Vip - rip

[Chi_Ryu]

Taking and average of over 300 normal rats to kill one champion Carrion Eater isn't the sort of entertainment I'm interested in spending my money on.

This is why the Good Lord invented the Cacophonic Verge wand from The Red Fens (or the Blasting Rod from the Attack on Stormreach chain).

Tomb of the Tormented has always been a broken and unenjoyable quest without first killing the Carrion Eaters, this just exemplifies it even more.

[Gremmlynn]

Well give the rats some assistance! There are both spells and items you can use to stun or distract the mobs through the floor to help your rats defeat or evade them. If you're determined to do it via "Rattrition," that's on you - Form a prepared group, solo prepared, or accept that the simplest & easiest way (attrition) is also the slowest.

From the way the devs seem to remove every method to do so as soon as they find out and find the time, I'm under the impression that none of those methods is WAI and all should be considered exploits. So, your advice is to exploit to work around changes that make running a quest as intended frustrating/annoying/boring (pick one).

It's always easier to say those things when you're not the one who has to:
A) Spend the money to make the money.
B) Answer to anyone about things like prospective/projected ROI on the things you want done, or answer to anyone when ROI doesn't meet expectations.

Also, I thought they did go through Lama? I know there was definitely Pre-release discussion of them.

Yes they did go through Lama, in the slap dash form they were implemented in, rather than next year some time when they could be in a condition approaching acceptable IMO.

Also, each and every one of us are the one's who choose to spend the money based on what sort of quality is presented to us to spend our money on.

Maybe you are glad to spend your money on the sort of slap dash changes Turbine tries to get by with. I'm just a fan of things done right, even if it means less splash, so that's what I'm willing to pay for. If enough people are willing to ignore the rough spots that this works out for Turbine, good for them. I'm just not one of them and I don't really care what issues Turbine may have as all I really care about is if I find the result worth my money.

[bartharok]

From the way the devs seem to remove every method to do so as soon as they find out and find the time, I'm under the impression that none of those methods is WAI and all should be considered exploits. So, your advice is to exploit to work around changes that make running a quest as intended frustrating/annoying/boring (pick one).

Yes they did go through Lama, in the slap dash form they were implemented in, rather than next year some time when they could be in a condition approaching acceptable IMO.

Also, each and every one of us are the one's who choose to spend the money based on what sort of quality is presented to us to spend our money on.

Maybe you are glad to spend your money on the sort of slap dash changes Turbine tries to get by with. I'm just a fan of things done right, even if it means less splash, so that's what I'm willing to pay for. If enough people are willing to ignore the rough spots that this works out for Turbine, good for them. I'm just not one of them and I don't really care what issues Turbine may have as all I really care about is if I find the result worth my money.

Considering the fact that some spells have always worked through walls, i find it unlikely that they are not WAI. Especially since several that suddenly started to do so were fixed in a hurry.

[Gremmlynn]

Also to point out your Tomb of Tormented. It has been discussed in several posts when this came up alternate ways to work with the rats. Most people simply go with the brute force method and miss the logical part of the RATs are not the only ones that are hungry.

If you mean feed the mobs tainted meat, they ignore it now. if you mean go make a sandwich while the mobs are slowly ground down, kind of defeats the purpose of being logged in at all IMO.

[Gremmlynn]

Yes, some people want to play games that don't present an actual challenge. My kids use cheats, god mode, etc when they play games though for the life of me I don't understand what they get out of standing around an empty Halo battlefield for two hours shooting at each other when they are both invulnerable. I don't tell them not to do it, but I don't let them pretend that they've won the game by completing it with an ammo cheat either. I don't play any game with them that they use cheats in which upset them with Borderlands for a while, but they understand why now.

The problem here isn't just that you don't want any challenge, but that you want to be rewarded as if you did overcome the same challenges as those who can and do. If that wasn't the issue, you wouldn't be crying about having to run on hard instead of elite. Personally, I don't really care if you actually earn your bolo badge or not. Your lack of skill doesn't affect me, but it will affect the people you group with. That said, the entire feedback structure of RPG style games is a risk/reward proposition. If you are not taking as much risk, then by design you do not get as much reward. You are asking to short circuit that. What's the next request? What's the end goal? Just let you level whenever you mash a button 20 times? Where do you draw the line?

No. I want a well presented challenge. Not a hodgepodge mob upgrade tossed on with no thought as to how that effects the specific quest it is tossed into or mob it is tossed on.

[bartharok]

No. I want a well presented challenge. Not a hodgepodge mob upgrade tossed on with no thought as to how that effects the specific quest it is tossed into or mob it is tossed on.

That basically means that you wish to predict exactly your chances of succeeding in a quest. Which usually means autocomplete if you enter.

[Keladon]

This is why the Good Lord invented the Cacophonic Verge wand from The Red Fens (or the Blasting Rod from the Attack on Stormreach chain).

Tomb of the Tormented has always been a broken and unenjoyable quest without first killing the Carrion Eaters, this just exemplifies it even more.

Last time I tried this, the wargs & carrion eaters where zooming all over the place, it completely bugged them out.

So much for trying to do a quest in an unintended way.

How about they actually fix the issues? If they actually took some time to look at each quest individually and makes sure champions don't make some quests unenjoyable, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.

It's not like a 100% random applied to everything feature could ever have unintended or unwanted side effects, right?

That basically means that you wish to predict exactly your chances of succeeding in a quest. Which usually means autocomplete if you enter.

Constantly repeating the same thing doesn't make it any more true. You should realize that isn't not just one or the other, there is something between autocomplete and autofail.

[bartharok]

Constantly repeating the same thing doesn't make it any more true. You should realize that isn't not just one or the other, there is something between autocomplete and autofail.

Which is exactly what we have now

[Keladon]

Which is exactly what we have now

Which is also exactly what we used to have.

It used so be somewhere inbetween, now it's either inbetween or autofail.

So if they fix the autofail situations, we're on our way to actually get a decent new feature.

[bartharok]

Which is also exactly what we used to have.

It used so be somewhere inbetween, now it's either inbetween or autofail.

So if they fix the autofail situations, we're on our way to actually get a decent new feature.

Oh? Id rather say that we had almost autosucceed. Now we have 95% success.

[Qhualor]

Which is also exactly what we used to have.

It used so be somewhere inbetween, now it's either inbetween or autofail.

So if they fix the autofail situations, we're on our way to actually get a decent new feature.

Which quests are auto fail? You must mean protection quests that I haven't seen fail yet, but I'm sure its a little more possible now. You can expect an update to them soon(tm). In the meantime you have available options to increase the chance of success.

Everything else is still almost always auto complete.

[Chai]

From the way the devs seem to remove every method to do so as soon as they find out and find the time, I'm under the impression that none of those methods is WAI and all should be considered exploits. So, your advice is to exploit to work around changes that make running a quest as intended frustrating/annoying/boring (pick one).

Some have worked for 6+ years and haven't been changed yet. Its well known which those are too, so its not like they aren't aware of it. Not an exploit.

This can be fixed at the quest level, for the one quest in question.

[Enoach]

If you mean feed the mobs tainted meat, they ignore it now. if you mean go make a sandwich while the mobs are slowly ground down, kind of defeats the purpose of being logged in at all IMO.

Hmmm, that is interesting as this method still worked in November of 2014 (last time I had someone at level run this). Might have to step in and give this a go to confirm.

Using the meat to lead the worgs/carrion eaters away or to switches or into traps has been the method I've used in this quest since it came out. I know others use AoE damage but that has never seemed right to me.

[Vint]

Maybe I should just play a few more years, finish getting completionist and just join the "the game is too easy" crowd. I'd feel like a complete idiot saying that, but there's enough players who don't even realize how stupid it is to say that.. so why not.

edit: I have seen 1 person come up with a way to deal with overpowered champions so far, 1. Says a lot about the forum community, doesn't it?

The problem is that you refuse to look at my point and just lash out with your anti-elitist hate. I have said multiple times that I think they should either give a checkbox to enable champions or make spawn more than a garbage chest.

I also acknowledge that you do not like people that you consider “elitist”, but my argument still stands. Your argument also does not hold water with just “one” way to deal with champions. Thelanis LFM’s are still running elite and they apparently are just plowing thru the champions on elite. I don’t see any normal/casual LFM’s on Thelanis so the champions must be just extra hard on your server.

[Keladon]

The problem is that you refuse to look at my point and just lash out with your anti-elitist hate. I have said multiple times that I think they should either give a checkbox to enable champions or make spawn more than a garbage chest.

I also acknowledge that you do not like people that you consider “elitist”, but my argument still stands. Your argument also does not hold water with just “one” way to deal with champions. Thelanis LFM’s are still running elite and they apparently are just plowing thru the champions on elite. I don’t see any normal/casual LFM’s on Thelanis so the champions must be just extra hard on your server.

The problem is that you're adressing me, while you should adress those who don't want that checkbox. I was one of the persons who actually proposed that.
I'm not the one asking for more difficulty while knowing that most players will choose to avoid that difficulty if they could.

I have heard 1 way to deal with champions that 1shot you so far. 1 possible solution .. and that was to throw puggers in front of them so I wouldn't have to die myself.

So how about you stop lashing out at me for no valid reason.

[Hydian]

Maybe I should just play a few more years, finish getting completionist and just join the "the game is too easy" crowd. I'd feel like a complete idiot saying that, but there's enough players who don't even realize how stupid it is to say that.. so why not.

edit: I have seen 1 person come up with a way to deal with overpowered champions so far, 1. Says a lot about the forum community, doesn't it?

First of all, I solo Hard all of the time and Elite on the rare occasions that I feel like it with first life toons. I don't care about the differences in experience because to be honest, they aren't that large anyway and I'm not in a rush to cap out all of my toons. I liked champions when they were first introduced because they made Hard a little bit challenging. Sure, they put Elite just out of range of what I could comfortably solo, but that is how it should be. Heck, I shouldn't be able to roll a Hard dungeon without stopping to shrine either, but I do it all the time on multiple toons. And I don't play hard core either, so it isn't that. I have 16 alts or something all at different levels and all different weird builds. I am the only person left in my guild and haven't set foot on my airship in months. I don't raid because I don't have the time. I've been playing on and off over the years as other things grab my attention. Now that champions have been nerfed, they might as well not even be there. No, I'm not a new player, but I'm not using any resources unavailable to a new player. I'm by no means an elite player either. I play sloppy, my playstyle is generally lazy, and I don't really have the time to dedicate to an MMO anymore.

Secondly, difficulty settings are there for a reason. If one setting is too high or too low, move up or down. The fact that they don't reward you all the same is just the way that life is (and also the base structure of any risk/reward system). The difference in reward is fairly minimal anyway (someone posted an actual analysis) and unless you can run Elite at about the same speed as Hard, Hard could be better XP per minute. Having access to Elite does not grant you the player skill, build, etc to be able to complete it. Not to go all "get off my lawn" on you, but there was a time when people played video games to overcome challenges and get better as players. If you just want something that gives you a reward for pushing a button X number of times, there are plenty of games on facebook for that. If you want an MMO experience that rewards you for just logging in, they craft worlds of war that will satisfy you. DDO is a little more old school and expects you to earn your way. But look on the bright side, at least you don't have to do corpse runs deep into Lower Guk after the entire zone was trained. If you can't handle this, you'd never have been able to handle what came before it.

I've seen several people come up with good ideas for changing champions to fix the supposed overall power problems, the actual rare spike power problems, and the fact that they aren't much more than an uninteresting big bag of hit points. This isn't a fix the champions thread though, so if you are looking for that, I'd suggest looking there. The devs did go in and fix the first two issues already with the nerf, so I'm not understanding why there is still complaining over it? Champions went from being a mild challenge boost to something I might notice I've killed.

[Enoach]

If you mean feed the mobs tainted meat, they ignore it now. if you mean go make a sandwich while the mobs are slowly ground down, kind of defeats the purpose of being logged in at all IMO.

Hmmm, that is interesting as this method still worked in November of 2014 (last time I had someone at level run this). Might have to step in and give this a go to confirm.

Using the meat to lead the worgs/carrion eaters away or to switches or into traps has been the method I've used in this quest since it came out. I know others use AoE damage but that has never seemed right to me.

So as it turns out my level 26 cleric had not yet done this quest on elite so I had a chance to get two birds with one stone - check for myself about the meat and also earn some favor. I also chose this character as they have no trap skills and wanted to use only what was in the maze to succeed as well as use of timing.

I took no items or prepared spells that currently work through the grate.

Now the first maze is the easiest and does not have any obstacles so I won't spend time discussing how that went

2nd Maze I initially used to check how meat effects the other creatures in the maze.

My First attempt was with a Carrion Eater that was in an alcove that would be shut in once the first floor panel is activated. This Carrion Eater was facing the back wall and hitching. It ignored any meat next to it. So my first thought was hmmm. Maybe I was wrong or something is wrong.

Second attempt was against a Tainted Worg - This too ignored the meat. So now I'm thinking wow this totally. However, the worg had a hunting pattern. So it could be treated much like a moving spinning blade. You can time your rat around. You may notice if you look at the maze there are many places you can move your rat into that is around the corner/out of site but it does require timing.

Third attempt was another Carrion Eater towards the end of the maze. It turns out he was all over the meat and I lead him all the way back to the floor switch and lead my rat around him completely. So now I'm leaning towards the first Carrion Eater is bugged.

3rd Maze

The first Carrion Eater between the rat nest and the first floor panel is looking similar to the first carrion eater in the 2nd Maze. Just standing there. Normally this is the one that I would lead to the panel to switch the doors and then I would lead it back and forth through the trap until it is dead so it won't kill my poor little rat. But it would not move. Bringing a rat to it they would fight and it took about 5 rats to win. So yes in this state I can see a champion Carrion Eater could be a problem. Once dead the rest was timing to get my rat past the spinning floor trap (which I did) and then again through the moving spinning blade area.

Now towards the end of the 3rd maze is another Carrion Eater and a spinning floor trap as well as a floor switch that needs to be triggered. This carrion eater did eat the meat and I was able to move him all the way to the floor switch and have him do all the activations needed so that my little rat can go chaw on a mummy.

So based on this run I will say that the meat still works, however there are two Carrion Eaters that are bugged and as such I submitted a bug report detailing this. So yes in the current state if the Carrion Eater in the 3rd Maze that was bugged was a champion this could be a pain to get past throwing rat after rat against it. But I believe that is because this Carrion Eater is suffering from a bug. If working as intended none of the Carrion Eaters or Worgs as Champions would be an issue outside of bad timing of moving the rat.

[Chi_Ryu]

It's not like a 100% random applied to everything feature could ever have unintended or unwanted side effects, right?

My point is that it was already a terrible quest, and is made only slightly more terrible. I would not consider running it without a Cacophonic Verge, champions or no champions.

[Enoach]

My point is that it was already a terrible quest, and is made only slightly more terrible. I would not consider running it without a Cacophonic Verge, champions or no champions.

This is actually too bad because it should be doable without. However, as I previously posted I did find that two of the carrion eaters do appear to be bugged (bug report submitted). One in maze 2 and one in maze 3. I was also successful in leading my rat around the worg in maze 2 by treating them like a moving spinning blade trap which is found in maze 3. Timing.

While it took me 15 minutes to complete the quest I chalk part of that time up to experimentation. I spent very little time with the zombies thanks to my Epic Owlbear and panther hirelings, simply dragging them to a place off the maze and having my hirelings stand around in attack mode so that when they pop up the hirelings kill them. When I needed more meat I would simply go grab a pile.

This quest is difficult to solo (especially at level) because of the timing needed. The zombies can interrupt your concentration on the maze. Personally I enjoy taking 4+ member parties in because that can leave one for the maze and everyone else beats on zombies (off the maze of course)

[Keladon]

My point is that it was already a terrible quest, and is made only slightly more terrible. I would not consider running it without a Cacophonic Verge, champions or no champions.

I wasn't referring to a specific quest with that "100% random applied to everything".

I actually don't mind doing Tomb of the Tormented, it's a nice change from just hacking and slashing my way to the end.
Which doesn't mean that I like mazes, it's just a one of a kind quest.

Champions went from being a mild challenge boost to something I might notice I've killed.

So they might aswell remove them, got it. This is hardly the first time I've heard something like that.