DDOCast 394 - DDO Debates: The Big Important Stuff

[FranOhmsford]

Until Monty Haul allowed the players to beat the raid more often than not through shear power, the raid was THE toughest raid in the game.

Even at 20 cap {pre LoB definitely, post LoB probably} Elite Abbot simply wasn't run!

Hard was run once in a Blue Moon!

Once we got Multiple ED capped Lvl 25s however it became the standard to run Abbot on Elite but even in the early days of 21-25 Abbots were rare!

I don't think it was Monty Haul that made Abbot "easy" - It was simply that players who'd get ZERO XP from it due to being overlevelled were now able to enter!

It's like if a Lvl 13 character runs Proof is in the Poison - It has nothing to do with gear {Monty Haul} and everything to do with level!


And notice how Mark of Death didn't have the puzzle rooms? OR the Sigil requirement? OR run Litany 4 times {heck they didn't even bother to Epic Litany!}? Yet for some unknown reason the Heroic Raid still has every one!

[Hafeal]

Even at 20 cap {pre LoB definitely, post LoB probably} Elite Abbot simply wasn't run!

Hard was run once in a Blue Moon!

Once we got Multiple ED capped Lvl 25s however it became the standard to run Abbot on Elite but even in the early days of 21-25 Abbots were rare!

I don't think it was Monty Haul that made Abbot "easy" - It was simply that players who'd get ZERO XP from it due to being overlevelled were now able to enter!

It's like if a Lvl 13 character runs Proof is in the Poison - It has nothing to do with gear {Monty Haul} and everything to do with level!


And notice how Mark of Death didn't have the puzzle rooms? OR the Sigil requirement? OR run Litany 4 times {heck they didn't even bother to Epic Litany!}? Yet for some unknown reason the Heroic Raid still has every one!

I was throwing the huge over-level and accompanying gear into my definition of Monty Haul - thus the over-powering the quest. But, yes, I get your drift.

Did I mention we still need RANDOM sigil pieces each new TR? lol. Geez, what a terrible flagging mechanic. Chapter 1 in the Book, How Not to get Gamers to Run Your Content.

[FranOhmsford]

I was throwing the huge over-level and accompanying gear into my definition of Monty Haul - thus the over-powering the quest. But, yes, I get your drift.

Monty Haul is a term that is all about GEAR!

the term you're looking for is Power-Levelling!

Did I mention we still need RANDOM sigil pieces each new TR? lol. Geez, what a terrible flagging mechanic. Chapter 1 in the Book, How Not to get Gamers to Run Your Content.

No you didn't - Which is why I mentioned it!

And yes it's ludicrous that the Sigil doesn't stay full forever once you've filled it {they fixed the Titan flag item!}.

[pjstechie]

The problem I see though is that you filled the panel with players known as the best of the best - Powergamers all!

I filled the panel with people I knew were passionate about the topics we were discussing. We had been trying to get Samius on a debate show for a while, he kind of also called Chai out previously, and I invited Axel onto the show because of his video blog. I did not actively look for the "best of the best" but rather folks who were already talking about these topics.

I would be happy to have newer players on the show, but I dont as a rule go out blindly inviting folks. And I simply don't run into many of those folks in my normal course of gaming. I also dont realistically have any more time I can give to the show. I constantly put out an open invitation to be a part of the show but very very few engage in that manner. I get maybe 1 or 2 comments a week out of hundreds of views. Unless a dev comments...

Players who have no idea of just how many people have problems even in Heroic Elites {Never mind Epics}.
Players who can solo EEs in a 6 man group - Of course they don't have party wipes!
Players who don't understand that it's a bad idea to segregate players {DDO simply doesn't have a large enough population to do so!} and Elite is the Default BECAUSE you HAVE to be able to play Elite just to get a group!

There are plenty of players in DDO who people on these forums completely dismiss as not existing!

I feel pretty confident that none of these apply to me.

[pjstechie]

I too had a problem with the worst designed raid segment... touted as "worst ever" is one of the most intricately and interestingly designed raids Titan... Reasons cited were few and superficial. *snip*

I was surprised no one brought up CitW actually, I think many of the points you made are very strong reasons for that arguement.

I response to some of your points re: Titan though - I know I mentioned an appreciation for the preraid, but thats not what I would consider part of the actual raid we were arguing for. We brought it up, but its not an integral part of my concerns with the raid design itself.

My issue with Titan is the margin for error. If you dont hit with 6 of 8 pillars you fail. In CitW, even if Ana gets pummeled, you wipe, you dont fail. You can even leave and come back in!

also, CitW gets a little better for me because it feels more quest like - you go somewhere other than the room you start in. Thats how I chose Titan (CitW would have been my second choice)

[pjstechie]

I am looking forward to the episode. I appreciate that topics are tough; you have been doing such a good job, I have not thought you needed much help but I will see what I can come up with on a quick basis here:

1) A "Back to Basics" series (perhaps 1 a month) on topics like this for example:

a) 1 episode for Feats and guidelines for taking at which levels;
b) 1 episode for Enhancements #303, perhaps with a short history of their evolution;
c) 1 episode for spells and spells only - spell schools, descriptions, effectiveness, meta magics, good spells, bad spells, why;
d) 1 episode dedicated to Races #362and Classes.

I try to maintain a 3 week cycle: Topic, Build, Debate. Ive been working my way through different classes, build archetypes, and more recently, gear slots. I've mostly been taking a whole episode for each for more depth. Is there something missing from them?

2) An episode dedicated to the lore of Eberron and FR; a recapping of the story lines and how they string all of DDO together; been on the list, but honestly not high on my own interests and I keep pushing it off for other things more "often" requested

3) A debate over the the best explorer areas and how they can be made even better; good topic

4) An interview series with some of the forum personalities who have not regularly appeared on the show - anything from a guest appearance co-host to a Budweiser hot seat style 3 question set; know anyone? becuase i dont have the time to blindly search. have them email ddocast@gmail.com!

5) Ditto 4 for more devs; Its been a while, but I have been poking Jerry to talk with the devs some more, but unless its a preview (and we couldnt make the last one work schedule wise) they do it on their own time for which i am extremely thankful

6) A recap of the 2014 DDO PC and see what their thoughts are in reflection; #351

7) A current round table of the 2015 PC for a peek as to the year and its progress.its on my list


Anyway, I'll see if I can think of some more.

thanks for the specific ideas, they are much more helpful than the generic "more new player topics"

Looking at my list of shows, there have been several that are (i thought) targeting newer/less experienced/not power gamer players. Is there something you find lacking within those discussions?

ex:
307 - new player tips
320 - TR tips
313 - playing solo
330 - maximizing premium/F2P
332 - elevating your game play
337, 338, 340 - PUGs
342 - staying alive
353 - new player integration
359 - zerging
372 - hotbars

[pjstechie]

I won't argue your points on how bad CiTiW is, but it is not the worst.

The worst raid was never even mentioned - Heroic Abbott.

I also considered this, but I felt the design wasnt bad, just the implementation - maybe a nuanced thing, but I thought the puzzles (at least once they worked) were fun and interesting and my only complaint was their margin for error

I think its bad raid design when failure is achieved through a single misstep as opposed to a series of poor choices - this is something that the design of DoJ is really good at in that you essentially have to make a series of poor choices to fail (assuming no lag)

[Gratch]

CITW Complaints

I hear a lot of "flagging good xp quests takes time and people get lost a lot", "I don't run with a group that knows how to ignore some groups of mobs", "I don't understand how to use the placed for your benefit terrain to avoid mana drain rays", "13 top of the game weapon types isn't enough weapon types for me" and "the devs gave me an unkillable but movable sp shrine and I resent them for it". Yes, you do lose two chests if you let Anna get too hurt... but that's yet another learning part of the raid.

I melee'd and healed and shiradi'ed this raid >20 times across many characters as it was the final raid of DDO for a number of updates. The quest length is long, but got faster as you learned what parts of the raid to avoid and people equipped themselves to deal with certain DR's, learned the tells of spider legs about to fling you, learned how not to be the dork who killed the portal keeper before it was time. I appreciate the design that went into making a learning/grouping raid. I appreciate having one raid against a well-known FR goddess that was the end of a brand new expansion of quests. I see how the devs slightly painted themselves into an RPG story hole of having the goddess of Magic's containment avatar near you so Lolth didn't just plink the party into oblivion. And I frickin' like the Deluge. The same way I like (or have learned to like) Mr Gygax' voiceover in Deleras and the fact that there's a MotherF'in Fire Reaver in the Libary according to Mr. Arneson. And the rate of loot is a heck of a lot faster than an Epic Spell Storing Ring.

DDO... needs more learning required and deluges. Less P2W and insta-gratification.

[FranOhmsford]

I feel pretty confident that none of these apply to me.

They actually weren't aimed at you!

It would be a bit dumb to complain about the host! However...As I feel you were easily the least "Elite" Player on the panel and you're pretty good at this game yourself the panel makeup did seem unduly biased towards the Elite Player.

Looking at my list of shows, there have been several that are (i thought) targeting newer/less experienced/not power gamer players. Is there something you find lacking within those discussions?

ex:
307 - new player tips
320 - TR tips
313 - playing solo
330 - maximizing premium/F2P
332 - elevating your game play
337, 338, 340 - PUGs
342 - staying alive
353 - new player integration
359 - zerging
372 - hotbars

For most of these it's not the topic itself it's who's on the panel that matters.

For some it's a case of things that new players always need to know but how many "new" players even saw the episode? {New Player Tips for instance}.


The ones I can definitely say are "Good topics" are:
New Player Integration - Especially if aimed at getting vets to be more understanding towards newer players.
Maximimising Premium/F2P - Especially if aimed at the Devs.
Staying Alive - A lot less Elitist a title than the previous "Elevating your game play".

[kmoustakas]

At the risk of answering before hearing the podcast... abbot is by far not the worst raid of the game. It is certainly the most polarising raid because people either hate it or love it.

Exact same with flagging mechanic AND the litany of the dead. There's a whole bunch of people that'll tell you litany is the best heroic xp/min quest and a big number of the population has full sigils for lives to come. As with random things, there's people who spend eons and can't get themselves flagged, I'll concede the point.

Sidenote: WHERE IS MY EPIC LITANY OF THE DEAD WITH BLACK DRAGON BOSS AT THE END AND ALL THE HEROIC ITEMS THAT ARE MISSING FROM THE EPIC VERSION!

[Hafeal]

Monty Haul is a term that is all about GEAR!

the term you're looking for is Power-Levelling!


No you didn't - Which is why I mentioned it!

And yes it's ludicrous that the Sigil doesn't stay full forever once you've filled it {they fixed the Titan flag item!}.

Yes, yes, I was echoing your thought. Yes, power-levelling is exactly what I was thinking of.

I also considered this, but I felt the design wasnt bad, just the implementation - maybe a nuanced thing, but I thought the puzzles (at least once they worked) were fun and interesting and my only complaint was their margin for error

I think its bad raid design when failure is achieved through a single misstep as opposed to a series of poor choices - this is something that the design of DoJ is really good at in that you essentially have to make a series of poor choices to fail (assuming no lag)

I just think it is funny - I rarely had Titan fail when it was run. I saw more failure in the missteps of Abbott between goggles, missed swims or an inability to get meteors down correctly; and when it was done, often it was through cheesy tactics - hanging off the meteor ledge or rezzing through the death water, for example.

Both raids generally succeeded because a select, small group of people could get it done and, in my experience, refused to allow or teach others to do it. Abbott, particularly and especially concerning goggles. The key difference is that Abbott gave more people things to do in the raid for a longer period of time - part of which is simply because of the mechanic of having to break the party up at the beginning of the quest; otherwise you wouldn't need that many people in there either.

When Titan was new, classes had more defined class roles and little power-levelling and gear. The cap was level 10. At the time, Module 2 (2006), Titan was at least a challenge and completeable. Has it aged well? NO, but what content from that time has? Abbott came out in 2007 with a level cap of 14 and was a mess from the start.

There's a whole bunch of people that'll tell you litany is the best heroic xp/min quest and a big number of the population has full sigils for lives to come. As with random things, there's people who spend eons and can't get themselves flagged, I'll concede the point.

It is good xp. They gave it good xp like most other pre-raids, like Von 5. Yet, I very rarely see it in lfms. It is not on the normal xp runs (Von 3, Spies, Mirror, 3BC). A big reason for that, imo, is that I do not believe a "big number" of players are flagged or want to be bothered trying to flag. Some? Sure. Big number? Me no thinka so.

[axel15810]

If I have *one* constructive criticism - of this podcast particularly, I perceive a lack of insight for the truly casual player and little more than lip service for new players. The guests - while entertaining and very insightful, are often talking on points that casual players may be a long way from enjoying. I think a casual perspective would be helpful to round out the conversations.

That's fair criticism. This panel was filled with experienced players but I know on DDOcast that isn't always the case. It just happened to be the case this time. Definitely check out some older episodes, I know Patrick has had a lot of discussions more geared toward and including newer players.

The problem I see though is that you filled the panel with players known as the best of the best - Powergamers all!

Players who have no idea of just how many people have problems even in Heroic Elites {Never mind Epics}.
Players who can solo EEs in a 6 man group - Of course they don't have party wipes!
Players who don't understand that it's a bad idea to segregate players {DDO simply doesn't have a large enough population to do so!} and Elite is the Default BECAUSE you HAVE to be able to play Elite just to get a group!

I personally don't consider myself a powergamer, I have always run middle of the road builds - normally a battle cleric of some kind. I don't reincarnate very often. I do solo EEs from time to time and but spend most of my time pugging. So I suppose I could fit the powergamer mold depending on what someone would consider a powergamer. But I was a new player once and have not forgotten what it's like, so I always keep them in mind regardless.

[Urjak]

I do feel that there should be a small chance of Champions on Normal so that:
1) The gap between Normal and Hard isn't so wide!

I rarely post anymore on these forums (noone reads the posts anyways) - but this made me go like ***???

I mean there is a huge gap between hard and elite (especially on epic that gap is huge) - but between normal and hard??? They feel like the exact same thing, except that on hard some mobs have a fancy crown above their head (not that they would be tougher because of it - they only get the hard buffs - not the elite ones). So: No to champions on normal - I mean the normal champion buffs would need to be even weaker than the ones champions on hard get - and those are already barely noticeable.

Just my opinion, I know - but just NO

IF you want to tweak anything, than make hard harder so that we actually get a difficulty that is harder than sleepwalking but not as tough as elite (talking especially with non-optimal builds for soloists in mind)

--------------------------------------------------------

Finally considering REAPER difficulty - I think you all got that completely wrong - we don't need a difficulty that is "just a bit harder than elite" - with or without rewards - nope.
We need a REAPER difficulty that replaces the old epic difficulty => only runable by capped or nearly capped toons, vastly harder than EE, CR 35, with all new epic gear (probably with a system similar to shard/seal/scroll) and finally only repeatable once a day (no bypass timers!!!!) => THAT's what would help revive the endgame scene - without that I don't really see a future for DDO - just my opinion though

[IronClan]

On Abbot, I don't consider most of those complaints to be DESIGN and they were very specific about design. Those were unintentional, bugs or poor execution. If Bugs enter into then CITW has more than a few of those I could list

Abbot again is one of the best raids in the game design wise, intricate infinitely runnable and still fail-able because of the randomization... Even now that ED's and uber meta gaming have made some of the puzzles easier/trivial.

The least meta gamable raid (or quest) in the entire game. Tiles no matter what you did* took player skill and not meta gaming (again until uber meta gaming figured out the trick to getting both pairs of goggles). Ice before dance of the water strider was a real test of player skill, and asteroids while trivial for 2 to 4 Mouselooker FPS players was almost always a challenge because of all the keyboard turners and non mouselookers in DDO.

CITW's faults are predominantly design related... Even something that is touted as a "plus" the ability to re-enter the raid was poor design... it allowed cheezing in multiple ways that no other raid in the game allows, it was inconsistent with the design of almost every raid, and in the end you could run the quest with 1 toon and open the end chests with a toon that didn't participate. Not sure if this was Bug or by design, so maybe it's not germane

Titans slim failure conditions added challenge to an end fight that in 99% of all the other raids is usually a DONE DEAL. This is not a design failure IMO. Sure maybe they could have made it less punishing and given us 10 Pillars or only required 5 of 8 to hit in the end it provided excitement and tension in a game that is almost entirely lacking intensity, tension, excitement or suspense...

I admit fully that my tastes run to difficult cooperative skill required coordinated challenges, I can't see how needing to make 6 out of 8 is a design failure... significantly more chances than that and you're just going through the motions every time with little to no real tension or chance to fail.

*I don't want to hear about Vanshillar figuring out a nigh on impossible for most people to pull off "60% of the time it works every time" Wings/Cannith Boots/Wings pixel perfect precision meta gaming tactic for tiles... in most of DDO's content once someone knows how to do it, the success rate of that raid nears 100%...

Abbot can still be failed with 28's with full ED's, with NO bug or lag factors can't say that about much of anything else in DDO IMO. That suggests that it's design is rather brilliant actually.

[Vargouille]

I rarely post anymore on these forums (noone reads the posts anyways)

You might be surprised!

[red_cardinal_]

You might be surprised!

Your development team cant comprehend how much work needs to be done for this game to truly be a quality service. Now that Turbine is a part of WB, you should really get more capital and produce QUALITY work because you do have the creativity, you just lack funds and time.

[Gratch]

Your development team cant comprehend how much work needs to be done for this game to truly be a quality service. Now that Turbine is a part of WB, you should really get more capital and produce QUALITY work because you do have the creativity, you just lack funds and time.

Turbine has been part of WB for a while. So far WB's track record was to up the staff at the start, create a director of the games conga line (including through LotrO), layoffs, layoffs, close A.C. development and forced Turbine to do a DC MOBA whose failure has been a large loss of talent. But don't worry, Turbine's working on Batman mobile games now. Hopefully they were able to transfer a lot of their MOBA assets into those new projects.

Not sure why the suits in charge of WB didn't commission Turbine to upgrade their MMO engine (some of which upgrades DDO & LotRO might get) and make a Harry Potter Experience MMO with a wizard customization store using the WB games license. Maybe J.K. objected. Shrug.

[Hafeal]

On Abbot, I don't consider most of those complaints to be DESIGN and they were very specific about design. Those were unintentional, bugs or poor execution. If Bugs enter into then CITW has more than a few of those I could list

Abbot again is one of the best raids in the game design wise, intricate infinitely runnable and still fail-able because of the randomization... Even now that ED's and uber meta gaming have made some of the puzzles easier/trivial.

The least meta gamable raid (or quest) in the entire game. Tiles no matter what you did* took player skill and not meta gaming (again until uber meta gaming figured out the trick to getting both pairs of goggles). Ice before dance of the water strider was a real test of player skill, and asteroids while trivial for 2 to 4 Mouselooker FPS players was almost always a challenge because of all the keyboard turners and non mouselookers in DDO.


I admit fully that my tastes run to difficult cooperative skill required coordinated challenges, I can't see how needing to make 6 out of 8 is a design failure... significantly more chances than that and you're just going through the motions every time with little to no real tension or chance to fail.

*I don't want to hear about Vanshillar figuring out a nigh on impossible for most people to pull off "60% of the time it works every time" Wings/Cannith Boots/Wings pixel perfect precision meta gaming tactic for tiles... in most of DDO's content once someone knows how to do it, the success rate of that raid nears 100%...

Abbot can still be failed with 28's with full ED's, with NO bug or lag factors can't say that about much of anything else in DDO IMO. That suggests that it's design is rather brilliant actually.

Every raid can be failed by a 28s in full EDs. Each and every one. Being 28 and in full ED just gives you huge room for margin of error. Now how likely is it? Not likely.

Heroic Abbott has a Titan pre-raid element (splitting the party), which gives something for more people to do - but - no option for recovery if 1 of 3 fails. *shrug* Same with Titan. Pillars are a fail condition. Auto fail conditions suck. That is what makes Shroud so great - do the puzzles or not, you can still get through.

Now. would it be nice if EVERY raid had better design to use 12 party members? Absolutely. It would be nice, in an upgrade of that content for Abbott or Titan, or LoB for that matter, if things likes pillar had a different mechanism to be brought down - climb to the top, hit an ability rune, solve a puzzle, etc. Put a timing mechanism on it. Slap each party to the top of a pillar to do something to bring it down bring it down. Make everyone in VoD stand on a special rune - and scale it for summons and pets. Point being - I think the lack of creativity - or is it unwillingness? - to engage a full party is a big problem in raid design especially. While I do not like fail conditions, I have NO problem requiring 12 people to get something done. 12. Not 10, not 6, not 1. Make people put the lfm up for the raid. It is hard. It is supposed to have coordination. I am with you there.

The boss fight for Lolth and Abbott? Not much different. Lolth is a god, Abbott a god wanna be. Would it be nice to hit more than Lolth's belly button? Absolutely. Why are we not climbing up her and getting thrown off? I would also like the Abbott to move like the LoB. Hey A, stand still. Ok, wait for the fireball express to go away. Back at ya.

So, to me, I look at all the elements that lead up to the Raid as well as the raid itself. Thus, Heroic Abbott is still at the bottom of my list.

[Lauf]

You might be surprised!

well if you're reading, chrono was (and is) one of your best designed raids, especially bloodplate.

more of the same please.

[pjstechie]

Every raid can be failed by a 28s in full EDs. Each and every one. Being 28 and in full ED just gives you huge room for margin of error. Now how likely is it? Not likely.

Heroic Abbott has a Titan pre-raid element (splitting the party), which gives something for more people to do - but - no option for recovery if 1 of 3 fails. *shrug* Same with Titan. Pillars are a fail condition. Auto fail conditions suck. That is what makes Shroud so great - do the puzzles or not, you can still get through.

FYI, failing a puzzle in Abbott is not a raid fail. If you go back to the main platform and beat him down he will throw the doors back up if you haven't completed all 3 puzzles. It's just that most groups choose to start over.