Updated Raid Feedback: Caught in the Web

[Chette]

For the last time, spell point damage in this raid is not meant to suck TP right out of your account.

That's fine, I didn't poke issue at that. If that's the case, just come right out and say that every time, instead of dancing around the issue and comparing SP potions to HP potions, which was what MY comment was directed towards. You complain that our feedback is unhelpful, well, your responses to our feedback, including telling people to hide behind rocks, and comparing HP and SP potions, is most certainly, not helpful.

[fourrumtest]

you forgot random properties on raid loot = yuck

[legendlore]

In closing, the signal to noise ratio so far has been abysmal, I see very little actionable feedback. To summarize the thread:

1. I/We/Everybody/Some Players hate escort quests
2. Spell point damage really?
3. I/We/Everybody/Some Players hate mazes
4. There was one person who wondered about something being WAI, and it was.
5. Too annoying/Not enough challenge

We now return you to the regular scheduled broadcasting.

* No actual kittens/sporks are being stabbed/harmed here at Turbine, do not try this at home.

I realise that a lot of work has gone into this raid and that there are time constrain issues but in general Turbine should really learn to kill their darlings.

I don't know how the work progress is, but it seems like different developers have almost soletary involvement in diffrent areas. Feather of Sun seemed to be all up in arms about beta testers disliking the loot implementation.

I haven't played the raid so I don't have any opinion of it, but if the general opinion is as you've listed, maybe it's time to take a step back and look at your darling in a new light.

Nothing good will come of just brushing feedback aside, even if it's just negative feedback.

[FlimsyFirewood]

Yeah we get it you do not want to hear that players dislike the basic design elements of this raid.

That is a risk you run when you combine multiple unpopular elements into a single raid.

Please don't get me wrong, Cyr. The five points I mentioned in my post are valid, actionable feedback that I came here to hear. That was the whole point of my reading feedback forums. How positive or negative that feedback is, is irrelevant. The important part is feedback.

[Shade]

5. Too annoying/Not enough challenge

I played it and didn't find it that annoying, and I think the challenge will be really fun. Seems like it will be a serious chalenge on epic elite. Has potential anyways, we'll see how it plays out.

Too many players just find "dying" annoying, they only want to win and have an easy time in everything. I'm glad you disagree with them

Many bugs cause annoyances for me, in the raid and in everywhere, but thats kind of the nature of DDO. Not really a fault of the design of the raid, just the game in general. NPC AI tends to be very buggy especially. If it was perfect and bug free, much of thoe annoyances would disappear.

Maybe we can just hpoe for U15: Bug fixes galore update! Free to VIPs?

heh.

The biggest one for me that makes this raid and everything annoying is the fact if you play more then 15min, swapping any item causes major lag and randomly disables half of your equipment, and sometimes even your EDs or whatever is coded as "buffs". Makes the game nearly unplayable in challenging areas.

[BruceTheHoon]

That's fine, I didn't poke issue at that. If that's the case, just come right out and say that every time, instead of dancing around the issue and comparing SP potions to HP potions, which was what MY comment was directed towards. You complain that our feedback is unhelpful, well, your responses to our feedback, including telling people to hide behind rocks, and comparing HP and SP potions, is most certainly, not helpful.

How is explicitly telling players one way of avoiding SP drain "most certainly not helpful"?

[rdasca]

Your post indicates you have not played the raid. This is a feedback thread.

For the last time, spell point damage in this raid is not meant to suck TP right out of your account. It's punitive mechanic (yes, we know) specifically made to punish mistakes. A healer, caster, divine caster, ranged dps, melee dps, etc etc = a skilled player will not get hit by this. We don't expect you to stand there next to the tank and just take it in the face over and over again. If you're doing this, and then chug store point potions, you're doing this wrong. This is a tool we use, in this particular instance, to let you know that you're standing in the wrong place and you should probably move. I will not stoop to explain the basics of playing an action MMO here. I presume that a player who has leveled a 20 character has minimal situational awareness to "not stand in the fire" during boss fights. And in this case, the fire is burning your spell points. When you stand in the spell point fire, you make a designer do a double facepalm and then stab a kitten with a spork. Please think of the sporks*.

In closing, the signal to noise ratio so far has been abysmal, I see very little actionable feedback. To summarize the thread:

1. I/We/Everybody/Some Players hate escort quests
2. Spell point damage really?
3. I/We/Everybody/Some Players hate mazes
4. There was one person who wondered about something being WAI, and it was.
5. Too annoying/Not enough challenge

We now return you to the regular scheduled broadcasting.

* No actual kittens/sporks are being stabbed/harmed here at Turbine, do not try this at home.

Rather hard to play a raid when you cannot copy any toons to the test server, yeah it has been broken since the 3rd beta wipe.

Normally it takes more than one person to have a dialogue;

Turbine: Give us feedback on the new raid.
Most of the Forum Posters: We do not like it, it is an escort raid.

Turbine: But the NPC is a real bad-ass; she can tank the whole thing.
Most of the Forum Posters: We do not like the whole idea of it being an escort raid, it does not matter if the NPC can nuke the world by herself or not.

Turbine: Ok, you do not like it, but how does it play.
Most of the Forum Posters: Umm we do not like it, what does it matter about the play of it?

Turbine: We do not see any feedback here; <insert a complaint about noise level>.
Most of the Forum Posters: <More noise>

Round and round it goes, with neither side listening to the other, the difference is we (Most of the Forum Posters) are the ones paying for it, and as one of those, I wanted my money’s worth out of something that cost me eighty dollars, so far other than some really awesome artwork I am not seeing it.

BTW, every time a dev makes an escort quest I take my kids’ desert and pour it down the garbage disposal, you will have to explain to them why.*


*no desert was poured anywhere.

[Bakarne]

One thing that has really bothered me about DDO's escort quests is that the vital NPC is not added to the party list where his/her HP percentage can be seen at all times. Other games like Guild Wars add vital NPCs to the party list. Possibly unrelated, but it is also really annoying that when you select a party member in DDO, their blue dot on the map does not highlight.

For a healer that has to actually keep up multiple targets, it is a significant and frustrating annoyance to try to find, re-select, and make sure your escort is not blocked (especially one on the move). A change like this would make Hold for Reinforcements, HoX, and a quest like this new raid far less annoying. (Other quests: Gladewatch Outpost, Bookbinder Rescue, A Small Problem, etc.)

[B0ltdrag0n]

Flimsy the raid IS getting better with each iteration. If you didn't love the game you wouldn't be trying this hard. If we didn't love the game we wouldn't be complaining as hard.

I do have hope for the raid still, even if I am not thrilled with the underlying concepts of it. So keep trying.

[Dendrix]

People that are posting personal opinions as fact should be ignored in feedback. The so-called 'fact' that escort missions are unpopular is flat-out wrong - I have not seen a single complaint on the forums (and I'm here a lot) about Waterworks part 2, which is probably one of the most frequently run quests in the game and has an escort component to it that can be failed.

Waterworks is an escort quest?

I've never played it like that.

1) Kill all mobs,
2) talk to alaros then walk back to entrance.

[Dragavon]

The potions from the store argument is silly and invalid. We sell HP potions in the store too, should our raid bosses stop hitting you in the HP? I mean, what's up with that? Next thing you know, they might even kill you.

It is not silly. Your arguments are way off.

We have healing readily available in many forms for ingame currency. We can go to many shops in the game and buy potions, wands and scrolls ad infinitum.

Spellpoint restoring potions can be found occasionally in chests or rewards list, OR bought on the DDO store.

Comparing these and calling our arguments silly is rather offensive imo

[danotmano1998]

In closing, the signal to noise ratio so far has been abysmal, I see very little actionable feedback. To summarize the thread:

1. I/We/Everybody/Some Players hate escort quests
2. Spell point damage really?
3. I/We/Everybody/Some Players hate mazes
4. There was one person who wondered about something being WAI, and it was.
5. Too annoying/Not enough challenge

1. Yep, there have been dozens of examples of this and uncountable threads here in DDO. Not only that, but it's arguably known as one of the worst possible mechanics ever invented for any game.

2. Yes, really? If this weren't turbine, I would believe that you guys don't want to open the pipeline to the DDO store with this "technique". Yet considerable portions of Turbine's business decisions seem to indicate otherwise, so what are we supposed to think?

I would agree that there are an inordinate amounts of rants, doom threads, and hyperbole posts lately, but that does not invalidate our points or our concerns.

I'm guessing by your post, you are ignoring our pleas since they are not considered actionable items. Fair enough, I will not offer my suggestions, criticisms, and praise on these particular issues, since they are falling on deaf ears.

I appreciate you coming out and letting us know that these will not be changed from their current implementations. At least we can stop wondering and move on.

[Primalhowl]

Rather hard to play a raid when you cannot copy any toons to the test server, yeah it has been broken since the 3rd beta wipe.

Normally it takes more than one person to have a dialogue;
<snip>

(Note: By the term "you" in this email, I am not referring to the quoted poster, but to the general "you" of responders...)

Sure, given the problems with toon transfer, getting a raid-ready toon on Lamma land is problematic. But plenty of people *have* been successful.

I can completely see Flimsy's point here... The problem here is that the dialog has turned into a bunch of blind people complaining about a sunset that they have never seen. Turbine asks the forumites to *play the raid* and give feedback. And the vast majority of the feedback appears to come from those who admittedly *haven't played the raid*!

I think that meets the criteria of noise after a certain point. If you can't give specific "this works, this doesn't" feedback, then how are you doing anything more than whining?

Haven't played the raid? Say you don't like the concept and let it be. Stop cluttering the feedback thread. Because posts that have *actual* feedback about the mechanics and experience *playing* the raid that might *improve* the raid are going to be missed in the continued whining.

[Terebinthia]

Speak for yourself. Two of those (LOB and Abbot) remain among my favorite raids (except for the non-combat phase in Abbot while the whole raid waits for tiles to finish).

People that are posting personal opinions as fact should be ignored in feedback. The so-called 'fact' that escort missions are unpopular is flat-out wrong - I have not seen a single complaint on the forums (and I'm here a lot) about Waterworks part 2, which is probably one of the most frequently run quests in the game and has an escort component to it that can be failed.


I personally dislike the Titan raid and the Reaver's Fate raid but I'm not going to say they are un-fun for the whole community. Reaver in particular serves a purpose as a very forgiving introduction to aggro control in DDO for people that haven't raided in the game before.

In fairness, Numot, Arlos' AI is not that horrible, you can heal him and he's easily resolved by one person babysitting him while others kill the trash spawns. While I've not tried the raid on Lama, I understand the mechanic to be you CAN'T heal Ana, which makes it a very different ballgame from Arlos, or indeed from a damage neutral NPC like Kaylea (sp, lass in Power Play), where the main challenge is her not disappearing if you zerg off.

I mean, I'm not volunteering for the "heal the brainless AI duty" here, but at least that's something you feel more influence over, I guess.

[Chette]

How is explicitly telling players one way of avoiding SP drain "most certainly not helpful"?

Because a player "hiding behind a rock" is not contributing to the quest, particularly since they explicitly said that casters (who would presumably be wanting to contribute to the quest) would have a much harder time.

They could have taken two minutes to provide some sort of reasonable explanation for how they thought that the mechanism could work within a balanced party, but nope...hide behind a rock..oh and don't try casting.

[xTethx]

Its really a shame none of you have actually tried this raid thoroughly, else you would know that hiding behind a rock you can still contribute to bringin lolth down by attacking her legs, which can spawn right next to you. You can also kill the trash with nukes etc that spawns when lolth pops, by no imagination are you standing there looking pretty (unless you want to )

[sirgog]

It is not silly. Your arguments are way off.

We have healing readily available in many forms for ingame currency. We can go to many shops in the game and buy potions, wands and scrolls ad infinitum.

Spellpoint restoring potions can be found occasionally in chests or rewards list, OR bought on the DDO store.

Comparing these and calling our arguments silly is rather offensive imo

A 'You really don't want to be hit by THIS attack' effect that does hitpoint damage is usually instant death unless you've prepared for it - look at Velah's breath, CAD's fire and ice specials, Abbot's Inferno, and (elite only, more survivable but can one-shot some 16s) Stormreaver's Madstone Attraction + Overcharge combo.

SP drain is more serious than some of these and less serious than others (I'd rather lose 500 SP than be killed by Madstone Attraction Overcharge; but I'd rather take a death from Velah's breath than lose 500 SP).

This certainly is not on-par with the utter disaster that is being Telekinesised off the platform on a low Str character in Abbot, or Tempest's Spine, or dying in the lava in DQ2. (I'm surprised I ever lived down my Abbot disaster recently where it took a good 20 raise attempts for me to get out of the water).

Remember: The raid has total control over which player has the beam aggro. If anyone gets hit by it, it is either their own fault, or it is the fault of the person who kited the beam to them.

[paraplegic]

Yeah we get it you do not want to hear that players dislike the basic design elements of this raid.

That is a risk you run when you combine multiple unpopular elements into a single raid.

agree.. maybe thats the problem.

[murf201]

No offense by this but ...... I think i speak for everyone when i say we hate the loot design .

[murf201]

Maybe there deceiving all of us for fun , And static epic relic weopons drop on epic elite , hard and normal are random caca !!!!