I want Mythic.... Devil's, Assault!

[Sgt_Hart]

I'm just going to spit it all out, just as my mind constructed it. Please bear with me.

Starts as per existing Devil Assault. After wave 3, the new content begins, Players are sent on the offensive through the portals. Each of the three lead to a different staging ground, and players encounter wave 4 forming up. All of wave four, all at once. Wave five is similarly encountered once wave 4 is dealt with. At this point players should be given the objective to close the portal by using a placed object. As per opening the great big lightning doors in haunted halls. Loading bar, several uninterrupted seconds to close it.

Upon Sabotaging the focus, the portals begin to close. a 30/60 second window of usability to get back into the Market barracks. Repeat X2 for the other portals. Do not force them to be done one at a time either. If a party can duo/solo them all at once.. let 'em. The last portal to Ebberon should serve as a teleport into an out-side-the-quest instance of the barracks, with loot chests. This will serve in place of recalling.

Here's where the truly interesting begins.. I mention specifically a Not-in-the-quest loot location. I want an optional after the last portal is sabotaged, and let's begin a slayer-esq mechanic. It's existing tech, it works, and rewards more kills. Monsters spawned past this point, all begin with a Champion style damage buff of very low percentage.. at first.

It starts at 0.5%, and increases, exponentially by a factor of 2 (That is.. 0.5-> 1.0 -> 2.0 -> 4 -> 8 -> 16 -> 32 -> 64 -> 128 -> 256, Ect), every minute. The minute thing is so that it's both reapplied to things on the field, and the freshly spawned incoming troops. What's going to force players out, is the fact that the difficulty keeps ramping up, the monsters keep spawning, and Keep coming. There is no point of "The devil supply of troops has been exhausted, you are victorious."

Now, I know that ending sounds strange, but I've yet to see anything quest wise that actually rewards player endurance. Or perhaps more aptly.. I want a problem that isn't a multiple choice between
a.) "Solve a puzzel" or
B.) "Moar DPS"

It's about damned time For an option C.) I mean.. admittedly, Reclaiming the Rift comes close, but even that is "Pistol Whip X many monsters, at a HP penalty", The_Weapons_Shipment, comes close, The eveningstar arena's are similar.. but not it. I truly do want the no-win scenario that incentiveizes the individual, and group durability/survivability.

Now before you say that's awful, and no fun, and you never want to do a survival-mode slayer.. go back, read this bit again:

The last portal to Ebberon should serve as a teleport into an out-side-the-quest instance of the barracks, with loot chests. This will serve in place of recalling.

That;s teh trade off. End chests for potentially more XP, and staying in for more XP is optional.

Yeah, its probably a pipe dream, but we do have more vale and shavrath in the planned future, so let's hope we can get a new style quest 'eh?

[TheDr0wRanger]

I like the idea, I loathe devils because of the overwhelming concentration of things immune to fire in their quest areas, but I can get behind the concept of the quest.

Devils Assault is already a long standing go-to quest for a lot of reasons, it seems like a no brainer to improve it going forward.

If the difficulty ramp-up in the ongoing fight is sharp enough, you could refill the end chest every so many levels, provided the difficulty of getting a second and subsequent chests manages to stay reasonable.

If the devs can't see making this go on ad infinitum, for whatever reasons, they could at least do a second, much harder set of waves for another chest. The major issue is that even Breaking the Ranks is too short, if you have enough muscle to survive the giants, it's over entirely too fast.

The other cool thing with this is that you can survive the fight before plowing back through the portal to take the fight to the enemy, it's got a very strong feeling of special ops strike missions. I'd also flood the waves with enemies that have immunities/resistances and special abilities to challenge parties with diverse makeups.

You could even have levers or somesuch that increase the difficulty of the waves as seen in Halo's firefight with the skulls, adding debuffs. Simple stuff like opening the door to a room full of high-hp beasts, casters and/or undead in order to get moar lootz.

[LuKaSu]

I don't think that there could be an infinite amount of "difficulty expansion", but there could definitely be a quest set up with like 20 or 30 sets of Optional goals, with each one being the next difficulty. Like, you can exit after the core parts, but every 3 "upgrades" gives one more chest, with a maximum number of like 10, though it would be crazy hard to get to those 10. Of course, the number could be unreasonably high, for bragging rights. Like, when the quest comes out, it would literally be impossible to beat all of them, though over time, eventually, someone might do it.

However, it sounds like quite a fun quest mechanic!

[Connman]

They already have made a quest with an extended setting! They don't need to make a new difficulty, just have it so you can pick the "Extended content" box and like you said after a certain wave it says "Now take the fight to Shavarath..."

I like the optional after the quest is over, it is much like the one in Acid Wit that spawns after the quest is completed. You either stay for it or take the d-door not everyone, or anyone, always stays.

[Sgt_Hart]

Of course, the number could be unreasonably high, for bragging rights. Like, when the quest comes out, it would literally be impossible to beat all of them, though over time, eventually, someone might do it.

The thing is LukaSu, I really want a quest where there is a point that it'll beat the snot out of you. I'm very invested in the idea of "you don't win, you can't win." as an extracurricular optional. Admittedly, its not for everyone. but that's why I'd like to see a scaling-over-time damage buff. Eventually, the point comes where "Enough" hitpoints to survive a hit, aren't possible.

I think that's OK.

They already have made a quest with an extended setting! They don't need to make a new difficulty, just have it so you can pick the "Extended content" box and like you said after a certain wave it says "Now take the fight to Shavarath..."

I like the optional after the quest is over, it is much like the one in Acid Wit that spawns after the quest is completed. You either stay for it or take the d-door not everyone, or anyone, always stays.

That might be a bitter implementation than Mythic. I am admittedly, fond of the word play of "Devils, Assault!"

In my head, the collapsing portals back to Ebberon are the exit point, you can get your loot and XP there and then. They probably need like a 2 minute decaying period so that if your in a different one, and want the party together, everyone has time to transition back to the barracks, and through the same portal. One could even put in an extra wave or two of (Size-wise) smaller devils who could fit through. I am however very fond of the idea of the Offensive portion only ending when all the players are dead. To me at least a "Fight until you can't" scenario is sorely missing from DDO.

I want a bloody, glorious end to send some characters of mine off to Valhalla.

[Connman]

I was just throwing a couple of examples out there that:

1. Sorta fit to your idea
2. Already exist in the game, (so we know they have the skills to code it )