Vip - rip

[Chi_Ryu]

I'm sorry but this just sounds funny.

How many tries do the hard ones take you?

Took me at least a half dozen attempts tp complete Hold for Reinforcements Elite at level solo-with-Cleric-hire back in the day, and I've wiped as part of a full group during In The Flesh Elite at level on more than one occasion.

I've also failed The Cannith Crystal multiple times in a row when trying it Elite with no hire pre-Champions - often quite literally to a single hit crit destroying the crystal (you get a slightly different fail message when this happens). I have seen this happen on multiple occasions.

When playing Nethack it could quite easily take me 20 attempts to complete the game. But then again, that's actually a quite hard game.

Point is not my rubbishness at the game, but instead that if I can complete it with a no weapons no items first life Rogue, it is not impossible for newcomers to do the same. it just needs a bit of thought and - shock, horror - tactics.

[viktorserak]

I'm a returner. You'll easily recognize me as my toon actually is named "Returner" (on Wayfinder, 1st life to get in again, Rogue/Wiz planned) and performing as bad as you guys at Turbine probably bet on?! When I left, quests on Khorthos were easy, almost all even on Elite, except the one where to keep the npc alive. All fine, but now I fail at the "defeat the chrystal" quest all the time (lol? w.t.f.?), because on every attempt two champions spawn and kill me and my hire with one hit instantly. I do not know what the deeper sense of this gameplay design decision was? If I was Turbine, I'd probably say: well, we know we made this game - but we don't want you to be vip (because DDO is dead) - and if you dare anyway, we simply kill you. Is this your very intention? If not, then this clearly is a bug (I wonder why it not had been mentioned already) that has to be removed now.

Edit:
I mean, what is the incentive nowadays to become a VIP? Getting all the content but getting ripped in the first elite quest? No, definitely not. Please, take a little more time to think about your decisions - or explain the hyper-10-times-reincarnated-it's-still-a-challenge difficulty increase! Or should I move DDO directly into the desktop-basket, should I uninstall, is this your intention? I want an answer, please.

Havent read the entire thread, just the first page - so if this was said alrdy, then just add my voice to the pile:

You are on the arguably WEAKEST first level class (combat wise) on your FIRST life, propably with maxed int and dumped strenght, so either doing very poor meele damage or using inferior ranged damage (inferior on level one), having no ship buffs and you are having problems SOLOING an ELITE quest 2 levels above you in an MMO..... and you are raging because of that.

If this is a troll post, then GJ - you sound sincere.

If not, well........ ............. ............ ............. ............... ................. ................. Group or lower difficulty or try several times and hope?

[the_one_dwarfforged]

I'm sorry but this just sounds funny.

How many tries do the hard ones take you?

and this sounds sad.

how many tries before you give up on something? 1? 3?

when i was a kid our school motto was perseverance baby.

[Keladon]

This is one quest, and one of the shortest in the game. If you fail just restart.

You can probably fail this three times and still complete it faster than Heyton's Rest.

That's a horrible way to justify that and I'm sure I don't have to tell you why.

You keep talking about these one shot problems like it happens all the time

I have already mentioned multiple times that it doesn't happen all the time.
Just because I 'sometimes' get stuck in the scenery or fall through the floor, does that suddenly make it ok? It's only a problem when it happens often?

[phillymiket]

It doesn't hurt the new player because the new player does not set the expectation that elite should be auto complete with a 0% fail rate, and thus will choose one of the other three settings while learning the game. That's the expectation of players that have been around a while, not new players.

Nope.
A new player would simply expect a game to make sense and be fun.
If it doesn't make sense and isn't fun for them they won't keep playing.
99% of new players aren't going to come to the forums for solutions, they don't even know we are here.

I totally understand the idea of making Elite difficult and support it.
I'm even fine with this halfazzed Champion 'solution' to game balance, even though it solves nothing.

But the starter area is nonsensical right now.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I just picture a person joining DDO and thinking this:

"Why is that spider wearing a crown? Why is the spider harder to kill than the Boss with the special name?
Why does the weapon I was given to fight these monsters do 0 damage to this guy?
Oh no! Another crown!....wait... Now why is this crown guy so easy to kill when the last one was super hard?
Why does the NCP have a crown? Why does the corpse have a crown? the corpse?!?
Who are these crowns anyway? Is it a 'cultist' thing?
Why is the Normal and below setting in this game so stupidly easy and the Hard and above setting so much harder?
Meh, this game is stupid."

Whether you can or can't protect the crystal, whether you are or aren't getting one-shot, isn't really even the big issue.
Whether a new person can or can't complete Hard or Elite - or if they even should be able to complete - is not even the big issue.
The point is they will be trying Hard and Elite and when they do we start to look like fools.

It's probably proper that our starter area is now nonsensical, disorganized, random, and full of bugs.
That kind of represents the game as a whole, I guess.

Me? I say lets put on our 'dress up' face for Korthos and pretend this game isn't becoming a disaster of crippling bugs and sucker some of these fools into dropping some $$$ so I can play DDO a little while longer before we collapse under the weight of one bad decision after another.

But.. i guess the important thing is that we put our foot down and finally make a stand - after 4 full years of Elite as the Normal - and Korthos is the place to make that stand!

And so there we are...
Champions aren't changing, so at this point I'm just spinning my wheels here and so is anyone else in this thread.

Past Dev team performance says Champions stays in it's current form for a long long time until....
...some new Devs come along with conflicting ideas that they push through anyway and we have, i dunno, a Champion who get buffs from a 'tree buff system' or something that just adds another layer of broke on top of the game without fixing whats wrong.

SOOOO much better than going back through the quests and rebalancing the game in the proper way that it needed.

/defeatism off

[slarden]

You keep talking about these one shot problems like it happens all the time. I still haven't been one shotted by a Champion yet and nobody in my pug groups have said they were just one shotted. NPCs will get their boost I'm sure soon enough, but I would expect an update from the devs after New Years.

I still say you are spending too much on the game if the only VIP perk you care about is elite unlock when you can get one for free in game.

He wasn't pretending like it happened all the time but you are pretending that it never happens. Most of the one shots I've seen are melee crits from a combination of complete fortification bypass and damage boosts. I didn't see it at Korthos though - only in EE level 26+ quests.

[Kylstrem]

Yeah, I did so and after the third attempt with the barb and hiding behind the chrystal, constantly attacking everything - mostly the air, and then the attacking npcs - I finally completed the quest. There should be an ingame tutorial for new players regarding hires and champions.

Or new players shouldn't attempt an Elite quest right off the boat, under-levelled and undergeared.

There are three other difficulty levels, maybe one of them will work for you... come back to elite when you have better gear.

Not sure why this thread went on so long when this is the obvious answer.

[FestusHood]

Point is not my rubbishness at the game, but instead that if I can complete it with a no weapons no items first life Rogue, it is not impossible for newcomers to do the same. it just needs a bit of thought and - shock, horror - tactics.

Wasn't trying to say anything about your playing ability, only at your assessment that something you fail at 66% of the time isn't hard.

Assuming you were actually using thought and tactics on all three tries, failing two out of three suggests that there is an uncomfortably high luck factor involved. Too high for a game that doesn't involve a deck of cards.

A game is supposed to have a learning curve. The higher level quests were always harder than the lower ones regardless of difficulty setting. I'm personally not sure it's a good idea to try to make the entire game play at the same level of challenge. If the newest, hardest content has a significant fail rate that's one thing. If the absolutely most base quests in the game have the same fail rate, that's a problem.

I"ve seen lots of people say they are loving dying in quests and having them take three times as long as they did before. My only question is, how long will that enthusiasm last?

[walkin_dude]

Got it. I hided behind the chrystal in the edge and with the barb hire. man, gameplay changed pretty fundamental the last year. Nevertheless - where is the memo for the vips, the returners, the >newbies< ? Or just link to this thread, then everything is ok? lol.

There's always "try different stuff till something works"

[bartharok]

That's a horrible way to justify that and I'm sure I don't have to tell you why.



I have already mentioned multiple times that it doesn't happen all the time.
Just because I 'sometimes' get stuck in the scenery or fall through the floor, does that suddenly make it ok? It's only a problem when it happens often?

If some mechanic makes you fail sometimes, its not the end of the world. Just retry. Unless coping with random failure is not something you can handle, in which case you have a problem.

[Braegan]

Wasn't trying to say anything about your playing ability, only at your assessment that something you fail at 66% of the time isn't hard.

Assuming you were actually using thought and tactics on all three tries, failing two out of three suggests that there is an uncomfortably high luck factor involved. Too high for a game that doesn't involve a deck of cards.

A game is supposed to have a learning curve. The higher level quests were always harder than the lower ones regardless of difficulty setting. I'm personally not sure it's a good idea to try to make the entire game play at the same level of challenge. If the newest, hardest content has a significant fail rate that's one thing. If the absolutely most base quests in the game have the same fail rate, that's a problem.

I"ve seen lots of people say they are loving dying in quests and having them take three times as long as they did before. My only question is, how long will that enthusiasm last?

Well both the person you quoted and myself did the quest solo on elite with a hire. Sure luck may have gotten a couple runs, but consider how different the out come would have been with even one or two live players. Elite should not be catered around soloing. It shouldn't be impossible to solo, either. If folks were soloing normal or casual and getting stomped, that would be an issue. If groups are consistently getting stomped on hard and elite, that too would be an issue. A solo player getting stomped once in a bit on elite is not an issue.

[Keladon]

If some mechanic makes you fail sometimes, its not the end of the world. Just retry. Unless coping with random failure is not something you can handle, in which case you have a problem.

Yup, you don't get it.

[bartharok]

Yup, you don't get it.

Thats because i dont want to tear my hair out because of something in a game.

[Keladon]

Thats because i dont want to tear my hair out because of something in a game.

Oh, a bug.. I don't care if I failed because of a bug.. I can just retry.
Oh, a broken mechanic, I don't care if I failed because of a broken mechanic.. I can just retry.
I don't care if they don't fix bugs or broken mechanics, it's just a game.

See what I'm getting at here?

You might not care about those things, but I do care that they're stacking bug upon bugs and broken systems ontop of other broken systems.
I like this game, I would love to see more people play this game and I would love for this game to still be here in a few years.

You don't care I guess, it's just a game.

[bartharok]

Oh, a bug.. I don't care if I failed because of a bug.. I can just retry.
Oh, a broken mechanic, I don't care if I failed because of a broken mechanic.. I can just retry.
I don't care if they don't fix bugs or broken mechanics, it's just a game.

See what I'm getting at here?

You might not care about those things, but I do care that they're stacking bug upon bugs and broken systems ontop of other broken systems.
I like this game, I would love to see more people play this game and I would love for this game to still be here in a few years.

You don't care I guess, it's just a game.

I care, i just dont worry about things as much. The entire problem for you is that you get gray hairs because of the bugs.

[Keladon]

I care, i just dont worry about things as much. The entire problem for you is that you get gray hairs because of the bugs.

edit: nvm, just read through some of your posts. You're never going to get it.

Some people are passionate about things, other people.. aren't.
I would love to not care about this game, where it is heading, if the bugs will ever get fixed, but the moment I'm no longer passionate about it, I'll probably stop playing.

[Seikojin]

Nope.
A new player would simply expect a game to make sense and be fun.
If it doesn't make sense and isn't fun for them they won't keep playing.
99% of new players aren't going to come to the forums for solutions, they don't even know we are here.

I totally understand the idea of making Elite difficult and support it.
I'm even fine with this halfazzed Champion 'solution' to game balance, even though it solves nothing.

But the starter area is nonsensical right now.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I just picture a person joining DDO and thinking this:

"Why is that spider wearing a crown? Why is the spider harder to kill than the Boss with the special name?
Why does the weapon I was given to fight these monsters do 0 damage to this guy?
Oh no! Another crown!....wait... Now why is this crown guy so easy to kill when the last one was super hard?
Why does the NCP have a crown? Why does the corpse have a crown? the corpse?!?
Who are these crowns anyway? Is it a 'cultist' thing?
Why is the Normal and below setting in this game so stupidly easy and the Hard and above setting so much harder?
Meh, this game is stupid."

Whether you can or can't protect the crystal, whether you are or aren't getting one-shot, isn't really even the big issue.
Whether a new person can or can't complete Hard or Elite - or if they even should be able to complete - is not even the big issue.
The point is they will be trying Hard and Elite and when they do we start to look like fools.

It's probably proper that our starter area is now nonsensical, disorganized, random, and full of bugs.
That kind of represents the game as a whole, I guess.

Me? I say lets put our 'dress up' face on for Korthos and pretend this game isn't becoming a disaster of crippling bugs and sucker some of these fools into dropping some $$$ so I can play DDO a little while longer before we collapse under the weight of one bad decision after another.

But.. i guess the important thing is that we put our foot down and finally make a stand - after 4 full years of Elite as the Normal - and Korthos is the place to make that stand!

And so there we are...
Champions aren't changing, so at this point I'm just spinning my wheels here and so is anyone else in this thread.

Past Dev team performance says Champions stays in it's current form for a long long time until....
...some new Devs come along with conflicting ideas that they push through anyway and we have, i dunno, a Champion who get buffs from a 'tree buff system' or something that just adds another layer of broke on top of the game without fixing whats wrong.

SOOOO much better than going back through the quests and rebalancing the game in the proper way that it needed.

/defeatism off

Huh, I see new players doing this:
Goes to quest door.
*Oh there are difficulties! Neat! I can't choose hard or elite. Makes sense. Have to do normal first.*
Does normal.
*I will try that on hard. It was fun. Hey, some of these spiders have crowns! OUCH! Now I know why!* run, run run... *man that spider was tough! I better ask someone what is up with that. /say what is up with the crown on spiders?*
**LOL Nub! What are you a newb?! Champions foo!**
*Wow, what a jerk. Ok, champions. Must mean they are harder than normal monsters. Well at least I didn't see any on normal. Oh no, more champions!* Dies *Well, guess I will do stuff on normal. Maybe a group of people will be better against them instead of me alone* Looks around the UI for a bit, finds a way to post an lfm, and gets a few other new players.
*Hey guys, on hard there are these crowned monsters called champions. They are tougher than normal. So be careful. Let's try this on Hard. Champions killed me alone.*
Group goes in, completes the quest, but had some difficulties.
*Wow, that was tough, but look at the exp we got! No wonder everyone is looking for Elite difficulties! Can someone open elite all the time? If not, lets rush through normal and see what hard and elite is like!*

New players usually have no insight into any mechanic of the game. And since the game is advertised as free everywhere and does not try to hook you in with payment information and subbing right away... Most new players will graduate themselves to harder difficulties and experience champions and harder challenges in a natural fashion.

A new player demanding elite is asking for pain.

[Helium4]

Or new players shouldn't attempt an Elite quest right off the boat, under-levelled and undergeared.

There are three other difficulty levels, maybe one of them will work for you... come back to elite when you have better gear.

Not sure why this thread went on so long when this is the obvious answer.

Exactly! But your answer is too simple, not exciting, too short, too logic, too ... obvious.

[Chai]

Wasn't trying to say anything about your playing ability, only at your assessment that something you fail at 66% of the time isn't hard.

Assuming you were actually using thought and tactics on all three tries, failing two out of three suggests that there is an uncomfortably high luck factor involved. Too high for a game that doesn't involve a deck of cards.

A game is supposed to have a learning curve. The higher level quests were always harder than the lower ones regardless of difficulty setting. I'm personally not sure it's a good idea to try to make the entire game play at the same level of challenge. If the newest, hardest content has a significant fail rate that's one thing. If the absolutely most base quests in the game have the same fail rate, that's a problem.

I"ve seen lots of people say they are loving dying in quests and having them take three times as long as they did before. My only question is, how long will that enthusiasm last?

That's not quite what they are saying. What they are saying is they are loving the possibility of failure which actually exists now. It will last a very long time, because the minute that enthusiasm regarding the possibility of failure fades away, they will choose a different difficulty setting which the can handedly defeat blindfolded and grind XP mindlessly once again.

The learning curve exists now more than it did before. People can learn on lower difficulty settings, and when they feel up to it, run higher difficulty settings.

[bartharok]

edit: nvm, just read through some of your posts. You're never going to get it.

Some people are passionate about things, other people.. aren't.
I would love to not care about this game, where it is heading, if the bugs will ever get fixed, but the moment I'm no longer passionate about it, I'll probably stop playing.

Youre right, ill probably never understand why people wish to change the world, when adapting is less painful. Not a question of passion, i try to change things that are in my reach, other stuff i just tolerate.

Its like dealing with pain. You can either let it incapacitate you, or try to work through it. A matter of personality.