Slave Pits of the Undercity

[FranOhmsford]

Too many traps-- I despise traps, as a solo player. They are beyond annoying, really-- once you know they are there? It's like a fly you can't swat. Utterly ruins it for me, sometimes. But they seem Stock-And-Trade, now. Ugggg.

Devs - Can we please get Lvl 1-20 Rogue Hirelings added to the In-Game PLAT Vendor list!

It's getting harder and harder now to find Rogues or Artis when putting a Group together in Heroics - I've given up entirely on posting only for Rogues/Artis because then I get NO-ONE! {It's a big thing in DDO amongst the Player Base that posting for only one Class = PLAYER IS NOOB - DO NOT JOIN!}.

Losing 30% on pretty much 80% of Heroic Quests adds up to an absolute tonne of lost XP!
Yes I know this means you're making money from Gold Seal Rogues {I've bought at least 4 of them in the past month!} but when plat bought the player is going without a Divine Hire to do so OR Buying two hires and therefore one of them must be GS anyway!

The prevalence of Go IP to get joiners also makes Heroic Rogue Hires being GS Only a problem {Because you either go without the Rogue Hire and hope a Rogue joins which they probably won't or you buy a Rogue Hire, Call it then immediately get a trapper join because of Murphy's Law!}.


Again the loss of 30% XP is major over that many quests - You know how people used to feel about the Death "Penalty" which was only 10%!
If a Rogue/Arti does join you you still aren't assured that the Traps will get done either! Just yesterday I put up a Group for Heroic BB Orchard starting with Vol - After 5 minutes of waiting and while I was on my way to the Bank to pull out a Rogue Hire an Arti joined, After a couple more minutes we started - Arti was in Slayer before me, Arti made it into quest before me - ARTI DID NOT EVEN ATTEMPT TO DO THE TRAPS {OR the Opt}! IT WAS FULL ZERG! Arti then left Group after Vol leaving me high and dry for Inferno, Flesh and GoP - I joined another Group and redid Vol an hour or so later}.
P.S. No there wasn't an argument over the Arti Zerging, I let it go and said nothing! He simply stated when I said Inferno next, gotta go and left Group.
The Orchard Chain is just that - A CHAIN - I do not want to do just one quest in the Chain because that messes up getting the other 3 done! - If you're in a rush and don't have time for the entire Chain DON'T JOIN! Especially don't join, rush into first quest and zerg through it without checking with the Group Leader if that's alright and letting him/her know you're only there for the one quest!

P.P.S. I was on a Cleradin with no UMD {Because No Skill Points} and low DPS against anything other than Undead - I could not have soloed Inferno on that character if I'd wanted to!
That same Cleradin had twice the kills of anyone else {full group} in Madstone E-BB later that night - Being unable to Solo one quest does not = Don't join this character's Groups!




But having gone off on a tangent there I return now to the original point of this post - Rogue Hirelings are not optional anymore! They need to be available for PLAT!

[DYWYPI]

I noticed at least one of the Cold trap Pressure plates was fully encased within the cavern's rock-floor; I could trigger it somehow - even though it was fully buried LOL - but was not actually able to manage to target it at all correctly to disable it...

I didn't quite have enough time to complete the quest but got to the area with those 'String table error' slaves - before I had to logout. Yeah, 35+ traps my heroic 11 Rogue Assassin had disabled by then, she though it was a little heavy on bear traps (amount clustered) though of course had zero issues dealing with the Plates, etc. Disable DC was: ~ 35-40. I'd typically suspect ~ DC:38 as a rule-of-thumb for Level 8 on Elite anyway. :-)

Actually the Bear traps were more like Black "rattraps", I was able to wipe out a swarm of Rats as they stupidly killed themselves in the trap jaws. ;-)

[Bob_of_QF]

Devs - Can we please get Lvl 1-20 Rogue Hirelings added to the In-Game PLAT Vendor list!

It's getting harder and harder now to find Rogues or Artis when putting a Group together in Heroics - I've given up entirely on posting only for Rogues/Artis because then I get NO-ONE! {It's a big thing in DDO amongst the Player Base that posting for only one Class = PLAYER IS NOOB - DO NOT JOIN!}.

Losing 30% on pretty much 80% of Heroic Quests adds up to an absolute tonne of lost XP!
Yes I know this means you're making money from Gold Seal Rogues {I've bought at least 4 of them in the past month!} but when plat bought the player is going without a Divine Hire to do so OR Buying two hires and therefore one of them must be GS anyway!

The prevalence of Go IP to get joiners also makes Heroic Rogue Hires being GS Only a problem {Because you either go without the Rogue Hire and hope a Rogue joins which they probably won't or you buy a Rogue Hire, Call it then immediately get a trapper join because of Murphy's Law!}.


Again the loss of 30% XP is major over that many quests - You know how people used to feel about the Death "Penalty" which was only 10%!
If a Rogue/Arti does join you you still aren't assured that the Traps will get done either! Just yesterday I put up a Group for Heroic BB Orchard starting with Vol - After 5 minutes of waiting and while I was on my way to the Bank to pull out a Rogue Hire an Arti joined, After a couple more minutes we started - Arti was in Slayer before me, Arti made it into quest before me - ARTI DID NOT EVEN ATTEMPT TO DO THE TRAPS {OR the Opt}! IT WAS FULL ZERG! Arti then left Group after Vol leaving me high and dry for Inferno, Flesh and GoP - I joined another Group and redid Vol an hour or so later}.
P.S. No there wasn't an argument over the Arti Zerging, I let it go and said nothing! He simply stated when I said Inferno next, gotta go and left Group.
The Orchard Chain is just that - A CHAIN - I do not want to do just one quest in the Chain because that messes up getting the other 3 done! - If you're in a rush and don't have time for the entire Chain DON'T JOIN! Especially don't join, rush into first quest and zerg through it without checking with the Group Leader if that's alright and letting him/her know you're only there for the one quest!

P.P.S. I was on a Cleradin with no UMD {Because No Skill Points} and low DPS against anything other than Undead - I could not have soloed Inferno on that character if I'd wanted to!
That same Cleradin had twice the kills of anyone else {full group} in Madstone E-BB later that night - Being unable to Solo one quest does not = Don't join this character's Groups!




But having gone off on a tangent there I return now to the original point of this post - Rogue Hirelings are not optional anymore! They need to be available for PLAT!

^^^^^^^^^^ YES! THIS!

All of the latest dungeons are becoming Pay-To-Play, due to excessive number of traps.

I pretty much gave up on joining groups of strangers, due to zerging. Not my style of play--at all. They'd all be at the end, and I'd still be 1/2 way back, doing all the optionals solo, breaking all the boxes for the 15%, etc. Then, a minute later, I'd be the only one in the dungeon....

... *not* my idea of fun.

And *not* what a party is supposed to be-- but I came from pencil-and-paper, AD&D version 1, from 30 years ago, so... there's that handicap. >.<

[Bob_of_QF]

I noticed at least one of the Cold trap Pressure plates was fully encased within the cavern's rock-floor; I could trigger it somehow - even though it was fully buried LOL - but was not actually able to manage to target it at all correctly to disable it...

I didn't quite have enough time to complete the quest but got to the area with those 'String table error' slaves - before I had to logout. Yeah, 35+ traps my heroic 11 Rogue Assassin had disabled by then, she though it was a little heavy on bear traps (amount clustered) though of course had zero issues dealing with the Plates, etc. Disable DC was: ~ 35-40. I'd typically suspect ~ DC:38 as a rule-of-thumb for Level 8 on Elite anyway. :-)

Actually the Bear traps were more like Black "rattraps", I was able to wipe out a swarm of Rats as they stupidly killed themselves in the trap jaws. ;-)

LOL!

I do that too-- I sometimes deliberately park my hired thief back around the corner, then run and jump OVER the wall-traps, and get an agro on the mob, then jump back over, run around the corner and listen to the mobs die in the flames/lightning/bear-traps.

If I can manage it, I'll use a distance attack to get the mobs to come through.

I do enjoy the "irony" of using the traps against the monsters.

[FranOhmsford]

LOL!

I do that too-- I sometimes deliberately park my hired thief back around the corner, then run and jump OVER the wall-traps, and get an agro on the mob, then jump back over, run around the corner and listen to the mobs die in the flames/lightning/bear-traps.

If I can manage it, I'll use a distance attack to get the mobs to come through.

I do enjoy the "irony" of using the traps against the monsters.

There was a time when this worked pretty much everywhere but a combination of the Devs correcting mob AI, nerfing traps AND buffing mob Saves has made it very much hit or miss of where and when this will work today - If it does work in these new quests that's a good thing in my view but I'm guessing that by the time it gets to live it won't.

[legendkilleroll]

Pay to play because of traps.........

Please dont listen to this devs, i know you want the game to be accessible to more player types as shown by choices in last few years.

Not every quest needs to be soloed in a few mins on top difficulty, plenty of quests out there that fit that, there needs to be different things, nothing wrong with having a longer dungeon that may require another player

[slarden]

Devs,

The slave lords appear to have resorted to unfair tactics such as putting in traps and mean monsters to keep me from stealing their stuff. Is that working as intended?

Is it possible to put a "loot all chests" altar at the front the quest? That would be easier.

Please give this request the serious consideration it deserves.

[Bob_of_QF]

There was a time when this worked pretty much everywhere but a combination of the Devs correcting mob AI, nerfing traps AND buffing mob Saves has made it very much hit or miss of where and when this will work today - If it does work in these new quests that's a good thing in my view but I'm guessing that by the time it gets to live it won't.

Yes-- I ran part 1 again to see where I screwed up in the puzzle-room. (for some reason I had failed to try the floor tiles again, after hitting the wall-switch... I has the dumbs)

But running it for the 4th time? (Heroic/Epic) I tried the lure the mobs into the traps game for fun, exclusively. No joy. 90% or better of the time, the mobs simply strolled through/past/over the "traps" without so much as a single "dink" or "clank" of damage.

Not even the bear traps.... which are the worst idea *ever* to be put into a game, IMO.

I would accept the bear traps *IF* you could actually spot them beforehand, with, say True Seeing? Or high intelligence? Nope. Unless you do an active search-- they remain magically stealthed.

[Bob_of_QF]

Devs,

The slave lords appear to have resorted to unfair tactics such as putting in traps and mean monsters to keep me from stealing their stuff. Is that working as intended?

Is it possible to put a "loot all chests" altar at the front the quest? That would be easier.

Please give this request the serious consideration it deserves.

Not everyone has the time to TR 100 times, and amass gigantic piles of UberLoot from grinding 150 runs through loot-generating endless repeats.

I run a dungeon, typically, ONCE per toon per life. I don't have piles of actual cash-money to purchase a TR, and I despise grinding the same darn dungeon 20-30 times needed to farm a TR.

Moreover, I do *not* care for most of the Epic content-- apart from several quite fun wilderness areas (Epic), I pretty much quit playing that high a toon-- out of sheer **boredom**. I have, maybe 10 20+ toons, on 3 servers, sitting idle because of this issue. I'm too fond of them to simply delete-and-restart, although I *have* resorted to that, rather than grinding out the needed ingredients for an in-game TR thingy.

Endless sets of *boring* traps destroy the game for a non-thief-skill toon. They serve no real purpose, the majority of the time. Other than to force-sell Gold Seal rogues.

Pay To Play, as I said.

[Bob_of_QF]

Pay to play because of traps.........

Yes.

There are scant few dungeons in DDO, that are NOT pay-to-play.

Good luck in getting up a party, for a Loooong quest, that has someone willing to do the scut-work of a thief. Forget an assassination-stye thief-- unless they max their un-trap, search and related skills? They are not *really* a thief, are they?

Nope. So the group (or solo player) is *forced* to purchase a Gold Seal rogue.

In darn near every single frikkin dungeon.

This is Play-to-Play-- or as they say over on Google Play store? "Purchase of in-game content is required"

[legendkilleroll]

Not everyone has the time to TR 100 times, and amass gigantic piles of UberLoot from grinding 150 runs through loot-generating endless repeats.

I run a dungeon, typically, ONCE per toon per life. I don't have piles of actual cash-money to purchase a TR, and I despise grinding the same darn dungeon 20-30 times needed to farm a TR.

Moreover, I do *not* care for most of the Epic content-- apart from several quite fun wilderness areas (Epic), I pretty much quit playing that high a toon-- out of sheer **boredom**. I have, maybe 10 20+ toons, on 3 servers, sitting idle because of this issue. I'm too fond of them to simply delete-and-restart, although I *have* resorted to that, rather than grinding out the needed ingredients for an in-game TR thingy.

Endless sets of *boring* traps destroy the game for a non-thief-skill toon. They serve no real purpose, the majority of the time. Other than to force-sell Gold Seal rogues.

Pay To Play, as I said.

Ive never been forced to buy a rogue hire while running a non trapper

I can easily say the opposite of having quests without traps destroys the game for a thief-skill character

The problem i have is for people who want a quick run, to gain xp, there is already plenty of that available, why cant we have longer dungeons? why cant we have quests you need to run lots of times to collect ing to make the gear, just because you or players like you dont like something, there are others who do.

There has to be quests in game that appeal to all types, if you dont enjoy this type then you arnt forced to run it, plenty of things i dont like that i choose not to run

[FranOhmsford]

Yes.

There are scant few dungeons in DDO, that are NOT pay-to-play.

Good luck in getting up a party, for a Loooong quest, that has someone willing to do the scut-work of a thief. Forget an assassination-stye thief-- unless they max their un-trap, search and related skills? They are not *really* a thief, are they?

Nope. So the group (or solo player) is *forced* to purchase a Gold Seal rogue.

In darn near every single frikkin dungeon.

This is Play-to-Play-- or as they say over on Google Play store? "Purchase of in-game content is required"

Just an FYI - An Assassin who can't do traps has purposefully gimped his character!
Because an Assassin is a Max Int Build! It shouldn't be possible for any Assassin to not be able to get all traps in the game!

Now an Acrobat - That's a different story!


But I ran Shadow Flags yesterday - I was about to put my own group up but saw a group was already up with 3 people in it {NOT ONE OF WHOM HAD TRAPPING ABILITY!} - They were also looking for a Guide which I was quite capable of being.
BUT I was on a Cleric - So that's now 4 of us with no trapping ability!
I bought a Rogue Hire for Shadow Knight and stuck it back in the bank for the other 3 {Not enough traps in King or Guard to be worth wasting a Gold Seal Rogue and no traps in Lord whatsoever}. NO WAY WAS I RUNNING SHADOW KNIGHT WITHOUT TRAP SKILLS!

This isn't about wanting to Solo!
This is about not being able to get a Trapper in a GROUP!

The Group didn't fill but even if it had we might not have got an actual trapper in that last spot - And even if we had there's no guarantee said trapper would have been trap capable - I wouldn't decline a Lvl 7 1st Life Acrobat if he/she decided to hit the LFM! {And yes I did take over LFM duty from the Previous Leader}.


And it's not just Shadow Knight either.
I can't guarantee a Group for Xorian Cypher!
I can't guarantee a Group for Tear of Dhakaan or Gwylan's Stand!
And even if I do get a Group there's no guarantee a Rogue or Arti {or splash trapper} will join either!
And these aren't unpopular quests - They're amongst the most popular quests!
Let's talk about unpopular quests - Ghola Fan, Threnal, Sorrowdusk! These are quests where there's just no way I'm getting a trapper to join me UNLESS it's a friend who's at the right level at the same time as me!

Worst of all - If you put "Need Trapper" in the LFM you can forget getting a Trapper! It's in the same ballpark as "Need Healer" and is simply considered bad form!

Sending Tells can sometimes get you a trapper but again there's no guarantee!

Rogue Hirelings should be available for Plat in Heroics as well as in Epics!
There's no longer enough players in game at each level to justify not making this available!
It's common to check Lvl 7-10 or 8-11 or 15-18 on the Who List and see less than 10 players online total - Half of them already in Group or in Other Quests soloing! This game doesn't have the Player Base anymore to justify keeping Heroic Rogue Hirelings Gold Seal only!

[Uska]

Really starting to wish they didn't put these new quests up on lama so people have them completely figured out before release. I know they need to test them but they should bring back Mournlands for people to test parts of the quests and use a strong NDA its better to not know what is coming.

[slarden]

Not everyone has the time to TR 100 times, and amass gigantic piles of UberLoot from grinding 150 runs through loot-generating endless repeats.

I run a dungeon, typically, ONCE per toon per life. I don't have piles of actual cash-money to purchase a TR, and I despise grinding the same darn dungeon 20-30 times needed to farm a TR.

Moreover, I do *not* care for most of the Epic content-- apart from several quite fun wilderness areas (Epic), I pretty much quit playing that high a toon-- out of sheer **boredom**. I have, maybe 10 20+ toons, on 3 servers, sitting idle because of this issue. I'm too fond of them to simply delete-and-restart, although I *have* resorted to that, rather than grinding out the needed ingredients for an in-game TR thingy.

Endless sets of *boring* traps destroy the game for a non-thief-skill toon. They serve no real purpose, the majority of the time. Other than to force-sell Gold Seal rogues.

Pay To Play, as I said.

My post was sarcastic for sure, but wasn't directed at anyone specifically and wasn't meant as an insult.

I only ran on legendary so I can't comment on heroic except to say I think it's good if a few extreme challenge heroic quests exist as long as they are marked appropriately so people don't step into them blindly. If people want gear and can't run them at level they can always run them over the level.

I don't view traps as pay to play - I think it simply means a trappers services are extremely helpful. While it might be considered a negative to you others might consider it a positive. I think the devs made a huge effort to accomodate solo players, but it's ok if the devs also make some quests that requires xxx skill that not all classes have. I realize some servers are low pop and this is part of the problem with trying to get specific classes to join lfms.

[JOTMON]

Really starting to wish they didn't put these new quests up on lama so people have them completely figured out before release. I know they need to test them but they should bring back Mournlands for people to test parts of the quests and use a strong NDA its better to not know what is coming.

I tend not to mind when they keep them in the Lamannia subforum, unfortunately many of these conversations spill into the regular forums bringing spoilers to everyone who would prefer to wait for live content.

[FranOhmsford]

My post was sarcastic for sure, but wasn't directed at anyone specifically and wasn't meant as an insult.

I only ran on legendary so I can't comment on heroic except to say I think it's good if a few extreme challenge heroic quests exist as long as they are marked appropriately so people don't step into them blindly. If people want gear and can't run them at level they can always run them over the level.

I don't view traps as pay to play - I think it simply means a trappers services are extremely helpful. While it might be considered a negative to you others might consider it a positive. I think the devs made a huge effort to accomodate solo players, but it's ok if the devs also make some quests that requires xxx skill that not all classes have. I realize some servers are low pop and this is part of the problem with trying to get specific classes to join lfms.

My previous post detailed examples of not being able to get a trapper join me ON SARLONA! Your Server!

ALL SERVERS ARE LOW POP NOW!

The past month I've played on Sarlona, Cannith, Orien {the current DEFAULT!} and Khyber. In the past year I've played on every single server! And it's the same EVERYWHERE!

I've been in big Guilds and small Guilds and solo Guilds - I join all open user Channels that I find out about, I regularly post LFMs - But I don't have a group of personal friends who also play this game and are always exactly the same level as me!

As for Extreme Challenge - Proof is in the Poison is meant to be an Extreme Challenge Quest and was for a very long time BUT even I could complete it back in the day on a Lvl 9 Character Solo with Hire.
ToEE on the other hand I have characters who cannot complete it at Lvl 15! I have characters who've had to re-enter at Lvl 20!
There's "Extreme Challenge" and there's just frankly "Ludicrous"!

At this point new quests are not taking Lvl into Account when setting difficulty!
The Devs are placing these quests at the wrong level for their difficulty!
In Heroic they're setting them too low while in Epic I think it's pretty obvious to anyone that Grim and Barrett is NOT a Lvl 30 Quest! 26-28 maybe but not 30 on Normal!

Level needs to mean something in D&D and in DDO!
There's no point adding quests at Lvl 13 {Archons, Memoirs} to fill out said level if people are simply unable to run those quests at that level {and the xp gained from running them over-level is minimal!}.
Lvl 10 is possibly the worst level in the game for number of quests {apart from 20 obviously} - The new Slave Lords Quests however are being put at Heroic Lvl EIGHT where there's already more quests than a 3rd Life+ BB Streaker can run before being Hard Capped!
Why not push those quests up to Base Lvl 10 {which from what I'm hearing would still be under their difficulty!} to fill out said level rather than placing them at Lvl 8 where people will just SKIP THEM!

[Blastyswa]

Why not push those quests up to Base Lvl 10 {which from what I'm hearing would still be under their difficulty!} to fill out said level rather than placing them at Lvl 8 where people will just SKIP THEM!

Yes. Keep the difficulty the exact same, keep the loot ml 8, and move it to level 10, 12 on elite. At the moment when I'm in heroics I cap level 12, take level 12, run tempest's spine and ataraxia, take level 13 and am about 1 rank into it, and then proceed to 11's. This would also have the advantage of players having access to tier 5's/core 4's while running these quests EBB in heroics, which is a significant boost to most build's power.

[Blastyswa]

Ive never been forced to buy a rogue hire while running a non trapper

I can easily say the opposite of having quests without traps destroys the game for a thief-skill character

The problem i have is for people who want a quick run, to gain xp, there is already plenty of that available, why cant we have longer dungeons? why cant we have quests you need to run lots of times to collect ing to make the gear, just because you or players like you dont like something, there are others who do.

There has to be quests in game that appeal to all types, if you dont enjoy this type then you arent forced to run it, plenty of things i dont like that i choose not to run

Yes, I have the personal tendency to actually not even wait for traps when the party has a trapper if they're significantly behind the main group, because most traps are very easy to dodge; a vast majority of the time I just run through traps, because they tend to glitch out and not deal damage, and I build my toons with high enough defenses to be able to take a trap hit or two without dying.

Now the one thing I would say for trappers is that I wish movement speed was increased for rogues while sneaking, enough that sneaking would actually be quicker than running normally; this is the same philosophy as the buff to sacred/stalwart defender movement speeds a while back, where you want the trapper to get to the traps first to disable them before any squishy barbarians die on them, as well as wanting assassins to get in quick and take their pick of which HVT to take out before the rest of the party shows up and aggroes everything.

[Volumptuous]

the ingredient is not dropping from this quest on heroic-Cannith server R3, R2, R1, Elite