Old player thinking about returning

[terascque]

Hey guys,

I haven't posted anything on the forums for years, nor have I played a single second of DDO for a long time. Lets call it 7-8 years. Thinking about returning. Wondering what the state of the game is today. I know some things are different its no longer a sub, there are a bunch of new classes, and the level cap is way higher then the 14ish or whatever it was when I last played but tell me about the game. Are people still playing? Will I be able to find groups? Is it still a zerg fest to see how fast you can level up, ignoring every quest and side squest/optional that doesn't give out the max xp per minute played? Is anyone still around like, oh I don't know, the only person I can think of is Kistilan? What are your thoughts on the game? Still fun to play? What's the new thing going around. In my day it was clerics and BB's or Sorc and stacking FW's etc? Any thing you feel like sharing would be appreciated.

Thanks,
terascque

[phillymiket]

Well to start +3 Wounding of Puncturing Rapier wouldn't be your end-game weapon anymore :-D

Welcome back.

I'm returning from a break as well so I'll leave it to others to really answer.

[GregorV]

LOL...you thought it was a zergfest in 2007....it's gotten worse. Argo, as may be reiterated later, has turned into a guild/channel server. Level cap is now 28, going to 30 in about a year.

[Kwyjibo]

You should have plenty to do given you've been away for so long.

Can't really give much info about the status of the LFMs. I stay within guild/channels almost exclusively.

The order of the day is zerg til you drop and self-sufficiency.

There is a big influx of players when new content is released, but then a few weeks later the population of end game players drop pretty significantly.

If getting gear isn't enough to keep you busy, reincarnating you char over and over and over again should.

Good Luck!

[Seikojin]

What everyone said here is pretty accurate. It would probably help if someone made a chat channel on the server like help, so people could have a chat channel regardless of guild/party/instance.

[Kwyjibo]

What everyone said here is pretty accurate. It would probably help if someone made a chat channel on the server like help, so people could have a chat channel regardless of guild/party/instance.

This is Argo, help is not in our vocabulary

[noble_pirate]

What everyone said here is pretty accurate. It would probably help if someone made a chat channel on the server like help, so people could have a chat channel regardless of guild/party/instance.

General chat in Marketplace or /advice channel not enough for you?

[dunklezhan]

Hey guys,

I haven't posted anything on the forums for years, nor have I played a single second of DDO for a long time. Lets call it 7-8 years. Thinking about returning. Wondering what the state of the game is today. I know some things are different its no longer a sub, there are a bunch of new classes, and the level cap is way higher then the 14ish or whatever it was when I last played but tell me about the game. Are people still playing? Will I be able to find groups? Is it still a zerg fest to see how fast you can level up, ignoring every quest and side squest/optional that doesn't give out the max xp per minute played? Is anyone still around like, oh I don't know, the only person I can think of is Kistilan? What are your thoughts on the game? Still fun to play? What's the new thing going around. In my day it was clerics and BB's or Sorc and stacking FW's etc? Any thing you feel like sharing would be appreciated.

Thanks,
terascque

From EU time Argo:

Player numbers are down.

PuGs are few and far between.

Start a pug and it will generally fill however.

It is a zerg fest if you are playing with multi-TRs (there is a 'reincarnation' mechanic. It will take too long to explain, have a look on DDO wiki. Essentially at L20 you can reincarnate back to L1 with more build points and a free feat based on your previous 'life'. You can do this multiple times. Each time you do it up to 3 times the amount of XP needed to level increases. After multiple lives beyond 3, people understandably get a bit... zergy).

However, these people and those who obsess over the so called death 'penalty' seem to have finally learned their lesson and rarely put up PuGs or if they do they generally say so, which is also helpful - BYOH, zerg, know it, are all clues that this is a zerg fest. Don't play with these people unless you CAN Bring Your Own Heals, zerg it, or do know it. I have nothing against their playstyle, I hope they're having fun - but if you can't do as they're asking in the PuG advert do everyone a favour and just don't group with them. Or send a tell to their leader and ask if they mind taking a noob. If you're polite enough to ask, they're frequently polite enough to be gracious whether they say yes or no.

There are plenty of folks who do all the side optionals, like to bimble about in explorer areas, don't care about XP per min and so on. They may post PuGs, they may not. You are best off looking for a guild (Thieves Guild argo is always looking for chilled out folk).

Many people DO however care about maintaining 'bravery' streaks, which net you more Xp if you always run quests the first time on hard or elite, so folks don't like to run quests until they're 2 levels higher than the quest on normal.

Happy hunting!

[Qhualor]

General chat in Marketplace or /advice channel not enough for you?

I've seen some helpful people in those channels, but I've seen a lot of bad advice too. Those channels are like the forums sometimes.

[EllisDee37]

Is it still a zerg fest to see how fast you can level up, ignoring every quest and side squest/optional that doesn't give out the max xp per minute played?

A couple changes have helped lessen this effect:

Bravery Bonus gives you (essentially) +70% base xp the first time you run a quest each life provided the first run is on elite. VIPs can open elites directly; everyone else can open up hard if on a second life, or elite if on a third life.

This means a lot of people have taken to running every quest once each life. Adds some variety and gets you enough xp to hit 20, more or less.

Another change is the new quest xp ransack system, which rapidly reduces the xp you get from repeating a quest you just ran. Instead of window farming Shadow Crypt nnnnnnnnnhe, the second time you run it will be -20% penalty, -40% the third time, etc... up to a maximum penalty of -80%. All quest ransack penalties expire 50% every 18 hours. So if you bring it down to -80% (the max), tomorrow it'll be up to -30%, the next day it'll give the full 100%.

Taken together with the bravery bonus, you could then run each quest once on elite, plus each day go back and rerun a nice xp quest like Shadow Crypt or VON3. You can get a couple days worth out of em, at least, before you're too far overlevel.

[Seikojin]

This is Argo, help is not in our vocabulary

LOL, so I heard.

General chat in Marketplace or /advice channel not enough for you?

It is only per instance, so if you are in a quest, /advice would be limited to there. The /joinchannel channels are separate and can be used by everyone, everywhere.

[noble_pirate]

It is only per instance, so if you are in a quest, /advice would be limited to there. The /joinchannel channels are separate and can be used by everyone, everywhere.

Need answer that you too lazy to search in ddowiki yourself? Go market after quest and ask.. Ask in your guild chat.. If question is too complicated - ask in friendly elite channels (this is where you can trust level of people's knowledge - not from random ppl in market\advice)

And nobody in their right mind will add one more useless channel (just to answer often stupid questions from randoms) into their overloaded chat panels.

[ThatOneGuyRightThere]

Everything looks about right but there are still a couple of easy going "in it for fun" people i've found.

[TheLegendOfAra]

Everything looks about right but there are still a couple of easy going "in it for fun" people i've found.

I think most people on the server fit this category. But a vet, is a vet, is a vet. It's hard to go at a newer players pace regardless of player mentality when you know the quest as well as most vets do. The aspect of "run around the map lost trying to figure out where to go", or "how to solve this puzzle" is lost because we already know. So regardless of the fact that we, as a vet, may not be zerging and just running a quest for fun we're still miles ahead of a group of first timers.

As an example I regularly run with a group of friends who actively muck about in quests, doing whatever they want, some piking, trying to get each other killed, getting red alert just to see who can handle it, etc... We're not zerging by any means compared to the people who do the quest in 2-5 minutes(let's say a quest like matador village, whatever it's called) on a max XP/min tr run. but we still finish in 10-15 minutes. Which is half the time of your average group of noobs.

A lot of us aren't actively trying to zerg anything, but once you know the quest, how to get through it, even if you do all the optionals it won't take you as long as a group of newer players because they stop to figure out mechanics for the first time. They stop in that one room in Tear of Dhakan and kill all the respawning mobs for 10 minutes before they realize they never stop spawning. They wipe trying to kill Whisperdoom in Tangleroot, and we ignore it. See where I'm going?

[arkonas]

Hey guys,

I haven't posted anything on the forums for years, nor have I played a single second of DDO for a long time. Lets call it 7-8 years. Thinking about returning. Wondering what the state of the game is today. I know some things are different its no longer a sub, there are a bunch of new classes, and the level cap is way higher then the 14ish or whatever it was when I last played but tell me about the game. Are people still playing? Will I be able to find groups? Is it still a zerg fest to see how fast you can level up, ignoring every quest and side squest/optional that doesn't give out the max xp per minute played? Is anyone still around like, oh I don't know, the only person I can think of is Kistilan? What are your thoughts on the game? Still fun to play? What's the new thing going around. In my day it was clerics and BB's or Sorc and stacking FW's etc? Any thing you feel like sharing would be appreciated.

Thanks,
terascque

people still are playing and sometimes groups can be rough but honestly depending on the type of player you are. finding a guild isn't that hard either. some guilds are more forgiving then others. some are straight to the point but still nice. my playstyle varies compared to other players. i hate stupid zerging. it leads to dumb deaths and just following one person doing all the work. that isn't what i call fun. just boring.

my style i prefer is efficient fast moving groups. everyone gets to do something and moving at a fast pace. you don't see people getting left behind or people getting to do stuff. sometimes i get a wild hair up my butt i want to do ops. either i solo it or some come with me while others continue on. this allows us all to get something out of it.

right now there are varies builds out there are fun, but honestly it depends on what you enjoy really. we can tell you a build, but it might not be for you. some might also require a lot of work to get too honestly. some want to be their own or just copycat to feel wanted. who knows. i prefer my own builds. as for changes to the game. there are too many. ddowiki is your best help there to get refreshed on it. Or just simply come back and jump right in. people usually do quests they feel comfortable in, but that doesn't mean the other quests don't see play either. your best bet is to start a group and just head to the quest. don't wait for it to fill because you might be disappointed. Sometimes it will fill right up or you only get one person. it always changes.

Well to start +3 Wounding of Puncturing Rapier wouldn't be your end-game weapon anymore :-D

Welcome back.

I'm returning from a break as well so I'll leave it to others to really answer.

welcome back both of you.