Update 23 Story Preview (w/ Vol Concept Art!)

[Flavilandile]

Shame this is content I will probably never see since I have still not managed to flag for the Abbot raid after multiple lives of running the quests and hitting up the Rares in the Explorer.

As Cordovan said, the flagging is not the same.

Basically, you have the old annoying random flagging for the Heroic Abbot, and there's a new standard flagging by running the flagging quests for the new Epic raid.

[CaptainSpacePony]

I've been playing for 5 years now and have never ran the Abbot raid. Not because I didn't want to, I really do, but because it is so hard to flag for and there are rarely lfm's up for it. It would be really nice to run this raid before the update so that I can experience it but out of 16 toons that I play with only 1 is flagged and he's in epic levels now so I really doubt there will be an lfm within his level range if there is an lfm at all.

I agree that Abbot flagging is more cumbersome than most, but it's not hard to do and is worth a boat-load of xp at lvl. The most time consuming aspect is getting sigil pieces, and if you spread that across multiple lives, it's painless.

Anyhoo--I agree, simplification of flagging would be good, just wanted to argue a minute about how hard the flagging is.

[LrdSlvrhnd]

There are places where a priestess has two slaves readily available for sacrifice, but even (smartly) freeing them beforehand does not prevent her from sacrificing them.

I've never seen a priestess sacrifice freed slaves - or even unfreed slaves with no slavemaster around.

But other than that, I agree about the mechanics. Necros are great when you're farming KF slayers, but other than that hyper annoying. Especially the way they raise zombies while controlled - dancing, stunned, held, Siren Songed, whatever. *That's* the mechanic that bugs me.

[XodousRoC]

I've never seen a priestess sacrifice freed slaves - or even unfreed slaves with no slavemaster around.

But other than that, I agree about the mechanics. Necros are great when you're farming KF slayers, but other than that hyper annoying. Especially the way they raise zombies while controlled - dancing, stunned, held, Siren Songed, whatever. *That's* the mechanic that bugs me.

Oh, it happens. I've freed the slaves, cleared all the enemy rabble, and then went to work on a priestess in Defend Estar. I beat her down good until she sacrificed a freed slave....twice. I had two of them running around, helping me out...and then the poor freed souls were sacrificed for the priestess' renewed good health. It was VERY annoying. I now just kill the slaves first, then the trash, then her. It's a much cleaner fight that way.

[bsquishwizzy]

Greetings! We're hard at work getting Update 23 ready, and wanted to take a minute to give you a sneak peek at a bit of the story line you'll encounter when entering the Epic Orchard of the Macabre...

As you may know, we're bringing a new story to the Orchard that touches on the events you've experienced in the Heroic version of this area, but also expands that story to include a famous resident of Eberron: Lady Vol! Here is a bit of concept art put together as we began work on Update 23, to give you some idea of who you'll be dealing with in the new raid:

Years after the Black Abbot’s defeat, the Emerald Claw have returned to the Orchard of the Macabre. They arrived with large number of cultists and priests of the Blood of Vol. Many of the Black Abbot’s minions are also returning to the Orchard, and this time, they seem to be working together with the Emerald Claw. Though the Silver Flame are alarmed by these events, their attention is divided by an outbreak of lycanthropy in the area.

At the Temple of Vol, the High Priest taunts to the players that all is going according to Vol’s plan, and that they were merely pawns when they defeated the Abbot before...


We look forward to you seeing more of Vol and the Epic Orchard of the Macabre. We'll be previewing this new content in the coming weeks on Lamannia, and would love to read your feedback about it on the Lamannia forums. Thanks!
- PurpleFooz

She looks too much like Lloth. Change the crown, make her body more skeletal. She's an evil lich. She shouldn't be considered "buxom." Think Vogue supermodel with a wicked skin condition...

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Spellwards and rednamed trash are still by far my biggest pet peeves that are still being used.

Poison Spell wards that Neutralize Poison immunity does not protect against is my biggest pet peeve.



Also Evil spell wards that do way more damage than any other type. (and apparently, unlike other types cannot be evaded...)

I realize that my choice to play good aligned characters is the reason.... but... why are good aligned characters always punished in DDO?



Other poison traps have the same issue with Neutralize Poison.
As well as old Posion traps that were clearly natural poisons, are not being treated as such my class immunities.






Of course I could solve all of these problems by playing Neutral aligned War(Blade) Forged like everyone else.....

[poltt48]

Guess people where right to be worried about loots. We got a whole 18 loots in total. 6 from raid 3 from each of 4 quests and that is all. Makes the raid useless after first 20 runs. The explorer drops nothing. My god turbine what the hell happened you cannot think up 25-30 loots really this is just so stupid.

[FranOhmsford]

She looks too much like Lloth. Change the crown, make her body more skeletal. She's an evil lich. She shouldn't be considered "buxom." Think Vogue supermodel with a wicked skin condition...

This ^ OMG This!

[the_one_dwarfforged]

disappointed by the noobification of the flagging.

abbot is the number one most bada$$ raid in the game, because its intimidating, requires control over power (love seeing lvl 28s who i dont like die in there, number one reason to pug it), has puzzles that are static but never go exactly the same twice (not just a matter of pull this push that go here and step on that button, there is lots of room for pilot error and actual skill is a valued commodity regardless of build), and has one tough end boss.

the casual flagging is discouraging as far as vol raid living up to abbots greatness.

[Alistina]

Just to say it: Flagging for the Epic raid will be much more straightforward than the heroic flagging, and heroic flagging is not necessary to run the epic content.

So does this mean the heroic flagging is not going to change? Please o please, change it! Its not too late yet!

[Ausdoerrt]

They could do us a solid and change the heroic mechanic to make Abbott more accessible. This would, perhaps, increase interest/awareness for the heroic side. It has to be the most unique and fun raid I've run. There is always the risk of failure, but the rewards are still very good at-level for TR lives. I honestly think the sigil should be more of a turn-in for unique items (a la taps/shields/tomes), and the flagging mechanic should be simply completing the flags.

They should definitely do this, more people will run the heroic raid. I mean, on current life, I ran the flagging quests about 5 times each in full or near-full groups, and I STILL didn't have the one last random sigil piece. If you run into a streak of bad luck, it's so easy to outlevel Litany...

So once again: ditch the sigil, count the flags.

Just to say it: Flagging for the Epic raid will be much more straightforward than the heroic flagging, and heroic flagging is not necessary to run the epic content.

Why not also make heroic flagging more accessible?

[XodousRoC]

They should definitely do this, more people will run the heroic raid. I mean, on current life, I ran the flagging quests about 5 times each in full or near-full groups, and I STILL didn't have the one last random sigil piece. If you run into a streak of bad luck, it's so easy to outlevel Litany...

So once again: ditch the sigil, count the flags.




Why not also make heroic flagging more accessible?

Yeah, my main spent lots of time out in the Orchard (making regular passes through up to level 20), and still wasn't able to complete the sigil until life 5. I'm very sorry, but it shouldn't take 5 lives to flag a raid. The raid is a blast, and even capped toons can die in there. It's the most unique and engaging raid in the game. Making it unavailable to the majority of the player base is doing neither the raid nor said base justice.

[FranOhmsford]

So does this mean the heroic flagging is not going to change? Please o please, change it! Its not too late yet!

Cordovan's statement makes NO sense!

Making the Epic Raid {End-Game supposedly} quick and easy to enter while keeping the Heroic Flagging so convoluted will just mean no-one EVER running the Heroic Raid again!!!

It should be done the other way round - Transfer Sigils to the Epic quests and make Heroic Abbot flaggable just by quest completion!

[Ebondevil]

When you get the blocked message, you are too close. backup and then disable.

I find that from the wrong side of the trap you get Blocked, seems there's two 90 degree arc on oposite sides that works, and the other two 90 Degree arcs get blocked, can be rather annoying in one of the Demonweb quests where there's a trap on a bridge which is blocked unless you're preactically standing in an acid pool trying to disable it

As Cordovan said, the flagging is not the same.

Basically, you have the old annoying random flagging for the Heroic Abbot, and there's a new standard flagging by running the flagging quests for the new Epic raid.

I have this weird thing where I actually like to play the content which precedes it in the storyline before playing any follow-up quests/raids, so as far as I'm concerned my own personal code of conduct pretty much means I do have to run the heroic Raid first. Sucks to be me I guess.

[Angelic-council]

She looks too much like Lloth. Change the crown, make her body more skeletal. She's an evil lich. She shouldn't be considered "buxom." Think Vogue supermodel with a wicked skin condition...

Look closely, she is a gu.... Nvm

[Nodoze]

I find that from the wrong side of the trap you get Blocked, seems there's two 90 degree arc on oposite sides that works, and the other two 90 Degree arcs get blocked, can be rather annoying in one of the Demonweb quests where there's a trap on a bridge which is blocked unless you're preactically standing in an acid pool trying to disable it ...

Yesterday while running Outbreak with a guild-mate we did the upstairs trap room and there were 2 spell wards which I could not get to stop saying they were blocked. I walked all the way around the spell wards and tried at least every 45 degrees and even tried them from multiple distances (including being right up underneath them)... Tried for a long time but finally gave up... It didn't matter that much as I could loot the chest as I have a high Evasion save.

In the end my buddy was a Divine with no Evasion so he Energy Drained one over and over reducing it's CL to zero taking it out of existence...

[Saekee]

Vol looks...eeeevil...and while looking still-vital she also does look...dead/lich-like too. I like.

So far it seems the artist is shying away from making Vol a big busted caricature like Lolth. Now, could you ask them to tone down the bustier so it doesn't look like something from an 80's Madonna concert (again, like Lolth's bustier..so BAD!). I'm reminded of Princes Leia's Metal bikini in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi with this preview concept art.

She looks too much like Lloth. Change the crown, make her body more skeletal. She's an evil lich. She shouldn't be considered "buxom." Think Vogue supermodel with a wicked skin condition...

+1 good comments. She should not be 'sexy' ala the gaze of an adolescent male. Of course, shame on me for my hypocritical avatar while writing this

[MangLord]

Yesterday while running Outbreak with a guild-mate we did the upstairs trap room and there were 2 spell wards which I could not get to stop saying they were blocked. I walked all the way around the spell wards and tried at least every 45 degrees and even tried them from multiple distances (including being right up underneath them)... Tried for a long time but finally gave up... It didn't matter that much as I could loot the chest as I have a high Evasion save.

In the end my buddy was a Divine with no Evasion so he Energy Drained one over and over reducing it's CL to zero taking it out of existence...

You have to stand far away from the ward traps now. In fact, you can disable them from behind walls and closed gates. If you're just out of damage range, it will keep giving you a blocked message. It took me a little while to figure it out, but overall it's better than having to run into the trap to find it.

[MangLord]

Anyone who has farmed Inferno or Ghosts ad nauseum to get that last stupid sigil piece could have used a quick coding QOL fix to do away with the sigil entirely and make Litany flagged upon completing the four Orchard quests, like every other chain in the game. Why would you keep such a clunky game mechanic if you were epifying Orchard anyways? You guys did a good job making 3BC a lot nicer to play, so why not Orchard? I've started to avoid Necropolis even though it gives good XP, just because other quests provide way less grief.

[Leclaire1]

Just to say it: Flagging for the Epic raid will be much more straightforward than the heroic flagging, and heroic flagging is not necessary to run the epic content.

Woah. Please, please don't tell me you're going to revisit this area and not fix the heroic mechanics to make flagging less annoying. One of the great perks of epic gianthold was that they got rid of relic requirements for heroic flagging and made running both raids more efficient. When I first heard of epic Abbott, this was actually what I was most excited about, as I love the raid but can't abide farming for random sigils to flag for it every time. I don't mind running Litany four times, but please throw the sigils into the heart of the sea and may they never return! In doing so, you will open the heroic raid to a large portion of the ddo community that haven't seen it due to the most annoying raid flagging mechanics in history. Please, please get rid of the sigils.