U50 Preview 2: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh

[Vish]

Great news, this is actually something that Torc and I spent some time yesterday adjusting, here's what we've got:

With Update 50, Underwater Combat in all dungeons will:

1: no longer reduce attack speed
2: Grant players and monsters 20% resistance against fire and give a 20% vulnerability against electricity (other damage types will be unmodified). No more flat Resistance (previously, monsters also had 100 Fire Resist) because it would hard block low level players still.
3: no longer reduce movement speed overall (but you'll still have the modified acceleration time, which means it takes about 1s more to reach top move speed than a standard movement controller would)
4: You'll still float down slow
5: Casting various spell types will no longer be blocked

ya, this pretty much removes the uniqueness of underwater combat
i guess its too hard
too many complainers

on a cheery note,
i commend you again for fixing ki shout

[Ripjaw7]

Great news, this is actually something that Torc and I spent some time yesterday adjusting, here's what we've got:

With Update 50, Underwater Combat in all dungeons will:

1: no longer reduce attack speed
2: Grant players and monsters 20% resistance against fire and give a 20% vulnerability against electricity (other damage types will be unmodified). No more flat Resistance (previously, monsters also had 100 Fire Resist) because it would hard block low level players still.
3: no longer reduce movement speed overall (but you'll still have the modified acceleration time, which means it takes about 1s more to reach top move speed than a standard movement controller would)
4: You'll still float down slow
5: Casting various spell types will no longer be blocked

I am really looking forward to seeing these changes in the underwater quests such as Lost at Sea and Into the Deep for sure!

1.) Overall, I really like that this penalty is being removed, as I play a melee character, and this really limited playability in these types of quests. This said, it added a realism to the game itself, which added a lot to the fact that you were underwater, and that combat is not the same as being on land. Ever try swinging a pool noodle under water? Just me? Hokay.

2.) I'm glad that fire resist is now becoming a percentage than a number itself. I was seeing a problem, especially at low levels as described, where my fire damage was reduced all to nothing, and most of my melee swings were sheer slashing, bludgeoning, etc.

3.) Going off of what I previously talked about regarding combat speed, this aspect did add a lot to the environment of the quest, so I am glad the acceleration aspect will still be kept, adjusted, at least. I feel it will make a lot of these quests much faster for sure as well, and a lot more managable in higher reapers. For instance, if your running a higher reaper Lot at Sea, most of the creatures in the quest are 'waterborn', so they are not penalized, while players are. This said, players are landborn creatures, so it makes sense for there to be some restrictions.

4.) I love this water physic. Jumping also seems limited in water as well, which makes sense. Is the jumping restriction being limited as well as per the movement changes?

5.) I dont play casters, yet if there were certain spells that were blocked in a water environment, It would deter me little from completing the quest. I think that overall, imposing penalties and limits is better than taking an ability off the bar for a quest

[Aelonwy]

7.) Another thing I do want to inquire is the xp from this slayer area. Although I have not maxed out, I am wondering if this XP is finalized, and if players think it will be enough to create slayer groups for Saltmarsh, or if Orchard and Thunderholm will still stand supreme.

Perhaps the fact that the wilderness area thinks its level 23, and maxes out at level 27 is messing with the amount of XP received if you are going in on a higher level character?

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Great news, this is actually something that Torc and I spent some time yesterday adjusting, here's what we've got:

With Update 50, Underwater Combat in all dungeons will:

1: no longer reduce attack speed
2: Grant players and monsters 20% resistance against fire and give a 20% vulnerability against electricity (other damage types will be unmodified). No more flat Resistance (previously, monsters also had 100 Fire Resist) because it would hard block low level players still.
3: no longer reduce movement speed overall (but you'll still have the modified acceleration time, which means it takes about 1s more to reach top move speed than a standard movement controller would)
4: You'll still float down slow
5: Casting various spell types will no longer be blocked

This does not follow D&D rules at all.

However, a simple Freedom of Movement spell is supposed to solve most of those issues.

And it really bothers me that so many times you guys have nerfed challenge, just so players can continue to just spam their favorite attack form instead of adapting to the challenge. (golems, sorcs that can get full damage against element immune monsters.... and now being submersed in water....

You wouldn't have to nerf the players, if you stopped nerfing the challenges.
(That said, there are still several raids that are about 100 times more difficult then they should be on normal.....)

[Aelonwy]

Had some trouble finding the entrance to Hijacked Haul. Ran around the ship twice but didn't have my camera at the correct angle to see it till I backed up to take a picture. Its weird having a door that faces down.

[Aelonwy]

I'm just going to have to give up trying to run this quest, the Hijacked Haul. Obviously the game doesn't want me to do so. In the first preview I tried it on heroic and couldn't get out of the water from an underwater tunnel that had the ledges to high to jump to and no method of gripping to climb out, now this time around the entrance is hidden with a downward facing door that I finally find but I get partially into the quest, defeat an orange name at:

(Standard): You are on server 22 at r3 lx1728 ly8 i2049 cInside ox-62.47 oy-104.55 oz-93.63 h270.0. Game timestamp 183408.414.

and while I'm disabling a trap where the orange name was slain the stone door shuts and there is zero way to reopen it. There is no lever, apparently its a triggered event opening but it closes on its own and too bad so sad you have to restart if you didn't run through in that narrow window of time.

I'm giving up. Hopefully, by the time this quest gets to live it doesn't have so many issues. I sure hope someone with more time and patience can find whatever else is wrong with it, as I'm sure there is more I just don't have the time to keep trying with something that won't even let me get started with it.

[Aelonwy]

Okay I had just time enough to run Swim at Your Own Risk, very neat, I especially liked the Croc's fighting roll and running across wine barrels to avoid bitey marsh things and Down You Go, love the Bullywug hopping to meet me, and their dance. I do like cave quests with open air sections, less claustrophobic, more realistic to common outdoor and subterranean environments. When I got to this part:

For a brief moment, I thought "does someone hate me?" But after about five tries I got to the lever, and then the other lever and said to myself "No, there is someone kind here."
It is fitting that something like that would be in a habitat of a particularly jump-skilled mob.

Also when I got my loot from the quest everything was epic except the named loot.


On the whole enjoyed both quests thoroughly. Loved the set decoration and environments especially.

[CaptainSpacePony]

Great news, this is actually something that Torc and I spent some time yesterday adjusting, here's what we've got:

With Update 50, Underwater Combat in all dungeons will:

1: no longer reduce attack speed
2: Grant players and monsters 20% resistance against fire and give a 20% vulnerability against electricity (other damage types will be unmodified). No more flat Resistance (previously, monsters also had 100 Fire Resist) because it would hard block low level players still.
3: no longer reduce movement speed overall (but you'll still have the modified acceleration time, which means it takes about 1s more to reach top move speed than a standard movement controller would)
4: You'll still float down slow
5: Casting various spell types will no longer be blocked

I'm not sure how to feel about this. Yes, underwater environments are difficult, but isn't that the point?
I would have preferred it to stay as it was but care be taken to balance overall difficulty by not putting too much in the water (mobs etc).

Is it too late to talk you into leaving it as is BUT enabling crucible bracers to allow a character to function with the less restrictive environmental rules?

No sonic damage modification?

[DYWYPI]

Following on from my last critique on: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh (Preview 1) [Post #28], we now continue with: Preview 2. I didn't really get time to explore much of the Saltmarsh Wilderness though it did remind me slightly of 'Keep on the Borderlands'. From the little of what I explored it looked good.

Rowboat, row me to the shore.

It seemed like it was being described a fishing area near the sea from the dialogue and there were seagull sound effects. Although it appeared more like a shallow marshland and some of the ships almost looked too big for a salt marsh.

That's kind of innocent, but it's also creepy.

There was also an unusual mixture of buildings in some places and the Smugglers didn't look that cutthroat - far too friendly looking.

There's a stone turning into sand, where the water will take back the land.

It seemed to be lacking the sinister aspect but did have the sleepy innocent village look. :-)


The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh (U50) Preview 2 Dungeons

Most of the additional quested added to U50 Preview2; seemed shorter in length or more simplistic. I played them in order of the line-up in the forum.

The Haunting of Saltmarsh: the quest didn't seem very spooky to say it was meant to have a haunted theme. Apparently the adventurer is hunting for rumoured treasure within an apparently abandoned house. There were a lot of 'Weathered Tomes' littered around, but most of them were blank I assume there were went to have comical text to read, etc. Or was it just a case they were mostly red herrings.

There were plenty of hidden levers, but like I mentioned last time I was getting alerts of hidden items through walls and floorboards, leading to further confusion...

The animals will lick my face.

Also some of the dialogue wasn't synchronised so it was giving messages for rooms you'd already unlocked or been to, etc. :-/

Let the funky music gouge your eyes out.

The building itself; seemed more like a puzzle with a mischievous sprite rather than creepy spirit.

Thought I saw a ghost, but it might have been me.

I have no idea what the girl was doing swinging from a rope, I would have preferred she made a piercing scream or something, e.g. like in The Haunted Halls of Eveningstar. It's like the quest was trying to fit too many things in at once and not quite shining. Later on we discover Smugglers have been at work and quickly foil their plot.

Smugglers hiding in cave complexes seems to be a recurring theme through several of these quests. Albeit I haven't seen much evidence of the Smuggler's selling, trading and profiteering from the contraband. No big players, just small fry outfits.


Swim at Your Own Risk: this quest is very short indeed and we're asked to go crocodile hunting...

He sucks his teeth into your mind.

Basically our hero has to drop three barriers to disrupt a Sahuagin Mage that's taken control of "The Enormous Crocodile". I liked the "Nibbling things", possibly piranhas and such. Plus the idea of barrels fine, but perhaps they could have been made much more fragile and broken after you walked on them... 007 ;-)


Rest for the Night: The Sahuagin, have been trying to setup home and the Smuggler's just got in their way. Generally I'm not over fond of quests with just waves of attackers and protect the poor victims needing assistance.

By the bones in the old campfire, you poor misguided soul.

This quest seemed to favour the hero rather than the mobs - for once - and I don't think those needing assistance could be killed?

These evil things don't rattle me now.

The map markers were excellently executed for this mock "wilderness" unlike with the majority of quests. I would have preferred there to have also been some stealthy mobs.


Down You Go: in this quest we visit "Kermit and Friends" down the bottom of a deep hole, leading to a cavern, which we've accidentally found ourselves stuck inside.

The ages have buried me, robbed me with stupidity.

The quest objective was straightforward enough, i.e. find the way out of the cavern.

Well, everybody learns in a learning room.

However, the "forest of columns" was slightly more frustrating than I'd have liked. Obviously the first thing I did was turn off the mud geysers when I entered the room. Theoretically it shouldn't have been too hard to traverse the columns. Though in practice; I must have fallen about six times before getting to the first lever that lowers a ladder! It didn't really get much better for the jumping after that lever either. Perhaps you should consider another midway ladder after the first ladder. Perhaps add another (lever) on the row of columns behind that one with the lever, i.e. add a lever on the right-hand side. Obviously there was an "end ladder" should you be in a group where the others have even greater frustration with the Mario aspect.

I haven't gone into great detail and just reiterated those issues that I found most memorable.

[Carpone]

Is there a Saga reward?

[-D_Rock-]

Great news, this is actually something that Torc and I spent some time yesterday adjusting, here's what we've got:

With Update 50, Underwater Combat in all dungeons will:

1: no longer reduce attack speed
2: Grant players and monsters 20% resistance against fire and give a 20% vulnerability against electricity (other damage types will be unmodified). No more flat Resistance (previously, monsters also had 100 Fire Resist) because it would hard block low level players still.
3: no longer reduce movement speed overall (but you'll still have the modified acceleration time, which means it takes about 1s more to reach top move speed than a standard movement controller would)
4: You'll still float down slow
5: Casting various spell types will no longer be blocked

In all honesty, i think it should still reduce movement speed. To counter that in how DDO holds close to PNP; you could allow freedom of movement to negate that penalty as well as fall speeds and the initial acceleration time as traditionally does. Thus un nerfing fom slightly from what it did in the past in game (like so many other spells /cough). the rest sounds great though. fire magic could boil an enemy alive. its magic, it wouldnt just fizzle out, it would work differently is all.

[Dabima]

Only noticed a couple issues in quests, most of which were pretty obviously simply things that hadn't been corrected yet, like creature names.

There were a few groups of Sahaugin in The Final Enemy quest that never activated. One was in a room that the DM mentions is being refurbished for someone important. You can attack and kill the sahaugin but they never actually activate unless you hit them.

In the Rest For The Night quest, the rare sahaugin that spawns north of the second beacon's chest spawns as soon as you enter the quest, and isn't locked. It can be opened at any time without having to fight him.

The rare abishai's chest in the wilderness is not locked, and can be opened without doing the puzzle or fighting him.

The explorer objectives for the wilderness are a little buggy. Explorer objectives you get in heroic and epic both count toward the total. To elaborate, I explored a big chunk of the wilderness in heroic, and then recalled and explored some on epic. Despite the fact that half of my explorers were discovered in heroic and the other half in epic, the map completely uncovered as if I completed the objective. Both the heroic and epic objective showed 23 of 23, even though neither one was actually complete. Once I went back over explorers I had found in heroic, in the epic version, my explorers continued to increase, up to 31 of 23 at the time I logged off.

The rare water weird in the wilderness has the objective to kill him listed incorrectly as Wellspring, which is the Water Weird from The Final Enemy quest.

[Greantun]

In Danger at Dunwater, the Armory had floating weapons and shields. I think they were supposed to be on the tables or walls, but they are all over the room in the air.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...58/unknown.png

In The Hijacked Haul, when you kill the boss and the DM says he drops a key, and opens a door to a room with a chest, the door to that room shut so quickly that I couldn't get into the room.

[Ripjaw7]

In all honesty, i think it should still reduce movement speed. To counter that in how DDO holds close to PNP; you could allow freedom of movement to negate that penalty as well as fall speeds and the initial acceleration time as traditionally does. Thus un nerfing fom slightly from what it did in the past in game (like so many other spells /cough). the rest sounds great though. fire magic could boil an enemy alive. its magic, it wouldnt just fizzle out, it would work differently is all.

I think this would be a good balance, allowing freedom to negate or at least reduce the penalty. The speed and movement reduction is realistic and logical, while while several aspects of this game are not such as spellcasting and magic all together. Reducing could help the feel of the quest, but removing it takes that environmental factor of the quest out of the quest. Those unique quests would be similar to other quests. Im neither for nor against the change, as I can see reasons for both. It seems to be a choice between logic, rules, and realism, versus playability/enjoyability.

[LittleLexi]

Great news, this is actually something that Torc and I spent some time yesterday adjusting, here's what we've got:

With Update 50, Underwater Combat in all dungeons will:

1: no longer reduce attack speed
2: Grant players and monsters 20% resistance against fire and give a 20% vulnerability against electricity (other damage types will be unmodified). No more flat Resistance (previously, monsters also had 100 Fire Resist) because it would hard block low level players still.
3: no longer reduce movement speed overall (but you'll still have the modified acceleration time, which means it takes about 1s more to reach top move speed than a standard movement controller would)
4: You'll still float down slow
5: Casting various spell types will no longer be blocked

Don't actually like this. Those underwater quests are few and far between. The unique challenges presented by them was part of the fun, and immersion(submersion?).

[DYWYPI]

The new ideas about underwater combat seem rather interesting.

[...]
With Update 50, Underwater Combat in all dungeons will:

1: no longer reduce attack speed
2: Grant players and monsters 20% resistance against fire and give a 20% vulnerability against electricity (other damage types will be unmodified). No more flat Resistance (previously, monsters also had 100 Fire Resist) because it would hard block low level players still.
3: no longer reduce movement speed overall (but you'll still have the modified acceleration time, which means it takes about 1s more to reach top move speed than a standard movement controller would) ...

[1]: The reduced attack speed penalty was rather hefty before so I would at least welcome less of a penalty there. Though I'm surprised it's been completely removed - I think there should still be some slight reduction and not total removal.

[2]: I can understand some of the Fire and Electricity damage changes. You are possibly insulated inside a bubble of air or barrier like skin rather than that actual water itself. I suppose it depends upon how permeable that barrier is; graphically it looks like a large 6-foot sphere etc. Its fantasy so I can appreciate magic exists; a sword can still cut flesh though the bubble.

[3]: I don't really know why movement speed wouldn't be reduced while fully submerged in 'deepwater' and walking on the ocean floor inside an 'Aqua Sphere' - essentially treading water. Even if the player wades through a small puddle of water they get slowed down. I could understand toning down some of the speed penalty amount though. :-)

[Taurnish]

Great news, this is actually something that Torc and I spent some time yesterday adjusting, here's what we've got:

With Update 50, Underwater Combat in all dungeons will:

1: no longer reduce attack speed
2: Grant players and monsters 20% resistance against fire and give a 20% vulnerability against electricity (other damage types will be unmodified). No more flat Resistance (previously, monsters also had 100 Fire Resist) because it would hard block low level players still.
3: no longer reduce movement speed overall (but you'll still have the modified acceleration time, which means it takes about 1s more to reach top move speed than a standard movement controller would)
4: You'll still float down slow
5: Casting various spell types will no longer be blocked

I am very happy to see these changes!

[Steeme]

I am very happy to see these changes!

I'm going to second this.

However, the opposition has a point, removing most of the penalties from underwater combat doesn't seem "right".

Instead of opening the floodgates on all Fire-based spells, why not do something interesting like: spells like fireball, meteor, scorching ray, scorch will work, but their range is significantly reduced. Perhaps the AOE is reduced as well.

This would make it better than we currently have, but still preserve the original intent of players needing to build for contingencies and press more than a few buttons.

For melee, perhaps you could follow the same model as movement. First few swings are slower and accelerate to the desired attack speed over time. Although it would have to be a system that didn't encourage literally holding down the attack button for the entire quest.

[Aelonwy]

I'm going to second this.

However, the opposition has a point, removing most of the penalties from underwater combat doesn't seem "right".

*shrugs* Whatever improvements are necessary to get more people to enjoy underwater quests. I love them, I'd love more of them. The original penalties were just too much for many people and I heard/read a lot of hate for underwater quests over the years that made me sad. So any changes that make underwater quests not only more acceptable but more appreciated by the player base at large I will embrace enthusiastically.

[Aelonwy]

Oh and I thought of an important question... what is the slayer cap in heroic and epic Saltmarsh? Does anyone know?