Try Monster Manual!

[FranOhmsford]

So far from what I see this looks pretty good. A few suggestions though:

It would be nice to have more varying achievements other than slayer counts and monster sub-species counts. What about achievements like trip or stunning, or vorpaling, finger of deathing. I'm sure as a community a lot of suggestions could be made that go beyond simply killing.

I really really wish Turbine could get away from using creature companions as rewards for things. Some of the player base like these things, but for me, I have zero interest and tying achievement awards to companions is no reward at all in my opinion. Again, I am sure the community could make many suggestions for better rewards... what about giving players an option... you can choose a creature companion or...?? Nothing overpowered and something appropriate to the monster type killed. Maybe a +1 weapon damage to that species of monster or a +1 skill to balance for the spider achievement.

GUILD RENOWN

Sorry about the caps but this is one thing I'm not seeing here - For those of us who like to do the sort of things in game {Cap Slayers, Run Quests overlevel etc. etc.} that this is promoting Guild Renown would be a good reward to have in - And please Devs - Make it worth getting!

[FuzzyDuck81]

So far from what I see this looks pretty good. A few suggestions though:

It would be nice to have more varying achievements other than slayer counts and monster sub-species counts. What about achievements like trip or stunning, or vorpaling, finger of deathing. I'm sure as a community a lot of suggestions could be made that go beyond simply killing.

Intimidating, diplo'ing & bluffing maybe?

"You know just how to make halflings squeal, +1 to intimidate checks vs. halflings"
"On the whole, giants are dumb & you know they cant help but look when you say 'oh look, a squirrel!', +1 to bluff checks vs. giants"

[Gleep_Wurp]

Begin your mastery of Dungeons & Dragons creatures with the upcoming Monster Manual! Each Monster Manual volume features entries on monster types from elves and warforged to wraiths and kobolds. But don’t wait for Update 15 to check out this new feature! The Prologue volume, featuring five dungeon inhabitants, is available starting today! Monster Manual can be accessed using the menu button in the lower left of the screen, or using Ctrl-M. Come give it a try, and look for more news and announcements once our full line of Monster Manual volumes are available.

Monster Manual Prologue is available free to all players. In Update 15, Premium players will be able to access Volume One and purchase other volumes in the DDO Store. All volumes of the Monster Manual are free for VIPs!

dont you mean come test the monster manual for us and see if it works?
i love the idea of it.

[Captain_Wizbang]

I like the addition. (figures that today's code push included it, and in less than 1 hour people are criticizing it already.)

Nicely done. Great addition to the game devs.

[Tolero]

Re: TRing - So the Monster Manual knows how many kills you've obtained for your account vs the character. TRing will reset that character's kills (so that you can re-earn XP when that character starts killing those monster types again), but it won't degrade your account level kills.

[Roland_D'Arabel]

GUILD RENOWN

Sorry about the caps but this is one thing I'm not seeing here - For those of us who like to do the sort of things in game {Cap Slayers, Run Quests overlevel etc. etc.} that this is promoting Guild Renown would be a good reward to have in - And please Devs - Make it worth getting!

/signed

This is a great idea. Much more valuable than a creature companion.

[Roland_D'Arabel]

Intimidating, diplo'ing & bluffing maybe?

"You know just how to make halflings squeal, +1 to intimidate checks vs. halflings"
"On the whole, giants are dumb & you know they cant help but look when you say 'oh look, a squirrel!', +1 to bluff checks vs. giants"

+1 for imagination

Well done sir!

[Aalric]

I also like the monster manual idea but I think the rewards need to be more interesting than a pet...

[Ytteri]

Well, found a bug. Some boss monsters are added as different types in the manual, and some bosses aren't. For example:



See Misery (mini boss in waterworks part 1) got added to my manual but I killed redfang after (see the DM text at the bottom confirming my kill and the quest XP being granted) and Redfang didn't get added. One of the optional boss spiders in the Redfang quest didn't get added either.

So should bosses be counted as different types or not?

[bradleyforrest]

Well, found a bug. Some boss monsters are added as different types in the manual, and some bosses aren't. For example:



See Misery (mini boss in waterworks part 1) got added to my manual but I killed redfang after (see the DM text at the bottom confirming my kill and the quest XP being granted) and Redfang didn't get added. One of the optional boss spiders in the Redfang quest didn't get added either.

So should bosses be counted as different types or not?

From that pic it looks like you found (and squashed) 29 bugs...

[Expalphalog]

If I recall correctly, Misery is an Orange Named and Redfang is a Red Named. Could that be the difference?

[esheep]

Another bug...

My account kills/types of X slain, are not communal... meaning after starting a new toon, or logging into a second toon, I was unable to take advantage of the (yes, account) deeds I'd earned on my 25...

Will file a bug.

[Ytteri]

If I recall correctly, Misery is an Orange Named and Redfang is a Red Named. Could that be the difference?

No, the other spider I killed (Venom I think?) in Redfang quest was orange too. I'm thinking it might be related to quest objectives. Killing Redfang completes a quest objective, and Venom completes an optional objective, but Misery is just part of a 'kill all spiders' objective, and I did have other non-boss spiders to kill after Misery to complete that objective.

[Rawel_San]

If you are soliciting feedback I would have to go with the xp rewards are incredibly low. They have hardly
changed in value from the 1tp they were on lamma in my opinion. If you were to increase the xp by a factor
of 5 or 10 it would still make little difference for most power players while being a decent incentive for
casuals to actually get the kills.

I realize you are afraid of adding too much "easy" xp to the game but if you look at how the people who
do serious TR's level you will find out that they hardly ever kill more then 4-10 mobs per quest. Usually trying
to kill as little as possible invis running and bypassing most fights. Slayers give about 5-10x the amount
of xp the Monster manual ones give and no reasonable TR does those.
Just my 2 copper,
Rawel

[twiliteslayer02]

woulda been cool, but, it didnt retro, ANYTHING, i mean its kinda ludicrous to say a level 20+ toon hasnt seen a frikkin skeleton or two, so wats with the nothing in the books thing ? this is kinda lame tbh, cool enuf for those levelling up, an extra tick or two of xp, but?? idk, not overly impressed with not having at least the first book filled for capped toons.

[My2Cents]

I can't wait to see the manual...

Looks like my melee's will be hacking and slashing...

(I wonder if there are any instakill or AOE epic destinies, us poor swordwielders have to get the Kill Bonuses old school...)

[Expalphalog]

its kinda ludicrous to say a level 20+ toon hasnt seen a frikkin skeleton or two, so wats with the nothing in the books thing ?

Seriously? You expected them to implement code six years ago that kept detailed and permanent records of every single player's kills just in case they might use that information at some point in the future?

Good lord, the things you people find to complain about...

[hit_fido]

In general this was designed really well, especially since the per character metric resets on TR. I don't think anyone will farm spiders and rats for the xp awards I'm seeing but it adds some extra fun factor to the game and hey, I don't mind having a fringe benefit for running up and pounding that squealing Quinny again.

So you have something each life that resets (a replayable achievement) and you have something across all your characters (a long term achievement) that finally adds up to revealing monster hp that might be useful but will at least be interesting. The pet gimmick doesn't work on me but judging by how many cubes I see around other people are willing to at least invest time to... obtain... them.

At what price purchasing volumes is attractive will depend on ROI:

1) xp awards for other classes of monsters - I hope that will be higher for the "pay-for-page" monsters!

2) variations in the final mastery awards, surely they can't all be pets and that would be a fine place to change things up and add variety with some other kind of award to give value across the entire player base. I realize the pets alone will be sufficient ROI for some subset of players, but as others have mentioned, maybe guild related stuff, items like the spider mask that confer something special regarding a given monster, and so on.

3) how many monsters you get in each "volume".

4) lore/art - it's maybe unfortunate that will likely get copied to a wiki eventually but I saw someone mention the old D&D monster artwork... oh man there are some classic old drawings from the old Monster Manual for example. Finding someway to offer some nostalgia here may be valuable to some as well.

I actually wish you would sell one monster at a time at an appropriate price. Then it would be feasible to add monster manual "pages" as rare item drops, too. At that point it becomes almost like collectible trading cards. People may get lucky and pull a couple but there's no way someone will obtain a full set without making purchases too.

Either per page or per volume it was a good move to make the first one or two units free.

Summary: I'm interested in seeing more details! Good job...

[Ovrad]

I think it looks really good, but the XP rewards are abysmal, just like in beta.

You get 300 xp, for 200 kills, that's 1.5 xp per kill.
Slayers in Korthos are 8.1 xp per kill, and nobody does those if they know the game even a little.

Please bump it up to useful levels at least. I'd easy suggest a x10 xp, and it still wouldn't be that impressive.

[GeneralDiomedes]

I think it looks really good, but the XP rewards are abysmal, just like in beta.

You get 300 xp, for 200 kills, that's 1.5 xp per kill.
Slayers in Korthos are 8.1 xp per kill, and nobody does those if they know the game even a little.

Please bump it up to useful levels at least. I'd easy suggest a x10 xp, and it still wouldn't be that impressive.

I look at this as bonus XP that I get on top of questing I would do normally.