If the game is too easy then . . .

[ReaperAlexEU]

game modes eh?

how about an option to open a quest in nekked mode? any player entering a quest opened in nekked mode would have all their items and inventory emptied and placed in a nekked cache they can withdraw from once they exit the quest (or gets forced back in with an overflow mechanic to allow you to sell the loot). yes, even spell components (plenty of spells to play with that dont need comps)

inside the quest all chests would have a greater number of drops, not quality, just quantity. this would have 2 main benefits, more chance of looting an item you can use there and then, and if your group is crazy enough you could use nekked mode as the new way to farm for rare gear.

imagine players farming epic elite raids and quests for the best chance of bagging those uber items while being totally nekked! that would truly be earning your loot on the risk vs reward scale

[ReaperAlexEU]

heck, you could use the nekked mode idea for a new summer event, instead of extra loot you'd get the events drops. nice bonus of this is it wouldnt focus the server in a few small areas, questing would happen as normal (if drops were level specific like the cove ones are, or a certain pirate ship is gonna be getting blown up a lot) and with any luck the event wouldnt turn into a lag fest.

i'm sure the marketing team could have a lot of fun with advertising that new event too

[Drekisen]

I saw it mentioned that this was a thread more directed at new players coming into the game and thinking it was too easy not for players who have been around a while.

Has there really been many at all that could just come in right away and solo their way thru elite content to cap.....I guess a non vip really wouldn't have that option but elite is pretty tough for most first timers I would think.

Maybe I am missing the global gaming evolution and new players are that much better than we were just starting 6 years ago

[maddmatt70]

Wrong since what I am saying is the playerbase created new playstyles. I'm not saying anything about if stealth is good or bad in the current game. Of course DDO is not as good as Thief in the sneak dept..because no game since then has been as good at stealth.

The better change to this quest would be see invisibility for the mobs or at least some of the mobs. The problem is players casting invisibility and running by the mobs not players sneaking through the mobs.

Edit: it would be really cool if the spellcasters and a few of the orange named had see invisibility and some of the orange named had a decent spot as well. They could have made this is a cool quest for rangers and rogue assasins to sneak through.. Players casting camoflauge and sneaking through the woods with some chances for the rogues to assasinate specific mobs.

[SirValentine]

A game where players need to do things quickly, or shortmanned, or solo, or naked, or without pots, or with one hand, or while inviting 5 puggers to "try and help", or or or or...etc to find a sense of accomplishment...


...means the game does not really have enough challenge at the highest level.

I partially agree, but there is a question of degree. Just how challenging does it have to be, though? If the single ultimate best player in DDO across all servers finds it non-challenging, is it too easy? What about if, say, 10 players do? Or 1%? Or 10? "If Elite is achievable for more than X% of players, it's too easy." What is X?

Obviously X=100 is too high, it's too easy. But if X=0.001? I'd that's too low, and it's too difficult.

The hardest difficulties need to be something that is still easy enough to be, eventually, maybe with gear/PL/ED/practice grind, within reach of a sizable segment of the player population. There is little point in a difficulty that almost nobody can reach, and that the vast majority don't even bother aspiring to because it's too hard. That's just frustrating for most, and a waste of Turbine's money to develop.

Personally, I don't think EE is way off currently. You don't have the vast majority of the playerbase waltzing casually into EE solo and completing easily with no resources used. Just doesn't happen. Personally, I don't make any claim to be among the very, very top players, but I like to think I'm in the top, say, 10%. I run EE, in groups, and we complete. But it's not a boring cakewalk. If EE were a little harder, that would be OK. But much harder? Shutting out almost all your playerbase to cater to, not the top 10%, or even the top 1%, but the top one tenth of 1%, would not be good for either the game or Turbine's bottom line.

The the super-uber-star, they're just going to have to live with getting bored or finding handicaps to challenge themself with.

Turbine can pick some numeric goal, and measure how they are doing. If the rewards of Elite are substantially better than Hard, but 98% of runs are Hard anyway, not Elite, maybe Elite is too difficult. On the other hand, if 50% of the runs are on Elite, maybe Elite is too easy. They could collect such data and use it to tweak specific quests to be "challenging but doable for a percentage X of the players."

[Antiguo]

The better change to this quest would be see invisibility for the mobs or at least some of the mobs. The problem is players casting invisibility and running by the mobs not players sneaking through the mobs.

Edit: it would be really cool if the spellcasters and a few of the orange named had see invisibility and some of the orange named had a decent spot as well. They could have made this is a cool quest for rangers and rogue assasins to sneak through.. Players casting camoflauge and sneaking through the woods with some chances for the rogues to assasinate specific mobs.

That would be the more rational and fun way to adress the problem they have whit the quest.

So there's no way they will implement it.

[Ginarrbrik]

Do the quests with empty gear slots. Solo VOD elite no one is impressed. Solo VOD elite no rings helm neclace gloves cloak and boots then youhave my respect.

For fun try epic hard lord of dust easy quest no gear except 1 piece. Its doable different and a challenge. If you are fully decked out ever quest shiuld be easy.

Try Epic hard von 6 with only one gear item ---- that would be a real raid and require teamwork. Its doable but requires teamwork.

Anybody else have an idea about a gear restricted challenge?

DONE!

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=400134

Hadn't even seen your thread before I got the idea of starting to solo heal without any gear. I'm planning on doing more such as solo healing EE VoN6 naked or EE LoB. But eventually I'll try convincing the entire group to raid naked. Cause I agree, even though I love my gear, it's more fun to rely on your own skill.

[knightgf]

Artificially increasing difficulty is always interesting to play around with.
On Thief :TDP there was a couple of other ways of playing 'Lytha Style' which was Steal all loot in a level. Don't hurt anyone with any instrument, or any AIs at all, for that matter, and 'Ghost Style' which was the same, but you could never alert an AI to your existence.
Other games have build in modifiers, no rocket launchers, no health, melee only exc..
I say experiment, talk about your exploits and how you play it...who knows it may someday become an official mode of play...

Exploits as in your adventures...jeez.

Ah, I always enjoy it when you talk about the Thief game series. One of my favorites, especially Thief 2: The Metal Age. It's too bad your not working on the next game coming out Maj, I'm sure they could use some old-timers there to make some fine touches to the game. But at least your here, this game could use a few thief-like elements to enhance the gameplay (More types of mines, water arrows, better stealth, just to name a few).

[Vargouille]

how about this, for every exploit we share with you - the more information about the enhancement pass you share with us?

crazy talk!

[SableShadow]

crazy talk!

But is it crazy enough?

[AlteredState]

So crazy it just might work?

Granted, the exploits would have to be PMed to a Yellow name and verified to be real/current so the exploit would not spread via the forums. Would not be a bad idea really.


*ninjaed by a pony :-(

[rest]

crazy talk!

Yeah. There are far more exploits than there is info about the enhancements

[Expalphalog]

Rangers are also very powerful currently (though you're still better off with only taking 12 levels...), adrenalineshot is hilariously strong.

Adrenalineshot hasn't worked for months. It was nerfed to only working on melee as soon as they realized how powerful it was.


EDIT: I've just been informed that I am wrong. It came back with U16 and I just missed the memo. But I'm the kind of guy that would rather admit his mistake than try to hide it, so my original post will be left intact for all to mock.

[ReaperAlexEU]

Adrenalineshot hasn't worked for months. It was nerfed to only working on melee as soon as they realized how powerful it was.

didnt they fix that last patch? or is it this next patch?

[pHo3nix]

A game where players need to do things quickly, or shortmanned, or solo, or naked, or without pots, or with one hand, or while inviting 5 puggers to "try and help", or or or or...etc to find a sense of accomplishment...


...means the game does not really have enough challenge at the highest level.

Lack of challenge causes people to get bored and leave the game.

I mean...people soloed EE MoTU quests almost right away after it was released. WIthin weeks. Soloed. The hardest difficulty. Without resources, alone, on several different classes.

EN and EH are incredibly easier than old epic. And now we have EDs which are very, very powerful.

EN should be EH now. EH should be approaching EE now. EE should be silly hard, where the top players think of actually grouping.

EDs are brutally overpowered. EE is more difficult than old epic but it didn't increase in difficulty even close enough to keep the powergamers interested. EN/EH isn't even in the discussion.

I guess people will say "Go do stuff without gear, or without EDs".

That's stupid. Why grind for gear and then not use it? Why not use every advantage at your disposal? Having to gimp yourself to find challenge is innately not fun for a lot of people, including me.

I don't shoot myself in the foot before a cross country race so that it is fair on the competition. I'd rather they just got faster so that it is a close, exciting race.

+1 Mech, well said

[gphysalis]

And by Exploits I mean talk about your adventures...not your cheating ways! **** you forum folk...**** you all!!

You should have told us to talk about OUR exploits, but not DDOs exploits; as in, the ways to get us to do stuff.

[Chaos000]

That's stupid. Why grind for gear and then not use it? Why not use every advantage at your disposal? Having to gimp yourself to find challenge is innately not fun for a lot of people, including me.

I don't shoot myself in the foot before a cross country race so that it is fair on the competition. I'd rather they just got faster so that it is a close, exciting race.

Honestly if we wanted stupid hard. Epic Elite should have perma red dungeon alert.

Until then, could always have a moritorium on killing any monsters until there is red dungeon alert. Not very fun but definitely challenging.

[merentha]

This and it has been talked about more than once. I personally would love it, but there is some logistical reasons not to change servers to different types of rules. We did exactly this on AC 1, and there is still and Evil server there...and at times is still a logistical headache.

Did you just admit to working on the AC1 team? If so then you jumped up a few cool points. If not at least you made a cool reference

[doomteen007]

A majority (not all, but most) of the people who complain that the game is too easy are simply looking for an ego boost after they've refined their build, twinked their gear, and excluded all the gimps from their group.

The ones who don't do all that yet still complain about it being too easy have a fetish for pain. I recommend playing the game with one hand while you choke yourself with the other

Yeah, myself and a friend were the latter- i healed him on his fully frenzied bard through 2 manned epics before that became pseudo reasonable- twas tons of fun! Got stupid good with scrolls lol

Or you could just play while wearing mittens. That way when I die in a PUG, I just say, "dammit guys, sorry about the 10%. Mittens."

Sir, you deserve a giant gold medal, and a beer or ten- thats the greatest idea I've heard this year.

[Postumus]

Many people see the DDO game as a macrocosm in which different playstyles are the microcosm. In actuality the D&D game is the macrocosm, in which PD players exist, and the DDO game is the current microcosm - the interface by which PD players choose to play at this time.

"This is DDO not DnD!!!!111!!"

(Sorry, I couldn't resist. I hate that response.)

Well said.