Sharn no spoiler review

[Vorachtin]

Thread got moved and is no longer pertinent in its current location, have a nice day.

[MaeveTuohy]

PROS:

1. If you like scenery and cosmetics, sharn is awesome. Visually stunning with neat quest design.
2. 2 sagas and 17 quests add a lot of xp and content to the game along with 1 raid now and 1 to come.

CONS:
1. The loot is bad, like terrible. Minor stat increases. Many builds will stick with ravenloft and only add a piece of two.


Overall it's a neat expansion. As good as ravenloft was for loot and character progression, Sharn is the opposite. After seeing all the quests a few times the newness wears off and you realize your character is weaker than pre-sharn. The loot, for me, was the most anticipated part of Sharn but the design and implementation is done so poorly I have lost all excitement for the release.

Ravenloft brought me back to DDO, Sharn might just push me out.

It was a great opportunity for sideways design, with gear that did different things to Ravenloft. Similar power level, but different effects. The dual slot items are a great idea for this approach, but too little of it and not well enough done. Instead, most of the loot is just stat+1 iterations of existing loot. There are a couple of pieces that will help with my character's end-game tetris, but not much else (just as you stated).

The raid loot, in particular, seems lacklustre. Maybe that's a good thing for me, as I don't have the time these days to be raiding often.

As long as the content is fun to run, I'll still get it.

[Elfishski]

PROS:

1. If you like scenery and cosmetics, sharn is awesome. Visually stunning with neat quest design.
2. 2 sagas and 17 quests add a lot of xp and content to the game along with 1 raid now and 1 to come.

CONS:
1. The loot is bad, like terrible. Minor stat increases. Many builds will stick with ravenloft and only add a piece of two.


Overall it's a neat expansion. As good as ravenloft was for loot and character progression, Sharn is the opposite. After seeing all the quests a few times the newness wears off and you realize your character is weaker than pre-sharn. The loot, for me, was the most anticipated part of Sharn but the design and implementation is done so poorly I have lost all excitement for the release.

Ravenloft brought me back to DDO, Sharn might just push me out.

If there's neat quest design that's pretty much all that matters to me, so sounds good!

If there are 17 new quests and the overpoweredness of loot doesn't make 20+ old quests feel completely obsolete then the game got bigger instead of smaller and that's a good thing. Nevertheless if history is ANY indication with loot - I bet you just haven't considered the combos adequately or you've failed to take into account the bug on something that hasn't been found yet that makes it crazy OP and won't be fixed for a year. So take heart, I'm sure you'll find you do have that doubling of DPS you so desperately crave every 3 months!

[FlavoredSoul]

PROS:

CONS:
1. The loot is bad, like terrible. Minor stat increases. Many builds will stick with ravenloft and only add a piece of two.

Overall it's a neat expansion. As good as ravenloft was for loot and character progression, Sharn is the opposite. After seeing all the quests a few times the newness wears off and you realize your character is weaker than pre-sharn. The loot, for me, was the most anticipated part of Sharn but the design and implementation is done so poorly I have lost all excitement for the release.

Ravenloft brought me back to DDO, Sharn might just push me out.

What?

Is SSG not going completely bonkers on powercreep somehow a bad thing?

Like because they didn't throw out +25 stat +150 false life Deadly +50 gear somehow the gear is bad? If anything the Sharn gear is still too strong compared to Ravenloft for my tastes.

Also you failed to mention Minor artifacts, which are absolutely broken overpowered (you now have a maximum of 11 filigree slots means multiple 5 piece set bonuses), Minor artifacts alone are a massive amount of powercreep.

Not to mention that Ravenloft set bonuses got dumpstered on by Sharn gear, Silent Avenger is dead, part of the family is the new king of dps gear. And DC casters now have a replacement for 5 piece slave lords gear.

Really unless the only thing you look at to determine power of gear is the raw stat numbers, Sharn's (non-weapon) loot is utterly broken, the weapons are pretty much on par with RL through killing time gear, but all other gear slots got power crept significantly.

Most players will be running a mix of ravenloft era (RL, WPM, Rage) and sharn gear at cap.

[Alled78]

PROS:

1. If you like scenery and cosmetics, sharn is awesome. Visually stunning with neat quest design.
2. 2 sagas and 17 quests add a lot of xp and content to the game along with 1 raid now and 1 to come.

CONS:
1. The loot is bad, like terrible. Minor stat increases. Many builds will stick with ravenloft and only add a piece of two.


Overall it's a neat expansion. As good as ravenloft was for loot and character progression, Sharn is the opposite. After seeing all the quests a few times the newness wears off and you realize your character is weaker than pre-sharn. The loot, for me, was the most anticipated part of Sharn but the design and implementation is done so poorly I have lost all excitement for the release.

Ravenloft brought me back to DDO, Sharn might just push me out.

My main interest is to have fun quests to play....are they fun?

[Vorachtin]

What?

Is SSG not going completely bonkers on powercreep somehow a bad thing?

Like because they didn't throw out +25 stat +150 false life Deadly +50 gear somehow the gear is bad? If anything the Sharn gear is still too strong compared to Ravenloft for my tastes.

Also you failed to mention Minor artifacts, which are absolutely broken overpowered (you now have a maximum of 11 filigree slots means multiple 5 piece set bonuses), Minor artifacts alone are a massive amount of powercreep.

Not to mention that Ravenloft set bonuses got dumpstered on by Sharn gear, Silent Avenger is dead, part of the family is the new king of dps gear. And DC casters now have a replacement for 5 piece slave lords gear.

Really unless the only thing you look at to determine power of gear is the raw stat numbers, Sharn's (non-weapon) loot is utterly broken, the weapons are pretty much on par with RL through killing time gear, but all other gear slots got power crept significantly.

Most players will be running a mix of ravenloft era (RL, WPM, Rage) and sharn gear at cap.

This statement indicates you didnt test anything. Silent avenger is still king on most end game builds, DC casters got the same bonus available with slave lords yes, but with the gear itemization still will wear slave lords to fit in stats and abilities.

I like the sarcasm, mmo's are all about progression. Major expansions should bring character progression, not ho hum I'm the same as yesterday but out $150.

It's good there are some people that are overjoyed apparently, they can keep the lights on for the game a bit longer!

[Captain_Wizbang]

The loot is bad, like terrible. Minor stat increases. Many builds will stick with ravenloft and only add a piece of two.

This is GREAT for the game. There is so much power creep we dont need the next biggest/best thing. Adding gear that compliments what we already have is a smart move.

[hp1055cm]

PROS:
1. If you like scenery and cosmetics, sharn is awesome. Visually stunning with neat quest design.
2. 2 sagas and 17 quests add a lot of xp and content to the game along with 1 raid now and 1 to come.
CONS: 1. The loot is bad, like terrible. Minor stat increases. Many builds will stick with ravenloft and only add a piece of two.
Overall it's a neat expansion. As good as ravenloft was for loot and character progression, Sharn is the opposite. After seeing all the quests a few times the newness wears off and you realize your character is weaker than pre-sharn. The loot, for me, was the most anticipated part of Sharn but the design and implementation is done so poorly I have lost all excitement for the release.
Ravenloft brought me back to DDO, Sharn might just push me out.

Let me review your "review":
Pros: Good job testing new content. That's one thing I never bother to do so at least you are helping the developers test stuff...
Cons:
1. You sound like a drama queen so I'm not surprised by your disappointment.
2. Keep it on Lamania threads. Sure, we are all impressed that you already played the new content but your lack of decorum is revealing. I don't care about spoilers, or whether you actual use any spoilers - I know where to go to get info on the new content and that location is not the "general forum".
3. My guess is that you are already on your way "out", so go on then and get it over with, no need for theatrics; the rest of us will still be here playing when Sharn is officially released.

[Vorachtin]

the rest of us will still be here playing when Sharn is officially released.

Gratz!

[GramercyRiff]

Not sure why people are getting so defensive. A person posted their opinion. That's all that's happened here.


Anyway it looks like the Wallwatch set is great. Did you test it Vorachtin?

[Vorachtin]

Not sure why people are getting so defensive. A person posted their opinion. That's all that's happened here.


Anyway it looks like the Wallwatch set is great. Did you test it Vorachtin?

Yes, altho there is currently on lam a bug with doubleshot somewhere. It looks like the insightful double shot from the raid helm isnt being added when you equip it, but not 100% sure.

I think ranged and tanks probably get the most out of the armor sets.

[Memnir]

[blerkington]

CONS:
1. The loot is bad, like terrible. Minor stat increases. Many builds will stick with ravenloft and only add a piece of two.

This is GREAT for the game. There is so much power creep we dont need the next biggest/best thing. Adding gear that compliments what we already have is a smart move.

My initial impression of the loot is they've allowed more power-creep without fixing any of the gearing problems my main had with Ravenloft. So at this early stage it seems like there are problems on both fronts, although I'd want to see the final versions of the items and spend more time puzzling out different combinations before totally condemning it.

It's not much of an issue for my DC wizard but it particularly is for my melee rogue. I didn't want more power, just better options for including important effects that are currently difficult to slot while removing unneeded effects and redundancy, but while the new loot does offer some solutions it also creates other problems. And before someone chimes in with a speech about tough choices, the gear just isn't fitting together well at all for some builds.

So while gearing at cap for my build seems like it's going to remain an exercise in frustration, much more so than it has been for most of my time in the game, I'm hoping the content itself is fun to play. SSG has been doing a decent job overall with content design recently and if Sharn is of a similar standard that is the most important thing for me.

Thanks.

[Aelonwy]

3. My guess is that you are already on your way "out", so go on then and get it over with, no need for theatrics; the rest of us will still be here playing when Sharn is officially released.

Please stop telling people to leave if they don't like something. There is plenty left to love about this game, and I'd rather the player base grow than shrink. Thank you.

[Jaxtan]

PROS:

CONS:
1. The loot is bad, like terrible. Minor stat increases. Many builds will stick with ravenloft and only add a piece of two.

Thanks for the heads up on the loot. Glad I am waiting until it comes out and seeing what is in it before buying. How is the level 15 gear? Hopefully better than RL level 10 gear. Was hoping to see some good gear that could be used for iconic races at level 15.

[DRoark]

Not a fan of the "lets make these wraps steal your glove slot" idea. That's like giving a tank a bigger helmet, and taking his armor off because "it won't fit now".
For the versatility loss, it's not a gear slope I'd ever want to walk on, I think going by other posts, we're going to avoid those types of items like the plague.

[FlavoredSoul]

This statement indicates you didnt test anything. Silent avenger is still king on most end game builds, DC casters got the same bonus available with slave lords yes, but with the gear itemization still will wear slave lords to fit in stats and abilities.

Silent Avenger may best in specific dps optimization set ups, but for most players Part of the Family will be just as good or better set bonus wise while simultaneously having much stronger individual items, you aren't factoring in the massive amount of power in the individual items in sharn compared to silent avenger which are mostly redundant effects with other ravenloft gear. Maybe people will still run avenger + sharn gear in other slots (minor artifacts will necessitate a redo of current gear layouts at least.) but then Sharn gear will still play a large role in gear layouts.

And for DC casters sharn set is far better than slavelords, the set bonus might be equal in DCs because the raw power on the individual pieces of gear just doesn't keep up, and the sharn set opens up your gearing options significantly. It seems like you haven't tested anything at all (or don't know how to test) but are making kneejerk statements because Sharn is only a large amount of powercreep instead of the monumental amount of powercreep Ravenloft was.


I like the sarcasm, mmo's are all about progression. Major expansions should bring character progression, not ho hum I'm the same as yesterday but out $150.

Bigger stats isn't good progression, every expansion totally invalidating the gear from the year before is bad in traditional mmos but even worse in DDO where players are expected to continue running old content.

It's good there are some people that are overjoyed apparently, they can keep the lights on for the game a bit longer!

Response in bold, tl;dr you're wrong.

[cru121]

If you want to start a thread about how you don't like the loot, that's ok. But why call it a review?
If you are worried about why would people run the raids, I suspect they are gonna come up with +9 tomes soon.

[FlavoredSoul]

Not a fan of the "lets make these wraps steal your glove slot" idea. That's like giving a tank a bigger helmet, and taking his armor off because "it won't fit now".
For the versatility loss, it's not a gear slope I'd ever want to walk on, I think going by other posts, we're going to avoid those types of items like the plague.

Oh there are some definite duds in the itemization, mostly weapons (including those wraps) oddly enough, I really doubt anyone will use those wraps when there is another pair of them in this expansion, and duality is still pretty good.

Accessory wise however Sharn is absolutely busted OP, even before you count the minor artifacts.

[Nevilian]

I see lots of great things that I can now do with the loot if it stays even remotely close to what was listed.

I'm looking forward to getting it and if I don't need it feeding it to things to get more on epic weapons.

This is a bunch more to do and easier to earn rxp and go through some Rtrs and pick up a few of the regular class tr's as well.

I'm as happy as a clam really.

Thanks SSG