Mawr Red names!!!

[noobodyfool]

Red Names give me Red Names many much more Red Names!
The new content Rocks with more Red Names giving slower melee like survivable fighters a chance to contribute in a meaning full way. Continue to use more Red Names going forward.

1# It reduces agro lag of to many mobs.

2# It forces more balance in party to combat dungeons.

3# It not so boring as cc/instakill/kite/charm bs that is ruining the game.

4# We need RED NAME REAPERS

5# BOSS FIGHTS RULE!!!

Please leave your comments below and fighting it always appreciated

[Domince]

no

[simo0208]

I wish you would have stayed quit.

No.

[Memnir]

[tafla421]

im all for more reds if they lower the hp bag to reasonable amounts. and with more reds give more optional chests that have the chance at the named loot. its not worth running a quest if it takes over 30 mins and you only get 1 chance at all the loot, and if the new quests aren't worth running then whats the point in playing your game and spending money on it?

[Selvera]

It's no secret I love bossfights. I like multi-phase bosses that require players/parties to adapt tactics between phases.

I'm not totally satisfied with how DDO tackles them in most cases; I do think there are a few cool bosses in the game. Two boss fights which I do like in the game are the final fight of Slavelords and the final fight of ToEE part 2. They both are multi-phase bosses which have enough going on that players have to pay attention to know when to deal damage, when to kite/hide, and when to deal with trash or focus the boss (or which boss).

On the flip side; I feel like too many red named "boss" in the game are boring beatdowns of sacks of HP with little to no interaction on interesting mechanics. For example; the first orc chieftain boss in slavelords is just a sack of HP that cleaves. He doesn't try to call in minions; never uses the terrain to his advantage; doesn't have any interesting attacks and always focuses the tank. It's simple a defense/healing/patience check that dps can speed up.

Imagine if that orc chieftain had more interesting boss mechanics. When you get him to 75% starts (occasionally) throwing the tank across the room and charges at the squishy caster/healer; causing the squishies to have to kite while the tank recovers and gets agro back. At 50% he moves to a new room where he has a balcony of archers to rain arrows down on the party. He then buffs up the archers every now and then (fury buff) as long as they live. At 25% he calls in a group of warriors to attack from behind. Now the tank has an active role having to reacquire agro of the boss and the trash. The dps has to dish out damage while worrying about cleave on a moving target and staying safe while the tank is unavailable; and the casters have to manage the trash he summons; ccing and/or killing them as they spawn (what if some of the archers can't be instakilled but could be held/blinded/etc). This sounds like a much more interesting and fun fight to me.

I'm also not super happy with the decision that CC and most debuffs can't work on rednames. While it makes sense that instant-killing shouldn't work and that it shouldn't be easy (or even possible) to make a red name completely non-threatening; I think it's totally reasonable to let CC and/or debuffs to work on them. A well timed hold or blind or silence could easily be part of an interesting boss fight. Perhaps bosses would have reduced duration of CC and become immune to CC for a few seconds after the duration is over. Perhaps CCing bosses could have a maximum duration. Perhaps CC can't cancel some iconic attacks of bosses. But I feel like it could be integrated in a healthy, interactive and fun way.

So; by all means! Bring more rednamed bosses. But make them fun; not pointless beatdowns of stacks of HP.

[Tyrande]

It's no secret I love bossfights. I like multi-phase bosses that require players/parties to adapt tactics between phases.

I'm not totally satisfied with how DDO tackles them in most cases; I do think there are a few cool bosses in the game. Two boss fights which I do like in the game are the final fight of Slavelords [...]

So; by all means! Bring more rednamed bosses. But make them fun; not pointless beatdowns of stacks of HP.

I have to jump in and comment on the final fight on Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords. Yes, the fight was fun in the beginning. Someone kite, someone tanks and hits the boss; someone heals, etc.

However, since this is a quest; and some parties running reaper didn't bring a tank or a healer.

For example, in one instance; a party went in without a tank. Many fights and deaths later, the rogue boss aggro'd on the healer and shadai kai chained and then back stabbed the healer to death. Someone resurrected the healer; and then the rogue boss aggro'd on the healer again and then kill it again. Repeat this 5x until the party finally managed to kill the rogue boss. Between the different killings the rogue boss also phases out and then phases in like a phase spider so that nobody can hit it while it was phased out.
For a moment I thought it had good AI where it was attacking and sneaking from behind and use phase in and outs and stuff. However, it was not fun that it kept on aggro'ing on one character who was already dead (previously) and has not done anything to aggro it again.

Now, imagine yourselves in her shoes. It was not fun at all for the healer to have repeated aggro without doing anything and repeated non-meaningful deaths. Its a stupid mechanic. Its a stupid rogue and none of our own rogues can do that.
So stop making red named bosses like that.

[Selvera]

I have to jump in and comment on the final fight on Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords.

However, since this is a quest; and some parties running reaper didn't bring a tank or a healer.

etc.

It sounds like you entered the quest on a difficulty that was too high for your party composition. Yes; you as players are geared/pl/skilled enough to run the quest on whatever reaper difficulty you picked; but since you didn't bring the proper party composition to the quest; you should have considered lowering the difficulty to one in which you DO have a tank. (even if a character is built for dps or casting or whatnot; they can be a tank if they're able to get/hold/survive agro on the difficulty setting they're running).

I do understand that Nerals is pretty annoying in that he phases in and out and generally ignores agro/cc. I can imagine myself in her shoes because I've been that healer before. (Yep; healer is one of the roles I play a lot of). But there is counterplay for him. Kiting is one of the big options for parties that don't have someone who can draw his agro effectively. He's also quite predictable in that he only spawns behind one of the 2 pillars in the fight; which gives you just enough time to see him coming before he gets to you. One of the major aspects to kiting him is to not get the agro of slippery kita (or whatever the crossbower's name is). This happens sometimes when the party member she was attacking dies. It can be tricky to keep people alive when kiting for your own life... but it's possible.

Nerals certainly doesn't phase out like a phase spider; he's usually pretty quick to phase back in after he phases out (unlike spiders... or worse ogre magi). He does rapidly teleport across the room which is rather annoying for melees (but great for ranged).

Nerals requires a group to adapt tactics and heavily favors bringing specific builds/party members into the quest. I am fully support this sort of design; but certainly bosses which are highly dangerous to backline party members and unable to be CC'd and constantly break agro would be rather tiresome if they're overused.

I do feel like both of those fights (that I said I enjoy in the previous post) are a little over tuned in terms of pure numbers compared with the quest they're in. But at the same time they are end-fights for their respective chains; so maybe that's acceptable. I do sort of feel like devs could experiment with dumping the entire's party soulstones on the nearest shrine and resetting the encounter if the whole party's been dead for 60 seconds. (The idea is to give the party a chance to regroup and attempt the fight again with new tactics without preventing parties from caking/recovering from a wipe in the fight. Timer might need to be longer; but don't want to cause too much pointless waiting around.)

[AbyssalMage]

It sounds like you entered the quest on a difficulty that was too high for your party composition.

Sounds like you didn't read that they were able to complete it. It wasn't too hard.

Yes; you as players are geared/pl/skilled enough to run the quest on whatever reaper difficulty you picked; but since you didn't bring the proper party composition to the quest; you should have considered lowering the difficulty to one in which you DO have a tank. (even if a character is built for dps or casting or whatnot; they can be a tank if they're able to get/hold/survive agro on the difficulty setting they're running).

"Having a tank" should not be a requirement. This is DDO, not your flavor of the month MMO. This community wants and demands variety because THIS COMMUNITY wants to make "wacky builds" occasionally.

I do understand that Nerals is pretty annoying in that he phases in and out and generally ignores agro/cc. I can imagine myself in her shoes because I've been that healer before. (Yep; healer is one of the roles I play a lot of). But there is counterplay for him. Kiting is one of the big options for parties that don't have someone who can draw his agro effectively. He's also quite predictable in that he only spawns behind one of the 2 pillars in the fight; which gives you just enough time to see him coming before he gets to you. One of the major aspects to kiting him is to not get the agro of slippery kita (or whatever the crossbower's name is). This happens sometimes when the party member she was attacking dies. It can be tricky to keep people alive when kiting for your own life... but it's possible.

Again, the party was able to succeed. On a difficulty you suggested they "lower" because they "did not have a tank" or came prepared.

Nerals certainly doesn't phase out like a phase spider; he's usually pretty quick to phase back in after he phases out (unlike spiders... or worse ogre magi). He does rapidly teleport across the room which is rather annoying for melees (but great for ranged).

You point being? They were able to complete!

Nerals requires a group to adapt tactics and heavily favors bringing specific builds/party members into the quest. I am fully support this sort of design; but certainly bosses which are highly dangerous to backline party members and unable to be CC'd and constantly break agro would be rather tiresome if they're overused.

It's tiring anytime it is used. Especially if the AI is "chaotic" like Nerals where you repeatedly have NPC who targets the same PC (which is in more than this single quest) making that players play experience "frustrating" (i.e. filters won't allow the appropriate language that belongs there).

I do feel like both of those fights (that I said I enjoy in the previous post) are a little over tuned in terms of pure numbers compared with the quest they're in. But at the same time they are end-fights for their respective chains; so maybe that's acceptable. I do sort of feel like devs could experiment with dumping the entire's party soulstones on the nearest shrine and resetting the encounter if the whole party's been dead for 60 seconds. (The idea is to give the party a chance to regroup and attempt the fight again with new tactics without preventing parties from caking/recovering from a wipe in the fight. Timer might need to be longer; but don't want to cause too much pointless waiting around.)

NO!

"Teleporting soul stones to a way point and resetting encounters" would be a great way for SSG to lose (more) players. Using Jibbers/caking is a solid option when tactics "go south." More importantly, the only time "tactics" enter this game is during the first weeks of a release. After that, even if you have 1 or 2 new players to the adventure, they are bonuses to the group (unless they did something with scaling). So no thanks. The majority of the community can adjust to the circumstance very well.

After all. They adjusted to poor AI slaughtering their Healer to finish it on a difficulty that wasn't "too hard" and got their "loots." The post was simply trying to improve the play experience of their healer and future players; not diminish it.

[Bacab]

Please leave your comments below and fighting it always appreciated

Proof that this was posted just to be inflammatory.

What is your deal man?

[Selvera]

Many fights and deaths later.

Sounds like you didn't read that they were able to complete it. It wasn't too hard.

Being able to complete a difficulty doesn't mean that it's not too harder then you probably should have run. Run this difficulty in which you have fun. I enjoy a challange so I typically take difficulties which might result in a few deaths or a wipe; but I play with some people who disagree and would rather run stuff on a lower difficulty. They're not wrong; they should run what they find fun; so we try to find a middle ground.

"Having a tank" should not be a requirement.

even if a character is built for dps or casting or whatnot; they can be a tank if they're able to get/hold/survive agro on the difficulty setting they're running

Point out to me at what point I said you had to sit around and wait for a party member. Everyone can tank to some degree; and unless you're fully kiting or safespotting the entire quest; someone has to tank at some point.

It's tiring anytime it is used. Especially if the AI is "chaotic" like Nerals where you repeatedly have NPC who targets the same PC (which is in more than this single quest) making that players play experience "frustrating" (i.e. filters won't allow the appropriate language that belongs there).

So you're of the opinion that some archetypes shouldn't have to ever worry about getting defenses or moving away from a threat in any party they join?

"Teleporting soul stones to a way point and resetting encounters" would be a great way for SSG to lose (more) players. Using Jibbers/caking is a solid option when tactics "go south." More importantly, the only time "tactics" enter this game is during the first weeks of a release. After that, even if you have 1 or 2 new players to the adventure, they are bonuses to the group (unless they did something with scaling). So no thanks. The majority of the community can adjust to the circumstance very well.

without preventing parties from caking/recovering from a wipe in the fight

Yeah; jibbers/cakes is a solid option. That's why I said that it shouldn't be removed. The timer which I proposed was to give time for a party to scout out a good place to jibbers/wait for death timers without losing their progress. As I had said in my previous post. I had also said the timer might need to be longer. Perhaps 5 minutes would be better.

More importantly; people learn/adapt new tactics more often then just the first 2 weeks after a game or content is released. New builds are able to do things previous builds weren't; new party members or bring new tactics and as you mentioned; the community can adjust to the circumstances.. so I don't understand why you think tactics are (or should be) static. I've certainly had quests/fights that should have been easy for a party go south and result in a wipe. Then recall out of the quest; reset and go back in after people have had time to heal and talk over tactics... then wipe the floor with the encounter that caused them problems before. The point in allowing this for difficult endfights like this within the quest is so that the party doesn't have to slog through the whole rest of the quest again if they want to get a fresh go at the fight.

[Algreg]

A broken promise! Santa is already stuffing the coals for you!

As I already told your buddy/possible alter ego, forget about it. This place has already been ruined by a far more abler guy than you. You are not even an itch now. You are basically putting bad graffiti on a collapsed building.

[noobodyfool]

Proof that this was posted just to be inflammatory.

What is your deal man?

Humer and premonition

[Annex]

This may come as a surprise to some but...I agree with noobodyfool and Selvera on this one.

DDO offers much more exciting combat than most games...except for bosses. When it comes to bosses, most other games pull far ahead of DDO. Please note I am referring to bosses in quests, not bosses in raids.

As a mediocre solo player, Zuggtmoy and the Slave Lords are pretty much beyond me as they heavily favor groups. However, I would very much enjoy seeing more Raid type bosses with complex solutions in normal quests, scaled down to allow solo and small group success. Even modestly interesting bossed like Carver (Multitude of Menace), General Xanti'lar (Stormcleave Outpost), Gur'noras (Subversion), and Lord Sable (A Study in Sable), are way better than, oh, Luggan the Cudgeler (The Tracker's Trap).

To be clear, a good boss fight allows the player opportunity to reliably prevent massive damage or very bad effects. A good boss fight rewards smart play with a faster completion. A bad boss fight requires the ability to sustain massive damage, requires the ability to sustain very bad effects, requires mindlessly beating through a million hit points, or produces random automatic failures. (Edit: Once again, I refer to quests, not raids.)

[fmalfeas]

Luggan the Cudgeler is my defination of a BAD boss design.

I took an evocation archmage in on EH. Every other quest I'd done, bosses were a pain, but doable. Trash could just be exploded like an evoker should do. I'd usually end the quest with about 5% SP left, but still...

Tracker's Trap? Went completely OOM on Luggan, who's not even the end boss. I then had to spend an absurd amount of time Arcane Bolting him and desperately kiting, running entirely on Echoes of Power. And that was /EH/. I don't even want to think about what his HP on EE would look like. Not funny.

[Niminae]

I'm also not super happy with the decision that CC and most debuffs can't work on rednames. While it makes sense that instant-killing shouldn't work and that it shouldn't be easy (or even possible) to make a red name completely non-threatening; I think it's totally reasonable to let CC and/or debuffs to work on them. A well timed hold or blind or silence could easily be part of an interesting boss fight. Perhaps bosses would have reduced duration of CC and become immune to CC for a few seconds after the duration is over. Perhaps CCing bosses could have a maximum duration. Perhaps CC can't cancel some iconic attacks of bosses. But I feel like it could be integrated in a healthy, interactive and fun way.

So; by all means! Bring more rednamed bosses. But make them fun; not pointless beatdowns of stacks of HP.

Long, seemingly pointless beatdowns of stacks of HP are just dull, it is true. But allowing CC to work on red/purple names would be a really difficult balancing act. Right now these bosses are able to be slain by simple DPS, and adding in CC vulnerability even if tempered by your suggested temporary immunity would only make them more easy to defeat. The entire game engine would need to change to adapt to the changes you are suggesting, and I don't think this is a possible outcome.

[Cantor]

It's no secret I love bossfights. I like multi-phase bosses that require players/parties to adapt tactics between phases.

I'm not totally satisfied with how DDO tackles them in most cases; I do think there are a few cool bosses in the game. Two boss fights which I do like in the game are the final fight of Slavelords and the final fight of ToEE part 2. They both are multi-phase bosses which have enough going on that players have to pay attention to know when to deal damage, when to kite/hide, and when to deal with trash or focus the boss (or which boss).

On the flip side; I feel like too many red named "boss" in the game are boring beatdowns of sacks of HP with little to no interaction on interesting mechanics. For example; the first orc chieftain boss in slavelords is just a sack of HP that cleaves. He doesn't try to call in minions; never uses the terrain to his advantage; doesn't have any interesting attacks and always focuses the tank. It's simple a defense/healing/patience check that dps can speed up.

Imagine if that orc chieftain had more interesting boss mechanics. When you get him to 75% starts (occasionally) throwing the tank across the room and charges at the squishy caster/healer; causing the squishies to have to kite while the tank recovers and gets agro back. At 50% he moves to a new room where he has a balcony of archers to rain arrows down on the party. He then buffs up the archers every now and then (fury buff) as long as they live. At 25% he calls in a group of warriors to attack from behind. Now the tank has an active role having to reacquire agro of the boss and the trash. The dps has to dish out damage while worrying about cleave on a moving target and staying safe while the tank is unavailable; and the casters have to manage the trash he summons; ccing and/or killing them as they spawn (what if some of the archers can't be instakilled but could be held/blinded/etc). This sounds like a much more interesting and fun fight to me.

I'm also not super happy with the decision that CC and most debuffs can't work on rednames. While it makes sense that instant-killing shouldn't work and that it shouldn't be easy (or even possible) to make a red name completely non-threatening; I think it's totally reasonable to let CC and/or debuffs to work on them. A well timed hold or blind or silence could easily be part of an interesting boss fight. Perhaps bosses would have reduced duration of CC and become immune to CC for a few seconds after the duration is over. Perhaps CCing bosses could have a maximum duration. Perhaps CC can't cancel some iconic attacks of bosses. But I feel like it could be integrated in a healthy, interactive and fun way.

So; by all means! Bring more rednamed bosses. But make them fun; not pointless beatdowns of stacks of HP.

Totally agree with everything here.

I think they tried to sidestep the bag-o-HP in WPM pack.

look at the transmuter quest: 3 red names one active at a time, 3 lesser bag-o-HP instead of one giant one.
WPM 4 smaller HP bags, 2 at a time.


I thought they had really reigned in the HP on this pack as far as individual red names go.

I don't know about CC on bosses except maybe just to break super moves, but debuffs for sure.

[Enoach]

I have to jump in and comment on the final fight on Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords. Yes, the fight was fun in the beginning. Someone kite, someone tanks and hits the boss; someone heals, etc.

However, since this is a quest; and some parties running reaper didn't bring a tank or a healer.

For example, in one instance; a party went in without a tank. Many fights and deaths later, the rogue boss aggro'd on the healer and shadai kai chained and then back stabbed the healer to death. Someone resurrected the healer; and then the rogue boss aggro'd on the healer again and then kill it again. Repeat this 5x until the party finally managed to kill the rogue boss. Between the different killings the rogue boss also phases out and then phases in like a phase spider so that nobody can hit it while it was phased out.
For a moment I thought it had good AI where it was attacking and sneaking from behind and use phase in and outs and stuff. However, it was not fun that it kept on aggro'ing on one character who was already dead (previously) and has not done anything to aggro it again.

Now, imagine yourselves in her shoes. It was not fun at all for the healer to have repeated aggro without doing anything and repeated non-meaningful deaths. Its a stupid mechanic. Its a stupid rogue and none of our own rogues can do that.
So stop making red named bosses like that.

This is a good example.

I agree with others that just like with PnP in DDO you should never "require" a specific build to complete. Just from how you describe what occurred it appears the party attempted to use a plan that was not well suited for the abilities that were available. This is a common theme for those that do not change how they "tackle" a challenge based on what is available.

I myself have spent decades in different PnP groups and also have been a member of the DDO community for a long time as a Cleric. I've learned that the phrase "there is more then one way to skin a cat" is a truism, but it requires the group to be willing to work together to the method that is best for the group.

I've been the cleric on R10 with 10 HP left because the rest of the party felt the target they were on was more important (5 people all with their own creature to kill) leaving me with the Plague Reaper . All the while hearing someone over mic - don't forget to heal yourself (which is humorous when you top healing spell is cure mod wounds). So I don't have to imagine being in a bad situation, "I've been there, done that and have the T-Shirt"

The question I have is did you learn something from how this went down? Did examination show you a different way that could have turned out "less painful". Or maybe a deeper understanding of what should be your target precedence if you find yourself in a similar "abilities available" situation?

While some don't like to lead, I would say there are times when one person needs to direct the group towards a strategy that works for the group and the others need to follow and put away the ego.

[Cantor]

...General Xanti'lar (Stormcleave Outpost)... and Lord Sable (A Study in Sable), are way better than, oh, Luggan the Cudgeler

More great examples.

The whole mechanic of Xantilar was great, some memorable fights. I remember not being able to beat him without dropping the DR and regen, then power creep and just drop the DR, more power creep just walk in and waste him.

Lord Sable is another great one with the pillars and not overly complicated but fun.

Luggan is #1 or #2 example of a bag-o-HP. The purplewurm in army too.

[MistaMagic]

Red Names give me Red Names many much more Red Names!
The new content Rocks with more Red Names giving slower melee like survivable fighters a chance to contribute in a meaning full way. Continue to use more Red Names going forward.

1# It reduces agro lag of to many mobs.

2# It forces more balance in party to combat dungeons.

3# It not so boring as cc/instakill/kite/charm bs that is ruining the game.

4# We need RED NAME REAPERS

5# BOSS FIGHTS RULE!!!

Please leave your comments below and fighting it always appreciated

Yawn - More troll bait