Increasing mob density in some slayer area

[draven1]

How about increasing mob density in some slayer area like King's Forest, Underdark, Ataraxia's Haven, Stormhorns?

I see dev've given many efforts in those area, but, it is almost "dead empty area", especially for soloing.

[JohnFlory]

Wheloon is dense... so we get lags when people just want to run to the next quest... Let's face it: the game isn't build for those explorer areas, they tend to make issues (ever heard of Thunderholme?^^). All the one's you've mentioned are mostly "run through to get to quest" areas, unlike Thunderholme (where you kill rares, then are flagged and can teleport to quests) or Orchard (has a heroic version where people mostly do the quests before using epic just for slayers). Explorer areas have different functions: some are there to get slayers, some are there to provide a backdrop for quests. That's a design choice and not a bad one.

Also, let's be honest: unless you spend DDO points, slayer areas are inherently worse for XP than quests, even the dense ones.

[psykopeta]

Wheloon is dense... so we get lags when people just want to run to the next quest... Let's face it: the game isn't build for those explorer areas, they tend to make issues (ever heard of Thunderholme?^^). All the one's you've mentioned are mostly "run through to get to quest" areas, unlike Thunderholme (where you kill rares, then are flagged and can teleport to quests) or Orchard (has a heroic version where people mostly do the quests before using epic just for slayers). Explorer areas have different functions: some are there to get slayers, some are there to provide a backdrop for quests. That's a design choice and not a bad one.

Also, let's be honest: unless you spend DDO points, slayer areas are inherently worse for XP than quests, even the dense ones.

wheloon and thunderholme are a clear example of bad coding in wilderness, necro4 can be faster for kills and doesn't have that amount of lag

there's some weird thing in certain areas regarding the "instant spawn of certain amount of mobs depending the number of players (scaling doesn't change the mobs hp only)" which leads to some dumb deats in wheloon and thunderholme cause "right there where you have been and there wasn't a mob, now 50 spawn, notice you have past through them and then it's time to calculate the 50 pathing routes to get you"

which leads to the awesome and lovely 5 mins freezing for death, where most times you die

as a general rule, when running to the thrill of hunt, we step in the wilderness in packs of 2-3 players, not zoning out more than 3 cause stuff happens (And the rollback to where you were 10 secs ago, this time surounded by mobs)

increasing spawn rate and packs in wilderness is something nice, so ppl don't rush to quests ignoring the cheap and easy xp in certain parts (under 50-100) so others can farm it if they want to, after all it's another way of playing DDO, more WOW like

[Kutalp]

Yes please.


My future dream for wilderness areas and city walls ; npcs swarming over settlements and players defending every /-hours.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5X5a2eBZv0

I hope one day.

[droid327]

I would love it if every wilderness area, from Cerulean Hills on, increased spawn density to that of Epic Orchard. That's far and away the most fun wilderness area to play, because playing it means actually killing stuff and not just 80% running around trying to find things to kill.

[Thrudh]

I would love it if every wilderness area, from Cerulean Hills on, increased spawn density to that of Epic Orchard. That's far and away the most fun wilderness area to play, because playing it means actually killing stuff and not just 80% running around trying to find things to kill.

I agree.

[draven1]

So, how about "letting players choose difficulty level or mob density level in slayer area" like quests?

Mobs are generated by group size already, so, I think it is not hard to implement.

[Kutalp]

So, how about "letting players choose difficulty level or mob density level in slayer area" like quests?

Mobs are generated by group size already, so, I think it is not hard to implement.

Devil assault style. Nice one. (Ps: I allways loved Lotro style and choosing sides aswell. 'Particularly' choosing sides even if not being pvp... May be in the future)

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

I would love it if every wilderness area, from Cerulean Hills on, increased spawn density to that of Epic Orchard. That's far and away the most fun wilderness area to play, because playing it means actually killing stuff and not just 80% running around trying to find things to kill.

I have never played any Epic level, but it makes me uneasy to see that Epic is better that normal, standard stuff - or, in this case, wilderness areas.

Why do Epic wilderness areas have better population that normal (read : non-Epic) wilderness areas ?
Maybe it's because Epic areas need more xp in general to advance ?

[HungarianRhapsody]

I have never played any Epic level, but it makes me uneasy to see that Epic is better that normal, standard stuff - or, in this case, wilderness areas.

Why do Epic wilderness areas have better population that normal (read : non-Epic) wilderness areas ?
Maybe it's because Epic areas need more xp in general to advance ?

Everything in Epic needs more XP to level *AND* grants more XP from quests/optionals/wilderness/etc. That 8 million XP needed to go from 20 to 30 is more like what 2-ish million XP feels like in Heroic.

There are a couple of slayer areas that are worth completing for XP if you're looking at an XP/minute. And for me, the Orchard Wilderness is actually pretty fun if I'm doing it at level 21ish. It's quick, it's challenging, and I don't die often, but I do have to pay attention to make sure I don't die. That's a good recipe for a game in my book.

[Kutalp]

Everything in Epic needs more XP to level *AND* grants more XP from quests/optionals/wilderness/etc. That 8 million XP needed to go from 20 to 30 is more like what 2-ish million XP feels like in Heroic.

There are a couple of slayer areas that are worth completing for XP if you're looking at an XP/minute. And for me, the Orchard Wilderness is actually pretty fun if I'm doing it at level 21ish. It's quick, it's challenging, and I don't die often, but I do have to pay attention to make sure I don't die. That's a good recipe for a game in my book.

That is right.

[JohnFlory]

I feel that the bottom line right now is this:

For epic levels (which go by pretty quickly), the order of XP/min goes like this:

1. Orchard with Major Slayer Pot (spend 120 DDO points - usually 2 needed to complete, I think)
2. Quests
3. Thunderholme with Slayer Pot
4. Orchard without Slayer Pot
5. Thunderholme without Slayer Pot
6. Daily Dice XP
7. Hoping for free XP (Anniversary stuff)
8. Other slayer areas

This means that for one, epic levelers that are obsessed with the extra 10% XP/min that Orchard with pots gives them over quests provide a good source of income for SSG, because they pay for pots and don't get free points because they do fewer quests. This means that yes, denser (or at least potentially denser) wilderness areas would increase SSG's income, but it might also mean that grouping in epics becomes a lot more difficult. Right now, I love epic levels, because there's always some group to run with, since the level range is much more forgiving. If we further split the player base in that regard, epics might become annoying to everyone who doesn't want to spend money just to go from 20 to 30.

[TestPilot]

I just recently leveled 2 alts from 20 to 30 mostly by piking in slayer areas. It took I want to say 3 major slayer potions and 1 6hr/30% XP potion to get one of the guys from 23-30 doing Orchard/Thunderholme/Barovia and a few dailies.

What I would like to see is a slayer area where the mobs respawn so you aren't constantly having to recall/reset.

Sometimes it's nice to just waste time mindlessly grinding, and that's not something DDO supports particularly well.