U38 Preview 2: Disciples of Rage Adventure Pack

[Cocomajobo]

U38 comes with 5 new dungeons! Bear in mind, in this preview they are in varying states of feature completion and polish. The regular questgivers will be located in House Jorasco once U38 is released to the live servers, however, for this preview the only way to access the quests is from a "The Questgiver" located in the center of the Test Dojo. You can purchase the adventure pack from the DDO store using DDO points granted to you by "Lord Poincelot" who is also located in the center of the Test Dojo.

The five U38 dungeons are level 14 in Heroic and Level 31 in Legendary. For this preview the quests can be completed in any order, however, when they reach live you will need to complete the intro to Flag for the middle three and you will need to complete all of the middle three (in any order) to flag for the Capstone. The quests are:

• Night Falls on Stormreach Intro
• Quarantine
• The Madness of Crowds
• The Age of Rage
• Toxic Treatment Capstone

Let us know what your first impressions are!

[UurlockYgmeov]

which one has Kookies?

[Cocomajobo]

which one has Kookies?

That would be The Age of Rage. =]

[UurlockYgmeov]

That would be The Age of Rage. =]

Hmm... ragecookies?

[Andu_Indorin]

Hmm... ragecookies?

Hmmm ... Overkill ???

[UurlockYgmeov]

Hmmm ... Overkill ???

do Kobold's know any other way? :P

[LrdSlvrhnd]

ragecookies... would that be taking a big ol' bite out of a chocolate chip cookie... and getting a mouthful of oatmeal raisin?

[PsychoBlonde]

Ran the quest chain:

Did you guys INTEND to re-activate the runearm charging sound? It's quite loud and obnoxious AND it now sometimes DOESN'T GO AWAY when you unequip your weapons.

Numerous grammatical errors in the masses of text present in these quests.

In Night Falls on Stormreach, after you defeat the rioters in the plaza, the DM says "the way to the west is now open" and the door on the EAST side of the plaza opened.

This quest chain feels like a prelude to a much bigger and cooler Xoriat chain. Either that, or the heroic version is supposed to be a prelude to one of the existing Xoriat chains, but this really doesn't make any sense given that two of them don't have an epic version and the legendary version of this is higher level than all of the other Xoriat chains.

Really nothing in there that made me say "oh, hey, that's cool".

It kind of needs some kind of "you are enraged" atmospheric, the way Xoriat quests have the whole madness thing, and Missing has the creepy grayscale thing.

[UurlockYgmeov]

...

Did you guys INTEND to re-activate the runearm charging sound? It's quite loud and obnoxious AND it now sometimes DOESN'T GO AWAY when you unequip your weapons.

...

This quest chain feels like a prelude to a much bigger and cooler Xoriat chain. Either that, or the heroic version is supposed to be a prelude to one of the existing Xoriat chains, but this really doesn't make any sense given that two of them don't have an epic version and the legendary version of this is higher level than all of the other Xoriat chains.

yes - but I thought they added an option to 'not hear it'.

much bigger xoriat chain! yes... like that one quest out in House P... only added to the chain and epicfied. Oh the lament of the spouses for all the dead PC's!

Did you try eating the ragecookie? ;p

[zehnvhex]

All quests completed at a level 14 on reaper and/or elite.

The new DOJO layout

DEAR GOD STOP THE PULSING BIGBY'S HANDS. SEIZURE TIME BOYS.

Night Falls on Stormreach

Compared to the intro to Ravenloft (Death House) this falls extremely flat. It started out okay with the optional Sharn Syndicate on the rooftops. However, within seconds I felt myself saying, "Hey it's been 10 feet since the last encounter of 5~6 melee mobs, 2 casters and 1~2 ranged...I wonder if...oh hey yup. Hey it's been 10 feet since the last encounter of 5~6 melee mobs..."

I'm guessing DM voices aren't hooked up yet?

Lay off the copy/paste tool for mob encounters. The tavern itself is decent but the rest of the zone is just blah. Speaking of which, why don't NPC's talk anymore? Go run the intro to VoN3 and notice how all the rank and file trolls are cursing you and are like, "Blargh I'll get you!" Can we start doing that again?

The dungeon isn't difficult, the layout is okay. It felt more tedious than anything. There was no sense of urgency really. It was all very ho-hum. The highlight of the zone was finding Fred. Collectible placement was decent. Sidequests were what you'd expect. I appreciated that the maddened crowd didn't add to dungeon alert so you can just run past them if you want.

I suspect that there's supposed to be an optional to not kill/agro any citizens because there's a 'sneaky path' you can take but there's really no point to it currently?

The XP is really low but that's to be expected in this day and age.

Recommendations: Fewer Sharn Syndicate packs just for the sake of having Sharn Syndicate packs. Make the stealing/darkening of the beacon more dramatic. The text blurb was super fast too it seemed. It feelss like whatever magic you guys had when making Ravenloft is gone. You need to not lose that spark.

QA: Nothing stood at as being a glaring issue. The townspeople before triggering the rage event can spawn reapers but I imagine there's nothing you can do about that with your current reaper tech. As mentioned one of the on screen text blurbs seems to go really fast. I wasn't able to read it the first time. Not sure if it sync'd up with audio or not. I'm not sure if intended or not but the DC on the secret door in the nights market is really high.

Quarantine

When you say you deployed a mist I expected, y'know...a mist. Other than that little faux pax I was pleased with this quest untilafter you kill the first mini-boss. Then it goes from "This is cool...the seedy underbelly of Stomreach slums!" with quality mob placement and encounters to "We learned absolutely nothing from the criticisms of Baba's hut. Here, do the same thing twice. Also, back to copy/paste encounters! YAY!"

Difficulty was about what I'd expect. The layout was kinda fun for a small dungeon. I didn't really see many/any collectibles in this one. The optionals are fine.

Recommendations: Add a 'kill' counter to clearing the central area. Only have us do it once, that second time is unnecessary padding. Absolutely nobody likes it when you do that kind of thing. If you want to add a second encounter to that area, at least mix it up a bit. Don't ruin what is a neat little 'slums of stormreach' relief aid romp. A neat add would be a timer of like....10 minutes for a bonus optional end chest. Get to the guy before they make off with most of the supplies kinda thing.

QA: Nothing really jumped out at me.

The Madness of Crowds

I was worried for a second that there would be a bunch of copy/paste mob packs. Unfortunately I was right. 3 Warriors, 2 scouts and 1~2 scorpions. Sound familiar?

However, apparently Drow can talk! "That one! Kill it with Fire!" "YOUR CURSE ENDS HERE!" Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!! Whoever remembered NPC's can talk deserves a big hug. Brawnpits is great fun as well and very well written.

Visually this zone is great. I spent far more time trying to jump off the waterfall then I care to admit. There are no collectibles near as I could tell in the zone.

Considering how absurdly fast you can complete this quest I can see why the XP is so low but...it's insultingly low. I can beat Ghosts of Perdition in about the same amount of time and that one is worth 4x the xp this one is worth.

Recommendations: Again, stop it with the cloning of mob packs. There's a grand total of 3 encounters in the zone that feel natural/organic and everything else feels like somebody opened up the quest layout and put a pack of the same 7 mobs every 20 feet.

QA: At "r1 lx1041 ly78 i15 ox36.47 oy132.50 oz312.76 h333.3Q:0x7002FF38" there's a tree with really weird invisible walls/pathing around it. Treasure bags don't seem to be hooked up when dropped by NPC's.

The Age of Rage

Finally a dungeon where the fights don't feel all copy/pasted. Most of the fights feel natural/fitting to the location they are in and not just a "It's been 10 feet, put another 3 warriors, 2 ranged, 1 caster and animal companion here." We're back to silent NPC's again though. Apparently only Drow can talk.

The sleeping quarters area I'm guessing is unfinished? It's not on the map, the rooms are just giant empty nothing with a handful of mobs in them?

I enjoyed the smashy smashy room. This is the quality content I come to DDO for. I want an entire raid that is just smashing boxes.

The XP again was insultingly low. There are level 5 quests which are quicker and give more XP. The difficulty here was a little higher than previous quests. Tons of CC/magic spam. If not paying attention on the final fight it's easy to get quickly overwhelmed.

I'm guessing collectibles are not hooked up in this quest as I found plenty of bookcases I expected I would be able to click on but there wasn't anything there.

Recommendations: Finish the sleeping quarter area or cut it. Otherwise I felt this was a great quest visually and otherwise. I enjoyed reading the book at the end. "Nope."

QA: First potential clue has /n/n typo. The second to last clue has a grammatical error. It should read "is integral to the return of the mad lord" The Book of Rage last page uses double quotes in a really weird place.

Toxic Treatment

If this was what Newcomers had looked like I would probably have been more kind to that quest. Visually i'm in love with this quest. It does, however, feel incredibly unfinished. The caves are all but vacant. There's, near as I can tell, not a single chest in the entire dungeon, the camp feels like it should have a 4th quest NPC that offers some sort of side quest.

I do like that the layout of the quest gives an advantage to a group in that you can split up to finish the three trials quicker. However, when giving out an XP reward you should never bank on people having that option. As such, given the difficulty of the final fight, the obnoxiousness of the cave section and all the back/forthing, the XP reward for this is atrocious.

There were like, 2 or 3 collectibles in the quest. Not good but not bad.

The encounters, what few there were that is, were on point. I could see them needlessly mucking this up though.

Recommendations: For the warriors trial I would recommend making it a kill 5 with an optional to kill 15 and have more umber hulks. Finding 5 was obnoxious and made the cave feel empty but having more with no incentive would just be bloat. I would add a 'quick return' to the village at the end of each path as well.

QA: When talking to the hunter's trial elder if you go down the conversation path for more info, you have to exit the convo and then talk with him again and pick the other conversation path to actually start the trial.

Final Thoughts:

I have a feeling this pack is going to end up in the "fire and forget" dust bin alongside MOT. It has the same absolute garbage xp values. The only thing it really does better than MOT is the mob HP values aren't nearly as bloated. The quests are really quick in a group though so I can see them being semi-popular among the 'Let's hit every quest in the game for easy R3 xp' for static groups. For solo play these are a definite pass.

After week 1 when everyone has the one or two items they want from this quest I don't see any LFM's ever forming for it ever again though. As quick as they are, they still aren't worth the xp. Even on R1 with a 50% xp pot going I barely got 2 bubbles of xp running the 5 quests at level 14. By contrast any one wing of GH is going to give me that and change.

Lore-wise it was neat. It of course felt very unfinished and I imagine it's a precursor to more in the storyline. I look forward to chasing after the Sharn syndicate to get the beacon back.

I didn't experience it but I've seen a lot of people complaining about the litany of CC that gets flooded everywhere. My guess is that it's a level 30 issue since on level 14 the only CC I got hit with was dominate by the very last boss in the chain.

Overall I'd say remove some of the copy/paste mob packs, triple the base XP values for the quests so they are on par with other level 14 quests, fix the lack of collectibles in some of the quests, finish up the stuff that feels unpolished (Terrace event being bland for the significant it has, sleeping quarters being just a bunch of square rooms, etc...) and this would be a solid addition to the game.

[Fenix93]

I really like the easter egg before umber Hulks' room in the wing of the Vulkron trials, a symbol of SSG engraved in the wall but well hidden but you can still notice it.

[Loromir]

Night Falls on Stormreach

Compared to the intro to Ravenloft (Death House) this falls extremely flat.

Actually....Death House is not the intro quest for Ravenloft. Into the Mist is the intro quest. Death House is a great quest IMO...so it would be hard to compare a lot of quests to that. Compare Night Falls to Into the Mist and see where it falls.

[zehnvhex]

Actually....Death House is not the intro quest for Ravenloft. Into the Mist is the intro quest. Death House is a great quest IMO...so it would be hard to compare a lot of quests to that. Compare Night Falls to Into the Mist and see where it falls.

lol no.

[zehnvhex]

I really like the easter egg before umber Hulks' room in the wing of the Vulkron trials, a symbol of SSG engraved in the wall but well hidden but you can still notice it.

I enjoyed the callbacks/easter eggs. The 'humor' in this pack is a stark contrast the grim/grittiness that was Ravenloft and I like it. Brawnpits writing is fun. Running into Haverdasher and him talking about the accommodations, the Giant in the night market pulling a "Uh...we were here first buddy", reading the book and going "Oh god nope. Nope nope nope." etc...all great.

I think one thing that was particularly brilliant was at the start of the third quest and your character goes, "These giants are smelly and disgusting and dear god why don't they bathe?" and I'm like...that's really not something that...ooooooooooh. I get it. I'm starting to be affected by the...yeaaah. Cool!

[mikarddo]

I think making these quests level 14 is a major mistake. Level 13, 14 and 16 are all full of quests that are run regularly for good xp while level 15 has fewer "must run" quests on my list atleast.

Further, moving the quests and named items from 14 to 15 would mean that the gear aligns better with Cannith Crafted gear as abilities and many other effects go up at level 15 (ie, con is +7 at ML 13 and ML 14 but +8 at ML 15, ML 16 and ML 17). This would make it much more likely that people would actually want and use the gear as they could plan a level 15 gear set around some of these named items rather than look at the level 14 item and note that it would be replaced by a crafted item with better stats at level 15 and not bother.

So, please consider changing the level to 15 (and make the xp reasonable - Mines if T is _not_) if you want us to actually run these quests more than a few times.

[Arkat]

Does SSG not have an editor or proofreader on staff?

Seriously, the poor grammar/spelling and the outright inaccuracies of some of the dialog and information is downright distracting.

[Unsinful]

After running this entire chain I was really disappointed that you guys are going for another madness type chain. I was hoping for something based off maybe lords of dust or something in that realm based off the name of the pack. As I ran through it all I could say was, "that encounter was slow and boring." When I got to the next encounter is what the exact same amount of mobs and even the same mob types. I also couldn't help but noticing that these quests are cuts of other quests pasted together with rather lazy transitions. Every time I entered a quest I could tell I was in another quest just starting in another section of it or perhaps even the same section.

I HATE all of the madness monsters because of the non-savable damage and weird CC effects that can't be blocked without super high saves. On R1 I couldn't do the endfight to the last 2 quests solo because the chaos beholders perma CC'd me and once I had death pens it just got worse. Granted I was running a tempest ranger with evasion and decent saves but I still struggled through these. It was interesting to see a new madness monster even though its damage was also weird and annoying. I noticed DM voices weren't working but that is not a big thing for me. I think that we have plenty of madness chains but I can see how this kind of fits into a story arc, and I say that loosely. Also please buff the XP. If these give this much XP on live there is no reason to run them once you have what you want from them.

For a second I want to talk about the capstone quest Toxic Treatment. What is the point in all this open area???? I spent 50 minutes on my first run through just second guessing myself and trying to find packs of mobs that didn't exist. Again you ripped sections from other quests and stuck them on here. The beginning was the same as To Curse the Sky, followed by a bit of Search and Rescue caves. Then you get into the open city area and it looked beautiful, but I was quickly reminded of the old content with the RSO puzzles leading into a Monastery puzzle in one trial, a forest with ONE count it ONE monster, a red named panther, in the second trial, and the third trial had only EIGHT mobs, 3 scorpions and 5 Umber Hulks. I did find the secret unlockable button that lead to an underground where I presume a chest will be added. Then after the third trial the endfight. The aqueduct looked really cool and then you enter the "temple?" and the endfight was again a chaos beholder that spawned stuff when its HP got lower. I didn't notice this at first and I had an orange alert from just that room which made the endfight that much more annoying.

Overall I think the pack is solid but its clear that all of the gear is build for Druids and Arties to actually use the sorry excuses of updated abilities they got at endgame. I don't see anyone besides a tempest picking up the new weapons, outside of druid/arty. I think the pack needs some refinement which is fine for a first look and hopefully you give us another look at these before they go live so that we don't get another ravenloft situation where so much is broken and you have to do 8 patches just to fix things and even then stuff remains unfixed. If I had to give a rating out of 10 I would give this a 4/10. It has some depth and new stuff but its a lot of copy/cut/paste from other areas. I think once people get the gear they need from these no one will run them anymore. I do however understand that this is just a bridge to U39 which is bringing a classic pack so I hope that you knock it out of the park with that one.

On a super positive note I am glad that you are giving other people in the office a chance to make new content because we get to see what other people make and it allows the game to expand more and stay alive.

[Hoglum]

U38 comes with 5 new dungeons!

Level 31

Are you ever going to make some epic dungeons? As best I can tell you've made lv 30+ dungeons for over 3 straight years (going on 4). Most everything 20 - 29 is regurgitated old stuff to begin with.

It would be nice to have something else for a change in the 20's.

[Nonesuch2008]

Are you ever going to make some epic dungeons? As best I can tell you've made lv 30+ dungeons for over 3 straight years (going on 4). Most everything 20 - 29 is regurgitated old stuff to begin with.

It would be nice to have something else for a change in the 20's.

Or drow-o-rama. I'd like to see some more stuff in this range as well, it's the main reason I avoid doing heroic versions of several chains, so I can save them for epic levels.

As for the new content, I spent some time figuring out how to get to Goldscuttle in the Night Market. Please tell me that he will activate & do something when all this goes live, right?

[GramercyRiff]

This is pretty bad early news regarding these quests. I guess it's getting close to taking a break from the game.

The Druid and Artificer stuff doesn't thrill me. The loot is nothing special. The quests sound bad. I'll still hold out some hope for Druid.