Things we use to do when the game was hard- list

[Cathimon]

I used to play DDO when it was somewhat hard. It never was really hard to begin with, save for a few quest. I remember Elite Dreaming Dark was rather tough a couple years ago. Crucible as well was quite cool. But most of the content wasn't particularly hard.

It's just totally out of control now. Nothing is challenging. No reason to play... You get bored TRing and farming loot that's going to be worthless the update after. Or duped.

[BDog77]

Stand on safe spots to fight certain bosses, and then range them.

[Maxxcore]

Lol, well said. Personally,

-Celebrate every time I leveled up.
-Run things with groups for more than company.
-Wait for buffs
-Talk to the group
-Pay attention to traps.

[Connman]

People used MyDDO to examine people's gear before letting them in the party.

yeah I remember this, putting on all my best gear, stepping into the vale casting every buff hitting all the action boost and a quick ALT-F4 to get the best picture possible on their.

[Enoach]

• Collect every collectable to use turn ins to get potions/wands to quest with (Spent hours in tangleroot with a buddy running the explorer to get the plants near the Quest entrance needing to break group after each run to reset)
• Grab potions from breakables - especially resist/protection ones but any cure is also good.
• Group moved together - Rogue usually out front for traps
• Pass SP potions/wands in chest to the cleric
• Overbuff party members sometimes giving out resists that were not needed for the quest
• Save SP after certain shrines because we will need them all to take down the boss
• Pass loot around to each other in quests because while I can't use that item it is better then what the Fighter is using presently

[Ayseifn]

Getting the paladins and rangers to pass resists, death ward and FoM to save the healers SP.
Heavy picks and mass hold in epics, all crits were automatic when helpless.
Using the traps to kill 90% in WK of mobs and also the WK, traps did serious damage back then.
Going shopping for multiple stacks of enervate/heal/fire shield scrolls before heading off to Epic Chains of Flame.
Torcing up to regen SP(that's coming back again, woot!).
LFM: Crucible elite, need swimmer.
Crying about the fighter looting the caster raid item.
Crying about the caster looting the Madstone boots.
My paladin tank never getting to tank anything, fighters always had higher AC because aura stacked.
Casters soloing epics then opening up the LFM so melees could get some scraps.
Soloing Sins on my rogue, killing everything. Took a while with slow pulls and lots of heal scrolls but was fun.
Sneaking everyone's stone to the end of Bastion then rezzing them for the end fight, devious bonus FTW.

[mudfud]

Ok I'll start.

When the party wiped one toon would stay in while the others ressurected, buffed at airships and came back in fresh.



Since some of you are new or might have forgot this is before flavor toons ruled and everyone could do everything. Before difficulty streaks were so important and they ruined most of the raid gear with too much auction house power creep. When Bloodstones were awed at and most raids upto TOD were run on a regular basis. Before heroic was gimped in favor of epic content making 2/3rds of the game a ghost town. When parties needed a healer and waited forever for one to show up. When soloing and short manning was the exception instead of the norm.

Farmed that silly cave in threnal wilderness thing because it was the easiest thing to do for loot.

[Talish]

When dying meant a loss of experience and possibly negative levels. XP holes were quite common.

[Toro12]

Farming the **** out of WW to get black widow bracers for my monk.

When you were lucky enough to pull a plane Jane +5 weapon so you could actually hit the blackguards in tempest spine.

When being "geared enough" for end game raids with heavy fort , +6 con&primestat item, GFL item , and maybe a plus 2 tome or two.

--------
Ohh and edit ; forgot
"Haste please"

[Atremus]

Solver Needed
Swimmer Needed
Shadow Kiter Needed (later tanking)
Flesh to Stone on Orthons Please
Epic Partycrashers

So many good memories

[Scarence]

Come out of Crucible 2 hours later with everything broken on elite.

[oldkraft2]

Knowing very well that the MyDDO read the equipment from last logout, ....
dressing up for it before log-out in as miserable **** items, armors and weapons as possible :-D

It was a really good bull****ter detector know what I mean

[phillymiket]

When the player -to- monster balance was close enough that people adding both Frost and Icy Burst to Random non-named weapons with a Risia Bug was "game breaking"?

[Ilindith]

I saw the thread title.

Then I saw this.

buffed at airships

Then I laughed.

[valarmorghuliis]

When the game was supposedly much harder 4 years ago I used to farm scrolls in echrono with no worry of dying.

My PM had a no-fail DC for CC and necromancy spells worked very well on all valid targets in epics. I didn't even need to take all the spell pen feats because I could get a no-fail spell pen from just past lifes. I crushed content using an overpowered build just like people do today. I would walk into an epic dungeon, wail, wipe out the entire room and maybe get a scroll. People complained how overpowered PMs were then and they were right.

I used to take out epic trash mobs with my "terror" weapon with no difficulty at all with my heal spec'd cleric in between heals. It didn't matter that I was doing like 25 damage - I just had to wait for the proc to go off. I used to watch people take down the toughest bosses in the game with their epic sword of shadow as if they were in the harbor.

No build I've had since U14 has been as dominant as that PM build was back in 2011 - none. There were overpowered builds before bard, paladin and barbarian buffs and guess what. Those OP builds are still better than any of the new bard, paladin and barbarian builds.

I like that everyone has a different time period in mind for "when the game was harder" you think of post u9 or 10 I think of mod9-u9 and Impaqt thinks of ye olden days (I only caught the tail end of permanent afflictions).

I honestly feel like a threshold was crossed just before the time period you are talking about with u9. With the removal of all the epic ward immunities and auto crit we were suddenly left with options other than masshold + dreamspitter or blade barrier kiting that didn't really require teamwork and tactics of the whole party. That to me seemed like one of the initial steps that set us down this road to "everyone must be able to solo this on ee and get all of the loots as completed items or it's just not fair!!!111one!!" that we're still merrily skipping along today.

[nibel]

Being able to easily build a stable of alts that could contribute an equal portion to a Raid.

If I leveled a 1st life caster back then, gave them a Superior Potency VI item and a single Green Steel and the rest whatever other trash gear I randomly pulled, I felt I was on par and not sub-standard. I was a "good" toon back then.

That same character today would be hopelessly, hilariously outgunned by the rest of the party.

Oh, please, this. This is the single aspect of the game I miss the most. Alts in DDO were not only needed, but encouraged.

Then we got Epic Destinies, and no one want to run with a first life character with no twists.

[WillieC]

Could only use a shrine once.
Having to run up the ramps in the marketplace.
All 28pt builds.
Level cap 10.
Xorian Cipher over and over until we figured it out.
The tutorial quests were in East part of the Harbor.
Groups were a must.

Fun Times...

I played a bit in 2010 and did the Elite/Hard/Normal stuff then my computer died.
Playing again now and it's really a different game. So far I'm having fun but sooooooo much different!

Will

[Ayseifn]

I saw the thread title.

Then I saw this.



Then I laughed.

But the ship buff removed half the re entry penalty. :/

Those old buffs I mostly never bothered with, 1 hour and they ticked away while chilling in town. Just grab the xp buff and you'll be fine, save the rest for raids so you don't have to ask for resists unless it was an easy raid in which case why bother.

[Braegan]

Mmm so much nostalgia reading this thread, ty.

I remember getting to a 40 AC at level 10. It was such a pinnacle and was about the highest you could get at the time. Sword and Board Human fighter, le rawr!

[SirValentine]

you played the game because it was fun.

N/N/N/N/N/N/N/H/E

I love that you put those 2 together back-to-back. Because grinding the same quest over and over and over was so fun.