THE USER CP THAT CONTROLS THAT. MINE IS ENGLISH ALL THE TIME.

[Gizeh]

If you do not want to spend any money on the game avoid all low level packs. You can easily get to mid level with just the free quests. The exception would be adventure packs with quests that can be run on epic difficulty.

Others have already given the essential tips: farm favor on all servers, buy packs when they are on sale, and if you can only afford a single adventure pack get Vale of Twilight.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

As I always say : The choice is also depending on the play style.

- explorer ?
- dungeon crawler ?
- fighting undeads ?
- exotic environments ?
- wilderness areas ?
- want to have favour from a certain patron ?
- loot-oriented ?
- want to play as a group within a certain adventure pack ? (not unimportant, imho !)

and so on.

Me, I have bought Tangleroot Gorge for some of my first points, and I was impressed by this packge. The environment is - to be frank - rather small, but imho beautifully crafted to give an 3D experience - and with "3D" I mean : there are several levels. There's the ground of the gorge, the mezzanine, and th top. And of course there is the Splinterskull Fortress, which is rather big, too.

But that's just my personal experience. And yes, I'm usually an explorer, and I prefer exotic environments over dungeon crawls. and no, I'm not loot-oriented.

That means for me that I found the Catacombs in part boring, although the story is imho not bad. It's just that I don't like dungeon crawls that much.

I believe tht everyone who wants to buy an adventure pack needs to become conscious of what he or she wants and prefers. Best would be, imho, to really write down on a sheet of paper what one prefers (in form of a list, for example), and then check all of the available adventure packs against this list. And then come into a consensus with the group, if you want to play as a group.

[DrunkenBuddha]

If points are limited - I would recommend the following:

Delara's - full of undead, not too difficult, excellent experience at level and fairly decent loot - you'll use Voice of the Master until 20, and Carnifex is good for melees until about 12-14 depending on your feats (for lvls 5-10)

Gianthold - huge explorer area, excellent experience at level, a raid and pre-raid that is fairly popular (Raid is a bit less so no in my experience) (lvls 11-20, higher levels for the raid and pre-raid farming), dragonscales can be sold on the AH for a fair amount of plat, especially blues

Vale - 3 raids (Shroud is almost always on the LFMs), excellent experience, pre-raid quests are also always on the LFMs, and the quests are a good barometer of how determining possible deficiencies in your character, be it equipment or playstyle. Of the three mentioned above, this is the most important pack. Greensteel items and weapons are excellent and useful for end-game until eclipsed by epic gear.

If you have additional points:

Demon Sands - great experience, groups are frequently up and decent loot. The epic quests are considered by many to be the most difficult in the game currently

Red Fens/House P chain/Sentinels chain - fairly decent loot/experience, but the epic quests are for the most part fairly forgiving for most end-game characters and are a good way to feel your way through - some are harder than others, i.e. Into the Deep, while others you can sleep through Bargain of Blood, Tides, Snitch, Claw, etc.

[danotmano1998]

If points are limited - I would recommend the following:

Delara's -
Gianthold -
Vale -

Being VIP and playing through nearly every quest now to get a feel, I must agree with the above mentioned 3.

I might add to that list either the Inspired Quarter quests, Reaver's Refuge, and the Amrath quests once you get up there in levels. ESPECIALLY if any one is interested in TR'ing. The higher levels can be a grind on multiple lives and having some variety instead of grinding the same quests to infinity is exceptionally nice.

[Balrogskin]

Only buy on sale as others have said:
Deleras
Necro bundle
Vault of Night
Sands of Menechtarun
Gianthold
The Vale of Twilight
Shavarath

[bhgiant]

It really depends on your friends. Are they going to stick with the game? Vale of Twilight, hands down. Are they on the fence/don't want to level that much. Delera's.

The most solid packs imo (unless you are a rogue in Delera's... then it just sucks)

[Daggertooth]

My advice would be this... and although this is very good advice.. most people will give you the auto dork response 'vale for Greensteel'...

Look at it this way. When we started this game in 2006, we played with all the content you get for free for like 2 years. Over and over. Of course there's a few packs that are no longer included but you get the idea.


My suggestion is for you and your friends to play for a few months at least w/ the free stuff. Make new characters.. i.e. switching off roles. Get em to lvl 8ish. There is no need to buy any packs at the onset. I'd say Gianthold is a very good investment for once you've actually exhausted the free to play content. But remember, yeah we played w/ that free stuff for years before they started coming out with updates.

And regarding getting the vale that is just dork advice, plain and simple IMO. I would acutally make an effort to find all the free quests... and then go through em once... lvl to around 10.. then make a new character... i.e. a different type (you play the mage this time, someone else the melee etc) and do it again.. After that you'll either want to maybe subscribe or you can start thinking about a pack or two depending on how you like the game.

[Magil]

Thanks everyone for your advice. I suppose a little grinding is in order.

Vale seems to be the best choice. I'll just have to ensure that they all use their second slot for a 100 favor run to grind out the points. If they need another pack out of that, I suppose I'll be ensuring they get some good lower level content as well.

I forsee a lot of running.

Of note: Sigava, thanks for the mention of buying it on sale. I suppose the time waiting for that to happen really would end up being more beneficial.

DefunctEquation, Thanks for that bit on the language selector. Never noticed that before.

[decease]

forget about mid/low pack.. you don't need any of them to reach 20 in first life. here is the list of pack you must have

vale of twilight!.. this is the only one you need to reach 20.. though you will have hard time level up around 18 or 19..

if you have anymore spare get battlefield.. or u11 or you could consider getting reaver's reach

p.s. for epic you will want red fen first..

[DavionFuxa]

Most important Adventure Pack is for certain Vale of Twilight and it has to be acquired at some point, however I wouldn't necessarily consider it the first pack you have to get. In terms of Adventure Packs, past level 12 your going to start hurting for experience. From this point on you'll start to begin looking into what packs you should buy:

Mid level Adventure Packs

I would suggest that if you are going to buy a pack, you should look into some of the following:

Ruins of Gianthold - This is a good experience giving Adventure Pack. My First buy and I don't regret it. She's expensive but you'll be well off getting some good experience from the walk ups or flagging quests, and you'll have a well run Raid to boot. The Most important thing about this Adventure Pack is the Argonnnessan Favor it brings, those be some nice Favor Rewards!

Necropolis IV - This Adventure Pack has suffered quite a bit at the hands of the Developers but it is still good. Experience is nice but the real draw is the Items - specifically the Minos Legens Helment which will greatly benefit a new player. I say this pack has suffered because the Raid has been constantly toyed with, a Raid that is already quite tough and hard on new players.

Demon Sands - This Pack has become less important due to several additions of Free to Play Packs over the years at its level, but it is still good and well worth picking up. While you might think it would be fantastic for the Epic Content, note that this is the 'toughest epic content' and it isn't well run like other content. Still, it has a lot of good items, and an easy to get into Raid.

Attack on Stormreach - Not a bad choice, you'll pick up some other items for use as well as have some quests to help you out at the mid level. Nothing much else to say about it though.

Vale of Twilight

The Vale makes for a good secondary purchase if not your first purchase.

Vale of Twilight - Even though I don't consider it a 'must have first pack', that doesn't mean you can't make it so. You've got an explorer area in here that you can enter from level 12 on, and you have several level 16 quests that can help you with leveling. All you would have to do is level up in the Explorer area or Free to Play Quests available to you and perhaps run some of the quests on Casual or Normal at level 15 or so.

Probably the biggest draw has to be the 3 Raids you get to play, one of which, the Shroud, has the most important thing about this pack with the Greensteel Items. Note that the Vale of Twilight includes the Subterrane. The Subterrane is another Explorer area where Vision of Destruction and Hound of Xoriat, the other 2 Raids are located. The Explorer area itself is broken down into Subterrane Central, and Subterrane East, and there is a significiantly worth mentioning Rare called Garamol.

High Level Adventure Packs

After you get something from above you might look into some High Level Packs.

Reaver's Reach - THIS will get you to level 20. Experience is ridiculous in all 4 of the quests available here. You also have 4 Mini-Explorer Areas that can be run too. Main Feature aside from the Experience and perhaps most important thing is the Dragontouched Armor you can forge. You can make a powerful Armor for your character. Argonnessan Favor is acquired by completing the quests - perhaps more important if the DT Armor isn't to you. Again, no Raid, though the quest Stealer of Souls can give some Raids a run for their money.

Inspiritation Quarter/Dreaming Dark - A couple Adventure Packs that are closely related. You might pick these up if you get a Dreamspitter in Gianthold or if one of the items acquired from these quests suits your fancy. This quests are horrbily easy, the point that it isn't fun, unless you find content hard in which case this is the pack for you. No Raid in this pack but it is a good pack nonetheless

House C Quests - This pack has some nice items in it, you can't go wrong with Cannith Boots of Propulsion! You can also get Alchemical Weapons here but they pale in comparison to the Greensteel weapons. Important Pack if your into Crafting since you can only get House C Favor from these quests and the House C Challenges. 2 Raids in this pack, one of which is the hardest in game, are both runnable on Epic difficulty.

Devil's of Shaverath - Another good pack with nice items in it as well as experience to level you up. However the main draw for this pack is the favor you acquire from the Yugoloth. You will highly benefit from those Yugo Pots if you acquire them; just note that the quests can be slightly difficult on harder difficulties.

Easy Epics

After getting some Adventure packs for leveling you should get some packs for Epic Content. But note here that while you could get Epic Content from the Lords of Dust, Demon Sands, or the House C Raids; you'll want some easier Epics to go with it.

Phiarlan Carnival - This is a very popular pack for Epics. It is well run and has some good all around items. You won't go wrong if you pick up this pack, especially since it is the easiest of the Epics.

Sentinels of Stormreach - Not as popular as Phiarlan Carnival but not necessarily one to ignore. It has a few good items for certain classes and builds so you should check it out. Black Lock isn't run as much, Spies in the House is almost not run at all. You might get this if you want House D Favor.

Red Fens - Lots of good items and a pack that gets run from time to time. Some of the Quests are easily run on Epic so you'll have some good fun with this pack if you get it.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

though you will have hard time level up around 18 or 19..

Exactly that's the point.

When I was buying my own packs I didn't want to have to wait until I reach this level. I wanted something I could "use" meanwhile levelling up until then.

Because the way is important, too.