Are you having fun in HC6?

[Loriega]

Since we can't have polls, the simple question:

Are you having fun in HC season 6 with the hounds and the base +2?

My answer is no. I hate the hounds and the constant nagging by them.
I really hate this season. It's the worst season.
- unpredictable spawning
- constant nagging
- time wasting
- forces duo or full group
- you lose control over your own time and how you'd like or can play
- you can't take breaks while in a quest

Base+2 leads to needing to have optimized builds with semi forced group play.
A fvs, cleric or druid can solo, but a knives wielding pure rogue absolutely can't.

Given that many people aren't the brightest lamps,
I often prefer to solo quests and the hounds make that extra annoying.
I am not an elitist, never was and never will be, in fact I always made fun of those people,
but the truth is I prefer to play with people who know what they're doing, who know the quests
and not with people who made the dumbest mistakes.

I just hit 20 yesterday. When I think about all the farming required at 30+,
and all the hound stress on the way there I lose any motivation to play.
The 2 reasons why I still do is, even if I've sworn to not pay for a vip subscription this HC I still did,
because I didn't want to beg for openers and I had COVID when the season started, so I couldn't go outside, swimming and enjoying the sun and weather.
And I'd like to at least get to max level before I quit, even if there's no reward for that, but there should be.
Epics with base+2 on elite I imagine not being fun times.

I think you made a mistake listening to those "forum elitists" suggesting that hardcore means something other than the diablo2+ term hardcore, which effectively means permadeath. SWG with their padawans/jedis had permadeath and I supported it, an alpha class so powerful it can take on 20 other players and live but if it died, it died for good.
I'd suggest to not listen to those "forum elitists", but think about what could be a fun time for you if you played this game. Constant attacks every 200-500 seconds surely aren't those.

The next problem is guilds.
Deathsmile is always full, that's why this season I opted to join the streamer's guild.
Their problem however is they kick people, sometimes even if they're only 12 hours absent.
So the FORCED need to deal with this hound **** on a daily basis is what adds to the annoyance level.
Why can't you find a solution specially for HC, a global guild or buff system, let's be honest we're in those guilds because we want the buffs and transportation. Those are not social guilds.
So instead of thinking about how to make our lives miserable, think about how to make the better, more fun.
Find a solution for the guild problem.
Deathsmile however has a reasonable 1 day absent kick policy.
I wouldn't even mind 18 hours but this situation has been going on since I'd imagine the 1st HCL, I started playing in HC3, but even in HC3 the guild situation was a mess.

Long story short:
I'm not just not enjoying HC6, I hate it.
What about you?

[drathdragon]

Hardcoreleague is a great idea to force again people to gather in a game that , with years, losted the MMO feeling.

So, basically, the first day is something of very enjoyable from this point of view.
Also the first week is fantastic: guilds recruting as never seen before, people who helps people for anything,
the time you spend to thing and build a toon capable to survive, the group you join is always motivate at its bests.. etc..


after that time you begin to suffer it, because it's hard. very hard, more mentally than technically.
This season is not different from the previous.

Last season i reached 4750 favor points and i died, forced me to re-try with a new toon
and in less than 1 month i made it. But at the end i was sick of the game, it took me months
to come back..

I enjoyed this season so far, apart for some 'technical' (hound bug) problems, i like it very much.
Maybe someone suffer the presence of the hounds more than others... i don't know.
I think that was a good idea to force players to not going solo or be afk
but i hope there will be no more restrictions in the future seasons 'cause it would become
tedious and unbearable.

[DYWYPI]

I'm soloing exclusively on an Assassin, I chose not to use any Guild buffs or join a Guild. Neither will I make any Store purchases.

The Hounds at low level do seem to be able to hit pretty hard compared to the rest of the regular mobs, which makes sense as they are (Current Quest Level +2).

Personally I find them uninteresting and more of an unwanted nuisance more than anything else. As I tend to prefer to lean towards relaxed play rather than rushing towards the end... I'm not going to alter my playstyle for some short-sighted hound spawn mechanic either.

I have to go AFK occasionally - I can get called away at random - and with the daily occurrences of the ongoing Chat Server connection issue, "(Error): The chat server is temporarily unavailable. Please try again shortly." I cannot really risk doing grouping. I'm having fun giving people advice in Chat channels when they decide to function. :-/

So my answers essentially are; the Fey Hunt Hounds make me less motivated to continue because they conflict with my playstyle. It's not so much their poorly implemented difficulty; albeit that could have been fine-tuned. It's the dreadful tedium of them repetitively spawning being a distraction - you don't even get a token reward for them dying.

I prefer diversity and tactics rather than just blind focus on power and damaging mobs or one button bashing. The Hounds are as appealing to me as: shooting blindfolded fish in a barrel. In other words they do not excite me in the slightest. :-/

I am one the people whom actually enjoy playing stealthy rogues with the game. I am meaning the "stealthy aspects" rather than damage output. Having the hounds materialise doesn't seem like its beneficial; for stealth play (what a surprise).

In fact: I have decided, I won't bother continuing to quest in Hardcore this season after today, for the above stated reasons. :-)

[LittleLexi]

I have enjoyed this HC season. I like the idea behind the hounds, more than their implementation though. It would have been more fun if they were powerful Orange-names instead, and if they were exempt from spawning in Korthos and Borderlands. With my limited play time– I've not been able to get to higher levels to know quite how the hounds function there.

I will say, however, that you most certainly don't need an optimized build on any class to solo Elite at level. Yes, even a knife-wielding Rogue can do this. Is it more challenging for them? Absolutely. But there are many other builds you can use instead, if that is not your jam, or if you want an easier time of it. Palemaster and Enlightened Spirits are some that come to mind.

I prefer diversity and tactics rather than just blind focus on power and damaging mobs or one button bashing. The Hounds are as appealing to me as: shooting blindfolded fish in a barrel. In other words they do not excite me in the slightest. :-/

I am one the people whom actually enjoy playing stealthy rogues with the game. I am meaning the "stealthy aspects" rather than damage output. Having the hounds materialise doesn't seem like its beneficial; for stealth play (what a surprise).

In fact: I have decided, I won't bother continuing to quest in Hardcore this season after today, for the above stated reasons. :-)

Diversity and tactics, have proven to be– even in HC– less necessary than ever in DDO. I miss the days when the people who zerged ahead would meet a timely end. But nowadays, they enter a room and blow everything up. Rinse and repeat. So you can't even fault them, can you? This is due to the poor direction the devs have gone in and– regrettably– continually seem to, rather than rectifying it.

Which is ironic, considering they(mostly) killed off stealth play due to people invis-zerging. Their "solution" was to give every other mob True Seeing and Tremor Sense. Now people are FvS zerging instead

[Saekee]

I'm soloing exclusively on an Assassin, I chose not to use any Guild buffs or join a Guild. Neither will I make any Store purchases.

The Hounds at low level do seem to be able to hit pretty hard compared to the rest of the regular mobs, which makes sense as they are (Current Quest Level +2).

Personally I find them uninteresting and more of an unwanted nuisance more than anything else. As I tend to prefer to lean towards relaxed play rather than rushing towards the end... I'm not going to alter my playstyle for some short-sighted hound spawn mechanic either.

I have to go AFK occasionally - I can get called away at random - and with the daily occurrences of the ongoing Chat Server connection issue, "(Error): The chat server is temporarily unavailable. Please try again shortly." I cannot really risk doing grouping. I'm having fun giving people advice in Chat channels when they decide to function. :-/

So my answers essentially are; the Fey Hunt Hounds make me less motivated to continue because they conflict with my playstyle. It's not so much their poorly implemented difficulty; albeit that could have been fine-tuned. It's the dreadful tedium of them repetitively spawning being a distraction - you don't even get a token reward for them dying.

I prefer diversity and tactics rather than just blind focus on power and damaging mobs or one button bashing. The Hounds are as appealing to me as: shooting blindfolded fish in a barrel. In other words they do not excite me in the slightest. :-/

I am one the people whom actually enjoy playing stealthy rogues with the game. I am meaning the "stealthy aspects" rather than damage output. Having the hounds materialise doesn't seem like its beneficial; for stealth play (what a surprise).

In fact: I have decided, I won't bother continuing to quest in Hardcore this season after today, for the above stated reasons. :-)

this! well-stated

[Oxarhamar]

Thank you for your well thought out and respectful (especially your really kind advice on remaining in town) reply. I hope I am as understanding when I reply to you.

I think you may not understand the word "theme". Just adding some weird monster type to a quest about investigating a troglodyte hideout (or whatever) , just because of the difficulty setting does not constitute theme.

Just adding some weird monster type to a quest about investigating a troglodyte hideout, just because it's hardcore does not constitute theme.

Both, indeed, disrupt the theme of the story being told and break immersion.

Your absolute pronouncement that hounds are now "fine" obviously carries weight due to you knowing better than I what is "fine" for me.

Joining a guild with buffs is not easy and the "theme" (as you put it) of the event should not increase the necessity to do so.

Being killed because someone delivers a parcel seems a strange difficulty setting. OK for people who live in a basement and never have any contact with anyone else, but not for me.

Telling players that if the weird random spawning monsters that increase the need for guilds and reward zerging are not to our taste, we should AFK in town, is really kind. Thank you for continuing the respect your comments usually have.

Remaining in town is the only safe place for afk for any player

Indeed this is the theme of the season the rewards are based on this same theme

there’s no need to Zerg thou going faster through quests does reduce the chance of hounds still it’s not needed as they aren’t that bad that there is no need to rush

They aren’t particularly difficult now that they’ve been bug fixed before they were awful broken

You don’t need a high guild level guild I don’t have one with buffs yet but if you feel like it would benefit you then join one instead

As far as fun it’s pretty bland doing quests and trying to avoid risk which is what hardcore is about not about facing challenge but trying to play it safe

I do like the hounds idea but Hardcore is bland it would be more fun to have a hound event on live servers

[dogsoldier]

Yes, and No.

It is fun to come up with builds to deal with the hounds, but it is pretty much different spins on the same thing, somewhat tanking, and lots of DPS. They do add an exciting challenge at times.

I do not like how much it encourages zerging to an extreme degree. I do not like how there are nearly zero rewards for any hounds slain (a few mysterious remnants perhaps, if it is also a champ). Frequently I find myself looking around after a hound for a chest, and of course there never is one. I do not like how it is severely punishing for anyone joining late to a party. I do not like the Tier Scaling. For level 1 zones, the hounds are easy, unless you are naked level 1 fresh off the boat. For 2-8 quests on elite, it is a step up in difficulty, but not too crazy, feels pretty balanced vs player power. Level 9+ quests on elite, or even slayer zones that are level 11+ (Sands and up), the hounds are so difficult for level 10-11 chars. I have not experienced the level 17 on elite hounds, but adjusted 19+ is epic hounds, so I think gone are the days of holding at level 19 to finish up heroic stuff. If you don't have your 5k favor by level 18, you are not going to get it. And zipping into a slayer area to loot chests for a couple items that you need 3 minutes at a time is not fun at all. Sure, you can create/break party in a quest and bring out another hire, but that is just tedious. Also tedious, getting enough collectibles for crafting. In previous seasons you could get most of what you needed for basic stuff (trapper gear for instance) with a level 6 alt, now you would need a level 4, 5, and 6 to do the same thing. And then there are the quest chains that are all over the place with level of quests, Threnal may be the worst. You need to be level 10 to start west, but then you are dealing with T3 hounds in the last part of it. West should be all 8s, East all 9s, South all 10s. The hounds feel like you are on Battlestar Galactica, setting the clock for the next Cylon attack, gets exhausting after a while.

[Dark_Lord_Mary]

perhaps a surprising, but not unexpected, +2 down from +4 makes it more difficult to find groups and quest; i spend a lot of time waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting.

[Diarden1]

I have been loving this season so far.

I have found hounds to be inconsequential to my journey so far. Traps are still the killer, as hounds have been little more than a nuisance. In groups they die in seconds, and solo (I solo on a pure barb and pure warlock) they go down before a second or third debuff happens, so less than 10 seconds. I've even slashed down a hound in the middle of me soloing the boss in Death House. Not today, house. Not today.

I agree with the randomness being annoying, as I have a newborn and have to run and get him if he's crying. That means recalling out of a quest and back to town, stopping the progress I had. That said, the wings are shiny, and I will get them regardless of the time it takes.

In my opinion, SSG should poll the HC community prior to Season 7 on whatever developmental ideas they have and get our feedback. We're ultimately the ones paying for the experience, so we should have some modicum of decision in the matter.

[Uska]

Tired of dying seems sometimes hounds randomly hit harder or lag allows them to kill you

[Mofus]

Some what, but don't care for hounds or +2 cap. The basic perma-death was fine with +4 cap, don't want the mimics or hounds, if I want more challenge, I can do it on reaper mode.

[neain2008]

I kinda enjoyed my time so far on hardcore.

I got to 5k Favor and got my wings, and now that I got what I was aiming for, I am finding that I am very unmotivated to continue. The hounds were scary at first and at low levels, but as I got higher level and better gear I was able to solo a hound if I had to, though I had to watch my hp.

I will agree with everyone that the hound mechanic of showing up every so often was quite annoying as I have to take work calls every so often and I couldn't just kill everything around me and then take a break.

I liked the idea of the hounds, but past some point, they became more of a nuisance to me than true danger unless I wasn't at my computer for whatever reason. They just limited the number of people that got past level 5, and so limited the number of people past 10 by even more than normal.

I will add my 2 cents for a future hardcore to step away from the perma-death idea. Maybe (and this is stolen from someone else I saw on the forums) insta kill everyone in a quest if anyone dies, and kick them all back to their bind points. This would let them drastically change things up or raise the difficulty without it being quite as punishing as it currently is (losing hours and hours of work because of timing a trap wrong or getting lag in the wrong spot or going swimming in sharn lava by accident). Could even add more things to make soloing and piking less viable if that's the desire.

[ekaterina]

"I will add my 2 cents for a future hardcore to step away from the perma-death idea."

An odd suggestion given that hardcore *means* permadeath - it was the term used for this style of play for many years before some people started calling it permadeath. Many people still prefer the term hardcore.

I have no objection to temporary servers with differing rulesets - none at all - but if death is not permanent "hardcore" is very much the wrong name for them.

[landerk]

I'm soloing exclusively on an Assassin, I chose not to use any Guild buffs or join a Guild. Neither will I make any Store purchases.

The Hounds at low level do seem to be able to hit pretty hard compared to the rest of the regular mobs, which makes sense as they are (Current Quest Level +2).

Personally I find them uninteresting and more of an unwanted nuisance more than anything else. As I tend to prefer to lean towards relaxed play rather than rushing towards the end... I'm not going to alter my playstyle for some short-sighted hound spawn mechanic either.

I have to go AFK occasionally - I can get called away at random - and with the daily occurrences of the ongoing Chat Server connection issue, "(Error): The chat server is temporarily unavailable. Please try again shortly." I cannot really risk doing grouping. I'm having fun giving people advice in Chat channels when they decide to function. :-/

So my answers essentially are; the Fey Hunt Hounds make me less motivated to continue because they conflict with my playstyle. It's not so much their poorly implemented difficulty; albeit that could have been fine-tuned. It's the dreadful tedium of them repetitively spawning being a distraction - you don't even get a token reward for them dying.

I prefer diversity and tactics rather than just blind focus on power and damaging mobs or one button bashing. The Hounds are as appealing to me as: shooting blindfolded fish in a barrel. In other words they do not excite me in the slightest. :-/

I am one the people whom actually enjoy playing stealthy rogues with the game. I am meaning the "stealthy aspects" rather than damage output. Having the hounds materialise doesn't seem like its beneficial; for stealth play (what a surprise).

In fact: I have decided, I won't bother continuing to quest in Hardcore this season after today, for the above stated reasons. :-)

I find the hounds annoying as well and solo 99,% of the time. So having a safe zone would be nice especially when you just have to leave the game for something. Thematically and universally a good option for a safe zone might be at a Shrine. I don't see how that would change the game a lot and give you a chance to check on screaming kids or take a bathroom break and such just long enough to get back into the game.

[Bobilar]

I am having fun. I have died three times, at level 3 to a hound in a Borderlands quest, at 9 to a mud geyser in the Kopru Temple and just this morning at 5 to a hound in Tangleroot.

Dying is frustrating for sure, and the level 9 death hurt a lot as I had nearly 2.5k favour and had completed a lot of long and difficult quests like The Pit, ToEE 1 and Slavelords.

But on the bright side there are still plenty of low level groups, it doesn't take long to get back up in levels, and it's certainly exciting.

I enjoyed my first hardcore (4) with the mimics and weird champions (LEGS!!) but more or less skipped 5 as I felt it was too soon and too easy. The challenge is definitely back in 6 and gets a thumbs up from me.

I'd love to get 5k favour but if I die again I may just power up to level 20.

If you see a (Name) in a Green Hat, that's me.

[cdbd3rd]

....
- you can't take breaks while in a quest

.....
.

That^ bit is the part I'm finding the most irksome. The random-timer, find-you-anywhere mechanic is... well, <explitives>. There are those of us who can't put life on a full-stop pause during our play time. Normally we could find a dark corner or closeable room to AFK in to deal with life stuff.

Actually, there's one more thing about this season not mentioned in the OP. The way that anyone this season speaking out against the Hound mechanic is allowed to be stomped on, insulted, and bullied for their opinion and preferred play-style. Every season has a little bit of Leet vs Casual jousting, but this season it seems to have gotten rabid, and gone without check. That's a bummer.

Repeating myself from elsewhere, Hounds should have been limited to the upper tiers, at least Elite+ if not R+. The Leets get their game challenge and Casuals get to plod along at their pace with the lower tiers. Win/win.

----

Oh, yeah. No risk/reward for the Hounds. No tokens, no XP, not even a count in a Monster Manual*.

(*I actually haven't remembered to check my MM while logged in, so this may be wrong - tho I doubt it.)

[Nebless]

Not really. If it wasn't for the bonus store points from favor I probably wouldn't have gone past my first character.

The hounds are a royal pain until you get 2 or 3 levels on you, after that they're more of a nuisance and I hate how they force me into playing a faster game.

I hate the whole zerg concept and the hounds pretty much force you to play that way. I come here to relax and go AFK from time to time if I need to do something in the house. Not this go around.

I don't see having the hounds be 2 levels higher in the starter dungeons when you're a newbie with starter gear was a good idea. I would have rather see them come in on level at the normal setting and then ramp up a level above for hard and 2 for elite.

[ekaterina]

Not as much as I had hoped. To me "hardcore" means death is permanent but it does *not* mean artificial and gimmicky changes like the hounds making the game more difficult in *addition* to the core ruleset change to hardcore mode.

It isn't just or even mostly a matter of difficulty.

No, I do not consider a randomly spawning deadly mob fun when it means I can't take even 60 seconds to answer the door or go to another room or talk to someone without constantly looking at the screen and being ready to go back to the game in the middle of a conversation.

No, I do not consider it fun to be forced to have the sound on 24/7 so I can listen for the hound's howl.

I have been playing "hardcore" mode in single player games and then MUDs and then MMOs since Wizardry 1 - I yield to few people in terms of experience with this ruleset.

Drastically limiting afks and almost forcing sound are not, repeat *not* a good design decision.

[Aelonwy]

I am plodding along. But I am here on HC only for the wings. I am hating every minute of this season and it is eroding my desire to play the game at all. In contrast I loved the mimic season even though the start was very rough. Red-named reaper-like mobs, especially champion red names do NOT belong in difficulties below elite and they do NOT belong in wilderness zones. Why have separate difficulties if they are not going to respect what those difficulties represent? Why introduce anything that only respects DPS? Don't we have enough of that? Why introduce mechanics that encourage zerging on a permadeath server? Are they testing the water for what they may change the main game to? I sure hope not, I don't play a GAME to be stressed out.

Since the patch we have been re-leveling my son to catch up with us and I've noticed that even though the champion hounds still drop a remnants item when we go to pick it up we get nothing. Anyone else notice this? Is it perhaps only in wilderness zones? we've been mostly in saltmarsh wilderness trying to catch him back up.

[jskinner937]

I prefer this season over any. Hound bugs did suck. And I don’t like waiting for a hound to spawn before doing a long swim or a Mario jump for example, or not going AFK without logging out or waiting for entry. But it’s part of this season and strategizing properly to be successful.

Hounds are soloable and are trivial tbh, unless you ignore them. I’m solo play, I melee one down with 1-2 dot stacks at most. In group play, you usually don’t even get a dot. Although later levels, they gain considerable HPs and their bite does a decent amount of melee damage. Just be prepared.

As far as the level gate, it was long overdue. +4 over was pretty trivial on favor runs. And for reaper, you prefer to be +2 anyway if doing that through heroics.

Overall, it’s a fun season. Most people past level 10 seem cool and content as well. You just need to change your play style and be prepared. Like for instance, there are very few trappers around this season. Keep this in mind with your builds and who you group with.