U24 Quest Feedback - Mask of Deception

[Seikojin]

Summary:
To sneak or not to sneak, that is the question. Answer it in this short romp through some nasty cult of the dragon followers.

The Good:
The choices to be stealthy or not are nice. A nice mix of casters, ranged, and melee.

The Bad:
The mobs are in clusters, notice you immediately, and nameds have leashes that are short, making kiting difficult.

The Ugly:
No named loot?

Conclusion:
It is a fun little quest. I like how it plays out, however it would be nice if it was longer by default. Maybe some more floors where you need to go through, perhaps a puzzle or two to make things slower, and more traps. Loved the ones in here, but they did not even hit me or evoke rolls to save.

Also the mobs were fairly weak and the exp is very low for this quest. I figured on EE, this would give at least 25k base. Also could use more chests on hard and elite at the end.

Spoiler alert: Here are links to existing topics on u24quests:
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...uests-Feedback
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...906-U24-Quests

[Seikojin]

SPOILERS!

Bugs:
Little to no spoken dialog.

No music.

The enemies in the main base are either on you immediately or ignore you completely. Even after the alarm goes off.

The traps after the alarm goes off do nothing.

The boss at the end has a short leash and runs to its end on his own, making managing his HP difficult.

Not difficult to bypass most challenge in the quest.

No ranged on ramparts.

[FranOhmsford]

Summary:
To sneak or not to sneak, that is the question. Answer it in this short romp through some nasty cult of the dragon followers.

The Good:
The choices to be stealthy or not are nice. A nice mix of casters, ranged, and melee.

The Bad:
The mobs are in clusters, notice you immediately, and nameds have leashes that are short, making kiting difficult.

So...Is the Sneak Choice only going to be available to max Hide/MS Build Rogues with Invis and Pass Without Trace Scrolls?

And then only if Soloing....As the Group has to make it to the end for the chest anyway?

[Seikojin]

So...Is the Sneak Choice only going to be available to max Hide/MS Build Rogues with Invis and Pass Without Trace Scrolls?

And then only if Soloing....As the Group has to make it to the end for the chest anyway?

Well I labeled it as a bad because it seemed buggy. I wasn't playing a stealth character and plan on trying them all with that soonish.

However I would hope a min maxed stealth character would not be seen in EE. However the average (at level gear, at level skill distribution, some boosting and past lives and abilities for stealth) should be pretty impossible to detect and stealth should have no problems on en or EH, but find some resistance in EE (tack up all the things that allow stealth and say min maxed as having them all. That would walk past no problems on EE. The second character would have 80% of the options compared to min max, and should have 80% success in stealthing on ee).

[NoWorries]

So...Is the Sneak Choice only going to be available to max Hide/MS Build Rogues with Invis and Pass Without Trace Scrolls?

And then only if Soloing....As the Group has to make it to the end for the chest anyway?

The initial sneaking option is actually wearing a mask to disguise yourself as one of them. Any character type can do this.

[Seikojin]

The initial sneaking option is actually wearing a mask to disguise yourself as one of them. Any character type can do this.

I didn't get a mask in the beginning and didn't have dialog options to non-combat my way to a mask.

[Scrabbler]

I didn't get a mask in the beginning and didn't have dialog options to non-combat my way to a mask.

Sneaking into the base after murdering two guys in a forest is still sneaking into the base.

And then only if Soloing....As the Group has to make it to the end for the chest anyway?

1. The group needs to make it to the beginning for the chest.
2. One guy can sneak in and get more masks from the storage room, to bring out for the others.

[FuzzyDuck81]

The initial sneaking option is actually wearing a mask to disguise yourself as one of them. Any character type can do this.

So the whole thing of the stormhorns red dragon encounter recognising red dragon armour *was* a basically a tech test for later content...? Totally called it!

[Seikojin]

Sneaking into the base after murdering two guys in a forest is still sneaking into the base.


1. The group needs to make it to the beginning for the chest.
2. One guy can sneak in and get more masks from the storage room, to bring out for the others.

True, however I didn't see a mask to use nor could I get one from their bodies, flesh or otherwise. And that is what I was expecting given the dialog and the dev feedback.

Here is your feedback from round 2:
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...uests-feedback

[Scrabbler]

True, however I didn't see a mask to use nor could I get one from their bodies

Well I don't know how you could manage to kill them without receiving a mask. Did you look carefully in inventory?

[LevelJ]

When I ran the quest, the mask(s) appear in your inventory upon killing the guys. Also, when I first ran the quest (on the first build) I did actually pull a named item...the orb. Not sure if it was intended, but seemed to make some sense.


-Jayron

[Seikojin]

Well I don't know how you could manage to kill them without receiving a mask. Did you look carefully in inventory?

I don't remember, but I will check.

When I ran the quest, the mask(s) appear in your inventory upon killing the guys. Also, when I first ran the quest (on the first build) I did actually pull a named item...the orb. Not sure if it was intended, but seemed to make some sense.


-Jayron

And if that is the case, normally there is a dialog that says you acquire a mask. And I know I didn't see that.

[RapkintheRanger]

I wish there was a way to sneak out...

i made it out, a door opened, i killed the people and i ran to the entrance... but had to go back to kill a boss to complete the quest. why not jsut change the querst to go in and assassinate the boss?

[axel15810]

The Pros -

- Sneaking with the mask mechanic is fun. Allows classes who normally can't or don't do quests by stealth to experience it.

The Cons -

- I find the quest much too easy for a level 30 quest. The first time I ever stepped into this quest I ran it on EH on a level 25 character, 5 levels underlevel. I aggro-ed hordes of mobs up to red alert, ran through the traps like they were nothing and was never in much danger of dying. I will admit I have yet to try it on EE...so I'll reserve some judgement until I do that.

- No reason to run it outside of the few builds who want the Orb. I imagine most will run this one time for Harper favor and then never run it again.