How did you die?

[cdbd3rd]

Partycrashers. Melee vs Tiefling pack, with a couple champ casters in the mix.

Again, had downgraded to just running Hard for 'safety', but...

I send another 9-holding-11 to meet Mortie.

Was Dwarven Rogue-splashed Barb. (Out of my comfort zone with a melee.) Funny thing, I had taken level 9 still wearing 4 pieces of Korthos gear**. Spent the morning blowing through my CC materials to upgrade most of it, and then die in the very first quest after doing that. Lol?

** 3 pieces of Korthos gear, and Furor's Hide cloak.

--------

Ah, dognabberit!! Just realized my 5-stack of TUMBLING pots was on that char! Now my reroll is gonna be gimped!

[Kotharsjach]

You guys are complaining about how lag makes the HC tournament unplayable, and yet you both reached most of the rewards available? This sounds like a contradiction.

Maybe SS can look into a higher speed server for the next one (if there is a next one).

I came for the experience, not some cosmetic. As it so happens a red scarf goes perfectly with my red dragonscale robe, but this is the icing on the cake.

Of course i'm going to complain. When you enter a quest and your central concern isn't the reaps, it's not the traps, it's not how your going to handle the red name fight, it's not a full pack of the worst champs possible, it's lag. Clearly, something is wrong, and it is very immersion breaking.

It doesn't sound like you've been killed by lag yet, or if you did, you didn't have 2+ weeks invested into that character. In my mind, it's not much different that having a randomized lightning bolt come down from the sky and send someone straight to morty once per day. If you want to continue playing under those conditions that's your choice, but I will not.

[stak]

Just lost my lvl 15 warlock to a crowned mummy guardian in wiz king....that one hurt

Lost my lvl 11 Arti while in a party with guildies in storm the beaches to crowned water ele, oh well.

[Deathlylife]

You guys are complaining about how lag makes the HC tournament unplayable, and yet you both reached most of the rewards available? This sounds like a contradiction. You both even made it close to 5k, which is one of the mega rewards that is supposed to be practically unattainable. Lag sucks and I won't say its ok, but infrastructure can't be perfect and it seems like everything is around where it should be for a first try. Remember this is the first HC tournament EVER.

Maybe SS can look into a higher speed server for the next one (if there is a next one).

I have three big issues with your statement

1. Lag sucks but infrastructure can't be perfect: I agree that I can not assume there wont be any lag, a second or two here and there is acceptable to me. I built my character with 700+ hp and 70+ prr and mrr at lvl 18 and have Death Aura always healing me for 150+ hp every 3 seconds, I can handle a little lag and never drop below 90% hp even when soloing elite quests. I also have Arcane Barrier just in case as a 50% hp warning but have literally never seen it past lvl12 when I get all my gear farmed out and enhancements set up perfect. I leave Arcane Barrier in my enhancements as a 'just in case' measure that would be dropped in a heartbeat on main servers since it never procs on me. A little lag is understandable and my build more then compensates for that and can handle such instances even when surrounded my champs in elite dungeons (I still get a mini heart attack but never drop anywhere near 50%). It is a massive lag storm in the 5+ second range that I do not accept. When I solo zerg elites and barely take a scratch (as a melee character) I should not die to some random agro in a wilderness area because I could literally do nothing.

2. First Hardcore Tournament ever: You said it yourself, this is a Tournament. That means competition to see who is the best players in build, skill, and knowledge to not die in reaper or while doing literally every single quest in the game. With the way I have seen lag hit myself and other high favor players, the tournament is not entirely skill but lots of luck that the lag storm hitting when it doesn't matter or never hitting them at all. I personally don't care if my name goes down in history as one of the best on hardcore. I am here only for rewards but there are some who are competitive that have had the same thing happen to them. While not interested in this reason to play hardcore, I will make the argument for others that it needs to be fixed especially for the competition to have any meaning by the end of all of it.

3. Reached most of the rewards available: How can you assume I have most of the rewards? There are 5 total rewards and I only have gotten 1. I got the 1750 favor reward and that is it. I don't play reaper because that is an extra layer of risk I do not want to deal with (reaper also lowers my damage and slows down my zerg). I have never got to lvl 20 because if I take level 20 I get locked out of heroics to farm favor in the 16-19 range. Both of my high favor lag deaths I was holding lvl 20 for two days while farming favor. Could I make a toon that ignores favor and goes straight for 20? yes I could but any time spent on that character could have been spent grinding out favor for 5k. So just because I have died at high favor twice does not mean I have most of the rewards, all it means is I got 1/5 rewards for all the effort I put in that was ended due to two separate instances of an insane lag storm.

A slight side note, I had a character also die at 3.2k favor but was not due to lag. I had very poor positioning when a group surrounded me for no escape and a champ Shadar-Kai chain whipped me to death. While I am sad another 5k favor attempt character of mine had died, I have no issue with the death happening because it was entirely my own fault. I do not bring it up in my argument because it was just a plain bad mistake death. That is what Hardcore is supposed to be, mistakes have consequences. I am only upset with the deaths entirely outside my control.

[stak]

Lost my lvl 11 Arti while in a party with guildies in storm the beaches to crowned water ele, oh well.

ugh, lost a lvl 5 rogue/arti inquisitive build in swiped signet on leet

[Rockcrusher99]

I'm loving the Hardcore server so far. Managed to hit level 3 and so far haven't died.

But all those world announcements make me curious.

So, if you are one of the unfortunates and feel like sharing - HOW DID YOU DIE? And what quest were you in when it happened?

Did you forget feather fall? Did you think the water was deeper? Did you brave Reaper 10?

I'm sure I'm not the only one who would love to know

[And I will post my death which is inevitable!]

My plan was to start with low-hanging fruit. I created a spreadsheet to calculate how much favor at each level I would need and not having to run anything after level 10 on more than hard. I was cruising along on my FvS and sitting at cap xp (but didn't take 20) so we could run 15-19s as needed. I just needed two more quests on hard for 1750 favor. I had a great idea, "Hey, Mask of Deception is quick. Let's hit that one on hard."
We went in, got the mask, went to the end fight. I ran outside first to gather the aggro and we focused on trash first. When most everything was dead, there was still a sorcerer alive. My buddy said, "Sorcerer down!" so I immediately went around the corner of the building to face the boss and got hit with dragon-breath for 435+. Apparently, there were TWO sorcerers left. I had 570 hp so I must have been not fully healed. Off I went to the Land of Lost Souls.

And yes, an enemy on hard hits for 450+ which I thought was inconceivable. Beware!

[bibliomane]

The Deaths of Southrndeath
<que kazoo music>

7 Traps
6 Casters
4 Bosses
3 Mobs
3 Reapers
1 pug on an acid spree.



Memorable Deaths:
Toee2 elite boss party wipe at 11
to a 5% Nearls in Slave Lords r1 at 12
Archon Boss devils details r2 at 16
Pug ran through acid water trap in elite depths2 while i was disabling and killed us both at 9
Electric to the face at 5, 11, 16

No lag deaths. They were all my fault except for the PuG related one.

[Dendrix]

Durks, level 2 dungeon. On Reaper 1. Level 3 Warlock.
1st reaper I ever saw.

Niac's cold ray. 117 damage after 35 were stopped by energy resistance.

There's nothing that you can do to survive that, no possible awesome play that would make a **** difference. Here is a single pot of damage that is greater than your total hit points+temporary hit points

All the stuff I bought for that character now permanently gone. Supreme tomes, Skill Tomes, Exp Pots, treasure pots. Goodbye Hardcore.


Yeah, sure I can move the character over to a real server in november, where it can rot with 1 epic past life as it's so far behind my "real" characters heroic/epic completionist that it's not worth playing, as the 1000's of hours to catch up can be better spent doing many other things (mostly the racial lives on my main).

[hp1055cm]

Durks, level 2 dungeon. On Reaper 1. Level 3 Warlock.
1st reaper I ever saw.
Niac's cold ray. 117 damage after 35 were stopped by energy resistance.
There's nothing that you can do to survive that, no possible awesome play that would make a **** difference. Here is a single pot of damage that is greater than your total hit points+temporary hit points

Actually, you can wait until level 5 to run that quest on reaper at no penalty when it is much safer. Just saying.
Even if you run it on normal at level 3 and then wait a day to run it again at level 5 the difference in rxp is almost insignificant.
I think you can jump/dodge the cold ray (if you see if coming). The sonic one is the one I fear.

Try being level 19, running Fear Factory (15) on R1 and failing a save against disintegrate. Rolled a 1. That was my last death.
Fortitude is my best class save (warlock); I had a +5 resistance item, +1 luck, +3 Parry item, +2 from heroism, ship buffs (if they even add save bonus)... didn't help.
I have run that quest dozens of times at level on R1 or higher never got disintegrated or even saw anyone else die in that quest... like ever.
At least dying early doesn't take much investment. But then I didn't buy anything except some xp pots and a few hirelings so maybe I can't relate.

[Fedora1]

At least dying early doesn't take much investment. But then I didn't buy anything except some xp pots and a few hirelings so maybe I can't relate.

I think he said he already had an epic past life, so he made to 30 and ER'd. I would be annoyed at the time investment, but why on earth anyone would invest so many DDO Points in a character on the HC server is beyond me. When a bad or mailicious PUG or even some dumb lag can kill you, it just doesn't seem wise to me. Especially if you know you won't use it when the event is over anyway.

[TylerOfOrien]

I have three big issues with your statement

1. Lag sucks but infrastructure can't be perfect: I agree that I can not assume there wont be any lag, a second or two here and there is acceptable to me. I built my character with 700+ hp and 70+ prr and mrr at lvl 18 and have Death Aura always healing me for 150+ hp every 3 seconds, I can handle a little lag and never drop below 90% hp even when soloing elite quests. I also have Arcane Barrier just in case as a 50% hp warning but have literally never seen it past lvl12 when I get all my gear farmed out and enhancements set up perfect. I leave Arcane Barrier in my enhancements as a 'just in case' measure that would be dropped in a heartbeat on main servers since it never procs on me. A little lag is understandable and my build more then compensates for that and can handle such instances even when surrounded my champs in elite dungeons (I still get a mini heart attack but never drop anywhere near 50%). It is a massive lag storm in the 5+ second range that I do not accept. When I solo zerg elites and barely take a scratch (as a melee character) I should not die to some random agro in a wilderness area because I could literally do nothing.

2. First Hardcore Tournament ever: You said it yourself, this is a Tournament. That means competition to see who is the best players in build, skill, and knowledge to not die in reaper or while doing literally every single quest in the game. With the way I have seen lag hit myself and other high favor players, the tournament is not entirely skill but lots of luck that the lag storm hitting when it doesn't matter or never hitting them at all. I personally don't care if my name goes down in history as one of the best on hardcore. I am here only for rewards but there are some who are competitive that have had the same thing happen to them. While not interested in this reason to play hardcore, I will make the argument for others that it needs to be fixed especially for the competition to have any meaning by the end of all of it.

3. Reached most of the rewards available: How can you assume I have most of the rewards? There are 5 total rewards and I only have gotten 1. I got the 1750 favor reward and that is it. I don't play reaper because that is an extra layer of risk I do not want to deal with (reaper also lowers my damage and slows down my zerg). I have never got to lvl 20 because if I take level 20 I get locked out of heroics to farm favor in the 16-19 range. Both of my high favor lag deaths I was holding lvl 20 for two days while farming favor. Could I make a toon that ignores favor and goes straight for 20? yes I could but any time spent on that character could have been spent grinding out favor for 5k. So just because I have died at high favor twice does not mean I have most of the rewards, all it means is I got 1/5 rewards for all the effort I put in that was ended due to two separate instances of an insane lag storm.

A slight side note, I had a character also die at 3.2k favor but was not due to lag. I had very poor positioning when a group surrounded me for no escape and a champ Shadar-Kai chain whipped me to death. While I am sad another 5k favor attempt character of mine had died, I have no issue with the death happening because it was entirely my own fault. I do not bring it up in my argument because it was just a plain bad mistake death. That is what Hardcore is supposed to be, mistakes have consequences. I am only upset with the deaths entirely outside my control.

I know the frustration you feel. I think most players only have so many attempts of HC in them before they need a break. When my current character dies I will also be heading back to the regular servers.

What I was mostly concerned with, was not trashing what is honestly a good effort from SS to spice up DDO. I think they have done an objectively good job and getting a project like this approved must have been a lot of work. The community is almost certainly better off for it, and at least for me its the most fun (and stress) I've had in a long time on this game.

But yes... Luck is a major factor.

Every character that reaches level 20 or 5k favor has had at least a few moments where they thought for sure they were going to die. RNG either sparred them then, or sent them to the afterlife. It could have been lagging in a blade trap (me), being held/stunned in a boss fight, getting killed by a mechanic you never noticed before (shadow and strength to 0), or getting stuck in the underwater fan of the crucible (me).

One thing I'm sure you've noticed, is that by the time you reach epics most players are on their 4th or 5th character.

If you are playing long enough to reach level 20 or 5k favor then for sure RNG is going to have many defining moments in your character's life. I wouldn't go so far as to say that skill plays no role, or that luck plays a greater role than skill. But for sure everyone who has passed into the epics was at least skillful, **** lucky, and very persistent.

[Dendrix]

I think he said he already had an epic past life, so he made to 30 and ER'd. I would be annoyed at the time investment, but why on earth anyone would invest so many DDO Points in a character on the HC server is beyond me. When a bad or mailicious PUG or even some dumb lag can kill you, it just doesn't seem wise to me. Especially if you know you won't use it when the event is over anyway.

Epic and Heroiced

feel gutted at spending points on hearts.
obviously, not spending any more.

Reapers were overtuned on the last patch, 150+ damage in a single spellcast on a level 2 dungeon.

[Fedora1]

Reapers were overtuned on the last patch, 150+ damage in a single spellcast on a level 2 dungeon.

Yeah I noticed on live servers right away, I used to breeze through R1 in heroics solo on my main. Right after the patch I could only do that on about half the quests, and some I had to tone back to elite.

[Xyfiel]

Finally got me. After working on another char for a week I decided to get back to my 4389 favor/76k reaper char to hit 5k. First quest back, Good Intentions R1, and I am doing fine. Kill the boss and decide to clear the arcanes to loot. Rolled a one on disintegrate. This is a tank build so I didn't think anything could one shot me but it did. Pet Skelly killed it a half second later. For it to one shot me I assume it was a champ.

Still got a 30 and a 16. Important item lost is minimal. Mainly just starting over on 5k favor and reaper rewards.

[TylerOfOrien]

Durks, level 2 dungeon. On Reaper 1. Level 3 Warlock.
1st reaper I ever saw.

Niac's cold ray. 117 damage after 35 were stopped by energy resistance.

There's nothing that you can do to survive that, no possible awesome play that would make a **** difference. Here is a single pot of damage that is greater than your total hit points+temporary hit points

All the stuff I bought for that character now permanently gone. Supreme tomes, Skill Tomes, Exp Pots, treasure pots. Goodbye Hardcore.


Yeah, sure I can move the character over to a real server in november, where it can rot with 1 epic past life as it's so far behind my "real" characters heroic/epic completionist that it's not worth playing, as the 1000's of hours to catch up can be better spent doing many other things (mostly the racial lives on my main).

Just out of curiosity, did you choose to play from level 3 again or did the epic reincarnation force you to start at level 1 with no experience?

[Dendrix]

Just out of curiosity, did you choose to play from level 3 again or did the epic reincarnation force you to start at level 1 with no experience?

I did an epic reincarnation and then a heroic reincarnation. Bought both hearts from the store used them one after the other.
Was level 1, did korthos on elite, and a few harbour quests and levelled up to 3 as soon as I could.

[Wanatuc]

This was just stupid on my part was running S/E/R in 3BC at level 4 got to the West Wind Mistress thought no problem jumped off ship thinking I would get to the water, NO FEATHER FALL, Hit rock under ship Sham Bam thank you Mam DEAD

[Paisheng]

There may be a few interested in how Xeang died since he was fairly high on the Rxp Board at the time (265K).

I was in Mad Tea Party with a very good player and friend from Thelanis (my home also) when a large Mob with several champs, etc. went after my friend. My aasimar heal missed him by a split second (he was at -9 hp briefly). The rest of the mob turned on me -- I retreated trying to throw a heal at myself, but was still at 1/2 my Hit points. For the first time ever I tried my Sharn Escape. -- but I didn't transport though still alive when I hit it. Perhaps I was tripped or held at time, but 1 second later I was finished off.

It was a glorious battle and fair. I had survived similar encounters countless times (on my third tr).

While of course a bit depressed -- I was about 2/3 of the way to that 400 k goal -- I had a lot of fun doing it. A lot of fun. It was a great challenge and I don't regret a minute of it. I made a lot of new friends along the way from other servers too and will look forward to the next HC. Thanks to all who helped me get that far and to the Devs for the challenge. You still may see me on my favor toon Xeung now going for that 5K goal before the season ends.

Take a toast to the fallen and continue your journey. Cheers!

Xeang

[bls904c2]

atrywhyme level 16 with 49k reaper xp just raised to 16 headed to gianthold to finish flagging quests.

experienced some lag not enough to make me want to recall out. finished with the 2nd of 3 crystals. on my way to the giant to free him from the evil skelli that is controlling him i meet a famine reaper and his friends. its ok i still have 4 endless fusilades left and a shrine around corner. i targetted the famine and started the fusilade i was shoting while floating in the air. 3 secs still shotting in air, 10 secs still in air hearts pumping yelling no no no still just floating and then screen turns to land of lost souls looking in combat log see killed by cyclonic blast for 400 + damage i had rolled a 1 (+26) failed saving roll

but good old rust bucket my arti pet had killed that nasty famine before i had died to the cyclonic blast so either there was 2 reapers or lag does funny things.

now moving on to my back up toon playing with the little misses my toon known as YoureKilling Me Smalls with my wifes toon named Smallone

man lag brings a whole new level of difficulty to the challenge.

[GramercyRiff]

I don't remember the details of how I got to this situation but Grotkin the elder beholder had a sliver of HP left. I retreated to heal up because he messed me up. Troll and drow are dead. I heal up and as soon as I round the corner I blast Grotkin in the face. Grotkin also blasted me in the face (fail vs disintegrate). We kill each other. I was pretty stunned but it was a good death. It's much better than dying to lightning in the lighthouse quest that isn't in the lighthouse anymore.