Hitting Legendary and grinding to a halt?

[dunklezhan]

So I've just got around to dipping into Legendary, aka 'ok I've got back to 30 again, shall I TR immediately, or keep levelling for a bit'

This time I thought I'd keep levelling. Kinda want to experience Isle of Dread for the first time on Legendary because Dinosaurs - feels like it should be legendary after ten levels fighting rats like half of "epic".

So here I am, I've done all the L30 quests. All 8 of them.

Had to run some of them on Hard cos Elite just murdered me but I've swung back around and caked my way through Subversion on elite (seriously what is with that quest, it's a nightmare on heroic Elite too, has always seemed like it ought to be about 2-4 levels higher) now...

...which was worth a whole 2 ranks of Level 30.

I'm now just into rank 3, with an old sovereign XP pot I found in the bank running for the last rank or so. No more L30 content left except a raid I've never run and don't have a group for. I could run the cogs I guess, but all the quests in there are 2 levels higher than the explorer area, so as with other explorer areas with quests in, I wasn't planning on that until I was actually planning to run to the quests.

And Epic quests, it has been inexplicably decided (seriously, has this decision ever been explained?), will not grant XP at all.

...so what's the idea now?

Is the idea 'do two ranks, TR, get back to 30, do 2 ranks, TR, get back to 30, hit 31, carry on questing?'

Or is the idea that I should now be running quests higher than my character level, which is the opposite of the entire rest of the game?

Both options seems dumb as a bag of bricks to me, so I'm assuming there's an option I've missed other than 'grind your face into the floor repeating L30 quests'?

[rabidfox]

Or is the idea that I should now be running quests higher than my character level, which is the opposite of the entire rest of the game?

Sharn, Ravenloft, Dread, ToEE, Feywild... there's so many legendary quests out there. The being +2 levels over the quest's base level that one follows in heroics isn't how things work at higher levels of the game; it's no big deal that the quest is on par or even just above you level-wise.

[dunklezhan]

Sharn, Ravenloft, Dread, ToEE, Feywild... there's so many legendary quests out there. The being +2 levels over the quest's base level that one follows in heroics isn't how things work at higher levels of the game; it's no big deal that the quest is on par or even just above you level-wise.

Hmm. You say that, but with those two demon APs as my first foray at level (which is generally where I run quests, or +1 over maybe. I only tend to run 2 over if I'm running out of content), it certainly isn't giving me that impression. I mean I'm not a top tier player (I really cannot be bothered putting that kind of work in) but I'm also hardly on a first lifer here, I'm even happy enough running Reaper 2 or 3 in a group now*.

Mostly it was just a bit unpleasant to get to legendary and immediately find myself thinking 'I'm not good enough for this' running at the exact same difficulty I'd been running the previous 30 levels. Very demotivating. It was like first encountering the old L20 epics all over again in that regard (noting that I didn't even try epic play again after that until Menace of the Underdark. I'm just not here for slogfests with meat sacks with arbitrary defenses).

Obviously I can drop the difficulty. But since that hugely drops the XP, and running 2 whole packs on elite was only enough for 2 ranks... you can see why I'd be disincentivised to try that and be thinking just sack it off and TR, and avoid Legendary till they've got enough L30 content I can actually do.

If it's a different mechanic then it's a different mechanic. OK, I will try to persevere. But I'm just not sure what in-game is meant to clue me in to that.


*I'm not saying that as if it's some sort of achievement. But as I said, I'm not here for slogfests with meat sacks with arbitrary defenses, especially so when there's no in-game reason for it, so Reaper holds no attraction for me. But even I had started finding Elite just far too easy once I was onto 4th or 5th life. I'd rather they stopped the power creep than made new immersion breaking game modes but whatever. I just pretend Eberron has been covered in a Wraiths touch effect due to some overlapping planar confluence, meaning theres just a preponderance of nasty wraiths hanging around. Playing DDO these days with its random Champions and Reapers is like watching a modern sci-fi or Star Wars movie: you just have to make up stories in your head to plug all the giant narrative gaps and bad metaphysics, otherwise you end up yelling at the screen in the premiere whilst 400 other cinema goers throw pop-corn and soda at you.

Where was I? Oh yes - I am aware reaper 1+2 are many people's casual. The point is I do play reaper, for quests at level. So hitting legendary and not being able to handle Elite is just irritating.

[rabidfox]

Where was I? Oh yes - I am aware reaper 1+2 are many people's casual. The point is I do play reaper, for quests at level. So hitting legendary and not being able to handle Elite is just irritating.

Some of it may be gear issues where you'll need to farm out a good set of 29/30 gear (a bit of chicken/egg issue for getting gear when the quests themselves are hard for you). It also could be your build in epics and choices you made with your epic destinies aren't ideal (I'm assuming your heroic build is good as you don't have an issues prior to epics); there's a lot of power in epic destinies and with 3x trees to pick, it's easy to go really strong or end up with something less than ideal.

[dunklezhan]

Some of it may be gear issues where you'll need to farm out a good set of 29/30 gear (a bit of chicken/egg issue for getting gear when the quests themselves are hard for you). It also could be your build in epics and choices you made with your epic destinies aren't ideal (I'm assuming your heroic build is good as you don't have an issues prior to epics); there's a lot of power in epic destinies and with 3x trees to pick, it's easy to go really strong or end up with something less than ideal.

With regards destinies - I'm pretty sure I'm ok there. I could switch to a destiny that provides all hitpoints and defenses but that's just not what I'm playing and what's the point of having all those destinies if the only viable ones are the ones that are pure defense, right?

Feats/build - am I getting the very best synergies? Probably not, but I've not picked up anything that's not solidly useful - warlock DPS with relevant spellcasting feats, its not a difficult 'build' to get right.

With regards gear: oh for sure the gear is a factor. Definitely. No argument here lol I know I'm undergeared.

I did persist however and just decided to start running quests higher level than me: haven't had anything like the same problems with the L31 quests so far.

So... don't think it's the main big factor. I actually think the specific issue here is probably:

1. There are simply not enough L30 quests to run at level.
2. The Codex/Archon chains specifically are still listed as a lower level than they actually are. Even on heroic both those chains need a +1 on their ML and subversion specifically needs its actual difficult lowering. I think probably the Legendary versions are just suffering the same problem.
3. Emotional response on my part:
- annoyance that someone thought such a massive power jump was a good idea again
- ongoing vexation that they keep segregating chunks of the game off to be different to what's gone before - this always wrecks my immersion when I start encountering rats with spell resistance or whatever.
- Surprise at getting my hoop so thoroughly handed to me

Put 3 aside, cos clearly that's all just emotion and my inability to regulate: at the end of the day this is the game, and it has been the game right back since the game first hit 20 as the cap: hit that artbitrary magic number, and the mobs and quests get arbitrary rules.

I don't know why the Other Humans enjoy this, but they clearly do: there's no point me raging against the fact that compromises have been made for the sake of a video game. If they hadn't been made there's every chance the game would have died. There's not many MMOs still going after 16 years, SSG must be doing something right. It's just yet another reminder I simply don't fit with the Other Humans, which is always a bit depressing/rage inducing but it's hardly a new feeling and I need to try to get a better grip on that when giving feedback cos it just makes me sound needy & entitled. I'm a lot better at than when I first started playing, thank heavens.

1 & 2 are fully on SSG though. I really think it's a pretty poor show to launch a whole new content category and level cap increase without enough quests to actually fill each level bracket, and then to fill the first introduction bracket with quests which are noticeably harder than they should be at level. That's honestly just not very comprehensible to me as a strategy/plan. Disappoint.

I also think with regards #2 that the main issue really is just those quests, in general, which need a thorough going over: they quests are from the (thankfully short-lived) era of 'quest challenge = massive pack of mobs + Dungeon Alert', coming on the back of (sadly much longer lived) 'quest challenge = boring meat sacks' era. These two are like the perfect nexus of that. In so many ways they are really well designed quests, they look good, the plot is interesting, etc etc... but badly badly let down by mob hp/composition. They are all slam and no brain and expect you to be peak resilience and DPS for that level+2 already - so if you put them both as your entry to Legendary and don't fix that issue.... cue my emotional response

[merridyan]

There are 143 quests between levels 30-32, I think this is plenty. If you can't handle a quest at level, lower the difficulty. Personally I have not found any issues in power level when hitting legendary. I do expect that IoD at level 33 is harder than level 30 quests.

[jskinner937]

So I've just got around to dipping into Legendary, aka 'ok I've got back to 30 again, shall I TR immediately, or keep levelling for a bit'

This time I thought I'd keep levelling. Kinda want to experience Isle of Dread for the first time on Legendary because Dinosaurs - feels like it should be legendary after ten levels fighting rats like half of "epic".

So here I am, I've done all the L30 quests. All 8 of them.

Had to run some of them on Hard cos Elite just murdered me but I've swung back around and caked my way through Subversion on elite (seriously what is with that quest, it's a nightmare on heroic Elite too, has always seemed like it ought to be about 2-4 levels higher) now...

...which was worth a whole 2 ranks of Level 30.

I'm now just into rank 3, with an old sovereign XP pot I found in the bank running for the last rank or so. No more L30 content left except a raid I've never run and don't have a group for. I could run the cogs I guess, but all the quests in there are 2 levels higher than the explorer area, so as with other explorer areas with quests in, I wasn't planning on that until I was actually planning to run to the quests.

And Epic quests, it has been inexplicably decided (seriously, has this decision ever been explained?), will not grant XP at all.

...so what's the idea now?

Is the idea 'do two ranks, TR, get back to 30, do 2 ranks, TR, get back to 30, hit 31, carry on questing?'

Or is the idea that I should now be running quests higher than my character level, which is the opposite of the entire rest of the game?

Both options seems dumb as a bag of bricks to me, so I'm assuming there's an option I've missed other than 'grind your face into the floor repeating L30 quests'?

You don’t have to do just lvl 30 quests. Run them all. Nice thing about getting legendary experience is it persists through TRs, so you lose nothing by doing a few each life.

[ahpook]

Hmm. You say that, but with those two demon APs as my first foray at level (which is generally where I run quests, or +1 over maybe.

Those quests are harder than Ravenloft and Feywild (and possibly IOD). The levels are a mess when you get to level 30. I would always level 29 to 30 on Feywild and Ravenloft and Sharn even though those are level 32 quests. Leveling from 30 to 32 on them should not be a problem and you should get better gear that you can use at level 29. There is a bit of bootstrap issue because those quests are easy at level 29 because you are equipping the min level 29 gear from those quests.

So ignore the posted levels and run the higher level content. Elite may be possible but Hard will not be an issue even if it says level 33 on the experience screen. And with the sagas from fey and ravenloft you will be 32 in no time.