CITW whose idiot idea was this game mechanic anyway?

[Feralthyrtiaq]

BAM -4976 spell points in first battle with Lolth...

FFS, someone must of been off their meds when they thought this SP drain was increasing challenge and fun factor.

Way to make casters useless.

[Basura_Grande]

Dumb quest mechanics like the SP drain are reasons why people who've acquired tens of thousands of SP pots through non-traditional means feel no guilt.

[Starla70]

Not the best way to get a positive response. However, I would say the idiot who thought this was a good idea did so in response to all the power gamers constantly saying how things are too easy, and they needed a challenge. So the rest of us, suffer, more and more with each update and by every quest they are now balancing out, so that it is only completionists and power gamers that can survive on Epic Elite, and slowly any elite in the game, so please feel free to thank them for your power drain.

Just an note, notice how the SP pots are not dropping much, if they do they are lessers, more challenge I guess.

[Hiponic]

Didnt know we could bash the dev's now... Unless you guys are in that whole inner circle of ddo lol.



Anyways CITW is fun.. Not everyone is rocking SP and its up to them people to do their best when that happens.

Iunno, I've never had any beef with that raid. Imo it's one of the more fun ones out there.

[Basura_Grande]

Not the best way to get a positive response. However, I would say the idiot who thought this was a good idea did so in response to all the power gamers constantly saying how things are too easy, and they needed a challenge. So the rest of us, suffer, more and more with each update and by every quest they are now balancing out, so that it is only completionists and power gamers that can survive on Epic Elite, and slowly any elite in the game, so please feel free to thank them for your power drain.

Just an note, notice how the SP pots are not dropping much, if they do they are lessers, more challenge I guess.

Is everything wrong with this game in your eyes that fault of the players or can Turbine actually ever do something wrong?

[Discpsycho]

Feral, my first time in there I was a warlock, so admittedly I probably wasn't quite as miffed about it as you, but I can see where you're coming from. That being said, there were plenty of people in my party who took advantage of the safe spot and preserved their SP. Everyone else chilled out until the first shrine and learned their lesson.

Frankly, I'm not sure why you're surprised about this mechanic, as it's completely in keeping with the binary nature of DDO casters. If they're a overpowered / FOTM / ubergeared, they crush everything and you end up piking. If they're not, or are last patch's FOTM (warlocks excluded), they're almost or completely ineffectual.

[Enoach]

I'm not a fan of the instant spell point drain, but I've come to terms with it and learned to duck and let the melee handle the bulk of that part. It wouldn't be a bad mechanic if it only drained say 100 SP a hit. Then it would still be something to be aware of, but not something that requires lots of SP Pots to recover from. But at least Ana can summon a shrine and you can recover then.

The part I think was done poorly was the legs knocking you over the edge for instant death. I can handle them knocking you down or even throwing you a small distance, but I've been thrown from one side over the edge on the other side of that platform. I know she is a goddess but that is just to much.

[blerkington]

... so that it is only completionists and power gamers that can survive on Epic Elite, and slowly any elite in the game ...

Hi,

I've always thought CITW was a collection of really unpleasant mechanics. The SP drain is the most obnoxious, it's cash-grabby and particularly harsh for divines who have precious little reason to run that raid already. That device and the others all add up to make it one of the few raids which I'll usually skip when I see an LFM for it. But so long as it was a lesson learned and we don't get any more content like that, it's just a small amount more dead content for most of us.

The SP drain is another example of bad challenge. Difficulty can and has been added the game before in an enjoyable way. But not everything which is difficult is enjoyable. Sometimes it is just annoying or even painful.

There are people who will try to argue that the community (as a whole even, not just parts of it) will shout down increases in difficulty, but you only have to read the forums to see that there are also people who want the game to be harder, not easier. Some of them put quite a lot of effort into explaining their ideas about how this would be done. Not all of them are good, but there's plenty of interesting stuff to consider.

I don't know what it will take to convince some of the more diehard 'any form of difficulty is good' crowd, but perhaps when we finally do get the raid with unavoidable player instakills every d30 seconds, these people will clap their hands and rejoice on the forums together because the 'challenge' they wanted was finally added and it really didn't matter how.

I'd also like to point out that it's quite possible not only to survive, but to do well, in EE content without being a completionist. The quoted statement above seems like a massive exaggeration to me. If anything, with PRR/MRR part of the game, upgraded classes and more powerful gear, I'd say EE is more accessible to people right now than it was at another time in the game's history. It was a lot worse earlier on than it is now.

Thanks.

[JOTMON]

It is a load of BS mechanic intended to screw Blue bars, but they seem pretty adamant that she should one shot wipe SP bars.
Just another reason for clerics to not want to play in raids.

Then we have raids with no shrines, because someone thought it would be a "challenge" to continue to screw over blue bars in raids.
They failed to realize, that non-blue bars use pots/scrolls.
So Clerics re-rolled into other toons or closed themselves off behind guild and channels from the pugging world.

They crossed the line and then they wonder why no one wants to play clerics..

[lyrecono]

Dumb quest mechanics like the SP drain are reasons why people who've acquired tens of thousands of SP pots through non-traditional means feel no guilt.

+1

Not the best way to get a positive response. However, I would say the idiot who thought this was a good idea did so in response to all the power gamers constantly saying how things are too easy, and they needed a challenge. So the rest of us, suffer, more and more with each update and by every quest they are now balancing out, so that it is only completionists and power gamers that can survive on Epic Elite, and slowly any elite in the game, so please feel free to thank them for your power drain.

Just an note, notice how the SP pots are not dropping much, if they do they are lessers, more challenge I guess.

yep, so true, yet now and then we get to debate these triple everything completionists who can't be arsed to not to activate their active pl stances and leave their gear at home to challenge themselves and wan to turn the heroic elite setting into an special e-peen Olympics so they can feel really special....yet barring other builds and people from playing content they were able to play for years.

On a another note, i did notice a strong decline in sp pots dropping, in EE we're getting the smallest sp pots for some reason. (since the last update)

i guess greedy turbine is up to it again

[Ligraph]

yep, so true, yet now and then we get to debate these triple everything completionists who can't be arsed to not to activate their active pl stances and leave their gear at home to challenge themselves and wan to turn the heroic elite setting into an special e-peen Olympics so they can feel really special....yet barring other builds and people from playing content they were able to play for years.

On a another note, i did notice a strong decline in sp pots dropping, in EE we're getting the smallest sp pots for some reason. (since the last update)

i guess greedy turbine is up to it again

Fixed on Lam.

Items:

• The proper Potions of Mnemonic Enhancement will now appear in the various loot tables.

About the OP, isn't the drain avoidable by hiding behind rocks at the right time(s)?

[JOTMON]

About the OP, isn't the drain avoidable by hiding behind rocks at the right time(s)?

Nope

[Hobgoblin]

Nope

well it is technically, but not in pracicallity

if you stay behind the rock and never ever ever come out, ya she wont drain ya.

but who does that?

to do damage you have to stay in front. she has kinda random agro and no tell, so she will turn all of a sudden and drain ya.

[Kielbasa]

Doesn't spell absorption block the spell point drain? I honestly don't remember would be nice to have some confirmation for the next time I feel like going in there.

For the parts that you have to fight lolth you are best off piking behind a rock, as others have said, if you need your mana. Deal with the trash so the non blue bars can deal with her. The worst part about the boss fight is lolth's hit box it is still too tiny I'm pretty sure I've tossed myself off the cliff in the not too distant past trying to find just the right spot to give her a belly rub.

Also a good light monk makes fighting her easier.

[Flavilandile]

The devs thought out all the stupid mechanisms in Pain in the Navel ( SP drain, death by being thrown out, constant short timer respawns on already cleared areas, huge sacks of HPs, ... ) to stroke the ego of some players ( but especially one ) that wanted to fsck spellcasters ( because blue bars were only support classes in their mind and should have been pigeonholed in that support category ).

Some of the mechanisms in Pain in the Navel actually comes from ideas thought out by said players.

The main supporter of Pain in the Navel has left DDO for the NWO pastures... And following game issues a lot of people got two Raider Boxes ( boxes that allows you to choose one item from CiTW loot list )... Fall of Truth giving more Commendations for less suffering and time finished filling Pain in the Navel.

[Faltout]

well it is technically, but not in pracicallity

if you stay behind the rock and never ever ever come out, ya she wont drain ya.

but who does that?

to do damage you have to stay in front. she has kinda random agro and no tell, so she will turn all of a sudden and drain ya.

Well, you are wrong. Aggro is NOT random and for her random attack she HAS a tell (short one, but if you are close to a hiding spot you will avoid being hit by massive damage and a healing curse).

So, to the OP, the game mechanic is all right since it can be avoided. My cleric loved to run EE CitW and never had an issue with pots (except the very first time I was in CitW on EE no less and didn't know anything so got hit a couple of times). And if a divine is unlucky enough to get aggro (usually because someone else died) and loses all sp then there are still ways to heal the party with positive bursts, heal scrolls and a bard song replenishing sp. And of course you can call a shrine right after any lolth battle to replenish all sp.

For more information about her attacks and tells I have made a thread trying to gather information but hadn't had the chance to update it yet due to not being in epic levels: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...-Web-mechanics

[Pnumbra]

Sorry Fallout, Hobgoblin is right. Her aggro does seem random and it does not matter where you stand or if you ever move to attack her, she will drain you. I have tried it all, and she gets me no matter what. So to the OP, you will get drained. As far as I know, there is no counter measure against it.

As far as the mechanic is concerned, it is not the best. Mana drain with no counter is again a lazy way to introduce challenge. I realize that Lolth is a god, and if that is the angle then, I understand, but still don't like it.

[TitusOvid]

the sp heavy drain is totally bananas. It is not a bad mechanic per se. but drained at one shot?! just why? And it does nothing for difficulty, really. You neutralize most sp users with one snip. Not fun. At all. Ever.
And with those mechanics I feel kind of betrayed by the devs. Because it is a stupid idea badly executed.
So I can feel all the pain the OP expressed so eloquently.

[ValariusK]

You know, I don't have a huge problem with the mana drain as such---raids are allowed to have really annoying mechanics that you have to work around. But I do want the following:
CITW should have its XP raised to be greater than Von5---maybe make it comparable to the XP levels in the new legendary shroud. Its a long raid and MUCH harder than Von5/6.
Also the COH drop rate should be adjusted so that it is comparable in Commendations of Heroism per unit time to Fall of Truth.
The hit box on Lolth also should be adjusted to make it less annoying. If the hit box is an important part of her challenge level, raise her HP to compensate.

[Enerdhil]

CITW should have its XP raised to be greater than Von5---maybe make it comparable to the XP levels in the new legendary shroud. Its a long raid and MUCH harder than Von5/6.

I agree citw is giving too low xp (in fact all motu quests got really weak xp) and it could be raised, but xp greater than von 5 and comperable to legendary shroud (which gives above 200k with opts) is joke, right? It's not as long, as complicated as von/shroud. Xp is too low, right, but xp higher than 100k for that raid would be ridiculous.

BAM -4976 spell points in first battle with Lolth...

FFS, someone must of been off their meds when they thought this SP drain was increasing challenge and fun factor.

Way to make casters useless.

If we speak about sp... i think it's really cool mechanic. If you like brainless standing in front of boss and feeling immortal it's simply not raid for you. If you're not sp based it's not a great difference for you. If you're sp based (sorc/wiz/cler/fvs) just hide and trust me, it's not a problem to keep dots on without being sucked from sp. And if you wanna be sure just hide til melees will kill her and then do your best with legs/trash etc.